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The World's Best Dad
Valerie Taylor
World's Best Dad:Keep your eyes on his kids–not on his bodyDon't imagine yourself the star in his bedtime storiesMake this your mantra: He's not a man–he's a dadJulie Miles had been a mom for 43 hours and 10 minutes when she realized her adopted daughter needed a dad. So it was a stroke of luck that new neighbor Ben Harbison was a single father and gorgeous…right?Ben's bedroom eyes and sexy dimples made Julie finally feel like a passionate woman! She knew only the best dad would do for her new daughter…but could there ever be a better man for Julie?
She’d wanted him to kiss her
Her heart picked up a beat as she remembered the feeling of Ben’s arms around her, his mouth poised a hairbreadth away from hers. It had been irresistible, the pull of his lips.
Thank goodness her daughter hadn’t seen them kissing. She already saw Ben as a possible father—what would she have thought if she’d seen Julie in his arms?
She had to resist Ben. She had to think of her child. The girl needed a father and stability. If a relationship between Julie and Ben didn’t work out, Marisa would be devastated.
And yet…Julie looked back at Ben’s house. She could see him through the window. No matter what sense her mind tried to speak, there was no fooling her body. It was no longer deniable: She wanted Ben.
Dear Reader,
February is a month made for romance, and here at Harlequin American Romance we invite you to be our Valentine!
Every month, we bring you four reasons to celebrate romance, and beloved author Muriel Jensen has reasons of her own—Four Reasons for Fatherhood, to be precise. Join former workaholic Aaron Bradley as he learns about parenthood—and love—from four feisty youngsters and one determined lady in the finale to our exciting miniseries THE DADDY CLUB.
Some men just have a way with women, and our next two heroes are no exception. In Pamela Bauer’s Corporate Cowboy, when Austin Bennett hits his head and loses his memory, Kacy Judd better watch out—because her formerly arrogant boss is suddenly the most irresistible man in town! And in Married by Midnight by Mollie Molay, Maxwell Taylor has more charm than even he suspects—he goes to a wedding one day, and wakes up married the next!
And if you’re wondering HOW TO MARRY…The World’s Best Dad, look no farther than Valerie Taylor’s heartwarming tale. Julie Miles may not follow her own advice, but she’s got gorgeous Ben Harbison’s attention anyway!
We hope you enjoy every romantic minute of our four wonderful stories.
Warm wishes,
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
How to Marry…
The World’s Best Dad
Valerie Taylor
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my father,
Gordon,
who truly was the world’s best.
Thanks, Dad.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Valerie Taylor lives in Cincinnati with her husband (the world’s second-best daddy) and two young children. In her spare time she reads parenting how-to books and feels inadequate.
Write to her at P.O. Box 42-8825, Cincinnati, OH 45242.
Books by Valerie Taylor
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
676—THE MOMMY SCHOOL
816—THE WORLD’S BEST DAD
Contents
Chapter One (#u718a7091-0522-5d43-9850-b67d1d1a248e)
Chapter Two (#ube593818-f66d-58ce-9307-3253da6c06e5)
Chapter Three (#u32e92e5f-4ada-5177-80b0-92577788cdb2)
Chapter Four (#u8c1350c1-c217-5f50-8ba5-267d05012e78)
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)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“Decision’s up to you. Motherhood or your job.”
Julie Miles pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it in disgust. Was her boss listening to himself? If the choice was her child or her job, of course, she’d choose Marisa. Ed had kids of his own—why couldn’t he understand that?
Then again, he had a spouse to deal with the kids so he could work.
Maybe that’s what she needed, a spouse.
She took a deep, calming breath and put the phone back to her ear. “Ed, of course, my job is important to me.” For one thing, if she didn’t have a job, how would she and Marisa live? “But you know things are a little crazy for me right now. I’ve been a mom for exactly—” she checked her watch “—forty-three hours and ten minutes. And I’ve been a home owner for less than twenty-four hours. Cut me a break, will you?”
“I’ve already given you break after break these past couple weeks,” Ed grumbled. “Phillipa Grange keeps calling, and I know nothing about that stupid program of hers. And you know I’ve got the brass coming in next week. And here you are, getting on the mommy track. Ridiculous, a twenty-five-year-old with no husband adopting a preschooler.”
Ed wasn’t really a complete jerk, Julie told herself. He was just playing one on the phone.
“Not to mention you leaving me in the lurch with Cincinnati Eagle.”
Aha. The real agenda, finally. One of his biggest clients coming in for a presentation later in the week and Ed had no idea how to put the presentation together. He was going to look exceedingly stupid on Friday if something didn’t fall his way.
Well, this week, it was his problem. This week, she was a mom. For a moment, she allowed the pure delight of that to distract her from dealing with her boss. She was a mom. She smiled to herself.
“Julie? Are you still there?”
Back to the problem at hand. “Ed, go look in my files under Frequent Flyer Programs. You’ll find dozens similar to what Cinci Eagle wants. Make some changes so it looks like you were listening when they told us what they wanted, and give the project to Carla. Believe me, she can do everything I can do.”
He grumbled some more, but he let her off the phone. Just in time, too, because the movers were coming up the walk with her box spring. In the rain. As she watched, they walked through the muddy flower bed—well, weed bed, really—scraped the box spring across the porch railing, and just managed to avoid stepping on the plastic runner they’d spread out to protect her living room carpeting.
Not that she liked the stained mauve carpet, but a coating of mud was not the answer.
Mrs. Malloy, Julie’s enormously fat tiger-striped cat, lumbered into the living room carrying the carcass of yet another of the mice she was helpfully hunting in the basement. She deposited it on the living room window seat next to the others. She seemed to be arranging them by size. Julie suppressed a shudder and tried not to think about it.
The burliest of the three movers nodded at her, the wet box spring balanced in his muddy arms. “Where to, lady?”
“Master bedroom, please. Upstairs.” They turned and manhandled the box spring upstairs, knocking hard into a railing as they negotiated the turn in the stairs. Julie reached over to check it. Yep, loose. Of course, it had probably been loose before. Everything in the house was either loose or painted shut. Her new home was a handyman’s special.
Unfortunately, Julie barely knew which was the business end of a screwdriver. She made a note to herself to find a book on home repairs.
“Julie? Where’s my stuff?” Marisa—the reason for all of this, for everything Julie had done in the past month—hesitated slightly at the top of the stairs before starting down, as if she weren’t sure what she was doing was okay. The five-year-old had been bounced from foster home to her mother and back again for the past four and a half years. But now she finally had a forever family: Julie.
Marisa blushed. “I mean, Mom.” She looked down, and Julie felt the little girl’s embarrassment. “Sorry, I forgot,” she said on the barest whisper.
Julie squatted next to her. “Marisa, it’s okay if you forget. It’s hard to remember at first. I keep forgetting, too. Then I remember—I have a daughter!” She smiled in delight and Marisa smiled back. Julie pulled her into a big hug. The too-skinny little body stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. Marisa wasn’t quite ready to hug back, but in the days since the adoption papers had been signed, she’d been getting more comfortable. Julie knew Marisa still didn’t quite believe it was for real, but the hope, heartbreaking in its fragility, was always in her eyes.
Marisa pulled away slightly, looking over Julie’s shoulder into the living room, and Julie let her go. Her eyes widened, and her lips drew back in distaste. “Mom! What’s that?”
Julie turned around. Mrs. Malloy’s mice, that’s what that was. “Oh, that’s just a mess I’m getting ready to clean up. Don’t look, honey.” She hurried into the kitchen to find some paper towels and an empty grocery sack.
When she returned, Marisa was leaning over the window seat. “Gross!”
Julie turned her away from the sight. “Don’t worry, honey, I’m going to take care of it.”
“Mary wouldn’t take care of it. Mary would make George take care of it.” Mary and George had been Marisa’s most recent foster parents. “Mary says daddies do that.”
“Well, in this house, I do that.” Brave words, but the familiar anxiety hit Julie in the pit of her stomach anyway. It seemed as if every time she turned around there was yet another message that kids needed both a mother and a father.
When Marisa didn’t appear to be convinced by Julie’s words, Julie patted her on the shoulder reassuringly. “Honey, if daddies can do it, so can mommies.” That was what Julie kept telling herself, anyway. It didn’t stop her stomach from rebelling as she picked up the dead mice and dropped them into the sack.
After Julie had disposed of the bodies, Marisa apparently remembered her original errand. “Mom, my stuff isn’t here!” She looked up into Julie’s eyes anxiously. Her “stuff”—the pitifully little amount that there was—was in two cardboard boxes in Julie’s car.
“That’s okay, I know where it is. It’s in my car, safe and dry.”
Marisa screwed her face into a doubtful frown.
Julie smiled, resigned to getting wet. “Okay, let’s go get it.” She stood and took Marisa’s hand, and they walked out onto the porch. “Ready?” Marisa nodded. “Okay, let’s go!” Still holding hands, they ran out into the downpour and across the front yard to the car.
Julie yanked open the hatchback of her elderly navy-blue Saab and dragged out a cardboard carton. “Here, you take this one, I’ll get the big one.” She grabbed the other carton and balanced it on her hip while she jerked the hatchback shut. The two of them hurried back through the rain to the porch, laughing as they got drenched.
They carried the boxes upstairs to Marisa’s room. Marisa dived into the first to check her most treasured possessions, her battered, much-read books. Julie smiled at her intensity. It was one of the things she’d loved first about Marisa. For a moment, before getting back to work, Julie simply watched and enjoyed her daughter.
Wringing water from her brown hair, Julie trotted back down the stairs and into the living room just as her friend Carla Hartshorn came through the front door, her own short blond curls dripping. The two of them probably looked worse than Mrs. Malloy’s mice.
Julie raised her eyebrows. “Ed let you leave? I just got off the phone with him, and he was panicking.”
Carla grinned. “I’m on my lunch hour.”
“At four in the afternoon?”
“I didn’t get lunch earlier, due to him freaking out. Good idea of yours, having him go through an old presentation and mark it up. That’ll keep him busy all night.”
“Yeah, but it’ll leave you with the cleanup tomorrow.”
Carla shrugged her dainty shoulders. “I know what you wanted for Cinci Eagle, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Now, what can I do to help?”
Julie gave her a grateful look. “Bless you, my child. You can call the plumber and find out why he still isn’t here even though we had a nine-o’clock appointment and every time I call they say we’re the next stop. And you can call Cincinnati Power & Light and find out why we still don’t have electricity even though they were supposed to turn it on this morning.” She handed Carla her cell phone and the list of calls she’d made. “And Cincinnati Telephone, too, while you’re at it, to find out why the phone hasn’t been turned on. All these cell calls are going to break me.”
Carla clicked the phone. “No, they won’t.”
Julie shot her a questioning glance.
Carla held up the phone. “Battery’s dead.”
Wonderful.
BEN HARBISON TURNED from his four-year-old son in the bathtub to grab the portable phone on the sink behind him. “Hello?”
“Ben?”
He sighed to himself. Maggie. A nice woman, a wonderful grandmother, but she’d been trying to run his life and Joe’s ever since Rose died two years ago. “Hi, Maggie. What’s up?”
“Ben, I’m concerned about Joey.”
No surprise. Maggie was always concerned about Joey. Ben glanced at his son. “Just a minute, Maggie.” He covered the mouthpiece for a moment. “No splashing, understand?”
Joe frowned. “Cats don’t splash. Cats don’t like water.”
A cat. Well, a cat was better than a rabbit, which Joe had been for three carrot-filled days last month. Ben had worried the kid would turn orange.
“Excellent!” Ben handed his son the washcloth. “You can give yourself a nice cat-bath with this cat-tongue.”
