Terry Essig - What The Nursery Needs...

“Catherine, are you pregnant with somebody’s baby?” “Catherine, are you pregnant with somebody’s baby?” She blinked, startled. “What? For heaven’s sake. No. Of course not.” Jason observed her carefully. “Then what’s with the nursery? That’s a lot of work to go through for nothing. I know you mentioned wanting to become a mother. Maybe you’re planning on adopting?” Catherine twirled her hair. “Not exactly.” She took a deep breath. “Funny you should bring this up, Jason, because I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” His eyes never left her face. “What?” She sipped her coffee and studied the inside of the mug as though it held the secret of life. Finally she blurted out what she’d been holding inside all these weeks. “Jason, would you consider giving me a baby?” Letter to Reader Dear Reader, To ring in 1998—Romance-style!—we’ve got some new voices and some exciting new love stories from the authors you love. Valerie Parv is best known for her Harlequin Romance and Presents novels, but The Billionaire’s Baby Chase, this month’s compelling FABULOUS FEATHERS title, marks her commanding return to Silhouette! This billionaire daddy is pure alpha male...and no one—not even the heroine!—will keep him from his long-lost daughter.... Doreen Roberts’s sparkling new title, In Love with the Boss, features the classic boss/secretary theme. Discover how a no-nonsense temp catches the eye—and heart—of her wealthy brooding boss. If you want to laugh out loud, don’t miss Terry Essig’s What the Nursery Needs... In this charming story, what the heroine needs is the right man to make a baby! Hmm... A disillusioned rancher finds himself thinking, Say You’ll Stay and Marry Me, when he falls for the beautiful wanderer who is stranded on his ranch in this emotional tale by Patti Standard. And, believe me, if you think The Bride, the Trucker and the Great Escape sounds fun, just wait till you read this engaging romantic adventure by Suzanne McMinn. And in The Sheriff with the Wyoming-Size Heart by Kathy Jacobson, emotions run high as a small-town lawman and a woman with secrets try to give romance a chance.... And there’s much more to come in 1998! I hope you enjoy our selections this month—and every month. Happy New Year! 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 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3 Title Page What The Nursery Needs… Terry Essig www.millsandboon.co.uk Dedication To Stephanie Scharf, for all those long drives to Chicago’s Inner City to help me teach art. And to her husband, David Taber, for his help and support. You’re both the best. About the Author TERRY ESSIG lives in northern Indiana. She has six children, a wonderful husband and a crazy English setter. (Better the dog than the husband, although with all the music lessons, sport activities and general mayhem, the husband may more than occasionally feel like he’s losing his mind.) Terry finds it all, uh, good inspiration for her writing? Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Copyright

“Catherine, are you pregnant with somebody’s baby?”

She blinked, startled. “What? For heaven’s sake. No. Of course not.”

Jason observed her carefully. “Then what’s with the nursery? That’s a lot of work to go through for nothing. I know you mentioned wanting to become a mother. Maybe you’re planning on adopting?”

Catherine twirled her hair. “Not exactly.” She took a deep breath. “Funny you should bring this up, Jason, because I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

His eyes never left her face. “What?”

She sipped her coffee and studied the inside of the mug as though it held the secret of life. Finally she blurted out what she’d been holding inside all these weeks. “Jason, would you consider giving me a baby?”

Dear Reader,

To ring in 1998—Romance-style!—we’ve got some new voices and some exciting new love stories from the authors you love.

Valerie Parv is best known for her Harlequin Romance and Presents novels, but The Billionaire’s Baby Chase, this month’s compelling FABULOUS FEATHERS title, marks her commanding return to Silhouette! This billionaire daddy is pure alpha male...and no one—not even the heroine!—will keep him from his long-lost daughter....

Doreen Roberts’s sparkling new title, In Love with the Boss, features the classic boss/secretary theme. Discover how a no-nonsense temp catches the eye—and heart—of her wealthy brooding boss. If you want to laugh out loud, don’t miss Terry Essig’s What the Nursery Needs... In this charming story, what the heroine needs is the right man to make a baby! Hmm...

A disillusioned rancher finds himself thinking, Say You’ll Stay and Marry Me, when he falls for the beautiful wanderer who is stranded on his ranch in this emotional tale by Patti Standard. And, believe me, if you think The Bride, the Trucker and the Great Escape sounds fun, just wait till you read this engaging romantic adventure by Suzanne McMinn. And in The Sheriff with the Wyoming-Size Heart by Kathy Jacobson, emotions run high as a small-town lawman and a woman with secrets try to give romance a chance....

And there’s much more to come in 1998! I hope you enjoy our selections this month—and every month.

Happy New Year!

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

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Stephanie Scharf,

for all those long drives to Chicago’s Inner City

to help me teach art. And to her husband, David Taber,

for his help and support.

You’re both the best.

TERRY ESSIG

lives in northern Indiana. She has six children, a wonderful husband and a crazy English setter. (Better the dog than the husband, although with all the music lessons, sport activities and general mayhem, the husband may more than occasionally feel like he’s losing his mind.) Terry finds it all, uh, good inspiration for her writing?

Chapter One

The dark blue sedan drew up to the curb, its speed slowing to match the pace of the young preadolescent girl walking down the sidewalk. With a near silent whisper, the passenger side window slid down. The driver leaned over to call out through the opening, “Hey, you with the snazzy earrings, want a ride? I’ve got candy.” He let the temptation dangle in the air between them.

The child, temporarily forgetting the embarrassment of her barely burgeoning breasts, pulled her shoulders back and glared in the direction of the car. “No, thanks,” she said, adjusting her backpack strap on her shoulder and picking up her pace. “My father doesn’t want me talking to strange men.”

The man behind the wheel slumped briefly. The emphasis on the word father didn’t bode well. Whatever happened to daddy? He sighed and stepped slightly on the gas. The car surged just enough to keep him abreast of the girl. “Oh, come on. Don’t be like that. I’ve got a ton of candy in here. Wouldn’t you like a treat after a hard day at school?”

The girl stopped in her tracks and turned to face the car. “What kind of candy?” she asked.

“Get in the car and I’ll show you.”

“It’s probably something I don’t even like.”

“Bet it’s not. I bet it’s your favorite.”

At that, the girl flipped her ponytail and left the safety of the sidewalk. She approached the car. “Oh, yeah? Let’s see.” Her eyes widened at the variety of candy bars displayed on the front seat. Without hesitating any further, she opened the passenger door and slid in. The car gunned away from the curb to merge seemlessly back into traffic.

Her favorite was indeed there, but when the girl made to take it, the man’s hand stayed hers. “The deal is if you take that, it means the snit is officially over and you have to start talking to me again.”

The preadolescent’s eyes narrowed as she considered the catch. “Will you let Connie and me go to the mall together?”

“No. Not without an adult. My answer to that won’t change. I work with somebody whose name is forever sealed behind my lips, so don’t ask, whose niece runs in that same group. She tells me Connie and another girl were picked up for shoplifting some makeup—lipstick and stuff like that. The manager of the store let it drop when Connie’s mother made her apologize and pay double, but she might not be so lucky next time. If you’re out with somebody like that, even if you haven’t taken anything yourself, you could get picked up as an accessory, to say nothing of the fact that it just isn’t safe for two young girls to be at the mall by themselves. And don’t start on how nothing ever happens in South Bend or even the entire state of Indiana. You’ve said it all before and I still say there are too many weirdos out there.”

“Connie said she didn’t know how that lipstick got in her pocket. She thinks maybe it rolled off the shelf while she was standing there. Or else maybe Angie slipped it into her shorts pocket at the checkout when she was waiting to pay for her gum, just to get her in trouble. They had a fight that day.”

The disbelieving adult snort was loud and prolonged. “Yeah, right. How stupid do I look?”

“Besides, lots of other kids I know have tried shoplifting. They just didn’t get caught.”

“Let me put it to you this way, sweetie. You even think about trying it and you won’t set so much as a big toe outside your bedroom door for a month of Sundays. Understand?”

“But, Dad...”

Jason John Engel silently ground his teeth at his daughter’s whining tone. “I mean it, Maura, issues like this are nonnegotiable. The candy doesn’t mean I’m weakening, just that I’m willing to sweeten the refusal. Like I told you before, I can probably take you and a friend, preferably not Connie, to the mall this weekend, if you want.”

“No. Everybody else gets to go to the mall by themselves. It would be too embarrassing if anybody saw. I’d never be able to face my friends again.”

Jason shrugged, knowing he shouldn’t take her rejection personally, but doing so, anyway. “Fine. Then you don’t go.”

His twelve-year-old daughter, he noticed, ground her teeth exactly the way he did when frustrated. But she did take the candy bar. He waited until after her first bite. “So we’re talking again, right?”

Maura’s mouth stilled briefly as she stopped chewing and eyed him. Jason just hoped she wasn’t going to spit the candy all over him. He was wearing a good suit. Eventually she nodded her head in the affirmative.

Jason was afraid his relief was palpable in the car. It was scary how much control a twelve-year-old could wield with her moods and whims. It amounted . to emotional blackmail at times.

“By the way,” he said. “I want you to walk home from school on the opposite side of the street from now on. Did you see how easy it was for me to stay next to you and talk to you? If I’d have had a mind to, I could have easily hopped out of the car and grabbed you. On the other side of the street, you’d be walking against traffic, and it would be much harder for anybody in a car to harrass you.”