Married in Haste

Married in Haste
Roz Denny Fox

Ben Galloway and Abby Drummond both work with children–he's a pediatrician and she's a teacher–and they've both ended up with custody of their respective nieces and nephews. They decide that combining their households is the best solution to their individual problems.Which it is–except that their solution leads to a whole new set of problems.Kids before marriage. Not the easiest route to married bliss. And not the route Ben and Abby would've chosen. But love for their unexpected family brings them together in all the ways that count.

“Abby, lets get married,” he blurted out

“Wha-a-at?”

“Married. You and me.” Ben sat up. “Think about it—if ever two people had good reason to get married, it’s us.”

She stared at him for several seconds, then shot upright, hurriedly buttoning her jeans. Her face flamed and her breath came in short spurts. “But…marriage! Ben, that’s such a…huge leap. The kids—” She waved a hand feebly toward the house.

“Need a mom and a dad,” he finished. “Abby, we’ve both admitted we need help with them.”

“Yes, but…” Her tongue stumbled over her racing thoughts. Ben’s cell phone rang.

He frowned as he took the call, then clicked off abruptly. “Abby, I have to go to County Hospital—an emergency. Could I leave Erin and Mollie with you?”

“Of course you can.” She managed to get to her feet semigracefully, although her head still spun from his marriage proposal.

Ben went on instant doctor-autopilot. He hurried inside, spent two seconds explaining his hasty exit to the girls—then, poof, he was gone.

Desperate for something ordinary to focus on, Abby ran water to wash the dishes. A business merger, she told herself. That was all it had been. He’d made no mention of love. The absence of such a tiny word shouldn’t bother Abby. But it did….

Dear Reader,

During the period in my life when I worked for three pediatricians, our doctors saw a lot of blended families. These yours, mine and ours families presented a special brand of problem for the office staff—where to file their charts. And then, where to find them for kids who had a different last name from the mother or dad who’d phoned for an appointment.

One year we installed a color-coded charting system. Color of folder was determined by the patient’s name. Merged families suddenly became everyone’s nightmare. We could have Johnstons and Smiths living with Browns, but no one wanted to decide which of the coded colors to use.

Because you can’t work in medicine and not develop a good sense of humor, finding the correct patient charts for kids from blended families became a challenge and a game. Who could find them the fastest when a doctor bellowed down the hall? And heaven have mercy if the chart ended up in the insurance drawer or in a stack needing dictation.

In all those years I never really stopped to consider the daily challenges faced by the parents in these blended families. While I worried whether Johnny’s file was blue or red or green, these stepmoms and dads dealt with far greater concerns.

I’m not color coding Abby Drummond and Ben Galloway’s story. Their trials and tribulations with the seven kids they’re doing their best to raise are laid out in black and white. I hope readers empathize with the unique problems faced by this couple, who started out in love. They lost it, and found it again.

I enjoy hearing from readers. You can reach me at P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, AZ 85731 or by e-mail (rdfox@worldnet.att.net).

Roz Denny Fox

Married in Haste

Roz Denny Fox

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

This story is for Adrianne, Ashley, Mandy and Morgan.

You girls are Harlequin’s next generation of readers. In the

not too distant future, some of you may even be writers.

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 ONE

THE HOLLOW DISTANT RING of a telephone made Abigail Drummond fumble and drop the colored pencil she’d been using to mark second-grade state math tests. She automatically reached over to answer it. When her hand touched air, Abby remembered stuffing the phone, which normally sat on a corner of her desk, into her bottom drawer to make more room for the test packets. By the fifth ring, she managed to extract it and get the receiver to her ear. “Ms. Drummond.” Abby answered in her crispest professional voice. Calls coming in after school were usually from parents complaining about homework she’d tucked into their students’ backpacks. Abby tended to get defensive on that topic, as she assigned far less than did her counterparts at West Seattle’s Sky Heights Elementary school. Today, the familiar masculine voice came as a pleasant surprise.

“It’s Ben Galloway, Abby. Am I interrupting a teacher-parent talk or anything? If so, I’ll try to phone you later at home.”

A ripple of pleasure sent Abby’s pulse skittering. She’d dated Ben, whom society columnists listed as one of Seattle’s “most eligible bachelors,” for roughly ten months. She’d met him when he attended an end-of-the-year-conference in his sister, Marlo McBride’s stead. Marlo was a single mother, and her older daughter, Erin, had been Abby’s top student.

“Ben…sorry if I sounded abrupt. You caught me grading our mandatory math exams.” Abby twisted a lock of her crackling red hair around one index finger. “I hate to say the early results look abominable. But they do. Which makes me seriously question my ability to teach.”

“Ouch. I recall you said that your principal is holding staff responsible for the overall class scores on those tests.”

“Yes. Odd that you phoned when I was wishing I could clone your niece. Or her sister. Where’s Mollie when I need scores in the ninetieth percentile?”

Ben chuckled. “You’ll probably get Mollie next year. She’s every bit as clever as Erin but that kid’s a pistol. She’s stubborn as a Missouri mule.”