Verdict: Daddy. Charlotte Douglas

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      “I’m desperate, Marissa, and you’re the only one I could think of who can help me.”

      “You’re in trouble with the law?” Marissa asked.

      Blake shook his head, knowing that, as a criminal attorney, she had to ask. “No—at least not yet.”

      Only the slightest flicker of surprise crossed her features before she regained her composure. “You’ve committed a crime?”

      He shook his head. “The man who left you was an idiot.”

      Her puzzled expression created a tiny line between her eyebrows, and his fingers itched with an unexpected urge to reach over and smooth it away.

      “Then what do you want from me?” she asked.

      “I want you to help me with a baby.”

      Verdict: Daddy

      Charlotte Douglas

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      The major passions of Charlotte Douglas’s life are her husband—her high school sweetheart to whom she’s been married for over three decades—and writing compelling stories. A national bestselling author, she enjoys filling her books with love of home and family, special places and happy endings. With their two cairn terriers, she and her husband live most of the year on Florida’s central west coast, but spend the warmer months at their North Carolina mountaintop retreat.

      No matter what time of year, readers can reach her at [email protected], where she’s always delighted to hear from them.

      Books by Charlotte Douglas

      HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

      591—IT’S ABOUT TIME

      623—BRINGING UP BABY

      868—MONTANA MAIL-ORDER WIFE *

      961—SURPRISE INHERITANCE

      999—DR. WONDERFUL

      1027—VERDICT: DADDY

      HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

      380—DREAM MAKER

      434—BEN’S WIFE

      482—FIRST-CLASS FATHER

      515—A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

      536—UNDERCOVER DAD

      611—STRANGER IN HIS ARMS *

      638—LICENSED TO MARRY

      668—MONTANA SECRETS

      691—THE BRIDE’S RESCUER

      740—THE CHRISTMAS TARGET

      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

       Epilogue

      Chapter One

      “We have a problem.”

      Marissa Mason’s receptionist jerked her head toward the law office waiting room behind the closed door at her back.

      Eyeing her usually calm employee with concern, Marissa closed the computer file of the legal brief she was preparing. Seldom did anything perturb small and scrappy Kitty Stancel, not even the most hardened criminals who came to Mason and Mason for representation, but something—or someone—had definitely spooked her today. Behind her designer glasses, Kitty’s brown eyes were wide with alarm, and her voice had an uncharacteristic tremor when she spoke.

      “What’s going on?” Marissa reached for the phone, ready to dial 911.

      “Big guy in the waiting room. I told him you weren’t seeing clients this afternoon, but he insisted. He has this wild, desperate look. Says he isn’t leaving until he’s talked with you, even if he has to spend the whole day and night waiting.”

      “What’s his name?”

      “Blake Adams. He’s not one of our regulars. I’ve never seen him before.”

      Blake Adams.

      The familiar name threatened to inundate Marissa in a sea of nostalgia, but before she succumbed to a cruise down memory lane, she had to make certain the man in the waiting room was the same Blake Adams she had known so well and not some total stranger.

      After shoving from her chair, she circled her desk, motioned Kitty aside and opened her office door the slightest crack. The tiny slit gave her a view of the reception area, where the man sat cooling his heels, dwarfing the Danish-Modern chair with his tall body, one work-booted foot tapping an impatient rhythm on the beige Berber carpet.

      Marissa’s heart stuttered at the sight: long, tall and tanned, the man in the waiting room had shaggy black hair, a chiseled jaw, high cheekbones and startling gray eyes. His big hands were clasped between knees bared by cargo shorts that displayed well-muscled calves above the tops of his work boots. A spanking-white, short-sleeved polo shirt revealed his knotted biceps and sported the logo Adams Landscape Designs with a stylized palm tree embroidered above the pocket.