Found: One Baby. Cathy Gillen Thacker

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      This book is dedicated to sweet and patient

      Gwyneth May Thacker—aka the best present

      the Easter Bunny ever brought.

       Chapter One

      It wasn’t the first time Michelle Anderson had noticed a “gift” left on Thad Garner’s front porch. In the three months she had lived across the street from the sexy E.R. doc, a parade of hopeful single women had presented the most eligible bachelor in Summit, Texas, with everything from baked goods and homemade casseroles to gift baskets and balloons. But this was the first time she’d seen an infant car seat, diaper bag and a Moses basket left there.

      Aware the latest offerings hadn’t been there when she’d left the house for her early-morning run, Michelle wondered if the baby gear was supposed to be some sort of message.

      If so, it was an interesting one, given that Thad Garner had the reputation of a player and the attention span of a gnat when it came to women.

      The handsome thirty-three-year-old doc said he wanted a wife and kids. Sooner, rather than later.

      But he rarely dated a woman more than two or three times before ducking out of her life as genially as he had eased in.

      “The chemistry just isn’t there—I’m hoping we can be friends” was what he reportedly said more often than not.

      But that wasn’t what the women of Summit wanted.

      They wanted the passion Thad declared lacking from his side of the equation.

      They also wanted, Michelle thought with a sigh, what she wanted—when the time and the man were finally right. Marriage, a fulfilling life together, kids. As well as a career. Realistically, she didn’t know if it was ever going to happen for her.

      Professionally and financially, everything was in place. She was thirty-two. Partner in a law practice. Had her own home. She was even considering adopting a baby on her own and—

       Is that the sound of a baby crying?

      It couldn’t be, Michelle thought as the high-pitched sound sputtered, stopped and then resumed, now a frantic, all-out wail.

      She scanned Thad’s porch and yard, as well as the street. At seven on a Saturday morning, the area was usually quiet. Not today. Not with the unmistakable sound of a crying infant.

      Heart pounding, Michelle jogged across the street and onto Thad’s lawn. She hurried up the steps to the covered front porch of his Craftsman-style home.

      Sure enough, an infant, red-faced and upset, lay in the elaborately decked-out Moses basket. He—Michelle assumed it was a boy because he was swaddled in blue—couldn’t have been more than a few days old.

      Heart going out to the tiny thing, Michelle knelt down on the porch. She removed the soft blanket covering the squalling child and lifted him out of the portable baby bed and into her arms.

      And it was at that moment the front door jerked open.

      Her too-sexy-for-his-own-good neighbor stared down at her.

      And Michelle’s heart took another giant leap.

      THAD RUBBED HIS FACE with the palm of his hand and tried to blink himself all the way awake. “What’s going on?” he demanded, sure now he had to be fantasizing. Otherwise, his gorgeous, ice princess of a neighbor would not be standing on his doorstep with a baby in her arms. “And why were you ringing the doorbell like there’s a house on fire?” he asked gruffly. He’d thought he dreamed it, and had gone back to sleep—until he heard the infant crying.

      Michelle Anderson’s glance trailed over his bare chest and low-slung pajama pants before returning to his face. A warm flush—at odds with the cool mountain air—spread across her pretty cheeks. “I didn’t ring the bell,” she said.

      Thad had no idea how long ago it had been when he heard the bell. Five minutes? Fifteen? It still felt like a dream. Except for the flesh-and-blood woman and tiny newborn in front of him. “You’re sure standing here next to it,” he observed wryly.

      “Only СКАЧАТЬ