Maybe My Baby

Maybe My Baby
Victoria Pade

THERE WAS A BABY ON HIS DOORSTEP!Emmy Harris knew her new job would be demanding, but she hadn't been prepared to have to live in the Alaskan wilderness with a gorgeous doctor–and his maybe baby! She was a professional, though; she could handle this. Until she held baby Mickey. Until the good doctor melted her with a single kiss….Aiden Tarlington knew better than to risk his heart on a sophisticated city girl like Emmy. So why couldn't he stop kissing her, wanting her, thinking about the three of them–how nice it felt, how much he wanted it to last forever?

Emmy had to remember all the things she knew better than to lose sight of.

Like the fact that she was in Boonesbury on business. Boonesbury, where she would never choose to vacation, let alone live the way Aiden did.

Like the fact that at that exact moment Aiden Tarlington could have a child of his own sleeping downstairs in his bedroom. A child he hadn’t expected to have and might now have to raise all on his own.

It was just that even remembering all that didn’t chase away the image of him in her mind.

Tall and muscular. Incredible to look at. Incredible to be with.

And so simmeringly sexy that she could still feel the heat of him as if he’d left an imprint on her.

Dear Reader,

Our resolution is to start the year with a bang in Silhouette Special Edition! And so we are featuring Peggy Webb’s The Accidental Princess—our pick for this month’s READERS’ RING title. You’ll want to use the riches in this romance to facilitate discussions with your friends and family! In this lively tale, a plain Jane agrees to be the local Dairy Princess and wins the heart of the bad-boy reporter who wants her story…among other things.

Next up, Sherryl Woods thrills her readers once again with the newest installment of THE DEVANEYS—Michael’s Discovery. Follow this ex-navy SEAL hero as he struggles to heal from battle—and save himself from falling hard for his beautiful physical therapist! Pamela Toth’s Man Behind the Badge, the third book in her popular WINCHESTER BRIDES miniseries, brings us another stunning hero in the form of a flirtatious sheriff, whose wild ways are numbered when he meets—and wants to rescue—a sweet, yet reclusive woman with a secret past. Talking about secrets, a doctor hero is stunned when he finds a baby—maybe even his baby—on the doorstep in Victoria Pade’s Maybe My Baby, the second book in her BABY TIMES THREE miniseries. Add a feisty heroine to the mix, and you have an instant family.

Teresa Southwick delivers an unforgettable story in Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles. In it, a nurse feels a strong attraction to her handsome patient, yet she doesn’t want him to discover the real connection between them. And Patricia Kay’s Annie and the Confirmed Bachelor explores the blossoming love between a self-made millionaire and a woman who can’t remember her past. Can their romance survive?

This month’s lineup is packed with intrigue, passion, complex heroines and heroes who never give up. Keep your own resolution to live life romantically, with a treat from Silhouette Special Edition. Happy New Year, and happy reading!

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Maybe My Baby

Victoria Pade

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

VICTORIA PADE

is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and the mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland; instead she spends all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter One

The plane had landed in Fairbanks, Alaska, but there was a delay in clearance to unload passengers. So while Emmy Harris waited with everyone else, she took the makeup bag from her carry-on to do a little repair work.

As the new director of the Bernsdorf Foundation, she didn’t want to look travel worn when she met Dr. Aiden Tarlington for the first time. He was a good friend of the head of the foundation’s board of trustees—the Old Boys, as Emmy and her assistant referred to them.

The trustees were the seven men—all of them old enough to be Emmy’s grandfather—who were her bosses. And if she’d learned nothing else in the two months since she’d been promoted to director, she knew that one hair out of place could shoot a hole in her credibility with them.

So, since she assumed Dr. Tarlington was Howard Wilson’s contemporary, she knew better than to present anything less than a perfectly professional appearance and attitude. It was the only way to counteract the demerit of her relatively young age when dealing with that particular generation—even when she was the person in the position of power, the way she was on a fact-finding trip like this one. Which also happened to be her first ever.

There wasn’t the need for too much makeup repair, though, because Emmy didn’t wear much in the first place. At twenty-nine her skin was clear and she hadn’t yet discovered any wrinkles, which meant she didn’t have anything to camouflage. She did like to dust her high cheekbones with a pale-pink blush, however, and after a full day on the go she wanted to blot the shine from her narrow, not-too-long nose.

Before she’d left home that morning she’d also applied just enough mascara to darken her lashes and accentuate her hazel eyes. That didn’t need refreshing, despite the fact that it was now late in the afternoon. But the pale-mauve lipstick she’d used twice already during the day was once again in need of replenishment, so she carefully filled in her full lips with that.

She’d pulled her very straight, thick, auburn hair into a tight bun at the nape of her neck—again in an effort to add years and professionalism to her appearance. But a few wisps had strayed and she combed them smoothly back into place.

As the plane finally began to roll forward again, she tucked the makeup bag into the carry-on and unfastened her seat belt. She brushed at her navy-blue skirt to rid it of the pencil erasings that had accumulated while she’d worked through the flight. Then she stretched one leg out as far as she could to see if the new, expensive nylons were going to hold up to their claim that they wouldn’t bag at the knees even after long periods of sitting.

The minute the plane came to its second stop at the terminal and the pilot thanked the passengers for flying with his particular airline, Emmy stood up and put her suit jacket on over her high-necked white blouse.

She was eager to get off the plane and down to the business of checking out the small community of Boonsebury. Part of her new job as director was to gather information and recommend that the foundation bestow one of their grants to bring more modern medical care to the rural area or recommend that the foundation deny the application.

Either way she didn’t want to be in Boonesbury, in Alaska, any longer than necessary. She was a city girl through and through, and she already knew that these trips to the backwaters of America were not going to be her favorite part of being the foundation’s director. They definitely hadn’t been her predecessor, Evelyn Wright’s, favorite part. In fact, a trip like this one, to a very underdeveloped area in Arkansas, had ultimately caused Evelyn to resign.

At the first opportunity, Emmy slipped out of her row into the main aisle and began the slow trek to the exit door. Aiden Tarlington was to meet her at the Fairbanks airport and take her the rest of the way to Boonesbury where he was the sole doctor.

She imagined that he’d be a paunchy old country doctor and hoped that, if the remainder of her journey required him to drive, his eyesight and reflexes weren’t waning the way Howard Wilson’s were. The last time she’d ridden with Howard he’d scared her nearly to death.

There were a number of people waiting just inside the gate as she stepped through it into the airport and Emmy initially scanned the crowd for a head of white hair—like Howard’s. She had no basis for that. For all she knew Dr. Tarlington might be as bald as Rooney Whitlove—another of the Old Boys.

Then she realized that a couple of people were holding signs with names on them and she amended her view to read those signs since that was a more likely way to connect with the man she was meeting.

No, she was not Sharon.

She wasn’t Winston Murphy, either.

But she was Emmy Harris….

Only, the man holding the cardboard rectangle with her name written on it was hardly white-haired. Or bald. Or old, for that matter.