Anna Adams - The Prodigal Cousin

They shared unusual black eyes. Other than that, he must look like the birth father of whom he’d found no trace. Averting his face from the fifty-six-year-old woman he’d driven six hundred miles to see, he tossed around conversation starters.

“Just wondering why you gave me away when I was hours old.” Or “Thought you might have changed your mind about having a son.” Neither would do.

No one knew his feelings about his adoption. His parents would have been upset, and he’d been a little ashamed that his own mother had given him away. As an adult, he’d lost any concern for his past in his focus on his family.

His children remained his first concern, but now that he saw Eliza Calvert dancing up the walkway in her husband’s arms, Sam longed to know someone else who shared the blood that ran in his veins.

If Eliza accepted them, his daughters would never be alone again.

Another woman climbed out of the car. Taller than Eliza, she was slender but curvy. She must be Molly Calvert.

Sam opened the car door with trepidation. Eliza had adopted Molly when she was fifteen. Would she resent him and the girls if Eliza accepted them?

Dear Reader,

Molly Calvert has one priority: family.

Her first family—her birth family—abandoned her, but then the Calverts took her in. It’s from them that she learned about love and family. And it’s to them that she feels she owes everything. And that sense of debt is what makes her different from her Calvert “cousins.”

When Sam Lockwood comes to town, he’s the last man Molly should fall for. A widower with two daughters, he’s searched for his birth mother so that his children will always have family. But his birth mother is Eliza Calvert, the same woman who adopted Molly and delivered her from danger into a safe life.

Eliza envisions them all together, one big happy family. Molly can’t see Sam the way her mother does. He’s a devoted father, a compassionate man and the lover who makes her believe in a husband and children of her own. Yet accepting him might destroy her mother’s dream.

Thanks for joining me in Bardill’s Ridge. If you enjoyed Molly’s story, you might want to visit her cousins—Zach in The Secret Father and Sophie in The Bride Ran Away. Let me know what you think of THE CALVERT COUSINS at anna@annaadams.com.

All the best,

Anna

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Laura Shin

Thank you for suggesting that the Calverts might make good cousins. But deepest thanks also for your patience, your creativity, your clarity when mine fails and—most of all—for making the books better.

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

EPILOGUE

IT WAS THE KIND OF DAY Molly Calvert loved best. One filled with family celebration. Her cousin Sophie’s new baby, Chloe, had been christened that morning. Around six the whole family had converged on the Bardill’s Ridge Country Club to celebrate.

Her cousin Zach’s young son, Evan, and daughter, Lily, raced among the knots of relatives catching up. Her grandparents were dancing their feet off. Her widowed Aunt Beth, Zach’s mom, seemed to welcome the romantic intentions of Zach’s father-in-law, James Kendall. Her own parents, who ran a bed-and-breakfast, had taken responsibility for supplying ample food and drink, which they’d been too busy arranging to eat.

But something was wrong with Molly. Instead of wrapping herself in the cloak of family affection, she felt as if she were hanging around on the edges of love.

Surrounded by everyone who mattered most to her, she peered from baby Chloe in Sophie’s arms to pregnant Olivia, Zach’s wife. A strange emptiness yawned inside her. She’d never have a child of her own. Her two cousins, who’d been more like brother and sister to her, had reached a stage in life that she couldn’t share.

An inner voice, refusing to be silenced, whispered that she wasn’t even a real Calvert. That she was adopted.

Loneliness prodded her as Sophie passed Chloe to her husband, Ian. Behind him, Zach and Olivia each caught one of their children for a hug. Evan and Lily wriggled away, far too excited to stand still for affection.

Molly watched as if from a far place. She loved her parents, enjoyed her job, couldn’t imagine living anywhere except on Bardill’s Ridge in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. But at twenty-five, she envied her cousins and hid a secret longing for a husband and family of her own—a husband who could love her despite the holes in her soul.

But what kind of man could love her after he heard the truth? She’d controlled her self-destructive impulses in the ten years since she’d survived a catastrophic miscarriage, but no amount of understanding could change the fact that she was damaged goods. Every man in this town knew her past. They didn’t come looking for her. She invited none of them into her life.

Loving her cousins, resenting her own envy, Molly eased through the throng in the wood-smoke-scented dining room. At the doorway, she braced her hand on one of the wide posts that ran from ceiling to floor and searched for her mother’s loving, lovable face. Her mom smiled back, and Molly felt a little better.

Since the age of eight, when Eliza and Patrick Calvert had accepted her as their foster child, she’d known no other mother. She owed her parents everything. They’d saved her life and then forgiven her for all the increasingly bad things she’d done. Owing them made her different.

None of her cousins were obliged to their parents for love. None of her cousins hungered for a child and someone—a lover or husband—to call her own.

“Have some wine for me.” Sophie, still nursing Chloe, pushed a glass into Molly’s hand.

Molly fastened a smile on her face. “Thanks. Chloe’s lovely in the dress.” Made of white lawn, lacy and yellowed with age, it had been Calvert christening attire even before their grandparents had been thought of.

“You’re falling behind,” Sophie teased. Molly thought she meant everyone else was putting away the commemorative vino. “You’d better have a baby of your own before one of our kids kicks a hole in the family gown.”

A swallow of wine and a harsh breath bit the back of Molly’s throat at the same time, choking her. Only her parents knew about her miscarriage and its resulting effects. Full of shame, she’d hidden the truth from the rest of the family and she’d made her mom and dad promise never to tell.

She glanced at Sophie, who waited with a sweet smile, wanting only to share her happiness. Molly harnessed her shaky resources and pretended nothing was wrong.

“Can you imagine Grandpa in the gown?” She nudged her cousin, pointing as Seth Calvert once again led his wife, Greta, onto the small dance floor.

Sophie grinned. “They were just waiting for someone to put Glenn Miller back on. And no, I can’t picture tall, white-haired Grandpa in that fragile gown—or his father before him.” She leaned closer. “You feel left out today?”

Molly blinked back disgraceful tears, wishing she were a better actress. “It shows?”

“Maybe I’m a little more sensitive since I almost gave up Ian to do motherhood my way.” Sophie rested her gaze on Molly’s latest cousin-by-marriage, a relationship as strong as blood in the Tennessee mountains. “The right guy will show up, Molly. Maybe you already know him.”