The Baby of Their Dreams (Contemporary Medical Romance) by Carol Marinelli Page A

but there she had started to want more than just the weekend. There, watching the sunrise, there had been a shift and she had felt him pensive beside her and for a moment, just a moment, she had felt as if time might not have been running out for them.
    And that night, her second without him, Cat did what she’d tried not to because it hurt too much—she recalled their kiss in the sea. For a while there she’d thought she’d be staying.
    Not for ever.
    Just that something had been starting.
    Something far bigger than either had expected to find.
    Yet, as guilty as she felt about the weekend, Cat didn’t feel used—after all, she had gone along with the anonymity that had been offered. She had enjoyed embracing her femininity, going out and doing things she never would have done had Dominic not been there.
    And, even though she did her level best to forget him, their time together could not be undone and it was as if he had set off a little chain reaction, because colour started coming back into her life.
    The following Sunday Cat wore another new dress to the twins’ christening, a burnt orange and red paisley wraparound dress, and her hair was worn down and curly.
    Glynn had rung to apologise and explain that his mother had been taken ill and Cat had had a difficult time explaining to him that, no, she wasn’t not coming to see him because of what had happened. ‘I like it curly, Glynn,’ Cat said. ‘Of course I’ll be in again...’
    Just not yet.
    For now she enjoyed having those two extra hours a week not having her hair yanked and blown smooth.
    She stood at the font, looking at Gemma’s dress as she and Nigel juggled the twins, and wondering who on earth she was to offer guidance as a godmother, while knowing if that day ever came, then she would.
    Oh, she doubted she would ever marry but she did believe in the sanctity of it and to think about what had happened made a curl of shame inside her that meant it was something she wouldn’t be discussing with Gemma.
    She loved Gemma and Nigel and their little family and she remembered Thomas’s christening and when they had been there for her.
    Gemma must have been thinking of it too, because she gave her friend the nicest smile and later pulled her aside.
    ‘My parents are driving me crazy,’ Gemma said. ‘They want to know when we’re having the cake. I’m sure they want to go home.’
    Cat smiled. Gemma’s parents loathed any change to their routine.
    ‘Are you okay, Cat?’
    ‘Of course.’
    They told each other everything and she could have come up with some airy excuse, that today was hard because...
    Only, she wouldn’t use Thomas as an excuse for not being able to meet her friend’s eyes.
    ‘What are you up to, Cat?’
    ‘I’m not up to anything.’
    ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
    For the first time since they’d been teenagers she lied properly to her friend.
    ‘Don’t be daft.’
    And she got on with smiling and enjoying this very special day.
    But over the next few weeks Cat threw herself into her work and studying for her exams, which were tough but no tougher than expected. It meant there was no time to catch up with Gemma.
    And even when three weeks’ annual leave stretched ahead of her, she still avoided her friend.
    Though she was starting to realise that she wouldn’t be able to avoid her for long.
    Gemma texted.
    Is everything okay?
    Cat didn’t answer.
    Gemma persisted.
    Did we have an argument that I didn’t notice?
    Finally Cat texted back.
    Can I tell you when I’m ready?
    Because she wasn’t just yet.
    Of course.
    No, she wasn’t quite ready, so she stripped walls and sanded back a mantelpiece and tried to face something she was avoiding.
    When it proved too hard, she took herself to her favourite shop and spent a morning turning pages of wallpaper samples.
    ‘I think a silver grey,’ Cat said to Veronica, the owner, who was as obsessed with wallpaper as she was. ‘Perhaps with one wall in