Show Me a Hero Read online

  She’s not just another fan.

  She’s here on baby business.

  When small-town cop Ali Templeton shows up at Grant Cooper’s door claiming he’s the uncle of an abandoned baby, the air force veteran turned famous thriller writer is shocked. By the news...and by their instant, irritating attraction. Grant moved to Weaver for peace and quiet, not whirlwind romance. Now it’s time to step up and be a hero—for the child’s sake and his own.

  She lifted her hand to knock again, but the door was yanked open, startling her enough that she actually fell back a step.

  Annoyed with herself, she stiffened her shoulders as she looked up into the face of the man who stood there.

  Six feet tall. A lean one-seventy. Dark hair. Dark brow, dark beard. Her brain automatically categorized the details that she’d only so far seen on a Department of Motor Vehicles record.

  When she got to the eyes, though?

  She felt her brain short-circuit.

  Not blue.

  Not green.

  Aqua.

  Entirely heart-stopping, even though they were glaring at her.

  “I can’t believe I finally found you,” she blurted.

  His lips thinned. “It’s my only one.” He shoved a hardcover book into her hands. “Now get off my property.” Before she could blink, he slammed the door shut. Right in her face.

  She was actually too stunned to react.

  At first.

  RETURN TO THE DOUBLE C:

  Under the big blue Wyoming sky,

  this family discovers true love

  Dear Reader,

  Ali Templeton has always felt a little inferior to her siblings. They all excelled in school. She was average. They are professionals. She’s a cop. But what she’s never doubted was that her parents loved them all equally. Without question. So she knows her occasional sense of inferiority is just something inside her—something she needs to overcome. Grant Cooper, on the other hand, has not spent his entire life within a loving, supportive family. Outwardly, he excelled in a lot of areas—including the military. What he doesn’t know inwardly, however, is how to overcome his sense of unworthiness. For him, it’s easier to believe he’s meant to be alone.

  Fortunately, his world and Ali’s collide and from that moment on, their lives change. She recognizes the man he is inside so well that eventually, her love helps Grant recognize it, too. And he realizes that not being alone is the most worthwhile risk of all.

  Happy reading!

  Allison

  Show Me a Hero

  Allison Leigh

  Though her name is frequently on bestseller lists, Allison Leigh’s high point as a writer is hearing from readers that they laughed, cried or lost sleep while reading her books. She credits her family with great patience for the time she’s parked at her computer, and for blessing her with the kind of love she wants her readers to share with the characters living in the pages of her books. Contact her at allisonleigh.com.

  Books by Allison Leigh

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Return to the Double C

  Yuletide Baby Bargain

  A Child Under His Tree

  The BFF Bride

  One Night in Weaver...

  A Weaver Christmas Gift

  A Weaver Beginning

  Montana Mavericks: 20 Years in the Saddle!

  Destined for the Maverick

  The Fortunes of Texas: The Rulebreakers

  Fortune’s Homecoming

  The Fortunes of Texas: The Secret Fortunes

  Wild West Fortune

  The Fortunes of Texas: All Fortune’s Children

  Fortune’s Secret Heir

  The Fortunes of Texas: Welcome to Horseback Hollow

  Fortune’s Prince

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

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002

  For my family.

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Bachelor’s Baby Surprise by Teri Wilson

  Chapter One

  The house was nineteen-point-six miles outside of town.

  “Incredible,” Ali Templeton muttered under her breath when she pulled up in front of the dated-looking two-story building that sat on a small knoll in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

  Only nineteen-point-six miles.

  She exhaled and pushed open the door of her cruiser, sticking one sturdy boot out onto the frozen red earth. She was on personal time and probably shouldn’t be using the vehicle assigned to her by the department. It would be one more reason for her sergeant to give her grief, but her own little pickup truck was in the shop, and would be remaining there until she could scrabble together the money to pay for the new transmission it needed.

  She zipped up her jacket against the whistling wind as she studied the house in front of her. Sgt. Gowler had been annoyed with her ever since she stopped dating his son, so she was used to it by now. What was one more reprimand?

  Discovering that Grant Cooper was living just nineteen-point-six miles outside of her very own hometown was either the height of irony, or the proof that she wasn’t much of a cop, just like Sgt. Gowler seemed to think.

  Not that she was here for professional reasons.

  Not exactly.

  Her bangs blew into her face, obscuring her view, and she shoved her sunglasses up onto the top of her head to keep her hair out of her eyes. She should never have impetuously cut the bangs. It was taking forever for them to grow long enough to stay contained in the bun she had to wear because Gowler was a stickler for regulations.

  She’d been out to this abandoned ranch once before. Just over a year ago. Then, it had been at the behest of a single mom at her wit’s end over the wild crowd her fifteen-year-old son had fallen in with. Alongside one of the county’s deputy sheriffs, she’d rounded up Trevor and the rest of the kids, boarded up the broken windows that had allowed them access to the vacant house and hauled the kids back home to their parents.

  There were still no animals in the fields. But now the sheets of plywood were gone. All the windows were intact. And though there was no sign of any vehicles, there was a thin stream of smoke coming from the chimney that she hoped meant the man she sought was actually inside.

  When she went up the weathered porch steps, they creaked ominously, as if they hadn’t borne the weight of a human being in about half a century. Jabbing her gloved finger against the doorbell didn’t elicit any response, so she tugged off the glove, balled her fingers into a fist and pounded loudly on the door. A shelf of snow slid off the roof, landing with a plop next to her feet.

  She wasn’t going to take it as a bad sign. The snow could just have easily landed on her head.

  She swiped the pile sideways with her boot until it fell off the side of the small porch, and knocked again, a little more gently this time. Even if he didn’t answer the door, she wasn’t going to give up.

  Not now that she’
d finally found him.

  She glanced at her watch. She couldn’t afford to be too long before she reported in, or Gowler really would have a legitimate reason to be all over her case. But she’d just discovered where Grant Cooper was and she wasn’t taking any chances. She knocked on the door again, then glanced over her shoulder, scanning the landscape around the house. It looked even more desolate than it had when she’d rousted the weed-smoking teenagers.

  But then again, it was the middle of January. In the middle of Wyoming.

  “Come on.” She lifted her hand to knock again, but the door was yanked open from the inside, startling her enough that she fell back a step.

  Annoyed with herself, she stiffened her shoulders and looked up into the face of the man who stood there.

  Six feet tall. A lean 170. Dark-haired. Dark-browed, dark-bearded. Her brain automatically categorized the details that she’d only seen in a photo in his DMV record.

  When she got to the eyes, though?

  She felt her brain short-circuit.

  Not blue.

  Not green.

  Aqua.

  Entirely heart-stopping, even though they were glaring at her.

  “I can’t believe I finally found you,” she blurted.

  His lips thinned. “It’s my only one.” He shoved something into her hands. “Now get off my property.” Before she could blink, he slammed the door shut. Right in her face.

  She was too stunned to react.

  At first.

  But annoyance quickly hit and she pounded on the door again, using the spine of the hardback book he’d pushed into her hand. It served one good purpose at least—it made an effective door-knocker.

  It didn’t matter to her if he turned out to be as strange as a three-dollar bill. She wasn’t going to just turn around and leave because he hadn’t greeted her with a big smile and howdy-do.

  So she banged with the book and pulled out her badge with her other hand. “Mr. Cooper, open the door,” she said loudly. “I’m not going away until we’ve had a chance to speak.” She banged again. “Open up!”

  The door was yanked open again. “If Chelsea sent you—”

  Ali did the shoving this time and pushed her badge right in front of his face. “I’m Officer Templeton with the Braden Police Department, here on official business.” She was definitely stretching the truth about that, but oh, well. “I don’t know who Chelsea is, nor do I care, unless she has information about the whereabouts of Daisy Miranda.”

  Only because she was watching him closely did she catch the glint of surprise in his otherwise glowering expression.

  “Are you Grant Cooper?”

  He still looked like he wasn’t going to answer and she wiggled her badge a little, even as she tried to make herself as physically imposing as five foot two could ever be.

  “Yes,” he admitted through his teeth.

  “Then Daisy is your sister.” The woman might be a rolling stone, never staying in one place for more than three or four months at a time, but she seemed to have tried to always maintain some sort of contact with her brother.

  Which was the only reason Ali had found him right here at all. She’d literally followed a postcard to the man.

  Nineteen-point-six miles. He’d been practically under her nose all this time.

  His expression darkened even more. “My sister’s name is Karen Cooper. Not Daisy Miranda.”

  But he’d recognized the name. Ali had seen it in his eyes. She wished they had a photo of Daisy. But she didn’t. Just a general description provided by the people who’d known her during her brief stay in Braden. “Medium height. Slender. Red hair, green eyes? Maybe she married?”

  His expression revealed his disbelief. “No way.”

  “Does she often use an alias? Are there other names she goes by?”

  His lips were pressed together.

  She let out a little breath of frustration. “If you think your silence will make me give up, you’re wrong, Mr. Cooper. Regardless of what she’s calling herself these days, I’m looking for her. And I intend to find her.”

  “You and about a dozen others. If you’re here because my sister owes somebody money, you’re out of luck. You won’t get it from me.”

  “This isn’t about money.”

  “I don’t care what it’s about.” He tried closing the door again, only to glare at her even harder when he couldn’t because she’d quickly planted her heavy boot in the doorway.

  “So you don’t care about her abandoned baby?” Ordinarily, she would have cringed a little at her own bluntness, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances.

  This time she didn’t have to look closely to see the shock that crossed his handsome face. He closed his aqua eyes for a second. Then he frowned and moved away from the doorway. But he didn’t try shutting the door.

  It was invitation enough for her and she stepped inside.

  The interior of the house was only slightly less derelict than it had been when she’d confronted the teenagers. Then, the kids had been sprawled around on sleeping bags and tattered beach chairs. Now, only one piece of furniture remained in the main room—a couch that was presumably new, considering the thick plastic wrapped around it. It was pushed to one side of the square room and sat beneath a foggy-glassed wall mirror. A couple of packing boxes were stacked next to it, along with what appeared to be new, unfinished kitchen cabinets. On the other side of the room were gallon cans of paint along with paint rollers stacked atop a tarp. Clearly he was preparing to paint over the graffiti-covered walls.

  The problems she and her sister were having with the Victorian they’d been restoring were owed strictly to the age and decline of the house. He had to deal with an old house plus neglect and outright vandalism.

  He disappeared through a door near the paint cans and she followed, setting the thick book on top of one of the boxes as she passed the stack.

  He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, seeming to stare at nothing at all.

  He made no sign that he even recognized her presence. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she stepped around him to reach the sink against the cabinetless wall. When she’d been here before, the kitchen had had vile yellow cabinets and she wondered if he’d pulled them out in preparation for the new ones, or if it had been vandals.

  The white enamel sink was still chipped, but it was no longer filled with cigarette ashes and discarded beer cans. In fact, it looked scrupulously clean. There was a dish drainer sitting on the bottom of the sink and she pulled one of the glasses from it. It was still damp from being recently washed, and she filled it with water.

  He hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “Mr. Cooper, why don’t you sit down?” She gestured to the round table wedged in the space between an avocado-green refrigerator and a tin-doored pantry cupboard.

  He still didn’t move.

  His chambray shirtsleeves were rolled up his sinewy forearms and she cautiously touched his elbow through the cloth.

  He jerked as if she’d prodded him with an electric rod and glared down at her.

  She pushed the water glass toward him until he had no choice but to take it. “Maybe this will help,” she said calmly despite the distraction of his intensely colored eyes. “Would you mind if I sat?”

  His eyebrows lowered as she pulled out one of the padded metal chairs without waiting for his answer. She sat on the edge of the yellow vinyl cushion, hoping he would follow suit.

  She needed his cooperation. It would be easier to get that if she could get beyond his annoyance and his shock. In her experience, sitting together at someone’s kitchen table was a step in the right direction.

  After a brief hesitation, he pulled out a second chair. The metal legs scraped against the black-and-white checkered linoleum floor. He sat, and finally drank down half the water.

 
Then he set the glass in the middle of the table and sighed. He rested his forearms on the Formica and pressed his fingers together until the tips turned white around his short, neatly clipped fingernails. “I didn’t know she’d had a baby,” he said after a moment. His voice was low. Gruff. “Or that she was in Braden. We—” He broke off and cleared his throat, curling his fingers into fists. “We haven’t spoken in a while.”

  Ali very nearly reached out to cover his hands with her own. Instead, she clasped them together in her lap just to be sure she kept them under control. She wanted to ask what his and his sister’s connection was to Braden that they’d both ended up here during entirely different time frames. Braden was simply too small for it to be coincidental. But she held back that particular question for now. “How long is a while?”

  His jaw shifted. “A while.” He focused those unsettling eyes on her face. “How do you know this baby you’re talking about is Karen’s?”

  She couldn’t fudge the facts about that. “I don’t know for certain that she is,” she admitted. “Only that a child has been abandoned, and the evidence seems to point to her being Karen’s.”

  “What evidence?”

  An old-fashioned electric clock hung on the wall opposite them, above the stove. It was shaped like a black cat, with a long tail that swung right and left in time with the ticking hands of the clock face on the cat’s belly. “There was an unsigned note left along with the infant. We believe your sister wrote it. Her wording was distinct.”

  His eyebrows rose slightly.

  “‘Jaxie, please take care of Layla for me.’” Ali recited the brief missive from memory.

  Grant sat back in his chair. His expression turned annoyed again. “How does that tell you anything? Except the kid’s name is Layla. You don’t even know for sure that the author of the note is Layla’s mother. You’re just assuming.”

  “In the absence of any other information, it’s the only assumption we have to make. Maybe Daisy isn’t—”

  “Karen.”

  “Karen. Maybe she isn’t the baby’s mother, but she clearly had some involvement with the child or she wouldn’t have written the note.”