* * * * *
“Claudia, the baby sounds fine,” Doctor Dawson announced, listening to her belly with a funny instrument strapped to his forehead. “Have you felt it move or kick since the fall earlier?”
“Many times.” Claudia fastened her skirt then sat up with Laura’s aid. “Everything looks fine?”
“I’d say you should spend some time off of your feet the next few days to be sure. But I think you’re both doing well.”
“Nathan and I are planning to stay a few more days, dear,” Laura reassured her. “I want to be sure all three of you are fine before we head back down the mountain. And Nathan is hoping to help Henderson with the harvest, since Micah won’t be able to.”
“Well, after Micah finishes his business with the judge, it probably won’t matter anyway, Laura.” Claudia stood by the window, looking out into the dark night.
“Whatever do you mean?” Laura put her arm around Claudia’s shoulders.
“The only business Micah could have with the judge this soon after Gibson’s death, would be to follow through with the divorce.”
“Oh, Claudia, you can’t believe that.” Laura turned her into her shoulder, knowing the truth her friend wasn’t able to see.
“I do. And we’ll probably be leaving with you first thing in the morning,” Claudia said dejectedly.
A knock sounded on the door.
Nathan opened it. “Are you ready? Micah wants to see us all in your room.”
Claudia took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
She felt like a condemned man going to the gallows. She walked into their bedroom, standing at the foot of the bed, looking Micah straight in the eye, determined to keep her dignity no matter how much he humiliated her.
“Nathan, would you ask Hank, Adam and Joey to come in?” Micah directed his friend.
When they arrived, he motioned for Hank to come stand beside him.
“First, I want to thank you for saving myself and Claudia, Hank.” He shook his son’s hand. “Then I want everyone to know that this is my son, Henry Turner. And before witnesses, I claim him as such. I hope that will be satisfactory with you, Hank.” He looked up at the young man to see what his reaction would be.
“I’m proud to be your son, Micah.” He shook his hand, then leaned down to hug his father.
“And I’m proud to have a son like you.”
“Especially one who can shoot so good,” added Joey.
“That’s true,” Micah joined the room’s laughter.
Claudia continued to watch him in silence.
He motioned Adam and Joey over to the bed. “I know you two think of Claudia as your mother, boys. But since legally you’re orphans, I’d like to remedy that situation if it’s okay with you two?”
“I guess so, Micah. Except…” Joey hedged his question.
“Except what, little fella?” Micah asked, a sudden fear in his own heart that the boys might not want to be adopted.
“Except what does remedy mean? It doesn’t mean we have to take medicine does it?” He eyed the doctor suspiciously.
“No.” Micah laughed again. “What it means is I’d like to fix that problem.”
“How?”
“By adopting you both. Would that be okay with you?’
The boys exchanged looks and said, “Sure,” simultaneously.
Claudia’s heart skipped several beats. Not only was Micah going to divorce her, he was going to take her family away from her. Could the earth just open up and swallow her?
“Claudia, did you hear me?” Micah asked from his spot in the bed.
“Um…no, I didn’t,” she stammered, trying to think of what he’d just said.
“I asked if it would be all right with you if we adopted the boys as our own sons?”
“Ours?”
“Come here.” He held out his hand. She walked over, sitting on the side of the bed and taking it. “They’ll always be our sons, no matter what, but I want there to be no legal question that they’re members of our family.”
“Our family? You didn’t talk to the judge about a divorce?”
“I learned several things in those months away from you.” He brought her hand to his lips for a brief kiss. “First, is that I love you.”
“You love me?” Hope sprang in her heart.
“More than my own life.”
She watched his eyes soften, moisture filling them as he blinked a few times. Memories of how close they both came to losing each other that afternoon flooded her mind. She blinked back her own tears. “What else did you learn?”
“That you and I, Hank, Adam, Joey, Henderson,” he laid his hand on her belly, “and this baby are a family worth fighting for. And finally, that the divorce idea was a stupid one on my part.”
“Yes, it was.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she leaned down to kiss him with all the joy in her heart. “But the adoption is a great idea. How long until it’s final?”
“We just need your signatures on this piece of paper, then I’ll file it in Denver next week.” Dave handed her a paper and pen.
“Then I say let’s make it legal. We’ll soon have the biggest family in the whole state.” Micah hugged his wife, then smiled at his friends and family, knowing peace was finally his.
For most of his life, he’d been lost, adrift in an ocean of loneliness. No family that he could really call his own. No one to whom he could trust his heart. Then one small, feisty woman dropped into his life, and all that changed. Claudia had rescued him from that existence and set him on a course for happiness.
EPILOGUE
He was watching again.
This time Micah watched the fine sheen of perspiration form on Claudia’s upper lip as she concentrated on pushing out their child. For hours she worked, trying to control her body’s painful attempts to give birth.
She’d gone into labor earlier that day. But finally, after ten hours, she felt the need to push. Now, they were beginning to see the round head of the baby emerge through the birth canal.
“One more push, Claudia.” Doctor Dawson held a hand up to guide the head out, then the shoulders, and finally the body of their baby.
“It’s a girl,” he said as he rubbed a blanket over her face and back, eliciting a cry. He tied off and cut the cord, then handed her over to Laura, who continued to dry her off with a blanket to keep her warm.
“A girl!” Micah hugged his wife. His daughter’s screams filling the room. “What are we going to do with a girl? All we know are boys.”
“Don’t worry, mountain man,” Claudia teased through her tears. “I’m sure we’ll figure out something. What are we going to call her?”
“You did all the work, little one. Whatever you want will be fine with me.” Micah leaned over to kiss his wife gently on the lips. The work she’d just put out to make him a father once again awed him.
“I think Honor would be nice.”
“Honor?”
“Yes, my husband. Honor. Because she was conceived by an honorable man.”
“Thank you.” He kissed her once more, words no longer able to pass by the knot in his throat.
“Your daughter, Claudia.” Laura handed the tiny baby to her parents. Then she and the doctor left them alone to admire her.
“Micah, I want you to know what you did for me tonight was wonderful.” Claudia smiled up at him with tears once again in her eyes after minutes of checking her daughter out, from her dark hair to her tiny toes. “I want you to know I love your gift and you for it.”
“Little one, that’s why I wanted you to have your wish. I dragged Nathan’s family and the Doc up here so you could have our daughter just the way you wanted to. I love you so much, Claudia, that I’d do anything to make you happy.”
“Mmm…say that again.”
“That I want to make you happy?”
“No. I mean the other part.”
“I love you.” He leaned over to once again kiss her. “My life was empty until you came into it w
ith your love and your family. Visions make lonely bed partners, my dear. I much prefer you in the flesh to them.”
“You haven’t had any more, have you?” she asked worriedly.
“Not a one. It would seem they’ve been put to rest for now.” He kissed her once more, then went to the door, calling Laura back in. “I think you two ladies need to see that my daughter gets fed.”
“Where are you going?” Claudia asked.
“To break the unfortunate news to our sons that they don’t have another brother, but a sister they’ll have to protect.”
The two women laughed as he left the room.
Micah stepped onto the porch. Walking into the cold November night, he headed to the barn where the boys had spent the day and night waiting out the delivery.
He’d told Claudia the truth. The visions and bad feelings no longer haunted him. He didn’t know if they were gone forever, but for now his world was full of love and peace. He looked up into the star-filled sky, and said a small prayer of thanks for his family and the woman that was the center of it all.
Thank you for reading CLOSE TO THE FIRE!
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Other Suzanne Ferrell Novels
CANTRELL'S BRIDE, A Historical Romance
Spinster librarian Laura Melborne is in danger. She’s the only witness to the murder of a senator—an act that someone has helped the assassin cover up—and the murderer knows her name and is hunting her. Desperate to flee the area, she agrees to become a mail-order bride.
The last thing Nathan Cantrell wants is a new wife, especially one with secrets. What he needs is someone bound to stay on his Colorado farm to help care for his daughter, a child who has limited contact with the world around her. For his daughter’s sake, he advertises for a mail-order bride.
Nathan is surprised to be tempted by the woman who arrives as his wife and wants to send her back East. Laura’s ability to care for his daughter prevents him from sending her packing. Soon their marriage is more than a one in name only, but the secret from her past threatens not only their tentative union, but their very lives.
****
KIDNAPPED, Edgars Family Novels, Book 1
FBI Agent Jake Carlisle is in deep trouble. He’s been shot and if he can’t get help fast, two lives will be lost-his and that of the young witness whom he’s sworn to protect. Desperate, on the run from both the police and the Russian Mafia, he kidnaps a nurse from a hospital parking lot.
ER nurse Samantha Edgars has been living in an emotional vacuum since the death of her daughter. Mentally and physically exhausted following a difficult shift, she’s suddenly jolted from her stupor when she’s bound and gagged, then tossed into the back of her car. Forced to tend a bleeding FBI agent and his injured witness, she’s terrified. But Samantha quickly learns the rogue agent and orphaned boy need more than just her professional skills. Danger is bearing down on them, and she must learn to trust Jake – and her heart – if they’re all going to survive.
CLOSE TO HOME, Westen Series, Book 1
Emma Lewis has a lot on her plate. The single mother of two precocious twin boys and an aging mother who is having trouble getting through each day, the last thing Emma needs is a man in her life, especially a doctor. So when the town’s doctor goes on vacation and his handsome nephew takes over, Emma is shocked to not only find him standing in her bedroom, but accusing her of being a neglectful parent.
Clint Preston came to Westen for the year to fill in as the town doc while his uncle took a long needed vacation. Clint also needed a sense of peace and calm to try to find his passion for medicine burned out by long shifts in an urban hospital’s ER. Angered to find two boys in his clinic with broken wrists and no accompanying parent, he is determined to confront their mother. The feisty redhead he meets quickly dispels his belief that she’s a neglectful mother, but he can see her situation is more critical than she wishes to face and finds himself volunteering to help care for her sons and the remodeling of her home.
As Emma and Clint forge a relationship among the slightly off-beat characters that inhabit Westen a menace from Emma’s past threatens her and her sons. Clint and Emma join forces to prevent the loss of either boy and the love they’ve discovered in each other’s’ arms.
****
Author Bio
Suzanne Ferrell
Suzanne discovered romance novels in her aunt's hidden stash one summer as a teenager. From that moment on she knew two things: she loved romance stories and someday she'd be writing her own. Her love for romances has only grown over the years. It took her a number of years and a secondary career as a nurse to finally start writing her own stories.
A double finalist in the Romance Writer's of America's 2006 Golden Heart with her manuscripts, KIDNAPPED and HUNTED (Romantic Suspense), Suzanne has also won The Beacon Unpublished and the CTRWA's contests in the erotica categories with her book, The Surrender Of Lacy Morgan.
Suzanne's sexy stories, whether they be her steamy Western eroticas, her on the edge of your seat romantic suspense, or the heart warming small town stories, will keep you thinking about her characters long after their Happy Ever After is achieved. Visit Suzanne Ferrell’s website at www.suzanneferrell.com
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