Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
It was definitely a Daddy’s job to learn how to make his little boy happy.
But luckily, Paxton was saved because my burger arrived…and it was delivered by a battle-ax of a woman. Nancy seemed to like my cutie based on her glare and the heavy-handed way she set the plate down. “He likes my food, and he doesn’t complain or talk about his sex life.”
Saved by the death threat.
“Got it.”
No scaring off her new favorite customer.
And my mate.
Chapter 3
Paxton
If it was a date, he’d have called it a date, right?
Looking out the window of the small room I was renting, I should’ve been confident about the answer…but I wasn’t. I’d been second-guessing it all afternoon and I still hadn’t come to any conclusions. Fraser had talked about work and he’d talked about the locals. He’d even talked about our food while we’d eaten lunch.
But he hadn’t explained what we were doing.
Yes, we were going to talk about the plans for my research and for our hike in the morning, but he was making me dinner at his house and he’d been wearing a look.
A mischievous one.
Where the rest of the town was weird and generally looked like they were confused puppies, Fraser’s smile wasn’t nearly as innocent.
But he hadn’t said it was a date.
So I shouldn’t have showered or dressed up, right?
Sending the wrong message wasn’t my goal, but I wasn’t sure what my goal should’ve been. Logically, the only thing I should’ve been worried about was making sure he could get me around their strangely confusing forests so I could find the specimens I was looking for.
Which, after meeting the locals, didn’t seem nearly as weird as they first had.
If bugs could disappear like they were from a sci-fi movie, this must have been where they’d originated.
Yes, that should’ve been the only thing I was focusing on, but Fraser was taking up entirely too much of my ability to think…and most of that was about if this was a date or not.
He’d asked me to get food with him.
He’d asked about my work and my food preferences.
He’d understood why I shouldn’t have to take random surveys.
He’d even already known what I liked for breakfast.
In any other situation, I would’ve labeled him a stalker for knowing that, but no one in town seemed to have a job, so the gossip ran rampant. I shouldn’t know as much about the mysterious Lorne as I did, but I hoped he’d had fun being ravished in jail.
As excited as everyone had been for him, that had to be consensual.
Ugh.
The town had safewords.
I wasn’t so uneducated about modern life that I hadn’t realized what red meant, but I really didn’t like the questions it was bringing up.
I also didn’t appreciate what it was starting to say about the questions I’d been asked over the past couple of days.
“Oh, he’s here.” Taking a deep breath as an older model Jeep pulled up to the bed-and-breakfast-style boarding house I was staying at, I let it out slowly and quickly gave myself a pat down to make sure I had everything before I grabbed my bag and headed out.
Thankfully, the place wasn’t full at the moment and I managed to escape without running into my temporary landlady, so I wasn’t too frazzled by the time I walked out the front door. She asked strange questions too, but I was putting up with it because several of her recent guests complained about the odd bugs they’d seen.
Sadly, I hadn’t seen the bugs, but I had been subject to so many interviews I was starting to wonder if I should be getting paid to stay there and not the other way around. She was definitely getting a lot of social credit out of my stay and I wasn’t sure I appreciated it.
Especially at her rates.
But Fraser climbing out of the Jeep chased all those thoughts away with one wicked grin. “Eager for dinner or to escape all the nosy questions?”
“Both.” Oops. “I mean, lunch was a long time ago and I’ve done a lot of work this afternoon.”
The first rule of fieldwork was not to piss off the locals, but I was starting to think that wasn’t a reasonable one in my current predicament. His laughter just made it clearer I was going to have to reevaluate my rules.
“You’d have more privacy if you were staying at one of the motels by the interstate or looked into one of the cabin rentals.” Fraser took my problem seriously as he came around the front of the Jeep to meet me. “I think there are even some house rentals that are still available. We could find you a good deal.”
That was nice of him.
Oh.
He was planning on opening my door.
How nice was he planning on being?
“I…I was staying here because there were some reports of the beetles I’ve been looking for. But so far, I haven’t seen any.” And the reviews for some of the local house rentals were stranger than the ones for the place I was currently staying in. “But depending on how long my stay ends up being, I might relocate.”