A Father in the Making

A Father in the Making
Carolyne Aarsen

Family At LastNate Lyster and Mia Verbeek are in perfect agreement–letting someone new into your life is much too risky. Mom to four kids, Mia can't let just anyone get close, while wandering cowboy Nate learned young that trusting another means chancing heartbreak. But when a fire turns Mia's life upside down, Nate is the only one who can get through to her traumatized son. Nate fits into Mia's family perfectly, and they soon realize that a loving family is what they both want. Can they put the hurts of their pasts behind them…for a chance at a perfect love?Hearts of Hartley Creek: In this small town, love is just around the corner

Family At Last

Nate Lyster and Mia Verbeek are in perfect agreement—letting someone new into your life is much too risky. Mom to four kids, Mia can’t let just anyone get close, while wandering cowboy Nate learned young that trusting another means chancing heartbreak. But when a fire turns Mia’s life upside down, Nate is the only one who can get through to her traumatized son. Nate fits into Mia’s family perfectly, and they soon realize that a loving family is what they both want. Can they put the hurts of their pasts behind them…for a chance at a perfect love?

Hearts of Hartley Creek: In this small town, love is just around the corner

“Nice to meet you, Mia,” he said.

Mia let Nate take her hand. When he let go, she felt an unexpected moment of loss.

“Nice to meet you, too,” she replied as his smile deepened.

“So you own the flower store,” he said, dropping his cowboy hat back on his head. “That’s ambitious,” he continued.

“It definitely keeps me busy.”

For this brief moment, Mia didn’t feel like a mommy weighed down with obligations. She returned his smile.

Just then her friend Sophie arrived, pushing the buggy, wails emanating from it. “I think one of your little girls is hungry,” she said to Mia.

Mia caught Nate frowning at her.

“Those are your kids?” he asked. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were—”

“A mom?” Mia couldn’t stop the hint of annoyance entering her voice. “It gets worse. There’s two more of these at home,” she said.

Nate wasn’t the first man put off by her brood.

He was, however, the first man she’d felt any attraction to in a long, long time.

CAROLYNE AARSEN

and her husband, Richard, live on a small ranch in northern Alberta, where they have raised four children and numerous foster children, and are still raising cattle. Carolyne crafts her stories in an office with a large west-facing window, through which she can watch the changing seasons while struggling to make her words obey.

A Father in the Making

Carolyne Aarsen

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

—Isaiah 43:18

For Lorna Strydhorst, faithful reader and friend.

Contents

Chapter One (#ufbf9ca6c-f0fe-5332-81be-e815a9880f38)

Chapter Two (#uc65ce12b-fd27-567d-b5d1-83054f3d67fd)

Chapter Three (#u1429f8a7-40e9-5ccc-b117-9fa2293e11c0)

Chapter Four (#u991aba8d-bed9-59f8-abc9-27b0a8280f0e)

Chapter Five (#u685a937a-e4e2-5242-9680-e35bbbe8ba35)

Chapter Six (#u9e46793d-f185-57ee-a5d5-b07ea46522b8)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)

Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One

“Go to sleep. Please go back to sleep,” Mia pleaded as she dragged the stroller holding her twin toddlers backward into the bookstore. Jennifer had been fussing for the past twenty minutes. She couldn’t be hungry. Mia had given both baby girls and her two sons a good supper before heading out the door into the cool of the late-fall evening. A better supper than she managed to wolf down before her babysitter, Angie, showed up. Though Angie wasn’t her regular babysitter, she had offered to take the two boys and the twins. Mia took care of four children all the time, but she didn’t feel right doing that to a temporary babysitter so she had taken the twins with her.

Fatigue dragged at her, and for a moment Mia entertained the idea of skipping the bookstore. However, she had promised Josh and Nico she would get the books. And ever since her husband had left her pregnant with twins and two preschool sons, Mia was firm on keeping promises to Josh and Nico.

As Jennifer’s whimpers turned into a cry of protest, Mia fished a pacifier out of the overstuffed diaper bag dangling from the handles of the stroller. She wiped the lint off and eased the pacifier into Jennifer’s mouth. Her daughter resisted a moment and then the pacifier began bouncing as the baby eagerly sucked on it.

Really? Shouldn’t one-year-olds be weaned off pacifiers by now?