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Kathleen Creighton - The Black Sheep’s Baby

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The Black Sheeps Baby is part of Creightons Into the Heartland series. I gather from the references to other characters that this is an inter-generational series and that the hero of the current release, Eric Lanagan, is the son of characters from the earlier books. I assume that the circumstances that turned him into a black sheep were delineated in a previous story. This tale begins with Eric driving down the interstate towards his parents home in Iowa. The prologue also introduces us to Los Angeles lawyer, Devon ORourke, who wakes dreaming of her dead sister Susans pleading for help. She begins to pack her bags for her trip to Iowa. What is bringing Eric and Devon together is five-week old Emily, Devons sisters daughter. Eric, a photojournalist, had been on assignment from an LA paper to do a story about runaway teens when he met nineteen year old Susan ORourke. He took Susan under his wing and learned her tragic story. Abused by her prosperous father and unable to get help, she had fled home at fourteen and lived on the streets with all its terrors. When it became clear that she would not survive the birth, she asked Eric if she could name him as Emilys father. She made him promise that he would never allow Emily into the custody of her father. The ORourkes had learned of Susans death and Emilys birth. They had sued for custody and a judge had ordered Eric to take a DNA test to determine his parentage. Rather than submit, Eric had fled the state and headed for home. Devon, guilty over having somehow failed Susan, is determined to protect her infant daughter from someone she believes is incapable of giving Emily the life she deserves. The two meet up at the Lanagan family homestead in the middle of a blizzard and with Christmas coming on. Lucy Lanagan has been missing her son and hoping that he will be home for Christmas. She is understandably delighted when he turns up and even more pleased when he presents her with Emily, the grandchild she has dreamed of. When Devon appears, stranded in the snow, Lucy welcomes her as well. When she learns that the lawyer wants to take Emily away from Eric, she decides on a bit of matchmaking. This may not make much sense, but I guess it made sense to Lucy. After all, before long Eric and Devon antagonists to the core begin experiencing a seemingly inexplicable attraction to each other. However attractive he may find Devon, Eric does have a hidden agenda. He is convinced and Devons complete lack of childhood memories supports his belief that she too was abused by her father. If he can just get her to remember, then he wont have to worry about the ORourkes custody suit. While I am generally a fan of Creightons stories, this one didnt quite work for me. Perhaps my lack of familiarity with the previous books detracted from my enjoyment of The Black Sheeps Baby. More probably, the romance just didnt work for me. Devon is clearly a wounded soul. Despite her academic and professional success, she is hiding something terrible from herself. Eric is actually a less well-defined character. Clearly his rejection of family tradition and the family farm was a formative factor in his and his familys life, but it is not really fully explored. Why the hero and heroine fall in love never quite seems clear, given the circumstances. I am sure that those who have read and enjoyed Creightons Into the Heartland series will want to read this next installment. I suggest that other readers may want to think twice. Jean Mason

Kathleen Creighton: author's other books


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Kathleen Creighton The Black Sheeps Baby A book in the Into The Heartland - photo 1

Kathleen Creighton

The Black Sheeps Baby

A book in the Into The Heartland series, 2002

Dear Reader,

July is a sizzling month both outside and in, and once again weve rounded up six exciting titles to keep your temperature rising. It all starts with the latest addition to Marilyn Pappanos HEARTBREAK CANYON miniseries, Lawmans Redemption, in which a brooding man needs help connecting with the lonely young girl who just might be his daughter-and he finds it in the form of a woman with similar scars in her romantic past. Dont miss this emotional, suspenseful read.

Eileen Wilks provides the next installment in our twelve-book miniseries, ROMANCING THE CROWN, with Her Lord Protector. Fireworks ensue when a Montebellan lord has to investigate a beautiful commoner who may be a friend-or a foe!-of the royal family. This miniseries just gets more and more intriguing. And Kathleen Creighton finishes up her latest installment of her INTO THE HEARTLAND miniseries with The Black Sheeps Baby. A freewheeling photojournalist who left town years ago returns-with a little pink bundle strapped to his chest, and a beautiful attorney in hot pursuit. In Marilyn Tracys Cowboy Under Cover, a grief-stricken widow who has set up a haven for children in need of rescue finds herself with that same need-and her rescuer is a handsome federal marshal posing as a cowboy. Nina Bruhns is back with Sweet Revenge, the story of a straitlaced woman posing as her wild identical twin-and now missing-sister to learn of her fate, who in the process hooks up with the seductive detective who is also searching for her. And in Bachelor in Blue Jeans by Lauren Nichols, during a bachelor auction, a woman inexplicably bids on the man who once spurned her, and wins-or does she? This reunion romance will break your heart.

So get a cold drink, sit down, put your feet up and enjoy them all-and dont forget to come back next month for more of the most exciting romance reading aroundonly in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Prologue

December20-Los Angeles, California

S he woke in the milky twilight that passed for darkness in the city, knowing shed dreamed of Susan again. As always, she couldnt remember much about the dream-no details, not even a face. Just a voice-Susans voice, childish and frail, calling to her. Calling her, pleading with her. Help mehelp me, Devon. Pleasedont leave me. Help me

She threw back the covers and rose, paced barefoot to the window. She stared out across the glittering jeweled carpet that stretched all the way to the sea, squinting hard to hold back angry tears. How was I supposed to help you, she thought, when I didnt even know where you were? You ran away, damn you. Its not my fault. Its not my fault!

She held herself tightly as she shivered, and swallowed hard, once, then again. A tear ran warmly down her cold cheek.

Susan had been fourteen when shed run away-almost a woman. But the voice in her dream was that of a little child.

Help me, Devon

Dammit, Susan, she thought, angry and weary at the same time. I am helping, cant you see that? Im sorry if I let you down, but Im trying to make it up to you now, the only way I know. Isnt that enough?

She brushed at her cheek and jerked away from the window. The luminous numbers on the clock portion of the built-in entertainment center beside her bed glowed green-gold in the gray twilight-2:14 a.m. Way too early to even think about leaving for the airport. And yet she knew better than to try to go back to sleep. Calm, now, and resolute, she went to her walk-in closet and took her rolling overnighter from its shelf. She lifted it onto the bed, unzipped it and began, carefully and methodically, to pack.

December 20-On I-80, Somewhere in Nebraska

His eyes wanted to close-insisted on doing so, in fact, in spite of his strenuous arguments against it. That, plus an inarguable need for fuel, forced him off the interstate.

He chose an exit somewhere east of Grand Island that promised half a dozen motels and at least that many restaurants. He bypassed all of them, though his stomach had been complaining for the last fifty miles, and pulled instead into a gas station where he could pay at the pump. While unleaded gasoline gushed into the tanks of his six-year-old Dodge, he stood with shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets, rocking himself in the bitter Nebraska wind and reflecting on how the California winters had spoiled him.

Just beyond the roof of the gas stations convenience store he could see a big green Holiday Inn sign, like a beacon summoning his exhausted mind and body into a safe harbor. But as much as he yearned for rest, as much as he knew he needed rest, he also knew that right now there was only one harbor in the world that would feel safe to him.

Well be there by tonight, he told his passenger, sound asleep in the back seat. Five more hours

The fuel nozzle clicked off. He replaced it in its cradle, climbed back into his car and, after a moments indecision, pulled across the parking lot and up to the drive-through window of the fast-food place next door. He ordered a double cheeseburger and a jumbo coffee and a short time later was back on the interstate, heading east toward evening.

In his rearview mirrors he could see, reaching toward him out of the west like menacing fingers, the dark purple clouds of the oncoming storm.

Chapter 1

I t was the week before Christmas, and Lucy was sorting laundry.

She acknowledged that fact with a sense of mild astonishment-and not-so-mild vexation, for Lucy Rosewood Brown Lanagan was not a person to whom the adjective mild could normally be applied. At least, not often or for long.

Its too quiet to be Christmas! she declared loudly, though more to herself than to her sister-in-law, Chris, who was sitting at the kitchen table thumbing through magazines, looking for recipes.

This looks good, Chris said without looking up. Walnut squares

Erics allergic to walnuts.

Lucy said it without thinking, an automatic response-which she realized a moment later when Chris looked up and eagerly asked, Oh, is he going to be here for Christmas this year?

A familiar pain made Lucys voice uncharacteristically light when she replied with a shrug, Havent heard from him. And a moment later asked, What about Caitlyn?

Chriss eyes jerked away, shifting back to the magazines spread out on the table in front of her as she said in a tone as artificially cheery as Lucys, She doesnt know for sure. Says shell try her best to make it, at least for Christmas dinner. And a poignant little silence fell between the two women, fraught with empathy and unvoiced yearnings.

Its too quiet- Lucy began again, just as, with faultless timing, a door banged sharply and loud thumping noises started up out on the back porch.

Chris gave a gurgle of laughter. She and Lucy both looked toward the kitchen door as it burst open to admit their menfolk along with a gust of freezing wind. Lucy knew the smile in Chriss shining eyes was only a reflection of her own, though it gave her as much embarrassment as satisfaction nowadays to admit, even after more than thirty years, that the sight of her husbands face could still give her that seasick feeling under her ribs.

Getting colder, the man himself announced as he ducked into the service room across the hall to wash up in the laundry tub. That storms on its way. Be here before morning.

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