The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

ago. But he neglected to do one thing. He never got a divorce from his first wife.”
    In the sudden silence, Cole looked around the room at their faces—blank, shocked, disbelieving. “The detective checked very thoroughly. There is no record of a divorce.”
    “But—but this means…” Merry’s voice trailed off.
    “It means that our father’s marriage to our mother was invalid. I have no idea where that leaves us in terms of the divorce settlement that gave him everything. Or,” he added bleakly, “whether the surname listed on our birth certificates is correct. I don’t know if we’re Ashtons or not.”

A Rare Sensation
    By
Kathie DeNosky

Kathie DeNosky lives in her native southern Illinois with her husband and one very spoiled Jack Russell terrier. She writes highly sensual stories with a generous amount of humour. Kathie’s books have appeared on the Waldenbooks bestseller list and received the Write Touch Readers’ Award from WisRWA and the National Readers’ Choice Award. She enjoys going to rodeos, travelling to research settings for her books and listening to country music. Readers may contact Kathie at: PO Box 2064, Herrin, Illinois 62948-5264, USA or e-mail her at [email protected].
    Look for a new trilogy from Kathie DeNosky starting in July 2010 with Bossman Billionaire, a Mills & Boon ® Desire ™ .

Prologue
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    1963
    S pencer Ashton glanced over at his wife, Sally, and the two squalling babies on her lap as he drove away from the Crawley cemetery. Damn, but he looked forward to not having to suffer any more of Sally’s pathetic adoration, or listen to the twins’ constant howling. Grant wasn’t so bad. At least the boy shut up once in a while. But Grace’s nonstop screeching made life a living hell. And one that Spencer had every intention of escaping. He glanced in the truck’s rearview mirror at the cemetery workers filling in the new grave. Now that hiscontrolling old man was dead of a heart attack, Spencer was free. Free to be rid of Sally and the twins. Free to shake the dust off his heels and pursue his own dreams. Free to leave Crawley, Nebraska, as far behind as his old Ford and the hundred bucks in his pocket would take him.
    “Can’t you shut that kid up?” he growled when the baby girl’s screaming reached a crescendo.
    “She’s teething,” Sally said, in that singsong voice that made his skin crawl. She kissed the top of the kid’s little, bald head. “There, there, Gracie. Daddy doesn’t like it when he knows you’re hurting.”
    Spencer fought the bile that rose in his throat every time Sally referred to him as “Daddy.” He might have spawned the two sniveling brats on her lap, but he never had been, nor would he ever be, their daddy.
    Steering his truck onto the dirt-packed road leading to the Barnett farm, he was glad that Sally’s folks had decided to drive on into Crawley after his old man’s funeral. It would make leaving a whole lot easier. At least he wouldn’t have her sad-eyed parents staring at him, much the way they’d done since the day he’d been forced to marry their daughter and move in with them.
    When he parked the truck, he got out and, with a purposeful stride, walked toward the two-story house that he’d come to think of as his prison. He didn’t stop to help Sally with the twins, nor did he look back to see ifshe followed him as he climbed the porch steps and opened the front door. Taking the stairs two at a time, he went straight to the bedroom he and Sally had shared since their wedding night and pulled a worn leather duffel bag from the top shelf of the closet.
    “Spencer, what are you doing?” Sally asked, sounding out of breath. He supposed she was winded from carrying two babies up a flight of stairs without assistance.
    He mentally shrugged as he stuffed clothes into the bag. It was one of many things she’d have to get used to doing without help.
    “I’m leaving.”
    Just putting his intentions into words made him feel almost giddy from the relief coursing through him. He’d been waiting for this day from the moment his old man had forced him to marry Sally after learning Spencer had gotten her pregnant.
    “Where are you going?” The sound of her quivering voice sent a chill up his spine much the way fingernails scraping a blackboard did.
    “As far away from you and your whelps as I can get.”
    He knew his words cut her more deeply than any knife ever could. But he didn’t care. She and her