Billion Dollar Bride

Their story was one for the soap operas, Anna thought.

Their baby had unwittingly invaded the lives of Anna’s mother and her children last September, the day Megan invited the press to Maitland Maternity Clinic to talk about preparations for the hospital’s twenty-fifth-anniversary celebration.

The infant lay in a Moses basket on the back step of the hospital, fragile and beautiful, causing a commotion among the hospital staff and the press.

Connor arrived in October, and the Maitland siblings eventually learned that he was their cousin, the adopted son of their father’s sister, Clarise.

Janelle came to Austin in January, claiming that she was the baby’s mother and Connor his father. She’d explained that she’d abandoned her relationship with Connor because he’d been a workaholic. When she discovered she was pregnant, she’d tried to contact him, only to learn that he’d sold his ranch and moved on.

When she’d given birth to the baby, she had no job, no money and no family, and she’d heard about Maitland Maternity Clinic.

Anna’s mother believed them, but Social Services insisted that Janelle produce the baby’s birth records before he could be removed from Megan’s foster care. Apparently the records were in New Mexico, and bureaucratic red tape and a fire were interfering with their journey to Texas.

Meanwhile, Megan kept the baby in the hospital’s day care while she was at the office, and at home with her at night. Janelle and Connor visited him regularly.

Anna had been suspicious of them at first, but Janelle’s sincerity was becoming difficult to question. Anna knew some of her siblings still had doubts, but Megan’s happiness at discovering her nephew was all Anna needed to convince her that Connor was genuine.

“This would be perfect!” Janelle said, clutching Connor’s arm in her delight. “I can’t believe this is happening to us! To think that just seven months ago, I thought I had nothing. I’d given up my man and my baby and I was sure I’d end up spending the rest of my life behind the counter of some fast food restaurant, thinking about what I was missing.”

Her voice broke, and Connor drew her closer, smiling apologetically at Anna as Janelle broke down.

She did that a lot, Anna noticed, but then it was an emotional time for all concerned. And it must be killing her not to be able to take her baby home.

“When you make the right decisions,” Anna said, “like coming back to claim your baby, things usually turn out well. So let’s not waste energy on what you thought the future would be when it now includes a newfound family, a wedding to plan and—as soon as the records arrive—the right to take your son home.”

Janelle reached out to pull Anna into her embrace with Connor.

“We’re so grateful to you!” she said.

Anna shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“But you’re planning our wedding as a gift!”

Anna shrugged. “You’re just lucky enough to have a fiancé whose cousin is in the business. Now, come on. Mom wants us to have coffee with her while we plan the menu for the reception.”

ANNA MAITLAND was everything Janelle hated in another human being—in a woman particularly.

She was all grace and good manners and good intentions. And it didn’t hurt that she looked like some supermodel who now had better things to do.

It helped soothe Janelle’s feelings of hatred and resentment that Anna didn’t have a husband. It was nice to know that her privileged life had left her needing something.

And it was also satisfying to know that though she was smart enough to have had that brilliant kid and to own and run her own business, she was still gullible enough to have swallowed the story, hook, line and baby.

She believed that Petey Jones, Janelle’s husband, was Connor O’Hara, Megan’s long-lost nephew. And she believed that Janelle had really given birth to the little stinker in the house and had turned her life around to reclaim him and give him a loving home.

Ha!

She couldn’t wait for the day Miss Grace and Beauty learned the truth.

“HELLO!” Megan Maitland opened the back door, baby in her arms, and called, “Coffee’s ready!”

Anna hurried her step. Her mother was the only sixty-two-year-old woman she knew who could run a corporation, know what was going on with every member of her family, happily cope with the daily care of a seven-month-old baby and still look as though she’d never lifted a finger.

She wore a gray-blue wool dress today that lightened her dark blue eyes. Her soft white hair was drawn into her favorite French twist. She had an air of serenity Anna had always wanted to acquire but never quite mastered.

“Hi, Cody,” Anna said, reaching out for the baby and settling him on her hip. With her free arm she hugged her mother.

“Chase, Anna,” Megan corrected. “Not Cody. You are having a hard time with that.”

Anna groaned as she kissed the baby’s plump fingers. “Sorry about that. Chase is really a good name for you,” she said to the baby, who watched her with big eyes, “because I could just chase you all over then eat you up!” She nibbled at his fingers, and the baby laughed.

When he’d been found on the hospital doorstep, her mother had called him Cody because of the initials C.O. on a baby bracelet he wore. When Janelle came to claim him, she explained that the initials stood for Chase O’Hara.

“I swear, Mom,” Anna said, bouncing the baby. “This child must be gaining a pound a day.” Janelle and Connor approached, and Anna handed the baby over to his mother.

Megan patted Anna’s shoulder. “And we thought that was a quality relegated to Maitland women,” she teased.

Anna frowned at her mother. “Not funny, Mom. I did an hour on the treadmill last night.” With playful resentment, she turned her frown on Janelle. “You never seem to gain an ounce, Janelle.”

The baby reached for Anna with outstretched arms, but Janelle took one of his hands and kissed it and drew him to her. “Now, come on, baby,” she said. “Aunt Anna has work to do. You have to sit with me.” She disappeared into the house, and Connor followed.

“I swear,” Anna said quietly to her mother as they, too, walked into the house, “that baby remembers she left him on your doorstep and refuses to warm up to her.”

Megan frowned as she closed the door. “It’ll just take time,” she said. “He’s gotten used to me, and you’ve helped a lot, so you get the smiles she doesn’t get. Poor Janelle. It isn’t easy to right that kind of wrong.”

“I know.” Anna wrapped an arm around her mother’s shoulders and walked with her through the sunporch and toward the kitchen. “I’m sure they’ll be more comfortable with each other by the time the records prove her parentage.”

Megan smiled suddenly, stopping Anna on the threshold to the kitchen. “Isn’t it wonderful about R.J. and Dana?”

Anna laughed and hugged her. “Will’s so excited. He’s going to take up sports so he can teach the baby. I’m planning a Boston shower. You’ll have to help me.”

“Of course. You’re welcome to have it here, if you like.”

“That’d be perfect. We can do it in August and have it on the lawn. I still have all those sun umbrellas from that Spalding wedding that never happened. The bride’s mother was so upset, she refused to pay for the garden party things her daughter ordered, so I kept them. I have thirty green-and-white-striped umbrellas in my guest bedroom.”

“Closed, I hope, or you’re in for a lot of bad luck.”

“Not me,” Anna insisted. “All my bad luck turns to good.”

ANNA REMEMBERED what she’d said two hours later when she went to the day-care center at Maitland Maternity to surprise Will by picking him up for lunch. She stopped in confusion when she realized that members of the staff were huddled on the lawn in nervous little groups. Her brother Mitchell stood at the door, shaking his head adamantly as an older man tried to gain entrance.

“Anna!” Hope Logan, who managed the hospital’s gift shop, emerged from one of the groups to intercept her as she headed for the entrance. “Anna, you heard! Isn’t it awful?”

Dread trickled down Anna’s backbone. “Heard what? What’s happened?”

“A man’s holding the kids in the day-care center hostage!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide with horror. “He thinks Jake’s got his wife or something. Or she’s run away with him. I didn’t get all the…”

Jake was Anna’s younger brother, and he had appeared at Christmas with a pregnant woman who still remained a mystery. This wasn’t the first time the woman’s husband had shown up at the clinic. Anna tore across the lawn, straight for the entrance.