by Marika Ray
Man Glitter
Marika Ray
Marika Ray Publishing
Contents
Man Glitter
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Love Bank - Chapter One
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Marika Ray
Man Glitter
All that sawdust in every muscled crevice of my half-naked neighbor looks like man glitter when he handles his wood…
Finnie
I’m an ER doctor on a mission. My reputation is in tatters from my stint in the big city. I have an urgent care to build in this small town and I won’t let anything stop me from building a new life. Not even that awful saw going in the middle of the night next door. Not even my gorgeous neighbor covered in sawdust. Nope. I’m a goddamn professional.
Charlie
I’m doing just fine on my own. Got my wood working, my dog, and a steady supply of moonshine. The last thing I need is a hot neighbor with her panties in a twist wreaking havoc on my bachelor life. But she barrels in anyway, making me cut my hand wide open, stitching me up, and living with me until I heal. It would have been torture if teasing her hadn’t become so much fun.
Can opposites get along when forced to live together in a small town named Hell?
Copyright
MAN GLITTER
Copyright © 2020 by Marika Ray
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Edition: June 7, 2020
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For Cece…thanks for the title, but more importantly, thank you for the friendship. <3
1
Finnie
I popped a baby aspirin in my mouth and swished it down with decaf coffee. I desperately wished for it to be magically caffeinated, but one cup of the real stuff was all I allowed myself. One cup meant good health, two cups meant a dependance on a substance. And I, Finnie Dorado, was dependent on no one and nothing.
Putting the coffee cup down on the chipped tile counter, I surveyed the damage. Twenty-four hundred square feet of brand new carpet and hardwood floors. It was gorgeous flooring, put in by my new contractor, Titus, before I moved in yesterday, but I could barely see it right now, what with the stacks of cardboard boxes in the way. I had some unpacking to do. Like weeks of it if I didn’t tackle it straight away.
My ponytail swished against my back, the tank top and jean shorts I’d changed into signaling I meant business. If I only stopped unpacking for regularly scheduled meals, I could have at least the kitchen and the living room unpacked by end of day. My bedroom was more or less already set up from last night’s activities when I was too excited to sleep.
By lunch, my hands were aching from unwrapping place settings and glassware for twelve, but most of the dishes were in their respective cupboards. By dinnertime, when I made a turkey breast sandwich and called it good, I had the entire kitchen set up. Even my bright turquoise dish towel sat on the handle of the stove like I could whip up a pie at a moment’s notice. Not that I would. Pie for one person seemed too much hassle.
“Good Lord, my feet are about to fall off,” I moaned to the empty house.
This called for wine.
I grabbed the bottle of pinot grigio I’d placed in the fridge after yesterday’s grocery run, finding the cork screw on my first try. I thanked my past self who knew I’d need the sustenance and poured a glass. Yep, that’s right. Just one glass. Two would be overindulgence.
I took the glass of wine into the living room and sat on the carpet, my back to the wall, surveying all the boxes I still had to deal with. Most of them were labeled “Books” which meant they’d have to stay in a box for now. My last place in San Francisco featured built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace. My new house didn’t, so I’d have to buy some shelves to display my ridiculous book collection. I didn’t overindulge in much, but I made an exception for books. Non-fiction to be exact. There weren’t many topics I wasn’t interested in.
The late evening breeze fluttered in through the open window, the perfect balm to my overheated skin. Moving was hard. Which was why I intended to put down roots in Auburn Hill and avoid moving again at all costs. My business idea just had to work.
I took another sip of wine and leaned my head back against the wall, eyes closed, envisioning my new urgent care practice. In my mind, it ran like a well-oiled machine. The treatment rooms would be pristine, the equipment state-of-the-art, and the waiting room cheery, full of patients looking to me for my expertise.
A loud racket outside my window had my eyes flying open and a frown at the ready.
“What the hell is that?” I said out loud, the words nearly drowned out by something that sounded an awful lot like a saw. An industrial sized saw.
I stood up, groaning at the ache in my feet and the way my back screamed in agony, and looked out the window, seeing a light on at my neighbor’s place. Trees obscured my vision, but did nothing to abate the noise. I took a deep breath and counted to ten. It was early on a Sunday night. No need for me to go over there and demand he or she shut that thing down. But mark my words. If I heard that racket one minute after ten o’clock when the noise ordinance for Auburn Hill took effect, I’d be marching over there to bang on the door. Proper sleep was imperative for good health. Everybody knew that.
After managing to move an entire couch, two chairs, and one end table I could only guess was made of solid lead, I called it quits. A lukewarm shower and my comfy pajamas became the perfect end to a physically demanding night. The loud noise had shut off sometime while I moved furniture, leaving only the symphony of crickets outside my window. All was right in my world.
Pulling back my lavender scented covers, I climbed in and laid my head down. I’d give myself some time to envision my meeting with the mayor later in the week. I’d have my pitch down perfect. This town needed an urgent care, and I was the physician most qualified to spearhead it.
My lips tugged into a smile as I envisioned the treatment rooms again. In my mind, I was rushing from one room to the other to help a patient who desperately needed me, when that damn machine somewhere next door fired up again. My eyelids flew open, and I sat up in bed, seething. Before I could count to ten, I pulled a sweater on, shoved my feet into a pair of Crocs I used for watering plants, and trotted across the side yard toward the beam of light next door.
In my righteous indignation and haste to set this person straight about being neighborly, I tripped over a tree stump and fell to the ground, leaves sticking everywhere to my body. Who knew what other organisms I’d landed in.
“Goddammit, Finnie,” I grumbled, squinting at my hand, which had taken the brunt of the fall instead of my face.
I should have stopped to grab a flashlight, but that’s what I got for not counting to ten before I reacted. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but based on the sting, I figured I’d abraded my palm. The machine cut off and by the time I’d stood and whacked all the leaves off my body, the light beam had shut off too.
“Great. Just great,” I shook my burning fist at my unidentified neighbor and turned back to my house. I needed my first aid kit and another shower.
>
I was in that blissful state of half asleep, half awake, about to slide into dreamland when the machine started up again the next night. My eyes flew open, and the rage consumed me in an instant.
“Not again, good sir!” I said out loud, my finger punching the air.
Dramatic, I know, but two nights in a row of that god awful noise was enough to try any woman’s patience. I wasn’t known for good humor anyway, if the feedback reports from my job as an ER doctor in San Francisco were true.
“She shouted at me for not vomiting in the spit cup.”
“That doctor should wear a muzzle. Great stitch technique, but…”
“Listen, I tried to hold the baby in when I saw who was on duty in the ER, but there was no keeping him in there when I was already dilated to ten. I’m going to suggest to Disney their next evil villain should be named Finnie.”
Despite the feedback that I should have taken under advisement, I was ready for action this time. I threw on the sweater, jammed my feet in my Crocs, paused to grab the flashlight, and then flew out of there like a woman on a mission. It was after eleven for God’s sake and I had precious sleep to get if I was to finish my business plan in time for my meeting with the mayor.
“I see you, stumpy!” I whispered to the tree stump that took me down last night.
I skirted around the trip hazard and made it all the way past the two tall trees that blocked my view of the neighbor’s yard. Weird there weren’t any fence lines around here to delineate properties, but maybe they did things a little different in Auburn Hill.
A large workshop came into view, light spilling out the door so brightly I was able to shut off my flashlight. A dark-haired man hunched over a huge machine, back muscles bunching and flexing as he ran a long length of wood through a saw machine that stretched up ten feet in the air. The wood clanked as it fell to the floor, the man standing up straighter, holding one piece of wood in his hands for a close inspection.
I sagged against the doorframe and blinked repeatedly. Maybe I was dreaming. Hallucinating? Because the man slowly turning to place his wood on a scarred work table was straight out of a Hollywood movie. A Marlboro man turned lumberjack. A cologne model all grown up. He looked to be mid-thirties and a hater of zippers as his worn denim jeans weren’t fastened, sliding down slim hips. My eyes dipped to take in the view like any warm blooded female’s would.
An even louder noise rent the air and I snapped out of my stupor. Hot or not—and I was most definitely going with hot—he was making a racket in the middle of the night. Saw dust flew through the air, coating his entire naked upper body, the tiny flakes of wood embedding themselves in all the nooks and crannies of his muscles.
I’d never been so jealous of a wood particle.
As soon as the machine wound down a decibel or two, I cleared my throat, wrapping the sweater further around me to cover the nipples that had suddenly stood at attention despite my attempts to tell them to calm down. Lumber man lifted his head, sky-blue eyes finding me, surprise barely registering.
“Hey,” he grunted, an easy smile showing off straight white teeth and two smile lines bracketing his mouth.
“Hey yourself,” I responded, my tone decidedly more arctic than his. “Do you know what time it is?”
His grin intensified as he glanced out the window to the left. “S’pose it’s nighttime if that dark sky and half moon mean anything.”
I frowned, my dislike for this character growing with each stupid comment. “Yes, us civilized people of the twenty-first century use these things called clocks, and mine says it’s after eleven.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered, running his fingers along the edge of the board he’d cut, paying me zero attention.
I stood up straight, sensing he wasn’t taking me seriously. “Auburn Hill has a noise ordinance that says all loud noises must be stopped by ten o’clock. I’d hate to have to call the police department.”
He whistled through his teeth and spun back to the loud machine that caused a cloud of saw dust. Was he really going to keep working after I’d threatened the cops? What kind of egotistical muscle man did I move in next to?
“Oh, I’d hate for you to call poor Waldo too. Man likes his sleep since he’s got five daughters. I suspect any man would be tired out with all that estrogen around. How about you put your ear plugs in—I know you city girls all have ‘em—and call it a night before you anger the town chief?” He winked like a sexy devil I wanted to throttle while simultaneously rubbing myself all over his delicious body.
And with that he pushed a button and the machine from hell cranked back on. He put the board against a flying wheel of red, and wood particles went flying again.
“Wha—” I’d only been this angry once before and very bad, life altering things had happened because of it. “One, two, three…”
The man shifted and fed another edge of the board to the sander, his jeans slipping lower to show off more tanned skin. The guy probably suntanned nude in his front yard. I lifted an eyebrow mid-count. I wouldn’t mind that, actually.
No! What was I thinking? The guy was a grade A asshole, and I’d have to come up with another method to shut him and his machines down at night. I twirled around and marched back to my house, grumbling the entire way.
“Who the hell says ‘I’ll be damned’ anyway? What is he? Eighty?”
I slammed my back door shut and locked it, irritated with myself for getting distracted by a hot body. He was clearly in the wrong and then he had the nerve to suggest earplugs as the logical solution.
Flopping down into bed, I really didn’t know how I’d get to sleep when I had rage fueled adrenaline running through my veins. When the sander fired up again, I reached over, grabbed my earplugs, and shoved them in my ears. Yes, Mr. Asshole Neighbor, I did have earplugs next to my bed. And this was the last night I intended to use them. I didn’t move to this bumpkin town to live like I did in the city.
Tomorrow, I’d carve out some time to chat with the Chief.
Mr. Asshole Neighbor had another thing coming.
2
Charlie
Snapping the lid on the tiny diffuser, I fired that bad boy up, inhaling deeply when the first puff of lavender infused air hit my nose. I needed some goddamn shut-eye pronto and my go-to sleep aids were failing me. In the back of my mind, I knew it had everything to do with the date on the calendar and the fact that the anniversary was looming yet again, but I was in the middle of a huge project for my best client with a strict deadline. You can’t handle power tools and be chronically sleep deprived. No bueno.
Chester bumped his head on my thigh and whined. I knew what he wanted and yet I always tried to hold out and get to sleep on my own. He’d come to me a few years ago fully trained to be a therapy dog, a detail I kept on the down-low. Didn’t need it getting out that Crazy Charlie needed a therapy animal to simply handle life.
“I know, Chester boy. Let me try doing some sanding and then if that doesn’t work, you can come sleep on the bed with me.” I patted him on the head, ignoring the way he looked at me straight faced like I was a dumbass. I knew it, he knew it, but no reason to acknowledge it.
I pulled on another pair of work jeans, identical to the other eight pairs I owned, not bothering with underwear or even zipping them properly. I’d seen There’s Something About Mary at a very impressionable age. No underwear, no zippers, no trip to the emergency room twenty miles away with mangled goods. I shuddered just thinking about that one scene.
The overhead lights fluttered on when I hit the switch inside my workshop, the place illuminated like a rock concert stage. Funny how most experts would say bright lights would cause insomnia, not heal it. It wasn’t the lights so much as the methodical way wood always did what I wanted it to do that calmed the anxiety that crept up my spine at night. The smell of wood, the feel of it under my fingertips, the sturdiness of it. All of it combined to make me fall in love with it.
My brother would have teased me
endlessly had he known wood would become my lifelong love affair. He was the people guy. I was the artist recluse. It had worked for us until it didn’t.
I shook off all those thoughts and grabbed the cross beam I’d been working on earlier this afternoon. The church in Auburn Hill had hired me to make an outdoor pergola, to be ornate enough to match the inside of the church, but weather proof and functional for outdoor wedding ceremonies. Another few days and the main structure would be built. Then I could let my artistic side loose and carve out a design the likes of which no one had ever seen. I’d cut my teeth on cabinets, tables, archways, and doors when I first got started as an apprentice. Now though? I made one of a kind pieces of art that went for thousands of dollars. I didn’t charge the church that much though. Didn’t need that kind of bad juju doggin’ me.
Stretching my head from side to side, I twisted my torso left and right to limber up. You know what a midnight wood session needed? Music, baby. Maybe a little Tom Petty to set the mood. I found the right channel on my phone and turned on the speakers set up high in the rafters of my work shop with the remote.
For a brief second, right before the music came blasting through the speakers, I thought about the woman next door. Didn’t stop me from turning it on, but I sure did smile at the idea of her getting her panties in a tighter twist. Damn, that woman needed to relax her fingers where they’d been clutching her sweater to her like a last line of virtue defense. Maybe she was just cross because the severe bun on the top of her head was causing headaches. Maybe she needed to do a cleanse or something to detoxify.