Linda Warren - Always a Mother

But she had to figure out why she felt this way.

For twenty-five years she’d dreamed of going to college. That was a long time. Why hadn’t she?

She’d told herself her family came first. But was it something else?

Maybe subconsciously she felt she’d made a mistake by getting pregnant the first time and was trying to atone by sacrificing her own goals. Did she feel she didn’t deserve to have her dream come true?

Her thoughts angered her and she had no answers. All she knew was that first she had to accept the pregnancy. After that, she wasn’t sure about her life. Maybe the dream was just that—a dream.

And it was time to let it go.

Dear Reader,

I’m always asked where I get my story ideas—this book was actually a very nice gift. I was sitting in a beauty shop listening to the conversations going on around me. A stylist was telling her client about a friend in her forties who had just found out she was pregnant. Her youngest child had just graduated from college.

I found this intriguing and, yes, I kept listening. Seems the friend had gotten pregnant and married young, and instead of going to college she devoted her life to her family. Now that her kids were grown, she’d enrolled for the fall semester. But history repeated itself and she was again faced with an unplanned pregnancy. She had packed a suitcase and left. Everyone, especially her husband, was worried.

This bit of beauty-shop gossip grabbed me, and I really felt for this unknown woman. I thought it would make a great story.

When writing this, I had a lot of blanks to fill in. I asked friends how they’d feel if they had gotten pregnant in their forties, and I didn’t get one positive response. Everyone loved their kids but didn’t relish the idea of having a child late in life. I never found out what happened to the stylist’s friend, but I hope she made all the right choices, like Claire and Dean. As I dealt with their lives, it touched a lot of emotional chords in me. I hope you enjoy this gift.

Warmly,

Linda Warren

P.S. It always brightens my day to hear from readers. You can e-mail me at Lw1508@aol.com or write me at P.O. Box 5182, Bryan, TX 77805 or visit my Web site at www.lindawarren.net or www.myspace.com/authorlindawarren. Your letters will be answered.

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Award-winning, bestselling author Linda Warren has written twenty-one books for Harlequin Superromance and Harlequin American Romance. She grew up in the farming and ranching community of Smetana, Texas, the only girl in a family of boys. She loves to write about Texas, and from time to time scenes and characters from her childhood show up in her books. Linda lives in College Station, Texas, not far from her birthplace, with her husband, Billy, and a menagerie of wild animals, from Canada geese to bobcats. Visit her Web site at www.lindawarren.net.

I dedicate this book to mothers everywhere.

And to my mother, Mary Dudake Siegert.

Thanks for the freedom to dream, a spirit to believe

and roots to keep me grounded.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

A special thanks to Robin Fuller, Amy Landry, Dorothy Kissman and Phyllis Fletcher for their help in the writing of this book.

Thanks, too, to the American Heart Association and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Any errors are strictly mine and all characters are fictional.

CLAIRE RENNELS CLUNG to one thought.

She couldn’t be sick.

Not now.

But the waves of chills shuddering across her clammy skin told their own story. She shivered and crumpled to the bathroom floor like cheap toilet paper. Clutching the commode, she felt beads of perspiration break out on her forehead, and took several quick breaths.

What was wrong with her?

She drew another long breath, slowly releasing it through her mouth. Feeling calmer, she tipped her head back against the flowery wallpaper and stared up at the peach-colored ceiling. They needed to paint. The color had faded to a shade she couldn’t describe, and a spiderweb dangled in one corner.

Someone, preferably not her, should clean away the cobwebs. She wasn’t a great housekeeper and would be the first to admit that failing. Their home had a lived-in look, but it was comfortable and cheery.

The calm didn’t last long. Bile rose in her throat and her stomach spun with gut-wrenching nausea. She leaned over the toilet, retching one more time. She should be with her husband, Dean, helping to move his mom into a new house, but here she was, puking her guts out and getting acquainted with the ceiling.

With her stomach finally resting, she pushed herself to her feet, stumbled to the sink and washed out her sour mouth. She should clean the bathroom, but she didn’t have the strength at the moment. Maybe later.

Glancing at herself in the mirror, she did a double take. Holy cow! Her pallid skin, fatigued eyes and sweat-soaked hair made her look like death warmed over, as Bunny, her mother-in-law, would say.

Back to bed, no question. Claire planned to hide her weak body beneath the covers until the world was a brighter shade of hearty pink, not sickly green.

As she trudged toward the bedroom she kept repeating her delusional mantra for the day: I’m not sick. I’m not.

Suddenly a thought occurred to her and she stopped dead in her tracks. When was the last time she’d had her period? She quickly calculated the weeks.

Her hand trembled as she scrubbed at her face. Think. Think. Think. She’d had a period in late June, right before they’d taken their daughters, Sarah and Samantha, to Cancun for a family vacation. Since Sarah was getting into a serious relationship, this would probably be the last trip with just the four of them.

Claire made her way to the bed and sank down on it, dragging her fingers through her sweaty hair. This was late August. No. No. No. She couldn’t be pregnant, not at the age of forty-three. Life couldn’t be that cruel. But she knew that it could.

Staggering to her feet, she dug in a drawer for jogging pants and a T-shirt. She had to buy a pregnancy test even if she threw up all the way to the store.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER she rushed into her bathroom to perform the test, sincerely hoping this was one she’d fail.

Staring at the result, Claire moaned and slid to the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks. Not again! How could she be so careless?