Carrie Alexander - A Ready-Made Family

Taking on three kids and a single mom was bad enough, but that complication he did not need, unless it led only to a fast, uncomplicated affair. He was betting that a cheap affair was strictly off-limits with Lia.

So back off now, man. You don’t need this.

Of course, that wasn’t what his sister had been saying since Jake’s return, with all her teasing about him finding a good woman and settling down. He’d claimed her brain had turned into romantic mush because of her wedding, but maybe she had a point.

He was thirty-nine and regimented in his ways. If he was ever going to give the marriage-and-family thing a legitimate shot, it should be soon. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined hooking up with a woman with kids, especially when everything about them spelled trouble. Yet there was a certain efficiency about the situation that appealed, regardless of his ingrained habit of detachment.

One stop, no shopping.

A ready-made family.

Dear Reader,

There are times in a writer’s life when fiction and reality intersect. I began the NORTH COUNTRY STORIES miniseries several years ago, using memories of my hometown as a basis for certain aspects of the fictional town of Alouette. Little did I know that I’d soon be moving back.

I purchased a house and acreage on the river that bisects the town. Directly across the bay from me is a magnificent wooded peninsula dotted with a dozen small stone houses—my original inspiration for the cottages that play a prominent role in both this book and A Family Christmas (Harlequin Superromance #1239). Although the real cottages are empty, I often gaze up at them as I swim the river, imagining them populated by my fictional couples. But the only character who has actually visited is the skunk!

Visit www.CarrieAlexander.com for more on the North Country books—both the real and the imaginary.

Warmly,

Carrie

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Carrie Alexander began her writing career on a whim. Ten years later, she is the author of more than thirty books and a two-time RITA ®Award finalist. The lifelong Michigander keeps busy working on her storybook cottage, where she paints anything that doesn’t walk away—which explains the lime-green garbage can and floral mailbox.

To Cyndy and Crystalyn

When the going gets tough,

the tough get going in the Grudge

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

AFTER TWO DAYS ON THE road, getting lost, breaking down and spending her remaining cash at McDonald’s to quiet the kids during the final stretch of their trip, was it possible that Lia Pogue’s luck could get any worse?

Absolutely.

Her empty stomach gnawed as she watched the ambling approach of her second worst nightmare.

“Mom, you’re crushing the map.” Lia’s ten-year-old son, Howie, tugged the gas station freebie out of her grip and refolded it with a pinched look of concentration. He’d been giving directions from the shotgun seat since they’d crossed the Mackinac bridge into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, taking the job too seriously, as he did most tasks.

The cop circled Lia’s idling car, slowing to study the back end. She didn’t suppose he was admiring the vintage rust on the 1980 Impala they called “the Grudge” or the buckety-buck of a motor misfiring on its ancient pistons. Surreptitiously she rubbed her sweaty palms on her knee-length denim shorts, trying to keep the kids from seeing her nervousness. Was the uniform cop writing down her license plate number? What if it had already shown up on some sort of Most Wanted list?

That’s not possible. Larry doesn’t know we’re gone—yet.

“Mom?” warbled Sam from the backseat as her eyes followed the police officer’s circuit. Because she knew what was at stake, she’d forgotten to act jaded. Her mascara-thickened lashes had widened in alarm.

“Everything’s all right.” Lia had repeated some variation of the phrase for the past few days. Longer, actually, but she didn’t want to go there right now. She said it so often that the words came out even when it was clear that everything was wrong.

Everything except the most important fact: they were free.

Maybe not for long.

The cop tapped on her window.

She exhaled. “Don’t talk,” she told her kids before rolling down the glass. The Grudge had crank windows. For once, she was glad. She had something to do to distract herself from the tight ache wanting to burst out of her chest.

The officer tipped back his cap and peered into the car, taking in the jumble of discarded clothing, children’s toys and fast-food trash that had accumulated during the long drive north. “Everybody okay in there?”

“Yes, sir.” Don’t volunteer information.

“Ya, well.” He smiled, clearly a small-town cop because he didn’t flinch when Lia reached down beside her, toward the seat. He was looking at the map clenched in her son’s lap. “Gotchyerselves lost, eh?”

She sucked on the straw of Howie’s Coke to wet her dry mouth. “Sort of.”

“Whatcha looking for?” The neighborly cop leaned an arm on her car door. “I can give you directions to anyplace in the whole U.P.”

He was young, blond and rather goofy-looking with a Barney Fife face that was all nose and Adam’s apple with not much chin in between. His accent was even heavier than her old friend Rose Robbin’s—“ya” for “yeah” and “da” for “the.”

Nothing threatening about him, but Lia didn’t relax. Fugitives couldn’t afford to let down their guard.

“Thanks, but we’ll be fine.” She didn’t want him to know where she was headed. If Alouette was as small as Rose had said—and it certainly appeared to be from their hillside vantage point—he’d find out soon enough. Lia didn’t see any need for currying interest, even friendly interest. Not from any of the locals. After the first curiosity had passed, she hoped to knit her family into the fabric of small-town life so well that no one ever noticed them again.

Howie shoved his glasses up his snub nose. “This map doesn’t show Black—”

Lia gave him a look so fierce his voice froze midstream.

The cop tilted his head. “Sounds to me like you’re lost.”

The car’s engine rattled ominously. Lia hadn’t dared shut it down while they’d searched the map. If she didn’t put the Grudge into gear soon, it might give out again.

She thrust the soft drink at her son. “We were just taking a breather,” she said to the cop in a fake cheery tone, the one she’d used too often with her children the past several years. Kristen Rose, her four-year-old, was the only one who still fell for it. “We’ll be on our way now.”

The officer tilted his head to the right, checking out the backseat. Lia felt Sam’s clogs press into her spine through the car seat. Her teenage daughter’s long, skinny legs were doubled over and drawn up to her sulky face. She glared raccoon eyes at the officer over her kneecaps, as if daring him to question her.

Smile, dammit, Lia said silently in the rearview mirror. Just this once.

“I’m Deputy Corcoran.” He looked at Lia expectantly.

Lia met Sam’s accusing eyes in the mirror, then looked away. “Lia Howard,” she said almost too loudly. She wasn’t lying, not really. She’d been Lia Howard for the first seventeen years of her life. “And these are my kids.” She wasn’t going to give their names unless she had to.