Anne McAllister - A Baby For Christmas

Cover Page

Excerpt “I’m not its daddy!” Carly reached into the basket and scooped the baby up into her arms. “He has your nose.” “He does not!” “And his eyes are exactly the same blue as yours.” “And hundreds of thousands of other people’s…” “But he’s on your veranda.” Carly looked down at the baby. “Oh, dear. What if whoever left him doesn’t come back?” “I’m not keeping him!” “But he’s—” “No, he’s not!” Piran insisted, as if, by repeating it often enough, he could convince himself that it was true. What in God’s name was he going to do with a baby?

About the Author ANNE MCALLISTER was born in California. She spent long lazy summers daydreaming on local beaches and studying surfers, swimmers and volleyball players in an effort to find the perfect hero. She finally did, not on the beach, but in a university library where she was working. She, her husband and their four children have since moved to the Midwest. She taught, copyedited, capped deodorant bottles, and ghostwrote sermons before turning to her first love: writing romance fiction.

Title Page A Baby for Christmas Anne McAllister www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

Carly reached into the basket and scooped the baby up into her arms. “He has your nose.”

“He does not!”

“And his eyes are exactly the same blue as yours.”

“And hundreds of thousands of other people’s…”

“But he’s on your veranda.” Carly looked down at the baby. “Oh, dear. What if whoever left him doesn’t come back?” “I’m not keeping him!” “But he’s—”

“No, he’s not!” Piran insisted, as if, by repeating it often enough, he could convince himself that it was true. What in God’s name was he going to do with a baby?

was born in California. She spent long lazy summers daydreaming on local beaches and studying surfers, swimmers and volleyball players in an effort to find the perfect hero. She finally did, not on the beach, but in a university library where she was working. She, her husband and their four children have since moved to the Midwest. She taught, copyedited, capped deodorant bottles, and ghostwrote sermons before turning to her first love: writing romance fiction.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

IT DIDN’T even begin to look a lot like Christmas.

In fact as far as Carly could see, when the outboard power boat which served as Conch Cay’s only ferry approached the boat dock, Christmas might as well not exist on the tiny palm-studded island with its haphazard rows of pastel-colored houses climbing the hills that made up the one small town on it.

There were no Christmas trees for sale on every corner as there were back in New York City. There was no tinsel garland strung along the eaves of the custom house the way there was in the Korean grocery where Carly stopped every night to buy food for supper. There wasn’t even any Salvation Army bell-ringer calling out, ‘Mer-r-r-y Christmas,’ the way he did every morning right outside the publishing house where she worked so that she felt like Scrooge whenever she passed him. It might as easily have been June.

And thank heavens for that, Carly thought. Actually it was exactly what she’d hoped for, the one—the onlygood thing that coming to Conch Cay was going to accomplish in her life: helping her forget Christmas this year.

Most years she started December with fervent hopes for the holiday season. Most years she was a great believer in the seasonal joys espoused by popular songs, even if she’d rarely experienced them in her lifetime.

But this year she didn’t want to think about them. Only three months after her mother’s death, she didn’t want to face Christmas with her stepfather and step-sisters out in Colorado, even though they’d invited her. She didn’t want visual reminders of how wonderful last year had been.

Maybe in time she would be able to look back on that year without the bittersweet knowledge that her mother’s recent marriage to Roland had made her happy again, but that her happiness had been so shortlived. Maybe in time she could go see Roland and the girls without thinking about what might have been.

Not now.

‘Come home with me,’ John, her sort-of-boyfriend, had suggested when she’d tried to explain her feelings to him.

But she hadn’t wanted to do that either.

John was far more serious about their relationship than she was. He wanted marriage.

Carly had nothing against marriage. She wanted it too, someday. But she wanted love first. She didn’t love John yet. She wasn’t sure she ever would. And she certainly didn’t want to increase his expectations about her feelings for him by letting him take her home to Buffalo for Christmas.

She didn’t want to be in Conch Cay either.

But at the moment it seemed like the least of several evils. And, if her boss was to be believed, the one that would at least help her keep food on the table when the holidays were over.

All she had to do, Diana had said simply, was ‘help Piran St Just finish his book’.

The notion still had the power to stun her.

She hadn’t believed it last week when Piran’s younger brother Desmond had showed up in the office. He hadn’t believed it when he’d found out that his ex-stepsister had turned out to be the assistant editor who’d done the line-editing on their last book.

But it had taken him barely two minutes to turn the circumstances to his advantage.

‘Fate,’ Des had proclaimed, looping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a hug. Then he’d turned to Diana, the editorial director. ‘Don’t you think so? After all, who better than Carly to go to Conch Cay and work with Piran in my place? Our sister—’

‘Stepsister,’ Carly had corrected him quickly. ‘Exstepsister,’ she’d added.

‘Not really,’ Des said. ‘They didn’t get divorced. Dad died.’

‘That doesn’t make us related,’ Carly argued, not wanting Diana to misunderstand her relationship to the St Just brothers.

But Diana hadn’t been listening to her. She’d been listening to Desmond. He, after all, was part of Bixby Grissom’s bestselling duo; Carly was merely an assistant editor.

‘She’ll do a lot better job than I would,’ Des had said. ‘And you know how much you’d like a book set in Fiji next.’

Diana had let herself be convinced.

Carly hadn’t. Not at first. She didn’t want to go to Conch Cay. She didn’t want to presume on her past relationship with the St Just brothers. Though she and Des had been quite happy with their sort-of-sibling relationship while their parents had been married, after his father’s death, she hadn’t seen Des. And she would happily have gone to her own grave without ever having to face his older brother again!

Once, when she was barely more than a girl and her mother had been married to his father, Carly’s starry-eyed fantasies had caused her to believe that Piran St Just was her one true love. The mere mention of his name had sent shivers of anticipation right down her spine.