His Best Friend's Baby Read Online Free PDF Page B

sob came out.
    Julia leaped to take the coffee mug out of her mother-in-law’s hands. She wrapped her arms around Agnes’s curved shoulders. “I wasn’t the best, either,” she said.
    “I was just so upset that you got married without telling us,” Agnes went on. “Mitch is—” another sob escaped “— was our only sonand I know we expected a lot but it was just such a shock. The marriage and then the news of the baby—it was just such a shock.”
    “Tell me about it,” Julia said dryly, relieved when Agnes gave a watery chuckle. “Trust me, getting pregnant and marrying a helicopter pilot was the last thing I expected to happen.” Or wanted to happen , she didn’t say. Her life tended to be made up of things she had to make the best of.
    “You know how your son was,” Julia said softly. “He was so—” She stopped, at a loss for words, trying to remember exactly what it was that had attracted her so ferociously to Mitch Adams. “Bright, you know? Shiny and bold. Like the world was there just for him to enjoy.”
    “Yes,” Ron agreed. “He was like that.”
    “He just swept me off my feet.” Swept wasn’t even the right way to describe the sensation. It was as if she had been blinded by the light that always shone around Mitch.
    “When I got pregnant—” she cleared her throat, uncomfortable with the topic “—we hadn’t known each other very long.”
    “A month,” Agnes said, obviously casting judgment on Julia’s loose morals. Julia swallowed the protestations of her innocence. Theyseemed pretty stupid, in light of what had happened. What did it matter if Mitch had been her first? She’d been so completely paranoid about pregnancy that they’d used two forms of birth control.
    She’d gotten pregnant anyway, after only knowing Mitch for three weeks. She had been so stupid and silly with lust and love.
    “I was twenty-one—”
    “So young,” Agnes said, lifting watery brown eyes to Julia.
    “Mitch didn’t hesitate. He wanted to get married. He wanted to give our child what you guys gave him.”
    He just never managed to be around enough to do it .
    Agnes, who had been weeping silently, buckled a little and put a hand on the counter to brace herself.
    “We wasted so much time with him.” Agnes sighed. “Three years. I would give anything to have them back.” Her face twisted in agony that struck a chord in Julia’s own grief. “ Anything .”
    “Nana!” Ben yelled. “Don’t cry!” Ben hated when Julia cried. He got angry and fussy. But when all three of them turned to the little boyhe looked away, confused and embarrassed. Julia wondered if he’d ever had the undivided attention of three people.
    “You want more pancakes?” Agnes asked Ben and he broke into a beatific grin, revealing all of his little teeth.
    “That’s a yes,” Julia translated needlessly.
    “Well, sit and drink your coffee,” Agnes said, drying her eyes with a dish towel. “I’ll make some more pancakes.”
    Agnes put a steaming mug of coffee in front of Julia and darted a quick look at Ron. It was a cue of some sort and Julia braced herself. Not for any particular reason; it was the conditioned response of a woman who had never felt as though she really belonged anywhere.
    “Julia,” Ron started uncomfortably. He drummed his fingers on the table briefly and cleared his throat. There was a glacial undercurrent in the room suddenly and she was not so sure of her welcome here. “What are your, ah, your plans?”
    “Plans?” she croaked. This was it. This was “the good to see you, don’t be a stranger, but could you move on?” speech. Her stomach churned bile. Maybe Mitch was right. She was a fool for believing in the good things.
    “I mean, how long will you be—” Ron and Agnes shared a look “—in California.”
    Julia put her mug on the table. “I don’t have any plans,” she said coolly. “We can be on our way today.”
    Agnes gasped and dropped a plate in the sink, a