Page 1 of Cinderella's Secret Baby

CHAPTER ONE

AMELIALINDORCOULDN’Tfathom what had gotten into her father, Tobias. He had come straight back after leaving on his morning constitutional with a fire in his belly, insisting Amelia drive him from Goderich to Niagara-on-the-Lake.Rightnow.

It was a three-hour trip that her daughter, Peyton, hadnotenjoyed. The two-month-old believed any car ride longer than twenty minutes was intolerable torture and made sure everyone knew it. After fussing on and off for two hours, she had finally settled into a hard nap.

The silence was a blessed relief, but it threw off the schedule Amelia had finally started to establish with her. Peyton was meant to be nursing by now. As Amelia parked and bent into the back seat of her dusty but trusty sedan, her breasts were already heavy and tight. Should she wake the baby and coax her to feed? Or risk a public letdown?

“How long will we be here?” Amelia asked her father, but only got a slammed door in response. She stood and called, “Dad?”

“I told you, I have to meet someone,” he grumbled over his shoulder as he hurried through the full parking lot toward the door of the winery’s tasting house.

“Who?”she said with exasperation.

He didn’t answer. Or wait. Tobias had arthritis and a heart weakened by grief, but seconds later he had heaved open the wide door and disappeared inside.

This didn’t make sense. When her father met someone, it was usually his fellow retirees from the salt mine. Six mornings a week, he rose to take his medication, record the temperature in his weather journal and listen to the early news. He left as soon as it was light, joining his buddies at the café two streets over where they nursed coffee and grudges against politicians and potholes.

This morning, one of his cronies had said something that sent him home to snap orders like the maintenance supervisor Tobias had once been.Let’s go. This can’t wait.

Since Amelia’s only plan for the day had been drop-in infant yoga, she had hurriedly dressed, and here they were.

Tobias had refused to talk in the car, so she had bounced through the music stations, trying to calm Peyton, remaining ignorant as to what this was all about.

Releasing an irked sigh, she carefully skimmed the limp Peyton into her arms. Since the seat weighed more than her baby did, she only threw a receiving blanket over her shoulder and cradled Peyton there, not even bothering with the diaper bag so she could hurry after her father.

A couple came out the door as Amelia approached, both dressed to the nines. The man wore a dapper suit; the woman was in a strapless amethyst gown. Bridesmaid. Who else dressed like that at eleven twenty in the morning? Was that why there had been purple and pearl balloons on the welcome sign?

The woman abruptly halted before crashing into Amelia. She offered a strained smile that suggested a supreme effort at politeness when she was barely holding on to her temper.

“Hello. Vienna. Sister of the groom.” She touched her bare upper chest, then gestured into the tasting room. “Go all the way through and out the back. You’ll see the pergola by the shore. Everyone is sitting down. We’re about to start.”

“I’m not here for a wedding.” Amelia grimaced an apology as she realized they were intruding on a ceremony. “My father is—” On a rampage of some sort. “Inside. Looking for someone.”

“Oh?” Vienna cocked her head. “Who? We’ve reserved the entire place for the wedding. I might know them.”

“I’m not sure, but we’ll get out of your hair right away. I promise.” Amelia turned her friendly smile up to the man still holding the door. Cool, conditioned air beckoned from inside. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he said in the very creepy tone some men used when they thought they were being charming by sexually harassing a woman. His gaze slid down to ogle the stretched neckline of her T-shirt. The pink cotton was straining across her nursing bra, but one breast was squashed by hernewborn babyso,Don’t be gross, man, Amelia thought crossly.

Behind her, Vienna was saying an impatient, “Okay, Neal. What’s so important you had to drag me out here when it’s about to start?”

The door closed behind her, and Amelia blinked in the shadowed interior, turning over the name Vienna in her mind. It was unusual, but she had heard it somewhere, which caused a prickle of premonition.

At the same time, the sounds and smells of the tasting room were provoking a flashback. Last summer, Amelia had taken a job at a microbrewery not far from here. On her off days, she and her workmates had toured the local wineries on their bicycles, getting tipsy inside tasting rooms like this one with its brick floor and post-and-beam ceiling. This was a bigger vineyard, so the tasting room had two bars, one on either side. Behind each were rows and rows of bottles, while the space between was full of shelves displaying knickknacks and branded tea towels and specialty wineglasses.

Amelia automatically blocked the other memories that tried to invade from last July. The ones containing a brooding man who had kissed her in the moonlight and warned her against coming to his room.

My life is a mess right now. It won’t be more than tonight.

She shifted the weight of that encounter to her other shoulder as she searched for Tobias. He wasn’t among the guests scrambling for a glass of wine before they headed out the doors to the ceremony. Had he gone to the lawn?Washe meeting one of the wedding guests?

“Grandma. There’s one more. Would you like to sign the guest book?” An adorable girl of eight or nine reopened the book she had closed. She stood behind an upended barrel near the door and wore a demure version of the bridesmaid’s dress. Her hair was gathered up in a bundle of tight black curls on her crown, and she wore a hint of soft pink makeup on her lips and cheeks. She had clearly been given this Very Special Job and was taking itveryseriously.

An older woman wearing a stylish royal blue dress gave the girl an indulgent look before saying to Amelia, “Welcome. Friend of the bride or groom?”

“I’m not here for the wedding.” That ought to be obvious from her very casual clothes. Her stomach was starting to sour at how ill-timed her father’s mission was. “Did you see an older man come through? He’s wearing a yellow shirt and brown pants. He has a bushy gray beard?”

“I think so.” The little girl’s face screwed up quizzically and she looked to her grandmother. “He didn’t sign, either.”

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