Loss brings them together. Will their pact help them find love and happily-ever-after?
English professor Elijah M. Clayton, Jr., (34) has promised his dying cousin he’ll raise her unborn daughter, but his search for a wife has failed miserably. Social awkwardness related to being on the autism spectrum leads to his only decent speed-dating prospect—Beatrix-35—calling him a pervert before the start of their first official date.
Plumber Beatrix Glouster (35) likes Elijah-34 and has high hopes she’s found a good guy until he asks questions that trigger painful memories of losing her premature son, her subsequent inability to have children, and her husband leaving her. An early morning plumbing emergency brings her face-to-cute-backside with last night’s disappointment.
Their lives are forever changed when a call from Elijah’s cousin summoning him to the hospital for the birth of her child interrupts an unexpectedly hot kiss. Only deep commitment will help Elijah and Beatrix avoid the prospective emotional risk of an impromptu marriage, his communication issues, and raising their orphaned newborn charge together.
Review by Twinsie Kelly
OMG!! ALL THE FEELS!!!! If there is ever a book or story that makes you believe in fate or love at first sight, then this is it for me! Elijah and Beatrix meet at a speed dating mixer and decide to meet afterward. Not realizing that Elijah is on the spectrum, when he starts to ask some weird questions, she decides to cut her losses and just walk away. They are then thrown back into each other’s space when she, a plumber, ends up at Elijah’s house to fix his bathroom faucet. She is with Elijah when he gets the call that his cousin is about ready to pass and Beatrix accompanies him to the hospital. Chloe, his cousin, just knows that she is the one and these two are going to be the best parents for her child. The only problem is, these two literally just met! However, the chemistry, not just sexual, is there and it gets intense. They just calm each other…they just fit.
“Chloe was right. Fate had played a part in her introduction and subsequent meeting with Eli, but this child was the catalyst – not romance, love, or even sexual attraction. The interaction with him been a means to an end. Only Eve mattered – and Chloe passing from the world knowing someone would cherish her baby.”
“A plumber and an English professor walk into a marriage for the wrong reason. And baby makes three. There’s a bad joke if I ever heard one. A deep breath didn’t calm the butterflies in her stomach. And I’m gonna do it anyway.”
One takeaway I have from this story is that average is boring! Parenting means making sacrifices and falling in love has no guarantee of a happily-ever-after, but these two are truly meant to be. Life isn’t always fair but it doesn’t have to be. However, when your instinct takes over and you know you found your person, you will truly be happy.
Please pick up this book. It is an incredible story with ALL THE FEELS!
I received a copy of this book from Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.
Mellanie Szereto is the USA Today Bestselling Author of over fifty romcoms and contemporary romances, most with characters who have plenty of life experience like herself. Whether you call them older, seasoned, mature, experienced, or later-in-life protagonists, they deserve love too! Her stories are often set in small towns with quirky main characters, fun secondary casts, and lots of humor. She enjoys gardening, cooking, and baking—as well as hiking to work off the fruits of her labor—and incorporates food into all of her stories. She lives in an old farmhouse in rural Indiana with her husband of thirty-seven years.