Engaged to the Single Mom
The Daddy WishSingle mom Angelica Camden's determined to fulfill her sick son's every wish. At the top of the list is moving back to her hometown to be near family. His second request? Lots of dogs! Gathering her courage, Angelica asks her former fiancé, a veterinarian with a dog rescue farm, for a job. Though they're growing close again, Angelica can't bear to tell handsome, honorable Troy Hinton the painful truth about why she fled town and broke his heart. Yet when he discovers her son's biggest wish is for a father, Troy's shocking suggestion of marriage may just make all their dreams come true.
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The Millionaire and the Mechanic
Single mom Angelica Camden’s determined to fulfill her sick son’s every wish. At the top of the list is moving back to her hometown to be near family. His second request? Lots of dogs! Gathering her courage, Angelica asks her former fiancé, a veterinarian with a dog rescue farm, for a job. Though they’re growing close again, Angelica can’t bear to tell handsome, honorable Troy Hinton the painful truth about why she fled town and broke his heart. Yet when he discovers her son’s biggest wish is for a father, Troy’s shocking suggestion of marriage may just make all their dreams come true.
“You still haven’t answered my question—about marrying me,” Troy said quietly.
Angelica glanced away.
“Have you thought about it?”
She shut her eyes for a moment. “I’ve hardly thought of anything else.”
“And?”
“And…I don’t know.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But is there anything I could do to help you decide?”
She gave him a narrow-eyed look, and for a moment, he thought she was going to scold him. “Yes,” she said finally. “You could tell me why you want to do it.”
Should he tell her how much he’d started caring for her, or would that make her shy away?
Knowing her, it would. “That’s easy. I want to do it because your son wants a dad. And because I like helping you.”
Her mouth got a pinched look. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she felt hurt. “Those aren’t…those aren’t the reasons people get married.”
“Are they bad reasons, though?”
She shook her head, staring at the ground. “They’re not bad, no. They’re fine. Kind. Good.”
“Then what’s standing in the way?”
She shrugged, looked away.
But he saw that there was a fine film of tears over her eyes.
LEE TOBIN McCLAIN read Gone with the Wind in the third grade and has been a hopeless romantic ever since. When she’s not writing angst-filled love stories with happy endings, she’s getting inspiration from her church singles group, her gymnastics-obsessed teenage daughter and her rescue dog and cat. In her day job, Lee gets to encourage aspiring romance writers in Seton Hill University’s low-residency MFA program. Visit her at leetobinmcclain.com.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
—Romans 8:28
I owe much appreciation to my Wednesday-morning critique group—Sally Alexander, Jonathan Auxier, Kathy Ayres, Colleen McKenna and Jackie Robb—for being patient through genre shifts while gently insisting on excellence. Thanks also to my colleagues at Seton Hill University, especially Michael Arnzen, Nicole Peeler and Albert Wendland, whose support and encouragement keep me happily writing. Ben Wernsman helped me brainstorm story ideas, and Carrie Turansky read an early draft of the proposal and critiqued it most helpfully. I’m grateful to be working with my agent, Karen Solem, and my editor, Shana Asaro—dog lovers both—who saw the potential of the story and helped me make it better. Most of all, thanks belong to my daughter, Grace, for being patient with her creative mom’s absentmindedness and for offering inspiration, recreation and eye-rolling, teenage-style love every step of the way.
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“You can let me off here.” Angelica Camden practically shouted the words over the roar of her grandfather’s mufflerless truck. The hot July air, blowing in through the pickup’s open windows, did nothing to dispel the sweat that dampened her neck and face.
She rubbed her hands down the legs of the full-length jeans she preferred to wear despite the heat, took a deep breath and blew it out yoga-style between pursed lips. She could do this. Had to do it.
Gramps raised bushy white eyebrows as he braked at the top of a long driveway. “I’m taking you right up to that arrogant something-or-other’s door. You’re a lady and should be treated as one.”
No chance of that. Angelica’s stomach churned at the thought of the man she was about to face. She’d fight lions for her kid, had done the equivalent plenty of times, but this particular lion terrified her, brought back feelings of longing and shame and sadness that made her feel about two inches tall.
This particular lion had every right to eat her alive. Her heart fluttered hard against her ribs, and when she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, the truck’s exhaust fumes made her feel light-headed.
I can’t do this, Lord.
Immediately the verse from this morning’s devotional, read hastily while she’d stirred oatmeal on Gramps’s old gas stove, swam before her eyes: I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.
She believed it. She’d recited it to herself many times in the past couple of difficult years. She could do all things through Christ.
