Kathleen O'Brien - The Homecoming Baby

It wouldn’t be easy. But someone knew where she’d run—and probably that someone was her sister, Trish, the receptionist at the birthing center.

Somehow he would find out the truth, and when he did—well, he wasn’t quite sure what he’d do then. No point tackling that decision now.

Who would have thought that breaking down near a ghost town would get things off to such a promising start? He might have wasted days trying to meet someone connected with The Birth Place, someone who might be able to introduce him to Trish Linden.

And yet, all because of a broken hose, he’d met Celia Brice, who, it turned out, was the psychologist for the birthing center, and Trish’s good friend.

It was as if the gods had conspired to assist him. Celia was open and welcoming, and she had already offered to show him around her beloved town.

A real find. A woman who had lived here all her life and knew everyone might just make this whole hunting expedition very easy indeed.

With a satisfied smile he picked up the phone. He’d start with dinner. She’d made it clear she’d love to hear from him again, and dinner conversations could cover a lot of useful ground.

And after that…

Dear Reader,

A witty Irish newspaper columnist named Flann O’Brien once said that the most important things in life are “food, money and opportunities for scoring off one’s enemies.”

As cynical as that sounds, most of us probably have, somewhere along the way, nurtured a nasty little revenge dream or two. It might be for a small injustice—a boss who wouldn’t cough up a raise, a boyfriend who flirted with another girl. Or it might be something much bigger and harder to forgive.

But in spite of the columnist’s clever comment, most of us discover that revenge feels rotten in the end. It is, strangely, as sour and destructive as the original offense! That’s when we realize we should have put our energy into finding a way to forgive.

When Patrick Torrance comes to town, he is definitely looking for revenge. He has just learned the truth about his birth—that he is Enchantment’s infamous “Homecoming Baby.” Thirty years ago, while other high school girls were twirling in their boyfriends’ arms at the homecoming dance, one lonely teenager was locked in the bathroom, giving birth to a son she could never acknowledge. Patrick’s plan is to find that woman and make her pay.

Meeting Celia Brice is a lucky break. Patrick hopes he can use her to gain entrée to this close-knit community and unearth clues about the terrible night he was born.

He never guesses that Celia’s gentle warmth might somehow change his plan or that Enchantment might begin to feel like home. I hope you enjoy their journey.

Warmly,

Kathleen O’Brien

P.S. I’d love to hear from you! Please visit my Web site,

KathleenOBrienOnline.com. Or write me at P.O. Box 947633, Maitland, FL 32794-7633.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Darlene Graham, Brenda Novak, Roxanne Rustand, C.J. Carmichael and Marisa Carroll, for bringing such rich, inspiring humanity to The Birth Place—and to the time I spent within its adobe walls

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

MOST OF THE TIME, Patrick Torrance liked nothing better than taking crazy risks with the millions of dollars he’d recently, reluctantly inherited from his beast of a father.

Adopted father, to be precise. An important distinction, at least to Patrick, who didn’t particularly want to owe either his genes or his portfolio to Julian Torrance. Julian had been one brutal son of a bitch.

Several of Patrick’s friends, navel-gazers who had spent way too many afternoons on psychiatrists’ couches, had suggested that Patrick’s reckless investments were classic displaced resentment. Angry young man trying to free himself from abusive father’s memory by losing said father’s money.

The number one problem with that theory was that it wasn’t working. Patrick just kept getting richer. Movies that should have died quietly in art houses surprisingly lit up multiplexes. Companies drowning in red ink learned to swim. Oil rigs that had been spewing sand suddenly coughed up black gold.

No wonder he liked taking risks.

The one he was about to take right now, though, might just be a little too dangerous, even for him.

He stared down at white auction card he’d been holding for the past five minutes. Smoochy-Poochy it read in elegant script. Then he looked over at Smoochy himself, a patchy mutt who was wagging his tail and panting happily, apparently unaware that he was the single most hideous puppy in the entire history of puppies.

Patrick suppressed a shudder as Smoochy began to gnaw wetly at his own foot. Good God.

“Just fill in the number, sir,” the hired Beauty who was holding Smoochy, petting his wiry back with long, manicured fingers, said gently. “And of course your name.”

“Yes. I know.” Patrick knew, all right. In the two years they’d been dating, Ellyn Grainger had coaxed plenty of these little white cards out of him for one worthy cause or another. Over dinner last night he had promised her that he’d get the bidding started on Smoochy, who might be too homely to attract much attention from anyone else.

Gritting his teeth, Patrick filled in the card and propped it against the frilly blue basket. If he turned out to be the high bidder Ellyn had better have Plan B ready. He couldn’t care less about the five thousand dollars, but he’d be damned if he was going to let himself get saddled with a dog.

Especially not one named Smoochy. No half-breed, mangy mutt was going to come home with him and pee all over his Beauvais carpet.

He avoided meeting Smoochy’s gaze. Instead he scanned the estate grounds. Where was Ellyn, anyhow? He’d had enough. If he could find her, he’d make his excuses and say goodbye.

He fought his way across the emerald-green lawns, but it was slow going. Ellyn’s annual “Beauty and the Beasts” party for the Pet Adoption Society was always one of San Francisco’s most successful fundraisers, and the place was packed.

All around him, gorgeous women in lacy costumes were gliding along, carrying three-legged cats with jeweled collars, walking one-eyed dogs on braided-gold leashes and even dangling gilded cages filled with squawking cockatiels. Every few feet the Beauties stopped him, as they stopped every guest, to introduce him to the animals, relate the sad story of how they came to be abandoned and suggest in throaty tones what marvelous pets they would make.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve already bid on Smoochy,” he said when a blonde with a wriggling tabby cat strolled up. The sardonic edge to his voice was just thin enough that her face registered uncertainty. Apparently everyone knew who Smoochy was.

The guests slowed down his progress even more—the socialites, the businessmen, the social climbers, and, more rarely, the true philanthropists who, like Ellyn, were passionate about this cause. It was quite a gauntlet, and, though he caught sight of Ellyn once or twice, he never could make it to her side.

When he felt the tap on his arm, he assumed it was another Beauty, eager to interest him in some hideous iguana or hapless hamster.