Baby Wishes And Bachelor Kisses

Baby Wishes And Bachelor Kisses
Valerie Parv

Bundles of JoyTHE TYCOON AND THE ADORABLE TYKERich, handsome and famous, Nicholas Frakes was the world's sexiest bachelor. But when Bethany Dale first clapped eyes on him, he was spoon-feeding spinach to his orphaned niece, tenderly cradling the infant to his bare, brawny chest….Bethany promptly lost her heart…and then her head. And soon she was playing live-in nanny with Nicholas and tiny Maree–falling hard for the tot and her tycoon dad. The feeling was definitely mutual. Trouble was, Bethany couldn't give Nicholas the babies her arms ached to hold. The babies he would surely want from any woman who was to be his wife….Sometimes small packages can lead to the biggest surprises!

The baby wasn’t the only one playing havoc with her emotions, Bethany was forced to admit. (#uadd03adf-c761-5f0e-8e2d-5cf4598c3708)Letter to Reader (#ue3b7d90c-120d-563a-85cb-c71a1aed041c)Title Page (#u0fd57c81-5367-5459-bc65-f029443a101d)Dedication (#u1d130756-6119-591f-88ed-7d52471343e1)About the Author (#u9266ee24-6045-56dc-a851-46d8bb09172d)Letter to Reader (#u6425d1cb-4484-5e2f-a791-19ac41607a88)Prologue (#u3f15bba4-2147-547c-8e21-c8b5de4c136c)Chapter One (#u01fac7a9-90fb-550e-83d7-1f00e5fe90fb)Chapter Two (#uc12b9614-355f-5283-9b29-3e91e57fe8bc)Chapter Three (#u32e3c37e-1c00-52e3-be6f-fdcad3f0133c)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

The baby wasn’t the only one playing havoc with her emotions, Bethany was forced to admit.

Nicholas Frakes was also having an odd effect on her equilibrium. When she first planned to interview him, she had reckoned without the sheer animal magnetism he exuded. She had never before met a man who was so...well...male.

On the surface he was everything she disliked in a man: physically large, which made her feel uncomfortably small and vulnerable, and so attractive that he had to be a candidate for Playboy of the Western World.

But playboys didn’t usually take in orphaned babies or run themselves ragged trying to get them to eat, she acknowledged. And just being around him made her want to do reckless things...like cook and clean and take care of his baby.

Take care of him.

What was happening to her?

Dear Reader,

August is jam-packed with exciting promotions and top-notch authors in Silhouette Romance! Leading off the month is RITA Award-winning author Marie Ferrarella with Suddenly...Marriage!, a lighthearted VIRGIN BRIDES story set in sultry New Orleans. A man and woman, both determined to remain single, exchange vows in a mock ceremony during Mardi Gras, only to learn their bogus marriage is for real....

With over five million books in print, Valerie Parv returns to the Romance lineup with Baby Wishes and Bachelor Kisses. In this delightful BUNDLES OF JOY tale, a confirmed bachelor winds up sole guardian of his orphaned niece and must rely on the baby-charming heroine for daddy lessons—and lessons in love. Stella Bagwell continues her wildly successful TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP series with The Ranger and the Widow Woman. When a Texas Ranger discovers a stranded mother and son, he welcomes them into his home. But the pretty widow harbors secrets this lawman-in-love needs to uncover.

Carla Cassidy kicks off our second MEN! promotion with Will You Give My Mommy a Baby? A 911 call from a five-year-old boy lands a single mom and a true-blue, red-blooded hero in a sticky situation that quickly sets off sparks. USA Today bestselling author Sharon De Vita concludes her LULLABIES AND LOVE miniseries with Baby and the Officer. A crazy-about-kids cop discovers he’s a dad, but when he goes head-to-head with his son’s beautiful adoptive mother, he realizes he’s fallen head over heels. And Martha Shields rounds out the month with And Cowboy Makes Three, the second title in her COWBOYS TO THE RESCUE series. A woman who wants a baby and a cowboy who needs an heir agree to many but discover the honeymoon is just the beginning....

Don’t miss these exciting stories by Romance’s unforgettable storytellers!

Enjoy.

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor Silhouette Books

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

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Baby Wishes And Bachelor Kisses

Valerie Parv

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For Lynne and Michael, in praise of all engineers

VALERIE PARV lives and breathes romance and has even written a guide to being romantic, crediting her cartoonist husband of twenty-six years as her inspiration. As a former buffalo and crocodile hunter in Australia’s Northern Territory, he’s ready-made hero material, she says.

When not writing her novels and nonfiction books, or speaking about romance on Australian radio and television, Valerie enjoys dollhouses, being a Star Trek fan and playing with food (while cooking, that is). Valerie agrees with actor Nichelle Nichols, who said, “The difference between fantasy and fact is that fantasy simply hasn’t happened yet.”

Dear Reader,

One of my real-life heroes is Dr. Denis Waitley, a former Blue Angel and NASA advisor, now internationally acclaimed author and lecturer. In short, a man who has his act well and truly together. Yet, at his seminars he tells of being brought to his knees trying to persuade his baby daughter to eat. This delightful image provided some of the inspiration for Baby Wishes and Bachelor Kisses, in which hero Nicholas Frakes connects with heroine Bethany Dale as a result of a similar experience. It was probably unfair to pit him against not one but two females, one being an adorable baby girl, but I figured a man of Nicholas’s caliber could handle them both.

I also wanted to explore the fascination small things hold for most of us. Whether they are human babies, baby animals or miniature objects, small things speak to all of us in a very personal way—as I notice whenever a new visitor sees my magnificent dollhouse, which holds a lifetime’s collection of miniature furnishings.

It was a joy to bring so many of my passions together, resulting in one of my all-time favorite books. May it also become one of yours.

Love,

Prologue

Nicholas Frakes drew a deep breath as his gaze rested on Maree. She was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her, yet he felt drawn to study every detail of her over and over again as if there was a hunger inside him that her very existence was designed to satisfy.

Since moving in with him, Maree had changed his life in ways he had never imagined when he proposed the idea. Some of the changes were wonderful. He didn’t have to go out in order to have female company. Maree was always there and happy to listen to him without interrupting, no matter what topic he wanted to discuss. She quite enjoyed watching sports on television, although it was obvious she didn’t have a clue what was going on. But she didn’t mind him explaining things in detail and generally managed to look interested.

Some of the changes were a pain in the neck. For starters, they could never agree on what time to go to bed and when to get up in the morning, so he was severely sleep-deprived from trying to adjust to her life-style. Yet she wasn’t about to adjust to his, and she knew perfectly well he could deny her nothing.

She had only to look at him with those huge luminous blue eyes, and favor him with her smile, which was fit to melt stone, and he was lost. She was doing it now, regarding him curiously from under impossibly long black lashes which rested on cheeks for which the description “peaches and cream” had been invented. What was a man to do?

Then there was the matter of diet. This week she had decided to be a vegetarian, which Nicholas most certainly was not. Yet he had spent most of the morning cooking up rabbit food to keep her happy.

“Why can’t you enjoy a steak like the rest of humanity?” he grumbled as he brought a dish of bland-tasting green stuff to where she waited at the table. He swore under his breath as she looked away, her expression plainly disgusted.

“Last week you couldn’t get enough of this stuff,” he muttered, trying to keep his temper in check. Lately they’d had more than their share of screaming matches, and he was so tired he was in no mood for another one today. What in blazes had he gotten himself into, inviting such a fickle creature into his life on a full-time basis? If he’d known what he was getting into, he would have run as far and as fast in the opposite direction as he could.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he contradicted himself, a smile working its way to the surface in spite of his exhaustion and ill humor. “I would still have made room for you in my life because you’re my only niece. Since your mother and father were killed, you have no one else but your uncle Nicholas. And you’re only ten months old, for crying out loud. No, scratch the ‘crying out loud’ bit. You didn’t hear that, Maree. No crying, loud or otherwise. I said no crying... no...come on now, eat some of this lovely spinach.”

But his pleas were drowned by the rising scale of her wails, which lanced through his skull as if he was being attacked with a chain saw. He tried taking advantage of her open mouth to shovel some of the spinach in as a distraction, but it came out the same way, only a good deal faster.

“Maree, as much as I love you, there are times...” he growled, surveying the rivulets of pureed spinach running down his bare chest. Just as well he hadn’t had time to put his shirt on this morning or he’d be changing it already. Skin was easier to launder than fabric.

Then another thought came to him, and his shaky smile broadened. Since Lana left he’d all but lost track of the days, trying to keep up with his work as an acoustical engineer, as well as take care of Maree on his own. Wasn’t today the day that woman from the child care magazine was due to visit him?

Bethany Something. She had written asking if she could interview him for an article for the journal she edited called—what was it? He only knew it was something to do with babies. Lord, he could barely think straight. She must have decided to approach him as a result of a story in the local paper about what they called “the sexy single dad.”

Given the circumstances under which he’d become a father, it was an insensitive approach, if it was even accurate. Single he may be, a dad definitely, but sexy? Sexy guys didn’t swab spinach off their pecs, he thought ruefully as he suited the action to the thought. His brain might be fried but at least his body was still in decent shape even though he hadn’t had much chance to work out since Maree moved in. She kept him as much on the run as any personal trainer.

He’d been interviewed for the last article when Maree was four months younger and sleeping most of the time, so the picture had changed since then. What Bethany What’s-her-name would make of today’s performance was another matter. After the insensitivity of the last write-up, he had resolved to turn any more writers away. Then it came to him that this Bethany woman might have some answers for his current problems. If so, the trade would be more than fair.

“For a start, she can tell me how to convince you to eat,” he said to the screaming baby whose peaches-and-cream complexion was steadily reddening from the force of her cries. He’d tried seeking information from the local baby care authorities, but they had addressed most of their advice to his former fiancée. It was natural enough, and he didn’t blame them, but it wasn’t much help with Lana no longer on the scene.

Thinking of Lana provoked another sigh. As one of Australia’s top fashion models and an only child to boot, she was hardly an expert on parenthood, any more than Nicholas himself. But at least he was willing to learn. Lana had said she was willing, but she had proved remarkably adept at disappearing whenever the baby was either messy or noisy, which was ninety percent of the time.

“Crying for seven hours straight last week wasn’t your smartest move,” he reproved the howling child gently. Lana had declared herself through with motherhood, packed her bags and left for Melbourne, to the apartment they had shared before Nicholas moved both home and consultancy back to his property in the Macedon Ranges.