Friends. Without benefits. They both agreed.
Until she stole his heart.
Tabitha Jones will find her kidnapped toddler...even if it means searching every daycare in Southern California. So when her hunky, wealthy neighbor, Johnny Brubaker, offers a deal, Tabitha sees it as an ideal way to expand her search. In exchange for working his food truck, Johnny agrees to pose as Tabitha’s husband. It’s the perfect relationship...until Johnny realizes posing as a family man isn’t enough anymore.
She nodded. “They might call your parents...”
He was already ahead of her. “I called them myself and warned them that if they got any calls to please cooperate accurately.”
“You told them about me?” Her question ended on a high note. Like she was shocked.
But glad?
“No. I just told them that I was involved with helping out a family...”
She nodded. Disappointed? Relieved?
Did it matter?
“It just felt...like I was doing you a disservice, naming you as the father of my child.”
“Your imaginary child,” he reminded them both. And then, for reasons completely unknown to him, he added, “But being the father of your child couldn’t possibly be a disservice, Tabitha. It would be an honor...”
What? “For any man worth his salt,” he quickly added.
She studied him for a second while he held his breath. Then she smiled. A perfectly normal Tabitha and Johnny life-quest-partners smile.
And he felt like a survivor of Russian roulette.
* * *
THE DAYCARE CHRONICLES:
Bouncing babies and open hearts
Dear Reader,
Wow! Here I am, looking at my new digs and pinching myself! I’ve been writing for Harlequin for more than two decades—this is my 87th book—and yet it’s all brand-new again. I’m so glad to be joining the incredible Harlequin Special Edition team, you, the readers, and the authors and editors... I had my first dinner with Special Edition authors and our senior editor last summer and it was wonderful. Laughing and fun. And filled with deep, meaningful conversation, as well.
And those of you who are following me from Harlequin Superromance, I’m so so glad you came along. I’m looking forward to making new friends, but I’ve been so afraid of losing friends, too. We’ve been together a long time and you matter to me. So much. I promise you, here, the same intense emotional TTQ fiction you’ve come to expect from me.
Johnny and Tabitha have a big job, introducing this new chapter in the TTQ world, pleasing all of you. I think they’re up for the task. They’ve got a story that brought me to tears even on the final read, after I’d been through it so many times. Tabitha’s a strong woman, but her child has been stolen from her. That’s almost stronger than she is. Almost. And Johnny...he’s got everything, and doesn’t have the one thing he most wants—something that touches him to the core. I hope their story touches you to your core. Giving you warmth and the strength that comes from knowing we’re all in this life together, bound by the strongest power of all—love.
I love to connect with my readers. Please find me at tarataylorquinn.com, Facebook.com/tarataylorquinnauthor, on Twitter, @tarataylorquinn, or join my open Friendship board at Pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship.
All the best,
Tara
Her Lost and Found Baby
Tara Taylor Quinn
Having written over eighty-five novels, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a seven-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.
Books by Tara Taylor Quinn
Harlequin Special Edition
The Daycare Chronicles
Her Lost and Found Baby
Harlequin Superromance
Where Secrets are Safe
Wife by Design
Once a Family
Husband by Choice
Child by Chance
Mother by Fate
The Good Father
Love by Association
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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Excerpt from High Country Cowgirl by Joanna Sims
Chapter One
Hot stuff.
Johnny Brubaker squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t open them again until he knew all he’d see were the cardboard bowls side-by-side on the food truck’s long prep area in front of him.
He looked at the tickets hanging from the thin rack mounted above the board. He scooped rice, black beans and green beans, then added onion, lettuce and a healthy squirt of his signature barbecue-ranch dressing. He capped the first bowl, put the ticket on top of it and moved to the second. This one needed steak. The next was pork. He finished with all three in under a minute, keeping his line of vision completely under control.
Until a customer at the window of his food truck, Angel’s Food Bowls, asked a question of the woman taking orders.
“Johnny?” Tabitha Jones, the pediatric nurse who helped him on her days off, called out, naturally drawing his gaze.
And there was that sweet butt again. How had it gotten so cute overnight? Six months they’d been doing this, on and off, almost nine months of being neighbors and becoming friends, and now he was noticing her in that way?
“Yeah?” He turned back to his bowls, aware of the male face peering at him through the window but not caring all that much. They’d been parked on a public thoroughfare by San Diego’s Mission Beach for more than three hours, and he’d had people peering at him through that window ever since.
“The health inspector would like to know if he can board the truck.” Tabitha’s voice held a hint of...a less than upbeat tone.
Damn. “Of course he can board,” Johnny said, glancing at the truck’s order window with a mostly sincere smile on his face. He wanted a surprise inspection about as much as the next guy—never—but as an attorney, he knew that the more proven compliance records he amassed, the less vulnerable he’d be to a lawsuit.
The world was full of crazies and he’d discovered that jealousy ran rampant in the food-truck business.
Besides, they had a long line, and a more than thirty-second wait per customer could cause folks to wander away. He’d rather have
the inspector in the truck if it meant he could possibly keep business going.
Taking a second to reach into the bin above the driver’s-side visor, he pulled out the portfolio of plastic page protectors, all filled with the various permits and licenses he’d had to acquire, and set it on the driver’s seat of the truck. Then, stopping at the small sink designated only for handwashing, he squirted liquid soap on both hands. He lathered up to his elbows, in between his fingers and on the top of his hands, rinsed, dried himself on a disposable towel and, donning a new pair of plastic gloves, returned to work.
Pretending he hadn’t passed by Tabitha’s backside twice in the process.
What was with him?
Having his mind wander while engaged in a successful project—that he understood. Seemed to be his life story. But to look at Tabitha and see... To look at her that way, it just wasn’t right.
And it wasn’t like him, either.
They were partners in grief. Helping each other out with “life quest” projects, as she called them. Things they had to do so they could get on with the rest of their lives.
They were each other’s shoulder to cry on, propping each other up when necessary.
But they were not sexual beings. They’d both sworn off it until their quests were done. Their friendship was a safe zone. Tabitha’s drive to find her missing two-year-old son took up whatever emotional and physical energy she had left after the duties of her days. And Johnny...he was honoring his dead wife. You didn’t do that by sleeping with another woman.
He didn’t kid himself into thinking he’d never be open to a relationship again. He was only thirty—and alive. Alex Brubaker, Johnny’s father, expected a grand-heir to the family dynasty; Johnny wanted to raise one. But the food truck had been Angel’s passion.
It was his way of making sense of the fact that she’d died so young—senselessly murdered in a robbery over a year ago. If the guy, who’d taken a plea deal to avoid life without parole, had just asked for her purse, for her ATM card, she’d have handed them over. Money hadn’t been that important to her.
Angel hadn’t wanted the food truck as a means of earning cash for herself. She’d planned to donate all the proceeds to charity. Just as Johnny was doing. She’d loved to cook for people. Had loved the idea of traveling around from place to place and being just another person on the beach, working hard like everyone else.
As the daughter of a wealthy oilman and a graduate of one of the country’s most elite culinary institutes, she’d been able to open her own five-star restaurant where she cooked elegant dinners for some of the country’s most powerful people. And she’d been in the limelight, on the food channels, being written up in gourmet magazines.
But her real dream had been the food truck. She’d died before it could happen. So, to honor Angel, Johnny was taking a year out of his life to do it for her.
Getting involved with another woman didn’t belong anywhere in that plan.
“Everything looks good.”
Johnny nodded, barely glancing up from his bowls as the skinny fortysomething inspector spoke from the back of the truck. He was pleased to have the inspector leave positive paperwork for the portfolio. And to see the line still snaking out from the truck. This was the first of four days he and Tabitha would spend here, an hour and a half south of their Mission Viejo homes, and they’d have to make enough this first day—Sunday—to compensate for the smaller crowds and shorter hours on the weekdays.
The truck, his mission, was important, but they’d parked it in San Diego specifically so Tabitha could check out yet another daycare. She was certain this time.
He was, too. Certain that she was setting herself up for one more disappointment. Her goal—finding her son—mattered more than any food truck. He wanted it for her way more than he wanted his own success. He was just finding it harder, after months on the road with her, to keep his hope up on her behalf. But he’d do his part. Help her by playing the “dad” in a couple checking out daycares for their daughter. Just as Tabitha was helping him with the truck. It was the deal they’d made.
That thought came with an involuntary glance in her direction. She was leaning over the counter to hand his most recent creation—a bowl with only rice, onions, meat and dressing—out the window, putting her butt right before his eyes...again. Her jeans had jewels on the pockets. He’d never noticed jewels on her pockets before. Must be new. And that had to be the reason he was suddenly liking a part of Tabitha he had no business noticing.
Yep, had to be the jewels.
Weak, at best, but the explanation was all he had, so he was going with it.
* * *
The Bouncing Ball Daycare was located on the ground floor of one of San Diego’s nicer professional buildings. There was nothing opulent or ostentatious about the place, but judging by the placards on the walls and the cars in the lot on a Monday morning, the various small businesses and law firms that occupied the space were successful. One company, Braden Property Management, took up the entire top floor, according to a sign out front.
Tabitha homed in on the immaculate green grass and colorful flower beds that greeted them as they approached. Went inside.
“Didn’t you say the daycare owner’s name is Mallory Harris?” Johnny asked.
Fighting the tremors that assailed her any time she thought she might be close to Jackson, Tabitha stood in front of the directory in the building’s lobby and tried to focus on Johnny’s words.
Something about the daycare owner. Her name. Mallory Harris.
“Yes,” she said, equally grateful for and bothered by his innocuous interruption. Suspecting he’d done it on purpose, to distract her from the emotions assailing her, she was mostly grateful.
That day almost nine months before, when Johnny Brubaker had moved into the tiny house next to hers a mile from the beach in Mission Viejo, had been the second-best day of her life. Following Jackson’s birth, which had been the best.
The absolute worst had been the day Jackson’s biological father had failed to return him to her...
Johnny had purchased the little house as step one in his attempt to bring his murdered wife’s dream to life. Angel had wanted to leave their elite, moneyed, always-in-the-spotlight life behind and live like a “normal” person.
Looking up into Johnny’s clear blue eyes calmed Tabitha unlike anything else. His easy acceptance of...everything somehow made life seem more manageable. “You ready?” she asked.
“Whenever you are.” His voice held the usual note of confidence, leaving her with the feeling that he’d stand there in front of the directory all day if she needed him to, no questions asked.
But she knew he’d need a break. Johnny wasn’t good about missing his meals—not that you’d ever be able to tell he had a voracious appetite by looking at him. All six feet of the man were rock solid.
He waited for her to lead the way. She’d chosen her outfit carefully—a flowing summer skirt, brightly colored with small flowers, a ribbed T-shirt to match and sandals. She’d chosen his, too, because he’d asked—casual dark shorts and a light green button-up shirt—also with sandals. Johnny’s real life, the one he’d be going back to when his sabbatical was over, required suits and ties.
But for running a food truck...not such a good idea. Early on in their friendship, he’d asked her to go with him to buy a more casual wardrobe.
She’d laughed out loud that day for the first time since Jackson had been stolen away from her.
“I think this is it.” Johnny spoke just behind her.
While the daycare took up a lot of the first floor, the door leading into it was one panel with a small window at the top. Nothing there to invite strangers into the midst of the children. And no windows through which she could look from the outside. She knew the place had windows, plenty of them. She’d pored over the establishment’s website. First, so she
’d seem like a parent who really was interested in a place for her child. And second, so she’d be fully prepared for whatever she’d have to come up with to gain access to one particular child. Hers.
Legal access, of course. The police would help when she had something valid to bring them. Detective Bentley, her contact back home in Mission Viejo, had assured her that no matter how much time passed, he’d keep looking. He just needed something to go on.
“You have to turn that knob there for the door to open.” Johnny’s droll tone was completely lacking in the sarcasm his comment might have suggested. The steady kindness she’d come to associate with him was out in full force.
“I know,” she told him, afraid to turn around, afraid she’d be tempted to hide in the warmth of his gaze, put her head on his shoulder and cry. Because she was afraid that when she opened the door, the hope that had been keeping her going all week would be dashed.
And because... What if Jackson was behind that door and she’d finally, after over a year, hold her baby in her arms again?
It wouldn’t happen immediately. There’d be red tape. Still...her heart felt as though it might burst at the thought of seeing him and she consciously moved on, thinking of the nursery she’d changed into a bedroom for a toddler over the past year.
She’d done it with Johnny’s help, when he had the time and was alone in the evenings, too. She’d made wall hangings, a comforter and furry stuffed pillows in the shapes of animals.
She finally turned the knob, recalling the photo she’d found on Pinterest, the one that had started this particular quest. She looked on the internet every single day. Studied daycare pictures on many different internet sites—those that posted photos with parents’ permission. She searched social media sites, too. And any time she saw a child who even halfway resembled the age-progressed photo she had of Jackson, within the distance parameters she’d set, she and Johnny would plan an Angel’s Food Bowls trek to the area and visit daycares while they were there. All daycares on her list that also fit the parameters she’d figured Jackson’s father would choose, not just those with pictures.
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Her Lost and Found Baby Page 1
