Belinda Barnes - Daddy's Double Due Date

“Father,” he said, wishing she would say the word.

Ashley crossed to a set of double doors opening onto a balcony, and Hunter followed her outside into the crisp night. She stood at the railing, rubbing her arms, and Hunter found himself wanting to hold her. “Should you be out in the cold?”

When she didn’t respond, he took her hand and turned her. “I’m not entirely heartless, despite popular opinion.”

She lifted her eyes to meet his. The heartache and fear he saw there made him long to pull her into his arms and protect her. Which was stupid, because he would be shielding her from himself.

“This morning you mentioned wanting custody,” she whispered.

He knew he had, but now he found himself unable to bear the thought of hurting her. “Yes, but I’ve had a chance to think and wondered if we might reach a compromise….”

Dear Reader,

Have you started your spring cleaning yet? If not, we have a great motivational plan: For each chore you complete, reward yourself with one Silhouette Romance title! And with the standout selection we have this month, you’ll be finished reorganizing closets, steaming carpets and cleaning behind the refrigerator in record time!

Take a much-deserved break with the exciting new ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR title, In Pursuit of a Princess, by Donna Clayton. The search for the missing St. Michel heir leads an undercover princess straight into the arms of a charming prince. Then escape with Diane Pershing’s SOULMATES addition, Cassie’s Cowboy. Could the dreamy hero from her daughter’s bedtime stories be for real?

Lugged out and wiped down the patio furniture? Then you deserve a double treat with Cara Colter’s What Child Is This? and Belinda Barnes’s Daddy’s Double Due Date. In Colter’s tender tearjerker, a tiny stranger reunites a couple torn apart by tragedy. And in Barnes’s warm romance, a bachelor who isn’t the “cootchie-coo” type discovers he’s about to have twins!

You’re almost there! Once you’ve rounded up every last dust bunny, you’re really going to need some fun. In Terry Essig’s Before You Get to Baby… and Sharon De Vita’s A Family To Be, childhood friends discover that love was always right next door. De Vita’s series, SADDLE FALLS, moves back to Special Edition next month.

Even if you skip the spring cleaning this year, we hope you don’t miss our books. We promise, this is one project you’ll love doing.

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my darling husband for his endless support,

patience and encouragement…and for developing

a taste for bologna sandwiches.

Books by Belinda Barnes

Silhouette Romance

His Special Delivery #1491

The Littlest Wrangler #1527

Daddy’s Double Due Date #1587

BELINDA BARNES

A romantic at heart, 1999 Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart winner, Belinda Barnes grew up in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, on the banks of the Arkansas River, where she dreamed of faraway lands, castles and princes. Though Texas is not all that far away, it is there Belinda found her prince. Together in their two-story castle, they have raised two sons, a daughter and a menagerie of pets, including dogs, cats, tropical fish, turtles, hamsters and ferrets. With sons whose interests run the gamut from bull riding to racing cars and motorcycles, Belinda is more than ready for her daughter’s more sedate passions of dancing, singing and acting.

Belinda lives in Elm Mott, Texas, with her husband, her daughter and spoiled cat, Precious. In addition to fiction, she is published in magazine and book-length nonfiction. In her spare time she enjoys clogging, painting, reading, country-and-western music, dancing, fishing, scuba diving, camping and getting together with other writers.

Belinda loves to hear from readers. Write to her at P.O. Box 1165, Elm Mott, Texas 76640.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

“Congratulations, Mr. Morgan. You’re going to be a father.”

Hunter Morgan clutched the phone in one hand, the steaming cup of coffee in the other paused halfway to his mouth. “Who is this?”

“The Spangler-Moore Fertility Clinic. The in vitro was a success.”

“Ma’am, this is Hunter Morgan. Who are you calling?”

“Did you say Hunter Morgan? The sperm donor for the in vitro?”

“No. My sperm was for an insemination on Lauren Ann Morgan, my sister-in-law,” he said. “This is her residence.”

“Insemination? Hold on. Let me check something. The pregnancy test is that of Laura Ashley Morgen. M-o-r-g-e-n.”

Hunter breathed a sigh of relief. “My sister-in-law is Lauren Ann Morgan. M-o-r-g-a-n. She saw her doctor this morning and is not pregnant.”

“Oh, I see what happened. The test results were inadvertently attached to your sister-in-law’s file, probably because of the name similarity. I apologize for having bothered you.”

When the dial tone buzzed in his ear, Hunter hung up. Yet the eerie feeling that had settled heavy in his gut remained.

“Who was that?” Jared asked from the doorway.

“Wrong number.” Hunter joined his brother and sister-in-law in the kitchen, hoping that’s all it had been—a wrong number.

Thank God he’d been in the living room near the phone. After the hell Jared and Lauren had gone through trying to conceive a child and then learning the insemination had failed, a mistake like that call could be emotionally devastating.

The phone call. Something about it made Hunter as uneasy as he’d been his first time before a judge, in his pre-attorney days. He tried to convince himself it was only a mix-up, nothing more than a clerical error. Despite his attempts to dismiss the conversation, parts of it kept coming back to him. The in vitro was a success. Hunter Morgan…the sperm donor for the in vitro?

Lauren hadn’t had an in vitro, but the other woman, Ms. Morgen with an “e,” had. And Hunter, the sperm donor, was the only common thread between the two.

Hunter knew from his own scrutiny of the clinic that an error was unlikely. Still, trouble had always had a way of finding him, even when he hadn’t deliberately gone looking for it. And he knew how conceiving a child could change the course of a man’s life. He couldn’t afford to be involved in another scandal. Not now. Not when he’d worked so hard to gain respect and finally had a shot at becoming the next district attorney, a surefire way of proving he’d changed and was no longer a hell-raiser. He had to investigate.