by Zoe Chant
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, by Lauren Esker. Curvy farm girl Julie Capshaw was warned away from the wolf shifters next door, but Damon Wolfe is the motorcycle-riding, smoking hot alpha of her dreams. Can the big bad wolf and his sheep shifter find their own happy ending? A full-length novel.
Handcuffed to the Bear, by Lauren Esker. A bear-shifter ex-mercenary and a curvy lynx shifter searching for her best friend's killer are handcuffed together and hunted in the wilderness. Can they learn to rely on each other before their pasts, and their pursuers, catch up with them?
Discovering the Dragon, by Sofia Stone. When reporter Chloe Martin investigates Lancaster Gold, she finds herself tangled up with the oldest son—Isaac Lancaster, billionaire dragon shifter.
The Billionaire Dragon Shifter’s Baby
by Zoe Chant
Special Sneak Preview
Ms. M raised her eyebrows. “Mr. Gray? Could you answer the question?”
There was some trick of her expression when she gave him that skeptical look that made him recognize her in a flash, impossible as it was.
“McCullough!”
She blinked at him.
Teddy grinned, shaking his head. “Your name is McCullough! Amy McCullough.”
She tilted her head, her frown deepening. It only increased her resemblance to her grandmother, which was disconcerting when it also made him want to kiss her. “It is, yes. As I said in the voice mail I left for you.”
Teo shook his head, forcing down thought of kisses. Not now. “I didn’t catch it until you looked at me like that, I wasn’t putting it together. But you reminded me of your grandmother just then.”
Amy put her hand on the back of a chair, looking dizzy. Teo darted over to her, sparing one hand from holding Sophia to catch her elbow. Even through the layers of her shirt and sweater it was a thrill to touch Amy.
Teo was in big trouble. The best trouble.
“Teddy?” Amy asked, looking up at him disbelievingly.
So much trouble. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted—
Teddy took a half step back, shifting his grip on Sophia as he nodded to Amy’s question.
“You gave me a present, when you were in first grade and I was in second,” Teddy recalled. “All the presents from the first-graders were supposed to be for my oldest brother, Gus. I was standing next to him to help sort things, and when you got to the front of the line, you gave yours right to me.”
He had wanted to give her a gift back, something to balance the lovely little sculpture of glass and wire, the work of her own hands. He hadn’t even understood why he wanted to so badly until right now. At the time his mother had told him to wait until Amy’s birthday, and by then she had moved away.
Teo had never seen her again, and after a while the empty feeling of the gift never given had faded to something he didn’t notice.
It was back now with a vengeance. He found himself frantically inventorying the contents of his bag, working out what he could give her and still have enough to look after Sophia. His poor gold-starved baby needed more than just an anklet, but his first gift to Amy was long overdue.
Amy already had that necklace, though. The one Sophia had liked so much. Teo could sense the gold in it; it wasn’t just ordinary human-worked gold. It was something special.
Amy shook her head. Teo tightened his grip on her arm, supporting her weight as she swayed slightly. He didn’t want to believe that she was saying no, though he reminded himself that if she did he had to back off. He couldn’t push her or scare her. This wasn’t just about tonight, after all.
“I should—I need to sit down,” Amy said.
Teo held her arm while she pulled out a chair from the table. He guided her into it and then sat down in the chair beside hers, turning it so he could face her.
They were sitting so close that her feet were between his. She had one hand over her mouth, but her eyes were just as blue as when they were kids.
She was obviously all grown up, and what Teo was feeling wasn’t any kind of kid stuff. Teo didn’t let himself look in any obvious way—she was at work, he wasn’t going to be that kind of creep, especially not while holding his baby daughter. He still couldn’t help knowing that she had a full womanly body, all round soft curves even in sensible dull clothes.
“Teddy Gray.” Amy moved her hand from her lips to her forehead, not quite quickly enough to hide the way her eyes swept over him from head to toe.
Teo didn’t let himself preen. He did shift his weight a little as he resettled Sophia against his chest. Amy had given him a gift. They had been kids, and of course it hadn’t meant back then what it might mean now, but here they were. She still liked the look of him.
“From Gray’s Hollow,” Amy went on, sounding dazed. “Where we lived with my grandmother for a year when I was six. You’re Teddy. You’re the youngest of the Gray family, and you’re...”
Her eyes widened. She lowered her hand and looked from Teddy to Sophia and back. After a few seconds she leaned forward and touched the anklet he’d made for Sophia.
“That’s why she wouldn’t stop crying.” Amy touched her necklace with her other hand. “She needed gold. Because she’s—you’re...”
Teo nodded.
“I really thought it was just that I had a weirdly vivid imagination as a little kid,” Amy said quietly. She giggled a little, sounding on the verge of hysteria, and put her face in her hands.
Teo shifted his weight again, letting his knee just touch hers. He didn’t mind waiting as long as he had to. Eventually she would be ready to talk about what was going to happen next.
***
Amy seriously considered the possibility that she was dreaming all of this. Maybe she was still on Jamila’s couch, holding Sophia—holding Baby Jane Doe—and dreaming the most perfect possible fairy-tale ending for her. For both of them.
Maybe Amy had completely lost her mind.
Marnie was right, Amy thought, swallowing another hysterical laugh. I really do need this break.
It wasn’t even that Teddy Gray was someone out of Amy’s own personal fairy tale, although that was the cherry on top of this impossible night.
Amy had been doing social work in New York for two years. That was plenty of time to learn that it just didn’t work out like this for the kids who wound up in her care. The dad who’d never been informed he had a kid didn’t show up in the middle of the night, eager to take his baby home. He didn’t turn out to be breathtakingly gorgeous, rich and privileged in every way—and then also polite and earnestly determined to take care of his kid. He didn’t latch on to his kid instantly, bonding with her like he’d never missed a day of her life.
He certainly didn’t look at Amy the way Teddy had been looking at Amy, interested but not leering. And guys she met on the job definitely never ignited this thoroughly work-inappropriate heat low in her belly.
But then, Amy wasn’t really on the clock anymore.
Teo Gray had been impossible even before he turned out to be Teddy Gray, her first grade crush, the youngest son of a vastly wealthy family. Not to mention that Teddy Gray was also, if Amy hadn’t hallucinated that entire year of her childhood, sometimes a dragon.
“Is it a conflict of interest?” Teddy asked tentatively.
Amy looked up at him, but he was still there.
He was still incredibly gorgeous. He still looked kind and sincere. He was leaning his knee against hers like she might not notice he was touching her when her body didn’t want to notice anything else.
He was still holding Baby... Sophia carefully and competently against his chest. Sophia snuggled into him like she’d always known him. She was falling asleep, held competently against that strong chest; Amy thought that she wouldn’t mind doing the same.
She shook her head, dragging her gaze up to meet Teddy’s eyes. He was smiling like he had an idea of where her eyes, and her thoughts, had wandered.
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