Heatherly Bell - This Baby Business

Strictly business...or is it?

Air force pilot Levi Lambert has seen plenty of danger—but his infant daughter might be the death of him. Fortunately, Levi’s found the answer to his sleep-deprived prayers: his next-door neighbor! Carly Gilmore is willing to be his nanny...until a small white lie turns their arrangement from business to very personal. The fake engagement was intended to keep Levi from losing custody of his baby girl, but is causing all sorts of new problems. Not only does Carly attract trouble like bees to honey, but there’s the little matter of Levi’s smokin’-hot attraction to her. The last thing he needs is to fall in love...

“You don’t have to worry...”

It occurred to Levi that he stood possibly a little closer than he should. Somehow that didn’t bother him at all as his eyes met Carly’s warm hazel ones. He was close enough to see every tiny speck of green. When his gaze slipped to her lickable lips, he knew he was in trouble.

She was sexy and pretty. Real. And she was one hell of a complication in his already chaotic life.

But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he wanted her.

With his hand on the nape of her neck, he pulled her close enough that they shared oxygen. Her eyes were warm and fluid, showing him all the things he wanted to see. An invitation. A welcome.

He kissed her, deep, long and lingering. When her tongue met with his, soft and tentative, he tugged her closer still. Took the kiss deeper and wilder.

She pulled back, a bit out of breath. “What was that?”

“I kissed you. And I think you liked it.”

And as if to acknowledge that, yes, she liked it, she kissed him.

Dear Reader,

I confess. There’s something about a father and his baby that makes my heart stir. Given the popularity of male celebrity photos with their babies, I believe many of us feel the same way. A good-looking man plus a baby equals heart tug.

But Levi Lambert is no celebrity. He’s simply an everyday hero who is suddenly charged with the toughest job of his life: raising his child. Levi gives up his first love, the air force, and settles in Fortune, California, to fly for Magnum Aviation along with his two good friends, Stone Mcallister and Matt Conner. I love a good bromance, and Levi happily takes his place as the missing part of this trio of former air force pilots now flying out of a small southern-county airport.

Levi’s neighbor, Carly Gilmore, is struggling to save rockyourbaby.com, her mother’s company, and has put her own dreams on hold. When her new neighbor shows up at her doorstep in a babysitting bind, Carly has no idea she’ll be involved with them on a much deeper level than she’d ever anticipated. But before long, both Levi and Grace worm their way into her heart and home.

In this book, I give you a single dad, a baby, a clueless nanny and a fake engagement. Add two opposites who would have never expected to fall for each other and you’ve got This Baby Business.

I hope you enjoy.

Heatherly Bell

This Baby Business

Heatherly Bell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

HEATHERLY BELL tackled her first book in 2004 and now the characters that occupy her mind refuse to leave until she writes them a book. She loves all music but confines singing to the shower these days. Heatherly lives in Northern California with her family, including two beagles—one who can say hello and the other a princess who can feel a pea through several pillows.

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For Aliyah

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

LEVI LAMBERT HAD piloted many birds during his service in the United States Air Force. He’d gone on missions he still regretted and some he never would. Made plenty of mistakes in his twenty-nine years. Some of them irreparable.

But this. Well. This might just kill him.

“Please. Please go to sleep.” Levi gently rubbed his six-month-old daughter’s back.

Moonlight spilled through the cracked blinds in Grace’s bedroom. It was two o’clock in the morning, and she wasn’t interested in sleeping. She didn’t need her diaper changed, had just had a bottle of formula—warm...he’d checked—and he’d located her pacifier under the blanket and stuck it in her mouth. She spit it out with a face that said, “Nice try, sucker.”

Levi was no stranger to zero dark thirty, but this was plain cruel. No sooner had he calmed her down and gently set her in her crib than she screamed bloody murder again. A few nights of that would have been fine, but after six straight weeks of it, he was beginning to feel the strain. Strange, but the only thing that kept her quiet was being held. Held and walked around the house, as if it were the middle of the day.

Weren’t babies supposed to sleep 24/7? What was wrong with his baby? She didn’t seem to like him very much. Still, he’d known she was his the minute he’d seen her blue eyes, so much like his own. Just for kicks he’d asked for a DNA test. Yep. His. No doubt, even if he’d had the pleasure of being with Grace’s mother, Sandy, only once. Only one night of mutual, temporary pleasure during a two-week leave in Atlanta, Georgia, he’d now officially never forget.

When he’d received the news of Sandy’s accidental death, it had taken Levi a minute to remember her. Talk about life changing and rearranging. He’d assumed he would die in the air force. His plan was to stay until he retired or was killed in action. It wasn’t like he didn’t have friends who’d left earlier than planned, among them his two best friends in the world, Stone and Matt. But Levi was a lifer. Supposed to be, anyway. He’d been raised for service. Until Grace had come along and changed all that. It would have been too much of a hardship as a single father piloting long missions. At the time he’d been located and informed of Grace, he’d been flying the U-2 spy plane and gone for months at a stretch.

She’d quieted down again with his swaying and rocking, so Levi tried to lay her down in her crib. Grace scrunched up her little pixie face and wailed, as if the very idea that she would go to sleep was an insult to her intelligence. He picked her up again. Definitely not suited for this, although some people had thought it would happen to him eventually if he didn’t settle down and stop sowing his wild oats.