The Prodigal Cousin

The Prodigal Cousin
Anna Adams

Sam Lockwood is a single father who wants his children to know about family. For that reason he begins to search for the mother who gave him up at birth. He finds her, and is surprised to learn that she now has another child–one she chose through adoption.Her daughter is Molly Calvert. Once known as the wild Calvert, Molly has settled down to become a respected teacher at the little elementary school in Bardill's Ridge. Years ago, she put her family through too much, and she's not prepared to hurt them ever again. Which is why she has to ignore the feelings she's beginning to have for Sam–her mother's long-lost son.

The investigator had taken plenty of photos, so Sam recognized Eliza

They shared unusual black eyes. Other than that, he must look like the birth father of whom he’d found no trace. Averting his face from the fifty-six-year-old woman he’d driven six hundred miles to see, he tossed around conversation starters.

“Just wondering why you gave me away when I was hours old.” Or “Thought you might have changed your mind about having a son.” Neither would do.

No one knew his feelings about his adoption. His parents would have been upset, and he’d been a little ashamed that his own mother had given him away. As an adult, he’d lost any concern for his past in his focus on his family.

His children remained his first concern, but now that he saw Eliza Calvert dancing up the walkway in her husband’s arms, Sam longed to know someone else who shared the blood that ran in his veins.

If Eliza accepted them, his daughters would never be alone again.

Another woman climbed out of the car. Taller than Eliza, she was slender but curvy. She must be Molly Calvert.

Sam opened the car door with trepidation. Eliza had adopted Molly when she was fifteen. Would she resent him and the girls if Eliza accepted them?

Dear Reader,

Molly Calvert has one priority: family.

Her first family—her birth family—abandoned her, but then the Calverts took her in. It’s from them that she learned about love and family. And it’s to them that she feels she owes everything. And that sense of debt is what makes her different from her Calvert “cousins.”

When Sam Lockwood comes to town, he’s the last man Molly should fall for. A widower with two daughters, he’s searched for his birth mother so that his children will always have family. But his birth mother is Eliza Calvert, the same woman who adopted Molly and delivered her from danger into a safe life.

Eliza envisions them all together, one big happy family. Molly can’t see Sam the way her mother does. He’s a devoted father, a compassionate man and the lover who makes her believe in a husband and children of her own. Yet accepting him might destroy her mother’s dream.

Thanks for joining me in Bardill’s Ridge. If you enjoyed Molly’s story, you might want to visit her cousins—Zach in The Secret Father and Sophie in The Bride Ran Away. Let me know what you think of THE CALVERT COUSINS at anna@annaadams.com.

All the best,

Anna

The Prodigal Cousin

Anna Adams

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

To Laura Shin

Thank you for suggesting that the Calverts might make good cousins. But deepest thanks also for your patience, your creativity, your clarity when mine fails and—most of all—for making the books better.

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS THE KIND OF DAY Molly Calvert loved best. One filled with family celebration. Her cousin Sophie’s new baby, Chloe, had been christened that morning. Around six the whole family had converged on the Bardill’s Ridge Country Club to celebrate.

Her cousin Zach’s young son, Evan, and daughter, Lily, raced among the knots of relatives catching up. Her grandparents were dancing their feet off. Her widowed Aunt Beth, Zach’s mom, seemed to welcome the romantic intentions of Zach’s father-in-law, James Kendall. Her own parents, who ran a bed-and-breakfast, had taken responsibility for supplying ample food and drink, which they’d been too busy arranging to eat.

But something was wrong with Molly. Instead of wrapping herself in the cloak of family affection, she felt as if she were hanging around on the edges of love.

Surrounded by everyone who mattered most to her, she peered from baby Chloe in Sophie’s arms to pregnant Olivia, Zach’s wife. A strange emptiness yawned inside her. She’d never have a child of her own. Her two cousins, who’d been more like brother and sister to her, had reached a stage in life that she couldn’t share.

An inner voice, refusing to be silenced, whispered that she wasn’t even a real Calvert. That she was adopted.

Loneliness prodded her as Sophie passed Chloe to her husband, Ian. Behind him, Zach and Olivia each caught one of their children for a hug. Evan and Lily wriggled away, far too excited to stand still for affection.

Molly watched as if from a far place. She loved her parents, enjoyed her job, couldn’t imagine living anywhere except on Bardill’s Ridge in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. But at twenty-five, she envied her cousins and hid a secret longing for a husband and family of her own—a husband who could love her despite the holes in her soul.

But what kind of man could love her after he heard the truth? She’d controlled her self-destructive impulses in the ten years since she’d survived a catastrophic miscarriage, but no amount of understanding could change the fact that she was damaged goods. Every man in this town knew her past. They didn’t come looking for her. She invited none of them into her life.

Loving her cousins, resenting her own envy, Molly eased through the throng in the wood-smoke-scented dining room. At the doorway, she braced her hand on one of the wide posts that ran from ceiling to floor and searched for her mother’s loving, lovable face. Her mom smiled back, and Molly felt a little better.

Since the age of eight, when Eliza and Patrick Calvert had accepted her as their foster child, she’d known no other mother. She owed her parents everything. They’d saved her life and then forgiven her for all the increasingly bad things she’d done. Owing them made her different.