Ally Blake - Meant-To-Be Mother

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From February, six Harlequin Romances will be hitting the shelves every month. You’ll find stories from your favorite authors, as well as some exciting new names, too!

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Most important, Harlequin Romance will continue to offer the kinds of stories you love—and more! From royalty to ranchers, bumps to babies, big cities to exotic desert kingdoms, these are emotional and uplifting stories, from the heart, for the heart!

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Happy reading!

Kimberley Young

Senior Editor

Dear Reader,

When the tourism ads claim that Far North Queensland is beautiful one day, and perfect the next, they’re not kidding!

The area is dappled with waterfalls and tropical rain forests, miles of roadside banana plantations and crocodile-infested rivers, pristine white sandy beaches and the glorious blue-green waters of the Great Barrier Reef. And after holidaying in that part of the world last year, the premise for Meant-To-Be Mother was born.

Leisurely Cairns seemed a perfect place in which to drop my feisty, jet-setting heroine, Siena Capuletti, a woman who feeds off the frenetic pace of the city. Or if she had her way, it would be a different city every week. Surrounded by people reveling in the laid-back beach culture, she was bound to go a little stir-crazy.

All I had to do was throw James Dillon in her path—a man who warmed her faster that the North Queensland sun, whose smile was as tummy-tingling as the boat ride to Green Island—and just as worth the wait—and who had a better reason to stay in Cairns than Siena had to leave. Poor thing had no chance!

For more pictures and links to Web sites about the best holiday destination in the world, check out my Web site: www.allyblake.com

Happy reading,

Ally

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Having once been a professional cheerleader, Ally Blake’s motto is “Smile and the world smiles with you.” One way to make Ally smile is by sending her on holidays, especially to locations that inspire her writing. New York and Italy are by far her favorite destinations. Other things that make her smile are the gracious city of Melbourne, the gritty Collingwood football team and her gorgeous husband, Mark.

Reading romance novels was a smile-worthy pursuit from long back. So, with such valuable preparation already behind her, she wrote and sold her first book. Her career as a writer also gives her a perfectly reasonable excuse to indulge in her stationery addiction. That alone is enough to keep her grinning every day! Ally would love for you to visit her at her Web site, www.allyblake.com

“A Father in the Making by Ally Blake has emotional depth that shows the author’s growth and maturity in her craft. The humour and vitality of this novel is a joy to behold and I look forward to more. Not a single thing would I change of this story!”—www.cataromance.com

To my gorgeous genius of a godson, Lachlan. Hugs and kisses from your Auntie Ally.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

SIENA CAPULETTI was going home.

And where for most people that would bring about happy thoughts of familiar faces, their own bed and their favourite pillow, the concept had poor Siena in a cold sweat.

Well, okay, so the wet clammy feeling could also have come from the fact that she had just been on the receiving end of a well-flung can of cola courtesy of a pouting kid in the aeroplane seat next to her.

But still…clammy was clammy. Uncomfortable. Hot and cold all at once. Nope. It was definitely thoughts of home making her feel that way. Home just didn’t bring about warm and fuzzy feelings in Siena.

The splotch of insidious brown beverage inching its way across her Dolce and Gabbana skirt and matching jacket—the only ‘interview outfit’ she had packed for her short trip to her provincial home town—grew larger and overtook the proportion of clean cream tweed.

‘Excellent,’ she said under her breath.

Siena craned her head past the rows of seats as she flapped her sticky outfit away from her damp body. Where was a flight attendant when she needed one? Nowhere. That’s where.

It was a sign. She wasn’t meant to be heading to Cairns on that day seated on a plane; she ought to have been suited up in her usual baby-blue skirt suit, matching pillbox hat and beige high heels, working the aisle as a Cabin Director for MaxAir rather than finding herself at the mercy of one.

But when Maximillian Sned, the eccentric septuagenarian owner of MaxAir—the funky, cosmopolitan, fun-and-games airline for which she worked—had summoned her to meet him to discuss a ‘fabulous career move’—his words—at his palatial home north of Cairns, what choice had she had? Even though, if the rumour mill was correct, and let’s face it, it usually was, his offer was going to entail a fabulous move to Cairns to stay.

Double excellent.

A hard kick to the shins brought Siena back to the less than pleasant present.

Blithely ignoring the pint-sized, cola-flinging, kick-boxing champ to her left, Siena tried to remember the meditation class she had once taken—close your eyes, take deep calming breaths and think of a happy place. A beach hut in Hawaii? A Swiss ski resort? That shoe shop on Madison Avenue she couldn’t walk into without spending a week’s pay?

But Siena was surprised to find she could barely recollect the shapes and colours and sensation of being anywhere but the inside of a plane—

‘I am soooooo sorry it took me so long! We have a guy in the back row who can juggle soft drink cans. Seriously, soft drink cans! He was teaching me and I almost had it down.’

Siena opened one eye to find a perky, blonde, perfectly groomed flight attendant with ‘Jessica’ scrawled on to her name badge. She smiled prettily as she handed over a baby-blue box of MaxAir brand moist towels to Siena and another drink to the pouting kick-boxer at Siena’s side.

Her vague happy place feelings slipped away to naught as Siena realised her day was not about to get any better.

Seven years as a sky girl and Siena could read people at first glance. She knew which passenger would try to sneak an illegal cigarette puff in the bathroom, which one would be a white knuckle flyer who would need a Bloody Mary as soon as they took off, and which one would try to pinch every female bottom and thus would be fast shifted to a window seat.

Jessica had just given the kid beside her a new can of cola. Crayons and warm milk would have been the better option. Siena could read that Jessica was sweet but entirely hopeless.