Formula: Father

Supermodel Darcy Taylor has returned to Austin, Texas to fulfill her dream of having a home and raising a child. After sixteen years of runways and international magazines, she's come back home to the people who loved her and not her face. Though her dream initially included a husband, she has forgone that part because no one could surpass the love she felt for her best friend, Mitchell Maitland. Now a fertility specialist, Mitch reluctantly agrees to help Darcy have a child though he can't understand why the beautiful girl he loved insists on this procedure. As they renew their friendship, both Mitch and Darcy are forced to confront a sixteen-year separation that tore apart the young love they had had for each other but never got the chance to explore.Karen Hughes's installment of the Maitland Maternity series is engaging and intriguing. Both Mitch and Darcy are interesting characters whose childhood friendship is recalled by the author with a deft hand as being endearing. I enjoyed the nostalgic flashbacks Hughes writes of these two because it deepened my understanding of them and they were well integrated without being overly trite. But in the present, Mitch and Darcy have a lot to overcome due to their celebrity. Much of the conflict lays in Darcy's retirement and the scandal surrounding the Maitlands which envelopes Mitch by blood. The issue of Darcy needing Mitch's help to conceive is never spun out the way readers are led to believe. This was the story's shortcoming. We do, however, learn more about the secondary plot involving an amnesiac waitress and the baby found on the steps of the clinic. Hughes develops this storyline without detracting overly from Mitch and Darcy's story, which is no small feat. I did like Mitch and Darcy despite their difficulties, which are sorted through a little too quickly. But their friendship, which was integral to their romance, was very appealing.