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This couldn’t be happening...not to him!
For Charlie Wainwright, the only way to live is according to plan. But a corporate layoff and one hot night with Meg Carmichael has thrown him off course. He doesn’t know how to handle the pretty goat farmer, much less the news that they made more than conversation that night.
Suddenly Meg is pregnant, and Charlie wants to do the right thing. Meg and all she’s hiding don’t belong in his world, and his suits and ties don’t belong on a farm. But a promise to do what’s best for the baby might show them what matters most...
“So, um, I suppose this is awkward,” Meg began.
“I suppose,” Charlie returned, wondering if it would be less awkward if she weren’t quite so nervous. Or maybe drunk sex just always made things awkward afterward.
He sighed. At himself. At the situation. At...life. “You know—”
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
He leaned closer, sure he’d misheard or misunderstood. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me. We don’t know each other well. It never should have happened, but the very fact of the matter is, the only person I’ve been in any potentially compromising positions with is...you...and my doctor confirmed a positive pregnancy test. So...”
He leaned back. Away from her and words that didn’t make sense. He was thirty-five. He was a vice president of... No, not anymore.
He was an unemployed thirty-five-year-old being told the drunken one-night-stand he hadn’t meant to ever let happen had resulted in...
“I didn’t mean to just drop it on you like that.” She skirted the table of her booth, and that felt like a purposeful distancing. He was on one side, and she was on the other.
Pregnant.
With his baby.
Four years ago, I decided to write a book about two farmers and a farmers’ market. When I wrote that first chapter, I was determined it would be a stand-alone book. So many people on Twitter were complaining about series, and I was going to write just one book.
But the heroine, Mia, had a really interesting sister in Cara. Okay, so maybe, given the chance, it’d be a two-book series. But that was it.
I very purposefully gave the hero, Dell, a brother whose name and temperament did not appeal to me at all. Or so I thought.
The funny thing about writing books with complicated family dynamics set in vibrant communities...you can’t help wondering about the people in the background.
I never meant to make Charlie a hero, but the more I wrote about Dell and his complicated relationship with his father in All I Have, the more I had to know what made Charlie Wainwright tick.
Much like Cara, the heroine of All I Am, it took me a few tries to find Charlie’s match. But when tattooed, goat-farming Meg popped into my brain, I knew no one better could help Charlie find exactly who he was meant to be.
I hope you enjoy this final trip to the farmers’ market!
Nicole Helm
All I Want
Nicole Helm
NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.
To all the readers who’ve reached out to tell me how much they loved this series. It’s been a joy.
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