A Bachelor, a Boss and a Baby

by Rachel Lee

  Not quite the assistant he was looking for.

  But maybe the one he needs...

  Conard County’s new urban planner is juggling more than a job—she’s fostering her cousin’s baby, too. And Diane Finch isn’t sure how her boss, Blaine Harrigan, will take to her cuddly new assistant. But the Irishman’s as comfortable with babies as he is with engineering complex projects. And he certainly seems to take to Diane, too. Even if she’s got a secret she fears will keep her from love...forever.

  Blaine Harrigan stood there, wearing a light jacket now and holding a potted red gerbera daisy.

  “To brighten a windowsill,” he said with a smile. “I take it your new boss is happily sleeping?”

  Just seeing him drew a bright smile from her and a rush of warmth. Man, she didn’t even know this guy. It was too soon to be happy to see him, wasn’t it?

  Heck, she didn’t care. It was nice to see him, to feel as if she might have made her first friend here. She stepped back, inviting him in.

  “Thank you for the daisy. I just love it. What a kind thought.” She looked at the bright flower with a sudden feeling of comfort, as if she weren’t a total stranger here anymore. “I was thinking about making some tea. Would you like some?”

  “I never turn down a cuppa,” he answered. He handed her the flower and she motioned him to follow her to the small kitchen and dining area. She placed the daisy on the sill over the sink, then turned to find him standing in the doorway, evidently awaiting an invitation to sit or go.

  * * *

  CONARD COUNTY: THE NEXT GENERATION

  Dear Reader,

  Babies can bring us some of the most joyous times in our lives. In this story, Diane has been given her cousin’s newborn child to care for, and she’s totally unprepared. Who wouldn’t be, when they’ve never had or even babysat a child? In addition, within days of accepting the baby, she starts a new job as an urban planner in Conard County. A lot to handle all at once.

  She finds the most unexpected ally in Blaine Harrigan, the county engineer. He’s an Irishman who helped raise a bunch of younger siblings, so he’s an old hand with tiny people. What’s more, he even likes them, and surprises Diane by how quickly a man can come to care for an infant. She would have expected him to run.

  As Diane works her way into her two new roles, Blaine supports her all the way. But he’s also interested in more than the baby. He’s seriously interested in Diane. There are lots of reasons to avoid a romantic relationship, but in the end he can’t.

  He has to hope Diane won’t wind up seeing him as an added complication in her already complicated life.

  Happy reading,

  A Bachelor, a Boss and a Baby

  Rachel Lee

  Rachel Lee was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

  Books by Rachel Lee

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Conard County: The Next Generation

  A Soldier in Conard County

  A Conard County Courtship

  A Conard County Homecoming

  His Pregnant Courthouse Bride

  An Unlikely Daddy

  A Cowboy for Christmas

  The Lawman Lassoes a Family

  A Conard County Baby

  Reuniting with the Rancher

  Thanksgiving Daddy

  The Widow of Conard County

  Montana Mavericks: 20 Years in the Saddle!

  A Very Maverick Christmas

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Conard County: The Next Generation

  Cornered in Conard County

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Conard County: The Next Generation

  Undercover in Conard County

  Conard County Marine

  A Conard County Spy

  A Secret in Conard County

  Conard County Witness

  Visit the Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Her Wickham Falls SEAL by Rochelle Alers

  Chapter One

  Blaine Harrigan might have been the most delighted man in all of Conard County when he heard that a new planning manager had been hired. For years now the position had been vacant, the comprehensive plan was at least ten years old and he’d been dealing with all the county engineering while aware that they needed to update the plan. And he needed someone between him and the planning boards, which were made up of city council and county commission members. A little conflict of interest didn’t make his job any easier, especially with an out-of-date plan that they overrode readily because it was so old.

  When he heard they’d hired Diane Finch, he’d read over her résumé and given a huge sigh of relief. She looked competent and had great recommendations from her previous job in Des Moines. Better, she sounded more than capable of standing up with him to the so-called planning boards that had started looking more to their personal interests than what was best for the county and city.

  Well, maybe she wouldn’t stand up with him at first, not with her job so new, and not until she learned the lay of the land. But a professional planner? She probably wouldn’t be keen to play along with ideas that could make her look bad or adversely affect her career.

  What’s more, she had to be aware that the county and city couldn’t get useful grants without an updated plan and a planner to write the proposals and oversee performance.

  He’d probably have to wait awhile for the ally to emerge regardless. That was all right with him. He’d been poking his finger into the dike to stop the rash of self-serving plans for over five years now.

  More than once he’d considered looking for another job, but his Irish blood wouldn’t let him run from a fight. Besides, he’d grown fond of Conard County, different in so many ways from Galway, where he’d grown up. Life had brought him here, and while he’d always be homesick for the beauties of Galway, he found different beauty here in the mountains and rolling prairie. He’d also found a place he was willing to defend and maybe sink some permanent roots.

  With that random assortment of thoughts rolling around in his head, he strolled through the basement hallways in the courthouse, heading to the rooms that belonged to the planner. Diane Finch, according to the grapevine, had arrived early this morning, and for some reason the court clerks and the many city and county employees who filled the offices down here had been looking rather amused and whispering quite a bit.

  He wanted to know what was going on. Was she a golden-scaled dragon or something?

  Painting a smile on his face, he knocked briefly on the closed door and entered, ready to meet the woman he hoped would work with him. The sound that came through the door should have warned him, but since it shouldn’t be there, he’d assumed it was drifting down from the floor above.

  He froze in astonishment as he stepped in. The unlikeliest of sights greeted him.
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br />   A lovely young woman with golden-blond hair, wearing what appeared to be a gray slacks suit, stood at a bare desk with a baby on it. She appeared to be busy trying to put a fresh diaper on the squalling, struggling bundle of pink bottom and pulled-up yellow cloth. The golden eyes that rose in surprise to look at him also appeared almost frantic.

  Questions could come later, he decided in an instant. Swiftly closing the door behind him, he asked, “Need a little help there?” His brogue, so carefully erased, somehow pushed its way through.

  “You’ve got kids?” she asked almost plaintively.

  “I helped raise me five brothers and sisters. You’re new at this?”

  “Very,” she admitted.

  Without any hesitation, he rounded her desk and nudged her aside a bit. “I’m used to cloth diapers,” he remarked, holding the baby safely with a big hand placed gently on her tummy. The little bottom didn’t look irritated, so he just went about grabbing a wipe from an open container beside a disposable diaper at the corner of the desk. He cleaned the tot quickly before opening the fresh diaper with one hand and placing it on the little girl. Despite the child’s wildly waving arms and legs, it only took a few seconds, then he had her diapered and dry. Pulling down her onesie, he fastened the snaps easily.

  Instead of quieting, the baby continued to cry.

  “She been fed?” he asked.

  “Just.”

  “Ah.” Without another word he picked the child up and placed her on his shoulder, not caring he was probably going to need a fresh shirt after this. “Hush, little treasure,” he murmured, gently patting and rubbing her back with practiced ease while pacing the small office. After he took about a dozen steps back and forth, the babe’s fist found its way to her mouth and she quieted. Moments after that a small burp escaped her.

  “There we go,” Blaine said, “but it’s probably not the last. You mind?”

  She sank into the chair behind the desk and gave him a crooked smile. “Not at all. I’m so totally new to this I’m learning everything the hard way.”

  “No prior practice, then?”

  She shook her head. “Daphne is my cousin’s child. She’s in the hospital and I’m fostering. I thought it would be easy.”

  Blaine allowed a quiet chuckle to escape him. “It’s not hard. You probably need to worry a whole lot less. Unless the tot is sick, what it most needs is love, food and a clean nappy. Simple. And it will all go a lot easier when you relax.”

  She looked askance.

  “She feels your nervousness, so she gets uneasy. By the way, I take it you’re Diane Finch?”

  She nodded. “And you’re...?”

  “County engineer. Blaine Harrigan. Do the bosses know you’ve got company?”

  “You mean Daphne? No. I was hoping I could find decent day care when I arrived in town. That certainly isn’t as easy as I thought. I’m also learning I have a lot of qualms about leaving her with someone I don’t know.” She sighed and drummed her fingers briefly on the arms of her chair. “This is going to cost me my job, isn’t it?”

  “Bringing the baby to work? I suppose it could. I also suppose I could help you batter the bosses down. It’s only temporary, after all.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes. “That’s a nice offer, Mr. Harrigan, but I’m very much afraid this isn’t going to be temporary. At least not the part where I foster Daphne. I should get some kind of day care sorted out, though.”

  “Then we’ll start with that,” he said. Now he had a sleeping child on his shoulder and he was reluctant to put her down in the car seat in the corner. He also wanted to know what had happened to bring Diane Finch to the point of taking care of her cousin’s baby indefinitely when she was obviously so unprepared for the task.

  She was a beautiful woman, all right. He couldn’t help but notice the way that satiny blouse caressed her breasts when she moved and her jacket fell open. Nice shape, adorable face and what appeared to be natural blond hair. Attractive like a flower to a bee. Not the time to be thinking such things, boyo, he told himself.

  But now he was also seriously intrigued. “So, how did you come to be a foster mother?”

  Her face closed a bit. “My cousin is seriously ill. She can’t care for Daphne and probably won’t be able to for a long time. That left me or putting her in the foster care system. Maybe for adoption, although my cousin...” She broke off. “Anyway, it’s me and Daphne for as long as she needs me.”

  That raised more questions than it answered, but he let it go. She didn’t know him from Adam, and this was very personal ground. There were few secrets in Conard County because most people knew each other, but Diane was new and she was probably going to face a lot of prying. He well remembered how he’d been questioned. A new face always drew attention. He didn’t need to add to it.

  But he had to admit to feeling some admiration for a woman who’d foster her cousin’s baby while starting a new job. Not many would want the combination, he was certain. And Diane, by all appearances, was very new to this baby thing. He wondered if she’d find it presumptuous if he offered to help. Probably. Talk about sticking his nose in the tent.

  * * *

  Bemused, Diane watched the tall, muscular man holding tiny Daphne on his shoulder with such ease and calm. Daphne had come to her care only four days ago, when she’d been almost packed and ready to hit the road. Her cousin MaryJo, with whom she’d never been very close, had been committed indefinitely to a mental hospital with paranoid schizophrenia. Diane had been too busy the last couple of weeks to do more than to peek in on MaryJo and her new baby, and hear how sick she had become. The three-month-old Daphne had barely entered her consciousness until the social worker had told her that Daphne would have to go into long-term foster care because MaryJo couldn’t possibly be a safe caretaker.

  The instant she heard the words foster care, Daphne had loomed large on her radar, far larger than her poor cousin. Diane simply could not let that darling baby go to strangers, and the social worker also pointed out that MaryJo was too mentally ill to legally put the child up for adoption.

  Adoption?

  There wasn’t even a father to turn to. Whoever he’d been, he was apparently long gone.

  Adoption? No.

  The last days had turned into a whirlwind of packing, signing papers, gaining permission to take the child to her new job, getting baby supplies and a travel bed—oh, yeah, and a car seat—then Daphne had been delivered into her care.

  Diane had never doubted that this was right thing to do, but it had all landed on her like a train wreck, and she was still figuring out how to handle everything. Most especially how to care for the baby. She didn’t have siblings, and she’d never watched anyone else’s kids because she’d been too busy with an after-school job at a local law office. What did she know about kids?

  Only that she couldn’t let Daphne wind up in the foster care system. And part of her problem, as she’d discovered since she’d arrived in town two days ago, was that she didn’t want to leave the baby in anyone else’s hands, either. Most day care around here was in-home. The one early-learning center didn’t have an opening. Her reluctance to trust someone else with the baby’s care was likely to become a big issue.

  So here she was, her first day on the job, with a baby. Yeah, she expected trouble, but she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t have begun to explain why she cared so much about a baby she’d only had for a few days, or why she was feeling so reluctant to put her in a stranger’s care while she worked.

  Yet a stranger had just diapered Daphne with practiced ease and was now pacing slowly with the sleeping girl on his shoulder. Daphne was still tiny at three months, but Blaine Harrigan made her look minuscule.

  He was dressed casually in a short-sleeved khaki work shirt and jeans. The last place she had worked, a polo shirt and slacks was as informal as it got. Appar
ently things were different here. He certainly looked like a man ready to work hard, a sharp contrast to the way he handled Daphne: easily, gently, yet confidently. She envied that confidence. She wished she could siphon off a gallon of it and put it in her veins.

  Well, she’d get there eventually. She’d learned everything else she’d needed to in life. Usually. God, she hoped she wasn’t kidding herself and running headlong into a big failure.

  “Are you looking forward to this job?” he asked her.

  For the first time, she realized that his voice seemed to resonate from deep within his chest, below baritone but maybe not quite bass? An interesting, slightly rough sound. “I think so, yes. I know I was before life got out of hand.”

  He smiled faintly. “This little one, you mean? Ah, she won’t be any trouble now. I was wondering, you worked in a larger city before. Why come to a small town?”

  “The challenge,” she said. “An outdated comprehensive plan that needs to be rewritten, and that covers an entire county. I’ll have a lot of input. I’ve always wanted that.”

  He hesitated as if he wanted to say something, but then resumed his gentle pacing, rubbing Daphne’s back all the while. “Did you visit first?”

  “Of course. I came out for the interview. I’m surprised I didn’t meet you then.” And she was. They’d have to work closely together. She began to wonder how this place functioned.

  “I was on vacation. I didn’t hear a thing about you until I got back.”

  Okay, that was strange, she thought. Given his position, he should have had some say in her hiring. For the first time, she felt uneasiness about the job itself. Was there something going on here? But she couldn’t ask Harrigan, because he worked here, too. Until she had a read on everyone involved, asking questions could be dangerous. Wisdom dictated that she keep everything on a professional level.

  Although that was already a limit she had broken, considering her infant cousin was riding on the shoulder of the county engineer. Very professional. Under other circumstances, she might have been amused. Starting a new job, not so much.