Daring Heart (New Beginnings, Book 2)

By Christine Bush

When nurse Bryanne O’Rourke inherits a country estate from her late father—a man her mother refused to discuss—a window of opportunity opens. Could answers to years of questions finally be at hand?

Emerald Hills only reveals more questions. How did the estate's tight-lipped housekeeper come to know her father? Is the little boy, struggling with juvenile diabetes, connected with the dark secrets the woman is hiding?

The longer Bryanne remains at Emerald Hills the more proof she has that someone is after her and them. But, the greatest danger just may be the country doctor next-door who keeps knocking on the door of her heart.

Previously titled: Where the Heart is.

NEW BEGINNINGS, in series order
Courageous Heart
Daring Heart
Patient Heart

• Language: English
• Publisher: ePublishing Works
• Release date: May 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781614174189

Book preview

Daring Heart

The New Beginnings Series

Book Two

by

Christine Bush

Award-winning Author

Previously titled: Where the Heart Is

Published by ePublishing Works!

www.epublishingworks.com

ISBN: 978-1-61417-418-9

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Copyright 1992, 2013 by Christine Bush. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Cover and eBook design by eBook Prep www.ebookprep.com

Thank You.

This book is dedicated to my sisters: Denny, Cindy, and Susan, who are near and dear to my heart, and whose belief in me often provides the impetus to keep me going. Thanks. I love you.

Chapter 1

She pushed open the heavy door made of wood and brass and stepped out of the plush and polished lobby of the tall building that held the lawyer's office. A drenching rain hit her in the face. It was wet, cold, and dark outside, despite the noon hour and despite the earlier weather forecast that had promised a crisp, fall day.

But strangely enough, the rain felt good to Bryanne O'Rourke. The weather felt just right. It was dark and miserable as the rain pelted down upon her head, soaking her immediately, and it matched exactly how she felt. She was wearing her standard, almost year-round raincoat, which even had a hood. But she purposely left it down, feeling an almost ridiculous satisfaction as her wet, reddish hair turned dark, getting wetter and wetter. Small droplets of water began finding their way down the inside of her collar, soaking her to the skin.

She knew her way around downtown Philadelphia almost in her sleep, so she hardly looked up as she slowly walked down Chestnut Street toward the train station. It was over. It was over, really, before it had begun. The sense of loss she felt was sending her reeling, and she didn't quite know why. She knew she had to pull herself together. She knew she was a survivor in life, a person used to picking up the pieces and getting back into the race. But for the moment, she felt lost, like a small, forlorn child who was stuck in the rain....

It had begun, or had ended, depending on how one looked at it, that day last week when the certified letter had come to her apartment in northeast Philadelphia. The black print had stated the news succinctly and officially. Her father, Ryan O'Rourke, had died at the ripe old age of forty-eight. She didn't know what had been more surprising... that he had died or that he was forty-eight. Because, truth to tell, Bryanne had had no idea of his age, or of his whereabouts, or really anything about him, except his name.

At twenty-eight Bryanne had been fending for herself for over ten years, since the premature death of her beloved mother, Alice McDevitt O'Rourke, in a car accident. And as Alice and Bryanne had scratched their way through life during Bryanne's childhood, Ryan O'Rourke, who had suddenly left the scene right around her first birthday, wasn't a real topic of conversation. She had few if any recollections of the man who had been her father. The pain and anguish suffered by the mother she loved, who had never quite reconciled herself to losing him, had not made asking questions desirable.

She had been filled, though, with those unanswered questions, first by curiosity, then by a longing for the image of father she had seen in her friends' lives, and finally by a mixed sense of anger and bewilderment for her mother's pain and for the man who had caused it. She hadn't consciously given the man a lot of thought lately... but by the emotions she was experiencing today, she knew that her subconscious had definitely had him categorized in the unfinished business section of her mind. But now he was gone. The chance to meet him, to find out just exactly what kind of man she had been born to, was gone. For some strange reason that left an aching void in her that was as unexplainable as it was unwanted.

Her feet methodically turned into the train station, the echoing noises of life escalating around her. Commuters strutted to their trains, swinging briefcases. Shoppers struggled to get their packages up the escalators, small children whined, a homeless man was begging for bus fare from passersby. Bryanne marched through it all, chilled now from the wetness and fantasizing about a nice hot cup of tea when she reached her comfortable apartment and got out of her wet things.

A crackly loudspeaker squawked above her, but she didn't really listen until she got to the train platform, where disgusted travelers were turning back toward the station. Electrical problems again. Two-hour delays...

You'd think with these high fares they would run things on schedule.

Bryanne heard the comments around her and belatedly paid attention to the overhead message. No train. She turned on her heel and walked back through the station, pining for her hot tea and mentally berating herself for her foolhardy hatless walk in the rain. She stopped in the coffee shop and ordered her tea, unwilling to put it off until she would finally get home.

In the heat of the station, her hair began to dry. She could almost hear it frizz! She had spent most of her lifetime wishing she had inherited her mother's smooth dark crop of hair, instead of the reddish-brown mop that had a mind of its own and could be counted on to frizz at a moment's notice. She kept it shoulder length and tended to tie it back with a scarf or clip to keep it under control. Today's clip was losing the battle, and curly tendrils were escaping and framing her freckled face.

The tea tasted good. It was warm and inviting, and she nibbled at a fresh croissant while she pulled her thoughts together. She hadn't eaten breakfast, and so she excused the damage the buttery croissant could do to her five-feet-seven, not exactly petite figure. Calorie counting was not her forte.

She had kept her composure at the lawyer's office, despite the mental disarray she felt, a benefit, probably, of her nurses' training. After her mother's death right after her high-school graduation, she worked every angle, applied for every scholarship, and juggled three part-time jobs to finagle her way into and through nursing school at the University of Pennsylvania. It hadn't been an easy fight, and she had been justifiably proud as she had graduated and taken a position with the University Hospital four years before. She had enjoyed a steady career since that time, building a life for herself and eventually specializing in pediatric nursing.

But the visit to the lawyer's office, and the introduction of her father's unexpected will, had definitely thrown a major kink into her life.

She found out several things during that visit. Her father, Ryan O'Rourke, had never formally divorced her mother. That didn't really surprise her. She also found out that he had been in contact with her mother on several occasions and kept himself up-to-date on Bryanne's life, both before and after her mother's death. That was a major jolt.

But the surprises weren't over. The details of his life were sketchy, from the legal information that the lawyer provided, but the bottom line was that Ryan had found great success in his import/export business of antiques and valuables. The business, the will explained, was to be sold immediately and the proceeds and most of the rest of his estate were to go directly to Bryanne. The sale had been transacted immediately, the details, taxes, and fees taken care of by the lawyer and his high-powered firm, and the estate, in excess of three million dollars, including his home, was to go to Bryanne O'Rourke. Major, major jolt.

There were also several small bequests and provisions, but Bryanne found she couldn't even remember them, numbed with the shock of her inheritance and her father's death.

Now, any red-blooded American girl who just found out that she had inherited three million dollars should be ready to leap with joy, she knew. But she wasn't. From her initial indignant questions to the lawyer, as she remembered her mother's worries and pressures about money matters, she learned that her father had often offered money and had been turned down by the stoic woman who wouldn't take it. She didn't really understand her mother's position but found, as usual, that there was no one who could answer her questions.

But even more upsetting was the thought that her father had been watching her, concerned at some level about her, and yet had never contacted her, never let her know him in any way. She thought of the years of loneliness, the years of fear and insecurity as she fought to keep her head above water and tried to accept the fact that she was alone in the world, without mother, father, or relatives. And the truth of the matter was that Bryanne, with her fiery Irish heritage and a temper to match, was down-and-out mad at her so-called father for daring to leave her the money instead of having been a father during his lifetime.

But he had left her the money, and that was a fact. There was a provision in the will that was going to throw her life into a turmoil, though, and she wasn't quite sure how she felt about it. Her inheritance, it seemed, would be hers as soon as she fulfilled the one condition left by Ryan O'Rourke.

The condition stated that she was to live on the estate that she had inherited, located in upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for the period of one year and offer her personal nursing skills to one Andrew Rush, the ten-year-old son of the housekeeper, Rose Rush, and who had been diagnosed as having juvenile diabetes. Rose and Andrew, the will stated, lived in what was originally the caretaker's cottage on the estate, deeded over to them several years before. At the end of the year the estate could be sold if she wished. Pertinent doctors and medical sources were listed to contact for Andrew Rush's care.

It was simple; it was straightforward. The man she knew nothing about, the man who had been her father and had given her life, had totally changed her life with one piece of paper.

She finished her tea and left a hefty tip for the overworked waitress. She had decisions to make. She could keep her safe job, her comfortable apartment, her known city, and keep her questions, her curiosity, and her resentments to herself. Or she could quit her job, take off for parts unknown, and face the questions she had about her father and the decisions he had made in his life that had affected hers so drastically. And three million dollars... that thought in itself was beginning to sink in. Bryanne O'Rourke was about to change her life.

The squawk box was still announcing that all trains were being delayed, but the news didn't sound so grim all of a sudden. Bryanne pushed open the doors of the station and once more faced the pelting rain, this time with her hood up. She strode to the curb with more of her usual bounce in her step and raised her hand abruptly. Taxi! she called, stepping back as a yellow cab screeched to the curb beside her.

She opened the door and climbed inside, her practical side quivering at the impending cost of the long ride as she gave her address. But her impish side won out as she settled herself back on the well-worn seat of the cab, and she flashed a bright smile at the tired cabby. Now she could afford a cab