Newborn Needs a Dad
Dianne Drake
MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
Dear Reader
Welcome to the most idyllic spot I can imagine—White Elk. It’s a perfect little village, nestled in the valley between three looming mountain peaks called The Three Sisters by the locals. The people are friendly, the village is picturesque and, according to Indian lore, The Three Sisters protect everyone within their shadows.
Does White Elk exist? In a sense, yes. My husband’s parents retired to a place much as I envision White Elk to be. It’s lovely. The people there smile at strangers and welcome them in. And the mountains…I love to stand in the valley and look up at them, but, more than that, I love to go up to the various peaks and look out across the valley. I’m a city girl. I’ll admit it. But when I write these books I rarely set them in the city because I love to escape, just for a little while. I hope you love your visit to the little village of White Elk as much as I did!
Wishing you health and happiness!
Dianne Drake
PS I love to hear from my readers. Please visit my website at www.DianneDrake.com. Also, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected], and tell me about the places in this world you love.
Now that her children have left home, Dianne Drake is finally finding the time to do some of the things she adores—gardening, cooking, reading, shopping for antiques. Her absolute passion in life, however, is adopting abandoned and abused animals. Right now Dianne and her husband Joel have a little menagerie of three dogs and two cats, but that’s always subject to change. A former symphony orchestra member, Dianne now attends the symphony as a spectator several times a month and, when time permits, takes in an occasional football, basketball or hockey game.
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT a beautiful little village! Dr Gabrielle Evans breathed a sigh of relief, shutting off her car in the parking spot marked Guests, in front of the quaint White Elk Lodge. She’d lived in large cities too many years. Indoctrinated herself to fast pace and convenience. Nothing about the village called White Elk seemed fast, or convenient and, right now, that suited her just fine. She was tired and, physically, she needed this stop. Surprisingly, it seemed right for her emotionally, too. Even if only for a night. Maybe two, if the bed was comfortable, the food good, a fire in the fireplace inviting, because she did have just the slightest backache, she was hungry, and the mood to settle in and be cozy was dropping down over her like a soft blanket. So much so she could picture herself sitting in front of a great stone fireplace, feet up, dozing off from pure contentment.
Nesting. Which was to be expected in her condition.
Besides, hadn’t she seen a little boutique on Main Street, one with the name Handmade for Baby? That was all the excuse she needed for a short holiday here. That, and her swollen ankles. Pregnant-swollen was what she called it when her patients had the same problem. Pregnant-swollen ankles, pregnant-swollen belly. Not to worry, she would say. It’s a temporary condition.
Well, temporary condition or not, she felt like stopping. Something about White Elk appealed to her sense of esthetics. It was a homey little town, its narrow streets lined with pine trees and old-fashioned streetlamps, and white picket fences surrounded the cottage homes she’d seen from her car on the way in. Cottage homes…she’d always wanted to live in a cottage. All in all, everything she’d seen so far in this Alpine-styled village was the antithesis of her steel-and-chrome condo back in Chicago, where she lived in the middle of a mixed residential and industrial area, overlooking a frantic, elevated railway on one side and the bumper-to-bumper Chicago interstate system on the other. Her wake-up call in the morning was the honking of agitated motorists trying to inch their way through impossible traffic and her lullaby at night was the clacking of the old train over the el rails.
And here in White Elk…no traffic. Just a few lazy drivers on the
