Read Online Love on Assignment by Cara Lynn James - Free Book Online Page B

hands-on involvement.
    Unlike Tim, Ruthie slid right between her sheets.
    â€œPapa, can we have a heart-to-heart talk?”
    He coughed back a chuckle. “Of course, pumpkin.”
    â€œI’ve been thinking. Grandmother is getting old and won’t be around forever. Of course, we’d like her to live to be one hundred. But in case she doesn’t, it might be good to have a stepmother. A really nice lady, someone like Miss Hale. Sometimes I get so lonely for a mama, I cry.”
    He pressed his daughter in a gentle hug and buried his head in her auburn hair flowing loosely down her back. Ruthie squeezed him tight before he sat back on the edge of her bed. “Sometimes I get lonely too,” he admitted.
    Desolation surged through him with a familiar ache. He missed not having a woman to love, to wrap in his arms and hold close. Not that Sarah was one to ever really care about the important events in his life or even the trivialities. He tried to look ahead, not back to a past he couldn’t rewrite. And sometimes he succeeded.
    â€œAre you ever going to marry again, Papa?” Ruthie clutched her stuffed bunny to her chest, a last remnant of childhood.
    Pinned by his daughter’s sincere eyes and straightforward question, Daniel squirmed on the pink and green satin bedspread.
    â€œI honestly don’t know.”
    â€œI’m sure God wants you to. You need a wife and I need a mama.” The children deserved a mother who adored them and spent time with them, but he was quite sure he didn’t need a wife. Or want one. He’d already been down that road . . .
    Daniel pulled her light summer blanket up to her chin. “If the Lord wants me to remarry, He’ll let me know who she is when He’s good and ready. We can pray about it, but remember, we must wait for the Lord.”
    Ruthie groaned as she thrust the covers back down. “Grandmother wasn’t waiting for the Lord’s timing when she made you meet all her friends’ daughters.”
    Daniel grinned. “But it didn’t work, now did it?” During the last few years his mother had badgered him to court her current favorite—the Belle of the Month, as he’d come to call them. They were all upstanding Christian women from good families, but not one caused an ember to flare. Or even flicker.
    He kissed Ruthie good night, turned off her bedside lamp, and retreated to his bedroom. This was the first time Ruthie mentioned wanting a stepmother. He wondered if she still mourned Sarah, though now that he thought of it, Ruthie hadn’t spoken of her in ages. Five years was a long time for a child to remember. Her image of Sarah had probably faded just as his had.
    Heavenly Father, please fill Ruthie with your love and take away her loneliness. Send her a helper to guide her as she grows up—but not necessarily a stepmother—unless this is Your will for me .
    She’d reach young womanhood in a few short years and need someone besides an old-fashioned grandmother or an awkward papa to steer her in the right direction and teach her the feminine things he didn’t know anything about. He shuddered at the idea of tackling the task by himself.
    As he climbed into his four-poster bed, a picture of Charlotte filled his mind. The gleam in her dark eyes and the thick brown hair swept up into a topknot stirred his imagination. She certainly added a fresh spirit to the household.
    If he ever remarried he’d like a wife like Charlotte Hale— playful, not coy, and totally natural. After years of Sarah’s indifference, all he wanted in a wife was honesty and a desire to share his life. A woman who loved him and loved the Lord. A woman he could trust.
    He sighed in the hushed night air. Was that too much to request? Probably so. He knew from experience if a woman demanded all of his time and attention, then the relationship veered toward disaster.
    He couldn’t tolerate emotional storms