Caroline Anderson - The Baby Bonding

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All our authors are special, and we hope you continue to enjoy each month’s new selection of Harlequin Romance novels. This month we’re delighted to feature The Baby Bonding, a highly emotional novel with all the edge and issues that surrogate motherhood raises. Caroline Anderson has a tear-jerking writing style that also brings a feel-good factor to anyone’s day.

We hope you enjoy this book by Caroline Anderson—and look out for future intensely emotional stories in Harlequin Romance. If you’d like to share your thoughts and comments with us, do please write to:

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The Editors

Caroline Anderson has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, has run her own soft-furnishing business and now she’s settled on writing. She says, “I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realized it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband, John, and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!” Caroline also writes for the Harlequin Medical Romance® series.

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3756—WITH THIS BABY…

3728—ASSIGNMENT: SINGLE MAN*

3732—ASSIGNMENT: SINGLE FATHER*

3697—THE BABY QUESTION

3674—A SPECIAL KIND OF WOMAN**

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

IT COULDN’T be him.

Not now, surely, when she’d got over him at last, stopped thinking about him every minute of the day, finally stopped caring if he was alive or dead.

No. She hadn’t stopped caring. She’d never stop caring about that, but she’d stopped obsessing about it.

More or less.

And now here he was in front of her, as large as life and handsome as the devil, his face creased with laughter as always, and the sound of his deep chuckle sent shivers running through her. His long, rangy body was propped up against a pillar by the desk, and his pale blue theatre scrubs hung on his frame.

He’d lost weight, she thought with shock. He’d never been heavy, but now he was lean, and amongst the laughter lines there were others that hadn’t been there before. Deeper ones that owed nothing to humour.

He’s older, she reminded herself—three years. He must be nearly thirty-five. He was a little less than two years older than her, and she’d be thirty-three soon. How time passed. Gracious, she’d only been twenty-eight when they’d met, thirty the year Jack had been born.

Jack.

She swallowed the lump. Some things you never got over.

He shrugged away from the pillar and turned towards her, and for a moment he froze.

Then an incredulous smile split his face and he strode down the ward towards her, arms outstretched, and she found herself wrapped hard against the solid warmth of his chest.

‘Molly!’

The word was muffled in her hair, but after a second he released her, grasping her shoulders in his big, strong hands and holding her at arm’s length, studying her with those amazing blue eyes.

‘My God, it really is you!’ he exclaimed, and hugged her again, then stood back once more as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

Her defences trashed by the spontaneous warmth of his welcome, she smiled up at him. ‘Hello, Sam,’ she said softly. She could hardly hear her voice over the pounding of her heart, and she felt her smile falter with the strength of her tumbling emotions. She pulled herself together with an effort. ‘How are you?’

So polite, so formal, but then they always had been, really. It had been that sort of relationship, of necessity.

His mouth kicked up in a crooked grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and her heart stuttered for a second. Was something wrong? Something with Jack?

‘OK, I suppose,’ he said lightly. Too lightly. Something was wrong. ‘Busy,’ he added, ‘but, then, I’m always busy. Goes with the territory.’

‘And—Jack?’ she asked, hardly daring to say the words.

The grin softened, his eyes mellowing, and she felt the tension ease.

‘Jack’s great,’ he said. ‘He’s at school now. Well, nursery, really. He’s not old enough for school yet. And you? How are you? And why are you here?’

She smiled a little unsteadily, the relief making her light-headed. ‘I work here—I’m a midwife, remember?’

He looked at her then, registering her uniform as if for the first time, and a puzzled frown pleated his brow. ‘I thought you worked as a community midwife?’

‘I did, but not now. I only ever wanted to work part time, and it’s easier to do that in a hospital, so when this job came up, I applied for it. But what about you? I didn’t know you worked here—how did you keep that a secret?’

He laughed, his eyes crinkling again. ‘No secret. I wasn’t here until a few days ago, and I had no idea you were here, either. You used to live the other side of Ipswich, so you must have moved, too, unless you’re commuting.’

‘No, I’m not commuting, we’ve moved. We live in Audley now—near Mick’s parents, so they can see Libby. I’ve been working here for six months.’

He shook his head, his eyes bemused. ‘Amazing—but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. There aren’t that many hospitals, and it’s not the first time I’ve run into someone I know.’ He glanced up and checked the clock on the wall. ‘Look—are you busy now?’

She gave a tired laugh. ‘I’m always busy—it goes with the territory,’ she said, quoting his words back at him. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Coffee? Lunch? I don’t know—just a chance to catch up.’

Her heart hitched against her ribs. She wasn’t sure she wanted to catch up. She’d worked so hard to put Sam and Crystal behind her, and she’d battened down her heart around her memories of Jack. ‘Catching up’ sounded like the perfect way of ripping it all open again, exposing the wound and prodding it just for the hell of it.