Adam’s Boys
Anna Clifton
For fans of Kat Martin and Debbie Macomber comes a story of family and redemption...
Wrong girl â wrong time? Adam's fling with Abbie just weeks after the death of his wife may have been all wrong, but their time together gave him the strength to return home to his newborn son, Pete, and start their new life together.
Wrong guy â wrong time? Abbie's fling with Adam may have been all wrong, but their time together gave her Henry, the sunshine in her life, and although Adam is long gone, Abbie can never regret the time they spent together.
But two wrongs don't necessarily make a right. Adam Cooper is back, and when he learns the truth about his unknown son, he is hell-bent on creating a home and family for his boys, even if it means blackmailing Abbie into taking part.
Abbie has scars from her own tumultuous childhood, and losing Henry would destroy her. But with only mistrust and pain to bind them, can she and Adam ever find a way through regret to love and the family they could be?
Anna Clifton is a lawyer by trade and a mother to several children and a couple of cats. Her husband is not quite sure how her compulsive writing squeezes itself into the family schedule but, like all good heroes, he knows better than to stand in the way of the woman he loves when she's on a mission. Anna lives in Sydney but escapes with her family as often as possible to Far North Queensland where she loves to catch up on reading amongst the mozzies and crocsâseriously!
Adam's Boys
is her second novel.
My heartfelt thanks once again to Kate Cuthbert and her dedicated and professional team at Escape Publishing for accepting
Adam's Boys
, turning a second publication dream into reality!
Many thanks also to Brooke Review Proofreading Services and in particular, to Brooke, for her wise guidance in transforming a manuscript into a romance novel.
My sincerest thanks also to Romance Writers of Australia and the Australian Romance Readers Association for their tireless enthusiasm and support within the exciting and dynamic world of Australian romance fiction.
Finally, my wonderfully supportive husband and children to whom the heart of
Adam's Boys
can be well and truly sourcedâwhat would I do without you?
For my husband and children
The Sydney Times
Gossip Gloria's Column
Thursday, 31 January.
Gossip Gloria is reliably informed that preparations are well underway for the inaugural Incipio Ball to be held on the Sydney Opera House Forecourt this evening. Before you go rushing out in search of tickets however
â
don't bother. With an invitation-only guest list, this much anticipated event will be enjoyed exclusively by a happy huddle of the Foundation's two hundred or so members of its inner circle. And with its presiding chairman none other than Britain's oh-so eligibleâif frustratingly reclusiveâAdam Cooper, the invite-only guest list is likely to send more than one Sydney socialite into a spiral of broken dreams
.
With its name drawn upon the Latin word for âtaking in hand', the Incipio Foundation was established in the UK by Adam Cooper's heavily titled late wife, The Hon Ms Ellen Blackwood, younger daughter of Peter Blackwood, 7
th
Baron Blackwood and the late Lady Blackwood. Ellen Blackwood, a well-known London artist, lost her battle with cancer just months after establishing the Foundation, five years ago today. Due to the efforts of her high-profile lawyer husband, however, Incipio has become one of the fastest growing medical research charities in the UK. And if it's any consolation to those of you now resigned to sorting out your sock drawer tonight, the Foundation has promised Gossip Gloria that tickets for its annual Sydney ball will be available to the public next year. Unfortunately, we can't guarantee its dreamy chairman will be in situ
â
sorry ladies!!
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishingâ¦
Ten stairs.
Not such a big deal really.
Abbie scaled at least that many stairs countless times a day as she popped up and down between the two levels of her office. And she knew there were ten stairs at home too, because lately her three-year-old had taken to booming out a tally every time he thundered up and down them in his shiny new school shoes.
So with ten stairs everywhere in Abbie's day, why did the ones leading down to the Sydney Opera House Forecourt that night have to feel as daunting as a descent down Everest?
Abbie gripped the handrail as though her life depended on it. But the sweat coating the palm of her trembling hand would guarantee no safe grip were she to tumble out of her stratospheric heels on the way down. To make things worse, the way her knees were wobbling, falling arse over teakettle was feeling more likely with every passing second.
Frozen with nervous dread, she scanned the crowd gathered below once again.
But damn it, there was still no sign of â¦
him
.
In fact, all Abbie could see was a kaleidoscopic swirl of men in smart dinner suits and women in sparkling sequined ball gowns. They were well immersed in the celebratory ball to mark the arrival of the Incipio Foundation onto Australia's shores. From that sea of partygoers rose waves of jubilant conversation, in rhythm with the lilting strains of the string quartet playing Mozart in the background.
Mesmerised by the fairytale world below, Abbie's eyes trailed over the thirty or so tables gathered around the dance floor. They were adorned with layers of white and silver damask tablecloth, bright white china, gleaming silver cutlery and twinkling crystal glassware. The magical scene was complete with hundreds of twinkling lights suspended from the marquee, mimicking the thousands of real ones drifting like confetti across the inky-black southern sky above.
No doubt about it. A Cinderella ball beckoned to Abbie from below.
Too bad she was to-hell-and-long-gone from happily-ever-after with the Prince Charming at the bottom of those stairs.
No glass slipperânot even a baby boyâwould ever have rescued that fractured fairytale from its doomed ending.
But Abbie was determined not to think about how her life in no way resembled any fairytale she knew of. Nor why it felt so much more like Henry's favourite nursery song about topsy-turvy-town, where rabbits sat in trees, clouds drifted in the sea and rain tumbled upwards.
For Abbie's topsy-turvy-town was a place where a mother had died young and a father had walked away, where the dream of finding love had vanished before it had begun, and where a child custody order might soon tear a family apart.
Rallying her thoughts, Abbie focused back on the present.
She hadn't invited herself to that ball tonight for fairy tales or nursery songs. She'd invited herself to keep the promise she'd made just weeks ago, when her three-year-old had finally beaten the deadly strain of meningitis besieging his tiny body. It was a promise that had seized her with such compelling urgency it had winded her. And tonight she needed to find outâonce and for allâwhether her past with the man at the bottom of those stairs would cushion or fuel the heartbreak that fulfilling that promise would soon bring down[3] on his life.
Stretching out one beaded silver stiletto, Abbie lowered herself down the first step.
She
could
get down them. All she needed to do was think about Henry. And as she turned her mind to her son, she remembered his expression of awe when not one hour ago she'd walked down her ten stairs at home in her shimmering, silver ball gown.
“Mum, you look like a princess!” he'd declared as he'd clung on to Aunty Maeve's hand, too anxious to run and hug his mother in case he rumpled her. In the end, she'd scooped him up in her arms and cuddled him close anyway; she didn't care what happened to her dress, her hair, or anything else. For although Henry and Maeve didn't know it, Abbie knew all too well that from tonight onwards their little family would never be the same again.
“Abacus! You're late!” Justin Murphy declared in mock chastisement from where he'd suddenly materialised, two steps below her. Waking up out of her reverie, Abbie noticed she'd somehow made it down five whole stairs without mishap.
“Didn't I ask you to stop calling me that, Juz?”
“I will. I promiseâas soon as you stop out-billing every other partner in the firm. You look stunning by the way.” Her friend changed tack suddenly with one of his easy-going grins, and reaching out took her free hand in his before adding, “If intrepid redheads were my type, you'd be in serious trouble tonight.”
“Thank you ⦠I think,” Abbie replied with an anxious smile back at him as she took in the rakish mane of chocolate brown hair, the five o'clock shadow and the cheeky smile. He was also sizing her up with those heart-melting hazel eyes of his that had lured countless unsuspecting females to a lovelorn fate.
Thankfully she'd never been one of them.
That particular heart demolition job had been reserved for his best mate â still at the bottom of those stairs somewhere, and still well concealed in that crowd.
“You look great too. In fact,” Abbie added cheekily, “there should be a law against a man with your looks wearing a dinner suit like that. It turns you into a lethal weapon against women, you know.”
“Is that right? Well, I haven't noticed it having much impact on you,” Justin teased. “In fact, I seem to remember you telling me once that kissing me would be like kissing your brother.”
“Did I say that?” Abbie asked, drawing her eyebrows together in distraction before shrugging. “Well it's true, isn't it, and I know I fall into kissing-your-sister territory for you too.”
But Justin was looking at her with a bemused expression.
“What?” Abbie asked.
“You look as edgy tonight as I've ever seen you. And for you, Abbie, that's saying something. What's up?”
“Nothing ⦠nothing at all,” she stammered, anxious to hose down Justin's concerns as quickly as possible. “I'm just a little nervous about this ball.”
“Why would you be nervous?” he asked with a penetrating look. “We've been to hundreds of these events togetherâtonight is no different to any other.”
Abbie didn't reply. She was too busy reeling from the irony of Justin's breezy assessment about the night she was facing.
Yet again she searched her friend's face for any hint he had the slightest clue about the reason she'd asked him to take her to Incipio's ball that night, only to turn up as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. But Justin's expression was a study in impenetrable neutralityâif he suspected anything, he wasn't letting on. And with a quiet sigh, Abbie knew that with a ball in full swing at the bottom of those stairs, now was definitely not the time for Dr Phil confessions about the unspeakable thing she'd done to his best friend.
“You're right,” Abbie agreed finally with a determined edge to her voice. “We have gone to these events hundreds of times together. And I know I'm acting like a nervous nelly. So could you do me a favour and please help me down these stairs so that I don't break my neck on the way?”
But Justin did more than that.
Stepping up next to her he took her arm and dragged it through his own so that there was no chance she could make a spectacularly clumsy entrance. Once they'd made it safely down the remaining five stairs, the two of them accepted a glass of champagne from a drinks waiter and began to move through the crowd. Yet after fifteen minutes of introductions and seemingly endless small talk, there was still no sign of Incipio's chairman anywhere, despite Abbie's keen survey of the crowd.