“I lost the wipes somewhere between the ice cream stand and First Street,” Drew confessed.
Molly noted a series of new dark stains on Hazel’s onesie that were like a dotted line connecting her to Drew. Accidents happened. Her urge to hold his hand and strengthen their connection wouldn’t be an accident. It’d be a mistake.
Molly firmed her grip on the penny bag and lifted it, forcing herself to look away from Drew. “Looks like you two haven’t made too many wishes.”
“We detoured to touch the grass and sniff several flowers.” Drew showed Hazel a penny and tossed it into the fountain. Hazel clapped her hands together.
Molly opened the bag and scooped out a handful of pennies. She blocked her heart from stepping forward with a hard hit of logic. Wishing wells were a distraction, wishes forgotten and readily replaced. As for her attraction, she had to replace that, too.
Dear Reader,
I’ve often heard that it is not the quantity of friends you have but the quality that matters. One or two true friends can be more fulfilling and rewarding than hundreds of casual friendships. A core theme in my City by the Bay Stories has been friendship. In my personal life, my friends make my life better in every way, and I’m so grateful for each and every one.
Three Makes a Family celebrates the power of having a friend who accepts you for who you really are, flaws and all. Molly McKinney and Drew Harrington discover that their friendship can be the foundation for a lasting and love-filled relationship neither one thought possible, if only they can trust and believe in love.
Call a friend today. Share a laugh, a secret or a shoulder and remember the joy is in the bond. In the sharing. In the being there for each other. Celebrate your friends and the richness they add to your world. I plan to do the very same right now.
Check out my website to learn more about my upcoming books, sign up for email book announcements or chat with me on Facebook (carilynnwebb) or Twitter (@carilynnwebb).
Cari
Three Makes a Family
Cari Lynn Webb
Cari Lynn Webb lives in South Carolina with her husband, daughters and assorted four-legged family members. She’s been blessed to see the power of true love in her grandparents’ seventy-year marriage and her parents’ marriage of over fifty years. She knows love isn’t always sweet and perfect—it can be challenging, complicated and risky. But she believes happily-ever-afters are worth fighting for. She loves to connect with readers.
Books by Cari Lynn Webb
Harlequin Heartwarming
City by the Bay Stories
The Charm Offensive
The Doctor’s Recovery
Ava’s Prize
Single Dad to the Rescue
In Love by Christmas
Her Surprise Engagement
Return of the Blackwell Brothers
The Rancher’s Rescue
The Backwell Sisters
Montana Wedding
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
To my husband. Because love really does win.
Special thanks to my friends and my writing tribe. This book could not have been written without your constant support and reassurance. I’m truly blessed to have such friends in my life. To my family—I don’t have enough words to express my love and gratitude. Family truly is everything.
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
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM A MARRIAGE OF INCONVENIENCE BY AMY VASTINE
CHAPTER ONE
“DENIED.”
If Drew Harrington had a fairy godmother, it was time for her to make an appearance, wave her magic wand and make all the injustices against him disappear.
Drew crumpled Judge Bartlett’s formal written denial of Drew’s motion to dismiss the charges against him. As if the judge’s verbal announcement just now inside her courtroom wasn’t clear enough.
Too bad that Drew didn’t believe in fairy godmothers and magic. He knew life was won by reason, sound arguments and facts.
A late afternoon on a Thursday and the hallways of the courthouse were more crowded than the sidewalks of the San Francisco financial district where the civic building was located. Clerks, court reporters, paralegals all hurried around him. Faces he recognized and others he didn’t. Although it didn’t matter. No one made direct eye contact with him. Gazes slipped away before anyone acknowledged they even knew him.
No one wanted to listen to his side now. One week ago, he’d been welcomed and sought out inside the hallowed courthouse halls as a fair-minded but tough prosecutor. Now he was a pariah in the one place where he’d fought so hard to belong. In the one place where he’d fought so hard to uphold justice. In two weeks’ time, at the opening of his hearing, Judge Bartlett would listen to his arguments and his presentation of the facts.
Drew straightened and crammed his dismissal paperwork into his briefcase. Slowing his steps, he kept his chin raised and his expression neutral, refusing to let the speculation and presumption chase him out of the courthouse. He had a hearing date set and then he would formally establish his innocence, following the same process of the law the entire judicial system was founded on.
Now he just had to find the evidence that would exonerate him.
Drew paused at the top of the massive grand marble staircase and stared down into the even more impressive rotunda that greeted visitors and those who worked at the courthouse. A woman, her red hair a shade too familiar, shook hands with a paralegal he recognized from the Peregrine Law Group.
Drew shifted, took in the redhead’s profile. Recognition jolted through him.
Molly McKinney.
Molly McKinney was his...friend. Enemy. Ally. Adversary. They’d been all those things through undergrad and graduate school. They’d shared leftover pizza, class study guides and their dreams. He wasn’t one to look back. Yet watching Molly laugh in the rotunda, he wanted to step back to a different time.
He had no clear idea of how to define Molly. Always she had challenged him. Always he’d
