Meant-to-Be Mom Read online

  Life, love and the pursuit of family

  Sabrina Noble’s Journal

  Dear Diary,

  You’ll never believe who I spotted on my first day back in Maple River—the one who got away, Cole Rayburn. He’s definitely not the same kid I swung on the monkey bars with. In fact, Cole is more handsome than ever and has two adorable tweens.

  There’s definitely still something between Cole and myself...but I get the sense that his ex burned him and his kids pretty badly. Now that I’m back in New Jersey, I’m spending more and more time with the Rayburn clan, and I’m honestly loving it. But can I be the bonus mom these kids deserve and have the husband I’ve always dreamed of? Or is it true that you can’t go home again?

  “I’m almost afraid to ask what that was all about,” Cole said, and she laughed.

  “I’m almost afraid to tell you.”

  On a tight smile, Cole hitched up the knees of his khakis and lowered himself to the bench beside her. “But you’re going to,” he said, not looking at her. Unable to.

  Sabrina laughed again, the sound as gentle as the early summer breeze dancing around them. “I was being grilled.” When Cole’s head swung to hers, she shrugged. “He was curious, understandably enough. About what we used to be to each other.” She paused. “What we might be now. Especially since you apparently told him I saved your butt?”

  Grimacing, Cole looked away again. “And what did you say?”

  “That whatever we once were,” she said softly, “it’s in the past.”

  Her words should have been a relief. Which they were, in a way. Then why the sting? The stupid, totally illogical disappointment?

  Jersey Boys: Born...raised...and ready

  Dear Reader,

  For most of us, the past is a goulash of both sweet and sour—of celebrations and disappointments, of triumphs and mistakes. And while it’s not usually a good idea to spend too much time there, whether in an attempt to relive past glories or stew over regrets, when that rare opportunity comes along to make amends for some of those regrets...that’s something else entirely.

  Which is where Cole Rayburn and Sabrina Noble find themselves when their paths unexpectedly cross again after nearly twenty years. As teenagers, they’d been far more than boyfriend and girlfriend—they’d been best friends. Until, alas, hormones trampled common sense, leaving confusion and hurt feelings in their wake. But how could I leave this couple there, wallowing in all those unresolved issues? Especially when it quickly became clear that what had been so precious between them before had only lain dormant, waiting for the chance to rebloom into something even more beautiful and powerful than it had been before?

  Short answer: I couldn’t.

  I hope you get as much of a kick out of these two crazy kids’ story as I loved seeing it unfold.

  Blessings,

  Meant-to-Be Mom

  Karen Templeton

  Karen Templeton is a recent inductee into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. A three-time RITA® Award-winning author, she has written more than thirty novels for Harlequin and lives in New Mexico with two hideously spoiled cats, has raised five sons and lived to tell the tale, and could not live without dark chocolate, mascara and Netflix.

  Books by Karen Templeton

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Jersey Boys

  Santa’s Playbook

  More Than She Expected

  The Real Mr. Right

  Summer Sisters

  The Marriage Campaign

  A Gift for All Seasons

  The Doctor’s Do-Over

  The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

  Fortune’s Cinderella

  Wed in the West

  Husband Under Construction

  Adding Up to Marriage

  Welcome Home, Cowboy

  A Marriage-Minded Man

  Reining in the Rancher

  A Mother’s Wish

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  This book is dedicated to everyone who’s ever doubted their ability to fix something. Especially when it looked hopeless. But they did it anyway. Because they were too stubborn to give up, or listen to the naysayers. You are my people.

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  “Dad. Dad!”

  His brain already in knots from grocery shopping with a pair of adolescents, Cole Rayburn frowned at his shivering twelve-year-old daughter. Who was clearly about to freeze in her tank top and short-alls in the frigid store, despite the curtain of blond hair shielding her bare shoulders. But would she listen to Cole’s suggestion to take a sweater with her? Oh, hell, no—

  The slight note of alarm in Brooke’s voice belatedly registered, echoing through his entire nervous system. Not that he’d let her see it—

  “What is it, honey?”

  “That man over there,” she whispered, sidling closer to Cole’s elbow. Much as she’d done for the past week, as if afraid he’d disappear if she let him out of her sight. Gratifying and terrifying all at once. “No, the one by the apples. With the white hair. He keeps staring. Like he knows us or something.” A few feet away, her slouching, dark-haired brother, Wesley, gawked at a towering display of canned soda. Longingly. Cole briefly met his son’s silent plea, ignored both the stab of guilt and Wes’s sigh, then finally looked to see who Brooke was talking about.

  And damned if his own adolescence didn’t flash before his eyes.

  He’d assumed, of course, he’d eventually run into one or more of the family he’d practically grown up with. Just not this soon. Or that he’d have such mixed feelings about the reunion, even after all this time.

  Or whether the man everyone called the Colonel would be more inclined to welcome him home like the Prodigal Son...or splatter his guts all over the grapefruit.

  “Cole?” Preston said. Grinning, actually. So far, so good. “Cole Rayburn?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cole said, returning the grin, even as he reminded himself it’d been more than twenty years since Sabrina Noble had dragged home, like a stray puppy, the flabby dork he used to be. The Colonel still had a couple of inches on him—although, at six-four, he pretty much towered over everybody—but Cole understood why the older man hadn’t recognized him at first. Few people from those days would.

  By now they were side by side, their carts facing opposite directions like a pair of horse riders meeting up on a trail. Unlike Cole, the Noble clan patriarch hadn’t changed a whole lot that Cole could tell. Although he had to be in his seventies by now, the retired air force officer had lost none of the imposing bearing that had gone a long way toward keeping his motley group of adopted and foster children in line for so many years. The shoulders were still square, the posture still ramrod straight, his intense blue gaze as direct as ever. But not, Cole could see now that he was closer, as bright.

  It also occurred to him he couldn’t remember Preston ever doing the grocery shopping. That had been his wife Jeanne’s domain.

  Now he clasped Cole’s hand in a firm shake. All forgiven? Forgotten? Unknown? Although Sabrina would’ve had to say som
ething, wouldn’t she? To explain—

  “Didn’t mean to creep you out,” the Colonel said, “but I wasn’t sure it was you at first. What on earth are you doing back here, boy? Thought you’d fled New Jersey years ago.”

  Cole smiled. “I’m only in Maple River for the summer. Taking care of my parents’ place while they’re away.” He grinned down at Brooke, frowning so hard Cole had to fight a laugh. “This is my daughter, Brooke. And this guy,” he said as Wes wandered back, curiosity clearly overriding—for the moment—his annoyance with his father’s junk-food ban, “is my son, Wesley. Kids, this is Preston Noble. Spent a lot of time at his house, when I was around your age.”

  Because I had the mother of all crushes on your daughter, sir.

  And how is Sabrina, by the way?

  The Colonel’s brows dipped slightly behind his glasses, as if he knew exactly what Cole was thinking. Which wouldn’t surprise him in the least. It used to rattle all the kids, Preston’s uncanny ability to read their minds, to put the kibosh on trouble before they could get into it. Most of the time, anyway.

  But not all.

  Both kids politely shook the older man’s hand, although Brooke hung back, more like a much younger child would have. Not surprising, Cole supposed, considering recent events.

  And damned if the Colonel didn’t somehow pick up on that, too, immediately engaging both kids in some tale or other from when Cole had been a fixture in the Nobles’ kitchen, when Jeanne Noble had known his food preferences better than his own mother. And as he watched his still shell-shocked children begin to thaw in the warmth of the older man’s spirited tale-telling, he realized he couldn’t ever remember the Colonel talking down to a kid, how he always treated them as the intelligent, capable beings he knew, and expected, them to be. Not surprisingly, the kids were eating it up. Same as Cole had.

  Then the older man met Cole’s gaze, his smile almost wistful. “The three of you should come over. So we can catch up properly. Not in the middle of the Food Lion.”

  “Oh. Um...I...”

  “How about this afternoon? If you’re not busy, I mean. Jeanne’s roses are spectacular this year, with all this rain. She would’ve been so pleased. You remember, I’m sure, how much she loved those roses.”

  Loved. Past tense.

  Cole’s heart lurched in his chest. That explained the slightly not-there look in the older man’s eyes. Why he was shopping.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “No reason you should have. Eight years ago now.”

  “But you still have the house?”

  “For now. Since everyone’s out on their own...” Preston’s attention drifted back to the kids, now quietly arguing over grapes. Or something. “The boy looks exactly like you, doesn’t he?”

  “Except about fifty pounds lighter.”

  The older man turned back to him. “You’d already lost a lot of it, though, by your junior year.” He chuckled. “When you shot up six inches in as many months. Jeannie said you never saw it. Your metamorphosis.”

  Cole felt his face warm. “I...no. I guess I didn’t.”

  The Colonel humphed, clearly keeping whatever else he was thinking to himself as he looked back at the bickering duo. “It’s not like I don’t see the others fairly often, since they’re all still around. Well, except for Sabrina, she’s in New York. Pretty much only comes back for weddings. And new babies. And we’ve got plenty of those. Still. It’s not like it used to be, when the house was filled.” He paused. “Too damn big now,” he said softly. “Too quiet.”

  The longing in the older man’s voice knifed straight through Cole, partly because he doubted Preston even realized it was there. If it was one thing the guy wasn’t, it was manipulative. Anal and demanding, perhaps, he thought with a smile, but definitely not one to play the pity card. And since his own parents were away—and had never been the coddling grandparent types, anyway—and Erin’s parents were both dead, what could it hurt to the let the old guy play honorary grandpa for an hour or so?

  And frankly, Cole wouldn’t mind seeing the house again. If for no other reason than to perhaps expunge a memory or two.

  “We’re having dinner with my sister tonight,” he said, “but I suppose we could come over for a little while this afternoon.”

  Preston beamed. “That would be great. Around two or so?”

  “We’ll be there.”

  The other man clapped him on the shoulder before steering his cart down the aisle. Cole watched him for a second, then wandered over to the veggie section, ignoring his children’s grimaces as he bagged a bunch of broccoli and plunked it into the cart. “Heads up—we’re going to go visit Colonel Noble later.”

  “Why?” Wesley said, suspicious.

  “Because he invited us. And it’ll be fun, getting to see the house again.”

  Fun. Yeah. Let’s go with that.

  “One of his kids...” To Cole’s surprise, his throat caught. He cleared it, then said, “Was my best friend, all through middle and high school.”

  “What was his name?”

  He tossed a three pack of multicolored peppers into the cart. “Her name.” And some asparagus, tightly rubber-banded. “Sabrina.”

  “Your best friend was a girl.”

  “Yep.”

  Wesley shook his head as Brooke leaned on the front of the cart, impeding Cole’s progress. “How come you never mentioned her before?”

  “I’m sure I did. I must have.”

  “Nope. I would’ve remembered. So how come?”

  Did he dare try Brussels sprouts on them? He did.

  “Haven’t seen her in years. One of those things.”

  And amazingly he sounded almost nonchalant. In the past, over and done, didn’t matter. Highly doubtful he’d ever see her again.

  Except Brooke gave him one of her strange looks, her searing, green-eyed stare reminding him yet again that he was perpetually an inch away from screwing up. Especially now. But at least, for these few minutes, he’d managed to distract them from what must have been the constant refrain of their mother’s pulling the rug out from under them. Completely of their own volition and without Cole’s knowledge, his extraordinarily courageous children had given his ex the choice between them and a lifestyle that had left them feeling like also-rans—and she had not chosen them.

  And this—they—did matter. Now mattered. In a way that nothing else ever had, or ever would. Because while his love life was apparently doomed to eternal suckage, these kids would know they came first. That he loved them, and was proud of them, and wanted nothing less than the best for them.

  Even if that included tiny cabbage-like vegetables, so innocently snuggled together in their little green net, unaware of their own gross-out factor. Awesome. “Dinner. Tomorrow,” he said. Both kids groaned, and Cole smiled.

  Maybe he had no idea what he was doing, but at least they’d know he cared.

  * * *

  Blowing out a breath, Sabrina Noble stuffed her wallet back inside her purse as the taxi chugged away behind her down the tree-lined street. Shadow and sunlight danced across the lawn like a thousand fairies, beckoning her up the wide, welcoming stairs fronting the serene Queen Anne.

  Home.

  As in, that place you go when your future gets shot out from under you. Although not for long, the for-sale sign reminded her. She frowned, still not entirely sure how she felt about that.

  A rose-scented breeze—not a smell one often caught in Manhattan, if ever—tangled with her long hair, and made her shiver slightly underneath her floaty top. Although not because she was cold.

  Squaring her shoulders, Sabrina trudged up the brick walk, her largest rolling bag clackety-clacking behind her, echoing the refrain in her head—that she had no intention of staying a minute longer than necessa
ry. She lugged the bag up onto the porch, returning to the curb for the rest of her luggage before retrieving the spare key from the secret pocket on the underside of the striped cushion on the far rocker. The front door open, she breathed in that same faint scent of eucalyptus she’d always associate with her childhood. With her adoptive mother, Jeanne, who’d installed that “secret” pocket. Amazing, that they’d never been robbed.

  Although they had been, actually, of the woman who’d loved more than any human being Sabrina had ever known.

  The sting of tears startled her. Never mind she’d lived on her own since she graduated from college. But if Mom had been here, there would have been hugs and cookies and sympathy. And probably a good talking-to, about needing to buck up and move on. And then more hugs—

  Blowing out a breath, Sabrina hauled the bags inside and shut the door...only to frown when, from the back of the house, came a girl’s high-pitched giggle, followed by another kid’s—a boy?—affronted response. Then a masculine rumble, definitely not Pop’s, gently rebuking. For a second, irritation spiked, that Pop wasn’t alone. And wasn’t that stupid? That she was annoyed, not that he had company. Giving her head a sharp shake, she shoved down the case’s handle, let her purse slither off her shoulder to softly thunk onto the worn entryway carpet—

  Like a summoned genie, the man she and her twin brother, Matt, had called their father since they were kindergartners appeared in the foyer. Underneath bristly white hair, ice-blue eyes slammed into hers.

  “Sabrina? What are you doing here? The wedding’s not for another week—”

  “Surprise,” she said through a tight throat, and her father’s eyes narrowed. Between two decades in the military and a second “career” fostering more kids than Sabrina could count, nothing got past Pop. Especially a small mountain of luggage sprawled across his foyer rug.

  His gaze veered back to hers, burgeoning with questions.

  “Later,” she whispered. More laughter drifted out from the kitchen. “When we’re alone—”