Baby on Board. Lisa Ruff

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      “I’m going to be a father. Break out the cigars!”

      “No, Patrick. I’m having a baby. I’m having this baby, and I don’t think you should be involved.”

      “I don’t see how I can be any less involved.”

      “I meant—” Kate paused and took a deep breath. “My baby is going to have a father. But it won’t be you.”

      “It’s a little too late to make that choice, Kate. I am the father.”

      She shook her head. “Not in that way.”

      “Oh? So who is the father in that way?”

      “I’ve got a list of possibilities, but I—”

      “A list! And I’m not on it?” With a laugh, he leaned back against the workbench. “What kind of joke is this?”

      Dear Reader,

      For years I have been fascinated with ocean racing. What makes racers tick? Why do they go out and push themselves and their boats to the limits of endurance and beyond? And if disaster strikes and they are rescued, why do they go out and do it again? From the outside—even to a sailor like myself—that kind of racing looks crazy. But a sexy confidence, a bold swagger, runs among this breed of racers, the sort that can look attractive to a woman standing safely on the shore.

      The inspiration for this book came from wondering what love was like for these exceptional men. Some must have girlfriends waiting for them at home. Some even have homes and families. From there, Baby on Board began to take shape. I hope you enjoy reading about Patrick and Kate and the choices they have to make to find happiness.

      Please visit me at www.lisaruff.net. And keep a watch out for my next book!

      Happy reading,

      Lisa Ruff

      Baby on Board

      Lisa Ruff

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Lisa Ruff was born in Montana and grew up in Idaho but met the man of her dreams in Seattle. She married Kirk promising to love, honor and edit his rough drafts. His pursuit of writing led Lisa to the craft. A longtime reader of romance, she decided to try to create one herself. The first version of Man of the Year took three months to finish, but her day job got in the way of polishing the manuscript. She stuffed it into a drawer, where it languished for several years.

      In pursuit of time to write and freedom to explore the world, Lisa, Kirk and their cat sailed from Seattle on a thirty-seven-foot boat. They spent five years cruising in Central America and the Caribbean. Lisa wrote romance, but it took a backseat to an adventurous life. She was busy writing travel essays, learning to speak Spanish from taxi drivers and handling a small boat in gale-force winds.

      When she returned to land life, she finally revised Man of the Year and sent it to an agent. Within a year, she had a contract from Harlequin American Romance.

      She and her husband are cruising on a sailboat again somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. When not setting sail for another port, she is working on her next Harlequin romance.

      To sailors and those who love them:

       fair winds and following seas.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Epilogue

      Chapter One

      A shadow shifted across the room, startling Kate. The heart-shaped glass bubble she held slipped, fell to the steel table with a crack, then shattered into a hundred red shards. A strangled cry of distress escaped from between her lips. She put her hands out, as if to gather the pieces back into a whole, but knew there was no saving it. She lifted her eyes to the figure standing in the doorway, limned by the afternoon sun.

      “Damn it, Patrick! Can’t you at least knock?”

      The tall, dark-haired man moved around the worktable. His tanned face held a crooked, teasing smile that invited her to play. At the sight of it, the studio felt ten degrees hotter than before. The quick beat of her pulse could come from fright, but she knew that wasn’t the cause. Patrick Berzani was reason enough.

      “After three months at sea, you’d think I’d get a better welcome than that.”

      Low and intimate, his voice raised a shiver across her skin. He sounded amused that he had startled her, but she could also hear desire threaded through his words. The combination unlocked the lid on memories that Kate thought she had banished forever: their first cup of coffee at the café, his long-lashed, silver-gray eyes looking at her with warm interest, his curly black hair splayed across her pillow, begging to be touched. She tried in vain to stuff all these images back where they belonged. She had spent months forgetting them—and him—and thought she had succeeded. How could all that effort disappear like smoke?

      The smile, the eyes, his hair, even the golden earring, high in the curve of his left ear, had deceived her from the start. Patrick had laughed when she asked if he was an artist like her. No, he was a sailor—a racer—whose only experience painting was on the hull of a sailboat. The earring was from a trip around Cape Horn. Later, after they were lovers, she learned other things: he got the tattoo around his arm after his first voyage across the equator, wore boat shoes for all occasions and always had string and a rigging knife in his pocket for emergency repairs.

      Dragging herself back to the present, she drew a deep breath. “It’s the only kind of welcome you deserve, scaring me like that.” She meant to sound harsh and angry. Enough so that he would take his captivating smile and beautiful eyes far away, but her voice came out husky instead. She heard the want, the need, all too clearly.

      She knew Patrick heard it, too. He didn’t pause a single step. He held her eyes with his. Kate’s feet were rooted to the floor as if encased in the concrete. The furnace behind her, with its bubbling pot of molten glass, roared and huffed, echoing the turmoil inside her. Glass globes hanging from the ceiling caught the sunlight from the windows. A kaleidoscope of colors—cyan, turquoise, amber and lemon—shimmered around the room, creating more confusion.

      When he reached out, her more rational half asserted itself briefly. If he touched her, she would be lost. She grabbed a brush and dustpan from under the table.

      “I have to clean up the mess you—”

      “Later.” He cupped her face in his hands and stopped her words with a soft, hungry kiss.

      His warm mouth captured hers as his arms encircled her, drawing her close to his tall, muscular body. The dustpan and brush slipped from her grip and clattered to the floor as she wrapped herself around him like molten glass onto a punty. Kate was flooded with the flavor and scent of Patrick Berzani. She felt as though she was drowning when she was in his arms. But she wasn’t afraid, not the way she was around water. This drowning was exhilarating, spinning her, engulfing her with pleasure, daring her to descend into the depths where she should not go.

      A slight fluttering in her abdomen, the faintest of sensations, brought her back to reality. She wrenched her lips from