Jake laughed shortly. “I’m not even in a relationship. How am I supposed to find someone to marry me?”

      Calista looked from the baby to him and, without hesitation, said, “You could ask me.”

      Jake stared at her, stunned. The woman his daughter took to so readily couldn’t possibly have meant what he thought she’d just said.

      “Ask you what?” he asked her, enunciating each word slowly.

      “Ask me to marry you. Because I would.”

      Dear Reader,

      This is my first visit to Thunder Canyon, Montana. (Love that name. Can’t you just see the cowboys heading them off at the pass?) A town, I’ve been told, that has been around for a while.

      This is the place that Jake Castro turns to when the world as he knows it crumbles on him. A New Orleans cop who suddenly finds himself a single dad to an infant when his former partner, Maggie O’Shea, is killed in the line of duty, he comes to Thunder Canyon and his family for the emotional support—and help with diapers—he needs. The latter is supplied, along with humor and understanding, by Calista Clifton, his sister Erin’s friend. A recent college graduate, Calista has her eye on a career in politics and to that end is already an intern working in the mayor’s office. Coming from a family of eight, Calista is an old hand at knowing exactly what babies need. She also, as the story progresses, intuitively knows just what emotionally shell-shocked Jake needs. A little TLC. Neither one of them expected to find love at this point in their lives, but that was the bonus that life in Thunder Canyon provided.

      As always, I thank you for taking the time to read my book and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

      Love,

       Marie Ferrarella

      About the Author

      MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^® Award–winning author, has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon^®, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

      The Baby

      Wore a Badge

      Marie Ferrarella

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To

      Marcia Book Adirim

      without whose fertile

      imagination

      I wouldn’t have been able to write

      this book.

      Thank you.

       Chapter One

      He was burning the candle at both ends.

      More than that, both ends were closing in on him. Fast.

      New Orleans police officer Jake Castro dragged his hand through his unruly light blond hair as if that could somehow help him drag his mind into some sort of optimal focus instead of the dazed fog it had been in for the last few weeks, ever since his life had taken this dramatic turn that had completely changed his life.

      With a deep sigh that came from the bottom of his toes, he glanced at the clock on his nightstand.

      Five minutes.

      That was all he’d had. Five minutes.

      Five minutes of sleep before Marlie had begun to cry loud enough to wake the dead. Or, at the very least, him.

      Getting up, still more than half-asleep, he stumbled over to the newly placed crib at the other end of his heretofore bachelor bedroom. Bleary-eyed, he stared down at the small occupant.

      “I’ll buy you a car if you let me sleep just twenty-five more minutes.” His efforts at bargaining fell on completely unreceptive ears. If anything, Marlie cried even louder.

       So much for bribery.

      With another, now-resigned sigh, Jake reached into the crib and picked up his seven-month-old daughter.

      For the moment, Marlie began to quiet down. Ordinarily, he might take some pride in that, that the baby was bonding with him, but he was way too worn out to take comfort in even that.

      He was running on empty and had been for a number of days now.

      “I can’t keep doing this, you know,” he said as he made his way over to the rocking chair, also newly acquired, as was his status as a single dad.

      Marlie responded best to the swaying motion of being walked around, but Jake was far too wiped out to pace the floor. He’d pulled a long, draining shift today and had come home later than usual, a fact that had made the woman he paid to watch Marlie—Mrs. Rutherford—none too happy.

      At this insane juggling act for less than three weeks and he was discovering, much to his chagrin, that he couldn’t be Officer Castro, super-cop by day and then turn into super-dad at night. Somewhere in that time span he needed to get some sleep—desperately—before he had a complete meltdown.

      “It’s my own fault,” he acknowledged, addressing his words to the tiny human being in his arms. Oblivious to her father’s words, Marlie began to suck on her thumb—hard—as if it could give up some sort of sustenance if she sucked on it hard enough. “All I had to do was say ‘no.’ ‘No, Maggie, I won’t do it,’ and none of this would have happened. Hell—sorry.”

      Jake came to a skidding halt in his self-examination. No more cursing, at least not in the house while Marlie could hear him. He’d made up the rule himself, but it wasn’t easy sticking to it, especially not when he was this punchy.

      “Heck,” he amended, “who am I kidding? Your mother was so pigheaded she would have found someone else to say yes to her. In a heartbeat.” Someone else to donate the male component that had gone into creating this tiny miracle of nature with the mighty lungs made of steel whom he was holding in his arms.

      Besides, he’d been half in love with Maggie O’Shea from the first moment she had walked into the squad room and Lieutenant Franco had told him that this vision in a blue uniform was his new partner. Maggie had been sharp and witty and so damn gorgeous with all that red hair that it made him ache just to look at her.

      They’d had a good relationship, both on the job and off. And they’d talked about their futures, their goals and visions. That was when he’d discovered that she was determined to be all that she could possibly be—a kick-ass police officer and a mother as well.

      She’d been well on her way to becoming the first when her damn biological clock had begun to nag her. And she, in turn, had begun to subtly nag him, working on him every day, eventually relentlessly, until he had finally given in.

      For a fleeting moment, he had thought they would go about it the age-old, time-honored way. But Maggie had been very up-front with him about her intentions. She’d told him that she didn’t want any sort of a romantic entanglement, definitely didn’t even want any sort of physical encounter happening between them.

      “It’s not that I don’t feel attracted to you, Castro,” she’d said. “It’s just that I don’t like complications. Never have.”

      Seemed ironic, in light of all the complications he was facing now.

      She’d laid out the plan. It was all going to be very clinical, very professional. And once the process was in motion and the procedure “took,” Maggie made it clear that he was free to move on. She wasn’t going to ask him for anything further.

      Until