Free The Single Dad's Second Chance by Brenda Harlen Page B

she had. On the other hand, she’d been absolutely inconsolable when she’d learned her mother wasn’t ever coming home again. She’d cried and cried and cried, and when absolute and complete exhaustion had finally forced her to sleep, she’d been restless even in slumber.
    Andrew hadn’t wanted to take her to the funeral. He’d wanted her to remember Nina as she’d been when she was alive—full of life and laughter. The minister had suggested to Andrew that Maura needed to be there, to see her mother at rest and say a final goodbye. So he’d relented—and had sorely regretted it.
    As if the loss of her mother wasn’t difficult enough, Maura had been further traumatized by the sight of her still body and pale visage in the casket. She’d shaken her head, stubbornly refusing to believe that woman was her mother. “Mommy smiles and laughs and her eyes are bright and she puts her arms around me when I’m sad.”
    Andrew had been certain that his heart was completely shattered over the loss of the woman he’d loved, but Maura’s inconsolable grief had ground those jagged little pieces into dust.
    It had been a long time after that before he’d even managed to coax a smile out of his little girl, and longer still before she laughed again. The childish giggle was no longer as infrequent as it had been in that first year after Nina’s death, but the joyful sound still tugged at his heart. If Maura’s question about getting a new mother wasn’t proof enough, that giggle reinforced his certainty that she was happy again.
    Maybe it was time for him to be happy, too.
    He lowered her onto the mattress and tucked the covers up around her. “Sweet dreams, baby.”
    Her eyes, already drifting shut, popped open again. “When am I going to meet her?”
    “Meet who?”
    Her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember the name he hadn’t intended to mention. “Rachel?”
    “Rachel who?”
    “That’s not fair—you never told me her last name.”
    “Whose last name?”
    She giggled again. “Daddy,” she admonished.
    He kissed her forehead. “I love you, baby.”
    “I love you, too, Daddy.”
    As he made his way back downstairs, he thought about Maura’s request to meet Rachel. He’d never been tempted to introduce any other woman to his daughter, but this time was different. Rachel was different. She was a woman who meant far more to him than he would have expected after only two dates, and he wanted her to meet the little girl who meant more to him than anything else in the world.
    But first he had to find that note in Maura’s agenda.
    He frowned as he read the handwritten message from Denise Patterson, asking him to call and including her home telephone number. Immediately concerned, he did so. Twenty minutes later, he was reassured and more than a little annoyed.
    Apparently all she wanted to talk about was a flyer she’d sent home the previous week to promote an after-school drama program that she thought would help Maura overcome her shyness. He didn’t think his daughter was any more introverted than most little girls her age, but he thanked Ms. Patterson for her concern and ended the conversation as quickly as possible.
    Then, because he had the phone in his hand, he took a business card out of his wallet and dialed a different number.

Chapter Six
    W hen Andrew said that he would call, Rachel believed him. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to play games, so she figured she’d hear from him by the middle of the week. It didn’t occur to her, when the phone rang just after nine o’clock Sunday night, that it might be him.
    When she saw his name on the display, her heart started pounding hard and fast. And when she reached for the receiver, she felt like a schoolgirl with a crush on the cutest boy in the class. Except that Andrew Garrett definitely wasn’t a boy, and the fantasies that had played out in her dreams the night before weren’t anything like the innocent fantasies of her