The Pregnancy Plan / Hope's Child: The Pregnancy Plan / Hope's Child. Brenda Harlen

nice to see you again,” Ashley said, and hoped she sounded half as sincere as Cam’s mother.

      Maddie, having been set back on her feet by her grandfather, reached for her grandmother’s hand. “Come see the piggies, Grandma.”

      Gayle glanced at her watch. “Only for a quick minute, then we have to get you home to bed.”

      “But I’m not tired,” Maddie said again.

      “But Grandpa is,” Gayle replied in a staged whisper. “And you know how cranky he gets if he stays up past his bedtime.”

      Maddie sighed. “Okay. But we have to see the piggies first.”

      “We’ll see the piggies first,” her grandmother promised. Then to the others, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

      “Hey,” Cam called, as his daughter started to walk away with her grandparents.

      Maddie turned and ran back to him. He squatted down so she could throw her arms around his neck and give him a loud smacking kiss. “Bye, Daddy. Love you.”

      “Love you, too, baby,” he said, and something squeezed tight inside Ashley’s heart.

      Maddie raced back to her grandparents, turning to wave one last time, then Ashley was alone with Cam again.

      Cam watched his daughter until she was out of sight before turning to Ashley. “Looks like it’s just you and me now.”

      “Looks like,” she agreed.

      It was the first time they’d been alone together since their meeting at the Bean There Café, since she’d told him that his daughter was trying to find him a wife. He’d been thinking about that conversation a lot recently, and thinking that he might not object to getting married again.

      Not that he was in any hurry to find himself standing at the altar, but he was no longer adamantly opposed to the possibility. Especially when he considered the potential benefits of making Ashley his bride.

      Of course, thinking about marriage—even in the most abstract sense—was a little premature when Ashley was as skittish about being alone with him as the newborn foal was about the strangers hovering around her stall. First, they had to get to know one another all over again, and he would have to thank Paige for giving him this time with her cousin.

      “So what do you want to do now?” he asked.

      “I think I’ve had enough for tonight,” Ashley said, making her way towards the doors. “So I’ll just call a cab and—”

      “I promised Paige I would take you home,” he interrupted to remind her.

      “You were conned by my cousin.”

      He shrugged. “Either way, there’s no reason for you to take a cab when I’m going in the same direction.”

      “Fine,” she relented.

      “Are you really that opposed to spending time in my company?”

      “I’m not opposed at all,” she said. “I’m just not interested.”

      “You sure didn’t kiss me like a woman who was not interested.”

      She glared at him over her shoulder; he just grinned.

      “In fact, you kissed like a woman who enjoys being kissed, and touched and—”

      “I was dizzy from the loss of blood,” she said.

      “You didn’t lose that much blood.” But he picked up her hand, turned it to the light.

      “What are you doing?”

      “It’s called a follow-up exam.”

      Ashley was tempted to make some comment about playing doctor, but decided that any kind of sexual innuendo was inherently dangerous around Cam Turcotte. Instead she said, “Dr. Alex already checked it out and said everything’s fine.”

      “It looks like it’s healing nicely,” he agreed. Then he dipped his head and feathered light kisses along the side of her palm. “How does it feel now?”

      She felt all kinds of things she shouldn’t be feeling, and none of them had anything to do with the fading scar on her hand. “Fine,” she managed.

      “No tightness? No pain?”

      “No.” Not in my hand.

      He smiled, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, but all he said was, “Good.”

      “Eli said you did an exceptional job with the stitches,” she admitted. “That I probably won’t even have much of a scar.”

      “You’ve always had pretty hands. I wanted to make sure they stayed that way.” He lowered her hand but, instead of releasing it, linked their fingers together and led her toward the midway.

      “The parking lot is the other way.”

      “I know. The Ferris wheel is this way.”

      “Aren’t you anxious to get home to Maddie?”

      “She’s spending the night at my parents’ house,” he told her.

      “Oh.”

      “Ferris wheel?” he prompted again.

      She glanced up at the towering wheel, felt a quick jolt of excitement low in her belly, though she wasn’t sure if it was anticipation of the ride or just the excitement of being with Cam. She decided not to question but to go with her instincts.

      “The Ferris wheel sounds like fun,” she agreed.

      He must have purchased tickets earlier, because he pulled two out of his pocket and handed them to the attendant, and they joined the queue. There were only a few people ahead of them—most of the younger crowd preferred rides that offered more thrill—and it only took a few minutes before they were ushered into their car.

      As she slid across the seat to make room for Cam, she thought it seemed smaller than she remembered. Or maybe it was that Cam seemed bigger. Or maybe it was just that her entire body was sizzling with awareness. Whatever the reason, Ashley found herself thinking that she should have nixed his suggestion. But the attendant had already secured the door and the wheel had shifted to load the next car.

      They were only about halfway to the top, slowly making their way round as the cars continued to load, but Ashley felt her tummy drop as she looked down at the crowds below. “I never used to be afraid of heights.”

      “Are you now?”

      “I’m not sure,” she admitted, but thought it probably wasn’t the height so much as the possibility of falling and found herself wondering about maintenance schedules and metal fatigue and other things she’d never considered before. “Do you think this is the same Ferris wheel we used to ride as kids?”

      “It might be,” he teased. “Why—are you worried that the old wheel should be retired?”

      “Maybe.”

      He chuckled and slid his arm across the back of the seat. “Do you remember how we used to ride it over and over again?”

      She nodded.

      “The first time I ever kissed you was at the very top.”

      She remembered that, too, and how she’d thought the drop in her belly was the car moving, until she realized it hadn’t moved at all. That was the day she’d fallen in love with him.

      “I think the local high school boys still lure their girlfriends onto the ride to steal kisses,” she told him.

      “I’m sure it’s not a strategy exclusive to high school kids,” he said, curling his arm around her shoulders.

      She eyed him warily. “Don’t get any ideas.”

      “Too