Mary Anne Wilson - Millionaire's Christmas Miracle

Quint crouched down, shocked to see a baby in the box. Acting on twenty-year-old instincts, he reached for the baby and its pacifier. Straightening, he cradled the child in his arm and offered the pacifier. The cries stopped.

He looked around the garage, but no one was there. He tried the back door to the child-care center. Locked.

Within a few minutes, the door opened and Amy was there.

“What are you—?” Her words cut off as her eyes widened. “That’s a baby,” she said. “Who…where did you get a baby?”

“Outside your door.”

She eased the baby out of his arms, then cuddled it to her. She was meant to be a mother. The gentleness in her, the caring, was almost tangible. “I don’t understand.”

Quint’s chest tightened and his mouth felt dry. “That makes two of us.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Harlequin American Romance, where you’re guaranteed upbeat and lively love stories set in the backyards, big cities and wide-open spaces of America.

Kick-starting the month is an AMERICAN BABY selection by Mollie Molay. The hero of The Baby in the Back Seat is one handsome single daddy who knows how to melt a woman’s guarded heart! Next, bestselling author Mindy Neff is back with more stories in her immensely popular BACHELORS OF SHOTGUN RIDGE series. In Cheyenne’s Lady, a sheriff returns home to find in his bed a pregnant woman desperate for his help. Honor demands that he offer her his name, but will he ever give his bride his heart?

In Millionaire’s Christmas Miracle, the latest book in Mary Anne Wilson’s JUST FOR KIDS miniseries, an abandoned baby brings together a sophisticated older man who’s lost his faith in love and a younger woman who challenges him to take a second chance on romance and family. Finally, don’t miss Michele Dunaway’s Taming the Tabloid Heiress, in which an alluring journalist finesses an interview with an elusive millionaire who rarely does publicity. Exactly how did the reporter get her story?

Enjoy all four books—and don’t forget to come back again in December when Judy Christenberry’s Triplet Secret Babies launches Harlequin American Romance’s continuity MAITLAND MATERNITY: TRIPLETS, QUADS & QUINTS, and Mindy Neff brings you another BACHELORS OF SHOTGUN RIDGE installment.

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Taylor Anne Levin

The real miracle in my life…

XOXOXO

Mary Anne Wilson is a Canadian transplanted to Southern California, where she lives with her husband, three children and an assortment of animals. She knew she wanted to write romances when she found herself “rewriting” the great stories in literature, such as A Tale of Two Cities, to give them “happy endings.” Over a ten-year career, she’s published thirty romances, had her books on bestseller lists, been nominated for Reviewer’s Choice Awards and received a Career Achievement Award in Romantic Suspense. She’s looking forward to her next thirty books.

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

495—HART’S OBSESSION

523—COULD IT BE YOU?

543—HER BODYGUARD

570—THE BRIDE WORE BLUE JEANS

609—THE CHRISTMAS HUSBAND

652—MISMATCHED MOMMY?

700—MR. WRONG!

714—VALENTINE FOR AN ANGEL

760—RICH, SINGLE & SEXY

778—COWBOY IN A TUX

826—THAT NIGHT WE MADE BABY

891—REGARDING THE TYCOON’S TODDLER*

589—HART’S DREAM

895—THE C.E.O. & THE SECRET HEIRESS*

637—NINE MONTHS LATER…

899—MILLIONAIRE’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE*

670—JUST ONE TOUCH

Last night’s holiday reception at LynTech Corporation was an interesting mix of powerful entrepreneurs, investors and parents whose main concern is the corporation’s thriving day-care center, Just For Kids. And just as the party was heating up, in walked Quint Gallagher, the hotshot consultant from New York, who turned a number of female heads (including mine!). Word has it that the devilishly good-looking Mr. Gallagher has returned to his hometown of Houston in an effort to revitalize LynTech. However, business seemed the last thing on the millionaire’s mind as he and sexy single mom Amy Blake, coordinator of Just For Kids, talked and flirted the whole night through. The twenty-year age difference between the two hardly seemed to matter, and even this reporter could see the sparks flying! My prediction? Mr. Gallagher’s return to Texas will prove to be very strategic in matters of business…and of the heart.

Prologue

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

Houston, Texas, December 23

“Come on, Dad, you’re single, rich, a great catch. You need to find someone and—”

“Okay, Mike, that’s enough.” In the back of the limousine, Quint Gallagher cut off his son’s words coming over the cell phone. “I’m here to work tonight. It’s a reception, a business function, not a singles’ party. Everyone, including me, will have an agenda with them and they’re all business.”

“Bummer,” Mike murmured.

Quint could almost see his twenty-two-year-old son sitting in his apartment in Los Angeles, probably with clutter all around from his move last month. “Yeah, bummer,” he echoed. “But it’s part of the package with LynTech and something you’ll learn at your job.”

“I’m never going to be like that,” Mike said. “My work isn’t my life. It’s so I can live life.”

“So you’ve told me many times,” Quint said as he stretched his legs out and slipped lower on the leather seat, enjoying the roominess of the limousine as he tried to ease muscles still tight from the long flight in from New York.

“I mean it. You did your thing the way you wanted to, but I’m not doing it that way. I wish you weren’t anymore. You’ve got all the money you’ll ever need, and you could just cut loose and have some fun. Why don’t you start by ditching the reception and going somewhere else?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Dad, I hate to say this, but you need to get a love life, to—”

Quint cut that off right away. “What did you call for, besides checking on my love life?”

“So, you do have a love life, huh?” Mike murmured.

“That’s none of your business.” He and Mike had always talked about anything, but right now, Quint was setting the limits. He wasn’t about to go into this with his son. There had been women over the years; they’d come and gone, but he’d kept them separate from his real life as a single father to his only child Mike, and from his work. He’d never introduced those women to Mike, because he hadn’t wanted to have another woman do what Mike’s mother had done—walk out. It had been a conscious decision on his part to stay free of that possibility ever becoming reality again, and now it was a habit that fit him well, just not to get involved. “Now, are you going to tell me why you called?”