Verdict: Daddy

“I’m desperate, Marissa, and you’re the only one I could think of who can help me.”

“You’re in trouble with the law?” Marissa asked.

Blake shook his head, knowing that, as a criminal attorney, she had to ask. “No—at least not yet.”

Only the slightest flicker of surprise crossed her features before she regained her composure. “You’ve committed a crime?”

He shook his head. “The man who left you was an idiot.”

Her puzzled expression created a tiny line between her eyebrows, and his fingers itched with an unexpected urge to reach over and smooth it away.

“Then what do you want from me?” she asked.

“I want you to help me with a baby.”

Verdict: Daddy

Charlotte Douglas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The major passions of Charlotte Douglas’s life are her husband—her high school sweetheart to whom she’s been married for over three decades—and writing compelling stories. A national bestselling author, she enjoys filling her books with love of home and family, special places and happy endings. With their two cairn terriers, she and her husband live most of the year on Florida’s central west coast, but spend the warmer months at their North Carolina mountaintop retreat.

No matter what time of year, readers can reach her at [e-mail], where she’s always delighted to hear from them.

Books by Charlotte Douglas

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

591—IT’S ABOUT TIME

623—BRINGING UP BABY

868—MONTANA MAIL-ORDER WIFE *

961—SURPRISE INHERITANCE

999—DR. WONDERFUL

1027—VERDICT: DADDY

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

380—DREAM MAKER

434—BEN’S WIFE

482—FIRST-CLASS FATHER

515—A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

536—UNDERCOVER DAD

611—STRANGER IN HIS ARMS *

638—LICENSED TO MARRY

668—MONTANA SECRETS

691—THE BRIDE’S RESCUER

740—THE CHRISTMAS TARGET

Contents

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

“We have a problem.”

Marissa Mason’s receptionist jerked her head toward the law office waiting room behind the closed door at her back.

Eyeing her usually calm employee with concern, Marissa closed the computer file of the legal brief she was preparing. Seldom did anything perturb small and scrappy Kitty Stancel, not even the most hardened criminals who came to Mason and Mason for representation, but something—or someone—had definitely spooked her today. Behind her designer glasses, Kitty’s brown eyes were wide with alarm, and her voice had an uncharacteristic tremor when she spoke.

“What’s going on?” Marissa reached for the phone, ready to dial 911.

“Big guy in the waiting room. I told him you weren’t seeing clients this afternoon, but he insisted. He has this wild, desperate look. Says he isn’t leaving until he’s talked with you, even if he has to spend the whole day and night waiting.”

“What’s his name?”

“Blake Adams. He’s not one of our regulars. I’ve never seen him before.”

Blake Adams.

The familiar name threatened to inundate Marissa in a sea of nostalgia, but before she succumbed to a cruise down memory lane, she had to make certain the man in the waiting room was the same Blake Adams she had known so well and not some total stranger.

After shoving from her chair, she circled her desk, motioned Kitty aside and opened her office door the slightest crack. The tiny slit gave her a view of the reception area, where the man sat cooling his heels, dwarfing the Danish-Modern chair with his tall body, one work-booted foot tapping an impatient rhythm on the beige Berber carpet.

Marissa’s heart stuttered at the sight: long, tall and tanned, the man in the waiting room had shaggy black hair, a chiseled jaw, high cheekbones and startling gray eyes. His big hands were clasped between knees bared by cargo shorts that displayed well-muscled calves above the tops of his work boots. A spanking-white, short-sleeved polo shirt revealed his knotted biceps and sported the logo Adams Landscape Designs with a stylized palm tree embroidered above the pocket.

Marissa grabbed the doorknob to support her weakened knees. It was her Blake, all right. Not the lean, lanky insecure boy she’d known and loved, but a mature man, even more attractive than the teenager had been. “Beefcake,” her sister, Suze, would call him, a man with the physique and steamy sex appeal of those featured on calendars of firefighters and police officers.

Marissa gave herself a mental shake and tried to slow her pulse and order her racing thoughts. She doubted anyone produced calendars of hunky landscape designers, and even if they did, Blake’s glowering expression would negate his participation. He looked ready to chew nails and spit.

Marissa eased the door closed and turned to Kitty. “What’s he done?”

Marissa was a defense attorney, and since Blake had demanded to see her, she assumed he was in trouble with the law. All her clients were, in one way or another. Lots of folks in Dolphin Bay had prophesied years ago that Blake, with his checkered background, would probably end up behind bars. But Marissa hadn’t.

Sure, Blake had been impulsive, even reckless at times. She recalled that August night when she was thirteen, when Blake had thrown rocks at her bedroom window to awaken her. He’d talked her into sneaking out of the house at midnight to go down to a darkened stretch of beach. They had lain on their backs and watched the spectacular shower of Perseid meteors until just before dawn. She’d been grounded for a week for that particular trick, but the experience had been worth it.

Then there’d been the time he’d enlisted her help to steal a dog from old Mr. Sellars, who’d kept the poor animal chained in a shadeless yard with no food, water or shelter. They’d taken the pathetic pooch back to her garage, where Blake fed it, bathed it, then dyed it black with Grecian Formula that had cost him a week’s allowance. Once the dye had dried, they’d placed the dog in the basket of her bike and ridden to Clearwater, where they turned the lucky pup over to Doris Fitzgerald, who ran an animal rescue service out of her home. Checking later, they’d learned that Doris had placed the dog in a loving home with a lonely old man who’d needed a canine friend.

Yes, Blake had often bent the rules, but he’d never hurt anyone. Marissa hadn’t paid any attention to the local consensus that the untamable boy was eventually destined for jail. She’d known him too well to believe such nonsense.

Or had she?

Evidently, he had fulfilled the expectations of the small-town gossips or he wouldn’t be sitting in her waiting room now, demanding to see a defense attorney and effectively terrorizing her usually unflappable receptionist.

“He wouldn’t tell me what his problem is,” Kitty answered. “Refused to speak with anyone but you. Not even your father.”

Marissa raised her eyebrows in surprise. Morgan Mason, her father and senior partner of the firm, had a reputation as one of the foremost defense attorneys in the nation, right up there with Alan Berkowitz and Johnny Cochran. Morgan had appeared on Court TV as a commentator and special guest and had taken part in many of the country’s highest profile cases. If Blake Adams had broken the law, he was an idiot not to demand to see her father. Marissa couldn’t figure why he wanted her instead, or how he’d even known she was here. She’d only been back in town a few weeks, joining her father’s practice after her divorce was final.

Shoving away the pain that always surfaced at the memory of her disastrous marriage and its bitter ending, she nodded to Kitty. “Let me finish this brief. Then I’ll buzz you to send him in.”

Kitty looked skeptical. “If he doesn’t eat me alive first.”

Marissa shook her head. “Not Blake.”

“You know him?”

“We grew up together. He’s a good guy.”

Kitty frowned. “That’s what they all say.”

“This one really is.”

“Then what’s he doing in your office?”

“That,” Marissa said, her curiosity piqued, “is what I’ll have to find out.”

BLAKE GAZED at the closed door of Marissa Mason’s private office where the skittish receptionist had disappeared. Now would be a good time to escape. Coming here had been a mistake.

He glanced at his watch. If he broke a few speed limits, he could still make his appointment with the developer and cinch the deal on landscaping three new malls scheduled for construction in the Tampa Bay area. Those projects would triple his income for the year, not to mention cement his reputation as one of the premier landscape designers on Florida’s central Gulf Coast. Remaining in Marissa’s office and following his present course would bring him nothing but trouble.

So why was he still sitting here and not making tracks?

He raked his fingers through his hair and resisted the urge to stand and pace. The events of the morning had blown his mind, and he struggled to get his thoughts in order. Staying might lose him the deal of a lifetime, and what would it get him?

A meeting with Marissa, for one thing.

That fact alone had its appeal. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas vacation of their freshman year in college. Since then she had graduated from law school, married and moved away, divorced—according to the local gossip—and finally returned to Dolphin Bay to join her father’s law practice. A lot had happened in eighteen years. He hoped she’d agree to see him, that the fact that they’d been good pals from elementary through high school would offset his not answering her letters in college.

Marissa had been one of the few kids on her side of the tracks who’d had anything to do with a boy who’d been moved continually from one foster home to another. She and Blake had spent weekends during the school year and entire summer vacations sailing Marissa’s small boat to the barrier islands. There they’d searched for shells on the white sand beaches, counted osprey nests in the tall pines, and routed sting rays by shuffling their feet through the clear shallow waters. She’d been more fun than any of the guys he’d known. And more accepting of him.

They’d also studied together. Marissa had helped him with English composition and French, and he’d explained to her the mysteries of calculus and trigonometry. They’d made a good team. Nothing romantic, just good buddies, and they’d lost touch when Marissa went to the University of Florida and Blake was awarded a scholarship to North Carolina State.

He looked forward to seeing Marissa again, but meeting with her about the problem at hand would open a whole can of worms that would take time and energy away from his increasingly successful career.

Better for him just to forget the whole scheme. He’d been crazy to think of it in the first place. He pushed to his feet to leave.

At the same moment Marissa’s office door opened, and the receptionist approached, looking as if she were afraid he’d snap her in two.

“Ms. Mason will see you in a few minutes.” Kitty Stancel, according to the nameplate beside her computer, scurried behind her L-shaped desk, as far from Blake as the room’s arrangement allowed.

Imagining the criminal element that frequented this particular waiting area, Blake didn’t take her skittish attitude personally. She’d probably learned to be leery in order to survive such an environment.

He nodded. “I have to make a phone call—”

With obvious reluctance, Kitty indicated a phone on her desk. “You can use that one.”

Blake shook his head. “Thanks, but I have my cell phone. I’ll just step outside.”

On the sidewalk in front of the law office, just a block from Dolphin Bay’s picturesque main street with its attractive brick sidewalks, trendy restaurants and antique shops, Blake punched the developer’s number into his cell phone. After canceling this morning’s appointment and rescheduling for the next day, he cut the connection and glanced around.

Blake loved Dolphin Bay, close enough to Tampa and St. Petersburg for the convenience of shopping and sports and cultural events, yet maintaining all the attributes of small-town America. When he’d received his degree, he hadn’t hesitated to return here, even though he had no family or special friends to welcome him. The place had always been home, the only one he’d ever really had.

Ever since his unknown mother had deserted him at age three on a park bench at the marina, he’d been lucky enough to remain in foster homes in Dolphin Bay, instead of being bounced from town to town like a lot of other kids who were never adopted. Even if he had no relatives here, he’d found a permanence of place and had put down roots. He belonged in Dolphin Bay, and now he had a satisfying job, a home of his own and plenty of good friends to round out the package.

Those facts strengthened his sense of purpose, and he strode back into Marissa’s office, determined to carry out his plan, crazy or not.

The receptionist looked up when he walked in. “Ms. Mason will see you now.”

Blake hurried into the office, then stopped in surprise. The attractive woman standing in a wash of sunlight streaming through the tall window wasn’t the freckle-faced, ponytailed girl he’d remembered. Her smile was the same, with the fetching dimples exactly as he recalled. And her eyes, a sparkling hazel, more green than brown, held the same warm welcome they always had. The ponytail had been replaced by a sleek shoulder-length cut that framed her face, and the sun streaks in her honey-blond hair were still there, though whether supplied now by sun or a skilled beautician, he couldn’t tell.

Instead of the shorts and T-shirt that had been her childhood uniform, Marissa wore a stylish camel-colored suit that complemented her hair, accented her tiny waist and small breasts, and showcased long, slender legs, clad in shimmering stockings in a matching hue. The gawky, skinny girl had matured into a stunning woman. Just the sight of her made his mouth go dry, and he was glad when she spoke first, giving him a chance to regain his bearings.

“Hello, Blake. It’s been a long time.” Her voice had changed, too, its pitch lowered to a sultry timbre that caressed his ears.

“Hey, Marissa. Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

She motioned him to a chair in front of her desk, then sat behind the mahogany monstrosity, as big as the boat they had sailed when they were kids. He figured in her business, the huge piece of furniture kept her at a safe distance from the felons she represented.

“How’s your dad?” Blake asked.

Her affection for her father was evident in her smile. “He’s in California now, representing Brad Tyler.”

“The movie star who shot his wife?”

“Who allegedly shot his wife,” she corrected with a grin.

“And your mom?”

“Same as always.” Her love for her mother tempered her voice, reminding Blake how, in his solitary existence as a child, he’d envied the closely knit Mason family. “Except now she has grandkids, as well as the four of us to keep up with.”

“Any of them yours?”

At the pained expression that flitted across her face, he wished he could snatch the question back, but Marissa recovered quickly. “Suze has two boys, Wally has twin girls, and Jake and his wife are expecting in the spring.” She leaned forward, lessening the distance between them. “You’ll have to come to dinner one night. Mom would love to see you.”

“You’re living at home?”

“Hard to find a place of my own during tourist season. Besides, I want to make sure Dad and I are compatible working together before I make a permanent move.”

A wave of disappointment washed over him at the possibility of her leaving Dolphin Bay again. “So how’s it working out?”

“Better than I thought. I was afraid he’d treat me as if I were still a child, but he’s pretty much given me free rein. I choose my own cases, although we consult with each other often.”

She raised one feathery eyebrow and skewered him with a searching, green-eyed glance. “You didn’t terrorize my receptionist just to catch up on my family. Besides, at what I charge for an hour’s consultation, you’ll want to cut to the chase.”

He spread his hands palms upward in a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry if I frightened your receptionist, but I’m desperate, Marissa. You’re the only one I could think of who can help me.”

She leaned back in her chair, her laser gaze still locked on his face. “You’re in trouble with the law? Have you been arrested?”

Blake shook his head. “No—at least not yet.”

Only the slightest flicker of surprise etched her features before she regained her composure. “You’ve committed a crime?”

“Not exactly.”

Her puzzled expression created a tiny line crinkling the smooth skin between her eyebrows, and his fingers itched with an unexpected urge to reach over and smooth it away.

“Then what do you want from me?” she asked.

A crazy idea, he thought again, but he was committed now. He might as well tell her. “I want you to help me with a baby.”

Chapter Two

Marissa’s hazel eyes widened in shock, and a deep flaming crimson worked its way from the deep vee of her white silk blouse to her cheeks.

“Help you with a baby?” Her voice had a strange, strangled quality.

Oh, God, he thought with a groan, she’s taken this all wrong.

“It’s not like it sounds,” he insisted.

Marissa took a deep breath, and her weak smile seemed forced. “If it is, it’s the most bizarre proposition I’ve ever received.”

“I already have a baby,” he blurted.

“You’re married?”

He couldn’t tell if her expression showed more surprise or disappointment. “No.”

This time her frown was unmistakable. “I see.”

He shifted in his chair in frustration. His clumsy explanations were only muddying the waters. “Agnes Whitcomb has the baby.”

This time Marissa’s face reflected shocked disbelief. Her eyes grew rounder and her jaw dropped. “You had a baby with Agnes Whitcomb?”

“No! Agnes is taking care of the baby while I’m here.” The absurdity of her assumption made him bite back the urge to laugh. Dear sweet Agnes, a spinster who had baby-sat almost every kid in town, was approaching fifty-nine, long past childbearing age. “Maybe I’d better start at the beginning.”

Marissa looked skeptical. “I don’t need the details of your affair.”

“I didn’t have an affair—”

“Your love life, then.”

“I don’t have a love life, either.” Damn. He shouldn’t have admitted that, but she’d caught him by surprise.

She cocked that feathery eyebrow again in a manner that made him realize anew how attractive she’d become. “Then how did you end up with a baby?”

He squirmed as if he were on the witness seat. Marissa had certainly learned how to grill someone effectively with pointed questions. He was glad she was on his side—or, at least, he hoped she would be when she learned the whole story.

“Someone left the baby on my front porch,” he explained. “This morning.”

Marissa reeled back in her chair as if she’d been slapped. “Someone deserted a baby? On your doorstep? You’re kidding!”

Blake pushed his fingers through his hair. “Wish I were. I stepped out just after dawn for the newspaper. A wicker laundry basket was in front of my door. Looked like it was filled with towels. I thought someone had left laundry by mistake. Then I heard a little whimper, and the towels moved.”

“The child wasn’t visible?”

He shook his head. “My next thought was that I’d been snookered by someone dumping a litter of kittens. That’s the last thing Rambo and I need.”

“Rambo?”

“My dog. He’s a golden retriever, and he doesn’t like cats. I peeled back a layer of towels—”

“It’s a wonder the baby could breathe,” Marissa muttered indignantly. “That’s no way to treat a child. Were there any signs of physical abuse?”

“None. The most beautiful and perfect little baby girl looked up at me with big blue eyes and smiled.” He felt his heart soften into Silly Putty at the memory. “She had a note pinned to her dress. It said, ‘Please look after my baby. I know she’ll like living with you. I can tell by the yellow roses growing around your door.”’

Marissa shook her head. “The law is supposed to prevent that sort of thing.”

“What law?” Blake needed to know the legality of his situation. That’s why he’d come to Marissa.

“Desperate women were abandoning newborns in Dumpsters. The state passed a statute a few years ago that guaranteed that if the mothers would leave the children at a hospital, doctor’s office, or fire station, no charges would be filed, no questions asked.”

“Really?” That piece of legal information pleased him. Maybe the problem left on his doorstep wasn’t as big as he’d thought.

“Just last week,” Marissa said, “a man dropped off an hour-old infant at a Tampa fire station. The baby’s up for adoption now.”

“She isn’t a newborn.”

Marissa frowned, an expression that did nothing to diminish her prettiness. “And since I assume your house is neither a fire station, doctor’s office, or a hospital, that law wouldn’t apply in this case anyway. How old is she?”

“I know nothing about babies,” Blake said, “so I took her right away to Agnes. She lives next door.”

Marissa’s eyes lighted. “You bought the old Thompson place?”

“Six years ago.”

“I always loved that old bungalow. Built in the twenties, wasn’t it?”

Blake nodded. “Agnes estimates Annie is about three months old.”

“Annie? The note gave her name?”

“No name. But with her bright red curls, blue eyes, and the fact that she’s an orphan—” he shrugged, feeling sheepish again “—I decided to call her Annie.”

An ironic smile quirked a delectable corner of Marissa’s mouth. “Maybe you should rename Rambo Sandy.”

Blake felt panic setting in again. “I can’t keep the baby.”

“You’re not the family type?” Marissa asked. “Or you don’t like children?”

“I’m single, I live alone, and I know nothing about infants. Never been around one. That’s why I hightailed her over to Agnes first thing. And why I want to hire you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re sure this baby isn’t yours?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

He had to stop confessing that his love life was nonexistent. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been interested in having a relationship. With his business taking off, he’d been either too busy or too tired the past several years for any kind of social life, other than zoning out with the guys on a weekend afternoon to watch a Bucs game or a DVD of the latest action film.