View source for D.C. MacGregor

{{Infobox character
| name             = Daniel Campbell MacGregor ("D.C.")
| image            = 
| aliases          = D.C.
| occupation       = Painter
| first_appearance = ''All the Possibilities''
| series           = [[The MacGregor Series]]
| books            = ''All the Possibilities'' (mentioned), ''The MacGregor Grooms''
| partner          = [[Layna Drake MacGregor]]
| family           = [[Alan MacGregor]] (father), [[Shelby Campbell MacGregor]] (mother), [[Daniel MacGregor]] (grandfather), [[Anna MacGregor]] (grandmother)
| allies           = [[Myra Dittmeyer]] (godmother)
}}
'''Daniel Campbell MacGregor''', known as '''D.C.''', is a character in Nora Roberts' ''[[The MacGregors | The MacGregor Series]]''. The eldest grandchild of [[Daniel Duncan MacGregor|Daniel]] and [[Anna MacGregor]], son of President [[Alan MacGregor]] and [[Shelby Campbell MacGregor]], he is the hero of the first story in ''The MacGregor Grooms''.

== Overview ==
D.C. is prickly, intense, brilliant, and constitutionally opposed to being managed — which makes him his grandfather's most challenging matchmaking project and, ultimately, his most satisfying. He grew up in the White House as the president's eldest son, carrying the MacGregor name and the Campbell stubbornness in equal measure, and built a life afterward that was entirely his own. His arc is about letting someone past the defenses that public life taught him to maintain.

== Background ==
D.C. carries two family names in his given name alone: Daniel for his grandfather, Campbell for his mother's family. He grew up in the White House during his father's presidency — a childhood that was, by any measure, extraordinary, and that left marks. The particular wariness of someone who was photographed and observed and managed from an early age is visible in his adult personality: he guards his private life carefully and resists, with some heat, any attempt to organize it for him.

He became a painter — a choice that is both his mother's influence (Shelby's shop, her work with her hands) and a deliberate turn toward something that belongs to him alone. He lives and works in Washington D.C., the city that shaped him, apparently on his own terms.

His godmother is [[Myra Dittmeyer]] — also the godmother of his eventual wife, [[Layna Drake MacGregor|Layna Drake]], a detail that Daniel arranged long before either D.C. or Layna knew the other existed.

== Personality ==
D.C. is his grandfather's grandson in the ways he least wants to admit: stubborn, perceptive, and capable of fixating on something with the MacGregor single-mindedness once it has his attention. He is also his mother's son — funny, present, and more emotionally honest than he lets on.

His prickliness about his grandfather's matchmaking is specific and real. D.C. is the grandchild who most actively resists Daniel's campaigns, which Daniel takes as both a personal challenge and a point of pride. The resistance makes the eventual capitulation better, from Daniel's perspective.

== Story Arc ==
=== ''The MacGregor Grooms'' ===
D.C.'s story, the first of three in the collection. Daniel's scheme involves [[Myra Dittmeyer]], the fact that Myra is godmother to both D.C. and [[Layna Drake MacGregor|Layna Drake]], and a degree of engineered proximity that D.C. correctly identifies as manipulation and pursues anyway. Layna is an heiress to the Drake's department store family — polished, self-contained, and equal to D.C. in every area he tests. His arc is about recognizing that the walls he built to protect himself from public life are keeping out things he actually wants.

== Relationships ==
=== [[Layna Drake MacGregor]] ===
Layna is D.C.'s match in the specific MacGregor sense — she doesn't back down, she sees through him, and she meets his stubbornness with her own. Their relationship begins with mutual wariness and ends with the kind of commitment that the MacGregor men characteristically make: total and permanent.

=== [[Daniel Duncan MacGregor]] ===
D.C.'s relationship with his grandfather is the warmest adversarial relationship in the series. He knows Daniel is manipulating him. Daniel knows D.C. knows. Neither lets this stop them. D.C. is named for Daniel, and the affection between them is real beneath all the resistance.

=== [[Alan MacGregor]] & [[Shelby Campbell MacGregor]] ===
D.C.'s parents. His complicated feelings about growing up as a president's son are part of his character in ''The MacGregor Grooms'' — the ways that specific childhood shaped him, and the ways his parents are and aren't responsible for it.

== Physical Description ==
D.C. has dark mahogany hair and ice-blue eyes — coloring that comes primarily from the MacGregor side, though sharpened by the Campbell angles.

== Trivia ==
* His full name, Daniel Campbell MacGregor, contains a deliberate family joke: Daniel for the grandfather, Campbell for the mother's family that the grandfather professes to disdain.
* His godmother [[Myra Dittmeyer]] is also the godmother of his wife — a fact that was not accidental.
* He is the first grandchild to appear as a romantic lead in the series.

== See Also ==
* [[The MacGregor Series]]
* [[Alan MacGregor]]
* [[Shelby Campbell MacGregor]]
* [[Layna Drake MacGregor]]
* [[Daniel Duncan MacGregor]]
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:MacGregor Series characters]]