Janice Maynard - Rags To Riches - A Desire To Serve

Grace had done her damndest not to let Molly wrap her soft, chubby arms wrap around her heart. It had been a losing battle right from the start. Almost the first moment she held Anne’s daughter in her arms, she’d started working a contingency plan in her mind. She would keep Molly under wraps while she let it leak to friends that she was pregnant. Once she was sure word had gotten back to Anne’s sadistic husband, she would take a leave of absence from her job and play out a fake pregnancy somewhere where no one knew her. Then she’d raise Molly as her own.

Instead, her dying cousin had begged Grace to deliver the baby to her father. Grace had conceded. Reluctantly. She understood the rationale, accepted that the child belonged with her father. The weeks Grace had spent with the Daltons as Molly’s temporary nanny had only reinforced that inescapable fact. But the bond between her and Molly had become a chain around her heart. She’d dreaded with every ounce of her soul breaking that chain and walking away from both the child and the dynamic, charismatic Daltons. Now the chain remained intact.

Drawing up her legs, Grace rested her chin on her knees. She still needed to put a contingency plan into operation. She couldn’t take the chance that Anne’s sadistic husband might discover Grace had married a man with a young baby. Petrie would check Blake out, discover he wasn’t a widower, wonder how he’d acquired an infant daughter just about the same time Grace came into his life.

She would contact a few of her friends in San Antonio, she decided grimly. Imply she’d met someone late last year, maybe during the Christmas break, and had spent the spring semester and summer vacation adjusting to the unexpected result. Then Blake Dalton had swooped in and convinced her to marry him.

Those deliberately vague seeds would sprout and spread to other coworkers. Eventually some version of the story might reach Jack Petrie. It should be enough to throw him off Molly’s scent. It had to be!

Lost in her contingency planning, she didn’t hear Blake’s return until he came up beside her.

“One strawberry-peach-mango combo for you. One blueberry-banana for me.”

She moved the sack with the tarts to make room for him on the patch of grass. Legs folded, he sank down with a loose-limbed athletic grace and passed her a plastic cup heaped with whipped cream and a dark red cherry. They ate in companionable silence, enjoying the scene.

The Sorgue River flowed smooth and green just yards away. The young lovers were still stretched out nose-to-nose. The father was hunkered down at the river’s bank within arm’s reach of his two laughing, wading daughters. His wife held the baby against her shoulder now and was patting up a burp.

Grace let a spoonful of her smoothie slide down a throat that suddenly felt raw and tight. This baby looked nothing like Molly. Her eyes were nowhere near as bright a blue, and instead of Mol’s golden curls, she had feathery, flyaway black hair her mother had obviously tried to tame with a jaunty pink bow. Yet when she waved tiny, dimpled fists and gummed a smile, Grace laughed and returned it.

Blake caught the sound and followed her line of sight. Hooking an elbow on his knee, he watched the baby’s antics until she let loose with a burp that carried clearly across the grass. After another, quieter encore, her mother slid her down into nursing position.

When Grace gave a small sigh, Blake studied her profile. He wasn’t surprised by what he saw there, or by the plea in her eyes when she turned to him.

“I’ve had an incredible time in Provence,” she said slowly. “Every day, every night with you has been a fantasy come true.”

She threw another look at the baby, and he read her thoughts.

“I miss Molly, too,” he admitted with a wry grin. “Let’s go home.”

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