Read the first chapter of His Secret Christmas Child.
The only reason Chase Huxley returned to Orange Valley was to hire a manager for the supermarket he’d inherited.
He’d love to sell the place and have nothing more to do with this town that held too many of his secrets. But it made better business sense to hold on to it.
In 24 hours, Chase would be back in Portsville waiting for his medical leave to end so he could play his last season as a striker for the Panthers.
At forty, he was way too old for this game and finally ready to retire.
“What do you plan to do with the house?” Aiden Colt, his adopted father’s attorney, eyes glinted with challenge.
He and Aiden met in the Sweet Haven Orphanage.
Their paths had crossed again in high school and they’d been friends until Chase had cut ties with everyone from his hometown.
Chase jerked a shoulder. “I don’t know. Sell it? Rent it?”
It didn’t matter to him. He had no intention of living in Orange Valley again.
A muscle moved in Aiden’s jaw. Chase sighed. The man’s attitude grew tiresome.
“Do I need to hire a new lawyer to see to my interests? Or can you focus and do the job I’m paying for?”
Aiden shoved the paper to him with more force than necessary. “I see you’re continuing your thirteen-year streak of being a jerk.”
Chase smirked. “Is this because I got adopted and you didn’t?”
Christopher and Linda Scott had adopted Chase, but Aiden remained in the orphanage until he’d aged out. He hoped that wasn’t why animosity rolled off his former friend.
Chase had spent thousands on therapy and hours of soul-searching to come to terms with his past.
Only in the last year or so since he’d given his life to Christ had he begun to accept what he couldn’t change. It didn’t mean he wanted to live in Orange Valley, though.
Chase scrawled his signature in the right places to appoint Aiden as his proxy.
“I heard you got married and have a child. I wouldn’t have pictured you as a father figure.”
Chase suppressed the twinge of longing.
Aiden snorted. “That’s the difference between me and you, Chase. When I get a woman pregnant, I have the decency to stick around for my child.”
Chase froze, a chill running down his spine as Aiden’s words sank in.
“What are you talking about?”
Aiden’s eyes roamed over his face. “You didn’t know.”
The lawyer’s voice was flat. Contrite.
“Didn’t know what?”
Who was he supposed to have impregnated and why hadn’t she contacted him? Not that he’d made it easy for anyone to track him down.
“Forget I said anything.” Aiden laid a hand on the papers, but Chase refused to release them.
“Oh, no. You don’t drop a bomb like that and backtrack. Who have I supposedly impregnated?”
Chase bristled with indignation. If this was one of those flighty women from high school thinking, they could get him to pay child support for another man’s brat, they had another think coming.
He hadn’t been a saint in the thirteen years since he left Orange Valley, but he’d been careful. Since his baptism, he hadn’t dated, much less slept with anyone.
“Whitney Mitchell.”
Chase sagged against the chair. Whitney. The unofficial reason he’d cleaned up his act.
“I take it that there’s a possibility you fathered her child.”
“Yeah.” Chase scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I saw her twelve, maybe thirteen years ago in Portsville. It had been a rough day.”
The day’s events had worn him down, leaving his emotions a raw, tangled mess.
He’d gone to the hotel’s restaurant intending to have a meal, as the bar would have been too enticing if he’d returned to his room. Whitney had been there, her hair falling around her shoulders in loose curls.
She’d smiled at him, and the joy on her face had loosened something in his chest. It hadn’t taken much effort to convince her to have dinner with him instead of her colleagues.
They’d talked for hours and then—
“Do you remember when that was?”
“It was the day Paul died. Linda called to tell me the news. I don’t know how or when he returned to Orange Valley.”
Paul had been at Sweet Haven with him and Aiden. For a brief time, they’d banded together. Another orphan, Kara Sanders, had taken them under her wing.
Aiden’s eyes hardened. “Why would that matter? You cut ties with everyone from Orange Valley. From everyone who’d been in the orphanage with you.”
“I’d bumped into him a few days earlier. He asked me for money. For help. I brushed him off.” He’d had little sympathy for the man who drank or smoked away every dime. “Maybe if I’d helped him, he wouldn’t have jaywalked into a truck.”
“You don’t know that.” Aiden’s voice was compassionate. “Paul made his choices a long time ago—same as we did.”
“I guess.” Chase rubbed his eyes. “It doesn’t make it easier to accept.”
“I suppose not.” Aiden drew the papers toward him. “What do you plan to do about Whitney?”
“I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”
Would he have done anything if he’d known?
He wasn’t sure, but then, she hadn’t given him that choice, had she? She’d taken his…he didn’t even know what kind of child he had.
“What kind of child did she have?”
“A boy. It’s how I knew he was yours. He looks exactly like you did at that age.”
A boy. Chase rubbed his chest. He had a son who had no clue who he was. A son who believed Chase abandoned him—the way his parents had.
Anger coursed through him. Whitney had robbed him of the chance to be a father to his child.
He’d missed out on her pregnancy. On the birth of their child…on almost twelve years of fatherhood. But no more. He jerked to his feet.
“Change of plans. I’ll be staying at the house. I’d appreciate it if you could have someone ensure it’s inhabitable.” He stalked for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to a woman about a child.” Chase pivoted and jabbed a finger at Aiden. “You do not get to warn her.”
Chase stomped out of the office and slammed the door behind him.
His Secret Christmas Child (Sweet Haven Book 6)
Table of Contents
An injured athlete returns to the town he swore he’d never call home again—only to discover he has a child with the one woman he couldn’t forget
Chase Huxley has spent years avoiding Orange Valley. His soccer career took him far away, and that’s exactly how he wanted it. But an unexpected injury and a legal matter forces him back to the hometown he swore he’d never return to—only to discover the biggest surprise of his life.
Whitney Mitchell never expected to see Chase again, let alone tell him the secret she’s kept for twelve years. Their one night together was supposed to be a beautiful memory, not the beginning of a complicated future. But now that he knows the truth, he’s not walking away.
Chase wants to be a father. He wants to know his son. And against every ounce of her better judgment, Whitney feels herself wanting him, too.
But the bookish girl never gets the star athlete… right?
His Secret Christmas Child is a heartwarming Christian contemporary romance about unexpected gifts, second chances, and the courage to believe in love.
His Secret Christmas Child first appeared in The Strength of My Heart: A Christmas Anthology of Wholesome & Christian Romance to Benefit Charity, published October 29, 2024. This edition includes an epilogue and author’s note, not in the first publication.
Re-released February 18, 2025