Her Pregnancy Surprise: His Pregnancy Bargain / The Pregnancy Secret / Their Pregnancy Bombshell

‘That was nice,’ she said, clenching and unclenching her white-knuckled hands as she worked up the courage to ask what she had to. ‘You’re not…ill, are you, Mum? If you are,’ she added quickly, ‘you mustn’t panic. We can cope with whatever it is.’

When Laura turned and saw her daughter’s face a grimace of self-recrimination crossed her own. The fear that lurked behind Megan’s composed expression, she had seen before. At her lowest ebb, during her husband’s illness and after his death, Megan had been a constant source of strength and comfort to them both, but sometimes Laura had seen that look…a shadow, really…It had made her feel guilty for relying so heavily on Megan.

‘Gracious, no, I’m fine,’ she assured Megan quickly.

Megan released a sigh of relief; nothing her mother had to say could be worse than what she had been imagining.

‘Well, that’s all right then. Who did you stay with? Anyone I know?’

Laura came and sat on the sofa beside her daughter. ‘Jean Paul Legrand, you remember him…?’

‘Tall, silver-haired, sexy French accent.’ Laura gave a strained smile as her daughter reeled off the Frenchman’s distinguishing characteristics. ‘The dishy lawyer whose wife Dad went to college with.’ Her brow creased. ‘Didn’t she die?’

‘Yes, three years ago.’

‘How is he?’ She only had the vaguest recollections of how he’d looked that weekend a few weeks earlier. A few weeks…it felt like a lifetime ago.

‘He’s fine. Actually…’ Laura sighed and caught Megan’s hands. ‘The thing is, darling, this isn’t the first time I’ve stayed with Jean Paul and actually what I’m trying to tell you…Oh, my, this is very difficult.’

‘Whatever it is it can’t be as difficult as what I have to tell you,’ Megan promised, her fingers tightening encouragingly around her mother’s.

‘Jean Paul has asked me to marry him and I’ve said yes.’

Megan’s jaw dropped. Her mother getting remarried—it had been the last thing she had expected to hear. It was the last thing she had expected to happen! For the first time for a week she stopped thinking about her own situation.

‘Marry…I didn’t even know you were seeing him!’ she exclaimed. Belatedly aware of her mother’s anxious expression, she expelled a gusty sigh and pinned a suitably pleased smile on her face. ‘But it’s marvellous!’ she cried, enfolding her mother in a bear-like hug.

Megan felt helpless when her mother began to cry.

‘You mean that?’

Megan nodded. ‘Of course I do.’

Laura released a shuddering sigh. ‘I was so worried that you’d think I was being disloyal to your father’s memory…I always said I would never get married again.’ She lifted her head from her daughter’s shoulder and accepted the tissue that Megan offered with a watery smile.

‘Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone, Mum,’ she said quietly. ‘He was the last person who would have wanted you to live in the past.’

Laura sniffed and searched her daughter’s face. ‘You really don’t mind?’

Megan shook her head. ‘Of course I don’t mind. I just want you to be happy. You love Jean Paul…?’ It felt incredibly strange to be quizzing her mother on her romantic life. She noticed her mother looked as awkward as she felt.

‘He’s a lovely man—’ Laura’s self-conscious smile faded as her manner became solemn ‘—but he knows…’ She shook her head. ‘I made it quite clear to him that I wouldn’t marry him if it upsets you.’

‘So you want my blessing—? There’s a bit of role reversal for you,’ Megan teased, but her mother didn’t smile.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then you have it.’

‘Thank you, darling. It isn’t the same as it was with your father…but, yes, I am very fond of him and he makes me laugh and feel young again.’

‘Then I already love him,’ Megan said fondly. ‘Have you set a date?’

‘We thought…well, there doesn’t seem much point waiting under the circumstances.’ She met her daughter’s eyes and blushed. ‘Neither of us are getting any younger…’ she added quickly.

‘So when…?’

‘Next month.’

Megan let out a soundless whistle. ‘Wow, you two don’t let the grass grow, do you?’ Despite her light-hearted tone Megan was beginning to be concerned that her mother was rushing into this.

‘The thing is, Megan, Jean Paul’s practice is in Paris. I’ll be moving there. This place…it’s such an enormous responsibility for you with your busy life.’

‘Paris isn’t very far, you mustn’t worry about this place,’ Megan said firmly. ‘Actually, I might be around a lot more. The company is relocating to nine miles from here, of all places. So I’ll be on hand to keep an eye on the old place.’ Head tilted to one side, she scanned her mother’s face. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

Laura nodded. ‘Yes, there is.’

Megan’s brows lifted. ‘Well, go on,’ she prompted, kicking off her shoes and drawing her knees up as she curled up cosily on the sofa. ‘It can hardly be any more shocking than learning I’m about to have a new stepfather.’

Laura sighed and placed her interlinked hands on her lap. ‘This is very embarrassing,’ she groaned, closing her eyes. ‘I’ll just have to say it.’

‘I wish you would,’ Megan remarked. ‘My imagination has gone into overdrive.’

‘The thing is, Megan, I’m pregnant.’

A bubble of laughter escaped from Megan’s throat. ‘So what’s really up?’

Her mother bit her lip and looked hurt. ‘I’m not joking, Megan.’

Megan’s jaw sagged. Her imagination, even in overdrive, had not produced this possible explanation.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Laura rushed on, avoiding eye contact with her open-mouthed daughter. ‘I can’t be; I’m too old. That’s what I said to the doctor when he told me,’ she admitted. ‘But it seems I can be and I am…actually I’m twelve weeks.’

‘What does…does…Jean Paul say?’ Does he know?’

‘Of course he knows—it’s not like I wouldn’t tell him, is it?’ her mother rebuked gently and wondered at her daughter’s guilt-stricken expression. ‘Actually Jean Paul is being marvellous about it, worried about my health, but everything’s fine, I’m very fit. Marilyn couldn’t have children, you see, and this will be his first so he’s very excited…’

Megan, her voice shaky, interrupted the flow. It still didn’t seem possible. ‘You’re really pregnant?’

Her mother nodded. ‘Yes, I’m having a baby.’

Megan looked at her. ‘Me too, Mum,’ she said with a high laugh that trembled on the brink of hysteria.

Laura’s eyes widened. She scanned her daughter’s face and Megan nodded. ‘It’s true, I am.’

‘Oh, my God!’

Suddenly mother and daughter were in one another’s arms, tears streaming down their cheeks.