Nicole Foster - Healing The Md's Heart

Fortune’s Woman

by RaeAnne Thayne &

A Fortune Wedding

by Kristin Hardy

Reining in the Rancher

by Karen Templeton &

His Brother’s Secret

by Debra Salonen

Healing the MD’s Heart

by Nicole Foster &

Welcome Home, Daddy

by Carrie Weaver

The Bravo Bachelor

by Christine Rimmer

The Nanny Solution

by Teresa Hill

An Ideal Father

by Elaine Grant

Not Without Her Family

by Beth Andrews

HEALING THE MD’S HEART

“It’s late,” she said. “I should – ”

She nodded towards the door of the second bedroom. She ran her tongue over her lower lip, then caught it between her teeth, the sensuous motion fixating his gaze there.

“You should,” he agreed softly. He leaned to her, gently cupping her face, and brushed a kiss against her cheek, lingering long enough for it to become a caress of breath and lips on her skin. He wanted more, to love her until they were both boneless and breathless.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me.”

WELCOME HOME, DADDY

Drew stood and reached for her as if he wanted to pull her into a hug.

A part of Annie longed to accept the comfort he offered. But she couldn’t. The stakes were too high.

Raising her hand, she said, “Don’t. I just wanted you to understand.”

“I had no idea.” His voice was husky. “But you’re wrong about one thing. I wouldn’t have missed it. I could have taken compassionate leave to be there for both of you. You never gave me the chance.”

Annie almost flinched at the loss in his voice. She couldn’t continue to beat herself up wishing she’d done things differently. “So here we are, back where we started.”

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Nicole Fosteris the pseudonym for the writing team of Danette Fertig-Thompson and Annette Chartier-Warren. Both journalists, they met while working on the same newspaper and started writing historical romance together after discovering a shared love of the old West and happy endings. Their seventeen-year friendship has endured writer’s block, numerous caffeine-and-chocolate deadlines and the joyous chaos of marriage and raising five children between them. They love to hear from readers. Send a SAE with return postage for a bookmark to PMB 228, 8816 Manchester Rd, Brentwood, Mo 63144, USA.

Nearly a thousand miles from home, Duran Forrester wanted to believe, after all the regretted decisions, frustrations and slams into brick walls over the last months, that this wasn’t the biggest mistake of his life.

Then he reminded himself it didn’t matter. Even if it was, there was no undoing it because he was fast running out of options. More importantly, he was running out of time.

He glanced in the rearview mirror at his son. Noah, his dark hair ruffled and cheeks flushed, sweat beading on his brow, slumped sideways on the seat asleep, clutching his scruffy stuffed panda in a one-armed hug. Ten minutes…ten minutes and they’d be in Luna Hermosa and he’d have Noah at a hospital.

It’s only an ear infection. Some antibiotics and painkillers and he’ll be okay. He’ll be fine. He has to be.

He repeated it to himself as if it were a mantra that could shield him from the fear that struck at him with its cold, sharp edge of panic. And like all the other times, he wondered if this would be when he’d be told it wasn’t okay, that his son would never be fine.

Noah shouldn’t be here, that much now was obvious. Duran had a long debate with himself over whether or not to bring his son along in the first place. Noah had had enough disappointments in his life and Duran didn’t want this trip to be one more. But once he’d found out Duran’s destination, Noah had been so excited and after three days of his seven-year-old’s persistent wheedling, begging and insisting, Duran finally gave in. Despite his misgivings, he’d convinced himself that the trip, if nothing else, would give him precious time with Noah, a few weeks uninterrupted by work and everything life had recently thrown at them.

They’d been less than an hour from their destination when things started to go wrong. Noah’s temperature spiked, he’d started complaining about his ears hurting and Duran’s reason fought his impulse to slam his foot on the accelerator and say to hell with speed limits.

He gripped the steering wheel hard enough to imprint the shape of his hands there, finding it a poor release for the turmoil of worry, frustration, uncertainty and anger that hit him in surges despite his best efforts to keep it shoved to a dark corner of his mind. Mostly everything—his and Noah’s current predicament, the surprises of the past weeks that more often than not had been unwelcome—he could only blame on himself and his recently acquired determination to find out who’d he’d been before Eliza and Luke Forrester had made him their son.

He’d known, since he was younger than Noah, that he’d been adopted, but never had the least desire to find his birth parents until now. His adoptive parents were loving and generous people, devoted to each other and to him, who’d made him feel that it didn’t matter why he’d been given away, only that they were blessed in choosing him and that with them was where he belonged.

The why still didn’t matter; now and urgently, the who did. Looking at Noah again, he wished, for his son’s sake, he had another choice. And he prayed, hard and long, this didn’t turn out as badly as when he’d contacted the woman who considered him her biggest mistake. His birth mother.

I didn’t want you then. There’s nothing I can do for you now. It was a long time ago. My family doesn’t know about you and I plan to keep it that way.

No amount of pleas or appeals changed her mind.

But she had given him something—two names and another chance to keep his hope alive.

The first he couldn’t allow himself to think about right now.

It was my kind of luck, all bad. It wasn’t anything but too much whiskey and one long night with that cowboy, and then he disappeared and I ended up with the two of you.

Two. And just that fast he found out he was a twin. Ry Kincaid hadn’t wanted to be found and even less wanted to be called his brother. But neither of them could deny who they were and after an uneasy meeting, had left it unresolved while Duran made it his business to track down the second name on his list.

Jed Garrett. Rancho Piñtada, Luna Hermosa, New Mexico.