Baby, I'm Yours by Susan Andersen, Avon Romance

Baby, I'm Yours is a contemporary romantic suspense with some comedy thrown into the mix. Altogether, it makes for an enjoyable read with likeable characters. Catherine MacPherson has been taken into custody by bounty hunter Sam McKade. The only problem is that Catherine MacPherson isn't the bail jumpee, her twin sister Kaylee is. Only Sam doesn't believe her story, especially with her twin's Showgirl duds sprawled across her patio where it appears Catherine was trying to make her escape.

Catherine MacPherson is the prim and proper twin sister of Kaylee, who is about as flamboyantly and sensuously opposite to Catherine as one can get. Catherine works as a middle school teacher of the deaf, Kaylee works as a showgirl. Catherine has lived her life walking on the right side of the tracks. She was the caregiver, the "cleaner-upper" whenever her family (even her parents) got into trouble. Old reliable Catherine would be there to clean up the mess. Because of this, though, she was quick witted, smart, and had brassiness to her that made her a likeable character. When I first started reading about her, I was rolling my eyes expecting her to live up to the stereotype she presented. But along her Greyhound bus ride with bounty hunter McKade, Catherine learns to like this "other" life she's leading as she stuck wearing Kaylee's clothes. The things she does to stall their progress from Seattle back to Miami are comical and witty. My only complaint was about one stall when she managed to get the police involved, she could have offered her fingerprints up as proof she wasn't Kaylee right there and then at the police station but didn't. At first I thought okay she just didn't think about it, but then later she says she couldn't wait to get to Miami to get fingerprinted to show Sam she's not Kaylee. Obviously, I realize this was necessary to keep the story going, but it was a little irksome because it seemed a contrast to her normal quick witted intelligence.

Sam McKade is a likeable rogue. He's a bad guy hero with a heart and a soft spot. He stops to help old ladies, women who struggle with their luggage from the overhead compartment on the bus, and vows to fulfill his promise to his Army buddy who was turned parapalegic to buy the fishing lodge they'd been dreaming about for years. He even puts off doing what he wants to do, becoming a cop, because the money as a bounty hunter is better. He has no patience for Catherine's claims to be Catherine and not Kaylee. But when he discovers the truth, through his own introspection and problem solving, I think he recovers himself fairly well.

Catherine's twin, Kaylee, and her boy friend Bobby were an interesting subplot. Kaylee gets a twinge of conscious and decides she needs to save her sister. So she and her bouncer boy friend go off in search of Catherine, the bounty hunter and the Greyhound bus. Throw into the mix some bad guys chasing after Kaylee for a murder for hire plot she overheard, and you've got yourself some good suspense.

Susan Andersen's Baby, I'm Yours was an enjoyable read. I laughed and I felt for the characters as they made their way from Washington to Miami and back again. I felt that Catherine and Sam's attraction to one another was reasonable. It was more than just two people thrown together due to unpreventable circumstances. They challenged one another, intellectually and physically. I have read Susan's Exposed and enjoyed that as well. I have a few others of hers in my TBR pile and look forward to reading them when I'm in the mood for some romantic suspense with some humor sprinkled in there for an all around enjoyable read.

©Susan Matthews and phantomroses.com