“Brad?” she whispered into the darkened room. Had her husband changed his mind about staying over with her and the baby? Her whisper was swallowed up in the silence.
Brad had spent last night in the recliner provided for new dads, but he had another job interview first thing in the morning. She’d sent him home at the end of visitor’s hours with instructions to get a good night’s sleep and wear the Brooks Brothers’ suit with the I’m-in-charge tie.
Keely made a small sound in her bassinet like a mewling kitten. Maybe the nurse had come in to check the time of her last feeding. Stef turned on the bedside lamp and glanced at the clock. It was 2:53 a.m. With a guilty start, she realized it had been more than three hours since she’d last nursed her baby.
Keely mewled again, sounding like a ravenous kitten.
Stef felt an instantaneous tingling sensation in her breasts. “Okay, sweetie, I got the message. It’s chow time. Just don’t expect fast food.” She pushed herself up in the hospital bed, every muscle in her body protesting. Her stomach sagged like a deflated balloon.
Getting out of bed was a Herculean effort. Maybe she should have insisted Brad stay. But he’d been so discouraged after he’d been laid off from his job as the New York City regional manager for Office Outfitters six months ago. He’d gone to countless interviews and the pressure of a first baby on the way hadn’t helped. She wanted him to be at his best tomorrow. They had a daughter to support.
She shuffled to Keely’s bassinet, painfully aware of the stitches where no doctor should have to put a needle, the linoleum floor cool beneath her bare feet.
Stef peered down at her daughter. A tiny miracle, even if she did look like a scrunched-up baby gorilla.
“I’m here, sweetie. Mommy’s here.” She picked up her daughter from the bassinet—amazed anew by the tiny infant’s weight and warmth. She’d swear Keely had already gained a few ounces since birth.
Her daughter snuffled against her breast, looking for nourishment. Stef sighed with equal amounts of pleasure and discomfort as her breasts started to leak. She gingerly eased herself down into the recliner and fumbled with the buttons of her nightgown and the clasp of the nursing bra.
Keely latched on to her nipple hungrily and Stef basked in the special intimacy of the feeding bond between them. “You are my little girl, Keely Jane Shelton. I may not be the smartest or the richest or the prettiest mom, but you are my own gift from heaven and I love you with all my heart. I hope you like me and Daddy, because you’re stuck with us for a long time.” She gave her baby girl a teary-eyed smile. “We’re a family now, little one. Forever and ever. I promise.”
Chapter One
Logantown, Pennsylvania
The lost Collingwood Heir was alive and well and living beneath this roof.
Former L.A.P.D. Detective Mitch Halloran stood on the front step of the modest house, a cold spot forming in his stomach as he leaned on the doorbell.
He was dreading the task ahead of him. He had to tell this family that their daughter wasn’t theirs. That two female infants had been switched at birth. Whatever pride he felt in proving himself right about the ransom note and the DNA sample that the Find Riana Foundation had received eight days ago was lost in the sickening reality that he was about to plunge this innocent family into a nightmare. With the single-minded determination he’d learned from his grandfather who’d served as a marine in the Korean War, Mitch told himself he’d make it all work out. This wouldn’t be a repeat of the Lopez case. He’d do everything in his means to get them back their own daughter.
Surely it wasn’t too much to ask for two miracles.
The front door opened and Mitch looked into one of the most appealing faces he’d ever seen. It belonged to the woman he’d seen with Keely four days ago when he’d conducted surveillance on the house to filch a sample of Keely’s DNA.
Eyes that were green and gold reminded him of a lucky marble his real dad had given him when he was about six, and they shimmered at him, laughter in their depths. A scattering of freckles drifted across sexily curved cheekbones and dotted a nose that tilted up at the end.
“What are you selling?” she demanded, curling her hands into fists and planting them on her hips. She was wearing a blue-and-green silky blouse that seemed kind of see-through and Japanese and left no doubts that she was wearing a skimpy blue bra underneath. “I’m all yours if you’re hawking chocolate bars with almonds.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not soliciting. My name is Mitch Halloran, and I’m the director of the—”
“No chocolate bars?” she interrupted him, looking genuinely disappointed.
Mitch held out his empty hands, his gut twisting at her cheery attitude. “Not a one. Sorry, ma’am.”
“All right, then, what do you want? I already signed one of the petitions for the new soccer field.”
Mitch sighed. She wasn’t making this easy. He handed her his business card. “Mrs. Shelton, please. I’m the Director of the Find Riana Foundation. We’re searching for Riana Collingwood, and I’d like to speak to you and your husband privately. It’s very important.”
She snatched the card from him, then held up her hand, palm out, like a traffic cop. “Stay here.” To Mitch’s annoyance, she slammed the door in his face.
He sighed and leaned a hip against the wrought-iron railing, wishing he hadn’t left his raincoat in the car.
The chill of a November wind bathed his cheeks, seeped into his chest. Mitch felt uncomfortably out of place on this quiet street with its middle America working-class appeal. Having grown up in a large metropolitan city, he hadn’t minded the noise and the pace and the towering in-your-face size of New York City. But the tranquil motion-picture perfection of this street bothered him.
Lights blazed in living room and kitchen windows up and down the block. He could smell the scents of meals lingering invitingly in the air. Halloween had come and gone. Fake tombstones and bedraggled scarecrows populated the lush lawns and shreds of gigantic spider webs and pieces of plastic skeletons dangled from bare tree branches. It was nothing like the neighborhoods of stucco bungalows, concrete driveways and parched yards he was used to in L.A.
Halloween was one of the many holidays, along with Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas that he’d grown to hate ever since Paddy, his grandfather, had died. The crime stats always went up—murders, suicides, break-ins, robberies. He’d seen people resort to desperate acts when the reality of their personal and family situations failed to live up to the impossible expectations planted in their minds by TV shows, movies and magazines.
Peace on earth. Right. Most people would settle for peace in their own home a few nights a week.
Holidays to Mitch were a brutally painful reminder that he had no family.
The door opened behind him. Mitch swung around. Stephanie Shelton had engaged the chain lock and was eyeing him up and down suspiciously, a phone plastered to her ear.
“Turn around,” she said to him.
“What?”
She made a circling motion with her finger. “Turn around.” A tiny red heart was painted on her fingernail.
“Hmm-humph? No, not Russell. I’d say more like Dennis—” she paused as Mitch glowered at her. “Nice and…um, where did you work before you came to the Foundation?” she asked sweetly.
Mitch propped a hand on the door frame. “L.A.P.D.—the Robbery Homicide Division,” he replied, making a mental note to have a little chat with the hot-line phone staff.
“It’s him.” The door slammed in his face again. He heard the chain slip off, then the door popped open. Mitch was