Their Christmas Angel Read online

  “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!

  Dear Reader,

  Throughout our lives, we face challenges of one sort or another. Some of those challenges are mere bumps in the road and are easily conquered while others are fierce mountains that require our total focus and as much strength and courage as we can scrape together.

  Nicole Bradshaw has faced such a challenge: one that nearly stole her life. She has learned to take each day as it comes, and while the scars of her battle remain, she is determined to live with hope and joy. Her plan for the future is specific and hers alone. It does not include falling in love with a handsome widower and his two beautiful daughters.

  But a snowy night, a runaway dog and a near collision bring Parker Lennox into Nicole’s world with a bang. And suddenly everything changes. When Parker first looks into Nicole’s eyes, he feels more alive—more hopeful—than he has since losing his wife to breast cancer. With Nicole, he sees a future he’d long given up on, for him and his girls.

  Before Parker and Nicole can claim this future, however, they have another mountain to climb. They will have to lean on and trust in each other, focus on joy rather than fear and let hope carry them to the top so they can reach their happily-ever-after.

  I hope you enjoy Their Christmas Angel!

  Happy reading!

  Tracy Madison

  Their Christmas Angel

  Tracy Madison

  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].

  Books by Tracy Madison

  Harlequin Special Edition

  The Colorado Fosters

  A Bride for the Mountain Man

  From Good Guy to Groom

  Rock-a-Bye Bride

  Dylan’s Daddy Dilemma

  Reid’s Runaway Bride

  Haley’s Mountain Man

  Cole’s Christmas Wish

  The Foster Brothers

  An Officer, a Baby and a Bride

  A Match Made by Cupid

  Miracle Under the Mistletoe

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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

  Contents

  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

  Excerpt from The Rancher’s Christmas Song by RaeAnne Thayne

  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 objecti
ons 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.

  And in the five years since, he’d doubted this decision only once. A skiing accident had come too damn close to taking his life and leaving his precious daughters as orphans. In those precarious seconds and minutes after the accident, and during those first awful few weeks in the hospital, his choice to move had seemed foolhardy. If they’d stayed in Boston, he likely would not have found himself twisted in a broken heap halfway down a friggin’ mountain.

  Fortunately, he’d survived, and another three years had somehow elapsed, along with a multitude of other positive and affirming changes. His girls were flourishing here, and Parker’s momentary doubt had long since faded into nothingness. Steamboat Springs had become more than a new place with new surroundings. They had created a home here, in every way possible.

  But yeah, the damn dancing snowflakes reminded him of those ballets and, therefore, his beautiful, loving wife. The good—the glorious years they were lucky enough to spend together—and the bad, the years since, the years that cancer stole from his family.

  Sighing, Parker stopped at a red light about three blocks from the elementary school and yanked himself to the present. Two hours ago, he’d driven this exact path to pick up his daughters and take them to dinner. Now they were returning to the school for the upcoming Christmas play tryouts. Afterward, they’d go home and finish their evening routine, and since it was a Friday, he’d let the girls stay up a bit later than normal. Then he really should put in a few more hours of work, otherwise he’d have to fit it in over the weekend.

  In Boston, he’d supervised the marketing department of a large national corporation. Ever since their move, though, Parker had worked for himself. In the beginning, he focused solely on designing websites, blogs and the like, but due to his clients’ needs, he had eventually broadened his scope to include a range of internet marketing services.

  Finances during those first few years were rough, but he budgeted every penny of Bridget’s life insurance benefit, along with what was left over from the sale of the Boston house after buying their home here, in order to make the transition a success. He used the living room, kitchen, his bedroom and sometimes—specifically the nights either Erin or Megan were ill or having trouble sleeping—the hallway outside their door as his roaming office. Didn’t matter, really, where he worked. To him, the point was that he was at home. With them.

  And he continued to work entirely from home until his youngest daughter, Megan, was firmly settled in first grade. By then, Parker’s business was solvent enough to rent actual office space about three miles from the school. Most of the time, he managed to complete his work responsibilities during their school hours, but every now and then—like tonight—he’d finish one project or another at home, using his laptop and the kitchen table as his desk.

  Life was busy, but good. Oh, there were the stray melancholy moods that elicited memories of his wife, along with the random bursts of loneliness that sometimes popped into being, but Parker was grateful that he had nothing of true merit to complain about.

  Thanksgiving was a mere two weeks away, and he had so very much to be thankful for. His daughters were healthy. He was healthy. They had food on their table every night, a roof that didn’t leak over their heads, sufficient funds in the bank account, friends and family to cherish, and plenty of activities to keep them involved and happy. Other than the impossible wish of having Bridget back in their lives, what else could he want?

  Braking again, this time at a stop sign, Parker glanced in the rearview mirror and said, “Almost there now, girls. Are you excited?”

  “Yes!” said eight-year-old Megan from the back seat. “I can’t wait! I want to be one of the angels! But so does Erin. Do you think both of us can be picked for angel parts?”

  “Don’t be silly, Megan,” said ten-year-old Erin, offering her opinion in her typical to-the-point fashion. “There’s lots of angels in the play, so of course we can both be angels.”

  “Only if we’re chosen,” Megan argued. “Only if we’re good enough.”

  “Well, I guess I don’t know if you’re good enough, but I am. So maybe I’ll be one of the angels and you’ll be a...a...star or a tree or—”

  “Daddy!” Megan squealed, interrupting her sister. “Erin’s being mean! And besides that, she’s wrong. If only one of us can be angels, it will be me because...because I have blond hair, like angels are supposed to!”

  “Angels can have any color of hair, even red,” Erin fired back, her voice indignant. “And telling the truth isn’t the same thing as being mean! And I didn’t say you weren’t good enough to play an angel, Megan. I said that I didn’t know if you were. That’s different!”

  “Girls, stop,” Parker said, crossing the sleepy intersection and driving toward the school parking lot, which was about a half a block straight ahead. “Hair color doesn’t matter at all. And you’re both good enough, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get the parts you want.” Every kid who showed tonight would be involved in the play, in one way or another. Whether that would be as an angel, a star, a tree, some other part, or helping behind the scenes. “Let’s try to remember that the goal is to have fun and celebrate Christmas. Okay?”

  The girls were silent for a few seconds before a muffled chorus of “Okay, Daddy,” reached his ears. He hoped either they’d both be cast as angels or neither would, otherwise keeping the peace for the next six or so weeks would become highly difficult.

  On the other hand, he supposed if such a scenario were to happen, it would provide a valuable life lesson that the girls would eventually have to learn. He just hated any possibility that brought so much as a lick of pain or disappointment to his daughters. In his estimation, they’d already faced their fair share of heartbreak in their young lives. If the choice was his, Parker would move heaven and earth to keep Erin and Megan from experiencing another drop of sadness. He couldn’t, naturally, but the wish remained.

  “Oh! Look, Erin,” Megan said as they approached the school, “is that a—”

  “Watch out, Daddy!” Erin hollered. “Don’t hit the angel!”

  Don’t hit the...what? But her words, along with her volume and the frightened quality of her tone, shocked Parker into a state of alert awareness, and his heart leaped to his throat as he saw that, yes, an angel—or rather, a woman dressed as an angel—was barreling at top speed from the sidewalk to the street, in chase of some type of large, fast-moving animal. A dog? Maybe, but the beast seemed to have horns, so he couldn’t say for certain.

  Acting on instinct and adrenaline, Parker muffled a curse and swerved slightly to the left, in the opposite direction of the halo-adorned female, while simultaneously braking the car. He would not be father-of-the-year if he ran over a friggin’ angel, especially with his daughters—both of whom were now yelling, “Daddy! Stop! Please stop!”—as witness.

  God must have tuned in at the exact right second, because several blessed events happened in quick succession. One, he managed to stop the car without too much hassle and he did not hit the woman or the runaway creature. Two, the left-hand side of the road—where half of his car now resided—stayed miraculously free of oncoming vehicles.

  Parker inhaled a long, stabilizing breath and put the car into Park. The angel-woman now stood almost directly in front of him, and the car’s headlights illuminated her startled expression and rounded eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself and her lips moved in an expletive that Parker identified without being able to hear her voice. Lord. That was close.

  Mirroring his thoughts, Megan said in a hushed and somber voice, “I can’t believe you almost killed a beautiful angel, Daddy. That would’ve been so bad. Very, very, very bad. The police would probably have put you in jail! And thrown away the key! And...and—”
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  “Look at her again, Megan,” Erin said. “She’s not a real angel. She’s close enough now that I can see it’s really Miss Bradshaw.”

  “Oh! It is Miss Bradshaw,” Megan said. “Why does she look like an angel?”

  “I bet she’s dressed that way for the tryouts,” Erin said. “So Daddy almost killed our music teacher, not an angel. That would’ve been bad, too, because she’s really great.”

  “Yeah! Really bad!” Megan chimed in. “We love Miss Bradshaw!”

  Hmm. This woman was the new music teacher? Why didn’t he remember meeting her at the school’s open house last month? He always made a point of talking to the girls’ teachers, to explain about Bridget in the hopes of avoiding confusion, but Erin hadn’t felt well—the beginnings of a cold—and Megan’s excitement level had skyrocketed through the roof that night. Those two hours had passed swiftly, and no...Parker wasn’t sure if he’d met Miss Bradshaw.

  “I did not almost kill anyone, angel or teacher,” Parker said, unbuckling his seat belt. Even if he had hit her—and yeah, thank God he hadn’t—he’d been driving slow enough that it was unlikely a collision would’ve caused life-threatening injuries. Probably, anyway.

  He could’ve hurt her, though, and it did not matter in the slightest that the woman—Miss Bradshaw—should have known better than to run pell-mell into a street, especially at twilight. The possibility of what could’ve occurred made him sick to his stomach.

  “But you might have,” Erin said, “if you’d hit her with the car.”

  “But I didn’t,” Parker replied.

  “Yeah, Erin. He didn’t!” Megan added.

  “Well, I know that, Megan. I do have eyes, you know!”

  “Wait here, girls,” Parker said, breaking into their almost argument. “Let me make sure your angel-teacher is okay, and then—”

  His jaw slammed shut as Miss Bradshaw, in attempting to walk toward his side of the car, slipped and lost her balance. She landed on the ground, bounced to her feet instantly and scowled while wiping the snow from her behind. Ouch, that had to hurt. And again, she mouthed an expletive that he easily identified without the benefit of sound.