Searching for Cate. Marie Ferrarella

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      An eerie feeling wafted through Cate, as if this wasn’t real.

      As if she was looking into the mirror and seeing into the past.

      Joan cleared her throat, her nervousness growing. “Can I help you?”

      Cate kept looking at the woman in the bed, searching for some foolproof sign. All the while knowing that there wouldn’t be one. “That all depends.”

      “On what?” Joan whispered the words, now clearly fatigued.

      Cate took a step toward her then stopped. She was afraid that the woman would pass out if she came any closer. Did she know? On some instinctive level?

      Cate put her thoughts into words. “On whether you’re willing to admit that you’re my mother.”

      Dear Reader,

      The Signature Select aims to single out outstanding stories, contemporary themes and oft-requested classics by some of your favorite series authors and present them to you in a variety of formats bound by truly striking covers.

      We want to provide several different types of reading experiences in the new Signature Select program. The Spotlight books offer a single “big read” by a talented series author, the Collections present three novellas on a selected theme in one volume, the Sagas contain sprawling, sometimes multi-generational family tales (often related to a favorite family first introduced in series) and the Miniseries feature requested previously published books, with two or, occasionally, three complete stories in one volume. The Signature Select program offers one book in each of these categories per month, and fans of limited continuity series will also find these continuing stories under the Signature Select umbrella.

      In addition, these volumes bring you bonus features…different in every single book! You may learn more about the author in an extended interview, more about the setting or inspiration for the book, more about subjects related to the theme and, often, a bonus short read will be included. Authors and editors have been outdoing themselves in originating creative material for our bonus features—we’re sure you'll be surprised and pleased with the results!

      The Signature Select program strives to bring you a variety of reading experiences by authors you’ve come to love, as well as by rising stars you’ll be glad you’ve discovered.

      The excitement continues!

      Warm wishes for happy reading,

      Marsha Zinberg

      Executive Editor

      The Signature Select Program

      Searching for Cate

      Marie Ferrarella

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Dear Reader

      What if, one day, you wake up to discover that everything you believed to be true, wasn’t? That the parents you’d always loved really weren’t your parents? How would you feel? These are the emotions that FBI Special Agent Cate Kowalski finds herself facing. She’d gone into law enforcement to honor and emulate the father she’d always adored, the father who was killed in the line of duty while she was still in her teens. Now, she finds the very reason for who and what she is has been based on a lie. This is the premise behind Searching For Cate. It is Cate who is searching for herself, the way that, in part, we all search for ourselves, except that in her case she has to begin from scratch. The search for her birth parents brings her to Southern California and eventually, into the life of Dr. Christian Graywolf, a selfless physician who is also one of the walking wounded. Together, slowly, they each heal the gaping hole in the other’s soul.

      I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. And, as always, I wish you love.

      To Marsha Zinberg, who asked, and Patience Smith, who said yes.

       Thank you.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      Chapter 39

      Chapter 40

       Bonus Features

      Chapter 1

      “What do you mean it’s not compatible?”

      Special Agent Catherine Kowalski stared at the short, husky lab technician before her. A basket filled with vials, syringes and other blood-letting paraphernalia was looped over his arm and he looked at her as if she were a deranged troll who had wandered out of a fairy tale.

      The drone of voices in the hospital corridor outside her mother’s single-care unit faded into the background as she tried to make some kind of sense of what the man had just told her.

      It’s a mistake, a voice whispered in her head. But still, there was this terrible tightening in the pit of her stomach, as if she was about to hear something she didn’t want to hear.

      This was absurd, she thought. Just a small foul-up, nothing more.

      “She’s my mother. How could my blood type be incompatible with hers? There has to be some mistake,” Cate insisted.

      There was no sympathy on the technician’s rounded, pockmarked face, just a weariness that came from doing the same laboratory procedures day after endless day. There was more than just a touch of indignation in his eyes at being questioned.

      His voice was flat, nasal. “No mistake. I tested it twice.”

      Her stomach twisted a little harder. Somewhere in the distance, an alarm went off, followed by the sound of running feet. She blocked it out, her mind focused on what this new information ultimately meant.

      No more surprises, I can’t handle any more surprises. Cate had graduated near the top of her class at Quantico. In the field, there were few