Valerie Parv - Interrupted Lullaby

Zeke’s eyes gleamed. “Three out of four isn’t bad.”

“I won’t settle for three out of four this time,” Tara said. “You didn’t trust me enough to know what was best for me then, and you obviously don’t now.”

“I’m a reporter. I deal in facts. Trust is an intangible.”

“So is love,” she reminded him. “But you need both to make a relationship work.”

“All this talk about love and trust is a blind, isn’t it? You wanted an excuse to stop seeing me, and I provided one by accepting a job overseas. If I’d rejected the offer, you would have invented some other reason to walk out.”

“You make it sound as if it was my decision alone.”

“Wasn’t it?” he demanded. “Can you deny you were already pregnant when I asked you to come with me?”

She felt her spine crumble. He knew.

Dear Reader,

As always, Intimate Moments offers you six terrific books to fill your reading time, starting with Terese Ramin’s Her Guardian Agent. For FBI agent Hazel Youvella, the case that took her back to revisit her Native American roots was a very personal one. For not only did she find the hero of her heart in Native American tracker Guy Levoie, she discovered the truth about the missing child she was seeking. This wasn’t just any child—this was her child.

If you enjoyed last month’s introduction to our FIRSTBORN SONS in-line continuity, you won’t want to miss the second installment. Carla Cassidy’s Born of Passion will grip you from the first page and leave you longing for the rest of these wonderful linked books. Valerie Parv takes a side trip from Silhouette Romance to debut in Intimate Moments with a stunner of a reunion romance called Interrupted Lullaby. Karen Templeton begins a new miniseries called HOW TO MARRY A MONARCH with Plain-Jane Princess, and Linda Winstead Jones returns with Hot on His Trail, a book you should be hot on the trail of yourself. Finally, welcome Sharon Mignerey back and take a look at her newest, Too Close for Comfort.

And don’t forget to look in the back of this book to see how Silhouette can make you a star.

Enjoy them all, and come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

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To all the babies lost before or soon after birth,

who are still very much loved and remembered

lives and breathes romance and has even written a guide to being romantic, crediting her cartoonist husband of nearly thirty years as her inspiration. As a former buffalo and crocodile hunter in Australia’s Northern Territory, he’s ready-made hero material, she says.

When not writing about her novels and nonfiction books, or speaking about romance on Australian radio and television, Valerie enjoys dollhouses, being a Star Trek fan and playing with food (in cooking, that is). Valerie agrees with actor Nichelle Nichols, who said, “The difference between fantasy and fact is that fantasy simply hasn’t happened yet.”

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

When the baby’s lusty cry tore the air in the small private hospital, the new mother burst into tears of relief and joy. Seeing the midwife rush the newborn baby into the resuscitation room, the mother had been frantic with fear. Now, hearing her baby’s healthy cries as the midwife placed him into her arms, the mother knew everything would be all right.

It had been a difficult night. The doctor was to have been here long ago, but had stopped to help at a horrendous accident between two crowded buses at a major intersection in the city. According to the midwife, staff had been borrowed from all over the hospital to help deal with the victims pouring into the emergency room, a scene being repeated at hospitals throughout the city.

Admiring the new baby, Rosemary Fine felt triumphant. As a midwife she was accustomed to coping without a doctor most of the time, but when a baby needed resuscitating, she normally called for backup. This time she couldn’t call anyone because the mother, Jenny Fine, was her sister-in-law, and it was against hospital rules to deliver a relative’s baby. With everyone too busy to ask questions, Rosemary had decided to go ahead on her own. She had nearly regretted it when the baby was born, but everything was all right now. Rosemary had seen to it.

Jenny quickly counted tiny fingers and toes. “I suppose everybody does that,” she said, her voice sounding thin.

Rosemary mustered a smile. “Probably. He looks pretty good to me. Vaughan, isn’t that the name you chose for him?”

“Sylvia for a girl and Vaughan for a boy.” Jenny brushed damp hair out of her eyes with her free hand, her gaze blurring. “Did I hear Ross tell you that the nice woman in the next room lost her baby?”

The midwife hesitated. “You weren’t supposed to hear that. Her baby’s cord prolapsed, causing oxygen starvation. There was nothing Ross or anyone could do.”

Jenny’s arm automatically tightened around her baby. “How terrible. She told me her name is Tara, and she’s so beautiful. A model, I think. We checked in almost at the same time. Her partner couldn’t be with her, either, so I hope he gets here soon. She’ll need him to comfort her. After I lost Josh, they told me it was crib death and nobody’s fault, but I kept asking myself how I could have made a difference. Tara’s probably doing the same right now.”

Rosemary brushed her sister-in-law’s hair out of her eyes. “You mustn’t distress yourself about it.”

Jenny sighed. “You’re right. But I couldn’t face Ross if anything went wrong this time. He wants a son so much. How much longer is he going to be tied up? Except for a few minutes here and there, I’ve hardly seen him since I arrived.”

“You’ve been married to a midwife long enough to know that nothing ever goes to plan. He’ll stop in as soon as he can, but like me, he’s had to extend his shift until more staff can get here,” Rosemary said. “Apparently half the city’s still at a standstill. They’re swamped in emergency.”

The new mother peeled back the cover swaddling the baby. “Hi, Vaughan. Your daddy’s going to be so proud of you.” She lifted her head, her eyes bright. “I’ll have a word with poor Tara later. She must feel devastated.”

Rosemary shook her head. “It’s not a good idea. She’s best left to deal with her grief in her own way. We’ll see she gets professional help when she’s ready.”