As she made her way through the maze of tables, Tabitha looked up and waved fiercely. Sylvia, Carly and Ashley quickly turned. Carly rose as Pippa approached.

She got hugs from everyone and finally she squeezed into the booth beside Ashley, who looked at her with concern.

“What’s wrong, Pip? Carly called us all but she wouldn’t say what was the matter.”

“I haven’t told her yet,” Pippa said ruefully. “I may be jumping the gun here, girls. But I’m freaking out and need your help sorting through my options.”

“Oh, my God, what is it?” Tabitha exclaimed.

Sylvia frowned. She was the older and more serious-minded of the group. Not to mention ultrapractical. She’d have solid advice. Pippa would bet any amount of money on it.

Pippa drew in a deep breath. “I could be… Well, there’s at least a slim possibility that I’m pregnant.”

“What?”

Pippa winced as all four of her friends exclaimed at the same time.

Ashley’s eyes rounded and she stared at Pippa in question. “Oh, Pip, how sure are you?”

“I had a one-night stand the other night.” She glanced up at Ashley and grimaced. “With Cam. We left Ashley’s party together. He took me to his house and we had sex. Lots of sex.”

Ashley looked robbed of speech. Sylvia just kept wearing that frown. That damn disapproving frown that reminded Pippa way too much of how a mother would look. Well, Pippa’s mother wouldn’t look that way. She’d congratulate her daughter on snaring a wealthy baby daddy and then tell her to milk him for all he was worth. Not exactly mother-of-the-year material.

Oh, Miranda wasn’t evil. She wasn’t even a bad mother. She was just superficial and very mercenary. Pippa supposed she could even admire her mother for being so shrewd when it came to relationships. Miranda Laingley was out for number one and number one only. And she refused to apologize to anyone for it.

“I’m not following,” Tabitha said slowly. “Maybe I’m dense here. If you just had sex with him, why on earth are you worried about pregnancy?”

“Because one of the condoms broke and the timing is perfect in my cycle,” Pippa replied.

“Cam?” Ashley squeaked. “Okay, I knew you were kind of crushing on him, but you and him? Really?”

“You needn’t look so flabbergasted,” Pippa muttered. “The attraction was mutual, I assure you.”

Ashley looked immediately contrite and threw her arms around Pippa, hugging her tightly. “Of course it was, sweetie. Oh, my gosh, poor you!”

“I’m so unbalanced by all of this. The timing couldn’t be worse. Oh, my God, you guys don’t even know this yet. With the pregnancy scare, I just blanked it out, but the lease on the building space fell through. I don’t have a place for my shop. And now this. I’m trying to get my business off the ground. I have no health insurance and I’m in no way prepared to be a mother. I just want to cry, but I know that solves nothing.”

“You cry, honey,” Carly said fiercely. “We’ll figure this out.”

“You know we’d do anything for you,” Ashley said. “You all helped me so much when I was going through such an awful time with Devon. I can never repay you for that.”

Pippa sniffled, trying to hold back the tears that threatened. “You never have to repay me, Ash. I love you. We all do. I love all of you guys.”

“When exactly did you have sex?” Sylvia interjected.

“Saturday night. All of Saturday night. Well into Sunday morning.”

Sylvia reached for Pippa’s hand. “You can go to your doctor and have him advise you of the alternatives.”

“I’ll pay for you to go to the doctor, Pip,” Ashley said. “I’ll take you myself.”

An uneasy flutter settled into Pippa’s chest. She rubbed absently at the discomfort. It was the way she felt when she imagined taking measures to prevent a pregnancy that could already have begun.

“Pippa?” Sylvia asked gently.

“Oh, God, I feel so stupid,” Pippa whispered. “I can’t make that kind of decision in an instant. How can anyone?”

“Okay, what is your gut telling you?” Carly asked. “What are you afraid of? Is it the pregnancy itself that scares you? Or is it the idea of being an unwed mother and not being able to support yourself and a baby?”

“You aren’t making any of it sound appealing,” Pippa muttered.

“You don’t have to make a decision right this minute,” Tabitha broke in. “Taking a morning-after pill or getting a shot aren’t your only options. You could totally wait and see if you even are pregnant and then pursue your options then. Women have many choices these days, Pippa.”

Ashley squeezed Pippa’s hand and stared urgently at her friend. “If you want this baby, if there is a baby, you have to know we’d help. All of us. You wouldn’t be alone. I just want you to make the best choice for you. But whatever that is, you have our absolute support.”

Pippa could no longer hold back the tears. They streamed down her face as she stared at her best friends in the world. “I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.”

“You forget one important part of the equation,” Sylvia pointed out.

Everyone looked at Sylvia.

“The father. Obviously you’ll have us, but is he going to take responsibility in this matter?”

Pippa nodded. “He would. I have no doubt he would. I told him I’d let him know if I was pregnant and until then to back off. I just had to process all this, you know?”

“Yes, honey, we know,” Carly said sympathetically.

“This probably sounds crazy to all of you, but from the moment I realized there was a possibility, everything changed for me. I began to imagine this tiny life inside me and even though I could take a pill and it would all go away…” She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure that’s what I want.”

She looked up at each friend in turn, but she saw no judgment or condemnation in their eyes. All she saw was unwavering love and support. Determination. Loyalty.

“If… If there’s a baby. I think I want it.” She swallowed the knot in her throat and then spoke with more conviction. “I know I want it.”

“Take some time to get used to the idea,” Sylvia advised. “There’s no hurry. You don’t have to make up your mind today or even tomorrow.”

But Pippa knew the more the initial shock wore off, the more firmly she’d be entrenched in the idea of having and keeping her baby.

Her baby.

Already she felt fiercely protective of it.

Out of the wreckage of her shock and confusion came the very firm realization that she’d never do anything to end the pregnancy. Nor would she ever give up a child she gave birth to. Her possessiveness and the strong surge of love she already felt were shocking in their intensity, especially because she didn’t even know if she was pregnant.

If she was, whatever happened, she would keep the child. She’d go to Cam and together they’d work out an amicable solution.

Maybe she was being stupidly naive, but until he showed her differently, she was going to believe wholeheartedly in his sense of responsibility.

Her hands shook as she raised a glass of water to her mouth. After taking a long drink, she put it back down and then leveled a stare at her friends.

“Okay, girls, how long do I have to wait before I can take a pregnancy test?”

Six

Pippa paced the floor of her living room, trying not to stare at the little stick lying on the coffee table just a few feet away.

“It isn’t time yet,” Ashley said when Pippa stopped and hesitated.

“Why does it have to take so long?” Pippa exploded.

She couldn’t take not knowing another minute. The past weeks had been ones of unimaginable stress with Cam breathing down her neck, asking her every few days if she knew anything yet. The last time he’d asked, she’d all but screamed at him to back off. Maybe he’d finally gotten the hint or maybe she’d just sounded that desperate because he hadn’t been in contact for the past couple of days.

The hell of it was, he acted concerned. It almost seemed as though he was acting on the assumption that she was pregnant and had made it his mission to “check on” her frequently.

He was making her insane.

“It’s only been two minutes,” Ashley soothed. “It doesn’t do any good to sit and stare at it. It won’t make things go any faster.”

Pippa sank onto the couch. “You’re right. It’s driving me crazy, though. I just feel it. In my gut. I’m pregnant. And don’t tell me it’s some psychological crap and that I’m imagining all the symptoms. I’m just telling you that I feel different. My boobs are sore. I’m queasy. My smell is off. Weird stuff gets to me. Like the smell of cupcakes. Who the hell gets sick smelling a cupcake?”

Ashley smiled. “I don’t think you’re imagining anything, sweetie. Let’s wait for the results and then we’ll tackle the solution together. Okay?”

Pippa groaned and closed her eyes. The past three weeks had been a form of torture she never wanted to repeat. She changed her mind from day to day. One day she thought having a baby would be great. She and Ashley would have little playmates. On other days she thought she was solidly out of her mind and was terrified by the prospect.

And, well, she felt a little stupid. An unwanted pregnancy at her age? She wasn’t some stupid teenager playing around with unprotected sex. She’d always been so damn careful. Always!

She’d never considered herself terribly old-fashioned, but still, she’d preferred to have children within the boundaries of a loving, committed relationship.

“Okay, you can look now.”

They both stared at the stick on the coffee table like it was an ugly bug neither of them wanted to get close enough to squash.

Pippa’s stomach curled into a vicious knot. “You look. I don’t think I can.”

Ashley reached over and took Pippa’s hand, squeezing hard. “Just remember, that no matter what the outcome, it’ll be okay. I promise.”

Pippa nodded, then slammed her eyes shut as Ashley reached for the stick. She didn’t even want to see Ashley’s reaction. Her heart thundered until she could feel it jumping into her throat.

“Pippa,” Ashley said gently. “Open your eyes.”

Pippa cracked open her eyes to see Ashley’s solemn expression. Ashley laid the stick back onto the table, her gaze still centered on Pippa.

“What?” Pippa demanded, unable to stand it any longer. Ashley’s expression told her nothing. Nothing at all! “Am I pregnant?”

“According to the test you are,” Ashley said slowly.

Pippa deflated in a whoosh, sagging forward as she reached for the test, wanting to see the confirmation herself. It was a bit blurry and she blinked rapidly to bring it into focus.

And there it was. A big, glaring plus sign that pretty much said, Yes, you’re pregnant.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Ashley looked uneasily at her. “You aren’t going to do something crazy like faint on me, are you?”

Pippa managed to close her mouth, but she was numb from head to toe. It was as if Ashley was talking from a mile away and Pippa was having this surreal out-of-body experience. The entire room seemed to slow down and become a big void of white noise.

Pregnant.

With Cam’s baby.

Mr. I Don’t Do Relationships.

Mr. I Won’t Call You.

As screwups went, this one was epic.

She closed her eyes again and groaned. “What am I going to do, Ash? Cam is going to freak. He gave me this long speech about how he didn’t do commitment, it was just sex, blah, blah, blah. A baby is definitely a commitment.”

“Take a few days. Let yourself come to terms with the shock. Then talk to Cam,” Ashley advised.

“I need to talk to him now.”

Ashley frowned. “Pip, you’re upset. You aren’t thinking rationally. The last thing you need is to go up against Cam. He can be… He’s intense, okay? He’ll bulldoze over you.”

“No one’s going to bulldoze me. I need to talk to him now. Other than me, this affects him the most. He deserves to know so he can start planning accordingly. It’s not like I’m going to wait a week and then suddenly decide not to tell him. The result will be the same no matter when I talk to him, so why wait? Besides, he’s been blowing up my phone for weeks now. No sense holding off any longer.”

Ashley sighed. “I just don’t want you to make any impulsive decisions. He can be persuasive. That’s a nice term for it. He can be ruthless.”

“I can hold my own with him. I’m not afraid. This is as much his problem as it is mine. I’ll be damned if I spend the next week agonizing over my future alone. If I suffer, so can he.”

A laugh escaped Ashley and her eyes danced merrily. “Okay, you just convinced me that he won’t rip you to shreds and have you for dinner.”

“Damn right he won’t,” Pippa muttered. “If he even tries, he won’t ever have to worry about fathering another child.”

Ashley laughed again and then impulsively leaned over to hug Pippa. “You know, this is going to be just fine, Pip. We’ll be pregnant together for a little while at least. Devon and I will do anything we can to help, and you have Tabitha, Carly and Sylvia. Oh, and my mother. She views you as another daughter, and when she finds out you’re pregnant, look out. She’ll have you packed in so much bubble wrap you won’t be able to breathe.”