Keeping Her Baby's Secret

He was driving her crazy. She shook her head. It was too early in the morning for mind games.

“Will you tell me what is really going on?”

He sighed. “Let’s just say my mother has plans. She thinks it’s time I settled down.”

“Really.” Diana took a deep breath. So…was he getting married or wasn’t he? She was completely confused and beginning to get annoyed. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

He looked at her blearily. “What girl?”

She wanted to throw something at him and it took all her strength not to snap back through clenched teeth. “The girl your mother wants you to marry.”

“Oh.” He frowned as though he didn’t see how this mattered. “There’s no specific girl. More like a category of women.” He shrugged and raked fingers through his tousled hair, adding to his slightly bewildered look. “She has a whole roster picked out. She’s ready to toss them at me, one at a time, and I’m supposed to catch one of them in the end.”

Diana took a deep breath. This had been the most maddening conversation she’d had in a long time. The strongest impulse she had right now was to push him into the lake. How dare he come back here this way, raising old emotions, raising old hopeless dreams, and then slapping her back down with vague news of pending nuptials? Was this a joke? Or was he just trying to torture her?

But she knew that wasn’t really it. He didn’t have a clue how she had always felt about him, did he? Well, despite the position it put her in, that was probably a good thing.

Holding all that in as best she could, she looked out at the moonlight on the lake. Funny. Cam had come home and within minutes she had reverted back to being the little raggedy urchin who saw him as her white knight. For years she’d clung to his protection, dreaming that one day, when she was older, he would notice that she wasn’t a little girl anymore, that she’d grown into a woman.

She sighed softly. It had always been a stupid goal, and still was. He was from a different world and only visited hers when it suited him. He wasn’t available, in other words. And even if he were, what she’d done to her own situation alone would rule out any hopes she might have. She should know better by now. A little toughness of her own was in order. No more shabby girl with her nose pressed to the windowpane.

She tilted her head to the side, a bemused look on her face as she worked on developing a bit of inner strength.

“Let me get this straight,” she challenged. “You came back because your mother wanted you to?”

He blinked at her groggily. “Sort of,” he admitted.

She shook her head, eyes flashing. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Cam Van Kirk?” she demanded.

“You don’t buy it, huh?” He looked at her, trying to be earnest but too groggy to manage it well. The swath of dark hair that had fallen down over his eyes wasn’t helping. He was looking more vulnerable than she’d ever imagined he could look.

“Actually,” he murmured, “neither do I.”

“What does that mean?”

“Come on, Di, you know how it is. You grow up. You begin to realize what is really important in life. And you do things you never thought you would.”

Sure, she knew how it was. But she couldn’t quite believe it. Not Cam. Not the young rebel she’d idolized for so many years.

“What happened to you, Cam?” she asked softly, searching his face.

He moved toward her, his hand reaching in to slide along her chin and cup her cheek. She pulled back, looking surprised at his touch and pushing his hand away.

And as she did so, she forgot to hold her robe closed and it fell open. Her rounded belly was obvious.

“Whoa,” he said, jerking back and staring at it, then looking up at her face. He shook his head as though trying to clear it so that he could deal with this new development. “What happened to you?”

“It’s not that big a mystery,” she said quickly, pulling the robe back. “It happens a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He stared at her for a moment, his brow furled, and moved a bit further away, purposefully keeping his eyes averted from her midsection.

“Did you go and get married or something?” he muttered uncomfortably.

She looked away and he frowned. The downside of that possibility was suddenly clear to him. He didn’t want her to be married. Given a choice, he would rather she wasn’t pregnant, either. But that was clearly settled and he could have no influence on it. But the married part—no, if she were married he was going to have to leave pretty quickly and probably not come back.

Why hadn’t he considered this possibility? Somehow it had seemed natural to find her here, just where he’d left her. But of course things had changed. It had been ten years, after all.

“No, Cam,” she said calmly. She pulled the robe in closer and looked out at the lake. “I’m not married.”

Was he supposed to feel relief at that? Probably not. It was pretty selfish of him. But he couldn’t help it. Still, it left a few problems behind. There had to be a man involved in this situation. Cam blinked hard and tried to act sober.

“Who’s the daddy? Anyone I know?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

He shrugged. “Your call. So I guess you’re doing this on your own, huh? Are you ready for that?”

She gave him a quick, fleeting smile. “I’m fine, Cam. I can handle this.”

Something stirred inside him. Was it admiration? Or regret? He was a bit too groggy to tell. But the Diana he’d left behind had seemed to need him in so many ways. This one, not so much. That was probably a good thing. Wasn’t it? If only he could think clearly, he might even be able to tell.

“Well, you know, if you need any help…” he began.

She turned on him, ready to be defensively self-reliant, and that was when she saw what looked like blood. It was trickling down out of his dark hair, making a rivulet in front of his ear. She gasped, then looked more closely, detecting a lot more that had started to dry against the collar of his shirt.

“Cam! What’s this?” She touched it and showed him.

“Oh, just a little blood.” He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at it.

“Blood!”

He gave her a melancholy smile. “I had a little accident. Just a little one.”

She stared. “With your car?”

He nodded. “The car wouldn’t go where I tried to get it to go. I kept pulling on the wheel and saying, ‘Come on, car, we’ve got to get to the Van Kirk mansion,’ and the stupid car kept saying, ‘You know you’d rather go see Diana.’” He looked at her with mock earnestness. “So we crashed.” He waved toward the woods. “We smashed right into a tree.”

“Cam!”

“Just a little one. But I hit my head pretty hard. Didn’t you hear it?”

She stared at him, shaking her head. “Oh, Cam.”

“It wasn’t very far away.” He frowned. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear it.”

“I was asleep.”

“Oh.” He sighed and stretched out his arms, yawning. “Sleep, huh? I used to do that.”