Searching for Cate

Searching for Cate
Marie Ferrarella

Since her mother's death, FBI Special Agent Cate Kowalski had to cope with the deep emptiness she felt–and the shocking revelation that she was adopted.The news came too soon after losing her fiancé and destroyed the very foundation of her identity. So now, the only way for Cate to find herself was to go in search of her birth mother.She didn't count on finding love on her path to self-discovery.It had been three years since Dr. Christian Graywolf's wife died and he still blamed himself for her death. As a result, he focused entirely on his work at Blair Memorial Hospital until his sister brought home colleague Cate Kowalski. The attraction was intense, immediate–and the truth was something neither Christian nor Cate expected: that all his life Christian had been searching for Cate.

An eerie feeling wafted through Cate, as if this wasn’t real.

As if she was looking into the mirror and seeing into the past.

Joan cleared her throat, her nervousness growing. “Can I help you?”

Cate kept looking at the woman in the bed, searching for some foolproof sign. All the while knowing that there wouldn’t be one. “That all depends.”

“On what?” Joan whispered the words, now clearly fatigued.

Cate took a step toward her then stopped. She was afraid that the woman would pass out if she came any closer. Did she know? On some instinctive level?

Cate put her thoughts into words. “On whether you’re willing to admit that you’re my mother.”

Dear Reader,

The Signature Select aims to single out outstanding stories, contemporary themes and oft-requested classics by some of your favorite series authors and present them to you in a variety of formats bound by truly striking covers.

We want to provide several different types of reading experiences in the new Signature Select program. The Spotlight books offer a single “big read” by a talented series author, the Collections present three novellas on a selected theme in one volume, the Sagas contain sprawling, sometimes multi-generational family tales (often related to a favorite family first introduced in series) and the Miniseries feature requested previously published books, with two or, occasionally, three complete stories in one volume. The Signature Select program offers one book in each of these categories per month, and fans of limited continuity series will also find these continuing stories under the Signature Select umbrella.

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Searching for Cate

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Dear Reader

What if, one day, you wake up to discover that everything you believed to be true, wasn’t? That the parents you’d always loved really weren’t your parents? How would you feel? These are the emotions that FBI Special Agent Cate Kowalski finds herself facing. She’d gone into law enforcement to honor and emulate the father she’d always adored, the father who was killed in the line of duty while she was still in her teens. Now, she finds the very reason for who and what she is has been based on a lie. This is the premise behind Searching For Cate. It is Cate who is searching for herself, the way that, in part, we all search for ourselves, except that in her case she has to begin from scratch. The search for her birth parents brings her to Southern California and eventually, into the life of Dr. Christian Graywolf, a selfless physician who is also one of the walking wounded. Together, slowly, they each heal the gaping hole in the other’s soul.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. And, as always, I wish you love.

To Marsha Zinberg, who asked, and Patience Smith, who said yes.

Thank you.

Contents

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

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22