Adopted: Family in a Million

He’d only wanted to brush her lipswith his, but once they touched hefelt desire rise.

He wanted more. Susan was willing, and opened her mouth at the first hint from him.

Wrapping her in his arms, he kissed her as he had in the kitchen. Ending the kiss too soon, he rested his forehead against hers. “Thanks again for dinner,” he said.

“Thanks for watching my son,” she replied, her eyes luminescent.

Zack rode the elevator down to the lobby. He wasn’t sure he was going about this the right way. He was beginning to want Susan in a totally different way. And to feel guilty about not telling her of his relationship to Danny. It was becoming complex, when all he’d started out to do was catch a glimpse of his son. Now he knew him—knew he was happy and thriving.

Susan had been unexpected—as were the growing emotions and attachment he was feeling for her. How would she take learning he was Danny’s biological father? Would she send him packing? Become distant but allow him to continue visiting with them?

Or was she beginning to feel something more for him, as he was for her? Could it lead to marriage?

Or would telling her end everything?

Barbara McMahon was born and raised in the South USA, but settled in California after spending a year flying around the world for an international airline. After settling down to raise a family and work for a computer firm, she began writing when her children started school. Now, feeling fortunate in being able to realise a long-held dream of quitting her ‘day job’ and writing full-time, she and her husband have moved to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, where she finds her desire to write is stronger than ever. With the beauty of the mountains visible from her windows, and the pace of life slower than the hectic San Francisco Bay Area where they previously resided, she finds more time than ever to think up stories and characters and share them with others through writing. Barbara loves to hear from readers. You can reach her at PO Box 977, Pioneer, CA 95666-0977, USA. Readers can also contact Barbara at her website: www.barbaramcmahon.com

Dont’s miss Barbara McMahon’s

next Mills & Boon Romance Greek Boss, Dream Proposal August 2009

BY

BARBARA McMAHON

To my dear friend Carolyn Samuels.

Here’s to fun in the sun

and happy memories of days gone by.

November

“I HAVE a son.” Zack said the words aloud. The reality wasn’t there. The pain was. He tried to focus on the revelation in the letter and ignore the injuries that had landed him in the hospital with months of healing and physical therapy ahead before he was fit again. Shifting slightly, he reread the letter.

The letter was dated three months ago. Why had it taken so long to reach him? Being on a remote building site in the middle of a Middle Eastern desert probably had a lot to do with it.

Did it matter? What if it had arrived shortly after it had been posted, he would have still been in shock. Would it have changed anything? Would he have been on the phone asking questions instead of being in the vicinity of that land mine?

“I have a son and his name is Daniel,” he repeated softly.

“Did you say something?” A nurse poked her head into the room. “Everything okay? Need more painkiller?”

“I’m okay,” he said, impatient with the interruption. He wanted to read the letter again. Try to understand.

He couldn’t take it in. Alesia Blair had been his steady girlfriend the last time he had been Stateside on leave. They’d had a great few months together, until he had accepted another overseas assignment. There had been no great love between them, but he had enjoyed taking her places where others had admired her beauty. To think of her as dead was hard. She’d relished life.

But she’d never contacted him after he had left. Not even to tell him about their son.

He was grateful to her sister, Brittany, however, for letting him know, however delinquent the notice. She explained she had been against her sister’s decision to keep quiet about the baby. A child should know his father. She’d wrestled with the situation after Alesia’s death and finally decided to write to him, telling him what she knew. He’d railed against fate for Alesia’s silence. How could she not have told him five years ago she was carrying his child?

At least he had the opportunity and means to locate the boy, his only living relative. That thought was amazing. He’d accepted years ago that he’d probably spend his life alone. He had friends, but no one close. His formative years had been in a series of foster homes. Moving from place to place had taught him not to form attachments. Nothing lasted beyond the next move. His job did nothing to change that as an adult. He was a nomad, no home, no family.

Zack had no idea when he had left the United States almost five years ago that Alesia had been pregnant. They had used precautions. She had never contacted him. At first he thought she might. But his job assignment had been for two years. Alesia had been a fun-loving, party girl. Two years waiting for a man was not her style. Yet the pregnancy would have changed all that.