Hard Wood Daddy

1. Tess

Chapter 1

Tess

I t’s not the first time I’ve spent half the night curled up on the cracked vinyl back seat of a bus.

My mom’s a tumbleweed. In all my eighteen years, she never grew roots, and riding buses to nowhere was kind of my entire childhood.

But this time it’s different.

It’s not my mom trying to escape some crappy job, or an even crappier boyfriend. It’s me escaping my own boyfriend.

I guess he’s a boyfriend. I sort of just… fell into him. Literally.

The name on his driver’s license is Eldon Patron, but you’ll call him Don if you don’t wanna catch a right hook. And don’t think he’s one of those ‘you never hit a woman’ sort of guys either. His right hooks know no prejudice.

But he has this slick exterior that hid some of the inner ick factor. At least for a while. I was charmed for a minute. I mean, my life was less than zero for the most part, so any interest felt…good. As sad as that sounds.

He found me scrubbing dishes at Moe’s 24-hour diner across from the boarded-up old hardware store, an old Irish bar and the strip club that had taken over an old movie theater.

I was soaked with sweat, my day-old oversized clothes were drenched, my hair was rebelling from its braids, but Don saw something special. That’s what he said exactly: “You’re special, girly.”

Looking back, the creep factor was high from the jump, but my need for distraction and some attention blinded me. I’d never gotten roses before. Let alone three dozen. I felt special, even if the man making me feel that way gave my skin that same crawly feeling I always got around the worst of my mom’s boyfriends.

It was when one of those boyfriends tried to put hands on me a week ago that tipped me over the edge. I told my mom that it was me or him, and, well, she chose him. Told me to get out and take my kitten with me. Which is when I moved in with Don, and he seemed so happy to have me, which I should have realized was a bad idea by the shudder that passed right through me.

And then icky turned to scary.

The kind of scary where I found myself jumping out of a window in the middle of the night, clutching my kitten and my backpack, which I’d never quite gotten around to unpacking. Now, I’m three and a half hours into a bus ride where the only other passenger was a guy whose three major food groups must be chili, burritos and rotten eggs.

He got off two stops ago, but his aura still lingers.

And now I’m alone. On this bus and in life. And I know I have to run.

The hard part is knowing when to stop.

But that time has gotta be coming soon. I’ve been on this bus for ages, and Frida is getting to be a problem.

Right now, my gray fuzzy best friend is tumbling around inside my backpack, sticking her claws out the cloth, and making little kitten sounds. If the driver realizes I’ve brought a kitten on the bus, the decision is getting made for me, and it’s not long until she uses my backpack as a litterbox.

“Just a little longer,” I whisper through the zipper.

“Next stop, end of the line,” announces the bus driver like a period at the end of a sentence.

Well, I guess that’s the decision.

As ready as I am to get off this bus, my adrenaline climbs when I look outside. The “end of the line” is in a forest in the foothills of looming mountains. A big huge wall of trees that nearly blocks out the mid-morning sun entirely. I’m not outdoorsy—like, at all—but new things, new life, new adventures, right?

This is the furthest I can get away from Don for now, so it has to be good enough.

The bus stutters to a stop, the air brakes squealing as a puff of diesel rises outside the windows, fogging the line of pines across the two-lane blacktop road. I smuggle Frida off the bus the same way I smuggled her on, tossing a tight smile to the gray-haired bus driver who is more interested in my double-F breasts than the wiggly, mewling creature in my backpack.

I step out of the stale bus air into a fresh morning springtime breeze, the crisp scent of leaves washing away the exhaust, and into a whole new life.

I’m not Tessa Monroe, high school dropout, right now. I’m sort of no one out here in the middle of nowhere. A blank slate. I’m not sure what I am yet, but…something new.

I scoop Frida gently out of the backpack, her fuzzy legs reaching through my fingers as I snuggle her against my chest where she clings like a mini spider monkey. Then I sling my backpack over my shoulder and feel her start to purr.

“Here’s our new life, kitten,” I say as the bus leaves us behind with a spray of gravel.

Heavy sigh. Long look around.

Trees. Trees are our new life.

There’s a bus stop here for a reason, though. There’s a campground just on the other side of the tree line, without any tents or fires or empty beer cans on the ground that I can see, which means nobody is staying here.

I could stay here. It’s empty, but… I make the sign of the cross when I hear animal sounds coming from the woods.

God, I hope there are cabins around. I’m a city girl, through and through. My whole life, Mom always moved us from one urban jungle to the next, and anytime I saw a forest or mountains, it was like some big dark dangerous question mark.

My hope for cabins turns into something else as my body reminds me of the large Diet Coke I drank on the bus. Becoming a campground squatter sounds way better than the life I’m fleeing, but I can’t imagine peeing outside where the bears and rabbits can judge me.

The sound of an approaching car makes me jump. I spin on the toes of my retro Reeboks and shift Frida so she’s looking forward as though she’s here to protect me. She mewls annoyance, pin pricks of her claws poking into the skin just below my collarbones.

There’s an old pickup is trundling down the road from somewhere up the mountain as I scan the area a bit more closely.

I spot a sign for the Paint Forest Program, which must be an art retreat, judging by the palette graphic. With a squint, I take in the road beyond, where it twists its way through the trees and upward until it disappears.

Looking up that road, my neck prickles.

There are so many shadows and trees, anyone or anything could be hiding in there.

Watching me.

It feels like someone is watching me right now. Someone or something.

I don’t want to get in trouble for trespassing on the campground though. I look down at my feet just a few steps off the side of the blacktop, when the pickup driver waves out the window at me.

I wave back and start to walk away. The truck and female driver aren’t giving me security vibes but I’m not one for confrontation of any kind, so I tuck my chin down and start to panic, wondering where I’m going to be sleeping tonight.

And where I can go to pee.

Heat rises on my chest and cheeks as the chug chug of the pickup pulls up next to me and a window winds down. The driver grins, her eyes lighting up.

“Hey, you’re here!” she says as I try to smile back. “First day of the job and right on time. I made a note about the bus schedule you sent. Can’t wait to show you your cabin! Just got the plumbing all fixed in the bathroom too. Big bonus, I can tell you! Hot showers and everything.”

Cabin.

Bathroom.

Indoor plumbing.

Her voice is genuine and friendly, and her smile spreads all the way into her soft blue eyes, where a network of crow’s feet suggest smiles aren’t unusual for her. From the look of her browned skin, she’s not a sunblock sort of gal. She’s all granola vibes and from the smudge of blue paint on her fingertips, an artist.

I’ve never thought faster in my life.

She’s expecting someone. She thinks I’m that someone. There was no one else on the bus, so whoever was supposed to come, clearly didn’t.

If I were the person she expected, I would have a job. And if I’m on time, but I’m the only one here, then it means the job isn’t technically filled.

I plaster a smile on my face. “Yep. I made it! Like I was supposed to. Because you expected me.”

She throws the shifter on the steering wheel column upward into park, swings open the creaking door and hops out onto the dusty side of the road. She’s either a vibrant young fifty-something or a mature forty-something, dressed in paint-splattered coveralls, handmade clay rainbow earrings, and a smile so huge I’m immediately calmer.

“I’m Lindsay.” She extends a hand, which I shake. “Francesca, right?”

“I go by Tess,” I blurt out like I’m some 007 covert operative, thinking on my feet with Frida purring against my chest as my unsuspecting sidekick.

Tess must be a plausible nickname for Francesca, because Lindsay doesn’t blink.

“Tess it is! I’m telling you, I’m so glad we found you. Rubenesque figure models aren’t as easy to come by as you might think, especially on such short notice. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find alternative body type models.”

Rubenesque? It’s not my first encounter with the word, but it reminds me of plus-size Barbie dolls. I guess that’s fair, even though my legs have never been Barbie-long. That bitch would never drag her hems on the ground the way my five-foot nothing ass does.

I am really curvy, though. I can’t hide my double-F’s under my giant t-shirts, although I try. I’ve got a big butt too. Big everything, really, aside from my improbably small waist, and the fact I am a not-intimidating five feet tall.

“I’m just excited for the opportunity,” I say with a silent prayer that this is going to play out the way I’m hoping.

“And who is this?” Lindsay asks, beaming at my purring chest accessory.

“Frida,” I say, holding her up to be viewed. She’s still got baby blue eyes, oversize paws, and a stubby little tail. “As in Kahlo.”

This delights Lindsay. “Ah! You’re an artist too?”

“Sort of.” If it helps me get a job, I’ll be a freaking T. rex.

The truth is that I do like art. I drew a lot when I was a kid. If teachers are to believed, I was great at color and detail. But my mom didn’t think I’d make anything of my art—or anything else, really—so I’m best described as “former dishwasher on the lam with Frida Kahlo.”

Nowadays, my only artistic outlet is nail polish. My fingernails and toenails are my canvas. Right now, they are painted in an legit rainbow pallet starting with yellow on my pinky toes ending with red on my big toes.

There probably won’t be nail polish in the forest, I think with a sinking heart because my backpack has only two little bottles inside and both are nearly empty.

“The art retreat has already started,” Lindsay says. “Last couple days just spent meditating, drawing, free style painting and getting the community to bond. We did a sage burning ceremony last night so now, the only thing missing is you.” Another smile, then a nod toward the rusty truck. “Ready?”

“Sure,” I say. “Only… Is there anywhere I can go to take a pee?”

I glance around, and Lindsay laughs. “Truth be told, if I was desperate I’d just slip behind a tree. But if that’s not your bag, I’d hold it until we get to the campsite. It’s just a few minutes, and the plumber just did a bang up job repairing your bathroom. Shall we?”

I’m already in the pickup when Lindsay takes a good long look at me. The whole package: dirty jeans, a t-shirt that looks vintage but features Sabrina Carpenter’s face, and sneakers I haven’t replaced since middle school.

“You look a little different than the pictures in your email. Wasn’t your hair black?” She frowns.

“Oh, yeah… my hair was dyed. The temporary kind like you get at the Halloween store. It’s back to natural now.” I make it up on the fly thinking maybe I missed my calling as a spy after all. I’m pretty good at lying under pressure.

Aside from my gigantic bazoombas, my hair is my most distinctive feature. The thing most likely to set me apart. I have loads of curly auburn hair that insists upon escaping braids, buns, and ponytails. Don picked on me for my unruly hair, so I’ve been trying to braid it extra-tight, but it’s only made my curls rebel even harder.

Lindsay laughs. “Well, it’s not like your face was the focus of the photos anyway. I’ve got you on the docket today for gesture class. That’s where you do series of nude poses and our students have five to ten minutes to draw before the pose changes.”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Gesture classes.” I have no idea what she’s talking about, but at this point I’m just winging everything.

She nods. “I’ve had models turn up and complain about having to think of a new pose every five or ten minutes.”

I force a laugh. “Imagine!”

“Right? That’s when you start to wonder if they even have as much experience as they said, or if this is the first time they’ve even posed nude in front of a class.”

“Pose nude,” I echo faintly giving my inner lip a hard bite.

The idea hadn’t occurred to me.

I’m lying to get a job, and that job means I’ll be naked in front of strangers.

“Well, you won’t be entirely nude. That’s technically not allowed in the university charter. I can’t ‘pay’ you to be naked, although the students are allowed to make their own arrangements. Nude classes do happen outside the organized sessions, and there are a few students that are up for modeling in those.” Lindsay seems to love talking about all this, and I get the impression art has been a big part of her life. Probably her whole life. She’s a steady hand on the pickup’s steering wheel though, expertly guiding us over the jolting, bouncy dirt road up the hill. “For you, we have costumes, a drape, some props. We’ll cover the sensitive bits.”

I barely hear the rest of what she says because I swear I see someone looking at us from behind the Paint Forest Program sign as we pass. I twist in my seat to look, searching for the figure I’m sure was there a second ago.

Someone tall.

Someone huge, in fact.

Like, maybe a Sasquatch?

That sign has to be seven feet tall and that figure was a few inches above the top.

Could Bigfoot be real and living here in these woods?

A sudden longing for concrete and rude Uber drivers hits me like a swift uppercut.

Lindsay is still talking as I turn, refocusing on what I assume is my new boss.

“Now, when I say, ‘paying’, you do understand it’s just room and board, but you also won’t be busy all the time. You’ll have one or two classes a day, each an hour and a half long. The rest of the time is yours. I promise you won’t get bored in your free time, though. There is so much to do in the forest. It’s beautiful out here.”

So, it’s a job, but not a paying job. I’ve got all of one hundred and five dollars in my pocket—my entire savings.

I need money. This Paint Forest thing is not going to last forever, and what do I do when summer modeling season is over? Call my agent?

On the other hand, room and board means I need a lot less money.

I nod to myself, watching the unfamiliar scenery move outside as Frida wiggles in my hands, bumping her tiny head into my chin every few seconds looking for affection. There’s another flash of something in the woods and my stomach knots, but… I can work with this… The modeling isn’t actually nude, and as long as I don’t get abducted by Sasquatch I’ll survive.

I hope.

A tingle works its way down the indent of my spine.

The Paint Forest Program is up the hill, past a bubbling brook that reminds me of my growing need to take a leak, around a meadow where deer are grazing. I must admit, it’s about the most tranquil place I’ve ever been.

Maybe the outdoors isn’t so bad after all.

Sun breaks through the trees as we come around a big boulder, and then I see it. A cozy collection of wooden buildings. If I had come upon it myself, I would have thought these were just vacation cabins at the edge of a cheery pond.

Not that I ever went on vacation. But I know that people do.

An art class is working off a bunch of little easels, everyone facing an opening in the trees with a view of a beautiful mountain just beyond the little pond that centers the campground. People have trays with pastels in them, and they’re drawing the scenery from various angles.

“Plein air,” explains Lindsay.

“Gesundheit.”

She laughs and pulls the pickup behind the biggest cabin with a crooked, multicolor sign that reads ‘Office’.

Everywhere I look, there are more cute details. Handmade floral curtains in every window. Suncatchers glittering off cabin eaves. Murals on the walls. Painted ceramic pots filled with blossoming flowers.

I got off the bus because I didn’t have any better alternatives, but somehow I stumbled into art heaven.

The cost of admission is getting publicly naked.

I can afford to pay that.

“Is that all you brought?” Lindsay asks, pointing to my backpack with a wistful smile at Frida who is now wiggling in my hands, batting and biting at my thumbs with her tiny paws and deathly sharp baby kitten teeth.

I don’t get a chance to answer her, as a shadow draws my eye out the window. There’s a man approaching out from the tree line.

And holy heck, is he a man.

He must be almost two feet taller than me. He’s like 3X of a normal human male in every way. He’s got shoulders so wide, I think he might tear his shirt’s back open like the Hulk if he folded his arms.

I swear, his arms are thicker around than my waist.

Something feminine inside of me reacts with a sudden quivering.

His masculinity breaks over me like an awakening to my inner goddess. A goddess I didn’t realize I had until this instant.

My lower body clenches and releases in a spasmic rhythm. Some inner boundary opens wide for him. A part of me that instinctively wants to submit, to surrender.

Once our eyes make contact, I feel an electric jolt of certainty.

This guy is the Sasquatch I glimpsed behind the sign, and he’s making a hard beeline toward the truck.

He followed us up the road. Which means he was matching the speed of a truck up a mountainside.

I can’t shake the feeling he’s come for me.

The idea should be a little scary. I’m already running from one man, and this one is so much more impressive than Don Patron. Don could never dream of growing such a beard. Sasquatch’s shoulder-length, nearly black hair is wildly unkempt, but it’s as clean as though he just came lumbering out of the river freshly-bathed.

And for some reason, as I step out and clutch Frida to my chest, I’m not scared.

The longer he looks at me, the faster my heart pumps and the tighter my nipples get.

Piercing blue eyes glare out from under a strong brow. With such dark hair, the light eyes and golden-tanned skin are striking. He’s more like a spirit of the wilderness than Sasquatch.

“Rutger!” Lindsay sings in a non-terrified voice, which reinforces my instinct that this man is not to be feared. She climbs out of the truck with a creak and metallic slam of the door behind her, giving a name to this looming man-beast.

His jeans are a little too snug for him, or else he’s packing a cock like a baseball bat, curling up toward his right hip.

Oh my gosh, Tess. Don’t look at his dick!

But it’s darn near impossible not to look, and my mouth is watering, and I’m thinking about how big he is. I’m like a little doll next to him. He could throw me around—up against a wall, bent over the bathroom counter, slung under his arm to be carried off to his cave. My need to pee a distant memory as my virgin pussy starts leaking for a different reason.

Things are getting wet.

Wetter.

God, so wet.

Did that thing inside his jeans just get pulse?

“This is our new all-bodies-are-beautiful figure model, Francesca. Also known as Tess,” says Lindsay with a wink my way. “Tess, this is Rutger. He owns the land here. Do you mind if I take a minute to talk with him? Then I’ll take you to your cabin so you can get settled. Frida too.”

I think I nod in acknowledgment, but I’m trapped by Rutger’s gaze. It’s like Lindsay, the plein air class, the whole forest has just vanished.

He’s looking at me. Licking his lips. Snarling on an inhale.

“You okay?” Lindsay cocks her head with a slight squint.

“Buh,” I say. “Uff.”

Total nonsense.

Lindsay leaves me in my brainless stupor, stepping aside as she talks to Rutger in hushed tones. He barely looks away from me while they converse, although I’m aware enough that I hear something about a lease. Paperwork. Reading. Signatures.

Bulging arm veins. Huge biceps. Thighs like tree trunks. Cocks like—

Time is meaningless when I’m looking at him, swirling through obscene thoughts, trying to decide if I could fit his cock into my mouth, or anywhere else.

I’m so small compared to him. It’s an unusual sensation.

I like it.

A. Lot.

“Okay, well,” Lindsay says on a sigh, as though whatever she wanted to accomplish in their little interaction with the man-monster didn’t go her way. “I’ll catch up with you again tomorrow. I know we can resolve all your concerns.”

She pats Rutger on the arm, with a thinner smile than she uses for me. Like an older sister trying to reassure her brother.

He responds with something like a growl.

Lindsay eventually tugs at my arm in order to take me to my cabin. My feet crunch on the leaves and gravel as we walk, my heart feels like it’s about to come through my chest as we come to the end of the path and I try to focus on my new accommodations. The cabin is about the size of one of those mini houses you see on the sides of the road that you can pull behind your car like a trailer. But I have my own room. And a bathroom, thank the lord.

More than enough space for me, my backpack, and Frida.

Because it’s only a few hundred yards from where we parked, I can see that Rutger stands like a rooted tree exactly where we left him. He’s bristling with dark energy and staring at my window.

God. I think I love him.