Summer Kisses by Theresa Ragan, Laurie Kellogg, Katie Graykowski, Bev Pettersen, Lindsey Brookes, Diana Layne, Autumn Jordon, Jacie Floyd, Elizabeth Bemis, Lizzie Shane Read Free Book Online Page A

rather than later. As was the norm, her mom couldn’t give Jill an exact day or time of arrival. They were busy people. For Dad, getting away from work for a few days wasn’t easy. Sadly, Jill wasn’t looking forward to their visit. She loved her parents; she just didn’t like them very much. Her father was overbearing and controlling, while her mother was merely one of her father’s many puppets.
    Jill’s entire life had been built around her mother and father’s wishes. Even Thomas had been their doing. Before Thomas left her standing alone at the altar, though, Jill had begun to think perhaps her parents knew what was best for her after all.
    But not any longer.
    For twenty-eight years Jill had done whatever her father told her to do. Jill’s first act of defiance was moving from New York to California. Her parents would say her second act of defiance was having a baby out of wedlock, but that would be incorrect. Having a baby was a well-thought-out plan on Jill’s part. She and Thomas had been dating for many years before he finally proposed. During that time, they discovered Thomas had something called retrograde ejaculation, a disorder that causes some men, like Thomas, to become infertile. There were other related problems, too: problems she didn’t want to think about.
    For that reason, Jill had spent the last four years visiting sperm banks across the country, finally opting on CryoCorp, the best in the business—or so she thought.
    Getting pregnant and giving birth to Ryan had nothing to do with payback, revenge, or even biological clocks. After Thomas abandoned her, she decided to continue with her plans to have a baby. Having Ryan was a well-thought-out choice, a dream come true. She would not apologize to anyone for her decision to become a single mother.
    Jill straightened her shoulders and headed for the door just as a knock sounded on the other side.
    “Don’t answer it,” Sandy said.
    “I have to.” Jill reached for the door handle. Derrick Baylor, she realized, might be just what the doctor ordered. If her parents thought, even for a minute, that she was interested in a football player of all things, they would turn around and head back for home in a New York minute. According to her father, football players were arrogant and overpaid, all ego and no substance, a disgrace to humanity.
    Wonderful .
    Jill could not have planned this scenario any better had she tried. Derrick Baylor would be the perfect man to get her parents off her back once and for all.
    “We don’t even know the guy,” Sandy said. “He could be dangerous.”
    “He’s not dangerous,” Jill said as she opened the door.
    “Who’s not dangerous?” Derrick asked.
    “You,” she said matter-of-factly before she waved at her ninety-year-old neighbor, Mrs. Bixby, when the woman peeked out through her apartment door.
    Jill gave Derrick a once over. The first day she’d met Derrick Baylor he’d been wearing a nice pair of slacks and a button-down shirt. Today he had on a white T-shirt that showed off well-worked biceps; pre-washed jeans; a pair of sporty-style slip-on shoes; dark sunglasses; and three days’ worth of stubble. One hand was tucked in his front pants pocket. His hair was thick, dark, and wavy. Unruly strands hit his handsome forehead from all directions.
    If only her parents could see him now.
    Her mother would faint.
    Derrick was everything her father wasn’t: tall, sexy, and from what little she’d heard on the news the other day, Hollywood was a bad boy. A womanizer who had tall, big-busted women lined up outside his door, no doubt.
    Looking past him, over the railing, Jill saw his BMW parked at the curb across the street, which explained the flyaway hair. His BMW was a convertible. The same car she’d been in when her water broke. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d had time to take it to a car wash.
    Jill stepped outside and shut the door behind her.
    Derrick slid his Ray-Bans to the top of his