Chapter 2 #2
“The tree guy who lives down the street from you?” She tapped her lip. “I can see it. He’s hot in a… golden retriever kind of way.”
Golden retriever? Daniel? Oh, she thought–
“You told me he asked you out, but I didn’t know you went,” she continued before I could correct her. “That’s so great.”
The younger Daniel Pearson did live down the street, house sitting for his grandmother. We met a few months ago when he was walking his dog. He’d asked me out and I agreed because he was cute and my age. Fred had liked him, and his dog, too. Obviously.
I grimaced. “No. I mean, yes, we went out twice. Coffee and then lunch, but there’s nothing there.”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Coffee and lunch? Of course there’s nothing there with those kinds of dates. Public, during the day and I assume you met him instead of being picked up.”
I nodded.
She muttered, “Golden retriever.”
“The dogs hit it off better than we did,” I admitted. “His dog’s Fred’s baby daddy.”
Fred was technically my grandmother’s dog, although with her out of the country, she was pretty much mine.
Nana wanted to breed her and planned to take care of the new puppies over the summer when the semester in Europe was done, but it seemed nature had different ideas.
Including who the doggie dad was because the Pearson dog wasn’t the Toy Pom of her friend, Nancy Shultz. The intended sperm donor.
“Right. Obviously,” she said. “I don’t understand then. If it didn’t work out, why are you still thinking about him?”
I paused, took a breath. “I’m… um… attracted to the other Daniel Pearson.”
Her brow dropped into a deep frown.
“His… his father,” I clarified.
Her blue eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Then she snapped it shut and tugged me further back into the stacks, almost giving me whiplash.
“Mal!” I power-whispered, a skill of being a librarian.
“Your ex’s father? You little slut,” she said with a smile on her face. Then she hugged me.
“Oof,” I replied, the only sound I could make based on how tight she held me.
When she finally let me go, she asked, “How did you meet him?”
“I left messages for Daniel, the son, because I needed him to know about the puppies coming and to help pay for Fred’s vet visits. He’s responsible and all that.”
“Of course he is.”
“His dad got the messages instead of him and showed up at the vet’s office.” I intentionally left out the fact that he thought I accused him of getting me pregnant.
“How old is he?”
I pictured him in my head. Again. Handsome, virile, rugged, muscly. “Maybe forty.”
“Wow, um, he must’ve had his son really young.” Then she swiped her hand through the air as if using an eraser to clear the thought. “Doesn’t matter. Does he look like his son but older?”
I shrugged. “A little. But he’s definitely not a golden retriever. More like… a… bear. A big, growly, bear.”
“He’s hairy?” She tried not to scrunch her nose up but failed. “Sorry. Sorry, you might like a big snuggly bear. No judgment.”
“No, not hairy. Well, he does have a beard.”
“Mmm, a beard,” she said in a way she’d also say mmm, chocolate cake. “Daniel Pearson of Pearson Landscaping?” She tapped her lip. “Yeah, I bet he’s not hairy. He probably man scapes the hell out of that hot bod.”
“Mal!” I said on a laugh, a little too loudly because a few of the kids turned their heads to look our way. So much for me being placid. More like flustered and horny. It was so unfair. The first guy I got zings in the things for and he was every single thing I avoided.
“I mean, he’s big. He growls a lot. At least at me. He’s intense and looks at me like he wants to eat me.”
That confused me most because he was angry enough to storm into a vet’s office yet eye me in a way that screamed, I want to fuck you.
Mallory covered her mouth with her hand, but I could still see her smile peeking around the sides and she pretty much whisper-squealed. She leaned close and murmured, “A guy eating you is the best part.”
My inner muscles clenched at the inadvertent picture of Daniel’s head between my thighs.
“He’s old, Mal,” I admitted. “Why would he be into me? Isn’t that… creepy?”
Creepy Carl, the Idaho insurance salesman, had been into me.
My mother had told me I was legal, eighteen, and told me I was missing out and should have some fun.
With her boyfriend. She didn’t care that the guy we’d moved to Idaho to live with wanted to fuck her daughter.
Her hippie free spirited personality didn’t think anything of it.
I had. I still thought of it six years later.
How freaked out I’d been. The guy had been a walking red flag and my mother hadn’t seen it.
Although, her idea of red flag and mine were completely different because she’d nurtured the idea and encouraged the “open and free exchange of pleasure.” That was why I bought a one-way ticket back to Hunter Valley and moved in with my grandmother.
She was amazingly enough, a famous–at least in the art world–art historian of medieval art and traveled all over Europe giving talks, working on sites, and teaching with the university.
She was rarely home, but I never minded.
Her home was familiar, enduring and safe. And without my mother.
So I’d settled in and never left. Hunkered down in small town life and became… safe. Careful. All the adjectives everyone in town used about me. Because whenever my mother returned, which was often enough to keep her fresh in everyone’s minds, I wanted it to be blatantly obvious we were dissimilar.
“Because you’re gorgeous with that curly red hair and sex appeal,” Mallory added.
“Sex appeal?” I countered, looking down at my work outfit.
She swirled her finger in the air. “Making everyone wonder. You can’t hide that hot bod behind a cardigan. Ask Eve Hunter.”
I thought of the Steaming Hotties coffee shop owner and had never seen her in a cardigan. But she did have a gorgeous new boyfriend.
“If he’s all growly and intense over you, then he’s smart. You’re a catch and deserve someone who acts that way.”
“He looks like a lumberjack,” I said, steering clear of that not-safe-for-the-children’s-section conversation.
“He cuts down trees for a living,” she whispered. “He is a lumberjack. That’s so hot. And you know what they say about everything being proportional. Does he have big hands?”
“Dinner plates,” I said immediately.
“Then you know he’s got a big–”
I covered her mouth with my hand, glanced around as if we might get caught just talking about a dick. “Shh.”
Her eyes were amused and the second I pulled my hand away, she asked, “What are you going to do about it?”
I sniffed, pushed my glasses up. “Nothing, of course. Doing something about it is not me. I do not throw myself at men. What would people think?”
Mallory was in a relationship with the reasonably-new town doctor, who was maybe a decade older than she.
I hadn’t met Theo James, but she’d told me all about how they met.
How she’d only had sex once before and Theo had volunteered to teach her some things.
I’d confided I was a virgin because if anyone, she understood since we were close in age and she finally had sex–besides the fumbling, first time at sixteen–recently.
“Who cares what people think?”
“I do!”
“Every woman in town would tell you to go for it. To take one for Team Womankind. Maybe it’s time to let the you who gets eaten by the big lumberjack out to play.”
I was… on edge. Confused and had no idea what to do.
I always knew what to do because I kept everything in order.
Tidy. Before now, it had been easy to ignore guys.
To think about sex somewhat detached, because none of them had ever given me…
zings in my things. Creepy Carl, who liked the idea of a mother/daughter sandwich had shut all the zings down where a guy was concerned.
I was intrigued by sex, read about it. A lot. I was a librarian, after all. I knew what it would be like but had never been interested. That didn’t mean I didn’t orgasm. I had sex toys. Vibrators. Dildos. Used them solo with a healthy frequency. I was a virgin, but I wasn’t a clueless one.
Now, all of a sudden, a man burst into my life–literally and figuratively–and I was all out of sorts. And I’d be all out of panties if I kept thinking about him and how his beard would feel against my inner thighs.
Wrong. So wrong!
“It doesn’t matter. His son will pay Fred’s vet bills and that will be it. I’m sure I’ll never see Daniel Pearson again.”
“Miss Melly! Are you two talking about boys?”
It was Theresa, a third grader who asked, but everyone in the group was giggling and waiting for the answer.
I gave Mallory a look and returned to the multipurpose room.
“We were looking up stories about lumberjacks,” Mallory said, following behind and giving Theresa a googly face, the kind one made to look weird in a group photo.
Everyone laughed and made various funny faces back.
Mallory turned to me. “We’re far from done on this topic. Drinks. Tonight. We’re hashing this out.”
“It’s my meal prep night.”
The kids chattered amongst themselves.
Her eyes widened. “Meal prep night? Hell, no. My brother’s bar, seven o’clock.”
Clearly she didn’t plan her meals for the week or understand the importance of a routine.
“I love lumberjacks!” Theresa said gleefully. “They know how to swing an ax.”
Mallory gave me a pointed look before she faced the group. Even an eight-year-old knew the talents of a bearded, big-handed lumberjack.
“Yeah, they’re really big. Like Paul Bunyan,” Keith added. He was in fifth grade and struggled with reading. The fact that he spoke about a fictional character made me feel good.
“Then let’s look up Paul Bunyan books and you can check some out,” I told him.
Keith looked eager and I nodded for him to go to the computer catalog to search.
Mallory came over. “See? Lumberjacks are kid approved.”
My heart raced just thinking about Daniel Pearson. He might be kid approved, but definitely not what I wanted to do with him. And that scared me.