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Beach Baby
Joan Kilby
What does it take to become a family?Nina Kennerly has a full life, but she' s always regretted giving her daughter up for adoption and losing Reid Robertson, her first love. Now her grown daughter has found her–with her own baby girl in tow!–and Nina must face Reid again.Nina and Reid are determined to be there for their new family. But spending so much time together brings back a lot of complicated feelings. And complicated is not something Reid, a widower with another daughter, needs. Are Nina and Reid just dredging up the past…or are they actually making a future?
“Nina, honey, I have to talk to you about your baby.”
Memories flooded back—a scrunched face, tiny fingers, a warmth against her breast. For a few minutes she’d known pure joy…then the nurse had taken her baby away and Nina had signed the adoption papers with tears blurring her vision. When she was sure her voice wouldn’t shake she said, “What about her?”
“She’s living forty miles south of Vancouver in Beach Grove,” Dora said softly.
“H-how do you know?”
“Her mother called me. Apparently the girl has run away and is looking for her biological parents.”
“Why did—?” She stopped. “I don’t even know her name.”
“Amy,” Dora replied.
“Amy,” Nina repeated. In her heart she’d always thought of her as Sweetpea. “Why did she run away?”
“She found out accidentally that she was adopted.”
“How did she find out?”
“She gave birth to a child of her own, a little girl,” Dora said. “She had complications and—”
“Wait a minute—Amy had a baby?” Nina whirled to face her mother. “I’m a grandmother?”
Dear Reader,
When I was growing up I lived a couple of miles from where Reid’s fictional house is set, high on the hill with a view of Boundary Bay and Mount Baker. I have so many fond memories of the beach, it seemed a natural place to set Beach Baby.
As a little girl I roamed happily over sandbars and shallows with my sisters and brother as we hunted for crabs and sand dollars. My mother taught us to swim in the sun-warmed waters and we built forts out of driftwood on the beach. As we grew older we rode our horses across the tidal flats.
When my own children were young I took them to the same beach and relived a happy childhood through their eyes. Now when I visit my hometown I walk along the dike and dream of the good old days.
If the idyllic summer setting of Beach Baby was an exercise in nostalgia, writing about parenting a mischievous toddler was a reminder of the busy, distracted life of a young mother. In Beach Baby Nina has the added challenge of dealing with an ex-fiancé, two teenagers and a whole host of extended and blended family.
I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I hope you enjoy reading it. I love to hear from readers. Please write to me at P.O. Box 234, Point Roberts, WA 98281-0234, or visit me at www.joankilby.com.
Sincerely,
Joan Kilby
Beach Baby
Joan Kilby
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When Joan Kilby isn’t working on her next romance novel she can often be found sipping a latte at a sidewalk café and indulging in her favorite pastime of people watching. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, she now lives in Australia with her husband and three children. She enjoys cooking as a creative outlet and gets some of her best story ideas while watching her Jack Russell terrier chase waves at the beach.
To Becky, Gael and Johnny for many
happy childhood memories at the beach.
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 ONE
Midnight, Paris. Luke Mann lurked in a darkened doorway listening for muted footsteps. Tucked inside his leather bomber jacket were documents that could bring down a Middle Eastern government. A dash across the cobbled street and he would be inside the safe house, his mission accomplished. Spurred on by visions of a peaceful retirement in a sun-drenched Tuscan villa, Luke stepped out of the shadows.
An Uzi submachine gun rent the stillness. Rat-a-tat-tat—
REID ROBERTSON STARED at the computer screen. Now what? Why was he killing off Luke just as he was about to retire? Come to think of it, why was Luke retiring when he was only forty-five? Maybe Luke was merely wounded. Maybe the guy with the Uzi would miss. Maybe there was no Uzi. Maybe Reid wanted that villa in Tuscany.
From Tara’s upstairs bedroom came the reedy scrape of a bow traveling up and down a minor scale. Distracted, Reid dragged both hands through his hair. He shouldn’t complain; at least she was practicing. He gazed past the computer monitor, out the window of his beach house. Tidal flats shimmered under the hot August sun, yanking Reid’s mind further away from dark alleys.
Sales on his ten previous spy thrillers were respectable but Reid wanted this book to break out, maybe even make the New York Times bestseller list. If he didn’t fold under the pressure of the deadline his agent had talked him into so the book would be out in time for Christmas, the new Luke Mann story could lift Reid into the major leagues.
The doorbell rang. Reid groaned at the interruption. Daisy, his golden retriever, raised her muzzle off his bare toes and lumbered to her feet to follow him out of his office and down the hallway.
Reid opened the door. If this was another Boy Scout selling raffle tickets—
“Amy!”
His other daughter, the one he couldn’t acknowledge but who occupied a special place in his heart as his first born, stood on the doorstep. He hadn’t seen her for three years and suddenly, or so it seemed, the braces had come off, her skin had cleared and she was all grown up. In her arms she held a little girl about a year old with curly red hair and curious blue eyes.
“Hey, Reid. How’re you doing?” Amy licked her lips nervously as she shifted the child to her other hip. Her naturally blond hair swung almost to her waist and she wore a low-slung long cotton skirt and a batik top that left her taut midriff bare. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in.”
In the neighborhood? Amy lived clear across the country in Halifax. Although come to think of it, Reid hadn’t heard from her in over a year, even though he regularly sent cards and letters—in the guise of a favorite “uncle,” that is.
“Come in.” He stepped back, noticing now that her hair needed washing and her clothes looked as though she’d slept in them. With a glance at the toddler, he added, “Who’s this?”
“My daughter, Beebee,” Amy said.
Reid did his best to hide his shock. The last time he’d talked to Amy she’d been excited about getting the lead role in her high-school play. Now she was a mom and this was no dress rehearsal. But she was too young!
Despite his misgivings he was drawn irresistibly to stroke the child’s downy cheek. “Hi there, sweetheart.”
Amy tightened her grip with an anxious glance at her daughter. “She makes strange.”
Maybe, yet at Reid’s touch the little girl’s face crinkled into a dimpled smile. She chuckled softly as she gazed up at him from beneath curly dark brown lashes. Reid smiled back. “You’re a little charmer, aren’t you?”
“Well, what do you know?” Amy said with a wondering grin. “She likes you.”
“Of course she does.” And Reid couldn’t help being tickled at finding himself a grandfather to such a cutie. “When did she come along?”
“Nearly twelve months ago.” Amy’s smile faded as she assessed Reid. “Didn’t Jim and Elaine tell you?”
Jim and Elaine? Since when had she stopped calling her parents Mom and Dad?
“Elaine didn’t send her usual chatty letter with the Christmas card this year.” He’d wondered about that but assumed she’d been too busy. Reid knew what that was like. Since Carol had passed away he often didn’t get around to cards until it was so late he was embarrassed to send them. He picked up Amy’s duffel bag. “Come in.”
Amy glanced around the foyer at the brilliant white walls, dark chocolate floorboards and tall vase of blue and purple hydrangeas next to a slim mahogany table. “You have a nice place.”
“Thanks.” Carol had had good taste; he, on the other hand, lived inside his head and barely noticed his surroundings. “Do your parents know where you are?”
Amy tossed her head. “If you mean Jim and Elaine, they’re not my parents.”
Jim and Elaine not her parents? Had they finally told her she was adopted? Reid had warned them that someday Amy would discover the truth. It looked as if that day had come at last.
The nervous energy that had carried Amy this far suddenly seemed to evaporate. “Do you think I could sit down?” she said. “I walked from the bus stop at the shopping center and Beebee’s getting too big to carry.”
“You should have called me. I’d have picked you up.” Reid led the way past the formal living room he rarely used to the family room adjoining the kitchen. A wall of windows overlooked the bay and French doors led onto a small lawn separated from the beach by a retaining wall. “I’ll get you both a cold drink. Then you’d better start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
Tara appeared at the top of the stairs, her violin hanging loosely at her side. At fifteen, she was tall and graceful with a pale oval face and long chestnut-brown hair. “Who’s here?”
“You remember Amy, the daughter of our friends in Halifax?” Reid said. “And this is her little girl, Beebee.”
“Hi, Tara.” Amy smiled warmly. “Long time no see.”
“Hi.” Tara’s gaze flicked to Beebee, surprise and curiosity evident in the slight lift of her dark eyebrows. Well she might wonder—Amy was barely nineteen.
“Go ahead and finish practicing,” Reid told Tara. “Amy needs to recuperate from her trip.”
Reid brought a pitcher of orange juice and a plate of muffins into the sun-filled room facing the beach and set them on the glass coffee table in front of the wicker couch. He waited while Amy and Beebee drank thirstily, then asked, “Was it Beebee’s arrival that caused the rift between you and the Hockings?”
“They blew their stack when I got pregnant,” Amy admitted. “Then during the birth I had complications requiring a blood transfusion. Neither of them were a match. That’s when I found out I wasn’t their biological daughter.” She sat forward on the couch, her fingers curled tightly into her palms. “I confronted them and they admitted I was adopted.”
Reid would never forget the day Nina gave Amy up in a private adoption. He’d been heartbroken. And furious with Nina for giving away their child without his knowledge or consent. Later, after they’d said irretrievable words that had broken them apart forever, he’d also been furious at himself for not being with her sooner, when she’d needed him.
“It’s true,” Amy said, taking his silence for disbelief. “All those years they let me believe I was their child.”
“You’re still their daughter,” he said. “They raised you as their own, loved and cared for you.”
“My whole life has been a lie. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive them.” Amy picked up her muffin then set it down again, untasted. “It wasn’t just that they’d lied, although that was bad enough. When I got pregnant they tried to pressure me to marry Ian—Beebee’s father. They said they were too old to raise her and I was too young to do it on my own.” Her voice tightened and became fierce. “I’m not too young to be a mother.”
In Reid’s eyes she was still a little girl, but he remembered being nineteen, headstrong and so certain he was as mature as any adult. “No,” he said, quietly. “You’re not too young.”
“I knew you’d understand.” Amy blotted her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’ve known me all my life. Did you know I was adopted?”
Reid hesitated. The Hockings had allowed him contact with his daughter on the condition that he never tell Amy he was her biological father or that she was adopted. Even now they must not have told her the whole truth or she would never have come to him.
Luckily for him, Beebee chose that moment to wriggle off her mother’s lap and drop to the floor. Within seconds the toddler was pushing at the French doors.
“Come back, Beebs.” Amy ran after her daughter and swung her into her arms. “She’s a miniature Houdini. She can open practically any door,” Amy said almost proudly. “You have to watch her all the time.”
“She’s certainly fast on her feet,” Reid said, seizing the opportunity to steer the subject away from himself. “How old did you say she was?”
“Eleven months and one week,” Amy told him. “She was walking at nine months and saying her first words at ten.”
“What about Ian?” Reid asked, trying to recall what Elaine had told him about Amy’s unassuming young boyfriend. “Is he in the picture?”
“No,” Amy said decisively. She sat back down with Beebee on her lap and curled her arms protectively around her child. “We were living together up until I got on the bus to come out here. Now I don’t want anything more to do with him. He’s a murderer.”
Reid’s eyebrows rose and he bit his lip to suppress a smile at Amy’s melodramatic emphasis. “Don’t tell me Ian’s turned to crime,” he joked.
Amy closed her eyes on a long shudder. “He got a job in a meat-packing plant.”
“A meat-packing plant? You mean, as in food?” Perhaps it wasn’t the high-flying career a father might wish for in a son-in-law but it was honest work. “Is that why you broke up with him and moved across the country?”
“You act like it’s nothing! They slaughter animals and wrap their body parts in plastic.”
Reid thought of the defrosted chicken thighs sitting in his fridge, ready to be cooked for dinner. “I’m sure he only wanted to support you and Beebee.”
