THE DADDY SEARCH—a conversation with Lexi and Nick

Harlequin has reissued 16 of my backlist titles in ebook. Today I'm talking with Lexi Parker and Nick Clayton about THE DADDY SEARCH, a Silhouette Desire originally released in print in November 1999 and currently available in ebook.

Hello Lexi and Nick.  Welcome to my blog.  Thank you for being here with us today.

Nick:  It's our pleasure, Shawna.  Thanks for the invitation.

My first question is for you, Lexi.  As I understand it, you had an absolute personal agenda that took you to the Via Verde Dude Ranch, something far removed from a vacation.

Lexi:  That's right.  I was determined to locate my nephew's father and make him take financial responsibility for his son.

But why the Via Verde Dude Ranch in Wyoming?

Lexi:  My sister had always been wild and irresponsible, but when she became pregnant she totally changed.  She doted on her son.  Mother and I kept asking her who the father was but she would only say that the father told her he didn't want anything to do with the baby, that it was her problem and not his.  She eventually admitted to me that the boy's father was Nick Clayton who, along with his brother and mother, owned the Via Verde.  She had met him when she vacationed there and he had taken her to Hawaii which was when she became pregnant.  But she remained adamant that she didn't want anything from him, that she would take care of her son on her own.  She even took on a second job to earn more money.  It was a bad rainstorm that caused the accident when she was on her way to that job.  Custody of my nephew passed to me upon her death.  I decided that Nick Clayton had to take financial responsibility whether he wanted to or not.  So, I booked a three week vacation at the ranch for the sole purpose of confronting him.

Nick:  She totally grabbed my attention as soon as she got off the shuttle bus from the airport.  She had wandered over to the corral where I had just been thrown from a bucking bronco…(chuckles at the mental image) not a very impressive introduction.

Well, that certainly doesn't seem like the type of circumstances that could lead to romance.  Lexi had already made up her mind about the type of person you were.  How did you manage to get beyond that?

Nick:  I didn't have a clue about her agenda.  She did mention that her sister had vacationed at the ranch and had said how much she enjoyed it, but her sister's name didn't register with me.

Lexi:  The more I saw him, talked to him, was around him and his family, the more confused I became.  I started doubting my sister's claim about Nick being the father.  I couldn't reconcile what she claimed with the reality of man I had met…and against my better judgment, the man with whom I was becoming personally involved.

Obviously, somewhere along the way you changed your mind about Nick.  How did that come about?  What happened to make you think that perhaps Nick was not your nephew's father?

Lexi:  That's all in the book.

LOL…okay, let me try a different question.  Nick—at what point did you realize that Lexi had a hidden agenda toward you and what that was?

Nick:  (grins) That's in the book, too.

Thank you, Nick and Lexi, for being with us today.

***

THE DADDY SEARCH, a Silhouette Desire by Shawna Delacorte reissued in ebook format.  Available at http://ebooks.eharlequin.com (do search for author name Shawna Delacorte).  Also available from Amazon for Kindle and Barnes and Noble for Nook.  Additional information available on my website  www.shawnadelacorte.com

Blurb:

RANCHER DAD?

When Lexi Parker first set foot onto Nick Clayton's dude ranch, she had one goal in mind: to vacation undercover and find out if Nick really was the father of Lexi's precious, now-motherless nephew. It seemed like a perfect plan…

Until Lexi herself succumbed to the cowboy's devastating charms—and found out that this bighearted, honorable rancher was nothing like the love-'em-and-leave-'em rake her sister had portrayed. But if Lexi revealed her secret agenda to Nick now, would she lose her chance with the one man who'd ever stolen her heart?

Inside front cover excerpt:

Which one was the real Nick Clayton? The man her sister had described, or the one Lexi herself had observed?

There was no way you could call Nick irresponsible or callous. She could not imagine him knowingly abandoning his son or tell the boy's mother to get out of his life.

And most devastating of all was Lexi's sense of guilt for her personal involvement with the very man she had come to confront. What was she to believe? Her sister's accusations, or her own observations of a man who made her tingle with excitement and caused her heart to sing?

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Text Copyright © 1999 by SKDennison, Inc.  Cover Art Copyright © 1999 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited. Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A. Cover art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited. All rights reserved. ® and ™ are trademarks owned by Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its affiliated companies, used under license.