The Bachelor, the Baby and the Beauty. Victoria Pade

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СКАЧАТЬ isn’t a prank,” Neily assured them.

      “I don’t remember any brothers or sisters,” Chase said.

      “According to the file, you were barely three—in fact you were a month short,” Neily said patiently. “We don’t actually begin to retain memory until about four unless it’s something traumatic. But by the same token, a traumatic event—like losing your family, being taken out of your home—could wipe out some memories, too. What do you recall?”

      “My earliest memory is of the boys’ home. There were some dreams … But that’s all they were—dreams.”

      “If they involved sisters and brothers, they weren’t just dreams. They must have been your brain’s way of reminding you. What about your parents—do you remember them?”

      Chase shook his head. “Not really. I have an old wedding picture of them that I’ve stared at enough to know their faces and I think that’s sort of become my memory of them. But to say that I actually remember anything about them—the way they looked other than that picture, or the sound of their voices or ever being with them? No, I don’t. Still, it seems like if I’d ever had brothers and sisters I would have remembered that,” he said.

      “But you don’t,” Neily concluded. “And you do have them. Your older sister—her name was Angie Cragen—”

      “Was?” Logan interjected.

      “Was,” Neily confirmed. “She was actually your half sister, Chase. Your mother had her when she was seventeen and never married her father. But Angie Cragen was born with a congenital heart problem and she died last week.”

      Hadley could see that this was one shock piled on another for Chase and to allow him a moment, she said, “How do you know this stuff, Neily?”

      “There’s a lawyer in Billings who’s involved and now so is Human Services there—a social worker contacted me and I’ve spoken to the lawyer, too. Knowing she didn’t have long to live, Angie Cragen hired the lawyer before her death. Since Angie was eight when the accident happened, she remembered you, Chase, and the other kids. After the accident, because she had a birth father, she went to live with him while the rest of you went into foster care.”

      Hadley wasn’t sure if it was the mention of foster care or something else that brought a dark frown to Chase’s handsome face.

      “The other three kids were adopted,” Neily continued. “But because you weren’t, Chase, you retained the Mackey name and that’s why your half sister was able to locate you.”

      “It’s a little late, isn’t it?”

      “I only know what I was told, and according to the lawyer, once Angie Cragen began to search for her siblings, it took until just before her death to track you down. She would have liked to contact you herself but she was getting sicker and sicker and—”

      “Hold on,” Chase said.

      His hands went to his narrow hips as he switched his weight from one foot to the other. It took Hadley a moment to realize she was looking at those hips. Appreciating the sight.

      She yanked her eyes upward and forced herself to concentrate on what he was saying.

      “Some sick and dying woman who hadn’t put the effort into looking me up for thirty-two years decided to do it now? Why?”

      “There’s a child,” Neily said quietly. “Angie Cragen had an eleven-month-old son and no one to raise him after her death. I’m not sure of the details. She made a recording that I’ve been told explains the whole thing; it’s here in the file.” Neily patted the folder she had on her lap. “But what I do know is that she wanted her son to go one of her half siblings because you are the only family she had left. She wanted him raised by a blood relation. And since you’re the only one of the siblings she managed to locate—”

      “A stranger left me her kid?” Chase said. “Now I know this has to be some kind of joke.”

      “It’s no joke,” Neily said. “Your half sister hoped that even though she didn’t have the chance to meet you or speak to you, you would still step up and raise your nephew. Or at least take him while you go on to find your other sister and brothers to see if one of them might want him… .”

      Chase glanced at Logan, again. “Tell me now if this is some hoax.”

      With an expression as perplexed as Chase’s, Logan shrugged, shook his head and said, “Honest to God, Chase, I don’t have anything to do with this.”

      Frowning deeply, Chase looked back to Neily but before he said anything else, she said, “I know this is a shock and I want to make it clear that you are in no way obligated to take this child. When Angie died, Human Services stepped in and he’s been placed in foster care—”

      “The kid is in foster care?” Chase demanded as if that was a bigger deal than Neily had made it sound.

      “He’s with a foster family in Billings. But they can’t keep him more than a few days because they’re already overloaded—that’s why I’m here now. Before finding him another home, the lawyer insisted that you be presented with all of this so that—if you were willing to take the baby the way Angie Cragen hoped you would—he could come here rather than be handed off to another temporary placement.”

      Chase closed his eyes and once more shook his head in what looked to be utter disbelief.

      Then he opened them, scowled at Neily and said, “You’re sure this kid is related to me? You’re absolutely, without-a-doubt positive?”

      “Everything tracks,” Neily confirmed. “But again, Chase, you’re under no obligation—”

      “I’ll take him. For now,” Chase said, abruptly cutting off more of Neily’s words.

      Chase Mackey, player of all time—according to what Logan had said about him over the years—wasn’t hesitating to take on an eleven-month-old baby out of the blue?

      That surprised Hadley more than the way she looked had surprised Chase when he’d first seen her.

      “A baby is a lot of work and responsibility,” Neily warned as if she wasn’t altogether comfortable with his hasty decision. “We’re talking about an infant—diapers, bottles, nighttime feedings … Do you have any experience at all with—”

      “Doesn’t matter,” Chase decreed. “Logan did that stuff with Tia—if he could do it, I can do it. He can show me how. If the kid is related to me, I won’t see him get sucked any further into the system than he already has been.”

      There was decisiveness and determination behind his words that Hadley didn’t quite understand. But she assumed it had something to do with the fact that Chase had avoided his own foster home in favor of spending a lot of time at the McKendrick house.

      “I’m not saying I’ll keep him,” Chase went on as if he didn’t want Neily to believe he was making more of a commitment than he was. “I’m just saying that I’ll take him and go on looking for … What was it? Another sister and two brothers? Then if one of them is better suited to raise the kid, I’ll probably turn him over to them. But for now …” Chase suddenly СКАЧАТЬ