Camilla watched the care Evan took with Rosemary, and the words Ben and Quinten had spoken to her that morning came to mind as she excused herself briefly to use the restroom. She’d been so freaked out by the whole experience that it’d all become muddled together. But she remembered both of them had told her that they’d be there for her, no matter what. She also remembered the tender way they’d touched her and taken care of her after she’d gotten sick. The memory of the night before, spent alone with Ben, came to her, and the words he’d spoken. “I want what my parents never fully enjoyed.”
She wanted that too. As she leaned against the bathroom counter and looked at her pale face in the mirror, she recalled the brokenness she’d seen in her mother’s eyes when she’d told her that her daddy had gone away, and that he’d probably not come back. Her mother had cried and apologized, until Camilla had begged her to not cry anymore.
From that day forward, Camilla had prayed for her father to return to them. She’d begged God for an end to her mother’s pain. The low-paying job her mother had managed to find had slowly sucked even more of the life out of her.
Camilla had taken odd jobs and babysat their neighbors’ kids to help provide for the two of them. All her friends spent their allowances and babysitting money on frivolous things, while she’d stood in the grocery store aisles trying to figure out which would last longer, a box of Cheerios or a jar of peanut butter.
She’d thought back then that was the low point of her life. She’d been wrong about that. So wrong. The worst day had been the one on which she’d been called to the school office and had faced the news delivered by a police officer that her mother had overdosed on painkillers.
In her shock, it hadn’t registered when they’d told her that they’d contacted her father and he’d said he would come as soon as he could to collect her. He’d arrived—three days later—looking put out and embarrassed by the whole situation. And then he’d done exactly what he’d done before. He’d left her.
No!
She’d lived through that terrible time in her life. No matter what happened, there was no way in hell the child she carried was ever going to live like that.
Ben’s tone echoed in her memory from that morning. “You’re going to have your dream even if it kills me and Quinten in the process.”
She remembered Quinten’s gentle hands in her hair as he held it back for her while she’d thrown up. “You have us to rely on, no matter what.”
If ever there were two men completely unlike the man her own father had been, it was Ben and Quinten.
A feeling of rightness settled around her as she washed her hands, and she smiled for the first time since she’s awakened nauseated. It was a knee-jerk response to be frightened, given her issues.
With business concluded, she and Heath said good-bye to Rosemary and Evan and got in the car for the return trip to Morehead. She thought about taking a minute and calling the men privately while Heath waited in the car, but she wasn’t sure she could stand in the parking lot that long without falling over. She felt light-headed, and the nausea that had been like a hard knot in her throat all day was growing increasingly hard to ignore or pacify with crackers. She thought better of calling them, opting to wait until she was back in her office with the door closed. They stopped for drive-thru, but the smell of the food in the bags made her lose her appetite. At least she didn’t feel like hurling for the moment.
They were on the outskirts of Morehead when she remembered the prescription Emma had written her for prenatal vitamins. “Can we stop by the pharmacy? I need to pick up some things.”
“Sure,” Heath replied, eyeing her occasionally as he efficiently moving through traffic. He pulled into the parking lot of a pharmacy located next to the hospital.
“I’ll be right back.”
She climbed from the car and walked into the pharmacy. After she found the prenatal vitamin that Emma had specified for her to get, she went in search of something else to help her break the news to her men that they were going to be daddies.
* * * *
Quinten dialed Heath’s number and waited as it rang before rolling to voice mail. He still hadn’t heard from Camilla. He’d just put away all the groceries he’d purchased and was walking out the door to drive to The Twisted Bull when Heath called him back.
“Sorry, Quinten. I’m in a poor cellular area. Your voice mail just came through. What’s up?”
“Is she okay?”
“She looks a little peaked. Quiet—” The line went silent for a second, and Quinten couldn’t make out all of what was said.