Starting Now (Blossom Street #9)(24)

“Hot stuff,” she joked.

“Well, it wasn’t for the reason I thought.”

“Oh?” Robin hadn’t heard the outcome and had frankly been curious, but she’d assumed Libby would volunteer the information when she was ready. Libby tended to be as private as Robin was herself.

“He … wanted to tell me he thinks that one of the girls from the yarn store is pregnant and hiding it.”

“An employee?”

“No … it’s either Lydia’s daughter or her friend.”

That gave Robin pause. “They’re just kids.” She remembered seeing them and thinking it was inspiring to see two young teens taking up knitting.

“They’re thirteen,” Libby told her.

Thirteen? Well, it was young, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard of someone that age being pregnant. “He didn’t identify which girl?” Robin asked.

Libby sighed. “No, he got called out of the cafeteria on an emergency. He seemed to think I should know, but I don’t. I like Lydia a lot, but I don’t know if I should say anything.”

“Would you want someone to tell you if it was your daughter?”

Her friend hesitated. “I asked myself the same question and decided I probably would. He seemed a bit uncomfortable bringing up the subject. I’m sure it weighed heavily on his mind or he wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“That’s your answer then,” Robin told her. “If Dr. Stone felt compelled to bring it up, he did it out of concern for the teenager.”

After a moment, Libby agreed. “He was worried she wasn’t getting proper medical care. After thinking about it myself, I wonder if she even knows she’s pregnant.”

“You could be right,” Robin said, and then added, “You need to talk to Lydia.”

Her friend exhaled audibly. “I know … but this isn’t any of my business. It’s awkward, especially since I don’t even know which girl he meant.”

“And to think the girl is only thirteen …”

Robin tried to think of what she’d been like at that age—quiet and shy, withdrawn and studious … in essence, a dork. If the two girls in the yarn store were anything like she was then, they didn’t have a clue about what was happening to their bodies.

A few weeks ago Robin had been in court with a pregnant eleven-year-old girl. She and her stepbrother were being charged with drug crimes. The eleven-year-old had come to the courthouse to testify against her stepbrother, claiming he was the baby’s father and she’d been raped. The stepbrother insisted that the girl had “wanted it” and had offered him her body in exchange for drugs. Hooked on crack, pregnant, and only eleven years old. These were the types of abysmal situations Robin faced daily as a prosecuting attorney. Was it any wonder she’d developed a cynical view of life? It was impossible to avoid, working the cases she did.

“I don’t know if I’m the best person to handle this,” Libby mumbled.

Robin, caught up in her own thoughts, lost track of the conversation.

“If not you, then who?” she asked, and then quickly tagged on a second question. “How well do you know Lydia?”

“Not well … some, I guess,” Libby amended.

“I’d do it myself, but I hardly know Lydia,” Robin offered. “The only time I go into the yarn store is when Mom needs me to pick up yarn for her. Half the time I think it’s an excuse.”

“An excuse?” Libby asked.

“Yes, my mother thinks if I hang around the store enough I’ll catch the knitting bug. Trust me, I’m immune. It’s fine for you and my mother, but I wouldn’t go near a pair of knitting needles if my life depended on it.”

Robin’s mother had recently married her high school sweetheart and moved to Florida. Apparently good yarn stores were few and far between in the Sunshine State. Perhaps this was Ruth’s way of reaching out to her.

Robin knew she’d taken her mother for granted. It wasn’t until Ruth had moved away that Robin realized how much she had liked having her mother around.

Christmas had been awful for her. Her only family in the area had been her twice-divorced brother. Grant had invited her to join him at his son’s place for dinner, but she had declined.

Her mother, Robin had realized too late, was her anchor. Libby had lost her mother when she’d been a young teen. From conversations they’d had in college, Robin knew that when Libby’s mother died, Libby had been cast adrift, lost on an emotional storm-tossed sea. The only time she felt safe was when she immersed herself in a book, or listened to her music. Both had helped her to escape the pain of having lost her mother, of being a motherless child.

It was shortly after that bleak Christmas Day that Robin had started thinking seriously about her future. She didn’t want to be alone again. Like Libby, Robin longed for roots: a husband, children, a purpose.

“I hope I’m not putting you on the spot,” Robin said. She didn’t envy her friend this task. “But it’s obvious you’re going to have to say something to Lydia about all this.”

“I guess you’re right,” Libby mumbled, sounding as though she would do just about anything to get out of it.

Robin reached her car and stood outside the vehicle while she considered the best way for Libby to approach the yarn-store owner.