The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby (Man of the Month) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Dixie Browning

  About The Author

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Copyright

  Gus Tried Hard Not To Think

  About Mariah.

  Walking in and seeing her bending over that baby coop thing with her sweats clinging to her hips and her hair slipping in wisps from under the scarf she’d tied around her head—it had hit him hard.

  Ever since he’d left her that morning, the taste of her still on his tongue, he’d done his best to convince himself that she was just one more attractive woman in a world full of attractive women.

  But Mariah had that certain something that reached right inside a man and got him so snarled up he lost sight of all common sense.

  Tall, Dark and Handsome: Three very different sexy bachelors say “I do!” you met the tall one in last September’s MAN OF THE MONTH,Alex and the Angel. Now, meet the dark one in The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby. Just wait till you meet the handsome one, coming your way soon!

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the wonderful world of Silhouette Desire! This month, look for six scintillating love stories. I know you’re going to enjoy them all. First up is The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby, a fabulous MAN OF THE MONTH from Dixie Browning. It’s also the second book in her TALL, DARK AND HANDSOME miniseries.

  The exciting SONS AND LOVERS series also continues with Leanne Banks’s Ridge: The Avenger. This is Leanne’s first Silhouette Desire, but she certainly isn’t new to writing romance. This month, Desire has Husband: Optional, the next installment of Marie Ferrarella’s THE BABY OF THE MONTH CLUB. Don’t worry if you’ve missed earlier titles in this series, because this book “stands alone.” And it’s so charming and breezy you’re sure to just love it!

  The WEDDING BELLES series by Carole Buck is completed wi th Zoe and the Best Man. This series just keeps getting better and better, and Gabriel Flynn is one scrumptious hero. Next is Kristin James’ Desire, The Last Groom on Earth, a delicious opposites-attract story written with Kristin’s trademark sensuality.

  Rounding out the month is an amnesia story (one of may favorite story twists), Just a Memory Away, by award-winning author Helen R. Myers.

  And next month, we’re beginning CELEBRATION 1000, a very exciting, ultraspecial three-month promotion celebrating the publication of the 1000th Silhouette Desire. During April, May and June, look for books by some of your most beloved writers, including Mary Lynn Baxter, Annette Broadrick, Joan Johnston, Cait London, Ann Major and Diana Palmer, who is actually writing book #1000! These will be months to remember, filled with “keepers.”

  As always, I wish you the very best, Lucia Macro Senior Editor

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  The Beauty, The Beast And The Baby

  Dixie Browning

  Books by Dixie Browning

  Silhouentte Desire

  Shadow of Yesterday #68

  Image of Love #91

  The Hawk and the Honey #111

  Late Rising Moon #121

  Stormwatch #169

  The Tender Barbarian #188

  Matchmaker’s Moon #212

  A Bird in the Hand #234

  In the Palm of Her Hand #264

  A Winter Woman #324

  There Once Was a Lover #337

  Fate Takes a Holiday #403

  Along Came Jones #427

  Thin Ice #474

  Beginner’s Luck #517

  Ships in the Night #541

  Twice in a Blue Moon #588

  Just Say Yes #637

  Not a Marrying Man #678

  Gus and the Nice Lady #691

  † Best Man for the Job #720

  Havrds of the Heart #780

  Kane’s Way #801

  †Keegan’s Hunt #820

  †Lucy and the Stone #853

  †Two Hearts, Slightly Used #890

  *Alex and the Angel #949

  *The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby #985

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Finders Keepers #50

  Reach Out To Cherish #110

  Just Deserts #181

  Time and Tide #205

  By Any Other Name #228

  The Security Man #314

  Belonging #414

  †Outer Banks

  *Tall, Dark and Handsome

  Silhouette Romance

  Unreasonable Summer #12

  Tumbled Wall #38

  Chance Tomorrow #53

  Wren of Paradise #73

  East of Today #93

  Winter Blossom #113

  Renegade Player #142

  Island on the Hill #164

  Logic of the Heart #172

  Loving Rescue #191

  A Secret Valentine #203

  Practical Dreamer #221

  Visible Heart #275

  Journey to Quiet Waters #292

  The Love Thing #305

  First Things Last #323

  Something for Herself #381

  Reluctant Dreamer #460

  A Matter of Timing #527

  The Homing Instinct #747

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Christmas Storles 1987

  “Henry the Ninth”

  Spring Fancy 1994

  “Grace and the Law”

  DIXIE BROWNING

  has written over fifty books for Silhouette since 1980. She is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America and an award-winning author who has toured extensively for Silhouette Books. She also writes historical romances with her sister under the name Bronwyn Williams.

  For Sara. You’ll know why when you read it.

  One

  The going was slow. Just south of Marion, the snow changed to sleet. The roads were a disaster, traffic barely moving. Near the South Carolina state line, the sleet turned into rain. Cold, dreary, windshield-fogging rain. Gus swore, switched on the defroster and wondered how long it had been since he’ d last dosed himself with aspirin and black coffee.

  He wondered if the burning in his gut was a result of too much of both, or merely a remnant of the flu that had laid him out for a solid week. Not that it mattered. What he needed was coffee, laced with enough caffeine to keep him awake and enough sugar to lend him the energy to keep going.

  Three strikes was usually enough to knock any man out of the game. For Gus Wydowski, who had a wellearned reputation for being tougher than your average male, it had taken four.

  “Lisa, damn your sweet, greedy soul, I hope you’re as miserable right now as I am,” he muttered, downshifting to pass a tank wagon lumbering south along I-77.

  Lisa Crane had been strike one. Tall, gorgeous Lisa, with her midnight hair, her magnolia skin and her mercenary little soul. A confirmed bachelor, Gus had been relieved when he’d first met her to discover that she was no more interested in settling down than he was.

  Their affair had lasted more than six months, which was a record for Gus. As a rule, after a few weeks with any woman he began to get that antsy feeling that made him want to move on, but with Lisa…

  Not that he’d ever thought he wa
s in love. Hell, at thirty-nine years old, he had long since outgrown all those old adolescent fantasies.

  Still, they’d been good together. Especially in bed. So good, in fact, that Gus had actually started thinking in terms of the future. He had even bought her a ring.

  As it turned out, Lisa had begun, to think about a future, too, only not with Gus. She had her heart set on one day owning a Ferrari sports car. Gus was satisfied with his 4 x 4 extended cab pickup truck. She liked sushi, salad bars and Streisand. Gus liked barbecue, beer and bluegrass.

  Lisa had a weakness for Italian shoes and champagne.

  Gus had a weakness for Western boots and anything sweet.

  Gus was unabashedly blue-collar. He had calluse s on his hands and a few more on his heart. He’d been around the block a time or two—always with the same kind of woman. His biggest failing was that he was invariably attracted to women who were way the hell out of his league. Long-stemmed, elegant beauties. Classy ladies who were gracious enough to overlook the fact that he was tough as mule hide and a hell of a long way from handsome on anybody’s road map.

  Lisa had caught his attention when her hat had blown off during a garden party being held next door to one of Gus’s construction projects. He’d rescued her hat, and they’d gotten along like a house afire right from the first.

  About the same time Gus had started thinking in terms of teaming up permanently, Lisa had started playing games. Breaking dates, leaving town without telling him, coming back without letting him know. The sex that had been so good for so long had become less satisfactory, and they’dusually ended up arguing over whose fault it was.

  Gus had a temper; he would be the first to admit that. But he tried not to let it get too far out of hand and never with a woman. He’d been taught by a mother, a grandmother, an aunt and a sister that women were to be treated like fine china. And he had always obeyed that rule. Right up to the night when Lisa had told him she had signed a modeling contract and was moving to New York. She was sorry if he was disappointed, but then, they’d never pretended to anything more than a casual relationship.

  Casual. Right.

  Gus had told her that he was far from disap pointed—a lie. That lately he’d been thinking about moving on—another lie. He’d wished her a lot of luck, but he hadn’t specified which kind.

  And then, with the engagement ring he’d bought still in his pocket, he’d gone on a bender—something he hadn’t done in a long time. He’d ended up putting his left fist through a packing crate. That had been strike number two. Number th ree had come when he’d gone to the emergency room for a stitch job. There he’d been coughed on and sneezed at until he’d even tually come away with seven stitches, a tetanus booster and a bug that had laid him out flat for nearly a week. The ring had been missing when he’d gotten around to looking in his pockets. Then he remembered giving it to one of the older barmaids and telling her to buy herself a pair of good sturdy shoes with arch supports.

  Jeez, no wonder he couldn’t ’cut it with the ladies. When push came to shove, he was about as romantic as a migraine headache.

  Gus lived alone in the first house he’d ever built—an A-frame near a small mountain town in North Caro lina. The house was far from perfect, but he liked it well enough. That is, he’d liked it until he’d been forced to spend a week alone there, sick as a dog, aching in every bone, alternating between chills and fever.

  Then had come strike four. The weather. When he’d finally come around, he’d been snowed in right up to his dormers. His truck, which he’d left slewed in the driveway, was buried door-handle deep. The power was out; his house was cold as a tomb; the phone lines were down; and his mobile unit was still out in the truck.

  He’d been weak as a kitten. Still was, for that matter. He’d been hungry, too, but what he’d craved even more than a decent meal was sunshine and the sound of another human voice. Not necessarily up close-just close enough to assure himself that he was still among the living. For a man who’d always prided himself on his self-sufficiency, that was pretty damned scary.

  So he’d built up his energy by devouring everything in his efficiency kitchen—ice cream, coffee, stale cinnamon buns and Moon Pie marshmallow sandwiches—and then he’d shoveled himself out. Less than an hour after the snowplow had come by, he had locked up and lit out to find himself some sunshine. with his next two building projects still in the permitting stage and miles of environmental red tape yet to be unraveled, he could damn well afford to lie in the. sun and bake his bones until he felt halfway human again.

  Just north of Columbia a smoky whipped past, siren screaming, lights flashing, throwing up a muddy spray. Gus swore again. He’d been doing a lot of that lately. He made a quick decision to pull off at the next truck stop and eat something. He was getting down into pecan-pie country. Maybe a slab of pie with ice cream and a pint or so of sweet, black coffee would get him over the hump.

  Warily, Mariah eyed the gas gauge on her elderly compact car. It had been known to lie. She should have stopped for gas before now, but she’d been hoping to make it home without spending a night on the road. The trouble was, she hadn’t gotten away until nearly noon. Everything had taken longer than she’d expected. Meeting with the super for her share of the deposit on the apartment she rented with two other models, closing out her bank account, packing, trying to get her car serviced, only to be told she could have an appointment the middle of next week….

  And then she’d had to deal with Vic. He’d been livid, and a livid Vic was not a pretty sight. He’d reminded her of the contract she’d signed and of everything he’d done for her since he’d discovered her. Then he’d told her he’d been planning to use her in the St. Croix shoot.

  She happened to know he was lying about that because only two models were scheduled to go, and Kaye and Danielle had been gloating all morning over snagging that particular plum.

  “That’s life, kiddo,” Kaye had said when she’d tackled her about it. Which summed up Kaye’s philosophy in a nutshell.

  “That’s life right back at you, kiddo,” Mariah muttered now under her breath. She’d never gotten the hang of fast, sophisticated repartee. Her mind was still running on Muddy Landing time.

  Vic had accused her of not taking modeling seriously, and he’d been right. There had always been an element of make-believe in it. Like playing dress-up, only a lot harder. When it came to make-believe, Mariah would rather choose her own role, and modeling just wasn’t her.

  She’d tried that morning to explain about her brother, Basil, and the baby—about how Basil’s wife had run off, leaving behind an eight-month-old daughter, and how his new business was teetering on the brink, and how her family had always depended on her.

  Not that Vic had cared. Family? What the devil was family? She was scheduled for fittings! She had runway bookings! Sara Marish Brady, a nobody from a nowhere place in Georgia, was on the verge of becoming the hottest property since Cindy Crawford, and she wanted to walk out on him to take care of a baby?

  Well, just maybe, Mariah fumed, reaching forward to smear a circle in the condensation on her wind shield, just maybe she didn’t wantto be the next Cindy Crawford! Until Vic Chin had discovered her perched on a ladder, reaching for a kerosene lantern on a top shelf in Grover Shatley’s Feed, Seed and Hardware Emporium eleven months ago when he’d stopped off in Muddy Landing to ask directions to Sapelo Island, she had never even heard of the woman. She had been perfectly content with her job as assistant manager of the store.

  Or, if not precisely content, at least realistic enough to know that it was the best job Muddy Landing had to offer a woman who didn’t own a boat, a set of traps or a business that fronted Highway 17.

  And Mariah was nothing if not realistic. As the eldest of five, she’d taken over when her father had walked out, leaving behind an ailing, alcoholic wife and a brood of stairstep children. She’d been a solemn, bookish nine years old at the time, given to daydreams and fairy tales.

  Y
ears later, after the last of the siblings had left the nest and she’d had time to think about such things, she had discovered somewhat to her surprise that buried under all those layers of enforced practicality, there still lurked a closet romantic who believed in charming princes and knights in shining armor.

  Which might explain why she’d gone along with the fantasy when Vic had promised her the world with a cherry on top. His magicians had worked their magic, turning her into a glamorous stranger who wore exotic clothes and mingled with exotic people who owned yachts and who thought no more of flying over to Paris than she used to think about driving down to Brunswick or over to Waycross. Before she knew it, she’d found herself dreaming again about finding-Well, hardly a prince, but at least a special someone.

  It hadn’t happened. It wasn’t going to happen. Mariah knew for a fact that there weren’t any knights or princes waiting at Grover Shatley’s Feed, Seed and Hardware. Muddy Landing didn’t even boast a mayor, much less any royalty. The closest thing to a knight was Moe Chitty, who owned the town’s only garage and had come to her rescue more than once when her car wouldn’t start.

  Blinking against the hypnotic spell of windshield wipers, Mariah shifted her position. Her legs were too long for a compact car, even with an adjustable seat—which hers no longer was. She should have taken a break before now, but the thought of jogging a few rounds at a rest stop in the pouring rain didn’t particularly appeal.

  Besides, she had too much on her mind. “Maybe I just won’t go back at all,” she said out loud, voicing a thought that had been more and more in her mind this past month. Who needed New York? who needed Palm Beach? Who needed her face on the cover of the Italian Yogue, anyway? Nobody in Muddy Landing had ever even heard of the rag, much less seen it.