“Do you feel as strange as I do?”
Samantha saw a nervous smile break out on Jessica’s face. “Yes.”
Nick’s hands were gripping their daughter’s shoulders. “I told Jessica you two should spend this time together by yourselves.” He tousled her curls in such an affectionate gesture, Samantha could have wept. “Call me when you’re ready and I’ll come for you, honey.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“Enjoy your meal.” His eyes studied Samantha’s face for a heart-stopping moment. Was he remembering the way it used to be with them? Did he still find her attractive after all this time?
“Thank you, Nick,” Samantha whispered. But he moved away with such lightning speed, she ended up saying it to his back.
Her gaze returned to Jessica. It was hard to keep from staring at her. Samantha had missed out on examining her from head to toe when she was a baby. She’d missed the first thirteen years of her life. The realization tortured her all over again.
This lovely girl was her baby, her daughter, her flesh and blood.
Dear Reader,
One of my children had a friend who as a teenager gave up her baby for adoption. It was no doubt one of the most painful experiences of her life. Even though it seemed the only thing to do under the circumstances, I have often thought about that courageous girl. Whatever happened to her? Over the years, how did she deal with her decision? Did the baby find a wonderful home? Did everyone involved find peace?
Those are questions for which I have no answers, so I wrote a story about a teenager who made the similar choice to give up her baby. I followed the lives of the characters involved to see what kind of impact such a decision had on them down through the years. From the first paragraphs I began to cry, and I cried all the way through their story. Some tears sprang from anguish, others from joy. Perhaps you, the reader, will have a similar reaction as you read their story and experience that emotional journey with them.
Rebecca Winters
P.S. If you have access to the Internet, please check out my Web site at http://www.rebeccawinters-author.com.
To Be a Mother
Rebecca Winters
This book is dedicated to all the courageous young women who have given up their babies for adoption.
Books by Rebecca Winters
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
636—THE WRONG TWIN
650—A MAN FOR ALL TIME
697—NOT WITHOUT MY CHILD
737—STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET
756—LAURA’S BABY
783—UNTIL THERE WAS YOU
808—DEBORAH’S SON
840—IF HE COULD SEE ME NOW
875—THE FAMILY WAY
916—THE UNKNOWN SISTER
981—ACCIDENTALLY YOURS
1005—MY PRIVATE DETECTIVE
1034—BENEATH A TEXAS SKY
1065—SHE’S MY MOM
1112—ANOTHER MAN’S WIFE
1133—HOME TO COPPER MOUNTAIN
1210—WOMAN IN HIDING
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
Coeur D’Alene, Idaho
October 29
By some miracle I’m still here. It appears my cancer has gone into remission. I just heard the news this afternoon.
Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe it isn’t, but tonight the pastor of my church came to see me. It was a comfort, rather than a shock, when he said that every person on this earth is dying, yet none of us knows the exact moment we’ll be called home, not even me.
Instead of concentrating on the past, he suggested I think of my remission as permanent rather than temporary, and treat it as a rebirth.
Before he left my condo, he asked me if there was anything in my past that might be troubling me. He reminded me that matters of the heart have a strange and powerful effect on the body’s ability to continue to fight disease.
The pastor’s unexpected visit has left me haunted by thoughts of Nick and our baby to the exclusion of all else.
Memories are bombarding me. Memories, questions. Regrets.
Oh, the regrets…
Since the moment Nick walked out of my hospital room, not a day, not a minute, not a second has passed that I haven’t yearned to be with both of them.
I could try to contact Jessica directly, but that would add cowardice to my list of sins. I have to do this the right way and approach Nick first.
My need to see my daughter is the height of human selfishness. Yet being given a second chance at life has caused me to search my soul, which has always hungered for both of them.
Nick will either tear up my letter or hang up on me. No matter. I have to try. Otherwise this life has made no sense at all….
SAMANTHA LET GO of the pen and buried her wet face in the pillow. “Nick—” she whispered in agony.
“NICK?”
Nick Kincaid glanced up from his field biology book. Everyone in the basement of the Lory Student Center at Colorado State was seated on couches or at tables studying for the last day of finals tomorrow. It was the place where Samantha had first met the rugged-looking twenty-year-old junior from Gillette, Wyoming. They’d been seeing each other since the beginning of fall semester in August.
“Hi,” he said in a husky tone. Beneath dark-brown hair and brows, his gray eyes flickered with an awareness of the intimacy they shared. Hers probably did the same. “I thought maybe you weren’t coming. Another ten minutes and I was going to phone you.”
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“How did your last final go?”
“Fine.”
“That’s good. Have you eaten?”
They normally bought a hamburger in the center’s Ramskeller Restaurant, but tonight food was the last thing on her mind.
“I’m not hungry. Could you leave now? I know you have your last final in the morning, but there’s something important I have to tell you. It won’t take long. I brought Mom’s car.”
Nick didn’t own one. He worked as many hours as possible at his part-time job with campus security in order to support himself while he earned his undergraduate degree in biology. If he needed transportation, he got around on his bike.
He lived with a hundred other young men at the Hilan Apartments on Lake Street near the campus, and he had friends who helped him out and lent him their cars when he wanted to be alone with her.
His pride refused to let Samantha chauffeur them in one of her parents’ cars, but tonight she wasn’t giving him a choice.
He must have sensed her urgency. Without saying a word, he got up from the table and put everything away in his backpack. After shrugging into his sheepskin jacket he murmured, “Let’s go.”
She felt his hand slide to the nape of her neck beneath her parka to guide her to the stairs. He had a tall, powerful physique and was whipcord lean. Samantha was a curvy redhead who didn’t stand much taller than his heart. She loved the way he made her feel feminine and protected.
In truth, everything about him appealed to her. It wasn’t just the physical attraction, although the chemistry between them was explosive. What drew her to him on other levels was his innate maturity and intelligence.
She was counting on those particular character traits to help him cope with what she had to tell him. Though she hadn’t really lied, there were so
me things she hadn’t told Nick the truth about. For the last four months she’d managed to push those sins of omission to the back of her mind in the hope they would never have to come to light. What a foolish, foolish girl she was….
A cold winter wind buffeted them as they left the center and walked to the corner of the next block, where she’d parked her mother’s Lincoln. It didn’t take long to drive to the foothills near her home. Samantha parked the car at Horsetooth Reservoir overlooking Fort Collins.
By now the interior of the car was too warm. She started to turn off the fan, and Nick anticipated her movement, then pulled her into his arms. For the first time, she resisted him.
“We can’t do this right now, Nick. I promised Mom and Dad I would be home by eleven. That gives us an hour.”
She felt his reluctance before he relinquished his hold on her and sat back in his seat. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
A grimace broke out on his face. “Why do I get the feeling this has something to do with your parents?”
“I—it’s not just Mom and Dad.”
“The hell it isn’t,” he said without raising his voice. “It’s no secret I’m not from a wealthy, well-connected family like yours.”
Samantha’s hand tightened on the steering wheel. “You’re jumping to conclusions about that, Nick.”
“Then enlighten me!” he demanded. “If you’ve met someone else and want to break up, just be honest about it. Don’t hide behind your parents’ disapproval of me.”
Nick’s forthright personality fascinated and intimidated her at the same time.
“There’s no one else. Surely you know that by now. As for them not considering you a suitable person for me to be dating, they’d feel the same way about any other guy. In all honesty it’s my fault they’ve forbidden me to go on seeing you.”
“Forbidden? How could they forbid you to do anything? You’re in college and are able to make your own decisions.”
She shivered. “You’re going to hate me when I tell you.”
A sound of exasperation escaped his throat. “That wouldn’t be possible. Come on, Sam. Don’t keep me in suspense any longer.”
“I’m pregnant,” she confessed. “I couldn’t believe it when I found out, not when I know you took precautions.”
To her shock, his eyes blazed with light. A smile lit up his handsome features. “We’re going to have a baby?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the due date?” He sounded too happy.
“June twenty-fifth.”
“That makes you almost three months along. Sweetheart—when did you find out?”
“Two days ago.”
“Two days and you didn’t say anything until now?”
“I’ve been too scared.”
He reached for her and crushed her in his arms. “How could you be scared to tell me something so wonderful? You know how I feel about you.”
“Do I?”
“How could you doubt it? I was going to surprise you with a ring on Valentine’s Day so we could start planning a summer wedding. But with a baby coming, we’ll get married over the Christmas holiday instead. I’ll always take care of you and our children, Sam.”
“Wait…” She pushed her hands against his chest to prevent him from kissing her. When he held her close and told her the things she’d been dying to hear before now, she couldn’t think clearly. “There’s more I have to tell you. I’m afraid it’s going to change the way you feel about me.”
“As long as we love each other, nothing else matters.”
“I do love you, Nick, but—”
“But what?”
“I’m not old enough to get married.”
“Of course you are!”
She shook her head. By now the tears had started. “No. I may be taking some college classes, but the truth is…I’m still in high school.”
“High school?” he whispered, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“Yes. Since I was in advanced placement and had taken all the math and science classes my school offered, I started some college classes early on scholarship. But I—I won’t turn eighteen until March.”
“Sam!”
“I knew you’d be angry,” she blurted in panic. “I should have told you the first day we met, but I was afraid you wouldn’t ask me out, so I didn’t say anything. After you started dating me, I never seemed to be able to find the right time to tell you the truth because…” She hesitated. “Because I wanted you to love me.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t it once occur to you I could be accused of statutory rape for making love to you? You’re only seventeen!”
“The thought never entered my head until the doctor told me I was pregnant.” She wiped her eyes but the tears kept coming. “When he glanced at my chart, he said I wasn’t of age yet and warned me he would have to tell my parents.”
Nick pursed his lips. “How soon can I expect to be hauled into court?”
“At first Mom and Dad threatened to do just that, but I told them I was the one who talked you into making love to me. I also admitted that you didn’t have any idea I wasn’t eighteen. Dad said he wouldn’t press charges if I agreed to break up with you and never see you again.”
“That’s archaic,” Nick retorted. “You’re younger than I thought, but it doesn’t change the fact that we love each other. We’ll get married now. It’s as simple as that.”
“No, it’s not,” she cried. “They won’t give me their permission. In their shoes, I wouldn’t, either,” she added in a quiet voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s be honest here, Nick. You never mentioned marriage. I’m not at all sure you would have if you didn’t know I was expecting.”
“It was always in my mind, Sam, but I wanted to give you a little more time. In two months I would have put a ring on your finger.”
“That’s easy enough for you to say now that you’ve been told the news.”
“Because it’s true!”
“Maybe, but I’ll never know for sure, will I? You’ve sacrificed so much to get this far in college. With only a year and a half to go before you receive your degree, you don’t need to be saddled with an unwanted wife and baby.”
“Those are your parents’ words, not yours.”
“Does it really matter? I don’t want to hold you back. After talking it over with them, I’ve decided to give up the baby for adoption when it’s born.”
“No you’re not!”
“Please hear me out. To avoid talk, they’re going to buy a home in Denver. We’ll be moving there, where no one knows me, over Christmas. I only have two more high school classes to take to get my diploma. I can go to a local school there as well as attend Denver University.”
He clasped her upper arms. “We’re going to be parents. There’s no need to uproot you when I’ll be marrying you and taking care of you.”
She shook her head. “No, Nick. Some other couple has been praying for a baby because they couldn’t have one of their own. They’ll raise ours. Years from now when we’re both settled in our careers and have met someone we love, then it will be the right time to marry and have children.”
“What career could be more important than being a mother and father to our child?”
“I’m planning to be an attorney, like Dad. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time.”
His brows furrowed. “You never told me that.”
“You never mentioned marriage.”
“Sam—”
“You might as well know everything. I was accepted at Harvard undergraduate school. It has been arranged since July, when Mom and Dad flew me back to Boston. I’ll be attending there in the fall of next year.”
His hands slid down her arms. He kissed the tips of her fingers. “I knew you had an exceptional mind. I just didn’t realize how exceptional. Why don’t we get married now and keep attending Colorado State? Next summer, after the baby�
�s born, we’ll move to Boston. I’ll get a night job and help take care of our child during the day while you go to school. We’ll make it work, Sam.”
As much as she wanted to believe him, she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t saying that just because he knew it was what she wanted to hear. “What about your degree?”
“I’ll get it. The important thing is that we’ll be together raising our son or daughter.”
“I wouldn’t know how to be a mother.”
“No one knows what to do until the time comes. We’ll learn as we go.”
“It won’t work.”
“Because your parents told you it wouldn’t. Come on. I want to talk to them. Let’s go.”
Her heart raced. “They don’t want to see you, Nick.”
“That’s too bad. I’m the father of our unborn baby and have an equal say in its future.”
Ten minutes later they’d arrived at the house and he’d echoed those same sentiments to her parents, but her father remained intractable.
“I’m sorry, young man, but neither of you is in any position to be a parent. Can’t you see that giving up the baby for adoption is the only sensible thing to do, not only for yourselves, but for the child?
“You’re still three semesters away from getting your undergraduate degree. Samantha isn’t even out of high school yet. Given the chance, she has a brilliant future ahead of her. But you can both kiss your planned careers goodbye if you have to sacrifice everything because of a mistake.”
“My husband’s right, Nick,” Samantha’s mother chimed in. “Why not turn this into a blessing and give the baby to a well-deserving married couple who’ve been preparing to become parents for a long time? They’ll have the financial and emotional means to give it everything it needs and shower it with love.”
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