Claim My Baby

by Taryn Quinn

  I snagged a menu on my way down the aisle to him. Seth was sprawled in his favorite booth, his long legs encroaching on my side. I kicked his boot as I sat down and dropped the menu in front of him. “How you don’t have that memorized is beyond me.”

  He straightened and placed his phone face down on the table, then propped the menu against the wall. “Just coffee this time.”

  “Oh. Have an appointment?” I ate a forkful of my cottage cheese.

  He sneered at my plate. “So gross.”

  I forked up some more and held it in front of him. “So good.”

  “Disgusting.”

  I snagged a piece of pineapple to go with my forkful and chewed with a smile. “How would you know? You still won’t try the wonders of my fruit plate.”

  “It’s a texture thing.”

  “And yet you’ll eat grits.”

  “Only Angelo’s grits. Which reminds me.” He flipped over his menu. “I have been dreaming about his kitchen sink omelet.”

  “Kinda lame dreams.”

  He glanced over the menu. “I can’t have dreams about you naked all the time.”

  “Har-har.”

  He winked at me and I tamped down the hormones prepared to leap across the table.

  Sage came over with a grilled cheese sandwich and slid it in front of me. In her other hand was a pot of coffee. “What are you having, Seth?”

  I frowned. “I didn’t order this.”

  Sage put her hand on her hip. “That fruit thing isn’t going to hold you over for the rest of the day.”

  “Thanks. My ass won’t thank you, but I do.”

  “Your ass is just fine.”

  “Sure is,” Seth agreed.

  What the hell was up with the comments? He didn’t notice my ass.

  Did he?

  I shook my head and peeled the triangles apart as the lava-like mixture of cheddar and muenster that spilled onto the plate made me moan. Cheese was my downfall. I could pretty much give up anything except that.

  Noticing Seth’s smirk, I dragged my fingertip through the cheese and brought it to my mouth. “What?”

  “Should we leave you alone?”

  “Fine by me. We’ll live happily ever after, won’t we, you gooey piece of perfection?”

  Seth shook his head. He flipped his mug right side up on the saucer. “I’ll just have coffee.”

  “You sure?” Sage asked as she poured.

  “Yeah. I really want that omelet, but it’ll have to wait until next time.”

  Sage nodded. “You got it.” She glanced at me. “I got Mrs. Diggs.”

  “Oh, crap. I forgot.” I swiveled to give the older woman a smile.

  “No worries.”

  “She wasn’t mad?”

  Sage shook her head. “Too busy staring at this one’s ass.” She nodded at Seth.

  He waggled his eyebrows.

  Sage rolled her eyes. “I’ll leave you guys to it.”

  As soon as she walked away, Seth folded his hands on the folder. “So about the house.”

  I looked down at my sandwich and picked up half. “Want?”

  He smiled. “I wouldn’t want to come between you two.”

  I shrugged. Fine by me. I sucked at sharing anyway. If he wanted to keep it about business, I could do that. “How’d we do?”

  He blew out a breath. “I’d prefer to leave it on the market so we—”

  “Nope. Can’t. John Chandler gave me three months to sell and here we are a week past that.”

  His eyebrows snapped down and his jaw muscle flexed. I’d bet twenty bucks he was grinding his molars. But it was my decision, not his.

  “I told you I could—”

  “Nope.” I yanked a napkin out of the dispenser to degrease my fingertips before I covered his clenched hands. “You know I can’t.” He’d been trying to throw money at all my problems for years, but my answer was always the same. Even if he had more money than most of the Crescent Cove population combined, I couldn’t take money from a friend.

  Especially not Seth.

  God, not him.

  “Let me talk to John. We throw him a hell of a lot of business. I can pull a favor.”

  “No.”

  I had a feeling the three months I’d been granted was already one of those favors. No matter how much history I had in this town, a banker wasn’t going to let me slide when it came to prime land, even if it was on the fringes of lakefront property. Add in the mortgage I could barely scrape together now that my mother’s social security was gone and the only math that made sense was selling the house.

  John Chandler over at Crescent Cove Credit Union might be a sweet man who coached Little League on the weekends, but he was still a businessman. And there were rules.

  Rules I was intimately aware of. My mother’s modest life insurance policy did little more than cover her burial and a small memorial service.

  “I’ve got a guy who’s buying up some of the older…” He trailed off.

  I squeezed him one last time before sliding my hands back across the table and picking up my sandwich again. “Shacks? You can say it. I know my house wasn’t much.”

  He swiped his hand along the back of his neck. “Dammit, Al.”

  “It is what it is. She wanted a house on the lake, and it was all I could afford on my meager salary and what she had in the bank. It was enough for us.” My bedroom had been little more than a closet, but my mom had been happy her last few years and that had been all that mattered.

  “A new company is looking to build family houses on the lake to beef up the rentals for the season.”

  “The Kennedys kind or…?”

  He nodded. “The middle-income kind of families. I’m not completely against what they’re doing.”

  I broke off a corner of my toasted cheese and popped it in my mouth. “That’s great. You know this town relies on seasonal visitors. Though I’m glad they’re not just making mansions.”

  His eyes glittered. “No.”

  I knew Seth and his brother had been working hard to keep Crescent Cove from turning into the Hamptons part two. They were probably the only reason half the coast hadn’t been razed and turned into huge houses and overpriced hotels.

  But the Cove was a mix of wealthy and working class. Just the way I loved it. Though I wouldn’t mind being one of the wealthy someday.

  And maybe if I could get the house sold and get back to even, I’d have at least a chance at some kind of future besides drowning in debt.

  “What’s the offer?”

  I listened to him drone on about the sale and the banks. I swallowed when he opened the folder and slid a printed page my way. The sale price wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but it would cover what I needed it to.

  It would leave me with a big fat zero in my bank, but at least it wasn’t a minus sign.

  Right now, that was glorious and I was calling it a win. I folded the paper in half. “Thank you, Seth.”

  “Don’t thank me. I’d rather you walked away or haggled for more.”

  I lifted my chin and pushed my plate away. “Do you think I’d actually get it?” He opened his mouth. “Without doing upgrades and all the things you wanted me to do to the house?” He shut it. “I thought so.”

  “Fuck.” He slumped in seat a little. “I don’t like any of this.”

  “You don’t have to like it. Just make sure I don’t get too screwed and be my friend. Simple things. It’s all I really need.” I put my leg out and twisted my ankle to show off my splattered shoes. “And a new pair of sneakers. Which I need to work to pay for. Just let me know when and where to be to sign the papers.” I started to slide out of the booth.

  “Your fifteen isn’t over yet.”

  I paused.

  “Almost. Fifteen minutes goes quick. You know that.”

  He pressed his lips together and his eyes flared with something. I didn’t even want to think about what they flared with. It didn’t happen often, but there were moments whe
n I wondered if he thought about other, less platonic things when it came to me.

  But it was much easier to file those moments away as aberrations and fantasies.

  “Just one more thing.”

  “It’s never just one more thing with you.”

  “You’re killing me, Al.”

  “Right back atcha, buddy.” Exasperation was the word of the day. When he leaned forward, his dark eyes were a little too serious. I straightened and pulled my hands away from my plate to land in my lap. I twirled my thumb ring as a sudden chill climbed up my hairline.

  He leaned forward, suddenly earnest. Too earnest. When Seth Hamilton acted solemn, he was up to something, and chances were high I wouldn’t like it.

  “Will you have my baby?”

  Would you like to read more?

  Have My Baby

  Buy

  Are dirty hot rockstars more your speed? Especially the babymaking kind?

  ROCKSTAR DADDY

  Wilder Rock #1

  Never trust a cold condom.

  Wait, let me back up. I'm Kellan McGuire, and I'm a rockstar in hiding, at least for the weekend. Enter Maggie Kelly, the famed Kelly virgin - AKA my small hometown's favorite good girl.

  Did I mention she's really good? And I'm so...not.

  Except Maggie isn't a virgin any longer. She actually just went through a rough breakup due to her ex's penchant for strippers.

  And I don't want to be a rockstar this weekend. Not with her.

  I just want to be Kellan, the wolf to her Little Red Riding Hood. The guy who shows her all the dark, dirty things she never dared to dream.

  In return, she gave me something I never dared to dream about either - a baby.

  A family.

  Our family, if I can convince her I'm worth the risk.

  Author's note: this book may be called Rockstar Daddy, but the emphasis is on lots of babymaking practice, laughter, a few tears, and a serious case of insta-love.

  BUY

  Read on for an excerpt…

  Chapter 1

  Kellan

  Fucking blizzard.

  Again.

  Why was I even surprised?

  I was the jackass who had grown up on the outskirts of Turnbull, New York, snow capital of the northeast, and had escaped to sunny LA only to return.

  Voluntarily.

  No one had held a gun to my head or shackled my wrists. Nope, I’d strapped my surfboard to the roof of my SUV and made the trek home to buy property on the very edge of town. Outside of town, truth be told. Because the icy tundra in the city proper—ha ha—wasn’t enough for me. Might as well build a damn shack with my own two hands and surround it with pine trees and solitude.

  So much freaking solitude.

  True, it was just my vacation home. Cue more laughter. My place to escape from the rigors of being a famous rockstar.

  At least the rockstar part was right. In my head if nowhere else. The famous? Working on that. Wilder Mind’s first single was due to drop just after the holidays, and our manager, Lila Crandall, was prepping us for the big time. A lot of that was smoke and mirrors designed to build us up into being the showmen we weren’t quite yet, but under her bluster, there was a kernel of truth.

  Wilder Mind was poised to take on the world.

  Me? I was poised to chop some wood so I could hole up in my cabin and spend New Year’s Eve soaking up the silence.

  No other company. No other voices. Especially no incessant interview questions or even the shrill scream of fans. Not that we’d dealt with much of that yet. Only a taste. A hint of things to come if we were lucky enough to make it big.

  In the meantime, it would be just me and my old Taylor acoustic, a roaring fire, and a case of Coors.

  Hey, I never said I had highbrow tastes. So sue me.

  Blowing out a breath, I heaved the ax through the chilly air, savoring the pleasant burn in my muscles. I was chopping way more wood than I’d need for a weekend at the cabin. If I was lucky, I’d make it back to Turnbull a few times over the winter. With the single dropping, we’d be branching out. Spreading out to do shows some distance from LA, which meant all the press that went with that. I’d be talking myself hoarse before I was expected to go up and bleed out onstage for the price of a ticket.

  That was my role. My new role. The one I’d craved since I was a kid with a cheap thrift store guitar, a joint in my back pocket, and the requisite amount of teenage angst that made me think I could be a great songwriter.

  Now I was getting my shot, and the battered composition notebook I’d been lugging around for years—first in backpacks, then in briefcases during my brief stint working at Ripper Records—was definitely getting a workout.

  Just like my arms. I slammed the axe into the snowpack and threw back my head. Shit. The chill seared my lungs, yanking out my breath in icy puffs. And I still wasn’t smart enough to go inside.

  Nope, I kept splitting logs, continuing on until the overcast afternoon turned into dusk. The foggy dark hung in ribbons of mist around my forest, and I didn’t stop until the distant cry of a lonely coyote made me think maybe it was time for that fire.

  We didn’t get a lot of coyotes out this way, but we had some. In this much dense forestation, you got quite the range of creatures. Even the occasional black bear. My mom had told stories about one coming up to the back door and rattling the knob of her folks’ old ramshackle place, but I had to think that was bullshit.

  Maybe I just hoped it. If a frigging bear couldn’t just break down a door, fuck the rest of us who rued being so goddamn polite all the time.

  Still, much as I lobbied for the rights of bears and coyotes, I wasn’t stupid enough to be whaling on logs after dark. Not when I had a twelve-pack and a hot shower waiting for my sore ass.

  “Getting soft,” I muttered after stowing the axe and piling up the wood to haul inside.

  I grunted as I made my way around the side of the cabin in the knee-deep snow, part of a cord of wood in my arms. Obviously, I needed to hit the gym harder before Wilder Mind went out on tour. My body freaking hurt. I was covered in sweat. Probably looked like a frigging maniac with snow sticking to my beardy face.

  I jumped around night after night onstage in closet-sized clubs and bars, but I wasn’t as hardy as when I’d lived in good old Turnbull full-time. Back when I’d worked on cars and picked up odd construction jobs to get by.

  It had been blind luck and a dose of small town friendliness that had even gotten my ass out to LA. Lila’s mom and pop ran the local orchard, and my mom had gotten to talking to Lila’s mother one day about how I didn’t want to be stuck working construction for the rest of my life. One thing led to another and under six months later, I’d been on a place out to LA to meet with Donovan Lewis, the head of the record label Lila worked for. We hit it off and though I didn’t know shit about selling anything that didn’t come in a bucket or wrapped in cellophane, I’d ended up as an account rep.

  Representing artists. Me. The guy who’d barely graduated high school but could schmooze a quart a milk out of a cow. Or so my mom had claimed to Lila’s mother.

  Because a way with cows surely meant a way with egotistical, often drugged out musicians. Right.

  Somehow it had worked though. Lila said I had a knack. Donovan had given me raises. A bunch of them, in short succession. The mogul some jokingly referred to as Lord Lewis didn’t shortchange his talent, and he’d seen something in me. I owed him and Lila a shit-ton of gratitude. First, for hiring me to represent some of their musical acts, and then for trusting me to front a band.

  The band part I had more familiarity with. I’d been stroking an acoustic long before I’d stroked my first girl. Let’s just say I’d done my share of touching both, and leave it at that.

  One more thing about Turnbull? They had some damn fine women, but it was hard to see them clearly under all the layers of outerwear when it snowed for what felt like half the freaking year. I preferred California women anyway. They
seemed more good-natured as a rule. Maybe all the sunshine and hot temperatures put them in a better mood.

  And goddammit, I loved me a woman in a bikini.

  When I reached the front of my property and heard the squeal of tires, I didn’t react fast enough. Put the image of a half-naked, tanned woman in the mind of a man who’d nearly frozen his nuts off and who wouldn’t miss a car fishtailing off the road?

  Right into my ditch.

  Tires spun, spewing up snow and dirt and tiny rocks, and a horn went off about sixteen times. And I stared, my wood in my arms. Shocked as hell that anyone had even come down this practically deserted road in the first place, never mind took the curve way too fast and gone ass up in the ditch.

  The chick was now attempting to shimmy her way out of the driver’s side window. Painfully. With no shortage of groans and screeches and noises no adult female should ever make.

  Since she was moving—and frantically at that—I had to figure she couldn’t be too badly injured. Still, she could have done harm to herself she’d yet to realize.

  With more than a small sigh, I set down the wood on the short set of steps to the cabin, brushed off my hands on the thighs of my jeans, and trudged down the snowy hill to where the squealing damsel’s car was lodged.

  She turned her neck and gave me the biggest, brightest smile I’d ever seen. I was a little taken aback, since she was half in and half out of a window and her car was fucked up, if not totaled. It appeared to be an older model under the snow and grime, and an accident like hers could screw up the frame. If that happened, the vehicle was shot.

  Not that she seemed worried overmuch.