With Child by Janice Kay Johnson, Harlequin SuperRomance #1273, May 2005, Rating: B

Mindy Fenton's life changes quite literally while she was sleeping. Her husband was murdered on the job, filling in for a security guard that called in sick. Despite the fact he owned the business, Dean wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and this night was no different. His best friend since they were thrown together in a foster home twenty years ago, Brendan Quinn, does his best to help Mindy out after his death despite the fact he never really cared for his friend's younger, frivolous wife. Until she pushes him away, tired of his belittling her in the process of helping her. Months later he finds her by accident and discovers she's pregnant, needing help because she's been placed on bedrest. Quinn insists she come to stay with him and from there their romance blossoms despite the ghost of Dean and parents who failed as examples.

Mindy Fenton does give even the reader the wrong impression at first. She seems very timid, incapable of doing anything for herself and unwilling to think about the things that need to done. It's no surprise that her husband's friend who never could stand her comes to the rescue time and time again after Dean's death. But finally, pregnant and afraid of the criticism he'll give her when he sees the evidence of that pregnancy she tells him to get lost. Realizing she was in over her head with the expenses Dean took in and having no income and no insurance, she finds herself selling the beautiful 3-car garage home they lived in along with everything else and takes a basement apartment. All is well until she finds out that she has preeclampsia and has no one to turn to. It's then that Quinn finds her again, by accident, and offers her a place to stay. Mindy finds herself growing comfortable with Quinn as the time goes on, even to the point that she's attracted to him. The shadow of her mother taking a lover weeks after her own father's death when Mindy was fourteen leaves Mindy feeling horrible for being attracted to Dean's best friend. Was that why they'd disliked one another? Underneath it was there some deep seeded attraction that had been there, both afraid it would get scratched if they got to know one another?

Brendan Quinn is a cop. Placed in foster care at a young age because his drugged out mother could no longer care for him, he learned not to rely or trust anyone but himself. He left his foster home when he was eighteen with only the possessions he himself had bought, always thinking of anything given to him as a loaner. He never understood Dean's need to acquire things and thought that Mindy would be - like everything else in Dean's life - a passing phase. Never mind the girl eight years younger than Dean seemed a little on the ditzy side. She was an artist, but Quinn had never seen her do anything and assumed Dean exaggerated the woman's talent until after Jessamine was born and he saw her in action, and selling things.

Quinn and Mindy were an unlikely couple and I was interested to see how it would be pulled off. They were at cross purposes most of the time until she moved in with him and they got to know one another better. An interesting backdrop to the story were Quinn and Dean's foster parents as well as Mindy's mother. Both of them were able to get some resolution to their issues with their childhood and the way they were about things. A sweet read, though an ultrasound that was ordered after the preeclampsia diagnosis seemingly never got done because she didn't know the gender of the baby until it was born seemed a little strange. The fact she was 8 weeks or so along when Dean died and she hadn't told him yet had been explained by irregularity. I rate it a B.

©Susan Falk and phantomroses.com