A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Read online

  Dear Reader,

  A day of shopping, a bubble bath and a good book, or a candlelight dinner with that special someone in her life—what better way for Mom to spend a day set aside to thank her for the many gifts she gives to her family? In celebration of motherhood, we’ve put together this new collection, featuring some very special single mothers as they meet and marry some very special heroes.

  In “Nobody’s Child,” a classic story from Emilie Richards, foster mother Gemma Hancock gets the surprise of her life when she falls in love with the handsome police officer who brings home her latest charge. There’s just something about the way rugged Officer Farrell Riley cares for the little orphan girl that makes Gemma long for his loving touch.

  The “Baby on the Way” is what brings J.T. Walker and Madeline Reed together in Marie Ferrarella’s heartwarming new story. Just imagine how you would feel if you went into labor on the side of the road, only to be rescued by a handsome stranger! Now that J.T. and Maddy have shared the miracle of bringing Maddy’s baby into the world, will love follow?

  In Elizabeth Bevarly’s wonderful new romance, “A Daddy for Her Daughters” is what Naomi Carmichael gets when she finds herself sharing parent duty with dashing Sloan Sullivan. Now if Naomi could just figure out how to make the sexy bachelor say “I do,” she’d be a happy mom, indeed!

  We hope you enjoy these wonderful stories, and that you’ll take a day to relax, enjoy and celebrate someone very special—you!

  Happy reading!

  The Editors of Silhouette Books

  EMILIE RICHARDS

  Award-winning author Emilie Richards believes opposites attract, and her marriage is vivid proof. “When we met,” the author says, “the only thing my husband and I could agree on was that we were very much in love.” The couple has lived in eight states and briefly abroad, and now resides in Virginia. Emilie loves creating complex characters who make positive changes in their lives. And she’s a sucker for happy endings.

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA Award-winning author’s goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over 100 books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

  ELIZABETH BEVARLY

  was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and earned her B.A. with honors in English from the University of Louisville in 1983. When she’s not writing, Elizabeth enjoys old movies, old houses, good books, whimsical antiques, hot jazz and even hotter salsa (the music, not the sauce). She resides with her husband and young son back home in Kentucky.

  EMILIE RICHARDS

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  ELIZABETH BEVARLY

  A Mother’s Day

  CONTENTS

  NOBODY’S CHILD

  Emilie Richards

  Letter to Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  BABY ON THE WAY

  Marie Ferrarella

  Letter to Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  A DADDY FOR HER DAUGHTERS

  Elizabeth Bevarly

  Letter to Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  NOBODY’S CHILD

  Emilie Richards

  Dear Reader,

  All of us have issues that are particularly dear to our hearts, and one of mine is adoption. I absolutely believe that each and every child deserves a home where he or she is loved and valued, and adoption is just one of the ways we, as a society, can make that happen.

  My husband and I are adoptive parents. Our daughter came to us from Calcutta many years ago, a six-year-old fascinated by the extravagance of our American home and by the flickering picture on our television set, which carried the image of Mother Teresa, whom she had last seen in an orphanage so far away.

  But when I think about adoption, I also think about the other families I met on our own adoption journey. The friends who had their health benefits canceled when they tried to adopt a child with severe medical problems. (They went ahead with the adoption anyway.) The friends who took children with fatal illnesses, with mental handicaps, with severe emotional problems. None of them were saints or martyrs. They were simply people who believed they could make a positive difference in the life of a child. And they did.

  I’m delighted to be part of this collection of stories. I’m thankful to be the mother of four children who bring joy into my heart every day. And I’m particularly happy that my own experience with adoption brought me into contact with so many wonderful people who change the world one child at a time in beautiful and extraordinary ways.

  My warmest wishes for a happy Mother’s Day.

  Chapter 1

  “Nobody’s here, damn it. Something tipped them off!”

  Farrell Riley gave his partner, Cal, a curt nod as he tried not to breathe in more air than he needed to sustain life. The house smelled the way it looked, fetid and filthy. Months of garbage had been carelessly shoved to the borders of most of the rooms to make walkways, and even now, with a dozen of Hazleton’s finest plowing through the house, a rat feasted contentedly not more than ten feet from his shoe.

  “They must have gotten out just seconds before we surrounded the house,” Cal said. He sounded the way Farrell felt. Disgusted, tired. Pissed. The house on Keller had been watched for days, the raid carefully planned. The small city of Hazleton, Ohio, had its share of drug problems, but not enough that losing to dealers was a ho-hum experience. Nearby, the slamming of doors and angry shouts testified to the frustrations of his brothers in blue.

  “It doesn’t look like they need us anymore.” Farrell gave a halfhearted kick at the rat, which had moved closer, like a friendly puppy expecting a treat. Farrell and Cal had been called in as backup, but clearly, the unit in charge could handle the remains of the unsuccessful raid on their own.

  “I’ll get the word.” Cal holstered his gun and left Farrell and the rat alone in what passed for a bedroom.

  While he waited, Farrell did another visual survey, although by now he knew exactly what he would see. A bare mattress spilled its guts in a corner, and a frayed sleeping bag lay crumpled at its foot. A chest of drawers, with only two of its three drawers intact, was covered with bottles and vials. The kitchen was a makeshift drug lab, but this room had been used for storage as well as sleeping. Boxes of chemicals were stacked in the corner opposite the mattress, and Cal’s cursory search of the closet had revealed more of the same.

  Farrell shoved a hand through his unruly dark hair and wondered, as he always did, about the choices people made. Some undetermined number of people had made a conscious decision to live, eat and sleep in this hellhole. They had chosen to make and sell illegal, mind-and-soul-destroying dr
ugs. And what had they gotten in return for this pathetic example of the Puritan work ethic? Filth and rats and, at the moment, cops crawling all over their humble home.

  Farrell was an orderly man. Everything he owned had its own special place and could be found in a matter of seconds. Clutter made him uneasy, and this house would have made him crazy if he’d been forced to stay overnight. Now, with no way to bring order out of chaos, he did the only thing he could think of. He closed the closet door with an angry shove and turned to go in search of Cal.

  “No!”

  For a moment Farrell stood very still and wondered if his imagination was running away with him. He thought he’d heard a child’s cry. But no one else was in the room.

  The bedroom was silent again, except for the noise of cops rummaging through the adjacent hallway. Farrell did another quick exam, but the closet was the only possible source of the sound. He turned the doorknob and pulled the door toward him until it was wide open; then he shone his flashlight inside.

  And he saw what Cal, who had examined the closet first, had not.

  “Oh, sweetheart…” Farrell squatted on the floor so that he could peer between two tall stacks of boxes. Two very blue eyes peered back at him, tear-filled eyes over a streaming nose and a mouth that trembled inconsolably.

  The little girl—at least, he thought by the length of the hair the child was female—tried to wiggle farther away from him. But she was literally boxed in, with no place to go.

  “I didn’t know you were here. You must be scared to death,” he said as softly as his baritone could manage.

  She didn’t even blink. She stared at him as if she were waiting for him to raise his fist, as if that was what she expected.

  Some emotion as dark as the closet shuddered through him. “It must be lonely in there.” He sat back a little to show her he had no intention of hurting her. “I’d be scared, if I were you.”

  Her lip wobbled, and her nose ran. But she still didn’t blink.

  “And I think I’d be hungry,” he continued. “Are you hungry?”

  She didn’t nod, but something changed behind her eyes, as if she were reassessing him.

  Farrell wished that he had something to give her, some offering that would convince her he could be trusted. Cal had a package of cupcakes in their patrol car, but Farrell knew he couldn’t leave her long enough to go for them. “If you come with me, I have a surprise.” He smiled at her, something he didn’t do often. His cheeks and lips felt rusty from disuse.

  She didn’t move. She watched him, her blue eyes taking in everything from the unflinching gray of his eyes to the tips of his highly polished shoes.

  He didn’t know which of them would have given in first if it hadn’t been for the rat. With the bravado of a domestic pet, it came closer to investigate this new turn of events. The child’s eyes flicked in its direction; then, with a small cry, she launched herself at Farrell.

  He hardly had time to catch her. She was sobbing in his arms, babbling incoherently, with her arms wrapped in a death hold around his neck. He got to his feet and shooed the rat with his foot. Then, with the too-thin body plastered against his, he went to report what he’d found.

  The child was filthy and almost naked. Despite the cool spring evening and the unheated house, she had been dressed in nothing more than thin cotton underpants when she had jumped into Farrell’s arms. The house had yielded no clothes for her to wear, but Cal had produced a Police Athletic League sweatshirt from the squad car trunk, and Farrell had slipped that over her head to keep her warm. The sweatshirt fell well past her feet.

  Right now she was sitting on his lap, a position she absolutely refused to relinquish, and nibbling on a cupcake. He had expected her to wolf it down, but her response was sadder. She nibbled, as if she had to make this unexpected treat last for hours. She nibbled as if she was uncertain another meal would ever turn up.

  Farrell leaned against the back seat with his legs over the side while he and Cal waited for Child Welfare to come and claim her. Red-haired Cal, who at twenty-four was admirably broad shouldered but fast gaining a pot belly, rested his back against the car. “How old do you think she is?”

  Farrell shrugged. “I don’t know anything about kids.”

  “I’m guessing about two. I have nieces and nephews.”

  Cal’s wife was expecting their first child, so Farrell knew his partner took an interest in all things family. “I bet none of them look like this one, do they?”

  “Sometimes…” Cal cleared his throat. “Sometimes I wish we could make the laws, not enforce ’em.”

  “That’s why we vote.” But Farrell’s voice conveyed his own anger at a system that didn’t always protect children.

  “Yeah. Well, I didn’t vote for any law that lets parents hurt their own kids.”

  Farrell shot him a warning glance. The child was young, but there was no telling how much she understood. “She’ll be taken care of tonight. That’s something.”

  “Yeah. Something.”

  A beefy officer who was still wearing a protective vest came over to join them. Sergeant Archie Weatherstone had been on the Hazleton police force for twenty years, and he had seen everything, including plenty of abortive drug raids. But now even Archie shook his head at the sight of the little girl. “Got some bad news.”

  “You ever got any other kind?” Cal said.

  Archie’s voice had a permanent rasp from too many cigarettes. “Child Welfare’s emergency team is otherwise occupied. They can’t come for another hour, at least.”

  “So what do we do? Take her to the station?” Farrell looked down at the child in his lap. She was still trembling, and he couldn’t imagine putting the little girl through more hours of terror. “I don’t like this.”

  “Don’t worry. They gave me an address. They have emergency foster homes set up for situations like this one. You can take her to this one yourself. That’s where she’ll spend the night, anyway. Then, as soon as the team’s free, they’ll go there and do the intake exam.”

  “A home?”

  “Yeah. The woman in charge is expecting you.”

  “A home with a bed? Food?”

  “No bars on the windows. No maniac juvenile offenders. A home.”

  Farrell nodded, and the knot in his stomach unclenched a little. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Think you can pry her loose long enough to hook her into a seat belt?”

  Farrell made a stab at trying to extricate the little girl from his lap. She went rigid as a barn beam, and her lip began to tremble again.

  “It’s the law,” Archie reminded him.

  “How far’s this house?”

  “Galeon.” The section of Hazleton Archie named was fifteen minutes away from Keller Avenue, a residential area on the way up, but still best known for its old houses in need of renovation.

  Farrell wrapped his arms around the little girl. “Galeon, huh? We can take the back roads.”

  “I won’t arrest you. Do what you want.” Archie gave him the address and walked away.

  “I’ll drive slow and careful,” Cal said. “You know, you look pretty good with a kid on your lap.”

  Farrell covered the little girl’s feet with the hem of the sweatshirt. “Take a picture. It’s the last time you’ll see it.”

  “Nah, Sheila and I are making you a godfather. Remember?”

  Farrell slid off the seat, still gently holding the child, who was spilling cupcake crumbs on his perfectly pressed pants. “Let’s go.”

  Gemma Hancock checked all her preparations for the third time. A child. She was getting a child. She couldn’t really smile. Any child who came to her in the middle of the night was a child who had undergone trauma. She grieved for all neglected children. In a perfect world a foster home would never be needed. But although her fondest wish was that her own services would someday become obsolete, she was glad that tonight she had a home and love and good sense to offer a child in crisis.

  A child.
A little girl.

  The telephone rang and she almost yanked it off the kitchen wall. “Hello?”

  She listened as Marge Tremaine, the caseworker who had first called to ask if she could take the abandoned child, explained that things weren’t going well with the emergency team. Marge sounded rattled, an unusual condition for a woman with multiple years in a job that most people left after a short stint.

  Gemma saw headlights as a car pulled in to her driveway. “I’ll evaluate the situation. If I need to have someone come and take a look at her tonight, I’ll let you know.”

  Marge was grateful and perfunctory, in a hurry to get back to her crisis. She promised that if all was well, she would see the child first thing in the morning. Gemma hung up just as the doorbell rang.

  She straightened her sweater as she headed for the front of the house, and wished she’d had time to brush her hair.

  The police officer standing on the other side of the door was tall and lean. She had a brief impression of hair the color of bittersweet chocolate and a face as stern as the Old Testament Jehovah.

  “Gemma Hancock?”

  She smiled, but she had already lowered her gaze to the tiny bundle in his arms. “Right.” The little girl had been sleeping, but now, as if she felt a stranger staring at her, her eyelids parted.

  Gemma’s heart thudded against her breastbone. “Hi, there,” she said softly. “You look comfortable.”

  The little girl began to cry silently, gigantic tears that slid down dirt-streaked cheeks. Gemma’s smile didn’t waver, although her heart beat double time in sympathy. “Well, of course you’re feeling sad.”