Trumped Up Charges
When a mother’s love meets a father’s instinct…Ex-Marine Adam Dalton once dreamed of a life with Hadley O’Sullivan, but war and a near fatal injury cost him dearly. Now he returns to Dallas to discover the unthinkable—Hadley is the prime suspect in the disappearance of her twin baby girls…the daughters he never knew he had.Beyond Hadley’s terror of having her children kidnapped, is the shock of seeing Adam. Yes, she had kept him from his daughters, but now, when he insists they work together as a united front, she knows she is still in love with him. Despite their past, finding their children is their only hope to finally become a family—if time doesn’t run out first.
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WHEN A MOTHERâS LOVE MEETS A FATHERâS INSTINCTâ¦
Ex-marine Adam Dalton once dreamed of a life with Hadley OâSullivan, but war and a near-fatal injury cost him dearly. Now he returns to Dallas to discover the unthinkableâHadley is the prime suspect in the disappearance of her twin baby girlsâ¦the daughters he never knew he had.
Beyond Hadleyâs terror of having her children kidnapped is the shock of seeing Adam. Yes, she had kept him from his daughters, but now, when he insists they work together as a united front, she knows she is still in love with him. Despite their past, finding their children is their only hope to finally becoming a familyâif time doesnât run out first.
âLila and Lacy are your daughters. I conceived before you shipped out.â
Adam heard the words, but it took all his powers of concentration to make them sink in. âAre you sure?â
âIâm positive. They couldnât be anyone elseâs. I hadnât slept with anyone but you for over eighteen months before I conceived. I havenât been with another man since you.â
âBut the marriageâ¦?â
âWas a sham.â She made a statement of his question. âIt was never consummated.â
All the months heâd lain in that hospital, agonizing over her making love to another man, all the long nights when heâd survived on bitterness that she could forget him so easily.
Had she been clinging to the love theyâd shared, resenting him, feeling betrayed as he had? But he could have never married someone else.
âWhy didnât you tell me I was going to be a father? Why didnât you give me a chance to do right by you?â
JOANNA WAYNE was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from LSU Shreveport. She moved to New Orleans in 1984, and it was there that she attended her first writing class and joined her first professional writing organization. Her debut novel, Deep in the Bayou, was published in 1994.
Now, dozens of published books later, Joanna has made a name for herself as being on the cutting edge of romantic suspense in both series and single-title novels. She has been on the Waldenbooks bestseller list for romance and has won many industry awards. She is also a popular speaker at writing organizations and local community functions and has taught creative writing at the University of New Orleans Metropolitan College.
Joanna currently resides in a small community forty miles north of Houston, Texas, with her husband. Though she still has many family and emotional ties to Louisiana, she loves living in the Lone Star State. You may write Joanna at P.O. Box 852, Montgomery, Texas 77356.
Hadley OâSullivanâWhen her twin daughters go missing, her secrets might be her worst enemy.
Adam DaltonâHadleyâs former fiancé, who shows up at her door when her girls go missing.
Lacy and Lila OâSullivanâHadleyâs precocious twins.
RJ DaltonâAdamâs father and the owner of Dry Gulch Ranch.
Matilda BastionâHadleyâs motherâs longtime housekeeper.
Quinton LarsonâMatildaâs brother.
Alana and Sam BastionâMatildaâs sixteen-year-old daughter and eighteen-year-old son.
KalaâAn accomplice in the kidnapping.
Janice OâSullivanâHadleyâs mother.
Detective Shelton LaneâThe head detective on the kidnapping case.
Fred CaseyâProfessional hostage negotiator.
Durk and Meghan LambertâRJâs neighbors.
To my good friends Jean and John, who shared a wonderful week at the beach with my patient husband and me and put up with my preoccupation with writing this book.
Contents
R. J. Daltonâs days were numbered.
The prognosis pricked at him like a bull nettle. Nobody like a neurosurgeon to hand it to you straight. Not that he blamed the doc. Canât make a silk purse of a sowâs belly.
R.J. eased up on the accelerator of his new Dodge Ram pickup and made the turn onto the familiar back road that led to Dry Gulch Ranch.
He didnât have any real gripes. Heâd had seventy-eight years on this earth. For the most part, heâd lived them on his terms. Heâd never backed down from a fight or walked away from a good time.
He wasnât always proud of what heâd done, but heâd never killed a man or got a woman pregnant he hadnât marriedâor at least offered to wed. The last wildcat heâd tangled with had told him what he could do with his proposal. Pretty as a new foal, but the woman had been all horns and rattles.
Not that Kiki or any of his exes would be coming around to plant daises when he was belly-up under a plot of red Texas clay. Nobody even might show up for the funeral âcept a few of his neighbors. Most of them would be there only to shoot the bull with the other pseudo mourners or to get the inside scoop on how to pick up the Dry Gulch for half its worth.
