The Captain’s Secret Baby

  A.J. Wynter

  Contents

  Also by A.J. Wynter

  1. Bronwyn

  2. Dylan

  3. Bronwyn

  4. Dylan

  5. Bronwyn

  6. Dylan

  7. Bronwyn

  8. Dylan

  9. Bronwyn

  10. Dylan

  11. Bronwyn

  12. Dylan

  13. Bronwyn

  14. Dylan

  15. Bronwyn

  16. Dylan

  17. Bronwyn

  18. Dylan

  19. Bronwyn

  20. Dylan

  21. Bronwyn

  22. Dylan

  23. Dylan

  24. Bronwyn

  25. Dylan

  26. Bronwyn

  27. Dylan

  28. Bronwyn

  29. Dylan

  Epilogue

  Second Chances - Chance Rapids, Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Connect with A.J

  Copyright 2021 by AJ Wynter - All rights reserved.

  Editor: Theresa Banschbach www.icanedit4u.com

  Cover Design: Najla Qamber Designs

  * * *

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third party websites or their content.

  All sexual acts within the book are consensual and the characters are 18+.

  Join AJ’s Reader’s Club

  Created with Vellum

  Also by A.J. Wynter

  Laketown Hockey Series

  Not a Player

  Hating the Rookie

  The Coach Next Door

  Wingmen are a Girl’s Best Friend

  * * *

  Chance Rapids Series

  Second Chances

  One More Chance

  Accidental Chances

  A Secret Chance

  Reckless Chances

  * * *

  Titan Billionaire Brothers

  For Richer, For Poorer, Book 1

  For Richer, For Poorer, Book 2

  * * *

  Her First Time Series

  The Biker’s Virgin

  The Mountain Man’s Virgin

  The Rancher’s Virgin

  About The Captain’s Secret Baby

  A Billionaire. A Hockey Star...and a BABY

  * * *

  I'm the heir to a billion dollar corporation and he's a small town mechanic.

  It was supposed to be a summer fling.

  And yeah, it was fun while it lasted.

  But, we're from two separate worlds and it will never work.

  Even though he makes my heart hammer like there’s a heavy metal band in my chest; my parents and grandparents would never accept a Laketownie into our family.

  * * *

  He can never find out that this baby is his. Ever.

  The Captain’s Secret Baby can be read as a standalone, or as book 5 in the Laketown Hockey Series.

  One

  Bronwyn

  The engine sputtered and I felt the boat surge forward before it lost power. “No. No. No.” I pulled back on the throttle and the boat settled in the still water in the middle of the bay, smoke billowing into the blue sky. “Shit,” I whispered under my breath.

  Even though the engine had already quit running, I turned off the key. The waves from the wake caught up to us and rocked the boat as I made my way to the stern. Smoke seeped from the engine compartment as I fumbled with the antique hinges to open it.

  “What are you doing?” My friend, Tess, stretched her tanned arms over her head and looked at me over her oversized Jackie O glasses.

  “Ouch!” The hinge released and, in the process, bent my nail backward. It felt like every drop of blood in my body had rushed to my thumb. “Ow. Ow. Ow.” I shook my hand and leaned over the side of the boat to plunge my hand into the cold water of Lake Casper. I coughed as the wind shifted direction and the smoke from the engine wrapped around my entire body before blowing further across the lake. I wrapped the bottom of my silk dress around my thumb and managed to open the other clasp. I tried to lift the lid. It wouldn’t budge. It turns out that mahogany is very heavy. “Can you help me?” It was awkward trying to lift the lid to the engine compartment with one functioning hand and the other wrapped in red silk.

  Tess examined her nails. “Let’s just call someone.” She reached into her Yves St. Laurent bag and pulled out her cell phone.

  “What if the engine is on fire?” I pointed to the black smoke.

  Tess’s eyebrows rose high above her glasses. “Fire?”

  “Fire makes smoke. Help me.”

  Tess rushed to the back of the classic wooden boat and together we were able to raise the cover. The smoke curled out from deep within the jumble of pipes and wires, but thankfully I didn’t see any flames. Tess turned and coughed into her arm. She lifted her glasses and wiped at her watery eyes with her pink manicured fingers.

  I pointed to her phone. “It doesn’t look like we have to abandon ship. Now, we can call for help.”

  Tess coughed. “Who should I call?”

  I stepped to the front of the boat and took a deep breath of fresh air. “Let me think.”

  “What about your house manager?”

  I turned to face what was supposed to be one of my best friends. “Do you remember earlier today? The part where I told you I wasn’t supposed to take this boat to the club?”

  “Riiiiiight.” Tess nodded. “But we looked super cute pulling up in it.”

  We had looked cute. Heads had definitely turned – two supermodels getting out of a classic wooden boat at the private Lake Casper Club.

  The boat was a well-known fixture on the Lake Casper antique circuit and my parents had been offered half a million dollars to sell it the year before. They never would, Calliope had been in the Yates family since the turn of the twentieth century, purchased the same year that my great-great-grandparents had built our cottage, The Yates Estate.

  I sucked my throbbing thumb as I racked my brain, trying to figure out what to do about the boat and wondering about karma. Is this what happened when I disobeyed my parents? They specifically told me not to take Calliope from her berth in the boathouse. Why had I let Tess convince me it was a good idea? I knew that I could return the boat without a scratch, and they’d never know the difference, but it had never crossed my mind that there might be something wrong with her. If I called the house manager, she would tell my parents and I was already in their bad books. I flopped into the captain’s seat. “Why don’t we call Brandon?” I suggested.

  “Davenport?” Tess asked, but was already scrolling through her phone. “He was heading to the first tee when we left.”

  “If he wants to sleep with you, he’ll waltz right off that golf course, get in his boat, and rescue us.”

  Tess had rejected Brandon’s advances all summer and it had driven him crazy. She’d had her eyes on one of the New York Thunder pro hockey players.

  Tess nodded with a slight smirk on her face and jabbed at her phone. A puzzled look came over her face as she tried again and then held her phone up into the sky. “Zero bars of service.” She walked from one side of the boat to the other, her eyes trained on the screen.

  The engine smoke had thinned, and the only sound was the lapping of the water against the hull. “What are we going to do?” Panic had quickly crept into Tess’s voice.

  “Let me think.” The slight rocking of the boat and the noxious fumes were a recipe for disaster in my stomach.

  “Bronwyn.” Tess’s voice rose an octave higher than usual. “We’re stuck out here.” She shielded her eyes with her hand. “It’s so hot. We’ll get dehydrated.”

  I inhaled and tried to keep my salmon and mixed greens lunch from making an unwelcome appearance. “Tess. It’s Lake Casper. Not the ocean. Someone will come by and give us a tow to the marina, or…” I didn’t want to think of the alternative and the damage it would cause to Calliope, “We’ll drift to shore. If you’re worried about dying in the next two hours, feel free to drink the lake water.”

  Tess shriveled her nose and fanned her face.

  She was right though; the heat was intense. August in Laketown was either hot and humid or cool and rainy. So far this year, it had been more like the Serengeti and a rush of nausea ripped through my body like a tidal wave. “Oh no.” I clamped my hand over my mouth and threw my upper body over the starboard side of the boat, barfing my fifty-dollar salad into the lake.

  “Don’t.” Tess turned away from me. “You’re going to make me puke too.”

  I waited for my stomach to calm down and then scooped some water into my mouth to rinse it out.

  “I can’t beli
eve you get seasick.” Tess’s voice was muffled as she still had her hand clamped firmly on her mouth. “Don’t you spend months on a yacht?”

  With shaky hands, I eased into the captain’s chair. I wasn’t seasick. I had sailed the Mediterranean every year since I was a little kid, but I wasn’t ready to tell Tess, or anyone, the truth – just yet. “I think it was the smell from the smoke and the heat.”

  Tess nodded.

  I pointed to the rear bench seat of the boat. “There might be a hat or a blanket or something under the cushion.”

  Tess retrieved a striped cotton blanket and the two of us held it over our heads. As twenty-something, aka ancient models, neither of us could afford to have skin damage. “My arms are getting tired.” Tess dropped her end of the blanket tent into her lap.

  “It’s been thirty seconds.” I shook my head. “Here. Give me your end.” I gestured with my hand, and she handed me the fringed edge of the blanket. I leaned over the windshield and tucked the side under the windshield wipers and draped the other edge over the backrests of the front seats. We huddled on the floor under the blanket, both of us with our phones in hand, eyes glued to the screen waiting for the arrival of a bar on the screen.

  A boat droned by in the distance, and I crawled from the tent to wave my arms in the air, but they didn’t alter course. Five minutes later, the wake from their boat reached ours, and Tess and I rocked miserably in our tent.

  “A round of golf at the club takes about four hours,” Tess mused. “Brandon and Tad have to come this way to get to their cottages.”

  I glanced at my Rolex. “That means we’ve got three and a half hours to go.”

  “And that’s if they don’t stop at the club for a beer after their round.”

  I couldn’t sit upright any longer and laid on the floor of the boat. “Ugggghhh,” I groaned. “I can’t believe nobody has stopped.”

  Tess peeked out from under the blanket. “I can’t see any boats, anywhere.”

  She leaned on her elbows and sighed. “I could go for some prosecco right about now.”

  “Me too.” It wasn’t a lie. I sure could have used a cold bubbly glass of something. It had been three and a half months since a drop of alcohol had passed my lips, but not one of my friends noticed that I had offered to be the designated driver every time we went out. It was the perfect excuse not to drink and the one that I had used that day. Unfortunately, I chose to drive the half a million-dollar hunk of junk that was now drifting down the middle of Lake Casper.

  Tess checked her phone. “Nothing.” She dropped it onto her flat stomach. Luckily voluminous dresses were my style and so far, my belly didn’t look any different from the outside – although it sure felt different on the inside. “When we get in range should I call Tyler?” Tess asked. Tyler was the pro hockey player Tess had been lusting after all summer.

  “Aren’t you leaving in a couple of weeks?”

  “Yeah.” Tess picked at an invisible piece of lint on her linen shirt. “But you can do a lot in two weeks.” She grinned conspiratorially. “What’s the latest with McManus?”

  I shrugged. Six months ago, I would’ve given my right arm for a date with Jake McManus. He was exactly what I liked – older, sophisticated, rich, and hot. He was the perfect man for me, and I had spent the past two summers pining for him. Ever since my ex-fiancé left me, I’d been searching for the perfect man to have at my side. One that I could bring home to my parents – and more importantly, my grandparents.

  “I told Jake that I would be free for dinner sometime this week.”

  “Bronwyn.” Tess’s voice was harsh. “Why do you keep putting him off? The guy has been trying to buy you dinner all summer.”

  I shot her one of my best fake smiles. Luckily, I was an expert at them and she was really bad at reading people. “That’s why he keeps calling. I keep saying no.”

  Tess laid down on the floor next to me. “You’re so good at that. If Tyler asked me out, I’d probably end up sleeping with him in the car on the way to the restaurant. I need to adopt some of your self-control.”

  If she only knew that there was a baby in my belly. One that was put there from a one-night stand. Well, technically it was a series of one-night stands over the past two years, so she might have something different to say about my level of control.

  “I forgot that you’ve got your little townie friend with benefits.” Tess laughed.

  My cheeks burned, and I hoped that under the shelter of the red and white stripes, it wasn’t obvious.

  “What was his name again? Is he still around?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to say his name. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him this summer.”

  It was the truth. I hadn’t seen him since the spring. May to be exact.

  “You’re something else, Bronwyn. You could have any guy on this lake, and you chose to get down and dirty with a Laketownie.”

  I smacked her thigh lazily. “You and the girls are the only people who know about that.” I sat up. “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

  Tess’s body rocked into mine as some rolling waves met the side of the boat. “Of course not. That’s not something anyone would want to get out.”

  I exhaled. “Thanks. You know what the rumor mill is like here – and it’s worse for—”

  “Us?” she laughed. “I’m surprised the paparazzi haven’t zoomed up beside us to take photos of the heir to the Yates Petroleum fortune, stranded in the middle of a lake.

  “Nah, they’re cowering on the shore somewhere with their super lenses. Not helping.”

  Tess laughed. “They’d let us die out here and document the whole thing, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yep.” A sad laugh escaped because it was true.

  “What makes you think that little Laketownie isn’t bragging all over town that he’s banged Bronwyn Yates?”

  I hated that she kept calling him little but defending him would certainly throw up some red flags. “He’s not like that.”

  “Sure. Until one of the paparazzi offers him money for the story.”

  “Mmmm.” My reply was non-committal. I had been sleeping with one of the Laketown Otters on and off for the past two years and I knew him better than I’d known my ex-fiancé. My Laketownie was hot as hell, made me cry with laughter one minute, and scream in ecstasy the next. He wasn’t the full package though: he was an uneducated, small-town jock who sometimes used the word ain’t. But if there were a bedroom package, he had it all. He was the perfect mixture of rough and wild and sweet and giving.

  The rocking of the boat must have lulled my exhausted pregnant body to sleep because I awoke to Tess shaking my arm.

  “Bronwyn, there’s a boat coming.” She hopped to her feet and grabbed the blanket to wave it in the air. “They’re coming over here.” She was practically squealing and stamping her feet with excitement.

  I draped my arm over my eyes to protect them from the sudden assault of the sun’s rays. Without looking, I could hear the deep throaty sound of another wooden boat approaching. “It’s a nice boat.” Tess relayed the information to me as I peeled myself from the floor. I adjusted my Ray-Bans and joined Tess in waving to the guy as he approached. Everyone knew Calliope and I shielded my eyes as I tried to identify the boat as it approached. It looked like the Hawthorne’s cruiser. Mr. Hawthorne was a tech billionaire and a friend of my father’s.

  “Shit.” I shook my head, but I wasn’t going to complain. I could feel already feel the tightness in my face from being out in the elements for too long. Mr. Hawthorne was sure to tell my father that he’d had to rescue Calliope, but I would rather face the wrath of my father than spend the night floating on Lake Casper.