Dad bod wolf shifter, p.1
Dad Bod: Wolf Shifter, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Bella Blair
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact [include publisher/author contact info].
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Talina Saine Bookin It Designs
Edited: By Marcelle's Books checked
ASIN: B0CSB6R4XQ
ISBN: 9798879629569
Gossip is the number one lifeline in a midsize town where not many days pass without running into somebody I didn’t know. Which was why I was surprised when I saw the first construction truck rumble by my living room window.
Nobody had told me that Brenda’s old house had finally been sold.
After years of standing vacant, I wondered who bought the dilapidated property and who was able to afford that much money to fix it up.
Once upon a time, Brenda’s old farmhouse had been part of my land. One of my great-great-grandfathers built a house within walking distance of the one I lived in and given it to his son to keep him and his new family close. Years and a recession later, the farm had been abandoned by my cousin Brenda and her husband when they weren’t able to afford the property taxes any longer.
Most of the land surrounding the farm had been sold off long before Brenda defaulted and now, like mine, it was nothing but a five-acre horse property. The only difference was that the two houses stood closer together than any of the others on the surrounding properties.
Curiously I opened the window to surreptitiously stare outside, deciding that my front yard needed some work—a task suddenly more important than cleaning my house, my original goal for today. It wasn’t often that I, as a single mother, was given the opportunity to clean my house from top to bottom, but I decided that could wait.
Gardening kit in hand, I walked outside and enjoyed the warm summer breeze before my eyes followed yet another construction truck, followed by… was that a black Mercedes SUV?
I didn’t know much about cars, but my boss bought one of those a couple of years ago and boasted about how he put two hundred thousand dollars down for it. Now in my humble opinion, it wasn’t a great idea to roll up in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar SUV when you gave shots to a bunch of cows, or put good old Felix down, or were called in to assist in a foaling for a bunch of farmers who mostly lived hand to mouth, but that was just me.
I didn’t voice my misgivings to Doctor Norton, but when I presented him with a stack of overdue invoices that were never paid, I think he perhaps got the picture. Clearly some of the farmers thought that a vet who could afford a Mercedes SUV didn’t necessarily need to be paid. He quickly proceeded to buy another old, rusted pickup truck which he now used for his home visits.
The SUV was mostly parked at his house, reserved for Sunday drives to the big city. This black SUV, however, looked even bigger and shinier than Doctor Norton’s, making me wonder who was going to be my new neighbor.
I didn’t bear him or her any ill will. The house had stood empty for many years and Brenda had long moved on with her husband. I also wasn’t one to hold on to any family traditions, citing that the house had belonged to my family for generations. I was just glad some life would finally return to the old walls. I had always liked Brenda’s house better than mine, the layout was much more practical.
The houses were close, but not close enough for me to make out much more than that it was a man who exited the SUV, a very tall man. He greeted the other men piling out of the pickup trucks and together they walked up to the house, causing me to lose sight of them.
My phone dinged, announcing a text from Kelly, another one of my many cousins.
You’ll never guess.
Brenda’s house sold.
…
Kelly was typing and I smiled to myself thinking that I had managed to take the wind out of her sails. Something that didn’t happen very often.
How did you know?
LOL saw the construction trucks drive by
I probably shouldn’t tell you this
Do tell
This guy? He’s hot!!!!! 🔥
She must have seen him when he signed the papers at our local bank where she works, I mused as I waited for another reply because the three dots were blinking.
Pulling out a weed, I watched the men emerge from the house, only to vanish around the corner again.
With a ding, a picture appeared on my phone and I dropped my shovel. Kelly was right, this guy was hot. As in HOT! He stood over six feet tall with the body of a linebacker. He wore some kind of expensive suit that hinted at a thick body, but not consisting purely of muscles as the glimpse of a slightly fuller face indicated.
Just my type. And the type of a million other women, my mind supplied, all a hundred times better looking than you.
A deep-sinking feeling settled in my gut at these thoughts. Thoughts put in my head throughout years of mental abuse by my ex. I hated that even after all this time, and months of therapy, one small thought like this dampened and darkened my mood for the rest of the day.
I managed to type a flame emoji into the phone as the expected response for Kelly and took a deep breath in to clear my head. Unfortunately right then I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and cringed.
It was Friday; the last time I had washed my hair was Tuesday. Even in the reflection the roots looked oily and in dire need of at least a wash, if not a full toner treatment to make them shiny again.
Fridays were my day off, and like every other weekday during the summer break, Tiff was with my mother, giving me a whole day to do what needed to be done—like clean my house or spy on my new neighbor. In my oldest, threadbare shorts and an even older, cut-out shirt that I have owned since high school.
Even under the wide clothes I looked in dire need of having to lose ten pounds, alright, fifteen. Twenty would definitely be enough. It was hard though, with an active six-year-old who refused to eat anything but mac and cheese, nuggets, and donuts. Who has that kind of willpower not to eat what was left of the donut or to steal a teaspoon (or three or four) of mac and cheese? Or the energy to cook two different meals? Not me, that’s who.
The highlight of my day was sitting with Tiff in front of the TV and watching Tangled for the umpteenth time while consuming large amounts of said meals or snacks.
And no, I’m not a bad mother. We did eat healthy foods as well, usually on the weekends when I had the energy to cook. I called those the bargaining days, because if Tiff ate all of her vegetables I would make mac and cheese the next day.
Unfortunately, two days a week of healthy meals didn’t make up for all the crap I ate during the week. Not to mention all the goodies patients brought in. Apple pies, pastries, cookies, fudge— all things of which the smell alone made my waistline expand exponentially.
Also the pint of ice cream I sometimes ate after Tiff went to sleep when I felt sorry for myself while watching a Hallmark movie didn’t help. But come on, give a single mom a break.
At least I had my mother who helps out. Otherwise, I would have never had a moment of peace to myself ever since Stephen, my ex, left town with his new wife. The new, thin wife, who had just last year born him a son. We had a silent agreement: he didn’t pay me a penny in child support, and his role as a father was narrowed down to a present for Tiff on her birthday and Christmas, which were sent by mail. He never called, he never asked about her, and the only way I knew anything about him was either through Brenda who now lived in the same city as him, or the social media accounts I stalked him on under a different name. I only did that to keep track of him though, because I honestly didn’t care about his lousy ass whatsoever anymore.
Lousy ass, I snickered, it took me weeks of therapy to say it out loud, but it had been freeing and good when I did so the first time.
The sound of a very quiet car engine ripped me from my musings just in time to see the black Mercedes speed by, causing a plume of dust to rise and making me sneeze furiously. If that man was going to live here, he needed to learn to drive slower on these unpaved country roads. Especially when it hadn’t rained in a while.
The house was perfect, or would be once the contractors were done with all the repairs and changes I had requested.
For the first time in I didn’t know how many years—ten, fifteen?—I actually enjoyed my chosen profession as an architect again. For many years I had been renovating and redesigning old factories, apartment buildings, storage places, and so on and turned them into living playgrounds for the rich and famous in New York. I did what I had set out to do, made a name for myself, and became richer than my father.
When I reached my goal however, I hadn’t felt the elation I sought; instead, I felt hollow at the realization that yes, I surpassed my father in wealth, but by doing so I was on my way to becoming him. And that was unacceptable to me.
So I took a real hard look at my life.
Successful, famous, rich. Check all that.
Alone, bitter, arrogant, a bit out of shape, and not much of a father. Check that too.
After Raquel left me with our then-eight-month-old twin sons, I hired a variety of nanni es over the following four years, missing every major milestone in my sons’ lives. Oh, the nannies had been good; I received texts, even videos, of Finn rolling over, Liam saying his first word, Finn taking his first step, Liam growing some weird hair that look like fur.
I swallowed at the memory of that last one. It was all I could do to convince the then-nanny—I couldn’t remember her name for the life of me—not to go to the doctor with Liam. Instead, I raced home, paid her off, and from then on made sure to only hire nannies from our packs.
That didn’t work out well either. Lynette had been the only one who stayed more than a year, the others all were asked to leave once I realized their interest was not in Finn and Liam, but me. They wanted to snag the lone wolf, the alpha without a pack, the rich shifter. None of them stayed once it became clear that I wasn’t snaggable. That I wasn’t in the market for Mrs. Gavin Blackthorn the second.
My only consolation was that I did have some redeeming qualities. I tucked my sons in most nights and the weekends were strictly dedicated to them. We went to the zoo, Central Park, built boats and raced them across lakes. We went for weekend getaways in the forests, where I taught them how to shift and how to control their inner wolf, and sometimes we just stayed in and watched movies, read, or played with toys. Playing with Lego, of course, was my favorite.
It was on one of those weekends, when we built a farm with Lego bricks, that I realized I was the happiest right here, with my sons. Not in the office, not designing another art studio or apartment building for somebody else.
That night I dreamed for the first time in years of my mother, how she raised me as a single mom on her parents’ farm. How I had enjoyed the freedom of woods, lakes, and the wild while growing up, whereas my children were confined to asphalt and brick with an occasional outing where they were allowed to let their inner wolf out. I was depriving them of their birthright and it needed to end.
My firm was well established. I hired only the best architects and I knew they could run it themselves. They didn’t need me.
And so I began to dream. I dreamed of owning a farm of my own, where a creek ran behind the house with nothing but woods bordering it.
I hired a realtor to find me that place. She found it, but driving by it for the first time, I realized she had left one important part out. The house next door. Or better, the farm next door.
From what I remembered of farms and farmhouses, they were usually spread out, separated by acres, if not miles from one another. Not this one though. Maybe two acres lay between my house and the other.
No matter, I told myself. I would buy them out. I would get this house done first and then make an offer the owner wouldn’t be able to resist and have all this wide open land for myself and my sons, where they could be themselves and run.
Still, when I drove by it the second time, anger churned in my stomach. I barely threw a glimpse at the woman with the red hair gardening in the front yard. Penelope Madena, I knew her name was. Single mother of a daughter of six, Tiffany. She was inconsequential. My lawyers would approach her within the next week and make an offer she would be stupid to decline and within a month she would be gone.
For good measure, I hit the gas a bit harder than was appropriate for the gravel road and sped by her. Already forgetting about her when I saw the sprawling, two-story farmhouse coming up ahead of me. Faded green siding looked just as tired as the old grayish roof. The wraparound porch was in dire need of fixing and some of the columns needed to be repaired. In my mind’s eye I replaced the faded green with white and the roof with a darker gray, the same color as the window shutters I would have installed on all the windows. The front door would of course be red, just like the old barn to the left once it got its makeover.
“Good morning, Mr. Blackthorn,” Frank Connelly, the construction superintendent I had hired greeted me.
“Gavin, please,” I reiterated for the second time since meeting him. I was Mr. Blackthorn in the big city, here I just wanted to be Gavin, single father of two sons.
“Gavin.” He grinned jovially before introducing the other men to me who piled out of both his truck and the one that had followed him.
I always made it a point to be on friendly terms with the tradesmen and women I hired, so I committed their names to memory. Manuel the electrician, John the plumber, Allison the painter, Rex the drywaller, and Calvin the landscaper.
“She sure is a beauty,” Rex observed, walking closer to the front steps which seemed sturdy enough but in dire need of a new paint job.
Just like my realtor had promised, the keys were underneath a brand-new welcome mat—a gift from her. I unlocked and pushed open the squeaking door, while everybody pulled out notepads or tablets to make their first notes.
The realtor had already ensured that the electricity, water, and gas were on, making it easier to walk the house.
“I want this wall removed to have an open kitchen and family room.” I laid out my plans even though I was sure each of the men and women had already studied the ones I sent them.
“You said you wanted a subzero fridge here, Mr. Blackthorn?” Manuel checked when we entered the outdated kitchen.
“Call me Gavin,” I offered, meeting everyone’s eyes to make sure all of them got the message. “Yes, you’ll need to take this old pantry out to make it work.” I pointed at the wall-to-wall pantry.
“I also want to take this room out.” I turned their attention to the formal living room, which in my opinion was a waste of space. I would keep the formal dining room, but the living room would be replaced by a butler’s pantry and a walk-in food storage area.
As always, in my mind’s eye, the old walls faded, the cabinets retreated, making room for the renovations I saw in my head.
We made our way to the second story, which held the master bedroom, four other bedrooms, and three bathrooms.
“I want the Jack and Jill bathroom gone and each bedroom to have its own bathroom,” I explained.
As fun as a Jack and Jill bathroom was for kids, I was thinking years ahead when the boys would be teenagers and needed their privacy in the shower or otherwise.
The biggest changes would be made to the basement, where I envisioned a swimming pool, sauna and steam room, another bathroom, and a workout area—I really wanted to get back in shape.
I had wanted to move out into the country and simplify my lifestyle, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be without the amenities I was used to. This place down here would be my play area.
For the boys, I would have the loft built out into a playroom for now and a gaming room for when they got older.
“Alright, I think we’ve got it all down, Mr—eh, Gavin,” Frank corrected himself. “How many months were you think—”
I interrupted him, “Two weeks. You have two weeks.” And at his incredulous stare, I added, “Hire as many people as you need, work overtime. I don’t care about the cost, but get it done.”
The new school year began in three weeks, and I wanted Finn and Liam to start at the local preschool then, not weeks into it when all the other kids had a chance to get to know each other already. In my mind, Liam and Finn already had a handicap because this was a small town and I was sure most of the kids already knew each other, no reason to add to the disadvantage.
“That will be a lot of overtime,” Frank warned.
“I’m aware of that.” I held his glance.
“Well, we better get to work then.” Frank agreed exchanging glances with the others before he shook my hand. “I will keep you updated, Gavin. Will you be staying here?”
I shook my head. “No, I will return to the city.”
I had a few loose ends to tidy up and then we would be out of there. There was no reason to unsettle the boys twice by moving to two different homes in two weeks. As much as I wanted to live here right now, I would contain my impatience.
While the men and woman busied themselves by walking the house on their own, taking more notes, I stepped outside into the backyard. A wide creek flowed about five hundred feet from the large, covered back patio. A swing and wooden play fort were already ordered and should arrive within the next couple of days. The boys would love it. A sandbox I would build myself the first weekend after we moved in, I promised myself, looking very much forward to it.
