Practicing Parenthood

When opposing counsels attract!

Assistant DA Collin Baptista has a rule: never sleep with the enemy. He broke it once—with defense attorney Madison Reddy. Now Madison’s pregnant and Collin heads to her North Captiva retreat with a ring, prepared to do the right thing. What he’s not prepared for is her flat-out rejection.

Madison may not think he’s ready to be a father, but Collin’s sure he can convince her otherwise. And when the couple find a lost goldendoodle puppy, they get plenty of opportunity to practice being a family. Maybe a secluded Florida island and a stray puppy can teach these two rivals to be a couple—and parents!

CARA LOCKWOOD is the USA TODAY bestselling author of more than seventeen books, including I Do (But I Don’t), which was made into a Lifetime Original movie. She’s written the Bard Academy series for young adults and has had her work translated into several languages around the world. Born and raised in Dallas, Cara now lives near Chicago with her two wonderful daughters. Find out more about her at caralockwood.com, friend her on Facebook, Facebook.com/authorcaralockwood, or follow her on Twitter, @caralockwood.

Also By Cara Lockwood

Island of Second Chances

Shelter in the Tropics

The Big Break

Her Hawaiian Homecoming

Boys and Toys

Texting Under the Influence

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Practicing Parenthood

Cara Lockwood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08290-7

PRACTICING PARENTHOOD

© 2018 Cara Lockwood

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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“So? It’s mine, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Madison sighed. She braced herself for the lecture.

“That’s what I thought,” Collin said, looking eager...and even...excited? That took her by surprise. She hadn’t expected him to want the baby. He’d been all hands and mouth that one night they spent together, but then the next day, it was as if she didn’t exist. Now he liked the idea of her carrying his baby? Maybe she’d been wrong about him. Maybe he wasn’t the hard-nosed prosecutor without a heart.

He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a black velvet box. He put down his backpack on the terra-cotta stone tiles of the foyer, and then turned to her.

“If it’s mine, then we need to do this.” He flipped open the black box lid, revealing a brilliant solitaire diamond that caught the sunlight and sparkled like fire. Suddenly, all coherent thought fled her mind.

Collin Baptista was asking her to marry him.

Dear Reader,

I’m excited to share with you my new book, Practicing Parenthood, a story about how sometimes the best way to learn how to love is to dive in, headfirst.

After Collin Baptista has a night of fiery passion with opposing counsel Madison Reddy, neither believe it’s a relationship with legs. But then Madison discovers she’s pregnant, and Collin surprises her by proposing. Madison, however, has no intention of getting married just to get married. Instead, she heads to her uncle’s beach house on beautiful North Captiva, Florida.

Collin follows and he and Madison find a stray puppy on the island and adopt him, and in the process discover they have a long way to go to learn to be parents.

I recently adopted a goldendoodle (half poodle, half golden retriever) myself that my daughters named Teddy as well (since he, too, looks like a teddy bear), and so I knew firsthand the difficulties of having a puppy, and it reminded me of how similar puppies and babies can be. You can’t turn your back on either one for a minute!

I loved the idea of a couple at odds coming together and learning to be parents while fostering a puppy and realizing that they are stronger together as a team. Sometimes, the biggest obstacles to love are the ones we put in our own path.

Because this is my last Harlequin Superromance title, I also wanted to thank you, the reader. It’s been an honor and a privilege to write for you. I hope you enjoy Practicing Parenthood as much as I enjoyed writing it.

All my best,

Cara

For Hana, Miya, Sophia, Pete and Sarina, the true joys in my life who let me practice parenthood every day.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Dear Reader

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

COLLIN BAPTISTA SLID through the metal detectors at the Lee County courthouse, grateful for the cool air-conditioning that fought off the humid air of southwest Florida. He grabbed his keys and wallet from the conveyor belt and nodded at Joyce, the armed guard who wore her hair in tight braids. She was a regular, like all the staff he saw almost daily at the courthouse.

“Looking good today,” she told him, her eyes sliding down the length of the new dark suit that fit him like a glove, a splurge he’d allowed himself after winning that high-profile murder trial last month. He patted the top of his thick black hair, courtesy of his Filipino mother, a contrast to his green eyes and the lopsided, roguish smile from his Irish dad. Collin was anything but boy-next-door, but he could command a courtroom with persuasive arguments alone, one of the many reasons he hadn’t lost a case in two years working as a prosecutor for the state attorney’s office.

Still, he felt nerves dance in the pit of his stomach, but they had nothing to do with the hearing this morning, which was a routine case—a drunk driver who’d smashed his car into a tree but thankfully hadn’t hurt anyone. Yet. Collin planned to take the driver’s license to teach him a lesson. That was an open-and-shut case, something he could do with his eyes closed. The man’s blood alcohol had been three times the legal limit. No, what made him anxious was the thought of seeing Madison Reddy again.

Madison. Her dark thick hair, her light brown nearly hazel eyes... The curves that simply didn’t quit. Her father’s family had immigrated from India, her mother’s side was from Scotland. She was biracial like he was, and the only woman he knew of who could make an off-the-rack gray suit and sturdy heels look almost pornographic. He’d been haunted by her eyes for a year, and even more so now since they’d fallen into her bed two months ago after happy hour gone wrong.

Or, he thought, very, very right.

Collin walked through the courtroom and found he was early; no one sat at the defense table. He felt a tug of disappointment. He’d wanted every extra minute before or after the hearing to see her. That she wasn’t waiting for him left him feeling a little empty.

You were the one who didn’t call her, a voice nagged inside his brain. You were the one who deliberately avoided her these past couple of months.

He’d told himself he hadn’t called because he was worried about violating the state attorney’s policy of not sleeping with the opposing counsel. He could’ve gotten around that, he supposed. But he knew the real reason ran deeper than that. He liked Madison. He liked her too much. He had career plans that didn’t include staying in Fort Myers, and if he started a serious relationship with her, he’d be tempted to toss those ideas out the window.

He only had three rules in life: 1) Don’t lose; 2) Bad guys deserve more than the book thrown at them; and 3) Never sleep with the enemy (in other words, defense attorneys). He’d broken one of his three cardinal rules for Madison. That was how amazing the woman was.

In his opinion, most defense attorneys were liars or exaggerators, relying on smoke and mirrors rather than facts. Every prosecutor felt that way. He’d vowed never to go to bed with one of them. Yet, Madison had somehow managed to sneak past all his defenses. She stood by her own set of principles and wasn’t afraid to give him a piece of her mind.

Instantly, afterward, he realized how reckless he’d been. If word got out that he’d slept with opposing counsel, it would tarnish his career and hers.

They’d faced off on a number of different cases, including one that involved a fairly high-profile white supremacist who’d tried to murder a black man but had ended up shooting a twelve-year-old girl by mistake. After their one night together, he’d avoided her steadfastly for a couple of months. Yet, as much as he tried to forget her, he kept thinking about her smooth legs, soft stomach, her light brown eyes alight with mirth. It was only his career that kept him from picking up the phone and calling her.

But none of that mattered now. He wasn’t going to be her opposing counsel for much longer.

He sat at the prosecutor’s table and opened his briefcase, checking out the letter one last time. He’d accepted a job at the US attorney’s office in Miami, a huge promotion, beginning in four months. Not bad for a kid whose father went to prison for drugs when Collin was just two and died there when Collin was ten. He was proud of being a success despite the odds—son of a single mom and raised in the poorest of poor neighborhoods. Sure, he was a hard-nosed, hard-charging prosecutor, but life had never given him any real breaks. He’d had plenty of temptation to run drugs, to steal, to cut corners—but he’d never done any of it. He’d worked the worst jobs on janitorial staffs at two in the morning to put himself through college and law school, and eventually he wanted to be the highest prosecutor in the land, the attorney general. But for now, he’d accept a position as a federal prosecutor in Miami.

Collin planned to take some time off before then. This was his last case before he took an extended sabbatical. And the months he wasn’t working as a prosecutor, he wanted to spend with Madison, getting to know those curves he fought to remember through the fuzz of alcohol he’d consumed that night. He glanced at the defense table. Where was she?

Then attorneys from her firm, Reddy, Chester and Todd, arrived. Collin recognized one of them, Matt Todd, a guy he’d gone to law school with. Collin momentarily felt disoriented. Where was Madison? Surely, she hadn’t left the firm. Her uncle was a partner and there were rumors he’d make her a partner one day, too.

“Matt? I thought Madison was on this case,” Collin said, getting up to shake Matt’s hand.

“Not anymore,” Matt answered, trying to balance a briefcase and a large Starbucks cup while clasping Collin’s hand. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“She’s on sabbatical.” Matt placed his briefcase and coffee on the defense table. “Rumor has it she’s in the family way.” Matt lowered his voice as if this were the antebellum South when polite company refused to talk about pregnancy.

“Pregnant?” Collin felt like he’d been slapped. “How far along?”

Matt shrugged. “How should I know? All I can tell you is she was granted a few months off to figure it all out. At least, that’s the rumor. Everybody’s calling it a health issue, so it may be cancer for all we know...”

Matt continued to talk, but Collin was barely listening. Madison was pregnant? Collin remembered that they’d used a condom, although little good it had done them since it had broken sometime during the act. Or acts... He’d made the assumption she’d been on the pill because she’d told him, “Don’t worry about it.” Looked like he should’ve been worrying about it.

“...she gets to hang out on North Captiva for the summer, so it’s nice to be related to a partner.”

“What do you mean? She’s on North Captiva?”

“House-sitting for her uncle Rashad,” he said. “For the summer. That’s why I’m here, picking up her caseload while she has a health sabbatical or whatever.” Matt rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed by the new developments, but Collin hardly noticed.

“The rumor is she’s pregnant, though?” Collin pressed. Suddenly the neckline of his crisp new shirt seemed too tight. Why hadn’t she told him if she was?

“That’s what Rashad’s paralegal said. She’s a notorious gossip, but she also sits outside the man’s office and has bionic hearing...” Matt shrugged again.

Collin felt hot and cold all at once. Madison was pregnant? With his child. Had to be his. She’d said that she hadn’t slept with anyone in more than a year...and something in his gut said Madison didn’t sleep around. She just wasn’t the type.

He needed to find out if it was true.

Because if she was carrying his baby, there was only one thing he could do.

He wasn’t going to be like his own father who had never been a true parent. The man who’d never bothered to marry his mother, even after she’d given birth to two children. No, he’d vowed to be the opposite of that man in every way possible. Then he remembered the timing. He had the next few months off. He’d get on a boat, head out to North Captiva and find out if Madison was pregnant or not.

Because if she was, there was no way he’d abandon his son or daughter. He’d have to marry her.

That was all there was to it.

CHAPTER ONE

MADISON REDDY CLUNG to the edge of the small ferry that was shuttling her from the Pine Island Transportation Center to North Captiva, a small island on the west coast of Florida, just north of Sanibel Island. Known for the big shells swept into the Gulf from the currents in the Atlantic and for its lack of cars, North Captiva housed three hundred residents. They navigated the four-mile long island via golf cart and bike. Madison’s uncle Rashad had been more than generous in giving her time off from her job and a place to stay for a few months while she figured out what she was going to do. Her uncle had married but never had children, and in some ways, he had adopted her as his own.

“Go there. Take a little time off,” her uncle had told her in his office when she’d revealed in tears that she was pregnant. “If you don’t want to have the baby, there’s an excellent clinic in Fort Myers. If you do, then that’s fine. You can spend your pregnancy there, have the baby and come back to the firm. Your job will be waiting for you.”

It sounded like a plan from a hundred years ago—hide an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, have the baby in secret and then pop back up in society. But frankly, Madison was just grateful that Uncle Rashad had saved the lectures and was simply letting her, as a thirty-year-old woman, make her own decisions.

Rashad had been like a father to her, ever since her father died when she was fourteen. Rashad was even more generous, she thought, than her father would’ve been, but that was how seriously he took his responsibility to look after her—and her mother.

Still, she did need some time off to work this out. Her brain felt like muddled mush, and she needed some distance and a few weeks to decide what she’d do next. Her gut already told her there was nothing to decide. She was going to keep the baby, but she had to figure out how.

“You can live with me, and we’ll raise her together,” her mother had offered over tea the previous afternoon. “Or him.” Her mom had retired from the firm last year, so she had ample time on her hands.

“Mom, I can’t...ask you to do that. You’ve earned your retirement.” More than earned it, being a single mom. Her mother, whose cool blue stare never left her face, tucked a strand of dark auburn hair behind her ear as she studied Madison.

“There’s no asking,” her mother had said as she leaned over the small table at the coffee shop and gave her only daughter a big hug. “You don’t have to ask me to do anything. It’s my pleasure. Whatever you decide, I’m with you.”

It had felt good to have her mom in her corner, but her mother had always been on her side, the two of them an inseparable team since her father died. Even with the support, though, Madison wasn’t sure how she’d make it work. Could she really ask her nearly seventy-year-old mother to watch a baby for fifty or sixty hours a week? It didn’t seem right. She could get a less demanding job at another firm, but then what? Less money? Now she had a baby to think about.

You could tell Collin, a small voice in her head whispered. Doesn’t he have a right to know?

She instantly swatted the annoying thought away like it was a mosquito. Tell him, so he has an opportunity to weigh in and insist she get an abortion? Forget it!

She assumed he’d be anti-baby. There wasn’t anything soft and fuzzy about the man, and he’d made it more than clear these last few months that he considered their one-night stand exactly that—one and done.

But right now, all she cared about was holding down her meager lunch of saltines and water. She clung to the ferry’s railing at the back of the boat, willing herself not to hurl as the crystal blue ocean sped by. Madison always prided herself on having a stomach made of steel; she never got food poisoning, and only once in her life ever had the stomach flu. She never even got a hangover. But...this...this was different.

Her stomach roiled and she leaned over the side of the railing but managed not to throw up. Not yet.

“Seasick?” asked a sympathetic elderly tourist sitting near her in the oversized pontoon boat, wearing a bright pink flamingo visor, raising her voice over the wind.

Madison’s face flamed as she hurried to wipe her mouth. This was so embarrassing. Seasickness? Never once in her life. “Uh, yeah,” she lied.

“Try to look at the horizon, that will help,” the lady offered. Madison nodded and then stared off into the distance, but she knew it would do no good.

Collin Baptista. She’d fallen victim to his green eyes, and the fit, muscular body that looked so good in those suits. Never mind that he was the most arrogant know-it-all prosecutor she’d ever met. Collin was all the things she hated about prosecutors—his full-of-himself, holier-than-thou attitude that somehow failed to rub juries the wrong way. He’d never met a defendant he thought might be innocent or, at the very least, deserve his sympathy. He’d once asked a jury to put James Miller, a nineteen-year-old kid with a partial scholarship to the University of Indiana, away for three years for shoplifting a pair of earbuds. Forget that the kid was stealing them as a Christmas present for his single mom who worked two jobs. True, he’d hit the security guard, who’d tried to stop him, although the guard had gotten away with just a black eye.

Collin had told the jury the kid was violent, but Madison thought the punch he’d thrown was a mistake he regretted. In some ways, they might have both been right; the kid could’ve gone on to be more violent the next time. Or he could’ve learned his lesson. Now, locked away in jail, he’d almost certainly become more violent in order to survive.

Madison saw the world in a hundred shades of gray, but Collin Baptista saw it in stark black and white. Guilty or innocent, right or wrong, no in-between. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen into bed with the man. But then again, she knew why: Jimmy Reese, the horrible white supremacist. They’d faced off as opposing counsel on that case, but in that one instance, they’d both agreed. The violent, hateful man needed to be in jail. The fact that they had common ground at all was a turn-on, one she hadn’t expected.

Besides, she knew herself. She was attracted to overconfident men, and Collin was their poster boy. He possessed unwavering confidence, an ability to command the room and a certain fearlessness. Once, when a convicted murderer got loose in the courtroom, he’d simply clotheslined the man as he made a run for the exit, laying him flat on the floor before the bailiff could even react. Nobody would ever accuse Collin Baptista of being a pencil-neck lawyer. He oozed alpha-male sex appeal, and she was the first to admit she liked it.

And she wasn’t the only one. He had a reputation for loving and leaving the ladies, had slept with half the female clerks in the courthouse. He was known for never being serious, never having a steady girlfriend, always playing the field. After their night together, when Collin pretended it had never happened, she ought to have seen that coming. She’d only been yet another challenge, the charismatic young prosecutor who had women falling at his feet. Still, the rejection had hurt her pride.

Just add it to the list of jerks I’ve slept with. Not that it was a big list, but still. If there was a jerk in the room, she’d find him every time.

She was not going let him know their one-night stand had resulted in a pregnancy. Sure, she could go after him for child support, but she wasn’t a charity case. She could take care of herself...and this baby. She just needed to work out a plan. He’d left her messages lately, but she’d doggedly refused to respond to them. He’d only said, We need to talk, which could mean anything, and besides, the last thing she wanted to do was be on the phone with the county’s most dangerous cross-examiner, known for his ability to eviscerate an unwilling witness. She knew if she talked to Collin, her resolve to keep the pregnancy secret would dissolve. Another wave of nausea hit her as she leaned over the side of the railing and lost the saltines she’d tried so hard to keep in her stomach. Baby, you’re making this really hard on us both, she mentally scolded. How am I supposed to feed you if you eject everything I eat?