by Jill Kemerer
And then it was.
You’re overreacting. People take pictures of the girls all the time.
They did. The sight of identical triplets made folks pause and sometimes even squeal in delight; a weird way for the girls to grow up, in his opinion. But they couldn’t isolate them, and it was a reaction they would probably deal with for a long time to come.
But to take shots of someone else’s kids from a distance with what looked like a progressive lens wasn’t normal. And because he was over the moon in love with these three little ones, his reaction might be a little over the top, too.
The tall, slim photographer hadn’t noticed him. Since he’d caught sight of her, she hadn’t taken her camera or her gaze off the girls, and that was enough to spike his protective instincts to a whole other level.
Renzo looped around the curving sidewalk toward Park Road, and when he got closer, he turned and made a beeline for the woman, across the grass, wishing he was in uniform. He wasn’t, but he had no problem flashing his badge and letting her know that he didn’t appreciate people taking liberty with the sweet orphans that had been entrusted to their family. They wouldn’t be orphans for much longer, once his parents’ adoption application was approved.
The grass muted his footfalls. He stopped directly behind her.
Click! Click! Click!
The auto-take on the pricey camera shot in rapid succession, and the camera never shifted when a couple of other kids raced onto the playground equipment. It stayed right there, aimed directly at Kristi, Chloe and Naomi. He folded his arms, braced his legs and cleared his throat loudly.
That got her attention.
She whirled around, surprised.
And then he was the one surprised. Looking back at him from an absolutely lovely face was the image of Jenn Drew, the girls’ mother. Golden, wavy hair. Golden-brown eyes. Pale skin without a hint of freckle. Except Jenn had passed away over three years ago. He stared at her.
She stared right back, then set the camera on a leather satchel, straightened and faced him. “Is there a problem?”
Yes, there was a problem because there was no way the resemblance he saw could be coincidental. In fact, if he hadn’t known Jenn so well, he’d have mistaken this woman for her. And how could that be?
Stop. Think like a cop.
“You’re taking pictures of our girls. Without permission.” He watched her eyes widen at the term “our girls.” “Why?”
“Your girls?” She frowned without really frowning, a neat trick, something Jenn had been able to do, too. “You’re their father?”
A warning thrum climbed his spine. “You answered my question with a question. Clever, but it’s not going to work. Why are you in the park taking pictures of them? It’s a simple enough request.”
Simple, yes. But there was nothing simple about her response.
“Because I am their Aunt Sarah.” She faced him full-on, calm and cool. “Dr. Sarah Brown from Seattle Children’s Hospital. Their mother, Jenn Drew, was my sister and I’ve come to claim what’s mine.”
Renzo’s heart went tight. His palms grew damp, and he swiped them against the sides of his jeans. “Jenn had no sisters.”
“No known sisters, I suppose.” The incredibly beautiful woman kept her gaze on his. She seemed calm while he was the opposite of calm because the thought of the girls being wrenched away from his family was preposterous. They were on the verge of having the adoption finalized. “And while this was as much a surprise to me as it is to you, I can assure you that DNA evidence doesn’t lie. At some point Jenn Drew submitted a DNA sample to a research company. This year, a group of my friends and I did the same thing. When I received my results, I discovered my closest relative, a full sister, was living two hours from me, and I never knew she existed.”
“Why would your parents give away a child?” It made no sense to Renzo. Why give away one daughter and keep the other? Who would do something like that?
Her response cleared up that question. “Our biological mother put us up for adoption thirty-four years ago. Because of the high demand for infants, the adoption agency split us up. Neither family was made aware of the other girl’s existence. I initiated an investigation as soon as I realized I had a sister, and soon found out that she was gone before I even had a chance to know her. To love her.” She hoisted the slim folder from her satchel. “But now my goal is to regain control of our lives and our destinies, Mr....?”
He didn’t extend his hand. If this was someone else’s story, he’d be more compassionate, but it wasn’t. He and his parents had raised the girls from birth. He needed to think, and not pretend an empathy he didn’t have. “Detective Lorenzo Calloway. Grant County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Well, Detective Calloway.” Her firm tone didn’t give an inch of deference to his position or title. “While I’m sorry to surprise you with all of this—”
“Odd, you don’t sound sorry,” he mused purposely, watching for her reaction and when she gave it, she surprised him again.
“But I am.” She kept her eyes on his, then indicated Kristi, Chloe and Naomi with a wave. “For thirty-four years Jenn and I had no knowledge of each other. It was a blessing that we both had good homes, but we didn’t have the one thing we truly deserved. A chance to know one another. We were separated like a litter of puppies.” She jutted her chin toward the girls. “I was robbed of the chance to know my sister. To love her. I intend to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Seeing this through her point of view didn’t just spur his compassion. It magnified it. “I don’t downplay the stupidity of an agency that did that. My family has provided foster care for over twenty years, and we’ve taken in several sibling groups. The thought of separating brothers and sisters is repugnant. Which is why Jenn’s daughters are on the ranch, because my parents would have never let them be separated. And Jenn loved us.”
Her face relaxed.
He didn’t let the change of expression fool him, though. Being a cop taught him to avoid overspeak. When talking potential lawsuits, less was more. He nodded toward the playground. “You need to meet my mother. My father. And the girls.”
“You think that having me come and see what a happy little family your parents have provided will change my goal.” She aimed a pointed look at him. “I can assure you, it won’t.” She wasn’t tall now that he was up close, but not petite, either. Probably five foot six, and wearing heels and a classy outfit that made her stand out in their small town of Golden Grove in Central Washington. Jenn had been easygoing and casual. A physician’s assistant in nearby Wenatchee.
Despite the physical resemblance with Jenn, this woman was neither easygoing nor casual, and that made her seem more formidable. “Look.” He folded his arms. She noted the gesture with one slightly arched brow “You’re understandably upset.”
That statement got his first full-on reaction. She rolled her eyes, impatient. “I get that. And I get that you probably have decades of anger issues that you’d like to unload on me right about now.”
“I am not angry. I am determined.”
“Right.” He wasn’t going to fight with her. He knew the value of time in police work. A good interrogation was never hurried, and the suspect should be made comfortable.
Initially, that is.
And then maybe not so comfortable as time went on.
He hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. If what she said was true, she and Jenn had been dealt a raw deal over three decades ago, but he’d learned one firm lesson dealing with life and police work: life wasn’t always fair. Sometimes the wrong things happened and you learned to live with it or let it pull you into the abyss.
He’d learned to sidestep the abyss a long time ago. “Come to the ranch tonight. I’ll explain to my mother—”
“That woman is your mother?” She indicated his mother on the bench.
“Yes. And while she will welcome you because that’s the kind of woman she is, I will be more careful in my assessment, Dr. Brown, because that’s the kind of cop I am. And if you want to meet the girls, you’ll do it on my terms. Or wait your turn in court.”
Lorenzo had grown up fishing the creeks, rivers and reservoirs of the Columbian Plateau. Reeling in a big catch wasn’t done quickly. It was teased in, bit by bit until the fish was too tired to resist. It was a ploy he used in police work on a regular basis.
There was nothing regular about this new development, but he knew his mother. She’d want to meet Dr. Sarah Brown and befriend her. And no matter how much he might advise against that, his mother would brush off his concerns and welcome the girls’ newfound relative. Even if it meant she’d come to take the girls away.
His mother was blessed with a gentle heart.
Time and experience had hardened his, so when Sarah finally acquiesced with a slight nod, he began planning his next move: find out every detail he could about her. No one skated through life perfectly. Everyone had an Achilles’ heel. His job would be to find hers and use it as needed.
He pulled out his phone. “Give me your number and I’ll call so you’ve got me in your contact list.”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second, as if unsure of his intentions, but wasn’t this how everyone connected these days?
She reeled off the number. He sent her a quick text with his parents’ address. “Six o’clock good?”
She’d turned back toward the girls and her expression had gone soft. It morphed into full professional mode when she redirected her attention to him. “That’s fine.”
“Then I’ll see you in about two hours.”
A flash of uncertainty told him she wasn’t as invulnerable as she liked to appear.
A weak spot.
Good.
He walked away. Yes, he was setting her up purposely and he was pretty sure she knew it. But it wasn’t what your opponent knew. It was how they defended their position. It was—
He gave himself a mental smackdown.
This wasn’t a case on his crime docket. This was family, three children who’d become part of the Calloways nearly four years before. Children they loved as their own, who could logistically be taken away with Sarah Brown’s surprise appearance. Given her story, how could he prevent that from happening?
And worse...
Should he?
* * *
A cop.
And not just any cop. A detective. That meant he’d go full bore, checking her out.
Let him check. Sarah had absolutely nothing to hide.
She slipped her camera into the leather messenger pouch her parents had gifted her when she graduated from med school ten years ago. She hadn’t wanted a typical bag, and they’d laughed because they knew her. Loved her. And they still loved her, even with her current quest to find out more about her displaced family.
They didn’t know about this new twist, though. Her long-lost sister and three nieces. She’d kept that to herself purposely. Her parents would be furious to discover she had a sister who had been placed elsewhere. They’d noted way back when that they’d been open to a sibling group.
She’d tell them when she knew more. Right now she was on a fact-finding mission, the same kind of thing she did when figuring out the best way to handle the delicate interventions on premature babies. As a neonatologist, she faced joy and sorrow on a regular basis, but these days there were more successes in the NICU, and something about coaxing the tiniest babies into a state of wellness rejuvenated her.
She’d taken long-unused vacation time to find out whatever she could and set her plan for the girls in motion. No matter what, those children should be raised by one of their own. Someone from their family. And she was the only one who could do that. Her DNA search had turned up several probable cousins in the heartland, but no one closer. That meant she was it. She had the education and the means to provide for them, and the love. And she was their aunt, their next of kin, only no one had known that at the time.
They’d know it now.
The cop had gone around the park. He was approaching his mother.
Sarah didn’t want their first contact to be over the expanse of green grass. She tucked her satchel over her arm and crossed to her white SUV, but peeked back as she opened the door. From this distance the seated woman shouldn’t be able to see her.
But the son could.
She waved to him, a friendly gesture. Then climbed into her vehicle.
Let him ponder that, she decided. She drove to a coffee shop and bakery in Wenatchee, ordered a latte with an extra shot of much-needed espresso, and a beautiful layer cake to bring to the Calloway house.
Nerves made her hands shake.
Her hands never shook. They couldn’t. She dealt with the tiniest of babies in the neonatal ward, but today, the thought of seeing her nieces unnerved her.
She sipped the coffee.
It burned her tongue. Her fault for ordering it extra hot, then sipping too soon.
She was hungry, but didn’t dare eat. Stress always messed with her digestion and the cop unnerved her.
She could admit that now that she was on her own. He wasn’t the kind of person a smart woman shrugged off, and not because of his ridiculous good looks. Yeah, she’d noticed the sky blue eyes, dark, wavy hair and thick eyebrows.
Dark Irish. Like her adoptive grandmother, Grace Harrigan.
She puffed a cooling breath over the top of her latte and wanted to cry.
Sarah Brown never cried. She stared at the coffee and the pretty boxed cake and fought back tears. Then she did what she probably should have done weeks before.
She called her mother. Lindsay Brown might not look like her, with her short dark hair and big brown eyes, but she loved her. So why was she trying to do this on her own?
Stupidly independent.
An old boyfriend had used that phrase as he walked out on her over two years before.
She didn’t hate him because he left. She’d hated that he was right and that she couldn’t seem to forge a real relationship with anyone.
When her mother answered the phone, Sarah spilled it all and cried the whole time she did.
“I’m on my way.”
Sarah had taken an outdoor patio table at the café, facing outward so no one would notice her or hear her. “Mom, no...”
“Yes,” her mother replied. “Sarah, you have lived your life with such strength, and I don’t doubt you can handle anything that comes your way, but you weren’t the only person wronged by that agency. I am beyond furious and while your dad has to stay here, I am retired. Give me the name of your hotel, and I’ll book a room and be on my way in twenty minutes. Do you want to put off your meeting with them tonight?”
“No.” She swabbed her eyes and blew her nose. Both gestures helped her regain control. “I’ll meet with them, and I’ll be strong because I know you’ll be waiting when I get back. And it’s not a hotel. I rented a temporary apartment.”
“Text me the address and I’ll put it in my GPS.”
“I will. And Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, darling. No thanks needed. We’ve got this.”
She hung up the phone and went back to the apartment to freshen up, and then, at quarter to six, she put the cake and her bag in the car and followed the directions to the Calloways’ home. When she crested a hill, an expanse of black and red cattle splayed out before her. Loud, raucous cattle, bleating and bawling, just beyond a sign that read Welcome to Calloway Ranch. She turned into the drive.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for the mass of crying cows on one side of the road and what looked like a huge herd of others on the opposite side, two fences up.
Hundred
s of cows, calling to one another.
And every one of them looked desperately unhappy. What kind of place was this?
Copyright © 2020 by Ruth M. Blodgett
Love Harlequin romance?
DISCOVER.
Be the first to find out about promotions, news and exclusive content!
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
Instagram.com/HarlequinBooks
Pinterest.com/HarlequinBooks
ReaderService.com
EXPLORE.
Sign up for the Harlequin e-newsletter and download a free book from any series at
TryHarlequin.com
CONNECT.
Join our Harlequin community to share your thoughts and connect with other romance readers!
Facebook.com/groups/HarlequinConnection
ISBN-13: 9781488060458
The Cowboy’s Christmas Blessings
Copyright © 2020 by Ripple Effect Press, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at [email protected].
Love Inspired
22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
www.Harlequin.com