Joanna Wayne - Surprise Package

Isabella Trueblood made history reuniting people torn apart by war and an epidemic. Now, generations later, Lily and Dylan Garrett carry on her work with their agency, Finders Keepers. Circumstances may have changed, but the goal remains the same.

Lost

The joy of motherhood. Skylar Diamond was a successful fashion designer now, but the regret she harbored at the long-ago decision to give up her baby haunted her still.

Found

A grown-up daughter and an overprotective father. Sheriff Noah Beaufort didn’t appreciate a high-society type nosing around his town, watching his daughter, Lauren. Then Lauren took a fancy to the woman, and in spite of himself, so did Noah. But he was too good a lawman to trust her motives. Something was definitely suspicious....

“Come in, if you dare.”

Ashley peeked around the edge of the door. “I can come back later if this is a bad time.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Kyle walked out of the kitchen, a glass of water in one hand, Casey riding the opposite hip. He was barefoot, unshaven, dressed in a stained T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts adorned with fuzz from Casey’s new baby blanket. But Casey was smiling at him and clenching her fingers about his nose. He pried her fingers loose and tickled her tummy. She laughed out loud and then poked a thumb into her mouth and rested her head on Kyle’s shoulder.

Something tightened in Ashley’s chest and she found it difficult to breathe. “I know I look like something Mikasa dragged in from beneath the stairwell,” he said, “but you don’t have to stare at me like that.”

She kept staring, mesmerized. She’d never seen him look worse. She’d never wanted a man more. The feeling scared her to death. She took a step backward.

“Do I look that bad?”

“No, you look—fine.”

“Now you’re lying for sure. But lie all you want. Just don’t leave, unless you want to hear a grown man cry.”

Dear Reader,

I was thrilled when I was invited to be part of the Trueblood, Texas continuity project, and it turned out to be as much fun as I expected. Not only did I team up with some great writers, but I got to help create the wonderful Garrett family. They reminded me so much of some of the warm and close-knit Texas families I know. It was easy for me to understand how growing up as a Garrett would have a profound effect on forming my heroine’s character. I loved watching Ashley Garrett unfold and change as she interacted not only with her family, but with her sexy but complex neighbor and the precious, abandoned baby girl. By the time the story concluded, they had all walked off the pages and into my heart. I hope the characters in Surprise Package touch you as they did me.

I love to hear from readers. You can contact me through my website, joannawayne.com.

Joanna Wayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE TRUEBLOOD LEGACY

THE YEAR WAS 1918, and the Great War in Europe still raged, but Esau Porter was heading home to Texas.

The young sergeant arrived at his parents’ ranch northwest of San Antonio on a Sunday night, only the celebration didn’t go off as planned. Most of the townsfolk of Carmelita had come out to welcome Esau home, but when they saw the sorry condition of the boy, they gave their respects quickly and left.

The fever got so bad so fast that Mrs. Porter hardly knew what to do. By Monday night, before the doctor from San Antonio made it into town, Esau was dead.

The Porter family grieved. How could their son have survived the German peril, only to burn up and die in his own bed? It wasn’t much of a surprise when Mrs. Porter took to her bed on Wednesday. But it was a hell of a shock when half the residents of Carmelita came down with the horrible illness. House after house was hit by death, and all the townspeople could do was pray for salvation.

None came. By the end of the year, over one hundred souls had perished. The influenza virus took those in the prime of life, leaving behind an unprece-dented number of orphans. And the virus knew no boundaries. By the time the threat had passed, more than thirty-seven million people had succumbed worldwide.

But in one house, there was still hope.

Isabella Trueblood had come to Carmelita in the late 1800s with her father, blacksmith Saul Trueblood, and her mother, Teresa Collier Trueblood. The family had traveled from Indiana, leaving their Quaker roots behind.

Young Isabella grew up to be an intelligent woman who had a gift for healing and storytelling. Her dreams centered on the boy next door, Foster Carter, the son of Chester and Grace.

Just before the bad times came in 1918, Foster asked Isabella to be his wife, and the future of the Carter spread was secured. It was a happy union, and the future looked bright for the young couple.

Two years later, not one of their relatives was alive. How the young couple had survived was a miracle. And during the epidemic, Isabella and Foster had taken in more than twenty-two orphaned children from all over the county. They fed them, clothed them, taught them as if they were blood kin.

Then Isabella became pregnant, but there were complications. Love for her handsome son, Josiah, born in 1920, wasn’t enough to stop her from grow-ing weaker by the day. Knowing she couldn’t leave her husband to tend to all the children if she died, she set out to find families for each one of her orphaned charges.

And so the Trueblood Foundation was born. Named in memory of Isabella’s parents, it would become famous all over Texas. Some of the orphaned children went to strangers, but many were reunited with their

families. After reading notices in newspapers and church bulletins, aunts, uncles, cousins and grand-parents rushed to Carmelita to find the young ones they’d given up for dead.

Toward the end of Isabella’s life, she’d brought together more than thirty families, and not just her orphans. Many others, old and young, made their way to her doorstep, and Isabella turned no one away.

At her death, the town’s name was changed to Trueblood, in her honor. For years to come, her simple grave was adorned with flowers on the anniversary of her death, grateful tokens of appreciation from the families she had brought together.

Isabella’s son, Josiah, grew into a fine rancher and married Rebecca Montgomery in 1938. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Trueblood Carter, in 1940. Elizabeth married her neighbor William Garrett in 1965, and gave birth to twins Lily and Dylan in 1971, and daughter Ashley a few years later. Home was the Double G ranch, about ten miles from Trueblood proper, and the Garrett children grew up listening to stories of their famous great-grandmother, Isabella. Because they were Truebloods, they knew that they, too, had a sacred duty to carry on the tradition passed down to them: finding lost souls and reuniting loved ones.

Joanna Wayne is acknowledged as the author of this work.

I’d like to give special acknowledgment to Rick Redmann for his valuable input on the business of advertising. I’d also like to thank Emilie Richards, who taught the creative writing class that got me started writing romance suspense and remains a wonderful friend. And to Wayne, always.

Contents

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 ONE

COWBOYS. Ranchers. Cattle. Beef.

Ashley Garrett typed in the words, Times New Roman font, eighteen point, and ran them across the page in the shape of a galloping horse.