Noah And The Stork
This Stork Was Nine Years Late!When Noah Bryant returns home to Erskine, Montana, he's not anticipating a hero's welcome. After all, he abandoned the town–and his high school girlfriend–right after the prom and hasn't spoken to anyone there since. But the last person he expects to meet is his nine-year-old daughter, Jessie…a daughter he didn't know he had.When Noah returns, Janey realizes she never really stopped loving him. And he seems eager to be a part of Jessie's life, and hers. But Noah's back in Erskine for more than personal reasons; he has a business proposition that could seriously affect the whole town. And if there's anything Janey loves as much as her family, it's Erskine.
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“You’re a mom?” Noah said
Not that he couldn’t see Janey as a mom. He could think of no one who loved children more or would be better at raising them than Janey. It was simply that in his mind she was still seventeen, still carefree and single, not a grown woman with a kid around eight or nine years old.…
Jessie turned around right then and Noah found himself looking into a pair of green eyes, the kind of green eyes he’d seen every morning of his life, staring back at him from his own mirror. His gaze rose, slowly, to meet Janey’s, suspicion oozing into the tiny part of his brain that shock hadn’t paralyzed.
Janey pulled her daughter against her, wrapping her arms around the thin shoulders. The truth Noah saw in her eyes slid into uncertainty, then misery when he didn’t speak.
Jessie glanced up at her mom, then simply and confidently stepped out of the shelter of Janey’s arms. She stopped halfway between the two adults, fixed Noah with a stare that was almost too direct to return and said, “I’m Jessie. Are you my dad?”
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to Erskine, Montana, where the streets roll up promptly at 6:00 p.m., neighbors still come together to lend a hand in times of need, and gossip is as much a way of life as baseball and apple pie. Erskine’s not perfect by a long shot, but Janey Walters loves it just the way it is.
She grew up there, she fell in love with Noah Bryant there and she had her daughter, Jessie, there. Noah is Jessie’s father, but he left town before he knew Jessie was on the way. That was ten years ago. He’s back now, but he isn’t the only one who’s getting a surprise. He has big plans for the little town that Janey loves and he couldn’t wait to leave.
The townspeople are like a large, eccentric, extended family to Janey and Jessie, and Erskine is their home. But as Noah becomes a part of his daughter’s life and earns himself a place in Janey’s heart again, is she willing to trade the town she’s always loved for the real family she and Jessie have always wanted?
Reunion stories are some of my favorites. I hope you truly enjoy Janey, Noah and Jessie’s story.
Penny McCusker
For my husband, Michael, and my kids, Mike, Erin and Ian. Because you put up with me.
Books by Penny McCusker
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
1063—MAD ABOUT MAX
Contents
Chapter One
Men were generally a pain in the neck, Janey Walters thought, but there were times when they came in handy. Like when your house needed a paint job, or your kitchen floor could use refinishing, or your car was being powered by what sounded like a drunk tap dancer with a thirst for motor oil.
Or when you woke in the middle of the night, alone and aching with needs that went way beyond physical, into realms best left to Hallmark and American Greetings. Whoever wrote those cards managed to say everything there was to say about love in a line or two. Janey didn’t even like to think about the subject anymore. Thinking about it made her yearn, yearning made her hopeful, and hope, considering her track record with the opposite sex, was a waste of energy.
She set her paintbrush on top of the can and climbed to her feet. She’d been sitting on the front porch for the past hour, slapping paint on the railings, wondering if the petty violence of it might exorcise the sense of futility that had settled over her as of late. All she’d managed to do was polka-dot everything in the vicinity—the lawn and rosebushes, the porch floor and herself—which only made more work for her and did nothing to solve the real problems.
And boy, did she have problems. No more than any other single mom who lived in a house that was a century old, with barely enough money to keep up with what absolutely had to be fixed, never mind preventive maintenance. And thankfully, Jessie was a normal nine-year-old girl—at least she seemed well-adjusted, despite the fact that her father had never been, and probably never would be, a part of her life.
It only seemed worse to Janey now that her best friend had gotten married. But then, Sara had been waiting six years for Max to figure out he loved her, and Janey would never have wished for a different outcome. She and Sara still worked together, and talked nearly every day, so it wasn’t as if anything had really changed in Janey’s life. It just felt…emptier somehow.
She put both hands on the small of her aching back and stretched, letting her head fall back and breathing deeply, in and out, until she felt some of the frustration and loneliness begin to fade away.
“Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.”
Janey gasped, straightening so fast she all but gave herself whiplash. That voice…Heat moved through her, but the cold chill that snaked down her spine won hands down. It couldn’t be him, she told herself. He couldn’t simply show up at her house with no warning, no time to prepare.
