Baby Wishes And Bachelor Kisses

The baby wasn’t the only one playing havoc with her emotions, Bethany was forced to admit. Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author Letter to Reader Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Copyright

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

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Baby Wishes And Bachelor Kisses

Valerie Parv

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.

Lana had hated the move and made no secret of preferring the bright-lights, big-city scene to living on a country acreage surrounded by vineyards and artists’ colonies, even though he explained that a child needed growing space and room to run and play.

“How far can she run in a bassinet?” Lana had demanded.

He should have seen the end coming then, but he’d hoped that they would somehow work things out and become a family. If Lana had only waited another half hour, Maree would have cried herself to sleep.

It wouldn’t have helped, he acknowledged. The baby was like a faulty fire alarm, liable to go off at any time. Like now, for instance. She was up to a three-alarm already and the decibels were still climbing. It would be easier if Maree would take to a nanny, but Nicholas would have sworn the local women he auditioned were potential ax murderers, from the way Maree reacted to them. A psychological consequence of losing her parents, he assumed.

For the first time he wondered if Lana had been jealous of the amount of time and attention Maree demanded from Nicholas. Did all babies cause such havoc in their parents’ relationship? His scientist’s mind worried at the question, but he was too exhausted to deal with it now. He only hoped this Bethany had some answers, because he was fresh out of them.

Chapter One

The unexpected sound of a baby screaming stopped Bethany Dale in her tracks outside the substantial colonial farmhouse that belonged to Nicholas Frakes. As far as she knew Nicholas Frakes was a bachelor. According to an old article she’d clipped from a magazine and kept, Nicholas was involved in a torrid affair with a fashion model, but there was no mention of a child. Yet the sounds coming from inside the house were unmistakable.

The front door stood open, shielded by a handsome, period-style, security screen door, and the baby’s cries reached her clearly on the wide verandah that shaded the house on three sides. Bethany’s reaction was instant and fierce. Waves of primitive need clawed at her, bringing a huge lump to her throat so she could hardly breathe.

Why did Nicholas Frakes have to be entertaining visitors with a baby on the day he had agreed to see Bethany? It didn’t seem fair. Now she would have to conduct her interview while striving to ignore the ache she could already feel starting deep inside her.

Her eyes began to mist, and she blinked furiously. She had to get hold of herself before she rang the doorbell to announce her arrival. The world was full of babies. Just because she was unable to have any of her own was no reason to go to pieces every time she heard one crying.

Even aversion therapy hadn’t helped. After discovering the truth, she had deliberately volunteered to work in the newborn room at the children’s shelter in Melbourne where she worked part-time. But instead of putting her off babies, being around them had only deepened her sense of loss.

As a distraction, she had decided to throw herself into the journal she edited for people who shared her enthusiasm for dollhouses and miniatures, although the name of her publication was ironic. She had called it The Baby House, the name historically used to describe dollhouses before they had become children’s toys. Of course, she had named it before finding out that she couldn’t have children. But it was uncanny how she seemed destined to be surrounded by reminders of her barren state.

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. She was not—repeat not—going to let this beat her. Surely her parents’ example was all the proof she needed that other forms of parenting could be equally gratifying? The Dale family included three foster siblings as well as Bethany, her older brother, Sam, and little sister, Joanie, and all six of them loved and fought and loved again with all the passion of blood brothers and sisters.

She could handle one unexpected baby, she told herself resolutely, especially if it meant persuading Nicholas Frakes to let her interview him about the Frakes Baby House for her journal. That was, once he got over being furious with her for concealing the real reason she was here. She hadn’t lied exactly, except by omission. But she had used her business letterhead and suggested that the article would concern family history in this area. In a way, it did, she told herself to silence the nagging voice of her conscience. She hadn’t said it wasn’t about the dollhouse so she couldn’t be responsible for whatever conclusions Nicholas Frakes chose to draw.

She wished she’d had more time to research his background more thoroughly but his faxed agreement, scribbled on the bottom of her letter, had come out of the blue two days before. She had been working at the children’s shelter until late on both days, leaving her no time to do anything but write out a few questions she would like him to answer.

She was sure he would have refused to see her if she had mentioned the real purpose of her visit. It was Nicholas himself who had withdrawn his family’s famous dollhouse from public display soon after inheriting the Frakes estate on his father’s death. Why, nobody seemed to know, but he had resisted all overtures from the media to gain access to it. It would be a real coup if Bethany could secure the interview and photograph the house as it was today.

Her breath escaped in a rush. Without the boost to circulation provided by this story, her journal wouldn’t survive for another issue. She could have struggled on, funding it herself, if the printer hadn’t gone bankrupt while holding a substantial amount of her capital and leaving her in debt. But she couldn’t let herself dwell on what was riding on this interview or she would lose her nerve altogether. And there would be no story unless she gained the cooperation of the formidable Nicholas Frakes.

Squaring her shoulders and drawing herself up to her full five foot seven, including her heeled shoes, she pressed the doorbell, hearing it ring distantly inside the house. At the same moment, the baby began to scream again louder than ever, and Bethany’s heart turned over. The child sounded so desolate. Why didn’t somebody do something to comfort it? In spite of her resolve to remain unmoved, her arms ached to hold the child and rock away those pathetic cries.

After the third ring, when no one came to the door, Bethany decided the occupants couldn’t possibly hear her above the sound of the crying baby, so she set off around the verandah in search of another entrance where she could make her presence known.

The house was a delightful blend of traditional and modern styles, the rough-sawn timber cladding blending charmingly with bay windows, a steeply pitched corrugated roof and stained-glass panels set into French doors that could be opened onto the verandah to let in cooling breezes. One set stood open, and frothy curtains billowed outward as Bethany moved cautiously toward them.

“Hello. Is anyone home?” she called tentatively.

There was no response so she stepped over the threshold, finding herself in what was obviously a man’s bedroom. A not very tidy man, she observed, wrinkling her nose involuntarily. The massive mahogany bed looked as if it hadn’t been made for days, with black silk sheets and continental quilt dragging onto the floor as if the occupant had hurled himself out in a hurry.

The black silk made her smile. Definitely a bachelor. No woman in her right mind would choose such difficult-to-launder materials. Clothes were strewn everywhere, and Bethany felt her color heighten as she noticed the underwear draped over one corner of a cheval mirror. Evidently Nicholas Frakes’s taste ran to skimpy briefs of almost transparent silk.

The sight of herself in the same mirror brought her up short. Her moss green linen pantsuit looked so businesslike for this setting. A black chiffon negligee would be more appropriate. No, not black—too strong for her creamy complexion, she decided. Coral was more becoming. And her honey-colored hair should be released from its clasp at her nape to flow around her shoulders in untamed curls, although the comma curl on her forehead could stay. It added a touch of coquettishness to her teal blue eyes and with luck, provided a distraction from the scattering of freckles on her fair skin. Then she would be ready for such a hedonistic setting as this room.

In horror she realized where her thoughts were heading. She had no right to be here, far less to be taking such a prurient interest in Nicholas Frakes’s bedroom, if this was even his room. Averting her eyes from the chaos, she hurriedly crossed the room and stepped out into a wide vaulted hallway.

The crying sounds grew louder as she headed toward them. She skidded to a halt at what was apparently the door to the kitchen. It was a huge room with a massive stone fireplace and a vaulted, steeply pitched ceiling. In the center was a scarred oak table, and seated at it in a high chair was the unhappy little girl making all the noise. Beside her was an equally unhappy man trying unsuccessfully to spoon food into her mouth.

Bethany stared in amazement at the tableau. She had seen a photograph of Nicholas Frakes’s head and shoulders, but it hadn’t prepared her for the height and breadth of the man. A fraction over six feet tall, he stooped awkwardly over the high chair. A pair of stonewashed moleskin pants rode low on narrow hips, the seams strained to their limits as he braced his long legs wide apart. She had a momentary vision of trying to keep pace with the stride those legs would take, and she felt out of breath just thinking about it.

He wore no shirt, and his bronzed torso gleamed in the sunshine spilling through an open window, the sight putting further restraints on her breathing until she noticed the telltale green streaking the sculpted perfection of his chest. He might have the build of an athlete but he was human after all. If that wasn’t spinach he was wearing, then she’d eat the baby food herself.

The discovery gave her the courage to say loudly, “Nicholas Frakes?”

The man snapped upright as if shot. “Good Lord, where did you spring from?”

She held out her hand. “I’m Bethany Dale. We had an appointment, remember? You didn’t hear the bell so I came in the back way.”

“The back way is locked,” he said pointedly.

There was no escaping the confession, although she blushed at being forced into the admission. “The French doors into your bedroom were open. I came in that way. I’m sorry if I’m intruding.”

He thrust a hand through his hair which was the blue-black color of gunmetal and cropped close to his head in almost a military style. The texture was intriguing. Would it feel soft or bristly if she brushed her fingers against it?

She was doing it again, she realized with a start. What was it about Nicholas Frakes that inspired these almost voyeuristic tendencies in her? First the underwear. Now she was wondering how it would feel to brush her fingers through his hair. And she had barely set eyes on the man.

“You’re here now so the question is academic. We’re almost finished. Milady is finished,” he added with a tired jerk of his head toward the baby who was banging a plastic cup angrily against the tray of her high chair. “I suppose she’ll eat if she gets really hungry.”

Bethany glanced curiously around, putting two and two together. “You’re here on your own with—”

“Maree,” he supplied. “Yes, it’s just me and my loud friend.”

Loud was right. Bethany could hardly hear herself think over the baby’s racket. She certainly couldn’t conduct an interview under these conditions, even if Nicholas agreed to cooperate. For all their sakes, and especially for the sake of the little girl whose cries threatened to melt Bethany’s remaining reserves, there was only one thing to do.

“Would you like some help?”

He looked so thankful as he nodded and held out the tiny spoon, that her heart was further caught in a viselike squeeze. She could see how tired he was. His bronzed skin had a pale undercast as if sleep was a distant memory, and there were violet smudges beneath both his eyes which were a compelling pewter color.