The new baby

  This book made available by the Internet Archive.

  This book is dedicated to my dad,

  who is my brainstorming partner and

  knight in shining armor. And to my mom, who calls me her

  rodeo queen and believes I can do anything. I love you.

  With special acknowledgment

  to the health care professionals, law enforcement officials

  and women who have been in Amanda's shoes

  who all gave generously of their time to answer

  my many questions. Any errors are my own.

  Books by Brenda Mott

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  1037—SARAH'S LEGACY 1127—COWGIRL, SAY YES

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  .

  PROLOGUE

  Amanda Kelly awoke in excruciating pain. Overhead, bright lights invaded her vision even before her eyelids fluttered open, creating a dizzying pattern of flashing dots. She blinked and tried to focus as the sounds of the hospital emergency room flooded her ears.

  "What's her BP?"

  "BR 90 over 50, pulse 140..."

  The rapid-fire words slipped through her mind like water. She tried to move, but her arms were too heavy. Weighted down. Her neck...her head...anchored in place. Panic seized her as she struggled with the oxygen mask fitted over her face. She wanted it off.

  The voices assaulted her once more. Clearer this time.

  "Start a large bore IV. We've got to get some blood right away."

  "Eighteen gauge started—we're waiting on blood bank."

  "We can't wait for type and cross, give her some O."

  Beneath her, the gurney moved like a go-cart, making her stomach churn, increasing the dizziness. Strange faces were above her, examining her.

  "She's pregnant? Shit! Get an obstetrician in here now!"

  "Hang in there, Amanda. We're going to take good care of you."

  "Has anyone contacted her family?"

  She tried to speak. Couldn't. Her mind was wrapped in cotton.

  Her eyes, so heavy. She closed them.

  Amanda awoke later, with no concept of how much time had passed. The hospital room seemed cold, sterile—too white, like the lights that had flooded her senses earlier. A monitor bleeped beside the bed. Clear plastic tubing snaked from her wrist to the IV drip above her.

  Amanda swallowed as her sister's face came into focus. Tear-streaked, pinched with pain. Lips trembling.

  "Amanda." Nikki reached for her hand.

  "Nikki?" Amanda's heart leaped then plunged as anxiety seized her. The memories came back in a rush.

  A mountain road.

  The young girl, standing on the gravel shoulder, her tire flat.

  In her mind, Amanda pulled over to offer help. The use of her cell phone. She recalled reaching for the seat belt that cradled her rounded stomach, undoing the buckle. Then the squeal of tires and the gunshotlike sound of the SUV slamming into her Chevy Blazer from behind.

  Dread now pushed all other thoughts from her mind as she reached instinctively to slide her hand over her stomach. Her throat closed and tears burned the back

  BRENDA MOTT

  9

  of her eyes. Her belly, once round, full with child, was now deflated like an empty balloon.

  Her throat constricted as she choked on a sob. "No-o."

  The devastation on her sister's face was enough to confirm what she already knew. She squeezed her eyes closed as Nikki gripped her hand. Willing it to not be true.

  But the baby was gone.

  The baby she'd carried as surrogate for her sister.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The mountains of Tennessee weren't as tall and rugged as Colorado's Rocky Mountains, but they were equally beautiful in Amanda's eyes. Their beauty represented all she sought for her move—change, a fresh start, an entirely new world.

  In the three months since the accident, she'd become someone she no longer knew. She needed to find herself. And the small town of Boone's Crossing in east Tennessee was the perfect place to do just that.

  Granny Satterfield's log house had been in the family for three generations, though no one had lived there in a long while. It rested in a hollow, or "holler" as the locals pronounced it, six miles from town, surrounded by dogwood, hickory and oak trees. Knee-high grass and irises in vivid shades of lavender and deep violet choked the yard, front and back, tangled vines climbed over the lawn ornaments Granny had always treasured. Alongside the house ran a creek, close enough to the bedroom window for the relaxing sound of trickling water to lull Amanda to sleep each night. Even so, dark dreams plagued her. Drove her into nightmares so vivid, she'd wake up in a cold sweat, fear making her heart race in what quickly turned into a panic attack.

  Sometimes she dreamt of the baby she'd never had

  a chance to hold. And other times, she saw her sister, Nikki, and her brother-in-law, Cody, wandering aimlessly down a long, dark hallway, searching for something they'd never find. Once, she even dreamed of Caitlin Kramer, the young girl who'd had the flat tire that night. From what Amanda had read in the local paper, Caitlin had been a top-notch equestrian with high hopes of making the Olympic show jumping team. But the injuries she'd sustained had ground her dreams into dust.

  Nikki, Cody, Caitlin...and how many others? How many people, herself included, had been affected by the chain reaction set off when one drunk had decided to climb behind the wheel? The thought made her crazy.

  The ringing phone pulled Amanda from her half awake, half asleep state of mind. Throwing back the covers, she stood, then hurried to the kitchen and lifted the cordless receiver from its base. "Hello?"

  "Hi." Nikki's voice came across the line sounding a little fuzzy, which probably meant she was using her free cell phone minutes. Not that she'd had any reason to worry about long-distance rates lately. Shamefully, Amanda had been avoiding her sister, ignoring her messages on the answering machine, still hurt by the harsh parting words they'd exchanged when she left Colorado.

  "Nikki." The wall clock told her it was four-thirty in Deer Creek. "What are you doing up so early?"

  "Trying to catch you at home."

  She rubbed the ache that hammered between her eyes. "If you're calling to tell me what a horrible sis-

  ter I am, I already know. I'm so sorry I haven't called you sooner."

  "Well, you ought to be. I was beginning to worry." Nikki's concerned tone bordered on big-sister bossi-ness, leaving Amanda torn between laughing out loud and bursting into tears.

  Though she'd telephoned Nikki briefly upon arriving in Boone's Crossing, she'd only called to let her sister know she'd gotten there safely and that she'd found a position as Assistant Director of Nurses at the nursing home in town. Nikki would've worried about her, no matter what sort of hurtful words stood between them. Their conversation had been stiff and brief as the two of them sidestepped one another's feelings.

  Now Amanda felt awful for not being in touch. She missed Nikki far more than she'd believed possible. "I'm sorry," she repeated. The silence stretched between them while she scrambled for the right words. How are you? seemed shallow, since Nikki had not been fine in a long while. And, What's going on with you? fell short for the same reason.

  "Are you okay?" Nikki asked.

  "I should be the one asking you that." Amanda took a deep breath and decided to dive right in. "I'm fine, if you mean physically. But mentally...no. I can't stop thinking about you and Cody..." She fought to keep her voice from trembling, "...and little Anna." C
an y t stop being afraid every time I drive on a highway. This was exactly why she'd avoided her sister. She'd hoped time and distance would begin to put things right between them. Instead, it felt as though nothing had changed.

  "We're getting by," Nikki said.

  But from her tone, Amanda knew different. Cody had responded to the loss of the baby by channeling his hurt into anger, striking out at everyone around him. Herself, Nikki, even his best friend Mark, who ironically had once been Amanda's fiance. But that was a whole other can of worms. One she didn't want to open ever again.

  She and Nikki had stood by one another, awkward, confused, each hurting in her own way. Who was the real victim here? And how did they put the pieces of their lives back together?

  Seeing a therapist hadn't helped much, not for any of them. And neither had any of Amanda's attempts to make things better. She'd wanted to repay Nikki and Cody for the expenses they'd incurred during the surrogacy procedure—expenses that had eaten up their entire savings, leaving Amanda with the feeling that she'd robbed them of their last chance for a child of their own. Nikki had responded to her offer with offense and sadness. How could you think the money mattered? Cody had become even more angry. You can't buy back our daughter, Amanda!

  "Come on," Amanda prodded. "I know you better than that. Remember, you're talking to the kid who used to find your diary no matter where you tried to hide it."

  Nikki's sob wrenched her heart, and Amanda cursed under her breath, wishing she hadn't pushed the issue. That she hadn't been such a coward and run over fifteen hundred miles to get away from the pain that chased her anyway.

  "We're not getting along," Nikki said. "I thought

  for a while the counseling was working, but now I feel like we're right back to square one."

  Amanda let her feet slide out from under her, sinking down to sit on the cool linoleum, her back pressed against the cupboard where Granny Satterfield had always kept ajar of lemon drops. They'd been Granny's cure for whatever ailed you. Amanda longed for the days when life was so simple. When she was five and Nikki was eight, and the two of them climbed Granny's trees and rode their pony double, talking about what they'd be when they were all grown up.

  "Come home," Amanda said. The idea was spontaneous, flying from her lips before she could stop it.

  "What?" Nikki gave a dry laugh. "You're the one who needs to come home, Amanda. We haven't lived in Tennessee since we were in elementary school."

  Amanda squeezed her eyes shut. "I know," she whispered. "But it's so peaceful here, and the people are really friendly. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that coming here has solved everything for me, because it hasn't." Again, frustrated anger rose inside of her. She'd been perfectly satisfied with her fife before the accident—well on her way to having everything she'd dreamed of. She was certain Mark would change his mind about not wanting kids once he'd seen the baby, and that the two of them would marry as planned and have children of their own. "But I do think being here is going to help me heal." Eventually.

  "It's not the same here without you," Nikki said. "There's no one to go to lunch with, or shopping." Her voice came out thick. She sniffed. "No one to talk to."

  Amanda swallowed over the obstruction in her own throat. "You've got friends there who love you, hon."

  "Yeah, but not like you. No one else has ever loved me so unconditionally."

  Her heart clenched as Amanda struggled not to cry. She'd hated watching Nikki suffer through repeated miscarriages, the result of an incompetent cervix, and had been more than willing to carry Nikki and Cody's biological child when the subject of surrogacy had come up. Nikki's words echoed in her memory— Now that's what I call sisterly love. Amanda, you are the most caring, giving, person. They'd hugged each other and cried, but those tears had been happy ones.

  The tears she now heard in her sister's voice were anything but, and she felt like hell for leaving Nikki behind. How could she explain that she'd had no choice? That she'd felt as if her last thread of sanity had been torn in two?

  "I can't come back right now," Amanda said. Maybe never.

  "But you loved your job," Nikki prodded. "I know it was tough to try and go back after—"

  Amanda cut her off. "I have a job I like here." She knew Nikki meant well, but the accident had created a cesspool of pain, anger, fear and remorse Amanda could not wade out of, no matter how hard she tried. And she absolutely could not bring herself to face her job as an RN in the maternity ward at the Deer Creek County Hospital. Being around the babies, the expectant mothers, was more than she could bear.

  "Not one you love with a passion," Nikki countered. "Is it really so rewarding, taking care of old

  people? Watching your patients die on a regular basis?"

  Amanda fought her irritation, knowing her sister didn't mean for her words to be hurtful. "Yes, it is rewarding. In a different way."

  "Yeah, well, maybe so. But the way you took off reminds me too much of Mom."

  "I'm not chasing shadows, Nikki."

  "I don't want you to become like her—a nomad."

  For as long as Amanda could remember, their mother had moved them from town to town, state to state, holding down various jobs. Always thinking the next place would be exactly what she'd been looking for—whatever that was. "I don't plan to. Boone's Crossing was about the only place we ever had roots, thanks to Granny. Why don't you take a week or two and come down?" she asked again. "School will be out in a few days." How Nikki managed to cope with teaching a room full of kindergartners after the emotional upheaval she'd suffered, Amanda didn't know. She personally couldn't have done it.

  "I don't know." Nikki sighed, and Amanda could picture her jabbing her fingers through her honey-brown bangs, then twisting them around her fingers. It was a habit Granny Satterfield had never been able to break her of.

  "Maybe putting some distance between you and Cody would help," Amanda coaxed. She swallowed hard, forcing the words out. "He doesn't mean the things he said. It's just the cop in him." No matter if Cody had meant them or not, her brother-in-law's harsh words had cut deeply.

  How could you be so stupid, Amanda? So irrespon-

  sible. Stopping on a dark highway like that, for God's sake!

  And Nikki, torn between her husband and her sister. Cody, that's not fair. Amanda, maybe you'd better leave for now.

  She'd left all right. Taken off for Boone's Crossing without much of a second thought.

  "I'm not so sure of that," Nikki said quietly, and Amanda wasn't sure if she referred to the fact that some distance would help or that Cody hadn't meant what he said. "Some distance, huh?" she added dryly. "You don't think fifteen hundred miles would be overdoing it?"

  Amanda chewed her bottom lip. "You're the only one who can answer that, sis. But the invitation's open. Any time." She forced a note of humor into her voice. "You know where Granny kept the spare key. It's still there."

  Nikki made a sound that could've been a sob or a laugh. "Not that she ever bothered to lock the door anyway."

  "You let me know," Amanda said. "Promise?"

  "I'll think about it. And don't go so long without answering my phone calls, do you hear me? I can still kick your butt, you know."

  "You can try," Amanda teased. "I love you, sis."

  "Love you, too."

  Amanda hung up, but made no move to rise from the floor. Somehow, she found comfort sitting here, looking at Granny's kitchen on a child's level. Her earliest recollection of this room had been when she was around four years old, though she'd stayed at Granny's even as a baby. The last time she'd set foot

  in here while Granny was alive, she'd been in middle school. But once Amanda had reached high school, other interests had taken the place of her summer trips to Tennessee, and then there had been college, nursing school....

  She felt ashamed that she'd only managed to visit Granny once as an adult, and that had been at the hospital. Though she'd seen her a few times prior to that, when Granny had
come to Colorado to "stay a spell," it wasn't the same as coming here to the log house. To Boone's Crossing, where gospel music and old-fashioned manners were still an integral part of life, giving Amanda the feeling of being wrapped in a warm, handmade blanket.

  Too bad Granny wasn't here now, to offer words of wisdom. Still, she recalled one thing her grandmother had always said. No matter the ups and downs a person faced day to day, life was far too short to waste one single, precious minute. Putting Granny Satter-field's house in livable order had kept Amanda's mind and hands busy, and her position at Shade Tree Manor filled her days and gave her purpose.

  Yet, no matter what she'd said to Nikki, she did not feel whole. Instead, she seemed to follow a mechanical pattern of waking, going to work, coming home to an empty house and repeating the routine the next day. But she hadn't lied about the satisfaction taking care of senior-aged residents gave her. They were the bright spot in her day, and with that thought, Amanda pushed herself up off the floor, put the phone back in place and headed for the bathroom.

  She showered, dressed, and twisted her hair into a serviceable knot on the back of her head. In a matter

  of minutes, she arrived at Shade Tree Manor. Starting her second week on the job, she felt safe and comfortable among both the staff and residents, and as she walked through the door, her co-workers greeted her. One of the LPNs, who she'd taken an immediate liking to on their first meeting, rolled her eyes as Amanda approached the nurses' station.

  "Boy, am I glad to see you." Reed-thin and six feet tall with wavy black hair, Roberta Baker hid a tender heart beneath a faux display of gruffness. She worked the night shift and showed a devotion to the residents Amanda liked to see in her nurses.

  Amanda tucked her purse under the counter, and turned to face her. "I take it you're ready to go home."

  "Honey, let me tell you." Roberta blew out a puff of air that sent her bangs flying. "Albert's at it again, thinking he's Daniel Boone. I caught him in the hallway, not once, but twice—" she held up two fingers for emphasis ''—wearing nothing but his skivvies and a raccoon skin hat. I think we've finally gotten him to go to sleep, but I'm telling you what's the truth—y'all better keep an eye on him."