Wife and Mother Wanted. Nicola Marsh

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      She shouldn’t flirt with him.

      She really shouldn’t. But a little demon was prodding her with its pitchfork. “I don’t have much to do. Maybe you still want to play?” Carissa asked, leaning against the wrought-iron table in a provocative pose.

      “Uh, no, thanks,” Brody muttered, looking delightfully flustered, and she bit back a grin, enjoying this more than she should. He had loosened up a lot over the past month. However, that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun at his expense.

      “You’re running scared,” she said, taking a step toward him.

      “Scared of what?” He backed away.

      “This.” She took another step and poked him in the chest, expecting him to make a run for the house at the brief physical contact.

      However, he didn’t move a muscle, his dark gaze unreadable, and her pulse accelerated madly.

      “And this.” She ran a finger down his cheek, enjoying the rasp of stubble against her fingertip.

      He grabbed her hand and lowered it, regret mixed with desire in his eyes.

      “I’m not scared. I’m just wary,” he said.

      Nicola Marsh has always had a passion for writing and reading. As a youngster, she devoured books when she should have been sleeping, and later kept a diary, which could be an epic in itself! These days, when she’s not enjoying life with her husband and son in her home city of Melbourne, she’s at her computer, creating the romances she loves in her dream job. Visit Nicola’s Web site at www.nicolamarsh.com for the latest news of her books.

      Found: His Family #1836

      Wife and Mother Wanted

      Nicola Marsh

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      To the Sirens, for their friendship, support and cyber hugs

      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

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I DON’T believe this!’

      Carissa Lewis collapsed into a garden chair and resisted the urge to throw her mobile phone into the nearby pond. Though she wouldn’t risk it. The way her luck was running today she’d probably decapitate Fred, her favourite ceramic frog.

      Instead, she took a deep breath, gritted her teeth and lowered her voice. ‘Peter, how could you do this to me? To the children? We were counting on you.’

      Her boyfriend of eight months—eight far too long months—said, ‘Yeah, well, you shouldn’t ask so much of people. Personally, I’ve had a gutful.’

      She shook her head, wondering if the late nights she’d been keeping in preparation for the annual Easter pageant had melted her brain. How could asking Peter to play the Easter Bunny for the local kids in town be asking too much? The guy didn’t have a heart—a fact she’d slowly realised over the course of their lukewarm relationship but hadn’t got around to doing anything about.

      So she had a thing for ‘comfortable’ boyfriends—guys who didn’t challenge her, or demand anything of her, or set off any fireworks in her vicinity. So what? She liked it that way. Comfortable was good, and the antithesis of her totally uncomfortable childhood, when she would have given anything for someone to depend on.

      She tried a different tack. ‘Peter, this is important to me. Please, won’t you reconsider?’

      ‘Sorry, Carissa. I want out. Of everything.’

      Her heart stilled for all of two seconds before the adrenaline kicked in again. ‘Are you dumping me? Why, you weak, spineless, no-good—’

      The dial tone hummed in her ear and she let out a frustrated yell, leapt to her feet and jumped up and down on the spot, like a two-year-old having a doozy of a tantrum.

      ‘What are you staring at?’ she said to Fred, finding his wide froggy grin smug rather than endearing at that moment. ‘Where am I going to find an Easter Bunny now?’

      It had to be the time of year.

      Things always went wrong at Easter.

      Her parents had died at Easter when she was three, she’d been adopted out a year later to the family from hell, and she always seemed to hang onto some loser like Peter to avoid being alone with her memories around this time.

      Yep, Easter stank—and it looked as if this year was no exception.

      ‘My