Noah’s two children had given his life new meaning. Once they were born, it took little more than a toothless smile to brighten his world. And now they were loving little beings who deserved to be loved right back.

By a woman’s gentle hands.

He’d try to persuade Dara Mackenzie to marry him.

Dara was the woman God intended him to spend the rest of his days with; his prayers had convinced him, and Noah knew it like he knew the earth would continue spinning.

So somehow he had to convince her of that.

For his children’s sake.

And…for his own?

LOREE LOUGH

A full-time writer for more than twelve years, Loree Lough has produced more than two thousand published articles, dozens of short stories—appearing in magazines here and abroad—and novels for children ages eight to twelve. The author of twenty inspirational romances (including the award-winning Pocketful of Love and Emma’s Orphans, and bestsellers like Reluctant Valentine and Miracle on Kismet Hill—all from Barbour Books), she also writes as Cara McCormack and Aleesha Carter. A comedic conference speaker, Loree loves sharing in classroom settings what she’s learned the hard way. And since her daughters, Elice and Valerie, have moved into homes of their own, Loree and husband Larry have been trying to figure out why some folks think the “empty-nest syndrome” is a “bad” thing.…

Suddenly Married
Loree Lough

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.

—Psalms 37:7

To Elice and Valerie, my beloved daughters… and lifelong friends.

Prologue

“This is ridiculous,” she seethed, slamming the report onto the desk. “I refuse to believe my father could have done such a thing.”

Dara stood so abruptly her chair toppled over behind her. Noah Lucas gave the fallen chair a cursory glance before turning his dark-blue gaze to her. “I’m afraid it’s all right here in black and white.”

Dara uprighted the chair and ran a trembling hand through her hair.“Then…there must be some mistake, because—”

“I’ve been over these files three times. Numbers don’t lie.”

Spoken like a true accountant, she reflected.

Ironically, Dara had been drumming that very lesson into her geometry and algebra students’ heads since she began teaching at Centennial High eight years earlier. Frowning, she looked from the computer readout to the corporation’s checkbook to the year’s worth of her father’s bank statements. Money—great sums of it—had been moved from the company coffers into Jake Mackenzie’s personal account. Hands clasped beneath her chin, Dara paced beside the desk. “Who could have done such a thing?” she wondered aloud. “And why?”

He heaved an exasperated sigh. “I have no idea why the man would do anything so foolish. I mean, surely he realized that sooner or later, he’d be found out.” Shaking his head, he added, “How he managed to get away with it through last tax season is a myster—”

Her pacing came to an abrupt halt beside the desk. “I don’t like what you’re implying, Mr. Lucas.”

He got to his feet, planted both powerful palms flat on her father’s desk. “I’m not implying anything, Miss Mackenzie. My accounting firm was hired by the board of directors to examine…” He smiled patronizingly. “For the sake of protocol, let’s just say we were called in to investigate certain, ah, incongruities in Pinnacle Construction’s books. Lucas and Associates has earned its reputation for being able to solve problems like this.”

“Problems like what?” Agitated, Dara pointed at the paperwork on the desk. “You call that evidence?” She rolled her eyes. “Innuendo and supposition—that’s all you’ve got there. And I—”

His long-lashed blue eyes narrowed to slits. “Innuendo and supposition?” The intended humor in Lucas’s resonant laugh never made it to his eyes. “More than two hundred thousand dollars disappeared in the past eighteen months.” He thumped the printout, then nodded at the bank statements. Sarcasm rang loud in his voice when he added, “And by some strange coincidence, that’s exactly how much was deposited in your father’s savings account.”

Dara opened her mouth to protest, to defend her father’ s good name. But Lucas held up a hand to forestall any attempt at rationalization she might make. “I realize it’s not much consolation,” he said, “considering the ramifications, but I’m as surprised as you are. Jake Mackenzie’s reputation as an honest businessman earned him the respect of his contemporaries up and down the East Coast. Frankly, he’s the last person I would have suspected of stealing from his own partner.”

Gasping, Dara’s eyes widened. “How dare you call my father a…a…” She swallowed, unable to say the word.

“Thief?” Lucas finished. The blond eyebrow rose high on his forehead. “If you have a better explanation for how the funds got from here—” he nodded toward the big blue checkbook “—to there—” he indicated the savings statements “—I’m certainly willing to hear you out.”

No matter how bad things looked—and they looked gloomy indeed—Dara wouldn’t let herself believe her father had had anything to do with the missing money. Perhaps Jake’s secretary had deposited the money into his account by mistake. Or maybe that new comptroller hired a year or so ago wasn’t doing his job properly. It might have been the bank’s error.

The excuses amounted to a weak defense. Dara knew it. At best, those possibilities she’d listed might explain one or two erroneous withdrawals and deposits, but dozens…?

The ugly truth is, there isn’t a good explanation for this mess. But there is an explanation! But she saw no sense in arguing the point, at least not here, not now. The truth will come out in the end, she assured herself, and my father will be cleared of these ludicrous accusations! “So what happens next?” Dara asked, meeting Lucas’s icy stare with one of her own.

She hadn’t expected the look of sincere concern to furrow his handsome brow. Hadn’t expected the broad shoulders to slump as he dropped onto the leather seat of the ancient chair that had once belonged to her grandfather, founder of Pinnacle Construction.

Shaking his head, the accountant steepled both hands beneath his chin. “I expect that’s up to Kurt Turner.”

Kurt Turner! Dara fumed. But that old fool has been trying to get rid of Dad for years. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who deposited all that money into Dad’s account!

It dawned on her just then that all this funds juggling had begun about the time Kurt Turner started talking with Acmic Chemicals. The world-renowned agricultural firm had solicited a bid from Pinnacle Construction, and Turner was to have flown to England to discuss the project…a thirty-million-dollar, twenty-fiveacre industrial complex. At the last minute, family problems kept Turner from attending the meeting. The company’s shaky financial future—and the security of its 106 employees—rested on the outcome of this bid. So, despite the fact that he’d only recently been released from the hospital, Jake Mackenzie insisted on going to England in Turner’s stead.

“I’m beginning to smell a rat.”

Lucas sat forward, folded those big hands on the desktop. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Excuse me?”

“I called you in here to solicit your help, Ms. Mackenzie. I was hoping we could put our heads together, figure out why your father took the money and—”

“He didn’t take it, I tell you!”

Lucas drove a hand through his hair, leaving fingerthick streaks in the blond waves. “Tell me something that gives me reason to believe that.”

Dara sighed and, pointing at the reams of paper on his desk, said, “What can I tell you that you don’t think you know?”

He tugged on one corner of his mustached mouth. “As I was starting to say earlier, I want to help you.”

She frowned. “Why?”

The blue eyes darkened like angry thunderclouds. “You’ll find I’m very thorough, Miss Mackenzie.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, then said in a gentler tone, “Something troubles me about this investigation.”

From the moment they’d said their cool and courteous hellos, Dara sensed Noah Lucas was like a bounty hunter, determined to bring in his man. The look of genuine concern, the slight tremor in his deep voice, forced her to reconsider her first impression of him.

“Well,” she began, “I’ve suspected for some time that Kurt Turner was out to get control of the company.”

“But I thought—”

“That because my father made him a partner, they were best friends.” She nodded grimly. “That’s what everyone thought. The truth was, Dad brought Mr. Turner into the business when it looked as though he might lose everything—his contracting firm, his house, his wife.” Her forefingers drew quotation marks in the air. “‘If we put our talents together,’ Dad said, ‘we can double our income.’” She sighed. “He often remarked that Kurt Turner had blueprint ink for blood, whereas Dad was a natural-born salesman.”

“Apparently, he was right.”

“For a while. But Dad had one major flaw. He paid little if any attention to things like bank statements and tax returns—which is how Pinnacle got into money trouble in the first place.”

“How long were they in, ah, ‘trouble’?”

“Dad never wanted me involved in the business. But from the little he said, I gathered they’d been having money problems for the past five years or so.”

“So the deal with Acmic Chemicals would have saved their bacon.”

“I’ll say! A thirty-million-dollar industrial complex on twenty-five acres would have put them right back on the map.”

“But…”

“But Mr. Turner had family problems, or so he said, and couldn’t go to England to seal the deal. Dad insisted on going, even though he’d just gotten out of the hospital.”

“Hospital? What was wrong with him?”

“Heart attack.” Dara hadn’t discussed it, not even once, since that day when her father had sat where Noah Lucas was sitting now. “I did my level best to talk him out of that trip, but he said he had to go, said he owed it to his employees to try to save Pinnacle.”

Lucas nodded.

“I think Kurt Turner knew how things would turn out if he let Dad go abroad to cut that deal. What better way to get rid of the competition than to publicly discredit him?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

“The trip to England was one of those ‘good news, bad news’ stories. The Acmic Chemicals people loved him, and even though they hadn’t made the low bid, Pinnacle won the contract…and the stress of cutting the deal cost Dad his life.”

He heaved a deep sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Dara would have preferred that in place of the sympathetic, caring tone, he’d continued behaving like the coldhearted shark she’d thought him to be in the first place. At least then she wouldn’t be fighting tears right now.

She hadn’t let self-pity dictate her actions to this point, and she refused to allow it to control her emotions now. Dara looked around the office, forced herself to see the place she’d so often visited over the years. Dozens of times since the funeral, she’d tried to talk herself into coming here, packing up her father’s personal belongings and bringing them home. But there had always seemed to be a valid reason to put it off: weeds in the flower beds; students’ papers to grade; a trip to the vet with her cat, Lucy…

Everything looked exactly as he’d left it—a fact that surprised her, since she’d expected Kurt Turner would have assigned the office to someone else by now—except for the plaque on the wall behind his desk: In Memory of Jake Mackenzie, it read, Friend and Father to Us All. Despite her bravado, tears of pride stung her eyes as she acknowledged that he’d earned the affection and respect of those men and women who’d commissioned the trophy.

Kurt Turner may well be full owner of Pinnacle Construction now, but Mackenzie blood and sweat had built it. If she had to beg, borrow and spend every red cent she’d saved over the years, she’d replace that missing money.

And if it takes the rest of my days, I intend to clear his good name!

“I wish I could share your confidence, Miss Mackenzie, but it looks as though we have a clear case of embezzlement.”

Dara hadn’t realized she’d spoken her vow aloud, a fact that only served to increase her distress. She wanted to tell Lucas to get out, right this instant, before he defiled her father’s memory any further. Don’t shoot the messenger, she reminded herself, citing the age-old proverb; Kurt Turner was the enemy, not Noah Lucas.

He stood, an action that Dara supposed was his way of saying their meeting had ended.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Miss Mackenzie. I only wish we’d arrived at a more satisfactory outcome.” He extended his hand. “The only thing left for me to do is find out what he did with all that money.”

Did he really expect her to shake his hand, after he’d said something like that? Fury had Dara gripping the arms of the chair with such force that her knuckles ached. Rising slowly, she faced Lucas head-on. “I realize you have a job to do, Mr. Lucas,” she said, retrieving her coat and purse from the chair beside hers, “but so do I.” She stopped just short of the door and said over her shoulder, “Since we’ll be at loggerheads, you’ll forgive me if I don’t wish you luck.”

Chapter One

The moment she got home from her meeting with Noah Lucas, Dara phoned the pastor’s office. “If no one has volunteered to take over Naomi King’s Sunday-school class,” she said, “I’ll be happy to do it.”

“Wonderful!” the preacher thundered into her ear. “Stop by the church this evening, and I’ll see that you get the materials you’ll need.”

A little of Scarlett O’Hara’s mind-set, she thought, driving to the church, would go a long way in keeping her mind off her problems. She’d worry about the accusations against her father tomorrow. Meanwhile, in the battered cardboard box the pastor had handed her, Dara found keys that would unlock the church basement, the office and the classrooms. The student roster and Naomi’s lesson plans were inside, as well, along with a teacher’s manual that complemented the workbooks each student had been issued.

She’d taught Sunday school before, but not since her father’s death. Dara’s last class had been a spirited group of junior-high kids whose pointed questions and heartfelt opinions had left her exhausted yet exhilarated at the end of every class.

Teaching this class of first and second graders would be especially challenging, for Dara would, in effect, be setting down a foundation upon which they would hopefully build a lifetime of spiritual beliefs. In her mind, it was the answer to two prayers: the work involved with preparing for class would keep her from thinking about Noah Lucas’s investigation and the teaching itself would fulfill her personal belief that every parishioner should do his or her share to help the church.

She arrived half an hour earlier than necessary and organized the materials she’d use for today’s lesson. Then, sitting at the small wooden desk near the windows, Dara prayed: Father, be with me as I help these youngsters learn about Your will and Your way. Open my mind and my heart to Your word and keep me alert so I’ll not miss even one opportunity to glorify You in their eyes. Amen.

Her intent had been to review her lesson plan until the children arrived. To the casual observer, it would appear she was doing exactly that. But church and Sunday school were the furthest things from her mind as she paged through the teacher’s manual on her desk. Rather, Noah Lucas occupied her thoughts. Know Thine Enemy hadn’t become a cliché because it was bad advice, she’d told herself. And during the past week, she’d made it her business to learn as much as possible about the man who had seemed determined to prove her father had been a thief. Dara had asked anyone who might have come into contact with Noah why he’d come to Baltimore, if he was married, whether he had children—surely a good-looking man like that was married.

Dara lurched with surprise when the fresh-faced sixand seven-year-olds, dressed in their Sunday finest, filed into the room, giggling and chattering as they found places to sit. The moment she saw the wide-eyed innocent faces she knew volunteering to teach this class had been the right thing to do.

There was Pete Chapman and little Tina Nelson; Donny Murphy and Marie Latrell. She’d gone to school with Sammy O’Dell’s father, played softball with Lisa Johnston’s mother. She knew every child in the room…

Except for two.

Angie and Bobby Lucas.

Alice, the pastor’s secretary, escorted the children in and in a discreet tone filled Dara in on their background. The Lucas children had come to town a year or so ago when their widowed father decided to make Columbia, Maryland, the headquarters for his CPA and financial services firm. When he’d registered as a parishioner, Noah Lucas had told Alice he hoped being based in the Baltimore-Washington corridor would triple his clientele within two years. Dara knew enough about the area to believe he could accomplish his goal if he attacked everything the way he’d sunk his teeth into that nasty matter at Pinnacle.

She watched his children carefully. The boy, blond, blue eyed, was the spitting image of his father. Would he be tall and muscular someday? With a thick burnished mustache and a barrel chest?

Dara turned her attention to Noah Lucas’s daughter. His wife must have been a dark-haired, dark-eyed, delicate beauty, if her little girl was any indicator.

What must it be like, Dara wondered, growing up without a mother? She’d been twenty-seven when her own mother had died two years ago, and still Dara missed the maternal love that had flowed steadily and easily from parent to child. But to be so small, so young and vulnerable, when death stole a beloved parent…Dara’s heart ached for these two motherless children.

They sat side by side, front and center, and folded their hands on the desktops. They were by far the bestdressed, most well-behaved children in the classroom. But there was something about them that gave Dara an uneasy feeling. Was it their tight-lipped, somber-eyed expressions? Or the way they stared straight ahead, as silent as little statues? Looks as though a serious nature runs in the family, she thought, frowning as she recalled their father’s grim, taut posture.

“Okay, kids,” she called, clapping to get the class’s attention. “Let’s settle down and get to work.”

“Where’s Mrs. King?” Marie wanted to know.

Dara smiled as a moment of warm wishfulness fluttered inside her. If only someone could be making this announcement about me.…“Mrs. King’s baby was born last Sunday afternoon.”

“After Sunday school?”

“That’s right. She went straight to the hospital from here.”

“Is she all right?” Lisa asked.

“She’s fine, just fine,” Dara assured her.

“Boy or girl?” Pete demanded, grinning mischievously. “A boy, I hope—we already got too many girls in this town!”

The boys snickered and the girls groaned in response to his commentary, while Dara smiled fondly. “I hate to disappoint you, Pete, but the baby is a girl.”

Tina raised her hand. “Have they named her yet?”

“As a matter of fact, they’re going to call her Sarah. Sarah Naomi King.”

“Yuck,” Pete grumped. “What’d they go an’ give her such a sissy name for?”

“Hush,” Tina scolded, frowning. “Sarah isn’t a sissy name. It’s beautiful.” One hand on her hip, she bobbed her head back and forth. “It’s from the Bible,” she singsonged, “isn’t it, Miss Mackenzie?”

“That’s right.…Now, can anyone tell me anything about the biblical Sarah?”

“She was Isaac’s mother,” Bobby Lucas volunteered.

“But before she was Sarah,” his elder sister injected, “her name was Sarai.”

“What did she go and change her name for,” Pete teased, “if it was so beautiful?”

“Because,” Angie said, lifting her chin, “God told her husband to change it.”

She seemed so pleased and proud to possess knowledge the other children did not have. Was the behavior something her father had encouraged? Or had his straitlaced personality sent Angie the message that this demeanor was required if she hoped to gain his approval?

“Everyone said Abraham was too old and feeble to have more children,” the girl continued, “but he believed he could, and because of his faith, God gave him a child,” Dara reported in a somber, quiet voice.

These were not ordinary children, Dara decided. Did Bobby play with trucks? Did Angie and her dollies have tea parties? Did they splash in their tub, dunk cookies in their milk and make snow angels? Something told her they did not. Dara could almost picture them sitting inside, noses burrowed in the pages of some edifying book, peeking up only now and again to watch the fun going on outside.

Of course youngsters should pray and read the Word, she acknowledged. They should respect their elders and do their chores and work hard in school. But they should never be made to forget that Jesus loved the little children, because of the innocent playfulness born into them! What kind of parent was Noah Lucas that he had seemingly discouraged his son and daughter from doing what should come naturally to all kids—enjoying life!

“When is Mrs. King coming back?” Tina interrupted.

Dara sent a quick prayer of thanks heavenward for the question that diverted her from her thoughts. “Well, she’s so excited about being a new mommy I don’t think even Mrs. King knows the answer to that question.”

“Are you going to be our teacher?”

She inspected the wide-eyed, expectant faces of her students. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

Silence blanketed the classroom. “Good,” Pete muttered to the boy behind him, “‘cause she’s really pretty.”

Dara clasped her hands. “Now then, I had intended to talk about the Golden Rule today. Who knows what the Golden Rule is?”

“Jesus said, ‘Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you,’” Angie offered.

“Very good,” Dara said. “Can anyone tell me what that means?”

“Don’t do stuff to other people that you wouldn’t want ‘em doin’ to you?” Pete chanced.

“Absolutely! Someone give me an example.”

The children thought about that for a moment. Then Donny shouted out, “Oooh-oooh! I know, I know! Like…if I don’t want my sister hogging the swing, I shouldn’t hog it, either.”

“And if I wouldn’t like my brother changing the channel in the middle of a show I’m watching,” Lisa added, “I shouldn’t do it to him.”

Dara walked to the supply cabinet and swung open the doors. “That’s right!” She stood in front of shelves that housed colorful stacks of construction paper, bluntedged scissors, bottles of glue and boxes of crayons. “But it can also mean doing good things.”

“Like what?” Marie asked.

“Like helping people finish chores so they can get outside and play sooner, or sharing the last slice of chocolate cake.” Wiggling her eyebrows, she winked and gestured toward the cupboard. “Or making greeting cards that will let Mrs. King know how happy we are that she and Mr. King finally got that baby they’ve been praying for.”

Giggling and squealing with glee, the first and second graders grabbed materials from the cupboard and began working on their cards.

“How do you spell congratulations?” Tina wanted to know.

Dara was about to print the word on the chalkboard when Bobby Lucas said, “C-o-n-g-r-a-t-u-l-a-t-i-o-n-s.”

“Not so fast,” Pete complained.

How many first graders could even read the word? Dara wondered as Bobby spelled it again. It was beginning to look like Noah Lucas had the discipline part of fathering down pat. But what about the loving part? she asked herself.

“Thanks, Bob-oh,” Pete said, grinning. “How’d you get so smart?”

Dara thought she saw the hint of a smile tug at the comers of Bobby’s mouth when he shrugged.

“His name isn’t Bob-oh,” Angie corrected. “It’s Bobby, which is short for Robert.”

“You mean robber,” Pete stuck in. “Your brother stole my pencil.”

“Didn’t steal it,” Bobby defended. “I only borrowed it” He handed it back to Pete, then crossed both arms over his chest.

“‘Thou shalt not steal,’” Pete teased, wagging a chubby finger at his classmate.

The statement made Dara think of her father. Heart pounding, she looked around the class, saw that Angie was looking directly at her. For an instant, Dara wondered if the little girl had read her thoughts, for her understanding expression seemed far too old and wise for one so young. But she said, “My mother called him Bobby, right up to the day she died.”

Dara wanted to wrap her in a hug—something she suspected her father didn’t do nearly often enough—but Angie had already turned her attention back to the artwork. She glanced at Angie’s younger brother, who shrugged again and in an equally matter-of-fact voice announced, “Don’t pay any attention to her. She says things like that all the time.” He raised one blond brow, looking amazingly like his father when he did. “Father says she does it to shock people.”

Father says? Dara forced a laugh and ruffled Bobby’s honey-blond hair. “Well,” she whispered, “it works. I’m shocked!”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Pete’s right.”

“About what?”

The smile that lit his face was contagious, and for a moment, she almost forgot there were a dozen other children around her.

“You’re very pretty.”

Angie, who had been hunched over Mrs. King’s card, sat up straight and gave Dara a once-over. “Yes, yes,” she agreed. “You are rather pretty.” Furrowing her brow, she added, “Are you married?”

The enrollment forms clearly stated that Bobby Lucas was six years old and Angie was seven. Because they’d been born in the same calendar year—Angie in January, Bobby in December—the children had been in the same grade since preschool. But surely there had been a clerical error, Dara thought, a typo on their registration forms, because neither child behaved even remotely like first graders.

“Father says ladies can sometimes be sensitive to that question. Since you didn’t answer, it must mean you aren’t married.” Angie tilted her head slightly, as if considering all the possibilities. “Have you ever been married? I mean, you’re not divorced or anything, are you, because Father says divorce is a sin.”

Why would his children even be asking such a thing, let alone asking it frequently enough to require adult discussion on the subject? Dara could answer Angie’s questions—questions that would not have seemed overly personal or inappropriate if they hadn’t been asked in that eerily controlled voice—or she could divert the child’s attention. Her father may choose to speak to her like a miniature adult, Dara thought, frowning slightly, but here in my classroom, she’ll be treated like a seven-year-old!

“The card you’re making for Mrs. King is lovely,” she said in an upbeat, friendly voice. “I especially like the pretty house you’ve drawn there.”

“It’s like the one we lived in up in Pennsylvania, when my mother was alive.” She tucked in one comer of her mouth. “It was a very nice house.”

Angie took a deep breath, then said, “It happened when I was four.” She put the red crayon she’d been using back into the box, and withdrew a blue one. “It was cancer, you know, the kind that eats your blood.”

“Leukemia,” Bobby said. But unlike his sister’s nonchalant tone, the boy’s voice trembled slightly.

“Yes. Leukemia,” Angie agreed. “Father says we should try not to think about it, but when we do, we should never be sad because Mother is with Jesus in heaven, where she’ll never hurt ever again.”

It had been nearly a decade since Dara had taken the psychology courses that helped round out her education major, but Dara recognized repression when she saw—and heard—it. And though she’d been a full-grown adult when her own mother died two years earlier and lost her father just months ago, she understood the importance of mourning openly and honestly. Dara didn’t know how or why a loving father would talk his children out of grieving for their mother.

And she understood it on a completely different level: hadn’t she repressed her fears that her father might have stolen Pinnacle’s money?

She wouldn’t even suspect it, if it hadn’t been for Noah Lucas! It wasn’t hard to believe he could do such a coldhearted thing. Dara’s eyes and lips narrowed with anger toward the man who, without ever having met her father, had chosen to believe the row of numbers that said Jake was a thief rather than the daughter who believed in his innocence. That same harsh and judgmental behavior had his own flesh and blood moving through life like windup toys.

Dara had prayed before class began that the Lord would show her what to do, tell her what to say, to help her teach these children His word. These two, especially, needed to hear about His loving mercy now.

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Suddenly Married

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Table of Contents

From the moment they were born,

LOREE LOUGH

Suddenly MarriedLoree Lough

Prologue

Chapter One

Suddenly Married
Loree Lough