Janice Carter - The Second Family

The door burst open and two people shot into the room. Two small people. Children. They lurched to a halt a few feet beyond the door and stared at her. Carrie, standing in the doorway behind them, raised her shoulders apologetically.

Tess pressed down the hold button. Her gaze shifted from the tall boy with the thick chestnut hair to the little girl clinging to his leg. There was something familiar about her. The large, vibrant green eyes and the raven tousle of hair. The same oval-shaped face and a smaller version of a delicate nose. Her nose.

She released the hold button, keeping her eyes fixed on them. Alec Malone was still talking. “Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that they left behind two kids who’ve just—”

Tess jabbed the hold button again. “Who are you?” she asked them. “What do you want?” But she knew what the boy was going to say even before he spoke.

“I think—well, uh—that you’re our sister.”

Dear Reader,

Some of you who have read my other Superromance novels will note a recurring theme of family, combined with mystery and suspense. This is no coincidence—I have always been a “family” kind of person. My favorite childhood memories are of sitting at our kitchen table on Saturday mornings over coffee (milk for us kids!) and doughnuts listening to my uncle and my parents tell stories from their pasts. Now my favorite family thing is to reminisce with my own grown children.

Although most of us have family traditions of some kind, there are those who have never experienced the joys of family. Tess Wheaton is such a person. Raised by a loving guardian, Tess has always considered family as something other people had. What she knows about family has been shaped by books, movies and friends. Still, she has succeeded in establishing a promising career as a business executive and considers her longtime guardian, Mavis, her surrogate family. Until the day two youngsters turn up on her doorstep, claiming to be her half siblings. Suddenly Tess is thrust into the tumultuous center of a family shattered by tragedy. Is she up to the challenge? Or more to the point, does she really want to accept the challenge?

With a little help from three people who refuse to give up on her—social worker Alec Malone and half siblings Nick and Molly—Tess learns not only what family is all about, but that she can no longer go on without belonging to one.

Enjoy your families!

Janice Carter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my mother, Lois Gene Carter, with much love.

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

HE WAS DEAD.

The thick vellum paper Tess was holding shook and the scrawl of black, fine-tipped pen blurred. Her eyes, hooded in disbelief, flicked across the paper—top to bottom, left to right and back again. Her brain, sluggish with doubt, refused to register more than a fragment of writing at a time.

Regret to inform you…fatal car crash…March 28…as your father’s lawyer…please contact…

Tess skimmed the letter once more and this time, the pieces slotted together in perfect, horrifying sequence. She crumpled the paper into a tight ball and tossed it into the wastebasket in the corner of her office. A slam dunk, though she couldn’t have cared less. Powered by shock, Tess grabbed her briefcase, slung her handbag over her shoulder, plucked her trench coat from the hook behind the door and strode out the door of her new executive office.

“Tess! Are you leaving for the day?” Carrie called from her receptionist desk in the small antechamber.

But Tess didn’t dare stop. Stopping would mean explaining, and Tess didn’t trust herself to do that. Instead, she half turned and snapped, “Something’s come up, Carrie. Cancel all appointments. Take messages. See you tomorrow.” She didn’t slow down until the elevator doors closed behind her. Alone, she sagged against the rear wall and took several deep breaths.

Her mind, fired by adrenaline, whizzed through its mental Rolodex of options, strategies and last resorts to come up with a name. Mavis McNaught—her guardian angel. Tess dug into her purse for her cell phone and punched in Mavis’s number. The elevator reached the ground floor just as Mavis picked up on the other end.

Tess made herself take another slow breath before speaking. Mavis would never understand what Tess was saying if her voice came out as thin and wobbly. Besides, it wouldn’t do for Balfour International’s new Vice President of Marketing to be seen having a meltdown in the company lobby. She ducked into a corner behind a potted hibiscus tree.

“Mavis?” she said after the third hello. “It’s me—Tess. No, no, something’s wrong with the phone. Listen. I…uh just got this strange letter from some lawyer in Colorado and I need to see you. Yes, yes. I know it’s only three o’clock. You’re not busy, are you? Good. I’m coming right over and I’ll explain everything as soon as I get there.” She closed her eyes. Inhaled again. The filmy landscape of the lobby cleared, but the ceramic tiled floor seemed, suddenly, to shift beneath her.

Tess clicked off her phone, patted her flyaway curly hair into place and headed out to the street. A sea of faces, some familiar and others simply curious, swam up to her on the way, their disembodied voices fading in and out of Tess’s auditory range as she stood on the pavement, flailing her arms for a taxi. A yellow cab zigzagged from across the street. Tess yanked open the door and flung herself inside.

“25 Fairview. On the west side,” she said as the cab pulled away from the curb.

Only then did Tess allow herself a moment to take it all in, slumping against the seat, briefcase sprawled beside her. The content of the letter spun through her mind over and over until she finally accepted its awful truth.

The father who’d walked out of her life twenty-five years before was dead.

“MORE?” asked Mavis, reaching for the teapot. Her ample frame bumped against the edge of the table as she sat down across from Tess. She brushed a wisp of gray hair off her cheek and poured herself another cup.

Tess shook her head. What she really wanted was a scotch and soda, neither of which was available at Mavis McNaught’s.

“So where’s this letter, then?” asked Mavis, her broad forehead wrinkling in a frown.

“I threw it in the trash can on my way out.”

“You’ll need that letter,” Mavis pointed out.

“I got the gist of it anyway. Some lawyer in Boulder, Colorado, informing me that Richard Wheaton was killed in a car accident on March 28.” She looked across the table at Mavis and added, “He also wrote he was surprised to learn that Richard had a daughter in Chicago and would I please call him right away.”

“And that shouldn’t surprise you, given the circumstances,” Mavis said gently. “Now what?” she asked, fixing her serenely impassive gaze on Tess.

Tess shrugged, averting her face from Mavis’s penetrating, pale-blue eyes. Her one-time guardian could read her like a book. “Nothing, I guess. What’s there to do? He died a month ago. The funeral’s long past.” She paused. “Not that I’d have gone anyway.”