Free Mixed Blessings by Danielle Steel Page A

ever.

    "I've got something to tell you." Nancy grinned as she ate great goopy forkfuls of the cake and whipped cream while Pilar watched her.

    "I've got something to tell you too. If you eat enough desserts like that, you're going to weigh three hundred pounds by Christmas." She was mildly horrified but amused, too; in some ways Nancy was still such a little girl. And she looked like one as she grinned impishly at Pilar and devoured another huge glob of cake and whipped cream, and then another.

    "I'm going to get fat anyway," she said wickedly as Pilar sipped her coffee.

    "Oh, yeah? How come? Too many bonbons and TV? I keep telling you, even though your father says I should mind my own business, that you should go to work. Do something even charity work . . . get out of the house . . . get busy..."

    "I'm having a baby," Nancy interrupted softly, smiling at her stepmother victoriously. It was like a great mystery she had solved, or a secret that only she had, as Pilar watched her in amazement.

    "You are?" Pilar hadn't even thought of that. She was such a baby herself that she didn't seem ready for a child of her own, and yet she was twenty-six, the same age Pilar had been when she met Bradford, sixteen years before, almost half a lifetime.

    "You're pregnant?" Why did that seem so incredible to her? she wondered afterward. But it did. It seemed absurd. And impossible to imagine.

    "The baby's due in June. We wanted to be sure everything was okay before I told you. I'm three months pregnant."

    "Wow!" Pilar sat back and stared at her. "I'm speechless."

    Babies were so much not a part of her life that she never even thought about them, or she hadn't, until that morning. "Are you happy, sweetheart?" Or scared? Or mad? What did one feel? What was it like? She couldn't even imagine it, and had never wanted to. She had never been able to understand that particular craving. If anything, her earnest desire had been not to have them.

    "I'm very happy, and Tommy's been just terrific." Her husband was twenty-eight years old, and working at IBM. He had a good job, and he would probably be a very good father, but to Pilar and Brad, they always seemed like such children. In some ways, even Todd, her younger brother, always seemed more mature than they did. "It's really wonderful. Except in the beginning I was sick, but now I'm fine," she said simply, polishing off the last of the chocolate decadence as Pilar watched her in fascination.

    "Would you like another one?" Pilar said in jest, and Nancy nodded in answer.

    "Sure."

    "Nancy Coleman, don't you dare! You'll weigh two hundred pounds by the time you have the baby."

    "I can hardly wait." The younger woman grinned, and Pilar laughed as she reached for the check, and then leaned over to kiss her.

    "Good for you, sweetheart. I'm happy for you both. Your dad is certainly going to be impressed. This is his first grandchild."

    "I know. We thought we'd come by and tell him on the weekend. Don't say anything to him till then, okay?"

    "Of course not. I wouldn't spoil the surprise." But it struck her odd that the little girl who had once so vehemently objected to her now told her her most intimate secrets. There was some kind of symmetry in that, or irony at least. They had indeed come full circle.

    They left each other outside the restaurant, and Pilar went back to her office after that, grinning to herself. People wanted to know if she and Brad wanted kids, and instead they were having a grandchild.

    Eventually, she forgot about Nancy's news and concentrated on her work.
    It was a long, tiring day, and she was relieved when Brad picked her up and offered to take her out to dinner. She left her car in the garage, and she was grateful not to have to go home and cook. They had a quiet dinner at Louie's Restaurant instead, and he was in an excellent mood as he ordered their dinner.

    "What happened to you today?" she inquired with a wry smile, as she sat back in her seat and began to