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For Love Or Money
Tara Taylor Quinn
She can’t afford to lose this…or himThere's no way that struggling single mom Janie Young is going to lose Family Secrets. Not even to Dr. Burke Carter. The prize money and media exposure from the cooking-competition show will secure the future for her and her son, who has special needs. Sure, Burke is a talented chef with his own reasons to win, but he already has so much: wealth, a beautiful daughter, great looks…and definitely her attention. As their families become closer, Janie is beginning to care too much about him. But she can't afford to get involved. Not when everything is riding on beating him.
She can’t afford to lose this...or him
There’s no way that struggling single mom Janie Young is going to lose Family Secrets. Not even to Dr. Burke Carter. The prize money and media exposure from the cooking-competition show will secure the future for her and her son, who has special needs. Sure, Burke is a talented chef with his own reasons to win, but he already has so much: wealth, a beautiful daughter, great looks...and definitely her attention. As their families become closer, Janie is beginning to care too much about him. But she can’t afford to get involved. Not when everything is riding on beating him.
“Sometimes you don’t get to choose what happens to you,” Burke said.
He was close enough she could feel his warmth.
“Sometimes,” he continued, “you have to stand up and face what you’re given and do your best.”
She wanted him to kiss her again. For real... No, she really didn’t. She honestly and truly did not want that complication.
She had been going to ask him if he wanted to sit down. To join her in the living room. But suddenly that seemed too comfortable. Too much like he was a closer friend than she could have him be.
They were opponents—both determined to win—and her son’s future rested on the outcome.
And they were parents whose kids had wanted to see each other. He’d be leaving momentarily. It was almost time for Dawson’s bath.
Dinner was what they’d arranged.
And dinner was over.
Dear Reader (#ulink_62e9aad3-3b77-5a2a-aa18-a1264fff02d7),
As I write to you to tell you about For Love or Money, I’m deeply into book two in this new miniseries! Family Secrets is turning out to be all I knew it could be.
Family Secrets is a reality-competition cooking show. Contestants compete with their secret family recipes. The show runs in segments with four regular competitions in different categories. And then the final round. Each book is one of those segments. Other than the host, you see all different people, with completely different stories, in each book.
This miniseries isn’t only about secret recipes. In every novel, you’ll find lives changed by a family secret. A secret that, though maybe kept with the best of intentions, is powerful enough, damaging enough, to affect the lives and hearts of all those who didn’t know.
During this opening segment, you’re going to meet a very special little boy. Dawson was inspired by a young man who captured my whole heart the first time I held him more than a decade ago, a close family member who brings a precious and unique joy into any space he occupies. He is wanted, adored and protected by all members of his family. Dawson and his experiences are completely fictional. The joy he brings is not.
I love to hear from my readers. Please find me at Facebook.com/tarataylorquinn (https://www.facebook.com/tarataylorquinn) and on Twitter, @tarataylorquinn (https://twitter.com/tarataylorquinn). Or join my open Friendship board on Pinterest, Pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship (https://www.pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship)!
All the best,
Tara
www.TaraTaylorQuinn.com (http://www.tarataylorquinn.com)
For Love or Money
Tara Taylor Quinn
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
An author of seventy-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a five-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for a Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.
For William Wright Gumser. You are our miracle. Our gift.
And I hope you know the joy you bring just by being alive. Aunt Tara loves you!
Contents
Cover (#u21e6e821-3020-5579-9e9d-9525df85dd89)
Back Cover Text (#u550ab74b-a704-584d-b311-50a108b3463e)
Introduction (#u0150f3fa-b9de-525a-a630-05530f0843ea)
Dear Reader (#ulink_b7e62913-0e7b-5edb-b28d-ad443555138f)
Title Page (#u6a9ceb33-d8cf-53f1-ae14-3c96752507bd)
About the Author (#ub7a05392-37af-5f4e-96aa-d7cb4f98f989)
Dedication (#uf177aa23-9866-5758-b13d-0ac11fe5f74b)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_151255a3-0618-538e-82a4-3935c2e69429)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ea73e79f-2c03-5d0c-909e-f737eac2a421)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_cb3bc946-0901-5acc-804e-0de2d2e9882a)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_116798f4-4d4c-502e-b46c-a6da5616606b)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_ad8e40e9-c6e0-5e14-80f4-72b4f635dbc0)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_78da83f2-2a8d-5abf-9580-25eba22341e1)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_97b9f8ad-e1f7-5ae8-9f16-2a84259725cb)
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)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_4b639222-10d2-5f08-97bb-912b30374114)
“FORGET IT.”
“Kels, I really want to make this right.”
“Whatever.”
Sometimes a guy had to know when he wasn’t going to win. Sometimes even knowing, he couldn’t quit trying. Most particularly when his adversary was his thirteen-year-old daughter.
And in this case, he couldn’t quit even if he did win. Because he had something else he had to discuss with the woman-child sitting on the passenger side of his SUV. She’d flipped the button to activate the heated leather seats when she’d climbed in.
At which time he’d glanced at the outdoor temperature reading. A balmy 85 degrees. In the desert. California desert. And wisely kept his mouth shut.
“I’m sorry I was late. Dan Rhodes stopped in just as I was leaving. He’s starting tonight and needed a cortisone shot.”
Dan Rhodes, a Palm Desert high school basketball star and one of her late mother’s former students.
“Yeah, well, I told Melissa you’d look at her knee.”
And he’d let Kelsey down by not being at the dance studio on time to pick her up. Never mind that half the time when he showed up as scheduled, she harrumphed because she liked to hang out and watch the older girls—the ones in “company”—take class and run through routines.
“I’ll look at it tomorrow, before class,” he said now, though technically, unless her parents consented to him treating Melissa, there was nothing he could do but advise her to get it looked at. Which he’d already done. Three times in the past month.
As an orthopedist specializing in sports medicine, he’d given the girl’s dad his card. But he’d never heard from them.
“Whatever.” She was staring out the side window, her expression...bland. He’d been told—by someone among all the well-meaning counselor types who’d flooded forth to advise him after Kelsey’s mother had died—to watch out for belligerence. He’d be happy for it. For anything beyond...bland.
“Was Carlie at dance tonight?” Kelsey’s best friend had been having issues since Kelsey was chosen for junior company and she wasn’t.
Her head swung around then, eyes almost piercing as she studied him in the falling dusk. “What’s with your sudden interest in Carlie?”
Sudden? He gave his head a mental shake—ordering it to get in gear. “She’s your best friend.”
Kelsey’s snort didn’t bode well. “Not for like a year, Dad. Shows you how much you pay attention.” That last was uttered under her breath, so he pretended not to hear.
“You just want to know about Barbara.”
Carlie’s mother. They’d gone out. Once. Shortly after her divorce. When the girls had both been on a Girl Scout trip.
“If I wanted to know about Barbara, I’d call her and ask how she’s doing,” he said now, firmness entering his voice. It didn’t come often. But it was there when it needed to be. “Be angry with me for being late—that’s valid. But don’t disrespect me, Kels. I—”
“I know.” Her tone completely docile now, she cut him off. “You don’t deserve it, and I’m sorry, Daddy.” He could hear the tremor in her voice and hated that even more than the cattiness. “You’re the best and I love you.”
“I love you, too, squirt.” He cringed as the endearment slipped out before he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to use it anymore. The mandate had come down that summer. She hated it when he called her that. Made her feel like a kid, she’d said.
“You haven’t called me that in a while.”
“You told me not to.”
“Well, you weren’t supposed to really stop.”
He wasn’t going to win. No matter how hard he tried. Because she was thirteen. And he just didn’t get it.
* * *
“LOOK, JANE, I GET IT. You need to pretend that the kid’s gonna be normal someday. As soon as his muscles develop. But he isn’t gonna be. Ever. And I don’t have the cash to fund your need to make him something he ain’t. Do yourself a favor, and me and maybe him, too, and just accept what is.”
If she hadn’t been standing in the middle of a bay in Dillon’s car repair business—his father’s business before him—Janie might have clenched her fists. Or done something even worse, like start to cry.
In the olden days, back when she and Dillon had been so in love they’d been crazy with it, her tears had brought him to his knees. These days, they gave him strength.
“I’m not asking for a favor, Dillon,” she told him, remaining calm by thinking of her son, sitting at a table in his preschool class, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, his face just inches from the table, while he put pencil to paper. If they were lucky, he’d make a mark that was distinguishable. “Per our decree, you are responsible for half of Dawson’s medical bills.”
“Speech therapy isn’t medical.”
