“She comes in here a fair bit,” she said. “She’s a pediatrician and runs between several counties.”
“Ah.” He sat back with his pie, a big smile on his face. A pediatrician. He rolled that around in his mind and smiled. It was perfect; she had always been a fan of families and children.
“I’m glad for her,” he murmured, but the waitress was long gone. And he sat here, almost dazed, wondering how something so simple as coming back home had opened up such interesting wounds. He was proud of who he was now; he was not proud of who he’d been back then. He hadn’t really known any better, and that was no excuse. He was just so determined to get out and to prove himself and to be somebody whose early beginnings had fallen by the wayside. He was sure the shrinks would have a heyday with a lot of it.
In fact, some of the ones he’d talked to had helped; some of them hadn’t. Even having somebody to talk it out with and to not judge him for all his early mistakes had been a good thing. But, even now, just seeing her again had been almost heartbreaking. He knew he’d missed a huge opportunity when he had walked away from her. They were so young then, and he even more than most. But he was really happy for her—a pediatrician. Wow.
He shook his head and dug into his pie.
Laurie Ann sat in the car, shaking for a good five minutes before she could get a grip on herself and headed out. Sure she was late, but that wasn’t the real reason. It was seeing Kurt like that, out of the blue. Of course he hadn’t told her that he was coming; he didn’t even know how to get hold of her. He hadn’t said anything because they hadn’t kept in touch. But why would they? He was headed to the military to take over and to save the world, and she’d been heading to med school or at least pre-med at that point in time.
She had managed to make her dream happen, even if it had taken a few extra years to get there. But then her son, Jeremy, was never something that she ever regretted having, but how was she now supposed to tell his father about their son, especially when she hadn’t told him back then? She hadn’t made any attempt to tell him before he left. She had kept that secret, knowing that he would have likely stayed in town, hating his life and hating everything about it, when he had been so desperate to get away. For her to let him go was the best thing for him.
She had known that at the time, and she hadn’t even told her parents. It had all been so damn new back then; she was only weeks pregnant when Kurt left, and it had been a tough adjustment. Her parents had not been very accepting, and that was to put it mildly. If it weren’t for Sally, her older sister, Laurie Ann didn’t know what she would have done.
Even now, her relationship with her parents was remotely cordial but not even close to warm. They weren’t trying to make up for lost time with Jeremy, which hurt more than their rejection of her and more than the fact they had practically kicked her out of the house for refusing to terminate her pregnancy. She found it hard to forgive and to forget. Didn’t say much about her, did it?
She sat there for a long moment, then finally turned on the engine and drove to work. She needed the job; she needed the work for her own sanity, if nothing else. She’d come a long way in these last few years, but just seeing Kurt like that again? It was as if she hadn’t moved forward. As in not at all. And how sad was that?
Jeremy was everything to her. He’d been an easy baby and was a good kid. He wasn’t aggressive or messed up, like his father had been at that age. Even now, she looked back and didn’t know what the initial attraction had been. But, like a moth to a flame, she couldn’t resist. No matter how much she tried to explain her relationship with Kurt to her parents, they just weren’t having it. There was no understanding in their worldly eyes. She’d made a colossal mistake with the worst person possible, and that was it. She had to live and let live, and they didn’t want anything to do with her. Or Jeremy.
She could feel the tears collecting in the corner of her eyes, as she thought about all those tumultuous years. One of the things that had kept her going was that she knew it wouldn’t be forever and that life would improve. It was mostly because of Kurt that she understood that lesson. After losing his mother, he’d gone wild and had a really rough time adapting to the loss. He’d also gone through a horrific time in foster care.
Laurie Ann hadn’t understood it at the time, but she sure did afterward. Nothing like realizing your parents—who you thought would be there and would be supportive when you fell and would give you a hand up—had turned their backs on you and made you feel so much less of a person.
And no way, even now, would she let them refer to her actions as a mistake because Jeremy was the result, and she loved Jeremy with a love she had never expected to experience—outside of the sexual intimacy that she had gloried in with Kurt.
She pulled into the medical clinic. This had been her second dream—to become a doctor—and she’d made it. She’d achieved two things in her world that she had desperately wanted. She’d wanted kids, and she’d wanted to be a doctor, so why then did she feel like everything in her life was a complete and utter failure? She shook her head, exited the car, and headed out to start her day. This was the lifeline that had kept her going before, and obviously it would be the lifeline that kept her going now too.
Chapter 2
Laurie Ann walked out of the office four hours later, having treated all the cases lined up for the day. Normally she would head to another clinic for the afternoon, but apparently it was closed due to a flood in the bathroom. She was grateful for the time off, as she was already feeling the effects of trying to keep her emotions locked down to get through the hours so far. She checked her watch, anxious to get home and to be with Jeremy.
She hopped into her vehicle, turned the key, and drove her car straight home. As she passed the truck stop, she wondered if Kurt was still there. Of course he wasn’t. No need for him to sit there for that many hours. When she finally pulled into her driveway, Jeremy sat on the front steps, talking with a buddy. They had skateboards out, and thankfully they had their crash helmets, knee pads, and elbow pads on. As she walked toward them with a bright smile, Jeremy looked at her and asked, “How come you’re home so early?”
She quickly explained about the flood at the second clinic. “How are you two guys doing?”
“Great,” he said. “School has been out since lunch.”
“I thought you had one class this afternoon,” she said smoothly, knowing full well he did.
He nodded. “Yes, but the teacher called in sick, so the class was called off. Since it’s the only class I have this afternoon, I’m home.”
“And you too, Frank?”
“Yeah, same class as Jeremy,” he said in a careless tone.
She nodded and stepped past them. “Just don’t break anything, huh?”
They both chuckled, got up, grabbed their skateboards, and headed down the sidewalk. The speeds they went sometimes scared her, but she was enough of a trusting mother to let them go do their thing. She already knew that to hold them back would be the opposite effect that she wanted.
As she walked inside, she headed for the coffeepot. She was drinking way too much caffeine these days, but it was pretty hard to do anything else. And after today, seeing Kurt, she knew that it would take coffee to keep her going. With the coffee dripping—thankfully just a small two-cup pot—she decided an awful lot of housecleaning needed to get done. It seemed a shame to take her afternoon off to clean house, but sometimes it was the better answer for keeping her mind occupied.