Cara Colter - First Time, Forever

AVAILABLE JUNE 2009

1) Anything for Danny by Carla Cassidy

2) Father in the Making by Marie Ferrarella

3) Most Wanted Dad by Arlene James

4) The Nine-Month Bride by Judy Christenberry

AVAILABLE AUGUST 2009

5) Instant Father by Lucy Gordon

6) Daddy Lessons by Stella Bagwell

7) Most Eligible Dad by Karen Rose Smith

8) First Time, Forever by Cara Colter

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2009

9) A Father’s Promise by Helen R. Myers

10) The Women in Joe Sullivan’s Life by Marie Ferrarella

11) Falling for a Father of Four by Arlene James

12) Caleb’s Son by Laurie Paige

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2009

13) Waiting for the Wedding by Carla Cassidy

14) Daniel’s Daddy by Stella Bagwell

15) Always Daddy by Karen Rose Smith

16) The Billionaire’s Baby Chase by Valerie Parv

Dear Reader,

One of the reasons I enjoyed writing First Time, Forever so much is that the hero is younger than the heroine. The age difference between Evan and Kathleen is seven years, which, coincidentally, is the age difference between my real-life hero and me! What our incredible time together has taught me is that when you say yes to the song of your heart—never mind all those rules—it keeps you forever young. Oh, the hair still has silver threads in it, and the wrinkles appear, but the feeling in your heart of being alive—on fire—gets stronger, rather than diminishing.

When I wrote First Time, Forever I wanted it to be a book that honors the fire in each of us, while at the same time honoring our longing for the traditions that have carried us safely this far—marriage and family.

My greatest hope is that this book will bring you to a place of laughter and tenderness, tears and triumph.

With my sincerest best wishes,

Cara Colter

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lives on an acreage in British Columbia with her partner, Rob, and eleven horses. The mother of three grown children and a grandmother of one, she is a recent recipient of a Romantic Times BOOKreviews Career Achievement Award in the Love and Laughter category. Cara loves to hear from readers. You can contact her, or learn more about her, through her Web site at www.cara-colter.com.

To Richard, who makes my life so much

“richer” in every way.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Evan Atkins had the book hidden behind a copy of Sports Illustrated. He drank his coffee and frowned at the words, trying to concentrate, but finding it difficult with all the commotion at the Hopkins Gulch Café this morning.

The café had six tables, two booths and a lunch counter. There were coffee cups half filled, and bacon and eggs half eaten at nearly all those tables, but the seats, save for the one Evan inhabited at a booth, were empty, abandoned.

The guys were three deep at the window, trying to get a look at the Outpost, the town’s general store, across the street. A strange car was parked out front, a U-haul trailer behind it. The car had caused this great stirring of interest when a pair of strangers had emerged from it. Both of them had looked around briefly, and then disappeared into the Outpost.

“If they were just askin’ for directions,” Sookie Peters said wisely, “they would have left the engine running.”

“Did you see her?” Jack Marty asked for about the sixtieth annoying time. “She looked just like Julia Roberts. I swear. Well, maybe a little older. And not scrawny like Julia.” He said this with easy familiarity, as if Julia were his second cousin.

“Nah, she dint,” Sookie said. “More like the other one. The one from the movie about the bus. That’s who she looked like.”

“Sandra Bullock?” Cal, Sookie’s brother, hooted. “She did not!”

“Oh, what do you know?”

The banter went back and forth, Evan furrowing his brow and trying to ignore the nonsense as best he could. All those guys at the window should take a lesson from him. Good things did not necessarily come in pretty packages.

Millie came and refilled his coffee cup. He didn’t quite get the Sports Illustrated up fast enough or high enough, and she caught sight of the book hidden behind it, crooked her head, read the title, and smiled.

If she told the guys he was never going to live it down.

Potty-Training for the Hopelessly Confused.

But she just smiled, in that way he was never going to get used to, as if being a single dad made him adorable to the female populace, like a teddy bear.

“Where is Jesse this morning?” she asked.

“I dropped him off at Beth’s Day Care for a while.”

“That’s good. He needs to be with other kids sometimes.”

“So I’ve been told.” Evan scowled at the book. Step Five: Pray.

He thought that was a mighty strange step to include in a book on potty-training, not scientific at all. On the other hand, when his son had gone missing and he had done everything he knew how to do, applied all his intellect and strength and devotion, everything, to getting Jesse back, and nothing had worked, isn’t that what his days had become?

Please God, please God, please God. If You can’t bring my baby home, look after him. It would shock those guys at the window to know he had done that, prayed every day, but he’d been shocked himself the first time those words had gone through his head. Shocked, and then surprised, the words bringing him the only measure of peace he’d had in those desperate years.

Jesse was home now. Okay, it had taken two years, but then Evan would admit to being somewhat rusty in the prayer department, since he’d spent most of his youth moving in the other direction, hell bound.

Still, a two-year wait was a might scary thought in terms of potty-training.

It was very hard to formulate a proper potty-training prayer with all the commotion at the window.

“What do you suppose she’s doing over there?”

Millie, known for her foghorn voice, called out, “You know Pa hasn’t been feeling so hot. They tried to sell the place, but now they’re just hoping to get someone to run it for them.”

“That would mean she’d have to live here,” Mike Best pointed out sagely.

The crowd at the window contemplated that for a few minutes of blessed silence that allowed Evan to review his prayer. He decided to keep it simple. God, help. Satisfied, he looked back at the book.

And realized he had read it incorrectly.