by Rebecca York
CAN YOU REALLY CHANGE YOUR DESTINY?
The last thing Sara Carter remembers is driving to the hospital in the middle of a snowstorm just as she was going into labor. Skidding…then crashing. When she wakes up, she’s no longer pregnant. More astonishing, the man she loved and lost is still alive. Has Sara been given a second chance to rescue Jack Morgan from his tragic destiny? To save them both?
From the moment Jack meets Sara, he has the feeling he knows her from somewhere. Her first touch awakens long-dormant emotions…and arouses a fierce wave of desire. But how does Sara seem to sense he’s in danger? Whatever twist of fate brought them together, Jack knows he has only one shot at a future: keep them both alive long enough to find out if their love is strong enough to withstand the forces threatening to drive them apart.
“You saved me.”
Sara pressed her mouth to his.
Perhaps in some part of her mind, she had intended it to be a reassuring kiss. Or maybe a simple thank-you.
But as soon as Jack’s lips touched hers, the moment turned frantic.
As he held her in his arms, the realization slammed into her that she might have died.
She started to tremble. He was trembling, too, as he ran his hands over her back, her shoulders, gathering her closer, so that she melted against him.
In this reality they had known each other only a few days. But for Sara it was so much longer.
Maybe in some way he knew that, too.
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Rebecca York
Her Baby’s Father
(Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning, USA TODAY bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of more than one hundred books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also an author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.
Books by Rebecca York
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
706—PHANTOM LOVER*
717—INTIMATE STRANGERS*
745—BOYS IN BLUE
“Jordan”
765—OUT OF NOWHERE*
783—UNDERCOVER ENCOUNTER
828—SPELLBOUND*
885—RILEY’S RETRIBUTION
912—THE SECRET NIGHT*
946—CHAIN REACTION
994—ROYAL LOCKDOWN
1017—RETURN OF THE WARRIOR*
1072—SOLDIER CAGED*
1089—CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
1150—MORE THAN A MAN*
1187—POWERHOUSE
1215—GUARDING GRACE
1256—SOLID AS STEELE*
1327—SUDDEN INSIGHT**
1332—SUDDEN ATTRACTION**
1375—HER BABY’S FATHER
*43 Light Street
**Mindbenders
To Norman,
who is always there for me.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Sara Carter—Have higher powers really given her a second chance to save the life of the man she loves?
Jack Morgan—Will he think Sara is crazy when she tells him the secret she hides?
Pam Reynolds—Is getting ahead as a real estate agent more important than her friendship with Sara?
Ted Morgan—Is he unhappy that his brother came home from Afghanistan to join the family business?
Janet Harrison—Does Ted’s fiancée balk at sharing the Morgan wealth?
Bill Morgan—Does Jack’s father put family or business first?
Carolyn Morgan—It seems apparent Jack’s mother wants to break up Jack’s relationship with Sara.
Tucker Swinton—Someone hired Tucker to kill Jack.
Bonnie Worthington—Does Bonnie want Jack for herself?
Gary Lambert—What does the Morgans’ lawyer have against Sara?
Dick MacDonald—Does Bill Morgan’s broker have something to hide?
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
Epilogue
Excerpt
Chapter One
A sharp, stabbing pain grabbed Sara Carter’s middle, and she gripped the steering wheel tightly, struggling to maintain control of her car.
The contractions were getting more intense and closer together. She’d had a nagging backache since early morning, but hadn’t even realized she was in labor until a gush of water between her legs sent her running to the bathroom.
Even now liquid continued to trickle out of her.
Amniotic fluid, she realized.
The hospital had told her to come in right away, and she thought she had time to get there. It wasn’t even snowing when she left the house. Now it looked like she was inside a giant, freshly shaken snow globe.
“Dear God,” she prayed. “Let me get to the hospital in time. Because nobody’s going to find me out here if I get stuck.”
Doubtless the hospital staff assumed she’d be with her husband. But she didn’t have one. She probably never would. Unless she met a guy who could live up to her memories of Jack Morgan, the father of her child.
At least there were only a few cars on the road. Other motorists had wisely turned back or found shelter. But her only choice was to plow ahead.
She certainly wouldn’t find help at home. The little rented house in the rural end of Howard County, Maryland, was the only thing she could afford at the moment because her savings were dwindling. And she was going to be out of commission for at least a few weeks after she delivered. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, she could get back to work staging houses—making them look their best for potential buyers—on a limited basis. But she was bound to lose a lot of her customers to competitors by turning down jobs.
Life as a new mother would be tough.
Jack’s wealthy family could have helped ease her financial burden, but they’d turned their collective backs on her after his death.
She snorted as she remembered the conversation with Jack’s father when she’d given him the news. If she wanted child support, she’d have to prove paternity with DNA testing. And sue them.
She shuddered. If she did prove the baby was Jack’s, they might try to take him away.
“Never,” she whispered, to the child she carried.
A boy. Named Daniel. He was all she had left of the man she loved, and she would raise him in a way that would have made his father proud.
She didn’t want to think about how hard that was going to be. Instead she let memories of Jack Morgan comfort her. He was the wounded war hero who’d come back from the Naval Medical Center to try to pick up his life.
She’d met him at an expensive house her friend Pam Reynolds was showing. Tara in Howard County, she’d jokingly called it.
His brother had dragged him along to look at the property, and Jack had obviously been annoyed to be there. Maybe she’d seen him as a challenge at first. But the relationship had quickly become important to both of them.
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered as she leaned forward, trying to see through the blinding whiteness ahead of her. “It should have worked out diff
erently. If only you were still here.”
But he wasn’t. And there was no use wishing that her life hadn’t gone careening off the rails in such spectacular fashion. All she could do was make the best of her future.
A future without the man she loved.
Sometimes she wondered how warm, caring Jack Morgan could have come from such a cold, money-obsessed family. But that wasn’t her immediate problem.
Another contraction made her gasp. Pulling to the shoulder, she waited for the clutching pain to diminish. As soon as the contraction subsided enough for her to concentrate, she nosed back onto the road.
Only fifteen minutes to Howard County General Hospital now. Well, maybe under better conditions. Should she stop and call for help? No, she might end up having the baby in the car if she risked waiting here.
“You’re going to make it,” she told herself. Or that was what she thought. Until she came around a curve on Route 108 and saw the pickup truck stalled at the bottom of a hill.
As her car began the long slide toward the disabled vehicle, she frantically turned the wheel, trying to avoid a collision. But the wheels failed to catch on the slick surface, and she felt the car gaining momentum—hurtling her toward disaster.
The bone-rattling impact of the car slamming into the truck stunned her.
Air bag? Where was the air bag?
The moment her forehead smashed against the windshield and glass shattered, she knew she and the baby were going to die.
Sara couldn’t feel her body, but her mind floated somewhere in darkness. Ahead of her, she could see a beautiful golden light. The warmth drew her, but something held her from going there.
A presence hovered around her. No, two of them. They had come to guide her to the light. Where she’d be warm and safe. And all her problems would be gone.
But something was wrong.
She could hear them talking. Arguing.
“It’s not her time.”
“Of course it is. Look at her.”
“I mean, her life wasn’t supposed to work out this way.”
“She shouldn’t have been driving in a snowstorm.”
“She was on her own. It wouldn’t have happened if he’d been with her.”
“He’s long gone.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The one who objected made a dismissive sound. “What are you talking about? We’re not authorized to change history.”
“We can rectify mistakes.”
“Not on our own.”
“She’s got strength and determination. She doesn’t deserve to end this way.”
“Not everybody gets what they deserve.”
“Give her an opportunity to change fate.”
There was a long pause. “We could be making a terrible mistake. We could be punished.”
“It won’t be noticed.”
“You want to take that risk?”
“Look at it this way. Either everything turns out the same again, or she has a chance to change her destiny.”
Chapter Two
In the moment between sleep and waking, Sara remembered hearing voices. Talking about her.
What was it they’d been saying?
She scrabbled to get a sense of the conversation. They’d come to take her to a place that was warm and safe. Where all her troubles would vanish like mist evaporating in the heat of the sun.
Then they’d changed their minds. Or one of them had. When the other had objected, the first one had persuaded him to go along.
Him? Were they men? They had sounded both gentle and commanding. If that was possible.
Before she could decide, she jerked awake. She was in her car. On her way to the hospital?
Could that be right?
Hazy memories swam through her mind, and she struggled to make them come clear.
The last thing she recalled was the car skidding down a long hill on a snow-slick road and crashing into a truck, but that couldn’t be true.
She looked around at tall trees with new green leaves, filtering bright sunlight. Below them were blooming azaleas and carefully planted beds of bright annuals—impatiens and begonias.
Not winter. Spring.
But the snowstorm had seemed so real. Obviously she’d dreamed it.
Disoriented, she struggled to remember why she was here and what she was doing.
Recollections surfaced as she focused on a huge white house with a circular brick drive and Doric columns holding up the two-story front porch. Tara in Howard County, Maryland, she’d called it. Conveniently situated between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
She knew the inside layout of the mansion. Six bedrooms. Six bathrooms. A great room and a kitchen as big as the modest home where she’d grown up. This house was too big for any one family, as far as she was concerned. It was the kind of ostentatious property people bought when they wanted you to know how well they were doing.
It was also way out of her price range, but she wasn’t planning to buy it. She’d been hired to stage the place for an important client, a rush job that had kept her here from early in the morning until early afternoon. Real-estate agent Pam Reynolds was paying extra because she had a live one on the hook.
Sara had worked feverishly to get the property ready, using two of the college students who helped her out part-time when she needed to move big pieces of furniture.
After they’d left, she’d climbed into her car to catch a few minutes of sleep before Pam arrived.
She blinked, still feeling like her brain wasn’t quite engaging with reality. The images and emotions from the vivid dream simply wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t just that she’d been driving through a snowstorm. She’d been on the way to the hospital—because she was having a baby.
A baby! Oh, please. She wasn’t even dating anyone. And she wasn’t the type for one-night stands.
Somehow her unconscious mind must have conjured up that scenario from an old movie or TV show.
But now it was time to get back to the real world.
She pulled down the sun visor and looked at her face in the mirror, fluffing her shoulder-length blond hair a little. Then she stroked on a little lip gloss. She had just slipped the tube back into her purse when a silver Mercedes pulled up in the circular driveway, and Pam got out.
She was tall and fit, with a halo of ash-blond hair, and was wearing a tailored pantsuit today.
Smiling, she came over to Sara’s car. “Are we all set?”
“I think so,” Sara answered, hoping it was true.
“Thanks for the rush job. I appreciate it.”
Sara climbed out and shut the door, then, as she stood beside the car, she looked down at her body, expecting to see the swollen belly and big breasts that had been the hallmarks of her advanced pregnancy. Instead she was lithe and slim in jeans, a yellow T-shirt and tennis shoes. Her work clothes.
She should get out of here before Pam’s high-priced client arrived.
Her breath caught. No. She needed to stay because this was the day…
The thought trailed off in confusion again as she tried to remember what was so important.
“Let’s take a look,” Pam was saying. “I always love to see your work. Did you use that antique armoire that I admired so much?”
“I think so.”
Pam peered at her. “You look a little…pale. Are you feeling okay?”
“A little sleep deprived, I guess.”
“Sorry I got you up so early.”
“It’s okay.”
Pam wiped her palm on a pants leg in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “I’m glad you’re here. Since that murder last week, I’ve felt kind of spooked, staying in a vacant house by myself.”
Murder? Sara scrambled to dredge up what Pam was referring to, then remembered that a woman real-estate agent had been raped and murdered in an empty house where she’d been waiting to meet a client. The man had showed up and taken advantage of the isolated location. So far the cop
s had no leads, and it seemed all of the women in the local real-estate business were on edge.
Sara had thought about that when she’d been working at this three-acre property early in the morning. But Peter and Brad had been here most of the time. They’d only left a little while ago—and taken her truck back to the warehouse space where she stored the furniture and knickknacks she used in her work.
The real-estate agent hurried up the front steps and stepped into the house.
Sara followed more slowly, marveling at how much easier it was to walk without all the extra weight of advanced pregnancy. She’d forgotten how it felt not to be dragging around the equivalent of a couple of gallon jugs of water.
No, wait. Had she really been pregnant? She was still having trouble sorting reality from…what?
Not a dream. More like a different reality.
When Pam glanced back, Sara hurried to catch up. Inside, her gaze swept over the work that she’d completed this morning, starting with the antique side table that she’d centered along one wall of the large foyer. On the polished surface sat a whimsical elephant lamp and one of the orchids that she kept in the greenhouse in the back of a friend’s garage. They were easy to grow, bloomed for months and always added a touch of elegance.
On the wall was an ornate mirror that she’d patched up with spackling compound and refinished herself.
Finding and fixing up pieces that would work as part of the rooms she furnished was both her skill and her pleasure.
“The elephant’s a nice touch,” Pam remarked. “Garage sale or auction?”
“Garage sale. The base was coming off, but I superglued it back together. Love that stuff.”
Pam headed for the kitchen where Sara had used Dansk Kobenstyle casseroles, tall glass jars of preserved herbs and red-and-white-checkered dish towel accents. The round table was set with more garage-sale plates and goblets. The centerpiece was a bowl of mixed citrus fruit.
Pam eyed the display. “Aren’t those old casseroles expensive? Where did you find them?”
She was glad Pam had asked. The questions about her work were tying her more firmly to the present. And she was relieved to discover that the answer came more easily than she might have expected. “On eBay. I get ones that have hard use and fix them up.”