Their Christmas Angel

“Watch out, Daddy!”

When Parker Lennox brakes to an icy halt, he narrowly misses hitting...a Christmas angel?

Wait, that’s Miss Bradshaw, his daughters’ music teacher. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But one look in those angel eyes and the single dad and widower falls hard. Parker never thought he’d feel this way again...where every day feels like Christmas!

Nicole Bradshaw is no angel—at least not yet. This cancer survivor has plenty of life to live...and a planned pregnancy to prove it. So when Parker literally slides into Nicole’s life, it’s like she’s opened her presents early. She loves what she’s getting, but can Parker accept that she survived the cancer that took his wife...and love a child that isn’t his?

“Hmm,” he said, still sounding amused. “I don’t believe I’ve knocked a woman off her feet in thirty-plus years, and now it’s happened twice in one night.

“Should I be flattered or concerned enough for your safety that I keep a certain distance between us?”

Laughing, she scanned the area for Roscoe and tried to ignore the attraction sizzling in her blood. Hard to do, especially when combined with the security, the stability, she’d experienced while in his arms. Something she absolutely could have used those many days and weeks she’d spent in the hospital, when—between the horrors of chemotherapy and several surgeries—she feared that fate would not grant her another tomorrow, let alone a baby.

Fortunately, she had survived. And four years later, she remained blissfully healthy.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said in response to Parker’s question, “but you shouldn’t feel flattered or concerned. I’ve simply had one of those days. We all have them.”

“That we do.” Tucking his arm into hers, as if he’d done so on numerous occasions in the past, he said, “But since today is one of those days for you, I will feel significantly better if I do everything in my power to see that you don’t fall down again.”

* * *

The Colorado Fosters: They’d do anything for each other…and for love!

Their Christmas Angel

Tracy Madison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

TRACY MADISON is an award-winning author who makes her home in northwestern Ohio. As a wife and a mother, her days are filled with love, laughter and many cups of coffee. She often spends her nights awake and at the keyboard, bringing her characters to life and leading them toward their well-deserved happily-ever-afters one word at a time. Tracy loves to hear from readers. You can reach her at [email protected].

To my mother, for the strength and courage you have always shown. Thank you!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Cotton-puff snowflakes shimmered in the glow of the neighborhood’s streetlights as they lazily dropped from the sky. A pretty sight, Parker Lennox thought—the way they twirled and whirled in the air with gentle, perfect grace reminded him oddly of the ballets his late wife used to drag him to when they lived in Boston.

Hard to believe that the last ballet Parker attended was over seven years ago now, and that Bridget had been gone for close to six. Didn’t seem possible some days. Other days—like today—those six years were akin to an entire lifetime. Either way, he missed his wife.

Everything about Bridget, Parker missed. Her wide, effortless smile, her laugh—sometimes sweet and quiet, other times chortling and boisterous—the way she would look at him from across a room and how her body spooned into his while they slept.

Lord. Six years. How had that even happened?

In that time, he’d packed up his two young daughters, Erin and Megan, and moved them to his hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to settle and get away from the constant memories of Bridget. Remaining in Boston, with the same restaurants and parks and shops and, well, the same everything, let alone living in the house they’d shared as a family, had quickly become an act of torture. For him, but more important, for his daughters.

Erin had been only four, Megan two, when Bridget’s cancer won its long-fought, grisly battle. The aftermath of losing their mother had left his little girls in a somber, colorless world filled with pain and heartache. Him, too, naturally, but age made a huge difference in how a person processed grief. As an adult, he knew he had to push through the darkness of Bridget’s death in order to find whatever light existed at the other end.

His girls, though? They did not understand this, and the morning Parker had found Erin and Megan huddled together in his bedroom closet with their mother’s clothes wrapped around their small, slender bodies and tears coursing down their cheeks had made that fact crystal clear.

That morning had ended his ongoing mental debate on whether they should stay in Boston, where the familiar could, over time, prove healing, or relocate to Steamboat Springs, where the girls might find breathing—just breathing—a little easier. So, despite his mother- and father-in-law’s objections and just shy of a year following his wife’s passing, Parker sold his house, quit his job and brought his family here, to a less expensive home and new surroundings.