“You and the kids should live with me, Charlie.”

      “The offer’s appreciated, Rose, truly. I’m just not sure. The kids and I are finally starting to…” I hesitated to explain how we were only recently adjusting to the family of three we’d become, because I didn’t want to make her sound excluded.

      She played her trump card. “I don’t think you and I were ever as close as Tom would have liked. I believe this decision would help him rest easier, don’t you?”

      Yes, it would have made him very happy.

      “We’ll be like Stella and Louise,” Rose said, sounding eager.

      “Who?”

      “Some movie.” She frowned. “Weren’t there two women who, I don’t know, bonded?”

      “Thelma. You meant Thelma and Louise. And that movie ended in joint suicide.”

      “Oh. You’re sure?”

      “They drove into the Grand Canyon.” Whistling, I made a diving motion with my hand.

      “What a silly way to end a film. Okay, then. Not like them! Some other pair that would make a good roommate analogy.”

      Felix and Oscar came to mind. Hard to believe Rose and I would be any odder a couple.

      Tanya Michaels

      enjoys writing about love, whether it’s the romantic kind or the occasionally exasperated affection we feel for family members. Tanya made her debut with a 2003 romantic comedy, and her books have been nominated for awards such as Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, Romance Writers of America’s RITA^® Award, the National Readers’ Choice and the Maggie Award of Excellence. She’s lucky enough to have a hero of a husband, as well as family and friends who love her despite numerous quirks. Visit www.tanyamichaels.com to learn more about Tanya and her upcoming books.

      Dating the Mrs. Smiths

      Tanya Michaels

      Dear Reader,

      You know the expression that you can choose your friends, but not your family? Well, it’s also true that you can choose your husband, but you can’t choose his family, which are generally part of the package deal. But what if that husband was gone, and his family—specifically his disapproving mother—was all you had left?

      These were the thoughts that led to the idea for Dating the Mrs. Smiths, a story in which widow Charlotte “Charlie” Smith and her two young children end up relocating to Boston and moving in with her mother-in-law, Rose, a woman with a good heart buried underneath all her strong opinions. Deep, deep underneath.

      I’m very excited about my first book for NEXT, and hope you enjoy it! If you do, please drop me a note at [email protected]. You can also visit my Web site at www.tanyamichaels.com for giveaways, book excerpts and all my latest news.

      Wishing you happy reading and wonderful in-laws.

      Tanya

      Thank you, Jen and Pam,

       for helping me figure out my NEXT step. And special thanks to my parents-in-law, Harvey and Sandra, for your support and encouragement of my writing. I’m very thankful that you raised such a wonderful son and that my kids have such loving grandparents.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      CHAPTER 7

      CHAPTER 8

      CHAPTER 9

      CHAPTER 10

      CHAPTER 11

      CHAPTER 12

      CHAPTER 13

      CHAPTER 14

      CHAPTER 1

       “This isn’t a time to panic,” Martin assured me from behind his desk. “Only a time of change.”

      Considering some of the changes I’d experienced in my thirty-nine years, I didn’t find the qualification particularly comforting.

      “Think of it as two roads diverging,” my boss continued with a paternal smile, “creating new paths for you, Charlotte.”

      Yeah. Well, I wanted to take the road most likely to pay my mortgage. After the months I’d struggled to recreate some sense of security for myself and my two children, Martin Kimble’s informing me that the warehouse and office were being closed felt like a mortal blow. And he wanted me to dismiss it as just a flesh wound?

      Despite his soothing tone, I noticed hypocritical traces of subdued panic behind Martin’s wire-rimmed glasses. I didn’t think he was worried about his mortgage, though. I think he feared having a hysterical woman on his hands. Or an angry woman who might staple his striped tie to his desk blotter.

      Instead, what he had was a mostly numb woman. I would have thought I was no longer naive enough to expect life to be fair, but I couldn’t help my instinctive reaction, the denial welling up inside me, the inner protest that this really was unfair. Almost laughably so, if you had a sick sense of humor.

      The kids and I were just starting to regain our footing, thanks in large part to Kazka Medical Supply taking me back. I’d worked here part-time for over a year before leaving to have Ben, never guessing I’d soon return, begging for a full forty hours a week. Forty hours that were about to be yanked out from under me.

      “You have some choices,” Martin added, nervously repeating the same phrase he’d used to open this Ides of March conversation. Okay, technically this was autumn—and I wasn’t a Roman emperor about to be assassinated—but the sense of doom and betrayal seemed appropriate. Plus there’s no great Shakespearean reference for the Ides of September.

      Nodding to reassure my district manager I hadn’t gone catatonic, I mulled over the options. All two of them.

      Stay in Miami and hope like crazy that I found another job before the southeastern distribution center closed in October, or put in for a transfer and hope like crazy it was approved. Martin had said he was more than willing to recommend me for the latter and that he thought my chances were “quite good.” Of course, a transfer would mean uprooting Ben and Sara, and praying Kazka’s northern locations continued to do well and weren’t shut down soon after I moved. Thirteen-month-old Ben would probably adjust all right. If he felt anxious in a new place, I could just put him in his playpen, where the world view was four navy mesh walls no matter what zip code we called home. But Sara…

      A first grader whose biggest worries should have been subtraction and whether or not she’d like the sandwich in her sack lunch, she’d already been through so much in the last two years. After four years of being home with an attentive mommy all day, Sara had started pre-K, followed by kindergarten—the year Sara had learned she would no longer be an only child. At first we’d thought her frequent but vague complaints about not feeling well were cries for attention, but she had indeed been experiencing periodic viral throat infections throughout my pregnancy. Then, less than eight weeks after the baby and I had been discharged from the hospital, Tom had checked in. Sara and Ben’s father, my late husband, had been scheduled for a “routine” and “low-risk” surgery.

      Doctors had assured us that serious complications from angioplasty were quite rare. If we were going to experience a freak overturn of the odds, why couldn’t it have been winning the Florida Lotto?

      Sara