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Father Found
Muriel Jensen
Three identical sisters, three handsome bachelors and one enchanted night–nine months later, one woman is about to become a mother, but WHO'S THE DADDY?Finally, the father is revealed!Augusta Ames woke up in a hospital room with no memory of who she was–or how she'd gotten pregnant! Then one night a handsome stranger came to her, stated they were married and whisked her away. It was for her own good, he'd said. She had to trust him. But trusting him meant giving her heart to a man she didn't remember….Bram Bishop couldn't tell Augusta the truth–he wasn't her husband, but he was her baby's father. Somehow he'd have to remind her of all they'd planned for their future. But if her memory never returned, he had to make her fall in love with him–all over again!
“You lied to me.”
“Some of it was true,” Bram disputed.
“You told me I proposed to you,” Augusta said, “and that isn’t true. I remember clearly that you proposed, and I turned you down because I was afraid we’d be incompatible.”
“Yes, the schoolteacher and the spy. It seemed like it shouldn’t make sense. But love isn’t a logical thing. Remember the night before I left? We had just made love and you were crying because I had to leave. Remember what you said to me?”
She tried to put the scene together. “I don’t think I could live without you now,” she said aloud, hearing their voice in her head and repeating the words.
“That’s right. And what did you say after that? It was very direct.”
Augusta groaned. “I asked you to marry me.”
“Yes, you did,” he said with obvious satisfaction. “I didn’t lie about that.”
“But you did lie when you told me we were married three days after we had our blood tests.”
“I dreamed,” he corrected….
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Harlequin American Romance…where each month we offer four wonderful new books bursting with love!
Linda Randall Wisdom kicks off the month with Bride of Dreams, the latest installment in the RETURN TO TYLER series, in which a handsome Native American lawman is undeniably drawn to the pretty and mysterious new waitress in town. Watch for the Tyler series to continue next month in Harlequin Historicals. Next, a lovely schoolteacher is in for a big surprise when she wakes up in a hospital with no memory of her past—or how she’d gotten pregnant. Meet the last of the three identical sisters in Muriel Jensen’s WHO’S THE DADDY? series in Father Found.
Bestselling author Judy Christenberry’s Rent a Millionaire Groom launches Harlequin American Romance’s new series, 2001 WAYS TO WED, about three best friends searching for Mr. Right who turn to a book guaranteed to help them make it to the altar. IDENTITY SWAP, Charlotte Douglas’s new cross-line series, debuts with Montana Mail-Order Wife. In this exciting story, two women involved in a train accident switch identities and find much more than they bargained for. Follow the series next month in Harlequin Intrigue.
Enjoy this month’s offerings, and make sure to return each and every month to Harlequin American Romance!
Wishing you happy reading,
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
Harlequin American Romance
Father Found
Muriel Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Patricia Teal, agent and good friend
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Muriel Jensen and her husband, Ron, live in Astoria, Oregon, in an old Four-Square Victorian at the mouth of the Columbia River. They share their home with a golden retriever/golden Labrador mix named Amber, and five cats who moved in with them without an invitation. (Muriel insists that a plate of Friskies and a bowl of water are not an invitation!)
They also have three children and their families in their lives—a veritable crowd of the most interesting people and children. In addition, they have irreplaceable friends, wonderful neighbors and “a life they know they don’t deserve but love desperately anyway.”
Books by Muriel Jensen
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
73—WINTER’S BOUNTY
119—LOVERS NEVER LOSE
176—THE MALLORY TOUCH
200—FANTASIES AND MEMORIES
219—LOVE AND LAVENDER
244—THE DUCK SHACK AGREEMENT
267—STRINGS
283—SIDE BY SIDE
321—A CAROL CHRISTMAS
339—EVERYTHING
392—THE MIRACLE
414—RACING WITH THE MOON
425—VALENTINE HEARTS AND FLOWERS
464—MIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW
478—ONE AND ONE MAKES THREE
507—THE UNEXPECTED GROOM
522—NIGHT PRINCE
534—MAKE-BELIEVE MOM
549—THE WEDDING GAMBLE
569—THE COURTSHIP OF DUSTY’S DADDY
603—MOMMY ON BOARD* (#litres_trial_promo)
606—MAKE WAY FOR MOMMY* (#litres_trial_promo)
610—MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOMMY!* (#litres_trial_promo)
654—THE COMEBACK MOM
669—THE PRINCE, THE LADY & THE TOWER
688—KIDS & CO.* (#litres_trial_promo)
705—CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY
737—DADDY BY DEFAULT** (#litres_trial_promo)
742—DADDY BY DESIGN** (#litres_trial_promo)
746—DADDY BY DESTINY** (#litres_trial_promo)
756—GIFT-WRAPPED DAD
770—THE HUNK & THE VIRGIN
798—COUNTDOWN TO BABY
813—FOUR REASONS FOR FATHERHOOD
850—FATHER FEVER** (#litres_trial_promo)
858—FATHER FORMULA** (#litres_trial_promo)
866—FATHER FOUND** (#litres_trial_promo)
Contents
Chapter One (#u54f022b7-3b22-59ea-81ec-dac0306a07c6)
Chapter Two (#udcc4782e-f146-5598-ba62-d6c94813ad03)
Chapter Three (#u7e8423f9-e296-5cad-a602-f7f1d4c42d00)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
She was going to go insane.
Augusta Bishop stood on the cabin’s porch and looked out at the broad green meadow and the evergreen forest beyond, peppered with the crimson and gold of oak and quaking aspen leaves in autumn dress. If she didn’t remember who she was in one minute, she thought, she could not be held responsible for what happened. After more than three weeks of this confusion, she had enough pent-up frustration to cut down the forest with her teeth.
“It’s like being in the womb,” she told herself aloud, rubbing her swollen belly. “An uncertain future stretching out there somewhere, but inside, no past to light the way, just the darkness and the indistinguishable sounds outside.”
Dr. Lane had diagnosed the problem as amnesia. She might remember everything tomorrow, he’d said, or she might never recall more than she did at the moment. She retained all her personal skills and her life knowledge, she just didn’t remember who she was, where she lived or whom she loved. She thought of it as a Life Saver existence: it could sustain her, but there was a giant hole in the middle.
She walked down the porch steps and part of the way across the meadow, remembering her husband’s caution that she not go into the woods.
Her amnesia was the result of an attempt on her life by someone he’d sent to prison, he’d told her, and he’d brought her here to hide in a friend’s summer cabin in the mountains of central Oregon.
She looked around her at the magnificent mountains enclosing them in a cozy little valley and was astonished that her mind could ever forget this beautiful image, no matter what kind of injury she’d sustained.
But when Bram had brought her here just over two weeks ago, she’d been certain she was seeing it for the first time.
“We honeymooned here,” he’d told her in the rich, quiet voice that seemed to soothe her fears. Unfortunately, it also raised new ones, because she didn’t remember him, either.
She’d struggled for weeks to go back as far as her mind would take her, but it refused to go any further than that night three weeks ago when she’d surfaced in the Columbia River, spitting water and wondering what on earth had happened to her. She’d been cold and terrified.
Then the running lights of a boat had appeared and strong male hands had pulled her out of the water.
“What happened?” the man demanded, wrapping her in a jacket. “I saw your car go in! Were you alone?”
It was as though the questions had struck her ear and then bounced off. She wanted to answer, but she couldn’t.
Even as he questioned her, he was on the radio, calling the police. “Astoria police, this is Captain Burgess, pilot boat Rainbow. I just fished a young woman out of the water. Saw her car go in right by the church on the Washington side of the river. Have an ambulance meet me at the Red Lion Marina.”
He turned the boat around and headed not for the near shore, but for the opposite one, where she saw a mound of lights on the other side of a big bridge.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, apparently providing information to the police.
But that was another question that bounced.
