From Here To Maternity: A Second ChancePromoted to MomOn Angel's Wings Read online

  Praise for TARA TAYLOR QUINN

  “One of the skills that has served Quinn best…has been her ability to explore edgier subjects.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Tara Taylor Quinn’s deeply felt stories of romance and family will warm your heart.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Crusie

  Praise for KAREN ROSE SMITH

  “Powerful characterization, balanced emotional moments and a tense, compelling story line.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKclub

  “Karen Rose Smith writes her books with heart, flooding her words with emotion and demanding a reaction from the reader. Ms. Smith is a shining star in the romance world.”

  —WritersUnlimited.com

  Praise for INGLATH COOPER

  “I most definitely highly recommend John Riley’s Girl and award it RRT’s highest honor, a Perfect 10. May Ms. Cooper keep bringing us more of the same caliber.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “The Lost Daughter of Pigeon Hollow by talented Inglath Cooper is a feel-good book that you will want to read again and again.”

  —CataRomance.com

  Dear Reader,

  Spring is on the way, and the Signature Select program offers lots of variety in the reading treats you’ve come to expect from some of your favorite Harlequin and Silhouette authors.

  The second quarter of the year continues the excitement we began in January with a can’t-miss drama from Vicki Hinze: Her Perfect Life. In it, a female military prisoner regains her freedom only to find that the life she left behind no longer exists. Myrna Mackenzie’s Angel Eyes gives us the tale of a woman with an unnatural ability to find lost objects and people, and Confessions of a Party Crasher, by Holly Jacobs, is a humorous novel about finding happiness—even as an uninvited guest!

  Our collections for April, May and June are themed around Mother’s Day, matchmaking and time travel. Mothers and daughters are a focus in From Here to Maternity, by Tara Taylor Quinn, Karen Rose Smith and Inglath Cooper. You’re in for a trio of imaginative time-travel stories by Julie Kenner, Nancy Warren and Jo Leigh in Perfect Timing. And a matchmaking New York cabbie is a delightful catalyst to romance in the three stories in A Fare To Remember by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Julie Elizabeth Leto and Kate Hoffmann.

  Spring also brings three more original sagas to the Signature Select program. Hot Chocolate on a Cold Day tells the story of a Coast Guard worker in Michigan who finds herself intrigued by her new downstairs neighbor. Jenna Mills’s Killing Me Softly features a heroine who returns to the scene of her own death, and You Made Me Love You by C.J. Carmichael explores the shattering effects of the death of a charismatic woman on the friends who adored her.

  And don’t forget, there is original bonus material in every single Signature Select book to give you the inside scoop on the creative process of your favorite authors! Happy reading!

  Marsha Zinberg

  Executive Editor

  The Signature Select Program

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  Karen Rose Smith

  &

  Inglath Cooper

  From Here to Maternity

  CONTENTS

  A SECOND CHANCE

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  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

  PROMOTED TO MOM

  Karen Rose Smith

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  EPILOGUE

  ON ANGEL’S WINGS

  Inglath Cooper

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  EPILOGUE

  BONUS FEATURES

  A SECOND CHANCE

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  Dear Reader,

  There are just some stories that are meant to be, and for me, this is one of them.

  There are so many special things I could tell you about this story, but there’s one that far outshines the rest. A Second Chance tells the truth—it’s about a new beginning, a meaningful, meant-to-be life that starts after forty. And I don’t mean a life of settling for less, but a full, complete life. It’s about a love that won’t die, a family that should have been—and a new unexpected chance to start that family. Though the characters in this story are fictitious, the experiences are not. Having a baby after forty is highly possible. It’s real and it’s happening, and happening happily.

  And the reason this truth is so special to me is that I was experiencing, through my brother and his wife, the very situation about which I was writing. After giving up hope of having a son, after having surgery to prevent more children, my brother and his wife found themselves expecting a baby at forty-two! I won’t forget the morning when my brother phoned to tell me they were on the way to the hospital for one of the recommended prenatal tests. He was so excited; he sounded like he was fourteen instead of over forty. I spent the morning with my character Melanie, waiting for the results. And when I did, I heard, “It’s a boy!”

  Three weeks after I finished A Second Chance, I was sitting in my brother’s family room, holding my little nephew, and falling in love again. I changed my first baby-boy diaper—and learned why it’s necessary to get the new diaper on before the old one’s completely off. I felt alive, energized and hopeful for everything in life waiting ahead, for all of us. And I saw two very happy parents, two people who get up each morning completely aware of how lucky they are, two people who are embracing their second chance.

  I wish you all as many chances as you want—for whatever makes you happy.

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  For Scott and Carlene and my dearest baby William. Whatever life holds will be richer because of this new addition to our family. William, you showed us all that miracles are real and happen to everyday people.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I JUST COULDN’T BELIEVE IT.

  Me.

  Forty-eight years old. A woman who had gray hair hiding beneath the blond highlights.

  A woman whose entire adult life had been shaped, colored and bound by the unplanned pregnancy of my youth, by the giving away of an illegitimate baby girl when I’d been a mere child myself. There I was, looking at not one but three test strips—all delivering the same shocking news.

  I was pregnant.

  “God, if this is your idea of a joke, your sense of humor needs a serious overhaul,” I muttered, sitting at the glass-topped teak desk in my home office, staring at the three slightly wrinkled pregnancy test strips I’d brought in from the bathroom, one a day, for each of the past three days.

  The generic music playing from the phone at my ear wasn’t affected by my obvious anxiety. Neither was the four-pound toy poodle curled up between me and the arm of my chair.

  “This is Dr. Marsh.”

  “Oh, Lynn, I’m in one hell of a mess.”

  “Melanie?” My gynecologist of more
than twenty years—and sorority sister at the University of Colorado before that—knew it was me on the line because I’d just given my name to her receptionist. I’d practically started to cry, begging her to put the doctor on the phone. “What’s wrong? Your hot flashes driving you crazy enough to make you consider hormones?”

  I bit back a sharp retort, remembering that this was not Lynn’s fault. And that I needed her help.

  “I didn’t say I am a mess, I said I’m in a mess.”

  “Okay, tell me about it. But I’ve got patients waiting, so make it quick.”

  Lynn worked longer hours than any doctor I’d ever known. I was lucky she’d taken a minute to speak with me.

  “I want to know how a woman who hasn’t had a period in months, who’s been having hot flashes for over two years, could possibly be pregnant.”

  “She has unprotected sex with a man when she’s ovulating.”

  All those years of med school and Lynn couldn’t come up with anything more original than that? I needed aliens—at the very least.

  “How often do test strips lie?”

  “About two percent of the time.”

  “And if there are three of them?”

  “There’s a pregnancy.”

  My insides somersaulted and dropped with a thud, leaving me feeling sick and shaky and weak.

  “Melanie?” Lynn’s voice brought me out of my panicked stupor long enough to focus on those damn test strips again. I was tempted to sweep them off the desk and into the trash. And yet I couldn’t. “Did you really do three tests?”

  “Yes. One a day for the past three days.”

  “And they were all positive?”

  “Completely,” I said sullenly. “Not even a bit of faded color.”

  “Then we need to get you in here as soon as possible,” my doctor said. “You’re forty-eight years old, so this won’t be easy.”

  I’d already figured that out.

  “How far along do you think you might be?”

  “I’m six weeks at ten tonight, give or take half an hour or so for egg and sperm travel time.”

  I felt dizzy and bowed my head, rubbing it with my hand, hoping that the touch would somehow calm me, reassure me.

  If nothing else, it distracted me from my aloneness for a moment.

  “You seem pretty certain about that.”

  “I’ve had sex once in the past nineteen years.” I admitted the sad truth only because, as my gynecologist, Lynn knew I hadn’t been sexually active. “I figure that’s gotta be the time that did it.”

  “Okay, well, six weeks gives you a little while to decide what you want to do.”

  Decide what I want to do? “If there really is a baby, I can’t abort it.”

  “Let’s wait and talk about this when I see you,” Lynn said briskly. I forgave her because I knew she had other patients to see. “This is the busiest March I’ve ever had, but I’m going to switch you back to Mary and have her work you in tomorrow. It’ll have to be in the morning. I’m in surgery on Thursday afternoons.”

  I had a quarterly sales meeting in the morning, one that was bringing men and women from all over the country into town. “Okay.”

  “Melanie.” Lynn’s voice came over the line just when I was expecting to be driven insane by the background music. “Whatever you decide, it’ll be okay.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. From my perspective, I couldn’t quite see how anything would ever be okay again. At least not for me.

  “I’m forty-eight years old, Lynn,” I said now, holding tears at bay by sheer force of will, driven by the pride that had carried me through most of my life. “Is it even physically possible for me to go full-term and deliver a healthy baby?”

  I had to know.

  “Yes.” My doctor’s pragmatic personality was a blessing at that moment. I actually believed her. “More and more women are waiting until later in life to have children,” she continued. “There will be more risks and precautions than if you were twenty, but chances are in your favor.”

  I nodded, tried to thank her and ended up just hanging on to the phone until Mary came back on the line.

  She gave me an appointment for seven-thirty the next morning.

  I could still make my sales meeting. Somehow, that made it all a little less frightening.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, we have a tough act to follow at Vector this next quarter.” I walked back and forth in front of the fifty-two regional sales directors seated in the resort-hotel meeting room in Palm Desert, California. “Which is my way of saying you’ve outdone yourselves. Congratulations!”

  Applause resounded throughout the room and I wondered, as I had so many times before, if the dynamic men and women in front of me were genuinely pleased with their production or if the outburst of emotion was really just a manifestation of the relief they felt, knowing their jobs were secure for another three months.

  Being in sales was tough. You were only as good as your most recent accomplishment.

  Everything looks good. Your blood pressure is perfect, no thyroid concerns and you’re healthy.

  Yes but I…sag…in places I can see. Am I sagging in…there…too? Will my body be strong enough to hold six pounds of human being in place? Or will the baby hang down to my knees as my breasts are threatening to do?

  I suddenly realized I was surrounded by silence—and an uncomfortable sense of expectation. They’d finished applauding and were waiting for me, their leader, to…you know…lead.

  “This quarter we signed a three-year windshield contract with Detroit’s biggest manufacturer, a two-year deal to provide windows to a national builder of custom homes in upscale retirement resorts and—” my favorite “—we finally closed a major deal with J. D. Heath.…”

  Murmurs of approval spread throughout the room. I paused, making eye contact with as many of my sales directors as I could. I knew them all personally, had chosen them all personally. I waited for the goose bumps, and for that heady feeling of success that accompanied the closure of any big deal. It was the thrill of the job, the adrenaline rush that kept us all going in a business that was cutthroat at the very least.

  These next weeks will be critical. I’m not going to kid you, here, Melanie. Your chances of miscarriage are more than double what they were the first time you did this.

  Rick Stevens caught my eye and nodded. His hair was starting to gray, but the color was attractive on him. Six feet, slim, athletic and with a warm smile that was as quick as it was sincere, Rick didn’t look any older than the first day I’d met him—just more distinguished. He’d been the first salesman I’d hired ten years earlier when I was promoted from Vector’s sales force to manage my own corporate sales team. He and his wife were two of my favorite people.

  “Good work, Melanie,” Rick called out.

  Yes, well…

  I smiled and stepped behind the podium, something I almost never do, needing to put my hand on my belly.

  “It was Rick’s account, guys,” I said, smiling at the audience. J. D. Heath built skyscrapers and I’d been after them for about fifteen years—knowing that Vector was the best company to supply their millions of pounds of custom glass walls—and that I could secure another year of my retirement with that one signature.

  I’d worked the deal, put together a package they couldn’t refuse, but it had taken Rick’s 81 on a par-five championship course right here in Palm Desert to cinch the deal.

  Did I mention that I hate golf?

  Rick turned around in his chair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. “All I contributed was a handshake,” he told his peers. And that’s probably why I liked Rick so much. He was my top producer, gifted at getting people to believe him when he told them he had just what they needed, but he was also honest.

  I have to be honest with you. I’d rather you aborted.…

  No. I shook my head, and stepped out from behind the podium. I wasn’t going to listen to those words. Didn’
t when I was seventeen, and wasn’t going to now. No matter how trusted the source of the advice.

  “And a year’s worth of meetings and phone calls and compromises…” I said to the group. “Which is what I want to talk to you about today. Ladies and gentlemen, we can railroad a lot of people into buying. Once. Maybe twice. But I don’t just want food on my table today. I want it there for a lifetime. I want it for each and every one of you. And the way to get that is to sell with what?”

  “Integrity,” fifty-two voices chorused.

  “Right.” I stepped down, needing to be among them. I was one of them, nothing more. Always would be. “We need to sell with the customer in mind,” I continued, feeling better now that I was in the bosom of my “family.” “We need to think about the person, the company—not the wallet. We need to listen to what they aren’t saying—not for the advantage, not for information we’ll use to manipulate them into doing what we want. Not for a sure way to the desired sale. But so we can figure out what they really want and need, and find out if there’s a way for us to give it to them.…”

  What do you want, Mel? Do you want to give it up?

  I don’t know, Denny. No. I don’t. At all. This baby is us. Me and you. But how can I keep it? I’m only seventeen. I have another year of high school. So do you. My parents will kick me out. You won’t let me near your place with your old man there. We can’t raise a baby in a tent. And what about college?

  I’ll skip college if you want.

  I meant for the baby.

  “HI, MELANIE, sorry I’m late.”

  I smiled, astonished, as I was every single time I saw Kylie, that this beautiful, successful, confident brunette with the impeccable skin, stylish clothes and genuine smile was my daughter. Mine and Denny’s.

  I’d been waiting at the little café on Palm Desert Drive for half an hour. And I didn’t care a bit. The Thursday-night crowd had been steady enough to keep me company—and they’d done a lot better job of it than my own thoughts were doing.

  “Tough day in court?” I asked. Kylie was an attorney with the county prosecutor’s office, chief counsel on juvenile abuse cases.