A Mother's Claim. Janice Kay Johnson

      

      Who has the best claim on the child?

      It’s been more than ten years since exhausted new mother Dana Stewart took a nap while her baby was sleeping and woke up to find him gone. The loss devastated her—and her marriage—and she’s never given up hope of finding Gabriel. She never expected that when she finally did, he’d be almost a teen, his name would be Christian...and he and his uncle Nolan Gregor would want nothing to do with her.

      Nolan, a former army ranger, proves as possessive of her son as Dana is. It’s like King Solomon’s worst nightmare: she can’t rip her child away from the only parent he’s ever known. But she’s his mom, and she’ll never lose him again.

      The resemblance between this woman and Christian was too obvious.

      He watched her as she approached the counter. Tall and yet slight to the point of appearing fragile, Dana Stewart wore her honey-blond hair in some kind of twist on the back of her head. Her bone structure echoed her son’s—no, it was the other way around. Her cheekbones were almost too sharply defined, leaving hollows beneath. There was a tension to the way she carried herself, shoulders squared, head high, as if she wouldn’t let herself relax in any way. The hand not clutching a purse was curled into a fist.

      She was a beautiful woman now, but he wondered how much more beautiful she’d been before her son’s disappearance damaged her in ways both visible and invisible.

      Needing to be battle-ready, Nolan slid off the stool and stood before she reached him.

      “Ms. Stewart.”

      “You’re guessing,” she said, in a distinctively throaty voice.

      “No.” He made a sound even he couldn’t decipher. “You look like him.”

      Pleasure showed on her face. “I do, don’t I? Thank you for emailing the pictures. I know you were annoyed at me—”

      “I’m not that petty,” he broke in.

      Her teeth sank into her full lower lip. “I...would have understood.”

      Nolan had to momentarily close his eyes to recover his resolve. I’ll fight dirty to keep you, if it ever comes to that. Of course it would come to that.

      No, he might not be petty, but inevitably he would hurt this woman.

      Dear Reader,

      If you’re a longtime reader of mine, you’ll know that A Mother’s Claim isn’t the first book I’ve written about an abducted child. An earlier Harlequin Superromance novel, The Family Next Door, began after the heroine’s daughter had been restored to her, too. I think that story must have been at the back of my mind when I started plotting this one. In it, the daughter was young and hadn’t been gone nearly as long as is the case in A Mother’s Claim. Long after writing that book, I began to wonder what would happen if so long had passed that the very young child was nearly a teenager and had no memory whatsoever of his real mother and father. Who is this woman, asking him to betray the only mother he remembers?

      Dana has dreamed for eleven long years that a miracle could happen. Sure enough, it does, with a phone call letting her know her son is alive and well. After the miracle, though...well, that’s when the real story begins. As always, I love wrestling with the aftermath of trauma. What more confusing time could there be to fall in love? Plus, as a fiercely protective parent, I identified powerfully with Dana.

      I hope you’re as moved by her journey as I was.

      Janice

      A Mother’s Claim

      Janice Kay Johnson

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      An author of more than ninety books for children and adults, JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. An eight-time finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008 for her Harlequin Superromance novel Snowbound. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.

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      To my dearly loved daughters, Sarah and Katie.

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Introduction

       Dear Reader

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN