Spring Fever

Mandy Elliott spends her days chasing children at her daycare. At night, she dreams of the little girl she lost and the family they could have been. To ease her loneliness, Mandy fills her calendar until there isn’t a spare moment to remember.

Dr. Garrett Pike is entirely focused on his caree. When tragedy strikes and he becomes a father overnight to his four-year-old niece, Garrett is way out of his depth. He turns to the only person he can think of—the intriguing daycare owner he met exactly one time.

Mandy thinks God has given her everything she wants: a ready-made family with a man who makes her stomach do backflips. Garrett, on the other hand, never wanted any of it. Suddenly, he has the perfect girlfriend and an adorable daughter—on top of a job he can barely manage.

Work. Family. Faith. Love. Can anyone really have it all?

Read Spring Fever today and enjoy this faith-filled romance that embraces family, faith, and Christian living within a heart-warming happily-ever-after.

Merry Jelks- Emmanuel5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Story

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2022

Dr. Pike and Mandy will warm your hearts and have you in their corner cheering them on to finding happiness. They both have suffered loss in their lives. For Mandy it was the loss of her daughter when she found out while pregnant that she would not live because of an extra chromosome. Dr. Pike recently loss his brother and sister-in- law thereby becoming a single dad for his niece. He and Mandy connect when he finds her wondering the clinic halls after she is forgotten in a room by the doctor. It will start them along a journey that will be filled with twists and turns that will have them questioning themselves and their relationship with God.

"Don't just break all the crayons, Zachary! You are supposed to color with them."

Mandy sighed to
herself and quickly finished the diaper she was currently changing, and hurried
across the room to usher a dancing toddler into the restroom, while giving an
"I'm watching you" look to four-year-old Zachary. It was times like these she wondered why she chose to run an in-home daycare by herself. Most of
the time, she managed just fine. She had a system: the kids got to watch one
show while she managed to prep lunch for them. The busy schedule of pre-school,
crafts, lunch, naps, snacks, songs, and free time kept the kids engaged and
under control. Overall, the kids were amazingly well behaved. But when one
child needed something urgently, and someone else inevitably also needed
something, she only had two hands. Story of her life.

Even so, while
Mandy waited for her little charge to be finished so she could help him wash
his hands, she thought about how she really did love this job. She loved the
little personality her toddlers showed. She watched it emerge more and more
each day. They never ceased to amaze her, make her laugh, and give her an
optimism about the future. Working with children was why she studied to be a
teacher. But when she graduated and there were no jobs within the schools to be
found, she decided to open her own small business and start a daycare in the
small town of Minden, Indiana. She grew up in Minden with her parents and her
brother. She loved it here. The town was quaint and inviting. Most people would
simply drive past it without stopping, but there was something special about
this quaint town.

Mandy loved how
close-knit the community was.  A dozen people would offer a hand when needed. That's just how it was. It meant Mandy
was also continuously stepping up to help someone in need.

Mandy loved these
toddlers with everything she had. She poured herself into them day after day,
year after year. She created lesson plans about the alphabet. Mandy showed them
different places and animals and the weather; teaching their little minds
concepts and skills they would need as they grew older. But it was exhausting
sometimes. She was one of the few daycare options in Minden and she carried the
same sense of community of the small town into the daycare itself. She often
held special events for the families of her children, including a Christmas
party, Easter egg hunt, and family fun day.

As she finished up
with the three-year-old in the bathroom, she heard the four-month old whose
diaper she had been changing start to fuss. Luckily, the other kids were busy
coloring pictures of monkeys to go along with their letter of the day: 'M'. She
picked up Miles, the baby, and put him back in the baby carrier she was
wearing. Miles seemed especially needy this week and she resorted to wearing
him throughout the day to keep him happy. Mandy helped the kids clean up their
workspace and hung their pictures on the clothesline where they would be
waiting for their parents to take home at the end of the day. She hopefully
glanced out the window, dismayed when she saw it starting to snow. The winter
had worn out its welcome. The kids were more than ready to go outside and play,
and she would love to let them burn off the energy.

It was mid-January, and everyone was itching for a warm day to come and interrupt the
monotony of cold, dreary winter days. She made a mental reminder to check the
weather forecast for the rest of the week. She had a mulch playground in her
backyard, so she didn't even need to wait for it to dry out. She just needed it
to be warm enough that the kids could go outside and burn off some energy. She
liked for them to go out after lunch before nap. And if that didn't work,
sometimes she had them playing outside at the end of the day while parents
dribbled in to pick up their little ones.

Getting her own
daycare up and running was hard work. Getting it licensed with the state was a
lot of paperwork, inspections, and hardest of all, finding a suitable property
in the small town of Minden. While she had searched for a home with a walkout
basement, she wasn't able to find one. She ended up converting the attached
garage into the main room for the daycare. But it often exploded out into the
rest of her house despite her best efforts.

It was not unusual
for her to have a baby swing and a pile of Legos or discarded baby doll in her
personal living room if a child woke up early from nap and needed to be away
from the other kids while they rested. In those moments of quiet, she took the stubborn
child into her personal living room where she spent nap time trying to recharge
for the remainder of the day, while watching and listening to the main daycare
room on the security camera. It was just a few steps away, around the corner
from her living room, but the camera gave her some extra peace of mind.

Mandy glanced at
her phone and saw a text message from her mother. Her mom was asking questions
about what Mandy would wear on her date tonight. Mandy finally surrendered to
her family and friends' insistence she give online dating a try. She was nearly
thirty-one and had yet to find a serious boyfriend let alone someone she could
see marrying. It was disheartening, to say the least. But there wasn't a lot of
opportunity to meet someone when you spent your days with toddlers and your
evenings completing lesson plans. Free time was spent at church, with her
women's Bible study group, or helping her friends with whatever they needed to
do. She kept a detailed mental calendar and tried to pack as many things into
each day as she could. It kept her from sitting at home alone, which was her
least favorite reality.

As it were, those
mental entries into her calendar were never dates. It wasn't that she didn't
want to date, but she was shy. Almost painfully so. Finding a chance to meet
someone felt impossible. She had resisted this whole online dating fad for
years, but tonight she was giving it another try. She'd already been on several
failed dates and dozens of potential matches who never made it past exchanging
messages. She rolled her eyes at her mother's excitement and turned her
attention back to the kids. It was time for her to fix lunch, so she turned on
Sesame Street, and made her way to the kitchenette on the other side of the
daycare to prepare lunch. Then would be naptime followed by snack and free time
before pickup.