Storybook Dad. Laura Bradford

       Mark’s dilemma was as strong as ever.

      There was something about Emily’s spark, her spirit, that made him feel more alive than he had in months. But he couldn’t ignore the other part, either—the part that wanted to protect his son’s heart by keeping her at arm’s length.

      “Don’t get close, don’t get hurt,” he mumbled under his breath.

      It was a good motto. One that would keep him from ever seeing the kind of heart-wrenching hurt he’d been unable to erase from Seth’s eyes during Sally’s illness.

       Emily.

      Once again, the woman who’d captivated his son over a sand castle and a pepperoni pizza flashed before his eyes.

      Emily was struggling on the first rung of a ladder he knew all too well. He saw it in her face when he talked to her about the foundation. He heard it in her voice when she brushed off his concern about the pain in her leg. And he sensed it in the unbendable determination that made her refuse help for even the simplest of things.

      She needed a hand.

      About the Author

      Since the age of ten, LAURA BRADFORD hasn’t wanted to do anything other than write—news articles, feature stories, business copy and whatever else she could come up with to pay the bills. But they were always diversions from the one thing she wanted to write most—fiction.

      Today, with an Agatha Award nomination under her belt, Laura is thrilled to have crossed into the romance genre with her all-time favorite series.

      When she’s not writing, Laura enjoys reading, hiking, traveling and all things chocolate. She lives in New York with her two daughters. To contact her, visit her website, www.laurabradford.com.

      Storybook Dad

      Laura Bradford

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Jenny,

      You were, without a doubt, Mommy’s biggest hero during a very difficult time.

      You are an amazingly special little girl and I’m blessed to be able to call you my daughter.

       Chapter One

      Emily Todd stared down at the sparkly silver castle and the blue-eyed prince standing in front of its door, a familiar lump rising in her throat. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to rewind time back to when planning life’s path had been as easy as reaching for the next crayon in a brand-new sixty-four-count pack.

      Back then, with the help of Giddy-Up Brown, she’d been able to ride the perfect horse through a canopy of Burnt Autumn leaves. A mixture of River Brown and Nautical Gray had captured the hue of an angry river with the indisputable eye of a future rafter, while Foliage Green had breathed life into the woods she’d navigated with a slightly oversized compass. And Rocky Ledge? The curious mixture of brown, blue and gray? That had made the mountain she’d squeezed onto its own piece of eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch manila paper seem both majestic and ominous at the same time.

      It was hard not to look at the framed pictures on the wall behind her desk and not be impressed by the colors her pint-sized self had selected when mapping out her life in crayon. Though why she hadn’t grown bored with the whole notion of drawing her dreams after the fourth picture was anyone’s guess—even if Milk Chocolate Brown hair and Ocean Wave Blue eyes were still her ideal for the prince who’d never materialized.

      Shaking her head, Emily slipped the decades-old castle drawing back into the folder and pushed it across the desk at her best friend. “Look, I know what you’re trying to do here, Kate, but this doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. It’s a drawing. A silly, stupid drawing. I mean, really, what guy carries a woman across a threshold these days unless she’s an invalid and can’t make it through the door herself?”

      She considered her own words, compared them to the nightmare that had driven her out of bed before dawn, the same one that had robbed her of sleep many times over the past few weeks. “Hmm. Now that I think about it, I should have spent my Saturday afternoons running a fortune-telling operation instead of all those lemonade stands we used to have as kids, huh? I think I actually had a visionary gift.”

      Ignoring the blatant sarcasm in Emily’s voice, Kate Jennings pointed at the series of framed pictures behind Emily’s head. “You framed those drawings, didn’t you? So what’s the difference?”

      She glanced over her shoulder, mentally comparing herself to the girl in each of the four drawings. Her hair, while still the same natural blond it had always been, was now fashioned in a pixie cut in lieu of the long locks she’d preferred as a child. Her big brown eyes hadn’t changed at all, really, only they didn’t sparkle quite as much. And the faint smattering of freckles noticeably absent in the drawings was right where it had always been, sprinkled across the bridge of her nose like fairy dust. “I can think of one huge difference, Kate. The dreams depicted in the frames? Those actually came true. That one—” she pointed at the folder “—didn’t.”

      Kate pushed the folder back toward Emily. “So what? You drew them all at the same time.”

      She felt the tension building in her shoulders and worked to keep it from her voice. “Do you think a doctor would frame a term paper she’d failed, and hang it in her office beside her medical school diploma? Do you think an architect would want to showcase her first ever set of plans—the ones where she forgot to add the foundation that would have actually kept the structure standing?” At Kate’s scowl, Emily continued. “I think it’s cool that you found these pictures after all this time, Kate, I really do. It’s why I framed the four I did. But you can’t expect me to be too eager to glorify an unrealized dream alongside ones that actually came true, can you?”

      Without waiting for a response, Emily pushed back her desk chair and stood. “I’ve got to get back to work. I have an orienteering class starting in five minutes.” She strode across the office, stopping at the door. “But I’ll see you and Doug on Friday night at the barbecue, right?”

      “Definitely.” Kate grabbed the folder and her purse and met Emily at the door. “It’s not supposed to be too hot that day, so you should be—”

      “I’ll be fine no matter what the temperature is,” she snapped. Then, realizing how she sounded, she softened her tone. “This diagnosis is not going to beat me, Kate. You of all people should know that. I’ve done everything I said I was going to do and then some.”

      “If that were true, this picture—” Kate waved the folder in the air “—would be in a frame like all the others.”

      “Would you give it a rest, please? I’m not going to hang my failures on the wall. Seems kind of morbid to me.”

      “I get that,” Kate said, tucking the folder under her arm. “But the horseback riding, the kayaking—all of it—came true because you set your mind to it and you made it happen. I mean, c’mon, Emily, how many people do we know from our childhood who have started their own company? How many people do we know that have taken said company and made it the talk of, not only this town, but every other town in a hundred-mile radius? None that I can think of. And why is that? Because you made up your mind about what you wanted in life a very long time ago. So why should finding Mr. Wonderful be any different now?”

      “Because I’m different now,” she whispered.

      Kate reached out and brushed a wisp of hair from her friend’s face. “Did you ever consider the possibility that all this other stuff came true first because you were able to do it at that time?”

      Emily closed her eyes, the familiar pull of fear that had accompanied the doctor’s