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      “Sorry if I’ve kept you up too late.”

      What an apology. In the best of all possible worlds, Sam could keep her up all night. No complaints.

      But this was the real world. With real limitations and consequences. And Julia had to go up to her bed.

      Alone.

      “Thanks for inviting me to stay.”

      She could barely think, barely breathe, with him standing so close to her.

      “We never got a chance to talk about Lester and Lucy,” she realised.

      “Not get into another argument, you mean?” He lifted her chin with his fingertip, so that she was looking into his eyes again. And couldn’t look away.

      And didn’t want to.

      “I’d rather not argue with you, Julia. In fact, I think I’m done talking altogether.”

      Before Julia could say a word more, he pulled her close. She felt as if she didn’t have a chance. Didn’t have a choice…

      Available in July 2009

       from Mills & Boon^® Cherish

      Heart of Stone

      by Diana Palmer

      The Rancher’s Surprise Marriage

      by Susan Crosby

      Hannah’s Baby

      by Cathy Gillen Thacker

      Her Texas Lawman

      by Stella Bagwell

      The Prince’s Royal Dilemma

      by Brenda Harlen

      The Baby Plan

      by Kate Little

      KATE LITTLE

      claims to have lots of experience with romance–“the fictional kind, that is,” she is quick to clarify. She has been both an author and an editor of romance fiction for over fifteen years. She believes that a good romance novel will make the reader experience all the tension, thrills and agony of falling madly, deeply and wildly in love. She enjoys watching the characters in her books go crazy for each other, but she hates to see the blissful couple disappear when it’s time for them to live happily ever after. In addition to writing romance novels, Kate also writes fiction and nonfiction for young adults. She lives on Long Island, New York, with her husband and daughter.

      The Baby Plan

      KATE LITTLE

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      Chapter One

      Something was up.

      Julia Martinelli had a funny feeling. She’d developed a sixth sense for these things by now. An uncanny radar for her mother’s imminent romantic misadventures.

      Her mother’s invitation for dinner had sounded innocent enough. They lived in the same town, the place where Julia had been raised, and got together at least once a week for dinner or lunch, or just to say hello over coffee.

      But for some inexplicable reason, Julia’s skin went all shivery with goose bumps during this particular call. Something in her mother’s tone signaled Watch out. Something’s cooking. It’s not just Mom’s special meat loaf.

      Julia didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t want to seem overly suspicious. Her mother had become very sensitive to any inquiries about her love life and Julia had to tiptoe around the subject these days, which wasn’t easy. Her mother was a master at avoiding a straight answer.

      “You’re always imagining things, dear,” Lucy Martinelli would claim. As if Julia was the one with the problem—or “issues” as folks on TV talk shows liked to say.

      Julia knew she did have a few “issues” about romance: the greatest one being, she couldn’t find much of it. Not the kind she was looking for. Her mother, on the other hand, found more than enough for anyone. Especially a woman her age. Which was often…a problem.

      As Julia drove over to her mother’s after work on Friday night, she was gripped by the same unnerving sensation, and the palms of her hands were clammy on the steering wheel. Was she only imagining things? She dearly hoped so.

      In the small town of Blue Lake, Vermont, Julia’s mother Lucy was known as “The Merry Widow”—though technically speaking, only two of Lucy’s four husbands had died.

      Marriages two and four had ended in divorce. Which did not bode well for husband Number Five, Julia thought, if and when he arrived. The odd-numbered husbands seemed to have a high mortality rate.

      All things considered, it was more a matter of when than if. Julia just knew Number Five was out there somewhere, hovering on the horizon. A new chapter in her mother’s relationship saga, which Julia often thought could provide more than enough material for some thick, juicy novel or a made-for-TV movie.

      Married first to her high school sweetheart, Lucy became a widow at the tender age of twenty-one, when her young husband died in a boating accident. She next married Julia’s father, Tom Martinelli, a local attorney. That union lasted over twenty years, though Julia knew now that her parents had stayed together mainly because of her, both feeling out of synch with their spouse, but committed to giving their only child a stable family life.

      It wasn’t an unhappy household, though even as a child Julia sensed something was missing between her parents. As a grown woman, she decided she’d never make that same choice—to stay stuck in a loveless relationship.

      Her parents divorced while Julia was in college. Her father had since retired and moved to Florida with his second wife, Adele, a former elementary school teacher. They played a lot of golf and were ardent fans of the History Channel—pastimes that had never interested Julia’s mother.

      Julia loved her father dearly and knew she took after him more in temperament, but she was still objective enough to see her mom was definitely having more fun.

      Shortly after the divorce, Lucy took a weekend jaunt to Las Vegas with some girlfriends. There she met and married a retired Texas businessman, fell head over heels and walked up the aisle that very weekend in the tackiest of Vegas wedding chapels.

      Julia had not been present, but the blurry instant photos told the whole story. Earl T. Walker was a lovely man, but much older than Lucy. He died from a sudden heart attack a few weeks before the couple’s third anniversary.

      Lucy inherited a sizable portion of Earl’s estate, but there was nothing left for her in Texas. She’d never taken well to the wide open spaces and Lucy soon returned to Blue Lake. She’d never sold her house there so it was easy to settle back into the community, her old routines and connections. She found plenty of sympathy from her friends and from Julia. But at least Lucy had found some years of happiness during

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