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

       EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      New York City

      Saturday, May 4

      CARIN BREWSTER clutched her sister’s hand and wondered how the human race had managed to survive if every woman who’d ever borne a child had to go through agony like this.

      She groaned as another contraction racked her body.

      “That’s it,” Amanda Brewster al Rashid said. “Push, Carin. Push!”

      “I—am—pushing,” Carin panted.

      “Mom’s on the way. She should be here soon.”

      “Great.” Carin bit down on her lip. “She can tell me she knows the right way to—ohhh, God!”

      “Oh, sweetie.” Amanda leaned closer. “Don’t you think it’s time you told me who—”

      “No!”

      “I don’t understand you, Carin! He’s the father of your child.”

      “Don’t—need—him.”

      “But he has the right to know what’s happening!”

      “He—hass—no—rights.”

      Carin grimaced with pain. What rights did a man have, when he was almost a stranger? None. None at all. Some of the decisions she’d made over the past months had been difficult. Whether to keep her baby. Whether to turn to her family for help. But deciding not to tell Rafe Alvares that he’d made her pregnant had been easy. He didn’t give a damn about her; why would he want to know? Why would a man who’d spent an hour in her bed and never tried to contact her again, want to know he was going to be a father?

      The contraction subsided. Carin fell back against the pillows.

      “He’s not important. The baby’s mine. I’m all that she’ll need. Just…” She groaned, arched from the bed. “…just me.”

      “That’s crazy.” Amanda wiped her sister’s forehead with a cool washcloth. “Please, Sis, tell me his name. Let me call him. Is it Frank?”

      “No!” Carin grasped Amanda’s hand more tightly. “It’s not Frank. And I’m not going to tell you anything else. Mandy, you said you wouldn’t do this. You promised. You said—”

      “Madame al Rashid? Excuse me, please, but I need to speak with your sister.”

      Carin turned her head. Sweat had run into her eyes and her vision was blurry but she could see Amanda step back to make room for Dr. Ronald.

      He sat down next to her and took her hand.

      “How’re you doing, Carin?”

      “I’m…” She hesitated. “I’m fine.”

      The doctor smiled. “You’re one tough cookie, that’s for sure. But we think you’ve been at this long enough.”

      Somehow, she managed a weak grin. “Try telling that to this baby.”

      “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. We’ve decided to take you down the hall and get this kid into the world. How’s that sound?”

      “Will it hurt my—”

      Another contraction gripped her body. Carin groaned and the doctor squeezed her hand. “No. On the contrary. It’ll conserve energy for the two of you. It’s the best thing to do, I promise.”

      The doctor rose to his feet and moved aside as two white-coated attendants came towards the bed.

      “Don’t you worry, missus,” one of them said. “You’ll be holding that baby of yours before you know it.”

      I’m not a missus, Carin thought, but everything was happening quickly now. Gentle hands lifted her; Amanda hurried alongside as she was rolled down the long corridor, her eyes fixed on the endless lights that shone from the ceiling. A pair of doors swooshed open just ahead, and her sister bent down and kissed her damp forehead.

      “Hey,” she whispered.

      “Hey,” Carin said softly.

      “I love you, Sis.”

      “Me, too,” Carin said, and then she was through the door and in a room with white tile walls, staring up at a light as bright as the sun.

      “Just relax, Ms. Brewster,” a voice told her, and there was a sudden burning sensation in her arm, where an IV needle already snaked under her skin.

      “Here we go,” her doctor said, and Carin spun away.

      Minutes passed, or maybe an hour; she couldn’t tell. She was drifting on a sea of soft clouds as she waited for the sound of her baby’s cry, but the doctor saying something in a sharp tone and then other voices joined in, calling out numbers, demanding five units of blood, stat.

      Carin forced her eyes open. The light was blinding now. A nurse bent over her and she tried to speak because suddenly she wanted someone to know what had happened, that her child had a father, that she could not forget him or the hour she had spent in his arms…

      And then everything faded to black, she was tumbling down a deep, deep tunnel, and suddenly, it was a hot August night instead of a warm Spring morning. She was at Espada, not in a hospital, and her life was about to change, forever…