Meeting at Midnight : Mantalk Book

Ben's turn - and this time this is part of the Man Talk series, so everything is in his POV. He's driving on an icy road late at night in the mountains when his truck crashes. He nearly dies, but is found by Seely Jones, a former EMT who seemingly heals Ben on site...and who glows while she's doing it. Ben's family is dutifully concerned and his brother and ex-lover are ready to take him in, but Ben manages to snag Seely as an in-home nurse so he can keep his distance from the woman he loved and lost. Ben sees the error of his thinking pretty soon as he can't resist Seely, but she insists she's not long for sticking around. Even when things start getting hot and heavy, Seely insists it's just some fun, that she's not up for a relationship. This is hard on Ben who is falling in love with Seely and envisions marriage and children in his future...but Seely admits she can't provide that, no matter how much she might want to. So if Ben wants Seely, he'll have to love her enough to reimagine his future.

It's unfortunate that throughout this series, I never really warmed up to Ben. He's less "maternal" and more over-protective and naggy. I don't like his homey, child-filled vision of the future, maybe because it says he wants THAT dream more than he wants any particular woman...that any woman can be plugged into it to make him happy. Fortunately, he gets that wake up call with Seely (and he didn't with Gwen). She basically (and kinda immature-like with her disappearing act) says take me without the dream of all your own kids or leave me the hell alone. Ben does get his head on straight, but he's kinda selfish about it...I think it takes him too long to realize that Seely is more important than his vague dreams of home and family. Still an okay story, but Ben isn't my favorite character ever.

I also found myself questioning the HEA with regards to co-parenting Ben's son. I mean, because he gets hurt, Duncan steps in to take Zach on his first camping trip, which Ben had really wanted to do. And that ends up shafting Ben. So now you have two brother basically competing for fatherhood. So in the HEA, Ben and Seely adopt and have their own kid, and I have to wonder if Ben doesn't just embrace that one and relax his expectations in being able to be a more "full-time" father to Zach. As a child of divorce with half-siblings, I know from experience that there's a sense of replacement when your part-time dad gets to be a full-time dad again. It just seems wrought with tension and no full-fledged epilogue to prove me wrong.