Title: NOT QUITE AN ANGEL
Author: Beth Henderson
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Book Blurb:
A man searching for purpose. A woman needing saving from herself. When the Man upstairs wants a fellow to do something, the methods aren’t exactly clear cut. As he stood on a lonely country road in Kansas, Kevin Lonergan figured the two flat tires were a message but a really garbled one. He hated the country even though he’d grown up on a farm. Or possibly because he had. The city was his preferred habitat. But he’d been the one to take the Wellington exit off the Kansas Turnpike on a whim. He was drifting, no destination in mind and now he needed one because he’d been stupid and not recharged his cell phone’s battery either. Nice pattern of self-destruction, Lonergan. Lose your wife, your calling, and your way. What came next? A semi to turn him into road kill? Rella Scofield knew where she’d gone wrong. She’d jettisoned common sense and clung to the two things that she’d always wanted: children and a home in the country. Her marriage had been a travesty long before her husband had taken his eighteen-wheeler on the road one final time and ended up in that big truck stop in the sky. Since his demise, she’d been scrapping to make a living for her kids and telling herself things would work out. But they weren’t and to prove it, storms had taken out the landline phone, her nearest neighbors had headed into Dodge City, and the baby her husband had never known about had decided to arrive. She was stranded with only her 7- and 8-year-old children and in labor. She needed a miracle. Which was when he arrived. The kids thought he was a guardian angel, but his smile was that of a being who was NOT QUITE AN ANGEL. She wished she could keep him earthbound at her side. All she offered was complications and he needed more than her sad little family to hold him. Or did he?
Excerpt:
The moment seven-year-old Charlie stepped into the living room, eight-year-old Allie turned guiltily away from the front window. “I told you to watch Mom,” she reminded him with a fierce glare.
“But Mom told me to come watch cartoons,” he said with a touch of defiance. “If’n you don’t believe me, you can go ask her.”
“She’s having a baby,” Allie growled.
“So?” Charlie countered, dense to his sister’s sense of urgency. “She done it before. She told me so.”
“Dork,” Allie snapped. “Go ahead! Watch your dumb cartoons, then.”
The message finally got through to Charlie. He frowned. “Are you ‘fraid, Allie?”
“Worried,” she insisted, as if the choice of word changed the way she was feeling. “Mommy wasn’t supposed to have the baby all by herself, you know. Mrs. Wendell was gonna be here.”
“Then how come she ain’t?” Charlie demanded, his voice belligerent over their neighbor’s absence.
“’Cause she went shopping in Dodge today, ‘member? When the phone didn’t work, Mom sent you over there this morning to get her.”
“Oh, yeah. Weren’t nobody there. Well, Mommy’s not having the baby all alone, Allie,” Charlie soothed, “’cause we’re here.”
“But you’re gonna watch TV instead of help.”
“Mom told me to watch cartoons.”
Tears gathered in Allie’s eyes, but she fought them down, too proud to let them show in front of her brother. “What about the new baby?”
“It can watch ‘em with me when it gets borned,” Charlie offered grandly. “What are you doing?”
Allie took a deep breath and tilted her small, pointed chin at a determined angle. “I’m looking for someone,” she said.
Charlie took this information and digested it in his usual manner. “Are not.”
“Am, too!”
“Are not.”
“I am so. I’m watching for the angel.”
Charlie snorted with masculine contempt. “What angel? One like Daddy is now? You can’t see angels.”
“Some you can,” she insisted. “Guardian angels have to be seen when babies are born so the baby knows they are there.”
“That’s dumb. Who told you that?”
Allie’s chin rose a notch higher. “Nobody. I figured it out for myself. And it isn’t dumb, it’s true.”
“So why aren’t you in Mom’s bedroom? That’s where the stupid angel will be. If ya can see it.”
“You’ll see,” she assured him. “When the baby’s guardian angel gets here, you’ll have to eat your words.”
“Will not,” Charlie insisted. “’Cause there ain’t no--”
He broke off as a knock sounded on the door.
Allie didn’t wait. She ran over and yanked the door wide open. On the porch there stood a tall man in dusty jeans and a pale blue t-shirt. With the sunlight behind him, it looked like a halo surmounted his dark hair.
~ ~ ~
It wasn’t until Kevin mounted the porch steps that he heard the sound of children squabbling.
Now all he had to worry about was whether anyone would hear his knock over the kids’ raised voices.
He needn’t have worried. He’d barely rapped when the door was thrown open by a delicately boned pixie.
The tiny creature was dressed in what appeared to be rags the shade of forest moss. A sprinkling of pixie dust clung to her hair and clothing and glittered like a trail behind her on the carpet.
A second elf stood a little behind her, the same sparkling substance glinting in a mop of hair.
“Wow!” the boy said in an awed voice as he stared up at Kevin on the porch. “You were right, Allie.”
The first pixie ignored the concession to her superior knowledge, her expression changing from one of delight to one of suspicion as she stared at the newcomer.
The children should have fetched a parent to see to their unexpected visitor.
They both continued to observe him, the boy with awe, the girl with a touch of wariness.
Just a touch. Kevin had the feeling that she found fault with something he’d done. Or should have done.
Her sharp little chin jutted out as she stood there, a martial gleam in her eye.
“Hello,” Kevin said. “I wonder if I—”
“Are you my guardian angel?” the little girl demanded sharply.
Kevin smiled softly, genuinely amused at the comment. Here he’d been thinking Land of Oz and instead he had fallen into a modern version of Alice’s Wonderland.
“No, I’m afraid I’m not your guardian angel,” he said. “I—”
“Are you Charlie’s guardian angel?” she asked and stabbed a finger to indicate her brother.
“Not his, either,” Kevin answered. “If I could speak to your father or mother—”
“Daddy’s dead,” Charlie informed him. “Don’t you know that?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t. I’m very sorry to hear he is, but—”
The boy shook his head in disgust. “He’s pretty dumb, Allie,” he told his sister.
“He’s probably just new,” Allie said.
Kevin tried again. “Now, if you’d just tell your mother that I’m here, then—”
The little girl turned back to him, her face glowing with pleasure. “Tell Mom? I knew it!” she declared, her voice both excited and breathy. Ignoring Kevin, she spun back to face the boy. “We don’t have to worry anymore, Charlie. Mommy will be okay now. The baby is probably being born right this minute. See, since this angel isn’t your guardian angel or mine, he must be the new baby’s.”
“Wow!” Charlie said again. “Can we go see the baby, Allie?”
“Sure,” Allie said, her tone that of a gracious hostess.
The two padded off down a hall to Kevin’s left, leaving him standing alone in the open doorway.
What now? He couldn’t just walk into a stranger’s home. With luck, the children would mention that he was there to whomever was supervising them. And if they didn’t? Kevin sighed with misgiving. Then, the way his day was going, there was a very good chance that the white rabbit would be along soon, babbling about being late for a very important date.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
November is a time to be thankful. What are you most thankful for this year?
I’m thankful for the wonderful community of readers, reviewers, fellow fiction writers, and the wonderful editing teams I’ve worked with this year. Since retiring from teaching English Comp and Novel Writing at the college level back when my life revolved around carrying for my now passed parents, my entire world revolves around my characters and having them embraced by others . . . well, you really can’t beat that. Thank you all!
Why is your featured book worth snuggling up to?
Not Quite an Angel began life back in the late 1990s as a Silhouette Special Edition tale called Mr. Angel. When the rights reverted to me, I updated what little tech was mentioned (gave Kevin a cell phone and changed the kid’s VCR tapes to CDs) and renamed it.
One of my nieces claims she picks it up to reread because she loves the characters and the situation. Well, she’s got three children and so does our heroine. For me, it’s always the hero who lures me back for a reread, and Kevin is so caring I love hanging out with him. As a reviewer claimed 25 years ago, “he’s even good with kids!”. This is a readymade family in the making story that brings two people who have lost spouses and lost track of who they are finding a new beginning. Yeah, that’s a story to snuggle up with for me!
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $75 Amazon gift card.
You must have an active Amazon US or Amazon Canada account to be eligible. Open internationally.
Runs November 1 – 30
Drawing will be held on December 1.
Author Biography:
Beth Henderson has been a published novelist in romance since 1990 when her first romantic suspense/romantic comedy novel was published. Since then she's had a long list of titles released through various publishing houses, and also under a variety of names. Her latest release is GHOST NOTES, a romantic suspense released by The Wild Rose Press. She also writes Old West historical romantic mysteries.
Under her "real" name, Beth Daniels, she is a frequent online workshop presenter at SavvyAuthors.com and various online chapters of Romance Writers of America.
Social Media Links:
Website: www.4TaleTellers.com
Twitter: @Beth__Henderson
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2GvFyog