Baby on Board

Baby on Board
Lisa Ruff

Kate Stevens needs a daddy for her baby-to-be. Candidates must be dependable, stay-at-home family men who don't rush off to sea every time the wind changes.Patrick Berzani need not apply. The adventure-loving sailor may be the baby's biological father, but he's far from daddy material. Patrick thought he and Kate were great together before, but now? They could be even better. And for Kate to believe he wouldn't be a good father to his child, well, Patrick has something to say about that, too!He just has to convince Kate. So while she interviews prospective daddies, Patrick plans to prove he's the ideal–the only–father for their child. And the man Kate loves and needs.

“I’m going to be a father. Break out the cigars!”

“No, Patrick. I’m having a baby. I’m having this baby, and I don’t think you should be involved.”

“I don’t see how I can be any less involved.”

“I meant—” Kate paused and took a deep breath. “My baby is going to have a father. But it won’t be you.”

“It’s a little too late to make that choice, Kate. I am the father.”

She shook her head. “Not in that way.”

“Oh? So who is the father in that way?”

“I’ve got a list of possibilities, but I—”

“A list! And I’m not on it?” With a laugh, he leaned back against the workbench. “What kind of joke is this?”

Dear Reader,

For years I have been fascinated with ocean racing. What makes racers tick? Why do they go out and push themselves and their boats to the limits of endurance and beyond? And if disaster strikes and they are rescued, why do they go out and do it again? From the outside—even to a sailor like myself—that kind of racing looks crazy. But a sexy confidence, a bold swagger, runs among this breed of racers, the sort that can look attractive to a woman standing safely on the shore.

The inspiration for this book came from wondering what love was like for these exceptional men. Some must have girlfriends waiting for them at home. Some even have homes and families. From there, Baby on Board began to take shape. I hope you enjoy reading about Patrick and Kate and the choices they have to make to find happiness.

Please visit me at www.lisaruff.net. And keep a watch out for my next book!

Happy reading,

Lisa Ruff

Baby on Board

Lisa Ruff

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Ruff was born in Montana and grew up in Idaho but met the man of her dreams in Seattle. She married Kirk promising to love, honor and edit his rough drafts. His pursuit of writing led Lisa to the craft. A longtime reader of romance, she decided to try to create one herself. The first version of Man of the Year took three months to finish, but her day job got in the way of polishing the manuscript. She stuffed it into a drawer, where it languished for several years.

In pursuit of time to write and freedom to explore the world, Lisa, Kirk and their cat sailed from Seattle on a thirty-seven-foot boat. They spent five years cruising in Central America and the Caribbean. Lisa wrote romance, but it took a backseat to an adventurous life. She was busy writing travel essays, learning to speak Spanish from taxi drivers and handling a small boat in gale-force winds.

When she returned to land life, she finally revised Man of the Year and sent it to an agent. Within a year, she had a contract from Harlequin American Romance.

She and her husband are cruising on a sailboat again somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. When not setting sail for another port, she is working on her next Harlequin romance.

To sailors and those who love them:

fair winds and following seas.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

A shadow shifted across the room, startling Kate. The heart-shaped glass bubble she held slipped, fell to the steel table with a crack, then shattered into a hundred red shards. A strangled cry of distress escaped from between her lips. She put her hands out, as if to gather the pieces back into a whole, but knew there was no saving it. She lifted her eyes to the figure standing in the doorway, limned by the afternoon sun.

“Damn it, Patrick! Can’t you at least knock?”

The tall, dark-haired man moved around the worktable. His tanned face held a crooked, teasing smile that invited her to play. At the sight of it, the studio felt ten degrees hotter than before. The quick beat of her pulse could come from fright, but she knew that wasn’t the cause. Patrick Berzani was reason enough.

“After three months at sea, you’d think I’d get a better welcome than that.”

Low and intimate, his voice raised a shiver across her skin. He sounded amused that he had startled her, but she could also hear desire threaded through his words. The combination unlocked the lid on memories that Kate thought she had banished forever: their first cup of coffee at the café, his long-lashed, silver-gray eyes looking at her with warm interest, his curly black hair splayed across her pillow, begging to be touched. She tried in vain to stuff all these images back where they belonged. She had spent months forgetting them—and him—and thought she had succeeded. How could all that effort disappear like smoke?

The smile, the eyes, his hair, even the golden earring, high in the curve of his left ear, had deceived her from the start. Patrick had laughed when she asked if he was an artist like her. No, he was a sailor—a racer—whose only experience painting was on the hull of a sailboat. The earring was from a trip around Cape Horn. Later, after they were lovers, she learned other things: he got the tattoo around his arm after his first voyage across the equator, wore boat shoes for all occasions and always had string and a rigging knife in his pocket for emergency repairs.