A Family For Christmas

A second chance for Joy

While recovering at a remote cabin, Dr. Simon Walsh stumbles across Cara Amos. Injured and left for dead, Cara is harboring dark secrets. Yet Simon can’t help falling for his mysterious patient. As her memory returns and her injuries fade under his gentle care, he vows to help her find her missing daughter.

At The Lemonade Stand shelter, managing director Lila McDaniels is helping Cara’s estranged father, Edward Mantle, bond with his traumatized granddaughter, Joy. And his feelings extend well beyond gratitude.

Bringing this family together seems impossible... Luckily, Christmas is the season of miracles.

“I’m sorry, Cara, I can’t do it.”

Her gaze shot to his. Wide-eyed. Filled with fear.

“I’m not going to hold you hostage,” Simon quickly assured her. “You’re free to go. But if you do leave, I have to call the authorities. To alert them to the fact that I am aware of a domestic-violence situation. As a doctor, I’m under legal obligation to do so.”

Not technically. He wasn’t licensed to practice medicine in Nevada—his helping her was legal only under the Good Samaritan law. And because initially it had been an emergency situation and she’d refused outside medical care.

Her gaze hadn’t wavered. The panic was there, almost blindingly so, reminding him of a deer in headlights.

“I mean you no harm,” he told her. “To the contrary. Nor am I particularly welcoming of the company. I’m here alone by choice. My reasons for that choice have not changed.”

She blinked.

“But I can’t let you just walk out of here.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to a very, very special story in my Where Secrets are Safe series. If you’ve never been to The Lemonade Stand—please, come in. Visitors to the Stand are transitory, so you’ll fit right in with the rest of the current batch of residents, who are also new here. If you’ve been here before, buckle your seat belts, because you’re in for a double treat.

This story is very different from anything I’ve done before. It’s two full romances—taking place simultaneously in two states—that, unknown to the heroes and heroines, are intertwined. You, the reader, will see the way these people, from opposite sides of a very sad story, give their hearts and souls to try to find sense in a world that makes no sense.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe. Sometimes our thoughts are born through our own perspectives that might not always be completely accurate. Sometimes we act on those thoughts with the best of intentions, and end up places we never meant to be.

Sometimes all we can do is listen to our hearts—like we did as children. Sometimes it takes a child to show us the way...

I love to hear from my readers. Please find me at www.tarataylorquinn.com, Facebook.com/tarataylorquinn and on Twitter, @tarataylorquinn. Or join my open Friendship board on Pinterest, Pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship!

All the best,

Tara

A Family for Christmas

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Having written over eighty novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a five-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for a Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

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For my daughter, Rachel (Marie) Stoddard,

and her daughter, Morgan Marie.

I love you both more than life.

Cast of Characters

Wife by Design (Book 1)

Lynn Duncan—Resident nurse at TLS. She has a three-year-old daughter, Kara.

Grant Bishop—Landscape developer hired by TLS.

Maddie Estes—Permanent TLS resident. Childcare provider.

Darin Bishop—Resident at TLS. Works for his brother, Grant. Has a mental disability.

Once a Family (Book 2)

Sedona (Campbell) Malone—Lawyer who volunteers at TLS.

Tanner Malone—Vintner. Brother to Tatum and Talia Malone.

Tatum Malone—Fifteen-year-old resident at TLS.

Husband by Choice (Book 3)

Meredith (Meri) Bennet—Speech therapist. Mother to two-year-old son, Caleb.

Max Bennet—Pediatrician.

Chantel Harris—Police officer. Friend to Max and his deceased first wife.

Child by Chance (Book 4)

Talia Malone—TLS volunteer. Public-school scrapbook therapist. Student of fashion design.

Sherman Paulson—Political campaign manager. Widower. Single father of adopted ten-year-old son, Kent.

Mother by Fate (Book 5)

Sara Havens—Full-time TLS counselor.

Michael Edwin—Bounty hunter. Widower. Single father to six-year-old daughter, Mari.

The Good Father (Book 6)

Ella Ackerman—Charge nurse at Santa Raquel Children’s Hospital. Member of the high-risk team. Divorced.

Brett Ackerman—TLS Founder. National accreditation business owner. Divorced.

Love by Association (Book 7)

Chantel Harris—Santa Raquel detective. Member of the high-risk team.

Colin Fairbanks—Lawyer. Member of Santa Raquel’s most elite society. Principal of high-end law firm. Brother to Julie Fairbanks.

His First Choice (Book 8)

Lacey Hamilton—Social worker. Member of the high-risk team. Child star. Identical twin to daytime-soap-opera star Kacey Hamilton.

Jeremiah (Jem) Bridges—Private contractor with his own business. Divorced. Has custody of four-year-old son, Levi.

The Promise He Made Her (Book 9)

Bloom Larson—Psychiatrist in Santa Raquel. Domestic violence therapist. Divorced.

Samuel Larson—Santa Raquel high-ranking detective. Widower.

Her Secret Life (Book 10)

Kacey Hamilton—Daytime-soap-opera star. Identical twin to Lacey Hamilton. Volunteer at TLS.

Michael Valentine—Cybersecurity expert. TLS volunteer. Shooting victim.

The Fireman’s Son (Book 11)

Faye Walker—Paramedic. Divorced. Sole custody of eight-year-old son, Elliott, who is in counseling at TLS.

Reese Bristow—Santa Raquel fire chief.

For Joy’s Sake (Book 12)

Julie Fairbanks—Philanthropist and children’s author. Sister to Colin Fairbanks.

Hunter Rafferty—Owns Elite Professional event-planning business, specializing in charity fund-raisers. TLS is one of his clients.

A Family for Christmas (Book 13)

Lila McDaniels—Managing director of The Lemonade Stand (TLS). She has an apartment at the Stand.

Edward Mantle—Primary-care physician. Grandfather to seven-year-old Joy Amos. Father to Cara Amos.

Cara Amos—On the run from abusive ex. Joy’s mother.

Simon Walsh—Pediatric thoracic surgeon. Partially blind.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Cast of Characters

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

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Prospector, Nevada

“DAMN.” TAKING HIS stinging toe with him, Dr. Simon Walsh carefully and deliberately lifted his right foot and took another step forward. Landed it successfully. Then picked up the left. Success. And the right. Stepping slowly. Adding roots camouflaged by dirt and other ground cover to his list of possible dangers.

After four days of traipsing around several times a day in the forest that served as the borders for his self-imposed captivity, he’d amassed a list that could have been overwhelming if he cared to believe that it would be a permanent part of his life.

He wasn’t giving it that much credence.

His left eye stared belligerently at the black patch he’d placed upon it, while his right strained to make out a shape in the cloud cover that had become its vision.

Cloud was better than nothing, which was what he’d had when he’d made it to the emergency room four weeks prior. He had six months to a year before he’d know what good his injured right optic nerve would be, if any. More than four hours of pressure due to swelling would usually be the kiss of death. His had sustained at least five hours. But death meant no sight at all. He had clouds.

And...whack! Taking an involuntary step back, Simon lifted a hand to his forehead to inspect for any damage. He was either sweating or bleeding. Didn’t feel much of a gash. Not enough to require stitches, at any rate.

His outstretched hands—one holding a stick like a blind man’s cane—had missed a branch hanging above shoulder level. And his damned eye...nothing but clouds.

His pits were wet. Long sleeves and jeans in seventy-degree weather tended to do that to a guy exerting himself. It had been forty when he’d gotten up that morning. And in the woods he wasn’t ready to trust bare limbs to his right eye.

“Whoever thought this was a good idea?” He asked the question aloud. Talking to himself. When you were a hermit, living alone in a godforsaken wasteland, you tended to do that, he’d learned.

And didn’t bother to answer himself. Something else he’d learned...your conversational skills changed when there was only one of you.

It had been his idea to cover his one good eye four times a day to force the weaker one to work. Everyone knew that muscles had to be exercised to stay strong.

Not that an optic nerve was a muscle, of course. But he couldn’t let his brain go soft. He had to keep things working so that if the nerve managed to kick into gear, the rest of him would be ready and able to support it.

His forehead stung.

Lifting the patch off his good eye long enough to get a peek at his fingers, he saw blood. But he’d seen more than that on patients four days postsurgery. He snapped the piece of black cloth back into place.

He wasn’t stopping now.

Feeling like a damned freak, he continued staring at white fog, stepping gingerly and making his way. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do with his day.

Or his life.

A one-eyed surgeon wasn’t going to...cut it.

So much for an attempt at humor. He kicked at the ground. Just to show that he could. That he wasn’t afraid to express himself. He threw away his stick. Took two steps. And lifted the patch long enough to find and retrieve the walking aid.

“If they could see me now.”

Once one of LA’s top children’s thoracic surgeons, now unshaven, wearing jeans he’d stained with jelly that morning when he’d made his right eye get him through breakfast, wandering around in a wooded valley in the northern Nevada mountains.

Until a month ago, his idea of camping out had been a room at a moderately priced chain hotel—as opposed to his more likely choice of a suite in an upscale resort. That had been before he’d needed to prove self-sufficiency.

As his spirits continued to sink, he pushed forward. Reminded himself that he was a lucky bastard. That he sure as hell had no right to feel sorry for himself.

He had a good eye. He could see. Watch TV. Read. Hell, he could even drive.

He was alive.

He just couldn’t be a surgeon.

And he couldn’t ever laugh with little Opus again. Thoughts of his adopted daughter brought him shame at his own selfishness. If ever there’d been a child who’d taken it on the chin and come up with a grin, it had been that feisty little six-year-old.

What did it mean when a guy started thinking in rhymed clichés?

In his case, it meant he wasn’t ready to think about Opus, not even after a year.

Jabbing his stick hard into the ground, Simon stood in place. Staring. Willing his eye to see something. Anything. To make out enough of a shape in the shadows to discern what it was. Just as he’d been doing pretty much every waking moment of the month he’d been holed up in his newly purchased cabin.

He’d found the place on the internet. It came furnished, with its own well and electricity provided by solar panels, wind and a generator for backup. Completely off the grid. There was only one way in—a mile-long private road. His nearest neighbor was five miles or more away. The seller was a lawyer handling an estate bequeathed to charity. No one to care. He’d paid cash on the spot. Left his cell phone at home.

He had too many well-meaning friends and peers who thought they knew better for him than he knew for himself. He had a burner phone, though. He wasn’t foolish. Careless. Or irresponsible.

He wanted to be left completely alone.

At least until he knew his options. Maybe longer. Maybe he wasn’t ever going back...

Simon’s stick hit something on the ground in front of him. Something solid...and yet not hard like a rock. Playing a game with himself, he stared in the general direction of the object, tapping around it to fill in the blanks. It was long. More than five feet. When he pushed it, it had some give, but didn’t really move. A fallen tree perhaps? What kind of tree?

He continued to follow the mass. Didn’t find obvious branches. Apparently a grown man, a surgeon, no less, could be entertained by a fallen tree.

“Now, isn’t that one for the books?”

What books he wasn’t sure. He was tempted to take off his patch—to take the easy way out and see what was blocking his path. Or just step over it. But he wasn’t letting his right eye off that easy. If he’d given up on his young patients as easily as he seemed to want to give up these days, there would be far fewer homes filled with laughter in the Los Angeles valley.

Give him a chest cavity and he could delineate every nerve, vein and muscle. But trees? In Nevada? He knew next to nothing about them. So he thought about fruit. Oranges grew in Nevada. But they’d still be at the little green ball stage this early in the fall. And there were no orange trees in his new yard. Not like a tree with oranges actually growing on it would be fallen over on the ground. More likely it was some kind of cactus.

How far was he from the cabin?

He’d been out about an hour. Didn’t think he’d turned enough to be headed back. But at his pace, even walking straight, he wouldn’t have gone that far.

He came to one end of whatever was blocking the path.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, as though solving some great conundrum. In his current world, this was one. A fact that might bother him later, when darkness set in and he looked back over his day. At the moment, he was occupied.

Challenging his brain.

He took a small step forward. His walking tool gave suddenly. Stumbling, Simon let go of the stick. The log had to be rotted, which meant any number of things could be living in it. Stepping back, he straightened, instinctively yanking off the eye patch. The first thing he saw was his cabin fifty yards away.

“Damn.” He was right back where he’d started.

And then he looked down.

“Holy shit.” He hadn’t been identifying a log.

He’d prodded a body. A body! Feminine. A hooded, long-sleeved sweater covered the top half of her.

He noticed the jeans, the sweater. The feminine curve of hips. But only briefly. Cursorily. His trained good eye had already seen the moving rib cage, indicating life, as he dropped down to the woman lying on her stomach. Her dark hair was long, tangled. Dirty.

And she hadn’t said a word.

Of their own accord, his fingers reached for her pulse, registering a steady, strong beat. Yet she made no sound. No reaction to being touched.

She was sweating, though. In a thick sweater, exposed to the sun, so sweat by itself wasn’t alarming.

“What the hell...”

He needed to see her face, some age identifier, to look at her eyes, her pupils, her lips, but he didn’t dare move her. Not until he knew that her neck was okay...

Already feeling for breaks, he gave an inward shudder as he pictured his idiot self, prodding this poor person with his walking stick.

What had he been thinking?

Finding no obvious breaks, he leaned down, putting an arm around her shoulders. “I’m going to roll you over now,” he said. “I’m a doctor and I’m here to help you.”

She appeared comatose, but many could hear while in that state.

Lying beside her, he used himself to support her entire body, and turned with her. Then, sliding aside, he sat up. She had major maxillofacial trauma. Severe facial edema. Her face was badly bruised, so swollen he couldn’t make out her normal features, with open lacerations on the right cheek and chin. Medical terms came to him, but as a doctor of children who had to remember he was speaking to children even in tense or emergency situations, he’d begun translating in his thoughts as well as his words. Her lips were oddly healthy looking, considering the rest of her face, with no cuts or signs of bleeding. He lifted her lids enough to note pupil activity. Gums had good color. No immediate sign of oxygen deprivation.

Breathing was shallow. Skin warm, but not hot.

Lifting up her sweater, he made a cursory check of her torso, finding nothing unusual.

He couldn’t be sure about internal injuries. What he was sure about was getting her inside. Assessing more thoroughly. Doing what he could in the moment.

And then, as loath as he was to expose himself to anyone, anywhere—he was going to have to call for an ambulance to come get her.

Either that or pray that she regained consciousness and could tell him who to call on her behalf.

CHAPTER TWO

HIS ARMS WERE GENTLE. Lying inert, as much by instinct and habit as anything else, Cara remained limp as she awoke to feel him lifting her. He settled her against his body.

Her head shrieked with pain. Please God, let him be in a good mood.

Shawn was kind to her, caring, when he wasn’t tense.

He’d changed his shirt. The day before he’d had on the denim one over his T-shirt, but this one was softer. Must be the blue flannel she’d bought him for his birthday...

The fact that he was carrying her so carefully boded well. Her head fell sideways, settling against his chest and she almost drifted out again.

But the smell. It was unfamiliar.

Shawn didn’t wear aftershave. Or cologne. But they’d been on the run. Maybe he’d stolen a bar of soap from someplace?

He smelled like more than just different toiletries. Nothing that she recognized. Why such a small detail was keeping her conscious, she didn’t know. She kept trying to place the scent.

She liked it.

A lot.

It reminded her of something. She had no idea what. But it felt...safe.

He felt safe.

So maybe he was in a good mood. Maybe she’d be okay for a while. At least long enough to sleep off the headache so she could figure out what she was going to do...

* * *

“OKAY, MY DEAR, let’s get you more comfortable so I can get a look at you.” Simon spoke aloud more out of habit than because he expected a response.

The reaction of the woman in his arms was an instantaneous stiffening. She didn’t fight him as he carried her through the cabin’s main room to the one bedroom. Didn’t say a word. She could still be unconscious, but she was coming back to him.

So he kept talking.

“I’m just going to lay you down on the bed,” he said, leaning over to keep her against him until the bed took her weight. Slowly, watching as her face came into view, searching for signs of consciousness, he stood up. Cursing the right eye that hindered the normal speed of his initial assessment.

She was older than his usual patients, to be sure, but not old. “You look to be about thirty,” he told her. Maybe late twenties. It was hard to tell with the state of her face. In the light from the ceiling fixture he saw something else.

Two things registered at once.

Her eyes had moved beneath her closed lids. Which meant she was conscious.

And the bruises on her face weren’t all recent.

“You’ve been hurt before,” he said softly, his mind racing with possibilities. The obvious first one...a spouse hitting her? If they lived off the grid, as he was doing, it could have been happening for years without anyone being the wiser.

It could also mean that the son of a bitch could turn up at his cabin at any time. Looking for his “goods.”

“Recently, too,” he added, looking for other explanations for the varying degrees of discoloration on her. He could come up with nothing but deliberate torture of some kind. Some of the bruises and lacerations were more than a week old. Maybe even two or three. Some only a day or so.

He’d need to get them cleaned up...

He caught another eyelid movement. Not a twitch. More like an attempt to remain still. And he thought of how this might seem to her. A man carrying her, telling her he was laying her on the bed...

“My name’s Dr. Simon Walsh,” he said, wishing he’d paid more attention when peers at work had mentioned abused patients. They rarely ended up with heart injuries so hadn’t been in his area of expertise. And with his peers, the patients had been children. “I’m a thoracic surgeon. On...vacation,” he added when he realized the absurdity of his current life within the explanation he felt obliged to give. “I just bought this cabin, came up here a month ago.”