by Day Leclaire
“This is for the baby,” she repeated.
“What baby?” Reed demanded.
“My new baby brother.” Becca offered her father a sunny smile. “He’s coming next summer.”
“Brother?” Reed’s brows shot up and he glanced at Angie, an odd glitter gathering in his eyes. “Something you neglected to mention, sweetheart?”
“I just found out myself,” she whispered. “I was going to tell you tonight.” She raised her voice. “Becca? How did you know about your new brother, darling?”
“An angel told me,” the little girl answered promptly with a sly glance at Scratch.
“I told you that dog has a big mouth,” Reed muttered.
But Scratch just grinned. After all...
Guardian Angels were tricky creatures. Especially when it came to accomplishing their missions. Fortunately, this mission looked well on its way to being successfully completed. Perhaps in another forty or fifty years, he’d know for certain.
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available July 1998
‘HAVE I DONE something wrong?’ Angie persisted, wishing Taylor would emit a sense of camaraderie instead of holding an impenetrable reserve.
‘Not at all,’ he assured her. ‘I would say a lot of things right. You seem to be fitting into our little Outback community very well. I’ve heard only good things about you.’
‘They’re nice people,’ she said sincerely. Only the Maguire family kept her shut out of their hearts.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Though I appreciate it’s taken considerable effort from you. It is a world away from what you’re used to.’
The control Angie had been exerting over her feelings snapped. He wasn’t as blatant as his aunt in his prejudice against her but she’d felt it coming through every word he’d spoken and she didn’t deserve any of it.
‘Don’t judge me by your wife!’
His jaw jerked. A flicker of some dark emotion destroyed the steady power of his probing gaze.
‘No two people are the same. If you don’t know that, you’re a man of very limited vision. So I come from the city as your wife did! That doesn’t stop me from being an individual in my own right.’
She straightened up, proudly defiant, furiously angry with the situation. ‘I’m me. Angie Cordell. And it’s time you took the blinkers off your eyes, Taylor Maguire.’ Then she whirled away from him, too agitated by the explosive expulsion of her emotion to keep facing him.
The storm outside hadn’t yet eased. There was nowhere to go. She stopped at the window, staring blindly at the torrential rain. The thundering on the roof was almost deafening but it wasn’t as loud as the silence behind her.
‘You want me to go, don’t you? You’ve given me a month’s respite and now you want me to leave and channel my energies somewhere else.’
‘I didn’t say that, Angie.’
‘You were working your way around it.’ Bitterness at his tactics spewed the suspicion. ‘Do you have your first choice of governess waiting in the wings?’
‘No. I said I’d give you a chance.’
‘Have you?’ She swung around to face him. ‘Have you really, Taylor?’
He hadn’t moved. He didn’t move now except to make a gesture of appeasement. ‘Angie, I was merely trying to ascertain how you felt.’
‘Then let me tell you your cynicism was shining through every word.’
He frowned, shook his head. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ The blue eyes fastened on hers with devastating sincerity. ‘I truly did not come in here to take you down or suggest you leave.’
Her heart jiggled painfully. He might be speaking the truth but the judgements were still there, the judgements that ruled his attitude towards her, that kept her shut out of his life, denied any real sharing with him, denied his confidence and trust. She didn’t know why it meant so much to her but it did. It did. And the need to fight for justice from him was as much a raging torrent inside her as the rain outside.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6296-6
THE BOSS, THE BABY AND THE BRIDE
First North American Publication 1998.
Copyright © 1998 by Day Totton Smith.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills. Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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