His Secret Christmas Baby

Prologue

“Brianna, I’m afraid. If anything happens to me,” Natalie Cummings whispered, “promise me that you’ll take care of the baby.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you.” Brianna Honeycutt squeezed her best friend’s hand as she pulled into the hospital emergency room entrance.

Another contraction seized Natalie, and she began the Lamaze breathing exercises, her hold on Brianna’s hand tightening painfully. “He, he, he—ho.”

Brianna breathed with her, grateful they’d finally made it to the hospital. A winter storm had rolled in, snow flurries blurring visibility, and she’d had to drive at a snail’s pace. And Natalie’s contractions were coming one on top of the other.

She threw the car into park as the contraction eased, and helped Natalie out, but Natalie clutched her hand again. “Promise me, Bri, I need to hear you say it.”

Pain and fear darkened Natalie’s eyes, and Brianna’s stomach clenched. She’d known Natalie was afraid of childbirth, but her voice quivered with terror.

“Of course, I will,” Brianna vowed softly. “But you’re going to be fine. A few minutes from now, you’ll be holding your baby, and you’ll forget all about the pain.”

Natalie opened her mouth to say something, but another contraction seized her. She pressed her hand to her stomach, and tried to breathe through it.

Suddenly a nurse and orderly appeared and raced toward them. “She’s in labor,” Brianna stated.

The nurse called for a wheelchair, and the orderly ran to get it. Brianna followed behind her as they wheeled Natalie to the reception desk to check her in.

Then suddenly Natalie cried out in pain, her water broke and chaos descended.

“I’m her labor coach,” Brianna informed as they rushed Natalie through the double doors to the exam room.

“We’ll come and get you in a moment,” the nurse said over her shoulder. “Let the doctor examine her.”

Brianna nodded, her nerves on edge as her friend disappeared through the doors, a terrified expression on her pale face. Brianna paced the waiting room for twenty minutes, her anxiety rising with every second that ticked by. Finally, her patience snapped, and she rushed to the nurses’ station and asked for an update.

The nurse appeared irritated at first, but went to the back to check, then returned five minutes later with a frown on her face. “I’m sorry, miss, but your friend had complications. They’ve taken her to surgery for an emergency C-section.”

A sense of fear overwhelmed Brianna. “Please let me know when she’s out.”

The nurse nodded, and Brianna paced the waiting room again. Two other couples hurried in and were sent to birthing rooms, the minutes dragging by. The coffee grew cold, her body more tense as she waited.

What was taking so long? What were the complications? Was Natalie all right? What about the baby?

An hour later, a doctor appeared, the grave expression on his face sending a chill down Brianna’s spine. “I’m Dr. Thorpe. You came in with Miss Cummings?”

Brianna nodded, then swallowed and finally forced her voice to work. “The baby—”

“Is fine,” the doctor said. “A little boy. Seven pounds, eight ounces. He’s in the nursery.”

She sucked in a harsh breath and gripped his arm. “And Natalie? Please, I have to see her.”

“I’m sorry,” he answered quietly. “But your friend died in childbirth.”

The room swirled around Brianna in a sea of white, and she felt her legs buckling. The doctor coaxed her to a vinyl sofa, and she put her head down between her knees, afraid she would pass out.

“What happened?” Brianna asked.

The doctor shifted and looked away. “She started hemorrhaging, then her heart gave out.”

Her heart? Natalie hadn’t had a heart condition, had she?

“Miss Honeycutt, I’m sorry. Is there any family I can call?”

Tears blurred her eyes as she lifted her head to look at him. “No,” she whispered. “Just me. I’m her family.”

“How about the baby’s father?”

“He’s not in the picture,” Brianna replied.

“Do you know his name so we can contact him?”

“No, she never told me.”

“Then we’ll need to call social services about the baby.”

Panic shot through Brianna, grief, fear and shock in its wake. No, she wouldn’t turn the baby over to the system. But Natalie hadn’t signed any papers giving her legal custody.

What if the baby’s father found out about him? Would he want the baby?

She had to act fast. She was a social worker for the local adoption agency, and she worked with Magnolia Manor, the local orphanage. Natalie wanted her to raise the baby, and she would push through the adoption immediately and keep her promise even if she had to fudge papers to do so.

But Natalie’s pleas before she’d gone to delivery taunted her. It was almost as if she’d known that she might not make it.

Had Natalie been afraid of something—or somebody? Had she been in danger?

Chapter One

Six weeks later

“Why can’t Robert and I adopt Natalie Cummings’s baby?” Dana Phillips asked.

Brianna tensed at the cold hardness in the young woman’s eyes. Dana and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for three years, had tried fertility treatments and in vitro fertilization but none of it had worked. Worse, they had been on the adoption list for two of those stressful years.

“You said you’d find us a baby,” Dana screeched, “but you’ve done nothing to help us. And now there’s a baby we could have and you won’t give him to us.”

Brianna understood their desperation, but Dana’s emotional state worried her. The woman was obsessed with having a child to the point that Brianna worried about placing one with her.

“I’m sorry, Dana, but Ryan is not up for adoption.”

Dana crossed her arms, tears glittering in her eyes. “Why not? His mother is dead, and he has no father. And don’t forget, I grew up in this town. I know that Natalie’s family is gone now.”

Grief for Natalie was still so raw that Brianna’s throat thickened with emotions. The fact that Natalie had been anxious her last few weeks and seemed frightened gnawed at Brianna. Women dying during childbirth were uncommon these days. Had Natalie really had heart failure?

“You know I’m right,” Dana said, her shrill voice yanking Brianna from the worry that something hadn’t seemed truthful about the doctor’s explanation.