Man Scape E-Book

Vale Vanessa

• Herausgeber: Vanessa Vale
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Don’t date your son’s ex.
Especially when she’s supposedly the town’s good girl. But the sweet, shy librarian isn’t a good girl at all.
She can’t be, because she wants me–the local lumberjack, and my…wood.
I’m her ex’s dad but she says she doesn’t want guys her age. Or a relationship.
She wants a fling. And since I’m leaving Hunter Valley in a few days, I’ll definitely indulge her.
We’ll have fun while it lasts and then she’ll go back to fooling the town and I’ll just go.
Right?
In Hunter Valley, it’s always open season on men. Will the biggest one in town be the easiest to catch?

Leseprobe

MAN SCAPE

ON A MANHUNT

BOOK 5

VANESSA VALE

Man Cave by Vanessa Vale

Copyright © 2023 by Bridger Media

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from both authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover design: Sarah Hansen/Okay Creations

Cover graphic: Deposit Photos: floral_set

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Epilogue

Bonus Content

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Also By Vanessa Vale

About Vanessa Vale

Don’t date your son’s ex.

Especially when she’s supposedly the town’s good girl. But the sweet, shy librarian isn’t a good girl at all.

She can’t be, because she wants me–the local lumberjack, and my…wood.

I’m her ex’s dad but she says she doesn’t want guys her age. Or a relationship.

She wants a fling. And since I’m leaving Hunter Valley in a few days, I’ll definitely indulge her.

We’ll have fun while it lasts and then she’ll go back to fooling the town and I’ll just go.

Right?

In Hunter Valley, it’s always open season on men. Will the biggest one in town be the easiest to catch?

PROLOGUE

DANIEL

Using my shoulder, I pushed through the door and into the office, my hands full.

“You love gossip, Ang,” I said. “News at Steaming Hotties is that the Hunters–not the owner of the mountain, but the other ones–filed for bankruptcy, their house was repossessed by the bank and they relocated during the night to Florida for the guy to take a job at a golf course.”

I set the office manager’s coffee on her desk.

She eyed me, listening to my words, but not with the usual glee for small town tea spilling. I didn’t give a shit about the crazy antics of others, but I figured for once, I could get the edge on her with some juicy info.

“Gambling. Can you believe it?” I added.

She humphed. “There’s other ways to gamble,” she muttered and I frowned.

Usually, she was as fiery as her red hair and always knew the local news before me.

“What? Did I ruin it for you?” I asked, taking a sip of my black coffee.

“I think you ruined it for yourself.”

“What the hell does that mean? I don’t even know the Hunters. I know Eve, of course.” I raised my to-go cup with the Steaming Hotties logo on the side. “And that’s not the exciting part. I guess Eve’s ex is going to jail.”

I waited for Ang to react, but she didn’t. “What’s up with you this morning?”

Her eyes widened behind her reading glasses. “Me? I think you have more important things to worry about than other people’s problems.”

Frowning, I set my cup down, put my hands on her desk and leaned in. “What’s going on?” I asked. “No one’s hurt?”

Running a tree service company, I always worried about my employees. Chain saws, falling timber and other hazards meant the possibility of bad injuries. That was from working on the trees, not from falling ones. Like the one that we cut up that had fallen through Lindy Beckett’s house last summer. Fortunately, no one had been home when her neighbor had played lumberjack.

“No. No one’s hurt.”

I sighed because it was always in the back of my mind. “Then what’s curdled your milk?”

She picked up pink message slips and pushed them into my face.

I snagged them and stepped back.

“I thought you learned your lesson right after high school, Daniel Case Pearson. I mean, I thought out of everyone, you’d know about condoms. Talk about gambling. Getting a girl pregnant? Now? You’re forty years old.”

I blinked, looked more closely at what Ang wrote. Condoms? Pregnant? What the hell was she talking about?

The test came back positive. You need to call me.

I told you this would happen, but no. You thought a little fun wouldn’t have consequences. Call me.

Where are you? What am I supposed to do, take care of this on my own?

Fine, fun was had. Now we face the consequences.

I lifted my head, met Ang’s wise, pointed gaze.

“These were on the business voicemail?”

Ang nodded. “I copied those down from the weekend. Exactly as recorded.”

“And you think this was me?” I waved the papers. “Chad’s a little careless from what I’ve heard.”

“She calls you out by name.”

“Who?” I glanced again at the messages. “Who is saying I… I–”

“Got her pregnant?”

I swallowed hard. Nodded.

“Melly Harwood.”

Frowning, I looked to Ang. “Who?”

She shook her head and tsked me like a scolding mother. Since she was close friends with mine, they’d had practice for the past four decades.

“Little Melly Harwood. The librarian. And someone so young, too.”

“Young?”

“She can’t be more than twenty-four. Mabel’s daughter was two years ahead of her in school.”

Figuring out how Mabel’s daughter had any relevance wasn’t important. I didn’t know who she was either.

Crushing the papers in my hand, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You think I got a twenty-four year old librarian pregnant?”

“The messages were all directed to you. Remember, you wanted to get back out there.” She made stupid air quotes with her fingers about how everyone in the office thought I should find a woman.

“Fuck me,” I muttered. I ran a hand down my face, stomped into my office and slammed the door shut.

This was a fucking mess.

Dropping into my desk chair, I swiveled back and forth. 

What the hell?

I didn’t have sex with little Melly Harwood. I didn’t even know who she was.

The only sex I’d had recently was with my hand and I wasn’t going to share that gem with Ang. My dick and where I put it wasn’t any of her business.

But now it was because she took a long line of messages that made it pretty fucking clear I stuck it in the librarian.

I popped to my feet, grabbed my coffee and stormed out of my office.

“Where are you going?” Ang called as I cut past her desk.

“The library.”

1

DANIEL

I liked sex. I fucking loved it. Who didn’t? I liked to remember having it, too. Especially if it involved getting a woman pregnant.

Which I supposedly did.

Not just anyone, but little Melly Harwood.

I had no idea who she was, but Ang made her out to be something like the Virgin Mary. Sweet, serene and absolutely, positively not sinful. Meaning I’d somehow corrupted and ruined her.

I didn’t mind the idea of corrupting or ruining a woman, or doing both at the same time, as long as she was into that kind of thing. But a baby? Fuck no.

Several office voicemails insisted I was responsible for making one.

It had to have been immaculate conception because I hadn’t fucked any woman in a long time. Yet I couldn’t tell Ang that. No way. I wasn’t sharing my sex life with a sixty-something who liked to remind me she used to change my diapers.

Who was this woman and why was she accusing me? Why was this mysterious and saintly Melly Harwood telling me I had to take care of my responsibilities?

Sure, I’d gotten a woman pregnant once. Accidentally. Over twenty years ago the summer after high school graduation. And I’d taken all the responsibility for that. Why would I start over with a baby now? I was forty fucking years old. An empty nester. Retired business owner. A free man ready to get out of Montana for a while. In fact, my flight to Scotland left in four days.

I was supposed to be relaxed in my newfound retirement. I had money and free time and it was time to enjoy both.

Until I got those messages. I always took care of my responsibilities. Always. I couldn’t be laid back, relaxed or leaving the country until this one was resolved.

That was why I was pissed as I stomped out of the library and called Ang. No way were my plans being derailed because of this, of a woman accusing me of something I sure as hell didn’t do. If she wanted something from me, like money, this was the worst way to go about it with me.

“Pearson Tree and Landscape Service,” Ang said through the phone in her upbeat and cheerful voice.

“Where is she?” I snarled.

“Who?” she asked, used to my moods. “Melly Harwood?”

“Of course, Melly Harwood,” I countered, as if I went after crazy women every day. “You know well enough I left you at the office twenty minutes ago to track her down. You said she’s the librarian. I’m at the library. She’s not here. Find her.”

“How can I find her?”

“Don’t play dumb,” I countered. “Use your gossip network or tea spilling club or whatever you call it and find her.”

Ang humphed through the phone then put me on hold because she couldn’t argue with the fact that she could find someone better than a detective or a bloodhound. Horrible jazz saxophone music filled my ear and I winced. How had I made my customers suffer listening to that?

Not my problem any longer.

Waiting, I paced back and forth across the library’s front entry. A woman with one hand leading a toddler and carrying a baby seat with the other approached. I opened the door for her, then went over to the book drop box. I tugged the slot open, shut it. Opened it. Shut it.

A minute later, she was back. “She’s at the vet with her dog Fred and–”

“I don’t care about her dog. I’m more interested in her pussy,” I muttered, the one I never got in.

“What was that?”

I sighed. Hard. “Nothing. What’s the address?”

She told me.

“Thanks,” I said. “And tell Deek to replace that God-awful hold music.”

I hung up and cut across town to the Hunter Valley Veterinary Clinic. The landscape company and the hold music were my brothers’ problems now.

The bell above the door chimed as I went inside the clinic. The scent of cleaning products and wet dog made my nose twitch.

A twenty-something man in light blue scrubs stood from a chair behind the counter. As he saw me approach with all kinds of pent-up aggravation, his eyes widened. He took a slight step back as he tipped his chin back to keep my gaze. That happened all the time. The trouble with being the size of a lumberjack. And actually being one.

“May I help you?”

A dog barked somewhere in the building. An orange cat jumped on the counter and the guy hooked it with a hand and tucked him into the crook of his arm in a football hold.

“Melly Harwood?” I asked.

“Room number three.”

Finally. I headed down the hall with one mission in mind. Find out what the fuck was going on. I was leaving town and I didn’t need this kind of entanglement… or headache. It was déjà vu all over again. This time though, I wasn’t nineteen and I definitely hadn’t had sex with the woman.

I didn’t bother knocking on the closed door with the number three on it and burst in.

The action startled the woman who stood in front of a high metal exam table, a tiny dog standing on it. It was smaller than a cat. A Pomeranian? Teacup Poodle? I had no clue. Their heads swiveled and their gazes met mine in unison.

This was little Melly Harwood? She was a gorgeous redhead who I’d clearly startled because the hand on the back of the littlest dog I’d ever seen flew to her chest. She stared at me with wide eyes behind dark glasses.

Holy shit, she was fucking pretty.

Her mouth dropped open and all that came to mind were filthy thoughts of what I could put between those gloss-coated lips. Her hair was half up, half down and fell below her shoulders in soft waves. The fiery color contrasted with her pale skin.

The only thing similar between the she-vixen I imagined trapping random men and the woman in front of me was that she was little. Little Melly Harwood really was small.

I had no idea what I expected, but not… her. Not the petite, curvy thing in a pair of snug black pants and a soft, forest green sweater. I didn’t know much about women’s clothing, but I knew the color of the damned forest. A crisp collar of a white dress shirt showed at her neckline and the bottom peeked out at the sweater’s hem as if she was trying to be a little wild.

Her outfit was ridiculously conservative for someone in her early twenties, like she shopped at an old ladies clothing store. Somehow, the modest and trim fit only accented her curvy figure. How was it even possible that combo was sexy as hell?

Since when did I get hard for women close to twenty years younger?

Not women. Woman.

Her.

“Melly Harwood?” I asked, my voice gruff.

The woman blinked behind those glasses as she nodded.

Every single inch of her screamed sexy librarian. Shit, she actually was one.

That only made my fingers itch–and my dick twitch–to mess her all up. Get that hair all tangled from my hands as I held her in place as I throat fucked her. To get some of my cum splattered on those prim clothes so everyone knew she liked to be defiled.

If she wanted my attention, needed me to fuck her, all she had to do was ask. There was no need to accuse me of anything. I volunteered because if there was a woman who needed to get railed, it was her. I’d rail her as hard as she needed. Spank her ass for being naughty. Punish her so she wouldn’t do it again. Then make her come because she was a good girl for taking all of me so well.

I took a step back. Where had my mind gone? My need for her was instant and intense. Since when did I look at a woman and think defile and rail?

Throat fuck? Cum splattered?

I wasn’t sure if those thoughts made me fucking old or a creep.

My dick said neither, that I was a healthy, horny man who saw someone he wanted to get down and dirty with.

She didn’t look like she was pregnant, or the kind of woman who might try to trap me. Hell, she didn’t look like she’d ever had sex.

I stifled a groan at the thought because I never knew that fucking a prim, virgin librarian was an unfulfilled kink of mine.

“You messaged me,” I said finally. “Multiple times.”

Her wide eyes narrowed and she pushed her glasses up with one hand, the other on the tiny dog’s back. “I messaged you?” she asked, her voice soft, melodic, although laced with surprise, as if someone like her would ever get in touch with someone like me.

I nodded, crossed my arms. “Said I got you pregnant.”

Her mouth fell open again. Even wider this time. Shit.

“You got me… what?” she whispered the words as if she was too stunned to speak at full volume.

“Pregnant,” I repeated, waiting to tell her she was a very bad girl.

“I… um, think I’d remember if we had sex.” A furious blush stole across her cheeks and she glanced away, putting her fingers over her lips as if the words just fell out. The dog–more fluffy tan fur than substance–lifted his head and nudged her elbow, not wanting to be ignored, so her hand dropped to stroke his back some more.

Smart dog. I’d like to be stroked by that small hand. My dick was trying to punch through my jeans to get to that hand.

I cleared my throat. “Obviously, because when I have sex with you, neither of us will be able to forget.”

Yes. When, not if.

She didn’t come around the table to slap me, only blushed a little more, if that was even possible. “I think there’s been a mistake,” she said.

I wanted to relax, but if she was Melly Harwood, then she was the one who left a string of angry messages. How pretty and untouched she looked didn’t change that.

Her gaze narrowed, perhaps thinking I was crazy–the feeling was mutual–or as if she was trying to figure me out. Same difference. “Who are you?”

“Daniel Pearson.”

Her lips pursed in a very librarian-like way, as if disappointed. “No, you’re not.”

I’m not? “I sure as hell am,” I said, setting my hands on my hips. “Want to see my ID?”

Her green gaze raked over me from my steel-toed boots to the top of my head, which took a while because I was a big man. Six-five of lumberjack muscle.

“You’re not the Daniel Pearson I know. I’d never bother–”

I cut her off because… what? “How many Daniels do you–” I bit my lip, my words snagged because I figured it all out. I ran a hand through my hair, took a moment to stare at the ceiling tiles. “Fuck. I’m going to kill him.”

“Who?”

“My son. The other Daniel Pearson. The one who got you pregnant.”

The idiot! He’d done the one thing I’d drilled into him since he was twelve and started to get hair on his balls. No glove, no love. Never, ever, fuck without a condom. He knew the consequences from unprotected sex. Firsthand.

That didn’t mean he needed to have history repeat itself.

So she didn’t baselessly accuse me of anything, but I was still pissed and a hell of a lot jealous that Danny’d been the one to touch and defile little Melly Harwood.

One look and for some fucking reason I wanted that to be my job and only mine.

“Your son,” she repeated.

“Yes, my son. Daniel Pearson, Junior. The one your age who’s missed your messages because he’s in California fighting a wildland fire. The one who got you pregnant.”

She blushed some more and I watched it creep down her neck and beneath her collar. How far did it go? I wondered if that blush covered her large breasts–because they were definitely ample based on the way she was filling out that sweater.

In came the vet, in blue scrubs and a stethoscope around his neck. “Is this the baby daddy?” he asked, eyeing me, then going over to the dog to give him a pet on the head.

Clearly, he had a death wish. How many people had she told about her pregnancy? Did she blather it all over town?

Little Melly Harwood was over her blushing. In fact, while her head was tipped down toward the dog, she was looking up at me through her lashes. Was she biting her lip to keep from laughing?

Yes, she fucking was.

I growled and glared. This wasn’t fucking funny. I knew exactly the repercussions of this kind of situation. An accidental pregnancy derailed my entire life and I was finally… finally getting it back on track after over twenty years. And now when I was leaving town to get my sidetracked life back, now my son got a woman pregnant.

FUCK!

The vet missed it all because the stethoscope had been in his ears and was listening to the dog’s heart. Or whatever.

“Well, congrats,” he said after a minute, wrapping the stethoscope around his neck again, then ran his hands over the small dog. He looked like an eight-inch cotton ball.

“I’d say Fred’s got another week and the puppies will be here. We’ll schedule the c-section at the front counter.”

Wait… WHAT?

“Puppies?” I asked, staring wide eyed at the tan tiny thing. His tongue hung out and he looked like he was smiling.

“That’s right,” Melly Harwood said. “I’m not pregnant. She is.”

I stared, confused, then I realized she was pointing at the tiny dog.

The dog was pregnant.

The dog.

“Fred, the dog, the… what kind of dog is that anyway?”

“Teacup Pom.”

“Fred, the Teacup Pom, is pregnant,” I repeated, just to make sure I was understanding things. I felt like I got hit by a falling tree.

“Fred’s a girl. It’s short for Frederica,” she clarified, as if that changed anything.

“The dog,” I said again.

I closed my eyes, ran a hand down my face. Remembered the messages Ang had taken and handed to me back at the office. You thought a little fun wouldn’t have consequences. Fine, fun was had. Now we face the consequences.

“THE DOG?” I practically shouted.

“Yes. Your son’s dog got my dog pregnant and I need his help paying for it all.”

Earl the big, lazy ass dog? The one that had been sprawled on a dog bed by the front window of the office snoring and farting when I left thirty minutes ago? That dog?

The one that needed to face the consequences. Not me.

2

MELLY

Daniel Pearson,this Daniel Pearson, was allllllll man. He may have stormed into the exam room like a wild beast, but I imagined he’d be a beast in other ways, too. Ways that made my nipples hard and almost impossible for me not to rub my thighs together.

Yes, my mind went there.

No wonder guys my age–like his son, the one I’d left messages for–didn’t do anything for me. Because wow.

My reaction had been instant. Visceral. Chemical. Cellular. Biological.

It was so unlike me to feel this way–hot and bothered–because I never, ever thought of anything but hesitation and sometimes a hint of fear around older men. Especially ones who looked at me like he did. As if he was a very hungry tiger and I was a piece of meat.

He was tall. I only came up to his chin.

He was wide. Those shoulders barely fit through the exam room door.

He was rugged. Tanned, muscled and windblown in worn jeans that fit molded to sturdy thighs and a blue and gray plaid shirt. Sturdy leather work boots were on his big feet.

He even had a beard that accentuated his square jaw. His dark hair was a little long, a little unruly which he seemed to be. He stormed into the exam room, growled first, glared second. Threads of gray were at his temples, a blatant reminder he was much older than me.

This man’s photo had to be next to the word lumberjack in the dictionary. Romance novels with that trope had him grace the cover.

Over the clinic disinfectant smell, I could swear he smelled like the outdoors, all wild and untamed.

His dark eyes pierced into me the second he pushed into the room, then wouldn’t look away. Beneath his glare–yes, he glared–I felt… bared even though I was covered from neck to ankle. As if my conservative work outfit was racy lingerie. I felt small. Feminine. Delicate.

I had a feeling if his hard-working hands, which were like baseball mitts, got on me, would be my undoing. I’d love the raspy feel of them on my soft skin. I’d need that touch.

To hear that deep growl murmuring in my ear that I was a bad girl.

I swallowed at the possibility. Him. Me. His hands on me. His body pressing mine into a bed. His–

No. No! I had to be cautious, like always. Wary. Just because there’d been a mix-up–one I couldn’t blame him for being upset over–didn’t mean he wasn’t always growly and intense.

Although my body seemed to like both of those things. It had been six years since the Creepy Carl incident and in all that time I steered clear of men, trying not to draw attention to myself.

I stayed in the background happy to remain quiet and overlooked which was easy to do wearing prim clothes and being a librarian. No guy my age wanted to fuck a shy, do-gooder virgin.

Except in the small exam room, I couldn’t avoid Daniel Pearson’s hot and bold scrutiny. He saw me and only me. Said when we have sex we won’t forget.

As if it was a foregone conclusion. Him. Me.

A thrill shot through me because I liked the idea.

Then a sense of dread followed, because I remembered what happened the last time an older man took too much interest in me. The guy thought I’d been a foregone conclusion then, too.

That was six years ago, and Daniel Pearson wasn’t Creepy Carl.

My body was telling me–via wet panties, hard nipples, and an intense need to go home and wear out the batteries on my favorite vibrator–to jump the big guy. The guy who’d thought I accused him of putting a baby in me. Which only made me imagine him actually doing that and enjoying myself while he did. If he focused on other tasks like he focused on me in the vet office, he’d do it and do it thoroughly. And I’d love every minute of it.

My body might be staging a sexual coup, but my mind?

Freaking. Out.

With a few gruff words and potent glares, he got past the walls I’d put up. High ones, like the ones surrounding a supermax prison. Razor wire at the top. Cameras. Armed guards.

Why was I, hours after the vet visit, still fixated? Why was I attracted to him specifically? I admitted–only to myself–that my vanity, the one I dressed in conservative clothing, was a little boosted. He actually thought there was a possibility we might get together. It had been an ego boost, for sure. Especially when I knew what people said about me. That I was shy. Innocent. Meek. Tame. Fragile. Dependable. Reliable. Helpful. Sweet.

I had my routines. Like on TV, if there was a woman to be stalked and murdered because she was predictable, that would be me. I woke up at the same time every morning. Got in bed to read at the same time. Turned the light out at… the same time. I worked. I did meal prep night. Volunteered at the… yeah, all on an efficient, comfortable schedule.

I was boring little Melly Harwood to everyone in town for a reason. I didn’t mind being called that because I was the one who’d created the persona. It was better than what they said in whispers across town about my mother whenever she flitted back into town for a few days. None were favorable and all were true. That was why I tried so hard to be the complete opposite. To avoid and redirect the attention of men. I wouldn’t be like her. I couldn’t.

Yet these… stirrings… I felt for Daniel Pearson meant my carefully built facade had a crack in it. Because I shouldn’t get all turned on for a big, rugged lumberjack. A man at least fifteen years older. Who had a grown son I’d dated twice. Who was definitely more experienced… in bed and out. Big, gorgeous, and so out of my league.

Everyone in Hunter Valley would hear of us getting together and think, like mother, like daughter. No. I couldn’t have that.

No way. He paid for the vet visit, promised he’d make his son get in touch with me when he got back from fighting a fire in California, then left. Unless we had a random encounter in town, I’d never see him again. Except puppies weren’t part of my routine. And neither were my thoughts about a certain lumberjack, although he could definitely star in my vibrator fantas–

“What’s going on with you?”

I blinked, then turned my head to find Mallory Mornay eyeing me.

Crap. I’d been daydreaming about a handsome, older man during tutor time.

I dropped my hand from where I was writing on the white board. “Nothing.” I glanced away, stared at anything but my friend. “Um… why?”

She pointed at the math problem I was putting up. We were in the multi-purpose room in the children’s section, usually used for storytime, crafts, or puppet shows. The library was naturally quiet, except for the sound of a fussy toddler being led out the front doors. “Because ten times ten is not one million.”

I glanced at what I’d just finished writing, clearly without my hand and brain working in sync. There were many extra zeroes and they curved down the board as if I was drunk writing.

I flushed, grabbed the eraser and fixed the answer with a quick swipe over four zeroes. “There.”

I gave a silly smile and an eye roll to Cara, the nine-year-old who I was helping with multiplication. “Whoops.” She dipped her head back toward her homework paper on the table in front of her.

Thankfully the other after-school students who came to the library for a little extra study help were busy with their homework and had missed my mental slip. During this hour, their parents were either running errands or reading a book in a quiet corner.

Mallory took my arm and tugged me into the first row of shelves. Because they were short so kids could reach all the books, we could see over to the small group. Mallory was a first grade teacher and came to the library after school once a week so we could work together on this volunteer program. It was for kids in elementary and middle school. The high school tutor time was on a different day and Bridget Beckett, with her amazing math and science brain, helped me run that.

“What’s up?” she pushed. “It’s not Fred, is it?”

I shook my head. “No, she’s fine. She’s in the back room sleeping.”

Fred always came to work with me. It was a perk behind being the sole full-time librarian in a small town library and the fact that everyone loved my dog. Mallory knew she was having puppies. So did the kids in the group. So did many other people, except Daniel Pearson. Until now.

“Well, I’ve never seen you like this before.” Her dark eyes looked me over as if she could figure it out by my clothes. “You’re… flustered.”

Flustered. Me.

Was I? Yes. Definitely yes.

Who had an attractive man storm into their vet visit and make their panties wet? Yes, my panties got wet.

That was the problem!

I was always stable. Always calm. Placid. My grandmother always told me when I was little that when I was bothered by something–usually because of my mother or any situation associated with her–I needed to make my face as placid as possible, like the surface of a lake at dawn. Smooth. Calm. Perfect.

I looked to a row of books, noticed the spines weren’t aligned and shifted them into an even line. “I… I met a guy I… find attractive.”

When she said nothing, I glanced her way. It seemed my confession had her eyes light up as if I told her Santa was coming tonight instead of in December. “Who? Where? Do I know him? Why him?” She looked me over again. “Oh… you’ve got zings in the things.”

“Zings in the things?” I repeated on a whisper. “Who says that?”

“Me. Now spill.”

“We have to get back.”

She waved her hand through the air like a real teacher, knowing the kids could survive for thirty seconds without attention or being read a story. “The kids are fine. Spill.”

“Daniel Pearson.” I bit my lip after saying it, a little afraid of how she would respond.

“The tree guy who lives down the street from you?” She tapped her lip. “I can see it. He’s hot in a… golden retriever kind of way.”

Golden retriever? Daniel? Oh, she thought–

“You told me he asked you out, but I didn’t know you went,” she continued before I could correct her. “That’s so great.”

The younger Daniel Pearson did live down the street, house sitting for his grandmother. We met a few months ago when he was walking his dog. He’d asked me out and I agreed because he was cute and my age. Fred had liked him, and his dog, too. Obviously.

I grimaced. “No. I mean, yes, we went out twice. Coffee and then lunch, but there’s nothing there.”

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“Coffee and lunch? Of course there’s nothing there with those kinds of dates. Public, during the day and I assume you met him instead of being picked up.”

I nodded.

She muttered, “Golden retriever.”

“The dogs hit it off better than we did,” I admitted. “His dog’s Fred’s baby daddy.”

Fred was technically my grandmother’s dog, although with her out of the country, she was pretty much mine. Nana wanted to breed her and planned to take care of the new puppies over the summer when the semester in Europe was done, but it seemed nature had different ideas. Including who the doggie dad was because the Pearson dog wasn’t the Toy Pom of her friend, Nancy Shultz. The intended sperm donor.

“Right. Obviously,” she said. “I don’t understand then. If it didn’t work out, why are you still thinking about him?”

I paused, took a breath. “I’m… um… attracted to the other Daniel Pearson.”

Her brow dropped into a deep frown.

“His… his father,” I clarified.

Her blue eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Then she snapped it shut and tugged me further back into the stacks, almost giving me whiplash.

“Mal!” I power-whispered, a skill of being a librarian.

“Your ex’s father? You little slut,” she said with a smile on her face. Then she hugged me.

“Oof,” I replied, the only sound I could make based on how tight she held me.

When she finally let me go, she asked, “How did you meet him?”

“I left messages for Daniel, the son, because I needed him to know about the puppies coming and to help pay for Fred’s vet visits. He’s responsible and all that.”

“Of course he is.”

“His dad got the messages instead of him and showed up at the vet’s office.” I intentionally left out the fact that he thought I accused him of getting me pregnant.

“How old is he?”

I pictured him in my head. Again. Handsome, virile, rugged, muscly. “Maybe forty.”

“Wow, um, he must’ve had his son really young.” Then she swiped her hand through the air as if using an eraser to clear the thought. “Doesn’t matter. Does he look like his son but older?”

I shrugged. “A little. But he’s definitely not a golden retriever. More like… a… bear. A big, growly, bear.”

“He’s hairy?” She tried not to scrunch her nose up but failed. “Sorry. Sorry, you might like a big snuggly bear. No judgment.”

“No, not hairy. Well, he does have a beard.”

“Mmm, a beard,” she said in a way she’d also say mmm, chocolate cake. “Daniel Pearson of Pearson Landscaping?” She tapped her lip. “Yeah, I bet he’s not hairy. He probably man scapes the hell out of that hot bod.”

“Mal!” I said on a laugh, a little too loudly because a few of the kids turned their heads to look our way. So much for me being placid. More like flustered and horny. It was so unfair. The first guy I got zings in the things for and he was every single thing I avoided.

“I mean, he’s big. He growls a lot. At least at me. He’s intense and looks at me like he wants to eat me.”

That confused me most because he was angry enough to storm into a vet’s office yet eye me in a way that screamed, I want to fuck you.

Mallory covered her mouth with her hand, but I could still see her smile peeking around the sides and she pretty much whisper-squealed. She leaned close and murmured, “A guy eating you is the best part.”

My inner muscles clenched at the inadvertent picture of Daniel’s head between my thighs.