Be My Baby

In this contemporary romance, Juliet Rose Astor Lowell hopes to leave behind the social constraints of her blue-blooded Boston upbringing when she heads to New Orleans to open the Garden Crown, the newest hotel in a chain owned by her family. Shortly after her arrival, the prim 32-year-old receives a life-threatening letter. She refuses, however, to let the letter put a damper on her opportunity to experience real freedom--at least until, at her father's insistence, NOPD officer Beau Dupree is assigned as her bodyguard for the duration of her stay. Dupree, who spent the past decade raising three sisters after his parents' untimely death, is equally unhappy about the situation and has better things to do than baby-sit a grown woman, especially a snobby Yankee. Andersen (Baby I'm Yours) captures the undeniable attraction of opposites in Dupree and Lowell's steamy relationship. (Mar.)