Epilogue
DANIEL
Using my shoulder, I pushed through the door and into the office, my hands full.
“You love gossip, Ang,” I said. “News at Steaming Hotties is that the Hunters–not the owner of the mountain, but the other ones–filed for bankruptcy, their house was repossessed by the bank and they relocated during the night to Florida for the guy to take a job at a golf course.”
I set the office manager’s coffee on her desk.
She eyed me, listening to my words, but not with the usual glee for small town tea spilling. I didn’t give a shit about the crazy antics of others, but I figured for once, I could get the edge on her with some juicy info.
“Gambling. Can you believe it?” I added.
She humphed. “There’s other ways to gamble,” she muttered and I frowned.
Usually, she was as fiery as her red hair and always knew the local news before me.
“What? Did I ruin it for you?” I asked, taking a sip of my black coffee.
“I think you ruined it for yourself.”
“What the hell does that mean? I don’t even know the Hunters. I know Eve, of course.” I raised my to-go cup with the Steaming Hotties logo on the side. “And that’s not the exciting part. I guess Eve’s ex is going to jail.”
I waited for Ang to react, but she didn’t. “What’s up with you this morning?”
Her eyes widened behind her reading glasses. “Me? I think you have more important things to worry about than other people’s problems.”
Frowning, I set my cup down, put my hands on her desk and leaned in. “What’s going on?” I asked. “No one’s hurt?”
Running a tree service company, I always worried about my employees.
Chain saws, falling timber and other hazards meant the possibility of bad injuries.
That was from working on the trees, not from falling ones.
Like the one that we cut up that had fallen through Lindy Beckett’s house last summer.
Fortunately, no one had been home when her neighbor had played lumberjack.
“No. No one’s hurt.”
I sighed because it was always in the back of my mind. “Then what’s curdled your milk?”
She picked up pink message slips and pushed them into my face.
I snagged them and stepped back.
“I thought you learned your lesson right after high school, Daniel Case Pearson. I mean, I thought out of everyone, you’d know about condoms. Talk about gambling. Getting a girl pregnant? Now? You’re forty years old.”
I blinked, looked more closely at what Ang wrote. Condoms? Pregnant? What the hell was she talking about?
The test came back positive. You need to call me.
I told you this would happen, but no. You thought a little fun wouldn’t have consequences. Call me.
Where are you? What am I supposed to do, take care of this on my own?
Fine, fun was had. Now we face the consequences.
I lifted my head, met Ang’s wise, pointed gaze.
“These were on the business voicemail?”
Ang nodded. “I copied those down from the weekend. Exactly as recorded.”
“And you think this was me?” I waved the papers. “Chad’s a little careless from what I’ve heard.”
“She calls you out by name.”
“Who?” I glanced again at the messages. “Who is saying I… I–”
“Got her pregnant?”
I swallowed hard. Nodded.
“Melanie Harwood.”
Frowning, I looked to Ang. “Who?”
She shook her head and tsked me like a scolding mother. Since she was close friends with mine, they’d had practice for the past four decades.
“Little Melly Harwood. The librarian. And someone so young, too.”
“Young?”
“She can’t be more than twenty-four. Mabel’s daughter was two years ahead of her in school.”
Figuring out how Mabel’s daughter had any relevance wasn’t important. I didn’t know who she was either.
Crushing the papers in my hand, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You think I got a twenty-four year old librarian pregnant?”
“The messages were all directed to you. Remember, you wanted to get back out there.” She made stupid air quotes with her fingers about how everyone in the office thought I should find a woman.
“Fuck me,” I muttered. I ran a hand down my face, stomped into my office and slammed the door shut.
This was a fucking mess.
Dropping into my desk chair, I swiveled back and forth.
What the hell?
I didn’t have sex with little Melly Harwood. I didn’t even know who she was.
The only sex I’d had recently was with my hand and I wasn’t going to share that gem with Ang. My dick and where I put it wasn’t any of her business.
But now it was because she took a long line of messages that made it pretty fucking clear I stuck it in the librarian.
I popped to my feet, grabbed my coffee and stormed out of my office.
“Where are you going?” Ang called as I cut past her desk.
“The library.”
The four James brothers aren’t the only alpha males in Hunter Valley. Meet Daniel Pearson, owner of Pearson Tree Service.
Continue on in the On A Manhunt series with Man Scape.