Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever GirlMoonlight in ParisWife by Design
Page 57
She glanced at the keys on the seat beside her, hooked on a ring neatly labeled Rylant, Ranch House. What would the old house be like? Ruth had moved to Reno ten years ago—what had she left behind? And in what state? The will had promised Samantha four thousand acres of ranch: barns, house, outbuildings “and all items found on the premises therein.” She hoped some of those items included furniture or it was going to be a long night.
Copyright © 2014 by Claire Haiken
ISBN-13: 9781460326046
MOONLIGHT IN PARIS
Copyright © 2014 by Pamela Hearon Hodges
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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When life hands you lemons…
You make lemonade. That’s what Lynn Duncan believes. A single mother and nurse practitioner, she works at The Lemonade Stand, a unique women’s shelter supported by various businesses. These include a physiotherapy service, where Grant Bishop, a landscape designer, takes his disabled brother.
When Grant and Lynn first meet they’re intensely attracted to each other—but they don’t see a future for themselves. They’re too committed to the people they need to protect. For Lynn that’s three-year-old Kara and the residents at TLS. And Grant will sacrifice anything for his brother. That might have to include a relationship with Lynn….
“Mr. Bishop?”
Turning, Grant recognized the woman approaching him at once. Her long hair was pulled back from her face, but the warm glow in her eyes was just as he’d remembered.
He’d told himself he’d imagined the woman’s effect on him the last time they’d met—four years before. She’d had a wedding ring on back then. She didn’t now.
“Lynn,” he said. She held out her hand. He took it. And didn’t want to let go.
“You don’t remember me,” he said, quickly shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he faced her in the empty, fluorescent-lit hallway. He’d heard that The Lemonade Stand was beautiful, a haven, resortlike. The commercial beige tile and white walls didn’t give him that impression.
“I do, actually,” she said. “Now that I see you. I recognized your name when you called, but I wasn’t sure why. You’re the one with the brother. Darin, right?”
“I’m impressed.” Grant smiled. “You were his nurse for one day. You’ve got a good memory.”
“Darin was memorable. So what can I do for you?” Lynn asked, that not-quite-smile he’d remembered curving her lips, and hitting him where a guy only liked to be hit when he could do something about it.
He’d hoped she’d remember him, too, and she had. More important, she’d remembered his brother. With enough affection to pull strings and get Darin into their physiotherapy program?
The Lemonade Stand was the only option he had. This had to work.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to The Lemonade Stand. Life hands all of us challenges; happiness comes through the choices we make in the face of those challenges. And sometimes the choice that brings happiness is the decision to reach out for help.
I know that sometimes life feels as though there are no options left. No hope for true joy.
And then there’s a place like The Lemonade Stand, a very special shelter for women. More than a shelter. It’s a place that shows women that they have the right to be happy. Wife by Design is the first of a series called Where Secrets Are Safe—and that refers to both the secrets that some women hide before they come to the Stand and the secrets, the hidden selves, they’re able to reveal and explore once they’re there. I am deeply committed to these books. And to the hope that the decent men and women at The Lemonade Stand have to offer. There is true joy and deeply peaceful happiness available to every one of us.
Because, after all, when life hands you lemons, you can choose to make lemonade!
Please let me know what you think of this book. And join me in the fight against domestic violence, which afflicts a shocking number of women in this country and worldwide. You can reach me at www.tarataylorquinn.com.
Tara Taylor Quinn
WIFE BY DESIGN
Tara Taylor Quinn
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With sixty-five original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is a winner of the 2008 National Readers’ Choice Award, four-time finalist for the RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for the Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers’ Best Award and the Holt Medallion, and she appears regularly on Amazon bestseller lists. Tara Taylor Quinn is a past president of the Romance Writers of America and served for eight years on its board of directors. She is in demand as a public speaker and has appeared on television and radio shows across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. Tara is a spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and she and her husband, Tim, sponsor an annual in-line skating race in Phoenix to benefit the fight against domestic violence.
When she’s not at home in Arizona with Tim and their canine owners, Jerry Lee and Taylor Marie, or fulfilling speaking engagements, Tara spends her time traveling and in-line skating.
Books by Tara Taylor Quinn
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
1309—THE PROMISE OF CHRISTMAS
1350—A CHILD’S WISH
1381—MERRY CHRISTMAS, BABIES
1428—SARA’S SON
1446—THE BABY GAMBLE
1465—THE VALENTINE GIFT
“Valentine’s Daughters”
1500—TRUSTING RYAN
1527—THE HOLIDAY VISITOR
1550—SOPHIE’S SECRET*
1584—A DAUGHTER’S TRUST
1656—THE FIRST WIFE**
1726—FULL CONTACT*
1793—A SON’S TALE***
1811—A DAUGHTER’S STORY***
1829—THE TRUTH ABOUT COMFORT COVE***
1853—IT’S NEVER TOO LATE*
1877—SECOND TIME’S THE CHARM*
1889—THE MOMENT OF TRUTH*
HARLEQUIN SINGLE TITLE
SHELTERED IN HIS ARMS
HARLEQUIN EVERLASTING LOVE
THE NIGHT WE MET
HARLEQUIN MIRA
WHERE THE ROAD ENDS
STREET SMART
HIDDEN
IN PLAIN SIGHT
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
AT CLOSE RANGE
THE SECOND LIE**
THE THIRD SECRET**
THE FOURTH VICTIM**
*Shelter Valley Stories
**Chapman Files
***It Happened in Comfort Cove
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
To the women whose pictures line the wall of my private office at The Lemonade Stand:
Penny Gumser, Phyllis Pawloski, Leeanne Williams, Patricia Potter, Lynn Kerstan, Kim Barney and Paula Eykelhof.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Three years earlier
“WE HAVE TO TALK.”
Glancing from the baby in her arms to the man standing in the doorway of their bedroom, Lynn nodded. Brandon had been acting odd since before Kara was born, moving into the spare bedroom ostensibly so his tossing and turning didn’t make Lynn more uncomfortable than she already was.
And now five weeks after their daughter’s birth, he was still using the spare room.
“Come on in.” She patted the bed beside her. The baby had just finished her 9:00 p.m. feeding and should sleep until midnight. Lynn had napped that afternoon. She could manage without more rest. And even if she couldn’t, she would. Brandon was her life—and was obviously having a hard time adjusting to sharing their world.
At least, she prayed that was the problem.
He joined her on the bed, and she placed his pillow against the headboard so he could sit propped up beside her. Ignoring the pillow, he turned his gaze to Kara and remained seated on the edge of the bed. The sadness in his smile scared her.
“Brandon? What’s going on?” They’d been best friends since the ninth grade. Knew everything about each other.
He looked from her to Kara. “She’s perfect, Lynn. Everything we hoped and more...”
But? She heard it there. His chin taut, he stared silently at the baby.
“You want to hold her?”
Nodding, he reached for the soft, blanketed bundle sleeping against her. Cradling Kara’s body easily on one arm, the baby’s head safely nestled between his biceps and chest, Brandon looked comfortable, natural, as though this was his fifth child, not his first.
His gentleness, as always, touched her deeply.
“She’s great, isn’t she?” he said, his voice thick with emotion. Reminding her of their wedding day, of standing at the front of the church that was filled to capacity with their friends and loved ones and hearing the catch in his voice as he vowed to love her forever. There’d been no mistaking his sincerity. Listening to him, she’d known very clearly that he spoke a truth beyond words. Brandon’s love was real. The kind that came from someplace more powerful than the human mind or heart. From that point on she’d never worried that they’d make it. She’d known their marriage was safe.
Taking comfort in the memory, Lynn smiled. Nodded. “Yeah,” she said, loving the sight of her engineer husband holding their infant daughter. “We made a beautiful baby, Bran, just like we always said we would.”
Looking at Brandon, she waited for him to raise his eyes to her—for their eyes to meet in the silent communication that had been their gift even in high school. The private smile that soothed her deepest fears. Or made her heart race, depending on the moment.
Brandon didn’t look up. And her heart raced. With fear. “Hon, what’s the matter?”
Had Kara’s advent into their lives created a gap between them? She’d read about the possibility. About husbands feeling rejected, neglected, a little jealous even.
“She hardly ever cries,” he said. “I expected a lot more crying.”
“We’re lucky she’s not colicky.” Any other time Lynn would have been happiest sitting with Brandon, talking about their baby.
“Diaper changing is a breeze, too,” he said. From day one Brandon had insisted on being a full contributing partner in their daughter’s life. Apart from the feedings that, biologically, he couldn’t manage. “A lot easier than those plastic dolls they made us practice on.”
He’d knocked the baby stand-in onto the floor the first time he’d tried to get the slippery disposable diaper fastened around it. She grinned, remembering. He didn’t.
Kissing the top of the sleeping baby’s head, Brandon transferred their daughter gently back to Lynn, still not meeting her gaze.
If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d just said goodbye.
Feeling desperate, she said, “I was thinking maybe we should plan a night out, just the two of us, next weekend. It’s my six-week mark.”
The doctor had said they could start having sex again at six weeks postbirth.
“Lynn, we need to talk.”
Suddenly she didn’t want to continue with her attempt to draw him out. She was tired. Postpartum.
And...Brandon was struggling. Of course she had to listen. Just like he always listened to her. Every time.
She was waiting. He still wasn’t talking. She drew strength from the baby in her arms. Those sweet little lips. The eyelids that were closed to a world that could be so confusing at times. Flushed cheeks and little hands clenched into fists, even in rest. “Do you still love me, Bran?”
His gaze shot to hers. Finally. “You know I do.”
He looked away immediately, but that depth of emotion was there in his voice again. His words trembled with it.
He wasn’t a macho man’s man, like her little sister Katie’s ex-husband had been. But Brandon had never lifted a hand to her, either, or attempted to control her, as Katie’s ex had done to Katie.
Taking Brandon’s hand in hers, she held it between them on the bed, focusing wholly on him while the baby lay sleeping against her breast. “And you know I love you,” she told her husband of eight years. “We’ll be fine, Bran, just please tell me what’s bothering you.”
As she said the words, fear struck anew. The one thing that had always made her and Brandon so good together was their ability to talk things out. They’d always been able to tell each other anything. And everything. Until then.
“We aren’t going to be fine, Lynn.” It was the tears in his eyes, when he finally held her gaze, that cut through her, far more than the death knell in his words. Words could change.
His sandy-blond hair, short and pristine, just as he’d always liked it, made him seem vulnerable to her in that moment. Exposed. The rest of him—his tight, in-shape, average-height body—just seemed dear.
Laying the baby in the basinet beside the bed, she moved over on the mattress to sit directly facing her husband. “Are you sick, Brandon?” Had someone given him a frightening prognosis? Just now, when they were embarking on the challenge of a lifetime with their new offspring to raise? “You know doctors aren’t always right, hon. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. Get second opinions and treatment...” If she just kept talking everything would be all right. She was a nurse. She’d nurse him.
With a finger against her lips, Brandon shook his head. “You can’t fix this one, babe.”
Babe. He hadn’t called her that in a while. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m scaring me, too.”
“Is it cancer?”
Whatever was wrong, it was so awful that he
r husband didn’t know how to tell her about. So she’d help him. Guess all night if she had to. She’d said they’d get through it together and they would. She’d show him. She had enough faith for both of them. They just had to—
“No, it’s not cancer,” Brandon said, shifting so that no part of him was touching any part of her. The movement was subtle. Moving a knee. But she noticed. “I’m not sick,” he added.
“Then what?” His expression, no matter how hard she studied it, told her nothing. Except that he was hurting.
She racked her brain, trying to think of anything that had happened, anything she might have missed. Tried to figure out when the problem had started. And still drew blanks.
It had to have something to do with Kara. Everything had been fine...normal...until shortly before the baby was born.
The baby was fine. Not only had all the doctors said so, but as a nurse, Lynn would know if something was wrong with her infant daughter. Kara had a healthy appetite. Slept well. And, as her father had just pointed out, didn’t cry much at all.
She was fine. Kara was fine. Which, in her mind, only left one other possibility. “There’s another woman.” While she’d been fat and pregnant, and uncomfortable and unable to have sex, he’d met someone else....
“No! Whatever else happens, Lynnie, you always have been and always will be the only woman I ever wanted or had sex with.”
There was no mistaking the truth in those words. They spoke straight to her heart. Breathing a little easier, Lynn reached for his hand again. “Just tell me, hon.” They were a team. Partners. For better or worse. “Things always seem worse until you get them out.”
His family was close by. And hers had visited twice since the baby’s birth. They’d help with whatever the problem was.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he was tired of both sets of parents camping out on their doorstep now that Kara was there.