Tara Quinn - Her Lost And Found Baby

Friends. Without benefits. They both agreed.

Until she stole his heart.

Tabitha Jones will find her kidnapped toddler...even if it means searching every daycare in Southern California. So when her hunky, wealthy neighbor, Johnny Brubaker, offers a deal, Tabitha sees it as an ideal way to expand her search. In exchange for working his food truck, Johnny agrees to pose as Tabitha’s husband. It’s the perfect relationship...until Johnny realizes posing as a family man isn’t enough anymore.

Having written over eighty-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINNis a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a seven-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

Also by Tara Taylor Quinn

Wife by Design

Once a Family

Husband by Choice

Child by Chance

Mother by Fate

The Good Father

Love by Association

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Her Lost and Found Baby

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07802-3

HER LOST AND FOUND BABY

© 2018 TTQ Books, LLC

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

To My Harlequin Family, Thank You.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

H ot stuff.

Johnny Brubaker squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t open them again until he knew all he’d see were the cardboard bowls side-by-side on the food truck’s long prep area in front of him.

He looked at the tickets hanging from the thin rack mounted above the board. He scooped rice, black beans and green beans, then added onion, lettuce and a healthy squirt of his signature barbecue-ranch dressing. He capped the first bowl, put the ticket on top of it and moved to the second. This one needed steak. The next was pork. He finished with all three in under a minute, keeping his line of vision completely under control.

Until a customer at the window of his food truck, Angel’s Food Bowls, asked a question of the woman taking orders.

“Johnny?” Tabitha Jones, the pediatric nurse who helped him on her days off, called out, naturally drawing his gaze.

And there was that sweet butt again. How had it gotten so cute overnight? Six months they’d been doing this, on and off, almost nine months of being neighbors and becoming friends, and now he was noticing her in that way?

“Yeah?” He turned back to his bowls, aware of the male face peering at him through the window but not caring all that much. They’d been parked on a public thoroughfare by San Diego’s Mission Beach for more than three hours, and he’d had people peering at him through that window ever since.

“The health inspector would like to know if he can board the truck.” Tabitha’s voice held a hint of...a less than upbeat tone.

Damn. “Of course he can board,” Johnny said, glancing at the truck’s order window with a mostly sincere smile on his face. He wanted a surprise inspection about as much as the next guy—never—but as an attorney, he knew that the more proven compliance records he amassed, the less vulnerable he’d be to a lawsuit.

The world was full of crazies and he’d discovered that jealousy ran rampant in the food-truck business.

Besides, they had a long line, and a more than thirty-second wait per customer could cause folks to wander away. He’d rather have the inspector in the truck if it meant he could possibly keep business going.

Taking a second to reach into the bin above the driver’s-side visor, he pulled out the portfolio of plastic page protectors, all filled with the various permits and licenses he’d had to acquire, and set it on the driver’s seat of the truck. Then, stopping at the small sink designated only for handwashing, he squirted liquid soap on both hands. He lathered up to his elbows, in between his fingers and on the top of his hands, rinsed, dried himself on a disposable towel and, donning a new pair of plastic gloves, returned to work.

Pretending he hadn’t passed by Tabitha’s backside twice in the process.

What was with him?

Having his mind wander while engaged in a successful project—that he understood. Seemed to be his life story. But to look at Tabitha and see... To look at her that way, it just wasn’t right.

And it wasn’t like him, either.

They were partners in grief. Helping each other out with “life quest” projects, as she called them. Things they had to do so they could get on with the rest of their lives.

They were each other’s shoulder to cry on, propping each other up when necessary.

But they were not sexual beings. They’d both sworn off it until their quests were done. Their friendship was a safe zone. Tabitha’s drive to find her missing two-year-old son took up whatever emotional and physical energy she had left after the duties of her days. And Johnny...he was honoring his dead wife. You didn’t do that by sleeping with another woman.