She canât have the man she loves...if it means losing her child!
Alexi Dockerâs a widow trying to adopt the child she and her husband had taken in. Except her new rental home turns out to be a disaster reno...and she, now single, has to prove she can give the boy everything he needs. That includes a roof over his head, four walls and running water! If not for the absentee landladyâs cranky recluse of a brother, she wouldnât have been able to cope. But now Alexi has to choose between a man sheâs growing to love and the boy she needs to adopt...because Seth Greene has a past that could ruin the adoption process.
M. K. STELMACK writes contemporary romances set in Spirit Lake, which is closely based on the small town in Alberta, Canada, where she lives with pets who outnumber the humans two to one and with dust bunnies the size of rodentsâbecause thatâs what happens when everyone in the household prefers to live in their imagination or outdoorsâbut she can also be found on social media, where you can share your comments on her stories or her breathless one-sentence bio on Facebook or at mkstelmackauthor.com.
ISBN: 978-1-474-08091-0
A ROOF OVER THEIR HEADS
© 2018 S. M. Stelmack
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Her hand was suddenly in his hand. He held her fingers in his tight, full grip.
This was nothing like his handshake. This was the hold of a man who felt her pain and wanted to bring her through it. âIâll do it,â he said, his voice raw. âIâll help. Justâjust donât beg me. I donât want you thinking that Iâm anybody other than a guy with a hammer.â
What a strange thing to say. Anybody could see he was more than that. He cleared his throat. âBesides which, Mattâs a good kid. You donât have anything to give me, but Mattâwell, youâre the only one who can give him what he needs.â
For a solid year, sheâd had to prove that to teachers, adoption caseworkers, neighbors, the police. And on the worst nights, sheâd lain curled on her side of the bed, knees to chin, with only the light from the phone, wondering if maybe she was wrong. To hear it now from a man who hardly spoke and when he did, it wasnât ever complimentary... She squeezed his hand back.
âThanks,â she whispered.
He nodded once, released her hand and crossed to the stairs. âHey,â he called to Matt, âlet me show you how to make a knot that lasts.â
Dear Reader,
Thirteen years ago, my family moved to the house in the town where we still live and which has become the focus of my fictional town, Spirit Lake. Since moving here, the town has stretched, popped up a Walmart, Canadian Tire, Sobeys andâoh, the golden standard of an Albertan town having made it big!âa Tim Hortonâs.
Tim Hortonâs is wholly Canadian, our blue-collar alternative to Starbucks. Actually, that partly describes this story: a blue-collar Canadian romance about finding family. It stars a woman struggling to hold her family together and a man struggling to not surrender to yet another lost cause. The glue that sticks them together is a boy who longs for a father and for his grieving heart to heal.
Serious stuff, but everyone whoâs read it so far has had plenty of LOL moments. Because thatâs life, right? In telling this story, I had the pleasure of introducing the heroâs siblings, whose stories will appear later this year.