Book Day Wednesday

There's a new Mannies book coming out on January 22 and you can pre-order it now!

Family Portrait

Ashton Grumfeld is a photojournalist who has spent a lot of years embedded with the troops in Afghanistan, only coming home to visit his sister Amy and her family for a few days at Christmas every year. When Amy and her husband are killed in a freak car accident, the guardianship of their four children falls to him.

Darren Swanson has been nanny to the Gumfeld’s children since just before nine year old Diana, the eldest, was born. When their parents die, he’s left on his own with four kids until their uncle can make it out of Afghanistan and get home. It takes two weeks before that happens, two weeks of having to deal with newly orphaned children all the while wondering what’s going to happen when Ashton finally arrives on the scene.

Will Ashton and Darren be able to make a new family as they figure out how they fit together in the children’s lives, and each other’s? Find out in Family Portrait.

buy link:

You can pre-order it at Amazon.

Excerpt:

Darren put plates of grilled cheese sandwiches cut into stars and hearts down in front of Diana, Drew and Derek, then double checked on baby Dillon. His little bit extra was still fast asleep in the daycrib. Poor little thing just didn’t understand why everyone was upset, but he sure picked up on everyone’s emotions and had been miserable for days.

He wasn’t the only one, of course. Darren was just trying to hold it together for his other three charges, trying to make everything as normal as possible. If there was such a thing when your parents died when a party boat caught fire and went down, all souls lost. The twins were still asking when Mommy and Daddy were coming home and his Lady Di was clinging to him twenty four seven.

Annalisa, the housekeeper, caught him before he went back into the kitchen. “I’m done, Mr. Darren. I cleaned the big guest room for Mr. Uncle.”

“Thanks, Annalisa. Did the lawyer talk to you?” She needed to be paid.

“He did. He asked me to keep coming in until their uncle decides what to do with the house.”

“Okay, good. Thank you.” He ran his hands through his hair. God, he was tired. Exhausted. “Thank you.”

She gave him a hug and he hugged her right back. She’d been working for the Grumfeld’s almost as long as he had. They’d had a tea break together every Tuesday and Friday for the last eight years.

“Mr. Uncle is a good man. A very good man.” Annalisa had had the opportunity to meet the man, at least. “He’ll keep us on.”

“I hope so.” Not because all he cared about was having a job, but those babies didn’t know Amy’s brother nearly at all, and with their parents gone, he was the only parental figure they knew.

“You’ll be okay, Mr. Darren. And so will those bambinos because they have you.”

“And you. Who else is going to sneak them cookies?”

She laughed softly and patted his back before going to gather her purse and her coat.

She kissed each of the three older kids, one after another. “I love you all. Be good.”

“See you on Tuesday, Annalisa.” He hoped.

“You will.” She gave him a firm nod and headed out.

Diana came to him, grabbed his hand. “Dee? Please don’t go.”

He went down onto one knee and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetpea.”
He prayed Amy’s brother wouldn’t make a liar out of him.

“Promise to God. I don’t want to live in a dirty tent in the desert.”

He blinked a few times, trying to parse that one out. “I promise I won’t let you live in a dirty tent in the desert. Why do you think that would happen?”

“That’s where he lives.”

“He? Oh. You mean your Uncle Ashton?” Amy’s brother was a photojournalist and spent a lot of time in the middle east.

“Uh-huh. Him.” The way she said it sounded so grim, which was ridiculous. Amy and Simon had always spoken highly of her baby brother, who had a Pulitzer and an apparently stunning talent.

Sean

smut fixes everything