Pregnant In Prosperino. Carla Cassidy
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JOE COLTON’S JOURNAL
There’s been a strange vibe in the air ever since I got off the phone with my son Rand. He’s on his way home with some shocking news that he has to deliver in person. I wonder what it could be…? Meanwhile, on the home front, Chance Reilly is back in Prosperino. He returned to look in on his terminally ill father, but the old coot died before they had a chance to make amends. After Chance’s mother died when he was a lad, he was left to battle his tyrannical, verbally abusive father alone—except for that rebellious teenage year when he stayed at the Hopechest Ranch and Hacienda de Alegria. Now his old man is making Chance’s life miserable, even from the grave. His airtight last testament decrees that Chance must be married in order to inherit the family ranch and estate. As luck would have it, his father’s private duty nurse, Lana Ramirez, offered to be his temporary wife—on the condition that Chance agree to father her baby! Hmm…could Old Man Reilly have had this ace up his sleeve all along?
About the Author
CARLA CASSIDY
Wealth, power, secrets and dysfunction…the Colton family has it all, and Carla was thrilled to be among the writers who got the opportunity to bring this fascinating family to life.
In Pregnant in Prosperino, she not only got the opportunity to explore elements of evil, but also enjoyed breathing life into two wonderful characters who find the goodness and joy of true love.
Carla Cassidy is an award-winning author who lives in the Midwest with her husband, Frank, and their two neurotic dogs.
Pregnant in Prosperino
Carla Cassidy
Meet the Coltons—a California dynasty with a legacy of privilege and power.
Chance Reilly: Rancher desperately seeking…something. A rebellious bad boy in his teens, this rancher now feels empty and rootless. Could the hasty marriage he enters into to save his family ranch be his solution?
Lana Ramirez: Pregnant in Prosperino. Though she’s carrying his baby, this nurse senses that Chance is a footloose, rambling man who’ll soon move on. But if she has her way, the only place this cowboy will be heading is…back into her ever-loving arms!
Joe Colton: The perplexed patriarch. When the police arrive to arrest his wife, Joe is shocked to discover that his real wife, Meredith, was a victim of a malicious plot. Now that Meredith’s impostor twin, Patsy, is behind bars, this reunited couple has some lost years to catch up on.
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
One
“Damn you, old man.”
Bitterness ripped through Chance Reilly as he stared at his father’s fresh grave. In life, Tom Reilly had cheated his son out of a happy childhood and a normal adolescence with his bullying and abuse.
And now, in death, Tom had delivered the final blow to any hope Chance might have had of ever making peace with him, or of inheriting the Reilly ranch.
Chance turned and gazed at the house in the distance. Even the shadows of approaching night couldn’t hide the neglect that clung to the place.
The house cried out for a new coat of paint and the weeds were knee-high in places. And that was just the beginning. The barn door hung askew, several railings of the corral were lying on the ground and there was no livestock grazing in the pastures.
Cars lined the drive, letting him know the place was still filled with sympathetic well-wishers and curious neighbors.
He should go back inside and play the role of grieving, dutiful son, but he couldn’t just yet. It was difficult to grieve when anger and bitterness were ripping apart your soul.
His gaze left the house and instead focused on his mother’s headstone next to his father’s final resting place. A lot of help she’d been, dying on him when he’d been eight years old and leaving him alone with “Sarge,” as his father had enjoyed being called.
Sarge—who had run his house like an army barrack, who had never been afraid to use hurtful words and flying fists to emphasize a point.
Emotion expanded in Chance’s chest and he fought against the suffocating tightness. When he’d gotten the word that his father had taken a turn for the worse, he’d left his motel room in Wichita, Kansas, and had caught the first plane he could get to reach Prosperino, California.
However, his father, perverse to the end, passed away mere hours before Chance had arrived back home, making it impossible for father and son to resolve the acrimony that had marked their relationship for years.
The funeral had been two hours before, and Walter Bishop, the family lawyer, had only a brief time before delivered the last of the bad news to Chance.
“Damn you,” he said again. “You were a miserable man who spent your whole life making me miserable.”
“Chance?”
He whirled around at the low, female voice, angry at the intrusion.
He relaxed a bit as he saw Lana Ramirez approach, her long black skirt fluttering around her ankles as the early autumn breeze played with the material.
“Are you all right?” she asked as she reached where he stood on the edge of the old family cemetery.
Although Chance and Lana had seen each other on the day he’d arrived back into town, that moment had been brief and Chance had immediately had to deal with funeral arrangements for his father.
“Sure, I’m fine.” He willed away any lingering emotion that had momentarily gripped him. There was no way he’d show anyone the feelings that had possessed him since coming back to this ranch.
She moved closer, near enough that he caught the scent of her, a wild floral fragrance that stirred old memories. She’d worn that particular perfume years ago, when he’d first met her at the Colton ranch, where Chance had lived for a year when he’d been sixteen and Lana had been thirteen.
Someplace in the back of his mind he registered that she had grown up to be a lovely woman. Her Mexican heritage was evident in the raven-black of her hair and the darkness of her eyes. It was a quiet, understated beauty she didn’t try to emphasize with an abundance of makeup.
Chance once again focused on the mound of dirt before them. “How did you put up with him?” he asked, then looked at her again.
Her full lips curved just a bit into a half smile. “I’m a nurse, Chance. I’m accustomed to dealing with difficult