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The Non-Commissioned Baby
Maureen Child
BACHELOR BATTALION ASSIGNMENT: FATHERHOOD! Captain Jeff Ryan fought a lot of battles as a marine. But daddy duty was his toughest assignment ever! When an infant was left on his doorstep, Jeff called in reinforcements - and temporary nanny Laura Morgan marched into his life. Suddenly, lovely Laura was giving the orders, and Jeff was under siege.Then baby Miranda captured Laura's heart and was ready to commandeer Jeff's. But he had never planned on being a career father - or husband! Was it only a matter of time before Jeff's reserve would weaken - and he'd forever surrender his heart?BACHELOR BATTALION: Defending their country is their duty; love and marriage is their reward! Don't miss the next irresistible military bachelor in The Oldest Living Married Virgin , in November.
“You Can Handle A Baby For A Few Minutes, Can’t You?” (#ube4306c3-e926-5ba2-ba8c-cb2b2972b993)Letter to Reader (#u669fa4e3-0267-5805-ab0e-7531a07e73ee)Title Page (#u142ebbf9-f551-5971-b3a6-7c1a6e2d2e96)MAUREEN CHILD (#ub32c2f54-ca79-5b40-a937-71c177cc1acf)Dedication (#ue712bec0-368e-5854-a94d-eca9f1575d3d)Chapter One (#u06d450ed-b7c6-570b-bca4-b2be6df16ee4)Chapter Two (#ue05e054c-9593-5363-a2df-33ba68a166cb)Chapter Three (#u12c27845-7028-55db-aab6-270561c26007)Chapter Four (#ue542062e-5b04-5497-b4f3-6cb8a7d54fcf)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)
“You Can Handle A Baby For A Few Minutes, Can’t You?”
Hell, Jeff thought. He could hardly handle being in the same room with Laura! Her cheeks were flushed from the warm, moist air, tendrils of brown hair curled softly around her face, and her eyes looked dewy, despite the spark of challenge she was shooting at him.
His insides twisted with an unexpected pang. Obviously, he thought in disgust, his attraction for her hadn’t weakened any, despite his hopes.
Only one week ago he was a perfectly contented man. His life and career were running smoothly. Now everything around him was in turmoil.
All because of one small person. And her irresistible nanny.
Don’t miss the next installment of the
irresistible BACHELOR BATTALION,
The Oldest Living Married Virgin, coming in
November, only in Silhouette Desire.
Dear Reader,
The perfect treat for cool autumn days are nights curled up with a warm, toasty Silhouette Desire novel!
So, be prepared to get swept away by superstar Rebecca Brandewyne’s MAN OF THE MONTH, The Lioness Tamer, a story of a magnetic corporate giant who takes on a real challenge—taming a wild virginal beauty. THE RULEBREAKERS, talented author Leanne Banks’s miniseries about three undeniably sexy hunks—a millionaire, a bad boy, a protector—continues with The Lone Rider Takes a Bride, when an irresistible rebel introduces passion to a straight-and-narrow lady... and she unexpectedly introduces him to everlasting love. The Paternity Factor by Caroline Cross tells the poignant story of a woman who proves her secret love for a brooding man by caring for the baby she thinks is his.
Also this month, Desire launches OUTLAW HEARTS, a brandnew miniseries by Cindy Gerard about strong-minded outlaw brothers who can’t stop love from stealing their own hearts, in The Outlaw’s Wife. Maureen Child’s gripping miniseries, THE BACHELOR BATTALION, brings readers another sensual, emotional read with The Non-Commissioned Baby And Silhouette has discovered another fantastic talent in debut author Shirley Rogers, one of our WOMEN TO WATCH, with her adorable Cowboys, Babies and Shotgun Vows.
Once again, Silhouette Desire offers unforgettable romance by some of the most beloved and gifted authors in the genre. Don’t forget to come back next month for more happily-ever-afters!
Regards,
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
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
The Non-Commissioned Baby
Maureen Child
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MAUREEN CHILD
was born and raised in southern California and is the only person she knows who longs for an occasional change of season. She is delighted to be writing for Silhouette and is especially excited to be a part of the Desire line.
An avid reader, she looks forward to those rare rainy California days when she can curl up and sink into a good book. Or two. When she isn’t busy writing, she and her husband of twenty-five years like to travel, leaving their two grown children in charge of the neurotic golden retriever who is the real head of the household. She is also an award-winning historical writer under the names Kathleen Kane and Ann Carberry.
For Jaime and Kirk Brogdon
with love to celebrate Hayden.
A baby is a wonderful gift.
Enjoy every minute of your little miracle.
One
“Damn cats.” Jeff Ryan muttered and swung both legs off the edge of the mattress. Stumbling across his bedroom in the heavily draped darkness, he slammed his big toe into the leg of a chair.
He jerked his foot up, cursed viciously, grabbed the throbbing toe and hopped to the closed door. Yanking it open, he let go of his foot and hobbled across the living room, wincing at the jagged slices of sunlight slanting through the half-opened blinds.
What was wrong with people? he thought. Why couldn’t they keep their blasted cats at home instead of letting them sit outside his door howling like lost souls on the way to Hell?
Well, he’d had enough. This time, he’d catch the little beast and carry it straight to the manager’s apartment—or the pound.
In a foul mood that was getting worse by the second, Jeff slid back the dead bolt, threw open the door and made a lunge for the cat.
One small problem.
That was no cat screaming from its roost in the basket just outside his door.
“A baby?”
At least, he told himself as he stared down in horror at the red-faced, screaming mass of humanity, he thought it was a baby. At the moment, it more resembled something out of Aliens.
What was going on around here? He looked up and down the length of the short hallway as if he expected to find the culprit who’d abandoned a baby like something out of a 1930s movie. But no one was there.
He looked down at the baby again, still stunned to find it on his doorstep.
Fat little arms and legs swung wildly in the air, while chubby hands grabbed for something that wasn’t there. And the baby’s howl was designed to puncture eardrums.
“Hey, kid,” he said, bending down to jiggle the basket awkwardly. “Stick a sock in it, will you?”
The infant snorted, sniffed, looked at him, took a deep breath and screamed again.
And people wondered why he had never wanted kids.
Scowling in disgust, Jeff looked up and down the third floor’s long hallway again. Not a sign of anybody. Wouldn’t you know it? Where were his nosy neighbors when he really needed them? Sure, at eleven o’clock in the morning, no one was around. But let him come home at 2:00 a.m. with his date for the evening, and at the very least, old Mrs. Butler would have her head poked out her open door.
Glancing back at the Scream Machine, he noticed an envelope jutting up from the side of the basket, half-covered by a brightly colored knitted blanket.
Despite the thread of worry that had suddenly erupted in his bloodstream, Jeff reached down and plucked the envelope free. Slowly, dreading what he would find, he turned it over.
He cursed again, louder this time, as his gaze locked on his own name scrawled across the front of the envelope.
Captain Jeffrey Ryan, United States Marine Corps.
A baby on the doorstep? Things like that didn’t really happen, did they? His fingers suddenly clumsy, he tore at the sealed flap and pulled out the folded papers. Smoothing them out, he read the note first.
Captain Ryan—Sorry to just leave the baby like this, but you weren’t answering your door and I’ve got 45 minutes to catch a transport to Guam.
He paused. A fellow Marine had done this to him?
I volunteered to bring you the baby. The Sarge’s will is enclosed, too, just so’s everything’s legal. A shame about the Sarge, but we all know you’ll do right by his kid Signed, Corporal Stanley Hubrick.
The Sarge? Jeff wondered. Sergeant who? And what did Corporal Hubrick mean, he knew Jeff would do right by the kid?
Head pounding from the baby’s continued screeching, he skimmed the will once, then again, hitting only a few, significant words. Horrified. he lowered the papers and stared accusingly at the infant.
“No offense, kid, but I am nobody’s guardian.”
Ten minutes later, Jeff was on the phone, the receiver tucked between his ear and his shoulder as he rocked the incredibly unhappy baby in his arms.
At least it had stopped screeching. For the moment.
“I can’t believe this,” his sister repeated for the fifth time.
“You already said that.”
“You’re the baby’s guardian?”
“According to this will, yes.”
“Amazing.”
“Peggy,” he tried to reason with his sister, “you don’t understand. I can’t do this. What do I know about kids?”
“I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett!” she said.
He inhaled sharply and gritted his teeth as she laughed.
“Very funny,” he snarled a moment later, the humor in the situation completely escaping him. “Now, are you going to come down here and help me or not?”
“Not,” Peggy said, amusement still touching the tone of her voice.
“Peg—” He stared, horrified as the baby started chewing on the sleeve of his T-shirt. Drool ran down the baby’s cheeks and chin, pooling in the white fabric. “That’s disgusting,” he muttered.
“What?”
Snapping back to the bigger problem, he said, “Never mind. Peg, you’ve got to come.”
“I always said you’d make a great father.”
Yes, she had, but she had been the only one to think so.
“Cut it out.” Silently, he shouted at his long-dead parents for gifting his sister with such a warped sense of humor. “This is serious. I’ve got to see about correcting this mess. Fast.”
“What’s to correct?” she said, and in the background, he heard one of his nephews apparently trying to behead his niece.
Jeff winced. Maybe he’d called the wrong person for advice on kids.
Her hand obviously half over the phone, Peggy calmly said, “Teddy, don’t twist your sister’s arm, you’ll break it.”
Unbelievable. Teddy. A nine-year-old enforcer.
“Honestly, Jeff,” Peggy spoke to him again. “You’re just going to have to deal with this. Whose baby is it, anyway?”
The name would be forever etched into his memory. “Sergeant Hank Powell. We served together in the Gulf. According to the note, Hank and his wife were killed in a car accident.”
“Oh,” soft-hearted Peggy sighed. “How terrible.”
“Yeah,” Jeff muttered, with a glance at the infant staring at him through wide blue eyes. Heck, he hadn’t seen Hank in years. What had Jeff ever done to make the man hate him enough to saddle him with his kid?
“Oops,” his sister said abruptly. “Gotta run. Thomas’s violin lesson is in fifteen minutes. Then Tina has ballet and Teddy has—”
“Karate?”
She laughed. “No, what am I, nuts? Drums.”
Good Lord. Then, realizing she was hanging up on him, he panicked. “Peg, I need help. At least until I can figure out how to get out of this.”
His sister sighed dramatically. After a moment, though, she perked right up. “Of course!” she said. “I’ll call Laura.”
“Laura?” he repeated. “Laura who?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of her right away,” Peg went on, mostly to herself. “I’m sure she’d be willing.”
“Willing to what?”
“Really, Jeff,” Peggy said abruptly. “I’ve got to rush. Call you later to tell you when to expect Laura.”
“Laura who?” he demanded again.
A dial tone hummed in his ear.
Abandoned, Jeff replaced the receiver and looked down at the finally quiet baby cradled against his side. Actually, when it was silent, holding it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation. A peaceful expression crossed the infant’s face, and Jeff breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the worst was over.
