For The Baby's Sake

by Christine Rimmer

Book by Rimmer, Christine

Genres: Romance, Harlequin, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Fiction

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1994

About the author

New York Times bestselling author Christine Rimmer has written more than one hundred contemporary romances for Harlequin Books. She has won Romantic Times BOOKreview’s Reviewer’s Choice Award for best Silhouette Special Edition. She has been nominated seven times for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award and five times for Romantic Times Series Storyteller of the Year.

A California native who first longed to be an actress, Christine earned her theater degree from California State, Sacramento and then went to New York to study acting. Later, she moved to Southern California, where she began her writing career with short stories, plays, and poems. Her poems and short stories were published in a number of small literary journals. Her plays were produced at The Back Alley and Group Theaters in Southern California and have been published by Dramatists Play Service and West Coast Plays.

She now lives in Oregon with her family and two very contented cats named Tom and Ed.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started out really liking this book. The first 1/4 was interesting enough that I was happily turning the pages and I liked both our hero and heroine. Unfortunately in the second 1/4 of the book the quality started slipping and then at the 1/2 mark it took a complete nosedive and never really recovered.

And by God does this author need someone to edit her dialogue! In every conversation she has every single person saying the name of who their speaking to in every single line of spoken dialogue.

"Are you sure, Bob?"
"Yes, Phil."
"But Bob, how can you be so sure?"
"Well Phil, you'll just have to take my word for it, okay?"
"Okay, Bob."
"Thank you, Phil."

People don't really talk like that! There's one scene in particular where the heroine, Andie, says "Oh Clay" like four times in two pages. It was super annoying, and yanked me right out of the narrative.


The story opens with Andie and Clay having lunch together. Clay was adopted by Andie's aunt and uncle when he was 10 years old so he and Andie were raised as cousins but aren't related by blood. Clay was always a very controlled, super driven high achiever while Andie was more of a devil-may-care free spirit who did whatever struck her fancy. Andie's family always treated her like an idiotic screw up and held up Clay as the example of who she should strive to be. So they argued a lot when they were kids and then Clay went off to college and eventually to a high flying accounting firm in L.A.

Andie eventually settled down and realized that she needed to build a career so she went to work for her uncle's accounting firm as the office manager. She was great at the job and the families both breathed a sigh of relief that she was finally behaving appropriately. Then the uncle had a heart attack and while he didn't die, he did need to step back from the firm so he handed it over to Clay. Andie then had to spend months proving herself all over again, this time to Clay, who had to be strong-armed by the families into keeping Andie on in the first place because he just assumed she was a screw up at this job too and had only been given the position because the families felt sorry for her.

Andie was, naturally, very irritated by Clay's condescension but after a few months of her kicking @ss in the office, he had to admit that she was not only great at her job, but that she'd be very hard to replace. When the book opens, they have a coolly professional relationship and that's about it.

At this lunch, Andie reveals that she's pregnant. She considers it a possibility that Clay will fire her because of it, which would be illegal, but she thinks him capable of it because there's so little trust between them. Clay is reasonably supportive, however, and assures her that she'll always have a job working for him. He asks who the father is but Andie refuses to tell him and just says the father is completely out of the picture.

It doesn't take Clay long to do the math and realize that the father is most likely his best friend, Jeff, who had temporarily broken up with his fiancee and come to crash at Clay's house during the period of conception. But for some reason he doesn't ask Andie if his suspicions are true. This didn't really make sense to me and ended up being the beginning of a very contrived plot line where Clay goes on knowing the truth for ages but lying to Andie in order to make her think that he doesn't. It was really bizarre.

Andie tells her family about the bun in her oven and they roll their eyes and talk about how, once again, Andie has screwed up her life and why can't she be more like Clay. Then they corner Clay and first ask if he's the father, and then hint that he should marry Andie so that she'll be "taken care of," because clearly a woman with tons of friends, a good job, and strong familial support has no business raising a baby alone. In case you can't tell, I found Andie's family's treatment of her to be really irritating. Although in the book they were portrayed as being loving, to me it was very clear how their systematic emotional warfare had eroded her self-esteem to the point where she truly thought of herself as a screw up.

All of a sudden, Clay starts seeing Andie as a woman, rather than his bratty younger cousin and there were some nice scenes of Clay pining after her, which were good. Then he flies down to see Jeff, who has since gotten back together with the fiancee and they're now married. When Jeff and Clay are alone together, Jeff admits that he slept with Andie "because she was there" at a time when he wasn't feeling too great about himself. And he says that it's a lot easier for him to pretend the baby doesn't exist than to come clean to his wife in order to be a supportive father. Clay says Jeff is dead to him and they beat each other up for a while.

Then Clay comes back home and lies to Andie about where he got all the bruises. He continues to pretend that he doesn't know the baby daddy's identity for several more weeks and I just can't understand WHY. Then he starts trying to woo Andie and there's good chemistry between them. Then Clay proposes, in a completely non-romantic way. Basically he says it's to give the baby a father and that he thinks they'll make a good, supportive couple. He, of course, does not believe in love because his biological mother was a bohemian borderline nutcase and he never knew who his father was.

Andie rejects his proposal and he backs off, sure that their newfound desire for each other will make her reconsider if he gives her time to stew. Andie frequently talks about how she could never marry someone without being 100% honest with him first. And since she can't tell him the baby daddy's name, this will never work out. She holds back on telling him because she thinks it'll break Clay's heart to find out his best friend is a douchebag. Clay knows this is her thought process and yet STILL doesn't tell her that he already knows the truth. Instead, he just keeps telling her that it doesn't matter because the guy is out of her life. Again, this just didn't make sense to me and felt very contrived.

I think the author was trying to hint at some vague hangup Clay had about thinking that Andie might be in love with Jeff and secretly pining away for him but it just didn't seem warranted. Clay knew they only spent one night together and had only known each other for a few days prior to that, so it's pretty unlikely that Andie fell in love in such a short space of time. And she's not ACTING like someone who is pining away. She's acting like a woman who has her life as a single mom planned out and is getting sh*t done.

Eventually Andie gives in enough to go to bed with Clay and the next morning he badgers her about accepting his proposal. She mentally prepares to tell Clay the truth about Jeff but just before she does, she realizes he already knows. She's upset that he didn't tell her but eventually lets it go. They marry the next day and things are great for several months. Andie eventually tells Clay that she loves him and he of course won't say it back because there's no such thing as love.

4 weeks before the baby is due, Clay gets a call that Jeff has died in a car accident. Clay immediately shuts Andie out when she tries to comfort him. She's very sure that Clay regrets the distance between him and Jeff and feels like he either does or SHOULD blame her for it. So when Clay asks her to book his flight to L.A. for the funeral, she gets one for herself too.

Clay is NOT happy that Andie is forcing her company on him. He says it's inappropriate for Andie to be there basically waving her scarlet A in front of the cuckqueaned widow's face. Andie is convinced Clay will need her for emotional support and refuses to be left behind.....And then basically the worst happens. At the reception after the funeral, the widow realizes that Andie is carrying Jeff's child and passes out. Then Andie goes into labor a month early. And for the rest of the book, Andie says that she realizes that it had been a bad call to go to L.A.. That it was all her fault that the widow figured things out, and that the baby was premature, and Clay agrees.

If this had been any other romance novel then Clay would have actually had a breakdown at the funeral and really needed Andie to lean on. Instead, we get another example of how Andie screws up all the time. I wasn't a fan. Once they get home with the baby, Clay refuses to have sex with Andie, even after the doctor's sanction on sex is lifted. Andie continually tries to get Clay to open up to her about what's bothering him but he refuses to tell her.

This whole period on the book was a long, boring slog and made me dislike both characters. Clay's reason for not touching Andie is that he feels certain that Andie will want to "talk" again after the sex reestablishes their connection. And talking would force him to articulate why he's upset with her. The reason is that he still somehow worries that Andie is secretly in love with Jeff even though she's been professing her love for CLAY for months now and has never ONCE said that she had any feelings for Jeff whatsoever. She keeps trying to tell Clay how it is that she and Jeff ended up in bed together that night but Clay refuses to let her get the words out. Instead he just goes on being coolly polite to her and rebuffing her advances for months while allegedly his body is racked with desire for her.

I totally didn't get it. What was his plan here? To just go on ignoring her both physically and emotionally for the rest of their lives out of fear that she might say she once had romantic feelings for the her baby's dead father? Why even stay married to her if his plan was to never touch her again? This was all very weak. And I wasn't too happy with Andie in these scenes either because it's not like she needed Clay's permission to speak about what happened between her and Jeff. All she had to do was shout it out anyway and this all would have been cleared up in five minutes. Instead she just kept pining away like some kind of martyr waiting for Clay to decide when she was allowed back in his inner circle. And after months of this Andie finally feels she can't go on and starts considering divorce but STILL doesn't just lock Clay in a room and force him to listen to her.

Eventually Jeff's widow comes to discuss the truth and SHE asks Andie what happened between her and Jeff. Andie explains that they were both just feeling blue and had too much to drink and it happened. Afterward she pushed Jeff to go back and make up with his fiancer because she knew that he really did love her. The widow is thankful because Jeff was a changed man when he returned and completely committed to their marriage. She's grateful that she had these few glorious months with him before he died and it was all thanks to Andie. This truth finally breaks through Clay's layer of BS and he realizes he wants to keep Andie around. Andie pokes at him until he says he loves her too and that's the end.

All in all, I was very disappointed at the end. I didn't believe Clay's hangups. There was no basis for him to think Andie was in love with Jeff, so that was a nonstarter. And even his "there's no such thing as love" didn't ring true when he'd had decades of love from his adoptive parents. Not to mention that the two hangups contradict themselves. How can he believe Andie is in love when he doesn't believe in love as a concept??

I also didn't like how much Andie let Clay bully her and dictate their interactions in the second half. Nor that the author chose to make Andie seem reckless and stupid for wanting to be there for her husband after his best friend's funeral, when in any other romance novel, that would be the correct thing to do. The baby's birth was very anticlimactic considering how much focus there was on it in the beginning and afterward she became a Benadryl baby.

Really just not a satisfying read.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setting – Northern California.

Theme – love, self protection, self discovery

Character-
Clay Barrett – until age of 10 he lived in foster homes and with his dreamy, ineffective, ill mother. The mother died and he was adopted by a wonderful couple. He is closed, self contained, a good man, accountant, handsome, grateful. Andrea, his adopted cousin, his opposite. She rushed in where fools feared to tread, and Clay watched over her, noticed everything. He left for 10 years, for his education and to gain experience. He has returned because of his father’s heart attack, to take over the business.

Andrea McCreary – fun, pretty, a risk taker… she is settling down. She was working for Clay’s father, and now Clay – and has spent months proving herself to him. And she gave her virginity to Clay’s friend over the holiday, jealous of Clay leaving with a woman, drinking too much, Jeff’s sympathy, Jeff’s depression. And 2 months pregnant, she tells Clay she’s pregnant and she’s keeping the baby.

Jeff – Clay’s fun loving, also risk taking, college friend. Madeline – Jeff’s love from childhood. And Jeff had broke off their engagement, went to see Clay, slept with Andrea, confided in Andrea his feelings for Madeline, and with Andrea’s compassion and pushing, returned to Madeline and was married by Valentine’s day.

Plot –
Clay finds himself attracted to Andrea – and decides to act on it, and on his noble feelings to be father to her child. Andrea resists at first, but can’t resist his kisses – They marry – the make love… and by his actions, Clay cares for Andrea. His true nature comes out in storms – and the night of the first storm since their marriage, he goes out naked into the storm –j and Andrea watches him, and welcomes him into her arms and body.

Clay rejects Andrea’s statements of love… and when Jeff dies in a car accident, Clay withdraws. He can’t lose Andrea, yet he can’t face his feelings. Madeline figures out Andrea was carrying Jeff’s child, and Clay’s insecurities about what happened between Andrea and jeff eat at him, but he will not discuss it in spite of Andrea’s pushes.

After the baby is born, Clay will not have sex with Andrea, in spite of great desire, because he knew it would open a floodgate… but 9 weeks later, another storm, Andrea comes out to him naked, and he can’t resist – and though he still can’t talk, he sees that he is losing Andrea… and Madeline shows up, wanting to know the truth – and Clay finally listens – and after Madeline leaves, he finally asks the hard questions, and listens and understands and forgives himself, Andrea, and Jeff. And is able to finally say the words – I love you.

[Eve · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the second book I read by this author. While I love the first one, this book is just a big no, no for me. First of all, I read this book without reading its premise, which was a big mistake. In the beginning, it's shown that the heroin was pregnant. In this kind of story that the heroin would marry the baby's father. It wasn't the case, but that's ok. Perhaps, there was an interesting twist, or so I thought. Then, I realized that the author makes her marry her adopted cousin, who happens to be the baby's father's best friend. So, this guy (the hero's best friend) and the heroin had one nightstand. I might continue to read if this said-heroin was indeed in love with this guy, but no, she wasn't. They just got drunk on a new year's eve and just got into it. It just yuck... I'm not into an irresponsible heroin. I guess I'm too old fashioned for this kind of story. So, DNF.

[Anum]

Hi. I have read the linda howard book and that is amazing. I am actually searching for a book and dont know how to find it. I dont remember the author or the title but the story. I found this one while looking for that one.
So the heroine is alone and has no family. She works for her best friends brother amd goes and asks him to give a baby to which he gets really shocked and reacts badly but later agrees. This book was based in a town where this aunti agony type gossip article gets published in the local newspaper and no one knows the identity of the author and everyone keeps wondering as to that. I think it was a series but i never read any other book so i dont know for sure. Can someone help with the name?

[Romance Memo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finished Linda Howard's Almost Forever and was surprised to find this story at the end. Did not like the story: not my cup of tea...

[Sue Perkinson Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good story

[Mojca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely surprise of a story, a different take on the marriage-of-convenience-because-she's-pregnant ploy. It irked a little the hero seemed to really notice the heroine only when she became pregnant by his (now married) best friend, but as soon as he saw reason everything fell into place.

The different take became glaringly obvious in the fact it was the hero that almost ruined the HEA. It's usually the heroine that has some sort of baggage attached to her, unable to trust or something like that. This time, the heroine had no qualms whatsoever, she knew she was in love with the hero, accepted it heartily, accepted him as the father of her child, yet he was the one with emotional baggage, though he was in such deep denial it was a miracle he succeeded in "seeing the light" in the end.

This was a truly emotional story, resulting in the reader empathizing more with the hero than the heroine (which is rather unusual in a genre that caters to the female audience). Beautiful, poignant, heart-breaking, and bitter-sweet. Loved it.

[Madison ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished Linda Howard's Almost Forever and was surprised to find this story at the end. I thought I was going to get a spin-off from one of Almost Forever's secondary characters but found this was a completely separate and stand alone novel.

At the beginning, the fact that Andie and Clay are cousins (even if Clay is adopted) and grew up thinking of each other as cousins, was really off-putting for me to read a romance novel featuring them. The incest and ick factor almost made me discard this book about 20% in. I'm glad I stuck with it as this minor aspect faded in importance as the story went on and the book got better towards the end. This was still a very quick read but it was entertaining and I actually cared about the characters in the end. Not a great story by any stretch but one that I liked.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not one of the authors on my list. It was an added bonus in a book with Almost Forever by Linda Howard.
I found the book interesting and romantic.
When Clay finds out his cousin by adoption is pregnant, he decides to do the honorable thing and marry her. Even though he finds out the father of the baby is his best friend. We travel along with him as he wears her down and convinces her to marry him.
An emotional roller coaster ride for them and the reader. I cried and smiled. A very good book!

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and had a hard time putting it down. I would have given this book 5 stars but I was disappointed with the ending. It was just sort of anticlimactic. I had a few guesses as to how the storyline would end and I think any of my guesses would have been much better than how it actually ended. Overall though, a good read.

[Kathryn Reeder · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this was a good book. It's about two people who grew up together and were always fighting. Then Andie gets pregnant and is going to raise the baby on her own. Clay decides to marry her so that her baby will have a father. It's a love story about them getting together and trying to work it out. It's pretty predictable but still pretty good.

[Nishtha]

I actually found it with 'Almost forever' and as I was quite disappointed with the former story, I procrastinated reading this one.

So when I picked it up last night, I was quite satisfied.

Its a quick nice story. I like both Clay and Andie. The end was nice and its a story I would recommend to everyone who's into 'Silhouette' or ' Harlequin' romances.

[ReadKnitHoard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bonus book! (A surprise addition at the end of Linda Howard's Almost Forever.)

I don't know if I would have added the book to my cart had I been paying for it, but it was a sweet (if dated) read. Childhood adversaries to lovers/marriage for the baby's sake.

[Si · Rating 3 out of 5]

The guy was a weakling IMO... He didn't want to confront the truth and blamed her instead and that's just so unattractive, burying his head in the sand like a coward eek!! Not a good look!

The twist was unexpected and a tad like hmph was that necessary but all in all it worked so hey!

[Erotic Horizon]

For the Baby's Sake (Silhouette Special Edition) by Christine Rimmer (1996)

[Jodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok book but seemed a little dated

[Jill Lovelace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book

[Jess Schira]

I enjoyed the first 2/3rds of the book, but felt the last third dragged.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was enjoyable, better than I thought it would be. It kept me reading which is a good sign

3.5 rating.

[Jannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was actually v enjoyable. I ended up caring for the characters.
3.5/5

[Tina Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

The weirdest love scenes I've ever read...

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

started out slowly, but then picked up a little. A man that won't confess to his emotions.

[Graylark]

DNF at 57% or so. It was well-written and interesting at first, then got boring.