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Mother by Fate
Tara Taylor Quinn
To trust a stranger…Sara Havens helps others. Mothers. Children. Those who seek to escape from violence. Her work with The Lemonade Stand - a unique women's shelter - also lets her forget the loss of the child who should have been hers. And when a handsome stranger strikes up a poolside conversation, it's no coincidence.Bounty hunter Michael Edison is tracking a former resident of the shelter. Fearing for the missing woman's safety, Sara joins the pursuit. But nothing is what it appears to be - including Michael. As they grow closer, Sara risks losing her carefully constructed control…
To trust a stranger…
Sara Havens helps others. Mothers. Children. Those who seek to escape from violence. Her work with The Lemonade Stand—a unique women’s shelter—also lets her forget the loss of the child who should have been hers. And when a handsome stranger strikes up a poolside conversation, it’s no coincidence.
Bounty hunter Michael Edison is tracking a former resident of the shelter. Fearing for the missing woman’s safety, Sara joins the pursuit. But nothing is what it appears to be—including Michael. As they grow closer, Sara risks losing her carefully constructed control…
He had been putting off the inevitable…
Michael couldn’t remember ever wanting to have sex with a woman as badly as he wanted to with Sara Havens.
But they had a job to do now. Shaking out the blanket, he put both his arms around Sara, pulling her head so that her cheek touched his, and wrapped the blanket around them up to their ears. Her hand reached up to hold her side of the blanket in place.
She smelled like flowers.
The padding beneath her dress pushed at his collarbone. Their thighs touched. But that was all.
He could do this.
Thank God for baggy pants.
“You might want to get some rest,” he suggested.
He had to focus on the task at hand. Get Nicole, turn her in against the warrant he held and get home.
And do it all without anyone getting hurt…
Dear Reader (#u5a2f51c6-af66-51c3-ac62-0c6d8966e6c9),
Welcome back to The Lemonade Stand, Where Secrets are Safe!
We’re actually not at the Stand right now. We’re out on the beach, briefly in a kennel for rescue animals, in a neighboring city and generally around town. But the Stand is there, and people are looking out for us and keeping our secrets safe.
I love all of the Where Secrets are Safe books. I created a shelter that I wish was real. One that, if I ever have the means, I will open. I particularly love this book in that it looks at an issue that is close to my heart—the idea of loving someone as your own who, technically, isn’t yours.
In today’s world relationships are a lot more fluid than they used to be. They aren’t always forever. And yet when we give our hearts, we give them forever. So what happens to all of the peripheral family relationships when a couple breaks up? In particular, what happens when you love a child as your own who does not biologically belong to you?
I had a friend for many years who struggled emotionally. I took on her daughter as my own. I loved that little girl, took her into my home, my family. And when the friend moved on, when she determined that she no longer needed my help, I was left with an emptiness in my heart that I couldn’t do anything about.
That emptiness is the basis of Mother by Fate. I don’t have the answers. But I understand the pain. And believe that love really can heal whatever wounds we carry inside us.
I love to hear from readers! You can reach me at staff@tarataylorquinn.com. Or find me on Facebook or Twitter!
Tara Taylor Quinn
Mother by Fate
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Tara Taylor Quinn
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The author of more than seventy original novels, in twenty languages, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with over seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is a recipient of the Readers’ Choice Award, a four-time finalist for the RWA RITA® Award, and a finalist for the Reviewer’s Choice Award and the Booksellers’ Best Award. She has had multiple #1 bestseller rankings on Amazon. Tara is the past president of Romance Writers of America and served eight years on that board of directors. She has appeared on national and local TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning, and is a frequent guest speaker. In her spare time Tara likes to travel and enjoys crafting and in-line skating. She is a supporter of 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 my mother, Penny Gumser.
You taught me how to love—and mother—unconditionally. My child, and others. I think that is the best part of me. I love you.
Contents
Cover (#ueab2a71a-642a-5fb9-8e23-32d018fa5f47)
Back Cover Text (#u95e36cd1-85de-5855-9ac7-2cf19d24795b)
Introduction (#u738c133b-3900-54f3-8137-190b74335b8c)
Dear Reader
Title Page (#u1abf0034-8860-5ebc-aa57-d53c8085d2ff)
About the Author (#u0ca67932-4ccb-53ab-8840-613057075f1d)
Dedication (#ubb2b6f26-344f-5635-9288-09c3bac38a4f)
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
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u5a2f51c6-af66-51c3-ac62-0c6d8966e6c9)
“I CAN HOLD HIM, Daddy. While you get his kennel ready.”
With the object of his six-year-old daughter’s attention held out in front of him, rescue kennel owner Michael Edison strode through the large converted barn, to a wall of empty cages in the back.
“You know the rules.” Setting the fat cat gently onto the cold metal bottom of the first cage, he withdrew his hand quickly—obtaining a scratch on the arm in the process—and closed the door.
“Yes.” The skinny little brown-eyed minx looked up at him, her long dark curls still tangled from her night’s sleep.
“So?”
“I can’t touch him until Aunt Diane has a chance to examine him.”
Examine. Michael enjoyed an inner grin at the sound of the very adult word coming from the baby voice with the little lisp. Shelley would be proud of him. And maybe, if people did become angels looking down from above when they died, she was. “That’s right” was all he said.
Mari didn’t remember her mother. But their little house in front of the kennel was filled with photos of her.
“Trouble is you said she can’t come till later...”
“That’s right, too.” His twenty-nine-year-old sister had recently graduated from veterinary school and, having just joined a practice, had to work the less-popular weekend hours.
“But can I hold him right afterward?”
Always looking on the bright side of things. Mari took after her youngest aunt, Peanut, that way. Made his life a hell of a lot easier.
“Yep. First thing.”
“You want him in isolation?” Twenty-five-year-old Ashleigh, the third sister in a line of four, asked, pulling a disposable cage liner and water bottle out of a cupboard on the opposite side of the room from the cages.
“Yeah,” he told her, raising his voice enough to be heard over the whining and barking coming from the canine end of the kennel.
While it didn’t look as if the newcomer had fleas, until he knew for certain that the cat wasn’t carrying anything the other animals in his care could catch, he couldn’t move him into the dorm area.
Mari put her hand in the treat bin and pulled out some all-natural dog treats they used for training, as he poured a little milk into a cup. Just enough to calm the cat who’d been dumped on Michael’s front porch that morning—in a box barely large enough to fit him and secured with duct tape.
While he dealt with the new cat, Mari walked with purpose to the first door in the occupied section of the kennel. “Shh, Whitehorse. Your breakfast will be here soon,” she said, tossing in a treat that quieted the white-and-gray Great Dane mix they’d rescued from an illegal dog-racing track a month ago.
The name was Mari’s. The malnourished female had come to them with the name Three. She’d been housed in the third cage in the facility she’d been born to.
Ashleigh, his only full-time kennel employee and main child-care provider, prepared a more permanent kennel for the new resident in a partitioned-off room in the back corner of the barn. She took the cup of milk from Michael as he retrieved the smaller cage he’d dropped the cat in moments before.
While Mari visited each of the eleven dogs in their care, he and Ashleigh got their newest resident settled.
“His name is Gus,” Mari announced, coming up behind them with a label for the kennel and the black marker Michael used to mark down the name of each rescue animal and the date when he or she came into their care.
“Gus?” Ashleigh looked from the little girl to the fat gray cat.
“Yes, Gus. He looks like Gus down the street, doesn’t he?” She giggled.
Ashleigh rolled her eyes.
“I see the resemblance,” Michael said with mock seriousness, moving on to start the morning’s chores with Mari right beside him.
“The reds first today,” Mari said, standing with him as he opened the main gate that would allow the dogs, once they were released from their individual runs, out into the three-acre mowed and fenced play park behind the barn. He watched as Mari opened the cages one by one, waiting for each dog to reach the park before releasing the next, just as she’d been taught.
The reds were on the right side of the kennel area, so designated because of the red paint Mari had chosen for the cement surrounding the kennels.
