Читать книгу The Baby Gamble - Tara Taylor Quinn - Страница 7

July 2005

COW MANURE HAD NEVER smelled so sweet, Blake Smith thought, inhaling deeply. Squinting against the bright July morning sun, he glanced down the thin metal steps to the tarmac, scanning the people waiting at the small airport just outside San Antonio.

There weren’t many of them.

Four years was a long time.

But a three-and-a-half-year-old child should be easy to spot. He looked for a head covered with blond curls.

Or maybe her hair was brown.

Or maybe she was a he.

And yet no matter how many possibilities he considered, no small child appeared.

His uncle, then? Alan wouldn’t miss this. Not on his life…

What did it mean that Blake couldn’t pick out the big frame and ruddy face of the man who’d raised him ever since his parents had been killed in a car accident when he was seven?

Determined to hold on to the sweet anticipation that had sustained him during his eighteen-hour journey from the Middle East back to Texas, Blake renewed his search. Most of all, he sought the face of the woman whose memory had kept him alive these past forty-seven months, two weeks and three days.

The only person he really needed to see right now, after four grueling years of captivity as the hostage of political terrorists.

Annie.

His heart’s rhythm settled—and then immediately sped again as he spotted the beautiful face of his beloved wife. At last. With shaky knees, he hurried to meet her.

Annie had come for him.