Dawn Atkins - The Baby Connection

He kissed Mel and felt her instant response. She grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him tighter against her. He smiled against her mouth. Mel didn’t do things halfway. Intense. The way it had been two years ago, the two of them connected. Career and ambition had been the bond then. And now? What tied them now?

An accident on both their parts, but a person had resulted. Daniel. And that changed everything.

Suddenly, Mel sat up and straightened her shirt. “I guess that’s the same,” she said.

“Yeah.” He watched her face, a million thoughts in his head.

“But we’re not,” she said, biting her lip.

“No.” He was far from the man he’d been. She was weighed down, too, but in a good way, by the child who was her whole world.

“I wish we could go back,” she said. “I do.” She touched his face, desire sparking in her eyes for a moment. “But we can’t.”

“I guess not.”

“Then go, Noah,” she said softly. “Get on with your life and we’ll get on with ours. Sometimes the right thing to do is to walk away.”

Dear Reader,

This book is dear to my heart. It stars people whose lives seem so distant from my own I don’t know how I got the courage to write their stories. Not to get all mystical on you, but it was as if they grabbed me and wouldn’t let go until I did.

I’ve always had an affinity for Latin culture, which has woven through my life in major ways. But I’m not Latina, so writing Mel threw me at first. Daniel, a baby, wasn’t easy either, since I haven’t dealt with bibs and bottles in, ahem, two decades.

Then there was Noah. Though I’ve been a freelance feature writer, I’ve never been to journalism school, nor have I covered a war, and I know nothing about the army or Iraq. Needless to say, I was somewhat lost when I began this book.

Thankfully, I got expert help from friends who planted me firmly in the unfamiliar soil I wanted to explore. Eerily, many of my instinctive ideas were borne out in what they told me of their lives and work, which gave me chills and made me even more proud of this book.

The story is about making tough choices in life, about living with mistakes that cost lives, about the sacrifices we make for those we love, and about filling life with meaning. It’s about love between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons and more—at least that was my intent. You can tell me if I hit the mark.

I hope this book touches your heart as it did mine, and that it reminds you of your connections with the people you love most.

All my best,

Dawn Atkins

P.S.—Please visit me online at www.dawnatkins.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Award-winning author Dawn Atkins has written more than twenty novels for Harlequin Books. Known for her funny, poignant romance stories, she’s won a Golden Quill Award and has been a several-times RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award finalist. Dawn lives in Arizona with her husband and son.

In memory of Maria Irene Dominguez,

con todo cariño, forever in my heart

Heartfelt gratitude to Iraq veteran U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Dodge, Scout Sniper, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, who made the Iraq sequences come alive. (All errors are mine.) Thanks to investigative journalists Eric Miller and Susan Leonard—gracious friends—and the Iraq war correspondents who contributed to Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq, by Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson. Mil gracias to Julia Martinez, who shared her life with me so I could more clearly see Mel’s; to Sonya Morillon, who loved my little boy as her own; and to my dear friend Irene Dominguez, who inspired me to create Mel in the first place.

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HIP-CHECKING A PERSISTENT blonde, Mel Ramirez broke through the clot of people to reach the star journalist who had packed half the Arizona State University student body into the auditorium. “Ready to head to the hotel?” she said to him.

“With you?” Noah Stone gave her a friendly once-over. “Oh, I’m down.” He was clearly teasing, but sparklers went off in Mel’s stomach all the same.

The blonde gave her the evil eye. Who the hell are you?

“I’m your driver,” Mel clarified, her cheeks a bit hot. She’d jumped at the chance to escort the J-school graduation speaker to his hotel, but didn’t want anyone to think she was propositioning the guy.

Cálmate, chica. Keep your dignity. She was no silly fan girl. She’d just graduated with highest honors and had a job at a prestigious newspaper, starting Monday. She and Noah Stone were now colleagues. The short drive ahead gave her precious minutes to glean secrets from a journalist at the top of his game.

Noah’s reporting was incisive, searing, brilliant. She knew that. What she hadn’t known was how flat-out hot he was.

Ay, Dios.

His publicity photos didn’t convey the knowing gleam in his caramel eyes, the friendly tweak of his mouth that let you in on a private joke, how he pulled you close with his voice, and that small dimple that peeked out when he truly smiled. The guy was mid-thirties, but looked more her age, twenty-five, and—

“Happy to meet you, uh…?” He paused, waiting for her name.

“Mel. Mel Ramirez.”

“A pleasure.” He offered a firm grip, warm and solid. “So you’re going to tuck me in?”

Tuck him in. Oh. Wow. She sucked in a breath. He’d read her as okay with a friendly come-on. Good. “More or less,” she said, determined to match him, flirt for flirt.

“I vote more. You?”

The question stalled her thoughts, so she was relieved when Paul Stockton, one of her professors, approached, buying time for a comeback to occur to her.

“Torturing one of our top graduates?” Professor Stockton shook his head in mock disapproval. The two men had been J students at ASU ten years before. Professor Stockton told stories about Noah Stone in his classes. Even as a student, Noah had been known for risk-taking and relentlessness.

“I hope not.” Noah shot his gaze to her, concerned. “Was I out of line, Mel?”

“Not at all.” She smiled.

“This whole show has thrown me off my game. My good friend here asks me to be his fill-in speaker, then introduces me like I’m some celebrity.”

“You don’t think a Pulitzer means star status?” Paul asked.

“I do my job, that’s all. I got lucky with a few stories.”

“It was great you could fit us in before Iraq,” Mel said. On Monday, Noah would start his embed with the last of the troops in Iraq. Professor Stockton had convinced him to detour to Phoenix to speak to the graduates of the Walter Cronkite School of Communications as a personal favor.

Noah turned to her, as if surprised she knew his plans, so she continued, “And what you said about self-censorship being more dangerous to investigative journalism than shrinking news staff was important for us to hear.”

“I was quoting Carl Bernstein, not me.” He smiled.

“Congratulations on the job, by the way,” Paul said to her. “You’ll like it at Arizona News Day. The pay’s modest, but the circulation’s huge and some pretty big names cut their teeth there.”