Daughter on His Doorstep Read online

  Something about this woman tugged at him.

  Trey began to understand that she stirred up that long-buried yearning in him for a woman of his own. A family of his own.

  Might as well get that idea right out of his head. Laurie Oliver was temporary. She had plans, a life to return to in a few weeks.

  Besides the fact that she was damn good-looking and he felt a strong healthy attraction to her, he figured his biggest problem was proximity. She was here, in his home, sharing his daily life.

  But he knew better than to hit on her. She was his employee. She trusted him to treat her with respect. And that meant hands off.

  But he wished, desperately, that when he looked at her again, he hadn’t caught her staring at him with a look of curiosity in her eyes, a telltale blush staining her cheeks.

  Dear Reader,

  Around this time of year, everyone reflects on what it is that they’re thankful for. For reader favorite Susan Mallery, the friendships she’s made since becoming a writer have made a difference in her life. Bestselling author Sherryl Woods is thankful for the letters from readers—“It means so much to know that a particular story has touched someone’s soul.” And popular author Janis Reams Hudson is thankful “for the readers who spend their hard-earned money to buy my books.”

  I’m thankful to have such a talented group of writers in the Silhouette Special Edition line, and the authors appearing this month are no exception! In Wrangling the Redhead by Sherryl Woods, find out if the heroine’s celebrity status gets in the way of true love…. Also don’t miss The Sheik and the Runaway Princess by Susan Mallery, in which the Prince of Thieves kidnaps a princess…and simultaneously steals her heart!

  When the heroine claims her late sister’s child, she finds the child’s guardian—and possibly the perfect man—in Baby Be Mine by Victoria Pade. And when a handsome horse breeder turns out to be a spy enlisted to expose the next heiress to the Haskell fortune, will he find an impostor or the real McCoy in The Missing Heir by Jane Toombs? In Ann Roth’s Father of the Year, should this single dad keep his new nanny…or make her his wife? And the sparks fly when a man discovers his secret baby daughter left on his doorstep…which leads to a marriage of convenience in Janis Reams Hudson’s Daughter on His Doorstep.

  I hope you enjoy all these wonderful novels by some of the most talented authors in the genre. Best wishes to you and your family for a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

  Best,

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  Daughter on His Doorstep

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  This one’s for Lynn, who, with one daughter already, took on another man’s two children when he remarried, and made them his own. When we called him our stepfather, I hope people understood the love that went with that word. He was, quite simply, the best.

  Books by Janis Reams Hudson

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Resist Me If You Can #1037

  The Mother of His Son #1095

  His Daughter’s Laughter #1105

  Until You #1210

  *Their Other Mother #1267

  *The Price of Honor #1332

  *A Child on the Way #1349

  *Daughter on His Doorstep #1434

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  was born in California, grew up in Colorado, lived in Texas for a few years and now calls central Oklahoma home. She is the author of more than twenty-five novels, both contemporary and historical romances. Her books have appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and Bookrack bestseller lists and earned numerous awards, including the National Readers’ Choice Award and Reviewer’s Choice awards from Romantic Times Magazine. She is a three-time finalist for the coveted RITA Award from Romance Writers of America and is a past president of RWA.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  One minute Trey Wilder was minding his own business, the next someone was thrusting a tiny bundle into his arms and throwing around words that numbed his brain. Words like baby and girl and yours and daddy.

  The man before him was a lawyer pushing forty. The woman, a nurse, appeared to be in her midfifties. The baby’s name, they said, was Katy, the product of a weekend Trey had supposedly spent with one Darla Boswell.

  He’d been out standing in the middle of his alfalfa field—okay, so it was the family joke: was he out, standing in his field, or was he outstanding in his field?—waiting for the feeling of satisfaction to fill him at the sight of one of the best stands of alfalfa the Flying Ace Ranch had produced in years. Nature had been generous this spring, and Trey’s crop management and irrigation strategies had been right on target. The first cutting was now dried, baled and stored for winter feed. If the remaining two cuttings of the season produced as expected, they’d get five tons per acre this year, more than enough to see the herd through winter.

  But the feeling of satisfaction didn’t fill him the way it should, the way it used to. Something was missing from Trey’s life, and he wasn’t sure what it was. It was all mixed up in his head. One minute he loved the free and easy single life he led, the next he was looking at all the kids his brothers and sister were having, the love they had each found with that one special mate, and sometimes he felt as if life was passing him by.

  Which was ridiculous. He led a full life, a useful life. Without the crops he raised, the ranch that had been in his family for four generations now, with number five coming on fast, would wither and die. He was the farmer of the family.

  Maybe that was it, he thought as he’d watched the gleaming new sedan creep down the road to avoid bottoming out in the ruts.

  Time to haul out the box blade, he thought, and knock the top off the ruts again.

  His brothers were ranchers. Cattlemen. His sister served the ranching community as a veterinarian. And here he was, out standing in his field.

  But he liked farming, always had, even though he was perfectly at home on horseback, working cattle with the rest of them.

  No, it wasn’t the farming that had him dissatisfied. It was probably the fact that he was staring the big three-oh in the face on his next birthday. Turning thirty was enough to depress any man, he thought as the sedan stopped beside his mailbox at the end of his gravel drive, then turned in.

  With long strides, Trey crossed through his alfalfa, stirring up the sweet fragrance as he went, and decided he ought to count his blessings. Many a man would envy the life he led. He answered to no one, except, of course, Mother Nature and God, both of whom exhibited a sharp sense of humor by keeping him in check whenever he got too cocky. Like when he started counting his bales before they were stacked.

  He’d never seen the car before, nor the stranger who stepped out of it wearing an expensive three-piece suit and looking as out of place on Trey’s dusty drive as champagne at a beer bust.

  Lost. That was Trey’s thought. The man was probably looking for the Kovic place, another two miles west. Visitors to Wyatt County had a hard time realizing how far it was from one place to the next out here in the middle of Wyoming.

  “Hi,” Trey offered, noting that the woman in the back seat was unharnessing a baby from one of those car seat carryall things they strapped babies into. His brother J
ack had one just like it for his and Lisa’s baby girl. “Can I help you?”

  The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Robert Stover. I’m looking for Trey Wilder.”

  “You’ve found him,” Trey said, accepting the man’s handshake. “What can I do for you?”

  The stranger named Stover smiled. “It’s what we’ve come to do for you. Or rather, to give you.”

  That’s when it happened. The man turned and nodded toward the gray-haired woman in the car, and she got out carrying the baby, which she proceeded to plop into Trey’s arms. Just plopped it there. Right there in his arms before Trey realized what was happening.

  “Katy,” the woman said to the infant, “this is your daddy.”

  Trey gaped at the woman. The man. The baby. The man again. “No way!”

  A pained look came over the man’s face. “I take it Ms. Boswell did not call you.”

  The baby squirmed in Trey’s arms. “Who?”

  “Katy’s mother. Darla Boswell.”

  “There, that proves it. You’ve got the wrong man.” Trey tried to return the baby to the woman, but she backed away and shook her head.

  “I believe,” the man said, “that you knew her by her stage name, LoRena LaRue.”

  Something that felt like a red-hot lead ball—big and heavy and burning—dropped to the pit of Trey’s stomach.

  Oh, jeez, oh damn. LoRena LaRue of the flaming red hair and teasing brown eyes, the talented mouth and the mile-long dancer’s legs. LoRena LaRue of the wild Las Vegas weekend just…Trey gulped. Just a little more than nine months ago. LoRena LaRue, who, after their torrid weekend together, had cried on his shoulder because she had finally realized she was still in love with her old flame.

  Trey stared down at the baby in his arms. The baby had enough thick, black hair, and eyes so blue, that she was a dead ringer for every baby the Wilders had managed to produce in at least the last two generations.

  “I see that name rings a bell,” the man said mildly.

  “I told you she wouldn’t call him,” said the woman beside Stover.

  “My apologies,” Stover said. “My client—”

  “Client?” Trey figured it was too much to hope that the man was LoRena’s accountant.

  “I’m Ms. Boswell’s attorney. She was supposed to call you about Katy and tell you we were coming.”

  “Tell me?” Trey looked at the man, bewildered. Terrified.

  “She was afraid you would say no,” the woman added.

  “No? No to what? You can’t— She doesn’t think— Good God, she really thinks this baby is mine?”

  Robert Stover smiled in sympathy. “I realize this is a shock, Mr. Wilder. I’ll be glad to explain everything.”

  “Perhaps we could go inside?” the woman suggested. “All this dust and sun isn’t good for the baby.”

  Trey Wilder was a big man, six feet tall, a hard-muscled 190 pounds. He had a college degree and a good brain to go with it. He’d grown-up tough, with a father who didn’t believe in softness of any kind in a man or a boy. Trey had done his share of bronc riding, steer wrestling and other foolishly dangerous stunts. When he was eight he’d broken his arm and hadn’t shed so much as a tear over the pain.

  He was afraid of nothing, took no lip from anyone. But just then he could do no more than stare at these people, their outlandish words buzzing around in his head like angry bees ready to swarm. The tiny bundle in his arms had short-circuited his brain. Somehow he found himself a moment later carrying her as he ushered the man and woman into his home.

  In his living room he looked around, seeing nothing, imagining that this was what being shell-shocked felt like.

  The tiny bundle in his arms chose that moment to let out a mewling little whimper. Worried that he might be squeezing her too hard, Trey looked down…and lost his heart.

  “There, there, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Holding her awkwardly, afraid he was doing it wrong, he tried patting her gently. “I didn’t mean to hold you so tight. It’s just that these folks here kinda took me by surprise, is all. They think I’m your daddy, but it’s all some big mistake.”

  The infant girl stared right at him, as though fascinated by his every word.

  “We’ll get it all straightened out in no time and get you on your way to wherever it is you belong. You are a sweetheart, aren’t you?”

  Trey glanced up then, ready to hand the baby back, because obviously there’d been a big mistake here.

  Both the woman and the attorney—what had he said his name was? Stover. Robert Stover—were headed back outside.

  “Hey,” Trey protested. “Where—”

  But there was no one in the room to answer. No one but a tiny angel named Katy, and she wasn’t talking.

  Trey was so stunned that all he could do was stand there and stare at her. Was she his? Was this beautiful baby from him? Could he and the alluring LoRena LaRue have created this miracle?

  He must have been in a daze—maybe even in shock—because when he looked up again from those giant blue eyes, his living room was filled with baby paraphernalia. Stacks of disposable diaper packages, cartons of formula, boxes of clothes, a pile of baby-care books, and against the far wall, Stover and the woman were setting up a portable crib.

  A new sense of alarm snaked up Trey’s spine. “Now, wait just a minute. You can’t mean to leave her here,” he cried.

  Stover straightened and turned to face Trey. “That’s entirely up to you, of course. But as you’re the baby’s father, I’m not sure you’ll care for the alternative.”

  More suspicious than ever, Trey narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. What alternative? Where’s LoRena? Why didn’t she come? Why did she send you?”

  Stover dusted off his hands and frowned. “This would have been so much easier on everyone if she’d called you, as she said she would.”

  The baby began squirming in Trey’s arms, so he jiggled her a little. “What was she supposed to tell me? Why didn’t she tell me she was pregnant?”

  “Because she feared you were the type of man who would insist on marrying her to give the baby your name.”

  “Well, of course I would,” Trey proclaimed.

  “Which is exactly what she did not want. The marriage part, at least. To put it bluntly, Mr. Wilder, Ms. Boswell never had any intention of raising a child. She had arranged for the baby to be adopted.”

  “Without even telling me I was about to become a father?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why, that—”

  “But the adoption fell through at the last minute. If you don’t want to raise your daughter yourself, I’m instructed to take the baby back to Nevada and turn her over to the state for them to put up for adoption.”

  “The hell you will,” Trey said without thought. “Wilder babies aren’t raised by strangers. In this family we take care of our own.”

  Stover smiled. “That’s what she thought you would say.”

  An hour later Attorney Stover and Nurse Nancy—imagine someone named Nancy becoming a nurse and not appreciating the joke—drove away. They had answered all his questions about how and why. He was left with What now?

  He stood beside the crib and looked at the tiny angel sleeping there. If she wasn’t his daughter, he was in big trouble, because he was already head-over-heels in love with young Katy.

  But he really didn’t doubt that she was his. He would have the tests done to eliminate any question, but that would be just to satisfy his family and the law. Just the law, really. His family would accept her, if he did. But he already knew the truth, felt it in his gut. This child was his daughter.

  What he didn’t know was how he was going to take care of her. He didn’t suppose he could just strap her to his back every morning and head out to the fields or the pastures or the range to work. He was going to need help, and plenty of it.

  I’m a father.

  The thought still shocked him. Thrilled him. Terrified him.


  The baby opened her eyes, kicked her feet and cried.

  “Uh-oh. Hey, baby girl,” he said as he picked her up carefully, holding her head the way Nurse Nancy had told him, the way he’d seen his brothers hold their babies. The way he’d held them himself more than a few times, but that was different. The other babies hadn’t been his. “You hungry, sweetheart?”

  Hmm. How was he supposed to fix her bottle while holding her?

  He put her back down in the crib. Before he’d gone two feet she let out what he considered a very unlady-like howl.

  As if he were a yo-yo and she had her little hand through the loop at the end of the string, he bolted back to her side. “Come on, now, sweet pea. Ah, hell, your diaper? Again?”

  Okay, he could do this. Nurse Nancy had made him do it three times before she and Stover left. He could handle it. Of course he could handle it.

  By the time he was finished, he had to admit that it didn’t look as neat as the last one, but he figured it would do. Katy had stopped crying. That was good enough for Trey.

  He stood over the crib and stared down at…his daughter. God above, he had a daughter.

  What was he supposed to do now? How was he supposed to raise a baby alone and run the farm and help out at the ranch?

  As if she believed he was blaming her for causing all this turmoil, little Katy scrunched up her face and started crying. Pitifully.

  “Food,” Trey said desperately. “Maybe she needs to be fed again. Is that it, sweet pea? Are you hungry now? You just wait right here and I’ll fix you a bottle.” If he remembered how.

  Nancy had shown him how to fit the pouch of formula into the nurser. She’d shown him a lot of things in such a short time; he was sure he’d already forgotten half of them.