Sheri WhiteFeather - Lost and Found Husband

Love’s on the menu in this installment of Sheri WhiteFeather’s Family Renewal miniseries!

For waitress Dana Peterson, it’s now or never. For a year, she’s flirted with her regular diner customer, widower Erik Reeves. Who cares if he’s a little older? He’s yummy! So she takes the plunge and asks him out—on Valentine’s Day, no less.

Against his better judgment, Erik lets this ray of sunshine into his life. But things quickly spin out of control and now Dana’s pregnant. Erik will do the right thing and marry her. But can he retrieve his heart from the lost and found to give this feisty beauty the love she truly deserves?

Erik did as he was told. Stupid as it was, he liked having her nearby, tempting him to take a mouthful of the forbidden fruit. Á la mode was an added bonus.

Sure enough, it made him smile. “You win.”

“I always do. You know what would be great? For us to go out and play together. There’s a gallery opening tomorrow night that I really want to see. You can take me to it, if you’re free.”

He looked at her as if she’d flipped her lovely little lid. Her suggestion sounded suspiciously like a date. “You don’t need an older guy like me taking you anywhere.”

“You’re not old. You’re yummy.”

Yummy ? His heart beat hard in his chest. Bang.Bang. Bang . Like shots from a gun. His daughter wanted him to start dating again. But he doubted that she had someone like Dana in mind.

“Say yes, Eric.”

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wondered how books are titled? Who comes up with the name and how it’s decided upon? Mostly it’s up to the author to make suggestions, then it goes to editorial, where they either chose a title from the list the author submitted or make new suggestions, based on the marketing of the book.

Thinking up titles has always been a challenge for me. I never seem to have just the right one floating around in my head. I appreciate that it’s not solely up to me. Some of my favorite titles were created by editors or marketing executives.

But I have to say, Lost and Found Husband came naturally to me for this book. I titled the first book in my Family Renewal duet Lost and Found Father because the hero in that story had given up his baby daughter for adoption and was being reunited with her eighteen years later. In this book, the hero (who is that child’s adoptive parent) was once a happy and well-adjusted husband who’d tragically lost his wife. Now he is in a position to be a husband all over again, to start fresh, to regain the joy that he’d lost, only with someone new.

So…I give you Lost and Found Husband, a book with an emotionally wounded hero and the lovely young woman who helps him find his way back home.

Hugs and Happily Ever After,

Sheri WhiteFeather

Lost and Found Husband

Sheri WhiteFeather

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SHERI WHITEFEATHERis a bestselling author who has won numerous awards, including readers’ and reviewers’ choice honors. She writes a variety of romance novels for Mills & Boon. She has become known for incorporating Native American elements into her stories. She has two grown children who are tribally enrolled members of the Muscogee Creek Nation.

Sheri is of Italian-American descent. Her great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Italy through Ellis Island, originating from Castel di Sangro and Sicily. She lives in California and enjoys ethnic dining, shopping in vintage stores and going to art galleries and museums. Sheri loves to hear from her readers. Visit her website at www.sheriwhitefeather.com.

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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

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Eric Reeves was dining in an eatery near his Southern California home, watching Dana Peterson, the bubbly blonde waitress, bring food to another table. His dinner, meat loaf and mashed potatoes, was only half-eaten.

He kept his gaze trained on Dana. With her bold pink uniform and her nicely curved figure, she was a sight to behold. They weren’t friends, per se, but they’d built a friendly rapport through snippets of server-customer conversation. Eric ate here often.

When his wife was alive, he used to eat at home. Back then, everything had been wonderfully normal. But he’d lost Corrine seven years ago, and it had become a long and lonely road since then.

Dana whizzed past him on her way to the kitchen and smiled, her ponytail swishing. She was a twenty-six-year-old working her way through community college and enjoying the wherever-it-took-her experience. Eric was forty-two with a grounded job and a grown daughter. He and Dana didn’t have much in common, except that his daughter was a college student, too.

By the time he finished his meal, Dana returned to his table. She shot him another of her upbeat smiles. Today she was wearing a purple iris fastened behind her ear. She always wore a flower of some sort. Sometimes they were artificial flowers in trendy hair clips, like the aforementioned iris, and sometimes they were real.

A while back, she’d given him one of the real McCoys when he’d revealed that he was widowed. She had always pegged him for divorced, and to make up for her error, she’d removed the flower she wore that day, a velvety red rose, and placed it gently in his hand. Later, he’d gone to Corrine’s grave and left it for her. Somewhere along the way, he’d gotten used to talking to his dead wife. He’d even explained where the rose had come from, telling her about the warm-hearted waitress who’d bestowed it upon him.

“Can I get you anything else?” Dana asked.

He shook his head.

“You sure? The apple pie is fresh.”

He thought she was fresh, too, light and springy—a modern bohemian, as she called herself, who’d yet to decide on a college major.

“Cherry is my favorite,” he said.

“We don’t have any cherry. But I promise the apple is delish.”

He met her gaze. She had the bluest eyes and the blondest, most naturally golden hair. Everything about her shimmered.

She cocked her head. “What do you say? A la mode?”

He shifted his focus. Pie and ice cream. “Sure, okay.”

“Coffee, too?”

“Yes.”

Off she went: pink uniform, purple flower and Gidget ponytail. Eric found himself watching her again. He enjoyed looking at her. He enjoyed it far too much.

He was frowning when she delivered his coffee and dessert.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

You, he thought. He didn’t want to be attracted to a woman who was closer to his daughter’s age than his own.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Taste the pie.” She waggled her fingers. “It’s guaranteed to make you smile.”

He did as he was told. Stupid as it was, he liked having her nearby, tempting him to take a mouthful of the forbidden fruit. The a la mode was an added bonus.