by Kim Fox
“Can you come help me?” Bailey asked, scraping the pan in frustration.
“Wait,” Jodi said. “Liam is on hour two of his story and I think he’s about to get to the good part any second.”
Bailey sighed. “Trust me, he’s another hour away from the good part,” she whispered as her son babbled on.
“Does he ramble on like this all of the time?” Jodi asked.
“Yup,” Bailey answered. “He’s just like his aunt.”
Jodi grinned. “Lucky you.”
“Can you go with him to wash his hands?”
“Come, Liam,” Jodi said, turning her back to her nephew. “Ride on the Jodi train.”
“Wasn’t that your nickname in college?” Bailey teased. “Didn’t the guys always line up to ride the Jodi train?”
Her sister stuck her tongue out as she ‘choo chooed’ to the bathroom with Liam smiling as he hung onto her back.
Bailey cut all the burnt parts off of the chicken that she could and placed the mangled and hacked chicken breasts onto three plates. She set the table and quickly washed the pan as her two favorite people walked back into the kitchen.
“Can I have some juice?” Liam asked.
“Sure!” Jodi said.
“No,” Bailey corrected. “No juice during meals.”
“But I want juice!” Liam whined. Bailey envied her son. The harshest part of his whole existence was being denied juice. He didn’t have to worry about the unpaid stack of bills piling up in the drawer in the kitchen or her boss demanding that she worked overtime at the Vet clinic. He didn’t realize how easy he had it.
“Yeah,” Jodi joined in, hitting her fists on the table. “We want juice! We want juice!”
Liam laughed and copied his aunt. “We want juice! We want juice!” he chanted along with her.
“Fine,” Bailey said, rolling her eyes. “But I’m not getting up!”
“Yay!” Jodi and Liam cheered. “We stuck it to the man,” she said getting up and heading to the fridge. “Score one for the little guy. Literally.”
Bailey smiled at her son’s thrilled face as he watched his aunt move around the kitchen. He had been having it hard lately. He didn’t understand all of these changes that were going through his body. Bailey glanced over at the claw marks on the sofa and sighed. She didn’t understand them either for that matter.
Jodi came dancing back, shaking her hips, with two glasses of apple juice in her hands.
Liam squealed in delight when she handed him the glass. “I wish you could live with us,” he said before attacking his hard-earned juice like a thirsty man who just walked out of the desert.
“Me too,” Jodi said, ruffling the brown hair on his little head. “I like it here.” She poked the dry chicken with her fork and grimaced. “The food not so much, though.”
Bailey narrowed her eyes at her. “Yeah, it’s really too bad you have to go.”
“I know, right?” Jodi answered with a grin. “Oh! I want to talk to you about something,” she said.
Uh oh. This can’t be good.
“I think it’s time to find a man.”
“What?” Bailey said, spitting out a mouthful of her failed dinner.
“Ew,” Jodi said, looking at the chewed up chicken on the table. “We’ll have to work on your chewing first.”
“I don’t have time to date,” Bailey said. “My boss is forcing me to work unpaid overtime and I have Liam to take care of.”
“You have to get out there some time,” Jodi said. “You’ve been single for way too long.”
It had been since Liam’s father had broken her heart. She had spent an amazing summer with a bear shifter named Khan but at the end of it, she was left with only a shattered heart and a baby growing in her belly. From that moment on Liam was the only man in her life.
“You have to make time for it,” Jodi pressed. “You’re a single mom. You’re always going to be busy.”
That’s what Jodi didn’t understand. She didn’t have children. She didn’t realize how life-consuming the little guy was.
“When was the last time that you had some time to yourself?” Jodi asked.
Bailey glanced up. “Sometimes when I do laundry I crouch and hide behind the dryer for ten minutes. It’s wonderful.”
Bailey laughed at Jodi’s horrified face.
“That’s pathetic.”
“That’s having kids.”
“It’s still pathetic.” Jodi pulled out her phone from her purse. “You should sign up to a dating site. Get a real man.”
Bailey glanced at Liam as he ate. He still had an eye on the television playing in the living room. He wasn’t listening to them at all.
“Not with the issues that Liam has been having lately,” she said. His daycare worker had called in a panic this week again. He had shifted into his bear at daycare for the third time this month. Bailey was lucky that the daycare worker on duty had a cousin who was a shifter so she was sympathetic but she warned her that something had to change. She was worried about the other kids and Bailey couldn’t blame her. Liam’s bear was getting bigger every time he phased and was starting to get more aggressive and unruly. Bailey could handle him and keep him contained before but now he was getting to be too strong for her. She didn’t know what to do anymore.
“Did he…change again?” Jodi whispered.
Bailey had done tons of research on shifters but the only info that she could find was on conspiracy theory sites that had other articles like, How to survive an alien encounter and The best camera lens to film Bigfoot. They weren’t any help.
“And you still haven’t talked to his father about it?”
“Jodi!” Bailey snapped. “Please!” She took a deep breath and turned back to her ginger chicken with narrow eyes. Jodi should have known better than to bring him up.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I just thought-”
“Well, unthink it. Okay?”
“Fine,” Jodi said. “But you still need a man.”
Bailey dropped her head and sighed. Sometimes her sister was just too much to handle. She never knew when to stop pressing.
“Don’t be mad,” Jodi said, turning her phone on.
Bailey’s stomach dropped. “What did you do?”
Jodi held up her phone and there was a picture of Bailey on what looked like a dating website profile.
“Before you yell at me,” Jodi said, her voice racing, “my friend Angela found a really great guy on here. You should try it. I already paid for three months.”
“You wasted your money. Again.”
“Look,” Jodi said, thrusting the phone forward. “You already have four connections.”
Bailey lowered her fork and looked. “I do?”
“Look at this guy,” Jodi said, pointing to a picture of a handsome blond man with a nice smile. He wasn’t big and rugged, which she preferred but he was still pretty hot. “Chip Edwards. He’s an investment banker with a weekend home in the vineyards of Northern California. He likes biking, cooking and giving foot massages.” Jodi raised her eyebrows at her sister. “You like getting foot massages. Sounds like it was meant to be.”
“He sounds too good to be true,” Bailey said. “He probably lives in his mom’s basement.”
“Let’s find out,” Jodi said, turning the phone to herself.
“Wait,” Bailey said, trying to reach for it. Jodi jerked it out of her reach.
“He just messaged you,” Jodi said.
“Really?” Bailey asked, her heart beating faster. “What did he say?”
All of a sudden Bailey felt like a teenager again getting a note or a phone call from a boy. That part of life had been so far removed from her in the past few years that she forgot how fun and exciting that it could be.
“He wrote, hello.”
“Wow, clever,” Bailey said with a giggle.
“Well, he’s a banker, not a poet,” Jodi said. “I’ll write back, hi.”
Jodi’s fingers kept t
yping past the two letters that it took to write ‘hi.’
“What else are you writing?” Bailey asked, craning her neck to see the phone.
“Sent.”
“What?”
Jodi smirked. “I wrote: You’re hot. Want to go out some time?”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
Bailey swallowed hard. “Did he write back?”
“He wrote: Definitely.”
Bailey felt a lightness in her chest as her pulse sped up. She hadn’t felt anything like this in way too long.
“I’ll watch Liam,” Jodi said, taking away her best excuse to turn it down.
Bailey sighed. She could really use a night out. Get dressed up, put makeup on and feel pretty for once. Even at work she was always wearing unflattering scrubs, had her tied back in a lazy ponytail and was covered in dog and cat hair. It would be nice to put some effort into her appearance for once.
She’d be tired the next day but she was always tired so that was no excuse.
Jodi was looking at her with hope brimming from her eyes. “What do you say?”
Bailey smiled. “Go for it!”
three
“Where are you going all dressed up?” Hannibal asked as Khan walked into the living room.
Julius sniffed the air. “Is that cologne I smell?”
“I’m going to the bar,” Khan said, barreling past them to the front door. His two brothers jumped off the couch and followed him.
“For a date?” Julius asked.
Khan huffed out a breath. It was hardly a date. Was it?
He knew this was going to be a bad idea but he just couldn’t stop himself. Bailey was constantly on his mind and it was killing him. He had to see her. Even if she slapped him, threw a drink in his face or cursed at him, or all three; he had to see her.
If there was a chance that he was actually going to get married to save the deed to the Vega Ranch he had to know absolutely that his chances with Bailey were a hundred percent over.
“I’m just getting a drink at the bar,” Khan growled.
Hannibal smiled. “Great! We’ll go with you.”
“No,” Khan said with a frown. “I’m going alone.”
Julius and Hannibal high-fived each other behind his back.
“Who’s going on a date?” Alexander asked in his thundering voice as he walked into the room.
Khan glanced up at his polar bear shifter brother. He hadn’t seen much of Alexander’s gloomy presence lately. It had been wonderful.
“Nobody,” Khan replied.
“Good,” Alexander barked. “We don’t need any more women running around here.”
Julius rolled his eyes. “You do realize that we won’t have anyone running around here if you three don’t get married by the end of the year.”
Alexander narrowed his eyes. “I guess we won’t have a ranch then.”
“You know you’re really starting to piss me off!” Julius said, stepping forward.
Hannibal jumped in front of him and pushed him back with his hand on Julius’ chest. “Relax.”
“You’re seriously not even going to try?” Khan asked, feeling his pulse speed up. Khan would go kicking and screaming to the altar but he would go through with it. He couldn’t lose the family ranch. He could always just get divorced after the deed was transferred over to them. He didn’t understand why Alexander wasn’t willing to do the same.
“I’m not taking on a mate or getting married,” Alexander said. “And neither should you.”
Anger bubbled up inside of Khan. His brother always only looked out for himself.
Julius shook his head. “It’s always a pleasure dealing with you, Alexander. I’m sure that you’re going to do just fine with no home, no job, and no brothers to carry your selfish ass.”
Alexander puffed out his big chest and shook his massive head. He was the largest of all four of the brothers and the second oldest, after Khan. “Nothing is worth taking on a mate,” he growled. “Not even this ranch.”
“I don’t have time for this shit,” Khan said as he ripped the front door open. He stormed down the path to his pickup truck. He had more pressing things to deal with than his stubborn brother.
“Wait,” Ava said, trotting on top of that old decrepit horse that she was always riding. She pulled up beside the truck and hopped down onto the grass beside him.
“Good boy, Max,” she whispered as she petted the horse’s face.
“So?” she asked with a wide smile. “Big date?”
Khan let out a breath. “Yup.” He didn’t have to lie to her.
“With the blond?”
“Yup.”
But he also didn’t have to tell her the whole truth.
“Okay,” she said, bouncing from foot to foot. “Remember. Open the door for her, chew with your mouth closed, use a napkin, tell her she looks pretty, pay for dinner.”
Khan just stared at her blankly as she rattled off her unwanted advice.
“Oh yeah, and smile.” She gave him a big fake smile. “Show your teeth. You have such a handsome smile, the rare times that you use it.”
“All done?” he asked.
“Just one more thing.” He stiffened as she reached out and hugged him. “Good luck!”
“Thanks,” he said, reaching around to pat her back. He was going to need all of the luck he could get.
Bailey sat in the car and checked herself one last time in the rear view mirror. She almost didn’t recognize the woman looking back at her. She was hot!
It had been so long since she got all dressed up and put makeup on. She went shopping with Jodi and Liam this morning and bought a new outfit. It was tight and uncomfortable, unlike all of her other clothes but she was loving it. Her new bra and shirt pressed up her boobs that had flattened since Liam had sucked the life out of them.
Her new jeans were tight on her big curvy thighs but they made her ass look good and she felt great in them. Even Liam had voiced his approval when she was leaving. “You look hawt, Mommy,” he had said when she went in to kiss him goodnight.
She pulled out her phone and dialed Jodi’s cell. Her sister answered with an exaggerated sigh. “He’s sleeping! Stop worrying!”
“I’m just checking,” Bailey said. “I’m allowed to worry. It’s my job.”
“No,” Jodi answered. “Tonight it’s my job. Your job is to get in that restaurant and get your flirt on with mister sexy investment banker.”
“Thanks,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Any last advice?”
“Yeah, push your tits up. Make them look nice and perky.”
Bailey laughed. “They’re a long way from perky.”
“That’s why you spent sixty bucks on a push-up bra. Do it!”
“Love you,” Bailey said.
“Love you, too.”
She hung up, checked that she didn’t have any lipstick on her teeth and then pushed her breasts up like her sister had suggested.
The evening air was nice and warm in the small town. She looked around the town of Davenfield and breathed in the fresh country air. Bailey loved it here. She always thought of Montana as home. The wide open spaces, the wild animals, the mountains, the breathtaking sunsets, the lack of traffic and stressed out people. It was where she belonged.
She had been born and raised in Portland but her family had spent a summer near the small town of Colwood, Montana when she was nineteen. She fell in love with the state and vowed to move here when she got older. Portland was nice but it was nothing compared to this. Montana was like another planet.
The restaurant was up ahead and she waved at the car who stopped to let her cross the road. It was a cute steakhouse with delicious baked potatoes. She had taken Liam here a few times. He loved the French fries.
Bailey’s stomach started to flutter as she approached the door. It had been so long since she had gone on a date. What did real adults talk about besides kids? Would she even have anything to say?
It�
��ll be fine. She took a deep breath and opened the door. OH SHIT!
Bailey jumped back out of the restaurant and quickly closed the door. She closed her eyes as she hurried back to her car. Did he see me?
It was the last person that she was expecting, or wanted, to see. Her ex and Liam’s father, Khan, was sitting at a table by himself with two menus on it.
Was he there with his wife? Was she in the bathroom? What is he doing here? So many questions were racing through her head. She couldn’t even focus. When she reached into her purse to pull out her car keys, she grabbed her lipstick instead and tried to shove it in the lock.
Bailey wasn’t ready for to face him and there was no way she was walking back in there, no matter how many sexy investment bankers were waiting for her inside.
“Bailey,” a deep, familiar voice called out from behind her. Her muscles quivered. Don’t turn around.
But she did.
Khan was standing across the street with his hands in his pockets watching her. He looked older, with new lines on his face, including the big scar running down his cheek. It made him look dangerous in a sexy kind of way.
She gulped as he crossed the street with his dark eyes locked on her. He was wearing jeans and a tight button up shirt that showed off his hard muscles. An image of her and him rolling around in the grass after swimming naked in the lake came to her mind. She could still feel the curves of his hard muscles under her excited fingertips. She could still taste the saltiness of his skin and the deep sexy sounds of his grunts in her ear as he slid inside her.
Can you remember when he left and broke your heart? Can you remember the feeling of your heart shattering?
“Where are you going?” he asked as he stopped in front of her. He was so close. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted to. You don’t want to, she lied to herself. Maybe just his shirt. It looked really soft.
“I don’t know,” she said, dropping her eyes to his shiny shoes. “I just panicked when I saw you.”
“I’m sorry to just show up like this,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know I was going to be here.”