Once a Father

Adam Collins: One of Mission Creek’s bravest firefighters, he risks his life for a living. But saving little Jake Anderson from the blazing country club touches him to the very core. Does Adam dare lose his heart to both the little boy and his beautiful, vivacious doctor?

Dr. Tracy Walker: The dedicated pediatric burn specialist works her magic to ease Jake’s pain. Unable to have children of her own, she yearns for a little boy like Jake. Can she find room in her life for a certain strong but silent firefighter, as well?

Jake Anderson: The five-year-old boy knows who’s responsible for the Lone Star Country Club bombing but is mute from the shock of losing his parents in the blast. Will Tracy and Adam be able to keep him safe till he’s able to reveal the truth?

Police Chief Benjamin Stone: Horrified to discover that bombers have attacked his town, he’s put the Mission Creek police on full alert. Will he uncover the identity of the attackers and bring them to justice before it’s too late?

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA

earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA Award-winning author’s goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over one hundred books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

To

Maggie Price

&

Beverly Bird,

who brought new meaning to the word precision.

My hat is off to you both.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Prologue

Mulrooney was droning on endlessly. It was obvious that the newly hired policeman had absolutely no idea what the word succinct meant. But for once, Chief Ben Stone of the Mission Creek police department didn’t mind being subjected to the endless rhetoric as the much younger man was describing a recent, utterly trivial incident that had occurred in town.

He wasn’t listening anyway.

The late morning Texas sun filled the office, highlighting the dust and cobwebs that the night janitorial staff had missed. Ben’s dark blue eyes stealthily shifted to the watch on his wrist just beneath the cuff of his navy blue uniform. A vague hint of a smile teased the corners of his ordinarily downturned mouth as he noted the hour.

Almost time.

“Can’t understand why a man who can look death in the face and spit in its eye would want to waste his time knocking around a little white ball along some stubby green grass.”

Completely mystified by the attraction of the game, Luke Callaghan shook his dark head as he watched the tall, rangy silver-haired man who he respected more than any living being on the face of the earth take careful measure before making his shot. Though it was the game of choice for the people who populated the upper-crust world he lived in, Luke only played because his best friends found the game so intriguing. As for him, he could abandon the game in a heartbeat. His score reflected as much.

Leaning on his club in what could only be termed an indolent pose, Spence Harrison, the local district attorney, teased, his tongue in his cheek. “No mystery, Luke. Comes a time when a man just has to lay down the saber and do what he can to occupy his mind.”

Commander Phil Westin grinned at the men he’d both led and saved when they had been part of his Marine platoon in the Gulf War. The expression softened a face that was all planes and angles, ordinarily arousing fear in the hearts of his enemies.

Lack of activity had never been a problem for Westin and he ignored Spence’s good-natured jibe. “I already told you, Luke, golf relaxes me.”

Keenly aware of his score and not one who enjoyed not excelling at everything he tried, Luke frowned. “Well, it frustrates the hell out of me.”

Spence glanced over his friend’s shoulder at the scorecard. “I can see why.”

“That’s because your hand-eye coordination is shot to hell,” Flynt Carson kidded Luke. The country club where they were playing had originally been co-founded by his great-grandfather Jace in 1923, on land he had carved out of his ranch and donated. The other half had come from the Wainwrights, who the Carsons no longer had any dealings with for what all felt were excellent reasons. “Thank God you did better with a rifle in your hands than you do with a golf club.”

Tyler Murdoch, the fifth man on the team, raised his club like a sword. Taking his cue, Luke raised his and crossed it over Tyler’s. The latter gave a few thrusts and parries, which Tyler countered.

“Anything can be a weapon,” Luke quipped to Tyler, “in the right person’s hands.”

“Boys, boys, play nice,” Westin laughed. The serious nature behind the impromptu gathering blended into the laughter, making it fade. It was time he told them why he’d asked for this get-together. “Besides, this is probably the last time I’m going to be seeing you for a while and I’d like to take away an image of you overgrown Boy Scouts doing something other than clowning around.”

There was a great deal of affection between them that went beyond their time together in the war. They, along with the one missing, estranged member of their former group, had all attended Virginia Military Institute, then joined the 14th Marines after graduation. The Gulf War had seen them taken prisoner and required them to demonstrate exemplary bravery under fire and extreme conditions. Though none talked about it, each man would have gone to hell and back for the others in the group.

Some of them felt they had.

“Okay, I’ve had it with this country club facade.” Unlike Luke and Flynt, an endless supply of money had never been Tyler’s problem while he was growing up. He turned to Westin. “C’mon, Commander, straight out, tell us. Why’d you call us together? What’s this big mystery you’re keeping from us?”

Phil slid his club into his bag and debated over which club to use for the shot. He appeared unruffled, but his mind wasn’t on anything so trivial as the right club to use. “No big mystery, just don’t want it advertised just yet.” Taking a club out, he turned to look at the others. He needed them to know this. In case there came a time when he had to call upon them for help. “I’m being sent to Central America to see if maybe I can get a handle on how to bring down that new drug czar. Calls himself El Jefe.” He smiled thinly. “No ego problem there.”

Though their lives had taken them in different directions since the time they served together, the men were all up on the rumors that the newest drug route bringing illegal fare into the U.S. was passing directly through their part of the country. Maybe even through Mission Creek itself, though none of them liked to think that.

“Why you?” Luke wondered if Westin, like himself, was a secret agent. Wouldn’t that have been a hoot? Two of them in one small, tight circle, each not knowing about the other.

A steely grin curved Westin’s strong mouth. “Haven’t you heard? They always pick the best man for the job.” The hell with the game, he decided. He wanted to sit and hoist a few beers with these men before he disappeared into the jungle for who knew how long. “I’ve got reservations for us at the Men’s Grill.” He glanced at his watch. The reservation was for eleven. It was five minutes past that now. “It’s already getting late. Let’s go there and I’ll tell you all about it. Might be something to pass along to your grandkids if you boys can ever find yourself four good women whose standards aren’t too high.”

Luke gladly tossed his golf club into his bag. “I’m ready to call it a game.”

Eschewing carts and caddies, each man carried his own bag, just as they had once carried their own fifty-pound backpacks through a foreign land.

But as they turned toward the sprawling four-story brick complex known as the Lone Star Country Club where the Men’s Grill was housed, an explosion suddenly resounded, shattering the calm of a perfect morning.

Flames belched out, infecting the horizon with smoke as the men were sent tumbling pell-mell to the ground, their golf clubs scattered all around them like so many sticks emptied out of one giant bag.

Chapter 1

“I’m not a baby, Mom. I’m old enough to go to the bathroom myself,” Jake Anderson insisted. Rocking on the toes of the brand-new pair of shoes his mother had made him wear today, the boy who was five, hovering anxiously on the cusp of being six, looked to his father for backup. “Right, Dad?”

Daniel Anderson smiled affectionately at his only son. With his blond hair and fair coloring, the boy was the spitting image of his mother. The thought crossed Daniel’s mind that his own mother had been right. They did grow up so fast.

“He is five, you know, Meg.”

“Almost six,” Jake piped up.

Margaret Anderson sighed, knowing she was being overly protective. But it was still difficult for her not to think of Jake as her little boy and as such, she didn’t really want him to go wandering off on his own, even though this was the Lone Star Country Club, where only the best people came to pass the time.

As if reading her mind, her husband added, “And after all, this is the Lone Star Country Club, Meg. Nothing bad ever happens here. Best place in the world to start letting Jake be his own person.”

Assaulted on both sides, Meg had no choice but to relent. “I suppose.” As he was about to run off, she caught her son’s hand. He looked at her, obviously trying to curb his impatience. “Just to the men’s room and back, Jake. Don’t go wandering off and don’t dawdle.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jake mumbled dutifully.

Daniel made a show of checking his pockets. Not finding what he was looking for, he snapped his fingers. “And me without my compass. Think you can get there and back before nightfall, son?”

Jake laughed as his father ruffled his hair.

Meg took the teasing at her expense in stride. “All right, you two.” She looked at Daniel. “He’s still my little boy.” She curbed the impulse to hug Jake, knowing that displays of affection in public embarrassed him. “I’m entitled. Go now, before they bring your dessert and it melts.” She shooed her son off and then raised her coffee cup to her lips.

Trying not to run, Jake quickly made his way through the dining hall, afraid his mother would find some reason to call him back. He felt like one of the big boys now, off on his own.

In the hall, he paused, trying to remember which direction to take to get to the men’s room. He’d been there several times with his father, but he’d never paid much attention. The long hallways all looked alike. Stubbornly, he refused to go back and ask his parents for directions, knowing that his mother would take the opportunity to come with him as she showed him the way.

Hesitating, Jake made his choice and turned to his right. He saw the green-and-white sign all the way at the end of the corridor. It said Rest Rooms. That was grown-up talk for bathrooms.

Hurrying, he passed a partially opened door. The sign across it had words he hadn’t learned how to read yet. The sound of urgent voices aroused his natural curiosity and he peered inside.

What he saw was a partially darkened room filled with what looked to be a hundred television sets, all tuned to boring programs that had nothing but rooms on them. There was a single, sharp beam of light coming in from another opened door. It was on the other end of the room, to the left and the door was opened to the outside.

He thought he saw a truck and two men, each dragging a big, fat sack from the room to the door. They looked like the sack that Santa Claus had brought his toys in just last month, except that these were green. He wondered if there were toys in these sacks and if the men he saw were Santa’s helpers.

One of the men looked sharply at him.

“Hey, you, kid!”

Jake jumped back, afraid that the man would tell his parents that he’d strayed. Or worse, that he’d tell Santa and he wouldn’t get any presents next Christmas.

Spinning on his heel, he ran back toward the Grill, forgetting all about his maiden solo voyage to the bathroom.

Halfway back to the dining area, he heard a big bang coming from that area at almost the same time he went flying off his feet.

His head hit the floor just as bursts of light registered in his brain.

Everything went black.

Bonnie Brannigan wasn’t aware of wringing her hands, even though the action moved the large engagement ring on her hand to and fro and made her overly burdened charm bracelet jingle with each movement.

Nor did she realize that her platinum blond hair, usually so carefully and artfully arranged in a hair-style that had been dear to her heart since her teens some forty years ago, had sunk several degrees south of its rightful position atop her head. She was far too upset to notice anything but the flames shooting out from what had once been the Men’s Grill. It was clear that the restaurant and the billiards room next to it were lost. She prayed that the firemen she was watching so intently could contain the fire to this section.

What if they couldn’t? The whole club was in jeopardy.

As manager of the popular Lone Star Country Club these past few years, she’d been inside her office reviewing last month’s profits when the explosion had thrown her from her chair. Momentarily disoriented, the acrid smell of smoke reached her nose just as her ears were clearing of the deafening noise.

Stumbling out into the hallway, she’d been accosted by flames. One of the busboys had grabbed her hand, all but dragging her out of the building. In retrospect, he’d probably saved her life. She wasn’t even sure which young man it had been.

It seemed too incredible for words.

Well clear of the building, she stood shivering beneath a coat someone had thrown on her shoulders, fighting off the tightening grasp of shock. Her eyes stung, whether from smoke or grief she wasn’t altogether sure, and a tear trickled down her sooty cheek as she surveyed the damage that had been done. A panicked feeling was taking over the pit of her stomach.

Dressed in the pink colors she tended to favor, Bonnie stood out like a petite, colorful focal point amid the destruction that came in the wake of the explosion.

Her mind struggled to understand.

Was this some horrible accident, or deliberate? Who could have done this?

Noise, hoses and smoke seemed to be all around her. Right in front of her, yellow-jacketed firefighters were attempting to tame the flames.

“Nothing like this has ever happened here before,” she said more to herself than to the powerfully built man standing beside her.

“Yeah, bet old Peter Wainwright and Jace Carson are spinning in their graves right now. Like as not they’d each blame the other for this.” Ben Stone took a step back from the scene. He’d been the police chief of Mission Creek, the town that had slowly grown up and around the Lone Star Country Club that the once best friends had created, cutting the acreage equally out of both their properties before a blood feud had rent them apart, for more years than he was happy about. Agitated, he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. At 6’2” he all but dwarfed the woman beside him.

Damn it all to hell, it wasn’t supposed to have happened this way.

He shifted his keen eyes to her profile. If she lied, he’d know. Bonnie Brannigan was one of those scattered, flighty women who couldn’t be secretive even if her life depended on it. “You didn’t see or hear anything, did you Bonnie?”

“No.” Wiping away traces of the tear, she shook her head. “I was in my office when this awful thing happened.” Still dazed, she turned to look at him, fear in her clear-water blue eyes. “You don’t think this is like that terrible bombing in Oklahoma, do you?”

It astounded him how far off the mark she was. A tinge of relief wafted through the wall of frustration that surrounded him.

“That was a federal building, Bonnie, not a place where people like to come to talk over how much money they have.” He watched firefighters scrambling out of the way as an outer wall fell. “Maybe it was just an accident. Who knows?” Playing out his role of the big protector, he slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t a hardship. Even though a grandmother, the curvaceous Bonnie Brannigan was still very much an attractive woman. And even better, right now she was no threat to him. “But we’ll find out, by and by. Don’t go troubling that pretty little head of yours.”

Bonnie smiled, relieved to have someone in charge taking over. She loved her job at the club, but there were times, such as now, when she definitely felt in over her head. That was why she relied so heavily on people like Yance Ingram, the head of security at the club. She recalled that Ben had been the one to bring Yance to her attention.

Funny how thoughts just popped out of nowhere at a time like this.

“I suppose it could have been worse,” she murmured, attempting to console herself. She looked at Stone, realizing that had to sound callous, given the circumstances. There were at least two known dead, perhaps more. “I mean, this could have happened during the busy part of the day.”

Stone nodded, looking toward the body bags just being zipped closed by two of his men. The burned bodies had been pulled out of the wreckage that had been, until an hour ago, the main dining area of the Men’s Grill.

“Just two fatalities.” The wrong ones. A man and a woman. Their misfortune for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Do you know who they were?”

Were. The word had such a terrible ring to it. She nodded.

“Daniel and Meg Anderson.” She’d stopped by their table not fifteen minutes before the blast, asking if everything was to their liking. Admiring how much Jake had grown since the last time she’d seen him. Bonnie fought back a fresh wave of sorrow. “It’s awful, just awful.” Shivering again, she ran well-manicured hands along her arms to ward off a chill that no heat could chase away.

He had no idea what goaded him on. Instinct, probably. The security guards who had scrambled out of the burning building, soot all over their smart blue blazers and crisp gray slacks, had said that there appeared to be no one left within the area where the bomb and the accompanying fire had hit. There was no need to risk his life by diving back into the flames before they became entirely overwhelming to satisfy himself that everyone was out. His chief had ordered everyone clear of the building.

But one of the witnesses had mentioned something about thinking he had heard a child scream a heartbeat after the explosion. That had been enough to make Adam go back.

That and the memory of the child he hadn’t been able to save from another inferno. His own child. And his wife.

The memory of that clung to him, riding the truck beside him with each fire he went to. No matter how many people Adam Collins had saved since that awful night two years ago when his small family had died in the flames within his house, it didn’t ease his pain. He suspected it never would.

Taking deep breaths through his mask, Adam forged farther into the burning building. The heat was all around him as broad, decorative beams above him groaned dangerously, threatening to snap in half at any moment.

He should be withdrawing.

He pushed on instead.

His captain’s voice ordering him to turn back echoed in his head as he made his way through the blinding sheets of fire.

He almost missed him.

If he hadn’t stumbled just then, trying to avoid falling debris, Adam wouldn’t have seen him. The small, curled up form of a boy lying on the floor, covered with plaster.

At first he thought he was hallucinating. The boy looked so much like Bobby. But when he drew closer, fighting the flames for possession of a floor that was quickly eroding beneath his feet, Adam saw that it wasn’t Bobby, wasn’t a hallucination, it was a child. A small, unconscious little boy.

Scooping up the limp body, Adam fought his way back out.

Timber cracked and collapsed, nearly felling him. Blocking his path. With one arm wrapped around the boy, he picked another path, praying his luck would hold out one more time. Not for himself, but for the boy. Maybe that was why he’d been able to save so many people, because he didn’t care if he lived or died. It allowed him that tiny extra edge that the other firefighters, with so much to live for, so much to lose, didn’t have. It completely did away with any natural impulse to hesitate.

Light worked its way through the tunnel of smoke and flames. An exit.

Hang on, kid, we’re almost there.

With a burst of adrenaline, Adam ran the rest of the way, making it out just in time. Behind him, the ceiling collapsed completely, making passage impossible. Had he hesitated for even a second, he and the boy would have been walled in.

“Oh my God, look!” Bonnie cried, pointing a crimson nail toward the far side of the blockaded area where the fire still raged. She covered her mouth with both hands as shock registered. In her devastation, she’d forgotten all about the boy. “He found him, he found Jake!”

Stone, talking to several of his men, his mind scrambling to put together the shard-like pieces of an explanation for what had transpired here this morning, looked up sharply at the sound of Bonnie’s shrill, eager cry.

His eyes narrowed as he saw the firefighter miraculously emerge from the flames with the limp body of a boy pressed close to his chest.

His shoved his fisted hands deep into the pockets of his jacket.

“Looks like we got ourselves a hero,” he announced to the general populace that was now milling around what was deemed the social center of Lone Star County as well as Mission Creek.

As cheers went up, Stone exchanged glances with Yance Ingram, the man who had once been his commanding officer in the Marines. A man after his own heart. He needed to talk to Ingram, to get the answers to questions he couldn’t risk asking out loud in front of the crowd.

Ed Bancroft moved closer to him, a grim, wary look on his long, square face as he looked at his superior. “That’s the boy,” he confirmed. The boy he’d told Stone had looked into the security room.

Stone set his mouth hard. Damn it, he hated loose ends.

But as he came closer to the firemen, he saw that the boy’s small chest wasn’t moving. Maybe there was no need for concern after all.

Bonnie’s stiletto heels sank into the damp ground with every step she took as she hurried over. “Is he all right?”

Adam didn’t bother answering her. Instead, he ripped off his mask and helmet, his attention riveted on the boy he had rescued.

“I need help here!” he shouted without looking up.

The demand was issued to the paramedics who’d accompanied the fire trucks to the country club at the first sound of the alarm. But even before any of them managed to materialize at his elbow, Adam was employing CPR. One hand over the other, he pressed down hard on the boy’s chest while counting to five in his mind.