The second book in the Parents Wanted series, 2001

PEOPLE didn’t arrive at Bay Beach Orphanage driving fortunes on wheels. At least, they didn’t until now.

Wendy Maher cared for orphans, or for young children from broken homes with no money. Foster-parents tended to spend more on kids than on cars, and orphanage staff did the same.

Therefore Wendy shouldn’t even recognise this sports car-a gorgeous deep green Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Volante-much less know its worth. She watched the low-slung car purr into her driveway, and the fact that she could guess almost exactly what it cost was enough to make her blood boil.

Just as it always had at such waste…

She rose stiffly to her feet. A flutter of child’s clothes tumbled around her feet, but her attention was no longer on packing. Adam would have killed for a car like this, she thought bleakly. Adam-whose love for expensive cars and fast driving had destroyed more than just himself…

Good grief! What was she doing? She hauled herself back to the present with a jagged wrench. Thinking of Adam still led to heartbreak. She had better things to be thinking of than him.

Like-what on earth was this car doing here? Her Home-one of a series of Homes making up Bay Beach Orphanage-was on a dead-end road. Maybe the driver had turned in by mistake.

‘It’ll be someone asking for directions,’ she told Gabbie. Wendy’s five-year-old foster-daughter was also distracted from packing and was now staring out the window at the amazing car. Woman and child gazed at the car together. Then, as he emerged, they gazed at the driver.