Another Chance for Daddy

Another Chance for Daddy
Patricia Knoll

Marriage TiesOnce smitten, twice wed. She still loved him–but could she marry him again?When Clay Saunders finally realized that his adventurous life-style was no substitute for his ex-wife and son, it was too late. Rebecca was all set to marry the reliable new man in her life. Clay, she decided, would just have to accept that he'd lost her forever…Then she made the fatal mistake of taking him back for a spell while he recovered from an accident. Playing the perfect patient, Clay began his campaign to win her back!Six-year-old Jimmy clearly wanted his daddy to stay for good. Could Rebecca be persuaded to give him another chance, too?The four Kelleher women, bound together by family and love.

“Son, that sounds like a great idea.” (#u9b754ed1-fa75-5894-941d-4693fea7161e)Letter to Reader (#u6604af98-37a3-5eca-b13a-41186b7c3928)Title Page (#ua5316d78-430b-5ec6-a7b1-0a65ab94dc05)CHAPTER ONE (#ud8fa58f0-816e-5f67-9e58-e7d63f2ddaa0)CHAPTER TWO (#uaa00db0d-dd7a-5ec7-a31f-0991385fd982)CHAPTER THREE (#uc917c25a-485a-5080-a138-cc5741e83441)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“Son, that sounds like a great idea.”

“What does?” Becca stared at Clay in astonishment.

“For me to come live with you again,” Clay said with an air of decisiveness.

Becca held her hands up as if she was trying to stop a speeding bus. “No, Clay. No. First of all, I can’t imagine that you’d want to....”

“Then you imagined wrong. I’d love to. Thanks for the invitation.”

“No, Clay.” She hardened her voice. “We’ll find someone to take care of you, and...”

“But Mom,” Jimmy piped up, “don’t you want Dad to come stay with us?”

Becca looked down at her son’s puzzled face.

Clay reached out and drew Jimmy to him. “Yeah, Mom, don’t you want me to come stay with you?”

Dear Reader,

I’ve always been fascinated by strong women, which is one of the reasons I love romance novels. MARRIAGE TIES is a series about a family of such women: a mother, her stepdaughter and two daughters. To test their strength, I teamed them up with men who are anything but tame. The Kelleher women are strong, though they don’t always know how their strength will be tested. But then, none of us knows until it happens.

In Another Chance for Daddy, Rebecca Kelleher Saunders thinks she’s sending her six-year-old son off to spend a week with his father, Clay, but fate intervenes. Clay, the husband she thought was out of her life—the man she knew so well—is back. He’s not going anywhere, and has he ever changed!

Wedding Bells, to be published in November (#3530). and Bachelor Cowboy, due in 1999, tell the stories of Rebecca’s sisters, Brittnie and Shannon, and the men who attract these remarkable women. Late in ’99, look for Resolution: Marriage, the story of Mary Jane Kelleher, the mother to these three women, who is reunited with her high school sweetheart and must come to terms with a secret she’s kept for more than twenty-five years.

Be prepared to enjoy the strength and resourcefulness, the fun and the tears, of Rebecca, Brittnie, Shannon and Mary Jane.

Happy Reading!

Another Chance For Daddy

Patricia Knoll

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

CHAPTER ONE

TROUBLE was coming up Rebecca Saunders’s front walk. As she looked out the window, she pressed her hands against her stomach, took a deep breath and held it until her nerves steadied.

Trouble was her ex-husband, Clay.

He drove a midnight-blue, four-wheel-drive Ford Explorer that had scattered gravel in all directions when it swept into her driveway and parked behind her little green Honda. He had a way of stepping down from the vehicle, stretching a six foot two inch frame until every chest and shoulder muscle rippled beneath a black snap-front shirt, placing a cowboy hat on a head of deep auburn hair and examining the neighborhood through dark green eyes. She knew he had taken in everything at one glance, judged it, and probably found it wanting.

This was not the kind of neighborhood they had ever lived in together. Their apartments had all been in modern buildings lacking in uniqueness, whether they had been located in Louisiana, Texas, or Mexico.

This home and this neighborhood were unique; each house was different, from her own small three-bedroom bungalow to the Emerson’s sprawling two-story whose trim had recently been painted hot pink. This was the kind of neighborhood where she had always wanted to live, but Clay hadn’t. He had never wanted the responsibility and upkeep of a home. Besides, he had said, a house would be too hard to sell when they moved on to his next job—a statement that had always made Becca’s heart sink to her toes because she had feared his attitude would never change—and it hadn’t.

As she watched, he walked down the driveway to her front gate, then strolled along the brick sidewalk with a leisurely pace.

He looked over her yard, at the brown grass that would turn green in a few weeks, the forsythia and rosebushes that rattled dry branches against the picket fence, and the flower beds where crocuses were poking their first tentative green shoots through the rich brown soil as if sending up scouts to see if winter truly was finished.

Even as she berated herself for doing it, she searched Clay’s face for signs of approval, but saw only mild interest.

Then she studied his face because in the past it had given her so much pleasure to do so. It was a strikingly handsome face with deep-set eyes, a long, straight nose, and a rarely-seen grin. She used to love that grin. It had always seemed like a gift when it appeared. At one time it meant laughter, fun, good times. She didn’t see that grin now. In fact, she never saw it. There was nothing of laughter, fun, and good times between them now.

Becca stood behind her lace curtains, knowing that she was acting cowardly, that she should throw the door open and invite him right in. After all, he had called ahead, made all the necessary arrangements. This visit wasn’t a surprise. She had thought she was prepared; she had been up cleaning house since six that morning to work off her nervousness, but it plagued her with butterflies beating frantically inside her.

Becca had moved out almost a year and a half ago. Their divorce had been final for six months. She wondered how much longer it would be before she stopped having this physical reaction to him—this burning sensation that swept up from her stomach to her throat and then her face. True, she was still attracted to him. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t be? But that wasn’t the reaction she was having now. It almost felt like embarrassment, but she had nothing to be embarrassed about. She had done what was best for herself and Jimmy, who was then barely five years old. She had moved the two of them back to her hometown of Tarrant, Colorado.

Clay had fought the divorce, as she had known he would, but she had held her ground until the final decree had been granted and she had been free to start life again, this time as a single mother. She had family in Tarrant; her stepmother and her half-sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was home, and it was safe and comfortable. She needed a secure routine and some emotional comfort after her years with Clay.

She had certainly achieved a secure routine, but little emotional comfort of any kind and she felt it anew every time she saw him now.

. There had been bitter words, hard feelings, and trouble in general between her and Clay ever since she had left him. However, when he had called a couple of weeks ago, Clay had asked for a truce. He was going to be leaving the country soon to take an engineering job in Venezuela and would be gone for several months. He wanted to have Jimmy during the youngster’s spring break from school. They were going skiing. Clay apologized for the hard time he’d given Becca since the divorce, saying that he now realized the whole situation would be much easier for Jimmy if he knew his parents were on friendly terms.

Becca had been so relieved by this overture of peace, that she had immediately agreed to the skiing trip. Now Clay was here, and she hoped she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.

She heard his boots on the front porch, then his knock on the door. Before she could prepare herself any further, or give herself a pep talk about seeing him face-to-face, a whirlwind in the form of her son whipped by her.

“I’ll get it. It’s Dad. I saw him from my window,” Jimmy shouted as if his mother had suddenly been struck with deafness.

Excitedly, he wrestled the door open, then leaped straight into the air and into his father’s outstretched arms, shouting, “Daddy, you came. I knew you’d come.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t let my guy down. You know that.” Clay’s deep voice was muffled as he buried his face against Jimmy’s neck.

Standing in her living room and watching the tender scene in the doorway, all Becca could see was the top of Clay’s black Stetson. It obscured Jimmy’s head, too, so that the only things visible were his little back and his short, jeans-clad legs. Clay’s arms were wrapped tightly around his waist.

Becca’s eyes filled with tears and she turned her head away as she blinked them back. Clay and Jimmy had always been close. Even though he’d never been around an infant before his son’s birth, Clay had never balked at the diaper-changing and floor-walking associated with a baby—and Jimmy had been a sick, fussy baby. She wanted to see that closeness continue even though it meant that she would have extended contact with Clay herself.

When Clay pulled away from Jimmy and lifted his head, Becca braced herself. In spite of his request for a truce, she expected to see censure in his eyes as she had for the past two years. Instead, they were cool and guarded, as was his smile.

“Hello, Becca. How are you?” he asked as his gaze traveled over her, taking her in, from her long chocolate-brown hair, which was pulled back into a neat French braid, to the steady look in her aquamarine eyes, to the set of her full lips and the angle of her narrow chin.

As he examined her, Becca was glad that she had foregone her usual loafers, jeans, and sweater for her dressy boots and a calf-length dress of soft sky-blue flannel. It helped to know that she looked her best.

“I’m fine, Clay,” she answered, and was quite pleased with the cool confidence in her tone. “Come on in,” she invited with a sweep of her hand. “Jimmy’s been up since the crack of dawn, watching for you.”

Clay’s right eyebrow rose a fraction. “I’m here exactly when I said I would be.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she said hastily. “It’s just that he doesn’t tell time very well yet. He’s only in the first grade, you know.” She was not going to mention the number of times that work had made him break promises to Jimmy, or to her. Nor would she let him think that she had been speaking badly about him to his son. “I told him you would be on time, but he didn’t really understand when ten o’clock would arrive.” Becca stopped suddenly, realizing that she was babbling.

She stepped back and her hand fluttered out. “Why don’t you sit down for a few minutes? Jimmy just learned to read his first book on his own and his teacher let him keep it over spring break so he could read it to you.” She glanced down at her son, who was now clinging to his father’s leg. “Honey, why don’t you go get your book now? Since it belongs to the school library, you can’t take it on your trip with you, but you can read it to your dad before you go.”