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      MILLS & BOON

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      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter One

      Vindication.

      There was the name right on the mailbox. A. Burnadette. The very same name that had flashed on Bowen Reeve’s newly purchased Caller ID machine last night at midnight.

      He had him. He had the little punk who had been pestering him with prank calls two or three times a week for the last three weeks.

      “’Are you my daddy,’ indeed,” Bowen muttered to himself, and sank low in his truck seat, pulled his ball cap over his narrowed eyes, and surveyed the house.

      Truthfully, it wasn’t quite what he was expecting. Kids who were running wild at midnight usually came from homes where nobody gave a damn about much of anything. And he considered himself something of an expert, having once been a kid who ran wild at midnight.

      But looking at that little white house of A. Burnadette it was evident whoever lived here gave a damn. The picket fence was freshly painted, the grass in the small yard was neatly trimmed, red flowers bloomed in the window boxes. On the covered verandah a colorfully cushioned swing swayed gently in the slight breeze.

      That was a good thing, Bowen told himself. A. Burnadette gave a damn. As a phys ed teacher at Montgomery Bridge Memorial High School, he dealt with lots of parents who didn’t. Lots of parents who, if he confronted them about their child being the prankster calling at midnight, would look at him blankly and wonder why he didn’t unplug his phone.

      Why hadn’t he unplugged his phone?

      Bowen had stubbornly picked up the phone every single time, even though he knew he had only one midnight caller, even though he knew the exact pattern of the call by heart.

      “Hello.”

      His greeting would be followed by a long silence.

      “Hello?” he’d say again, irritated now, and then there would be another long silence.

      And then a voice, cleverly disguised to sound like a young child, would whisper, “Are you my daddy?”

      It was some sort of terrible cosmic joke, of course, that out of several million potential victims the prankster had found him, Bowen Reeve, a man haunted by a choice made while he was still in high school.

      “I’ve decided to give the baby up for adoption,” Becky had said.

      The right choice, of course. The only choice. They’d been unmarried, young, and poor, not so much in love as looking for an escape from the grim realities of their lives. Becky had moved away shortly after the birth of the baby, and Bowen had been saddened to read of her death in an automobile accident two years ago. It should have been the end of the chapter, but it wasn’t.

      Because he had held his baby, his son, once.

      It was something a man never forgot. Even though he tried. Even though, in the aftermath of that terrible time, he had made the decision that he would make a difference to other young men trying to find their way in a rough world, and even though he had followed through on that decision, he could not forget that somewhere out there was a child. His child.

      It was this fact that made him so furious at the midnight caller. Bowen never went right back to sleep after. Oh, no. He had to reopen all the eight-year-old wounds, revisit all the old hurts. It made him so cranky he could barely stand himself.

      “Coach,” one of his kids had finally said, “don’t bite my head off. What’s with you?”

      “Sorry, Barkley. I’ve been getting prank calls. I’m not sleeping.”

      Barkley had looked at him and rolled his eyes, a look reserved for those who had technology impairments. “So, you ever heard of Caller ID?”

      As a matter of fact, he hadn’t.

      But now that he had, this miracle of the modern age had led Bowen Reeve right to where he wanted to be. Sacrificing his Saturday had paid off.

      Vindication.

      As he studied the little white house that slumbered in the early spring sunshine, the garage door suddenly began to open.

      He slumped down farther in his seat, and then began to smile.

      There was the culprit, exactly as he had pictured him. Maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, the boy had his back to the opening door, and was squatted down beside a miniature motor bike, like the ones the monkeys rode in the circus.

      He was a typical delinquent. Too large white T-shirt, a large streak of grease on one sleeve, vest over it, baseball cap on backwards, long dark brown hair protruding out from under the cap. The kid looked downright scrawny.

      No match at all for six feet and one hundred and eighty-two pounds of angry football coach.

      Still, just in case he did not look intimidating enough, Bowen lowered his sunglasses over his eyes, got out of his vehicle, slammed the door.

      Bowen walked right up behind the kid, folded his arms over his chest and planted his legs. He cleared his throat.

      “Excuse me.”

      He was rewarded with a little squeal of fear, but his enjoyment was short-lived. The boy stood up and whirled around.

      And was not a boy!

      Bowen stared, startled, at the delectable curves under the T-shirt. And then, embarrassed, he looked up.

      She was no girl, either. Perhaps thirty, her face was a small heart, dominated by huge eyes that were part gold and part brown. He realized he could study those eyes endlessly trying to decide what color they were.

      At the moment, the eyes were sparking with irritation.

      “You scared me,” she said, and folded her arms defensively over her chest.

      “I’m sorry.” Then he felt annoyed with himself. He had pictured this conversation from beginning to end ever since the name had come up on the call display last night, and never once had it begun with the words I’m sorry.

      She had a little smudge of grease across the bridge of her nose, and Bowen was aware of the strangest desire to reach over with his thumb and wipe it off.

      Of course, there was the little matter of the wrench she was wielding. She looked prepared to use it if he took one