Searching for Cate
Since her mother's death, FBI Special Agent Cate Kowalski had to cope with the deep emptiness she felt–and the shocking revelation that she was adopted.The news came too soon after losing her fiancé and destroyed the very foundation of her identity. So now, the only way for Cate to find herself was to go in search of her birth mother.She didn't count on finding love on her path to self-discovery.It had been three years since Dr. Christian Graywolf's wife died and he still blamed himself for her death. As a result, he focused entirely on his work at Blair Memorial Hospital until his sister brought home colleague Cate Kowalski. The attraction was intense, immediate–and the truth was something neither Christian nor Cate expected: that all his life Christian had been searching for Cate.
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An eerie feeling wafted through Cate, as if this wasn’t real.
As if she was looking into the mirror and seeing into the past.
Joan cleared her throat, her nervousness growing. “Can I help you?”
Cate kept looking at the woman in the bed, searching for some foolproof sign. All the while knowing that there wouldn’t be one. “That all depends.”
“On what?” Joan whispered the words, now clearly fatigued.
Cate took a step toward her then stopped. She was afraid that the woman would pass out if she came any closer. Did she know? On some instinctive level?
Cate put her thoughts into words. “On whether you’re willing to admit that you’re my mother.”
Dear Reader,
The Signature Select aims to single out outstanding stories, contemporary themes and oft-requested classics by some of your favorite series authors and present them to you in a variety of formats bound by truly striking covers.
We want to provide several different types of reading experiences in the new Signature Select program. The Spotlight books offer a single “big read” by a talented series author, the Collections present three novellas on a selected theme in one volume, the Sagas contain sprawling, sometimes multi-generational family tales (often related to a favorite family first introduced in series) and the Miniseries feature requested previously published books, with two or, occasionally, three complete stories in one volume. The Signature Select program offers one book in each of these categories per month, and fans of limited continuity series will also find these continuing stories under the Signature Select umbrella.
In addition, these volumes bring you bonus features…different in every single book! You may learn more about the author in an extended interview, more about the setting or inspiration for the book, more about subjects related to the theme and, often, a bonus short read will be included. Authors and editors have been outdoing themselves in originating creative material for our bonus features—we’re sure you'll be surprised and pleased with the results!
The Signature Select program strives to bring you a variety of reading experiences by authors you’ve come to love, as well as by rising stars you’ll be glad you’ve discovered.
The excitement continues!
Warm wishes for happy reading,
Marsha Zinberg
Executive Editor
The Signature Select Program
Dear Reader
What if, one day, you wake up to discover that everything you believed to be true, wasn’t? That the parents you’d always loved really weren’t your parents? How would you feel? These are the emotions that FBI Special Agent Cate Kowalski finds herself facing. She’d gone into law enforcement to honor and emulate the father she’d always adored, the father who was killed in the line of duty while she was still in her teens. Now, she finds the very reason for who and what she is has been based on a lie. This is the premise behind Searching For Cate. It is Cate who is searching for herself, the way that, in part, we all search for ourselves, except that in her case she has to begin from scratch. The search for her birth parents brings her to Southern California and eventually, into the life of Dr. Christian Graywolf, a selfless physician who is also one of the walking wounded. Together, slowly, they each heal the gaping hole in the other’s soul.
I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. And, as always, I wish you love.
To Marsha Zinberg, who asked, and Patience Smith, who said yes.
Thank you.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Bonus Features
Chapter 1
“What do you mean it’s not compatible?”
Special Agent Catherine Kowalski stared at the short, husky lab technician before her. A basket filled with vials, syringes and other blood-letting paraphernalia was looped over his arm and he looked at her as if she were a deranged troll who had wandered out of a fairy tale.
The drone of voices in the hospital corridor outside her mother’s single-care unit faded into the background as she tried to make some kind of sense of what the man had just told her.
It’s a mistake, a voice whispered in her head. But still, there was this terrible tightening in the pit of her stomach, as if she was about to hear something she didn’t want to hear.
This was absurd, she thought. Just a small foul-up, nothing more.
“She’s my mother. How could my blood type be incompatible with hers? There has to be some mistake,” Cate insisted.
There was no sympathy on the technician’s rounded, pockmarked face, just a weariness that came from doing the same laboratory procedures day after endless day. There was more than just a touch of indignation in his eyes at being questioned.
