Our Kind of Love (Men of the Misfit Inn Book 2)

by Kait Nolan

  “I meant after that. Once we figured out why she wasn’t sleeping.”

  Emerson slid in beside Caleb, slipping her arm around his waist and pressing close. “I feel like we’re going to need a cheat sheet for how to do that. This one already shows signs of wanting to snuggle more than eat.” As if to prove it, Micah turned his little face into Caleb’s chest, blinking up at him with his mother’s eyes. Caleb thought his heart might just explode with love for them both.

  This was his life now, discussing breastfeeding and childcare with his sisters and their spouses, as everyone milled around the back deck and yard, while burgers cooked on the grill and Mooch ran around with Athena’s boys, Jesse and Dylan. He loved every minute.

  This cookout was the first big family visit since the baby was born. Emerson wasn’t yet up to long hours in the car, so everyone had come to them for the day, showering love and family and bringing enough food to fill the fridge and freezer for two months. His wife—that would never get old—who’d been so used to doing everything on her own, had cried with gratitude.

  “Man, I’m taking notes,” Kyle said. “I don’t know the first thing about babies. Another six months doesn’t seem like enough time to learn.”

  Abbey leaned in to kiss his cheek. “You’ve got the husband thing down pretty well. You’ll do fine.”

  Kyle beamed at his wife. “You make that easy.”

  So many years wasted there, but at least they’d finally found their way to where they should’ve been all along. Caleb supposed things usually had a way of working out in the end.

  Xander laughed. “You might miss the road when you get to diaper duty.”

  “Nah. The staff maybe,” Kyle conceded.

  “Speaking of staff, has anybody heard from Griff now that he’s working with Wyatt on that big restoration job?” Porter asked.

  “You mean you haven’t been watching the show?” Emerson asked.

  “No. Why?”

  Caleb rolled his eyes and laughed. “DIWyatt is now a watch party event in our house.”

  Logan looked over from flipping burgers on the grill. “Are y’all that big into home improvement?”

  “I mean, that’s fun,” Emerson conceded. “But we’re totally watching the sparks between Wyatt and Deanna.”

  Kyle’s brows shot up. “Wyatt’s got a thing with my publicist?”

  “Has to,” Fiona declared. “They’re electric on screen.”

  “All those long looks when they think the other isn’t watching.” Ari clasped her hands over her heart and sighed. “And you know he wants to do whatever he can to bring that house back to glory, just for her.”

  “It’s a hell of a house,” Kennedy said.

  “It’s a money pit, is what it is,” Athena pointed out.

  Porter shrugged. “Nobody buys a house like that unless it’s a labor of love.”

  “You think they’ll actually pull off the transformation?” Kennedy wondered.

  As Micah began to fuss, Emerson automatically reached for him, sliding him gently free of the sling and cuddling him close. “It’ll be a showplace if they do.”

  “Speaking of, there’s a new episode that just dropped,” Fiona said. “Entertainment while you nurse.”

  “I’m down for that. Logan, how are those burgers coming?”

  “Five more minutes.”

  It took more like fifteen for everybody to troop inside, grab a plate, and fix their dinner, but eventually Emerson settled in her rocker, the baby nursing under a blanket. The rest of the family sat, sprawled, or perched around the room as Fiona queued up the latest installment of DIWyatt.

  The house was in that worse-before-better phase, but Caleb was starting to see some progress. A lot of the blight had been stripped away or ripped out, and there were signs that the restoration portion would soon begin. They sat through the updated tour and the one-on-one candid camera segments where Wyatt, Deanna, and other crew talked about one project or another.

  Deanna was in the midst of one of these when Wyatt popped into the frame. “I want to show you something.”

  She went brows up as he extended a hand to her. “Okay.”

  Even Caleb couldn’t deny the chemistry as she reached out to take it. Across the room, Fiona and Ari stomped their feet and squealed.

  The scene cut to another room. Caleb wasn’t sure which. There was no audio here, and the shot wasn’t as clean and dead-on as most of the other footage, as if someone had set this camera up, but it wasn’t quite ready to use yet. Wyatt and Deanna didn’t seem to know it was there.

  Caleb wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Just the very edge of something wooden showed in the frame. But clearly, it meant a lot to Deanna. She covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes full of emotion as she stepped out of the shot, hands extended toward whatever the thing was.

  “What is that?” Pru asked.

  “A bed?” Kennedy suggested.

  “A dresser maybe?” Porter offered.

  As she came back into frame, her lips clearly forming a thank you, tears began sliding down her cheeks.

  “Oh, hell. That can’t be good,” Xander said.

  “Ten bucks he panics,” Kyle predicted.

  “He’s not going to panic,” Emerson insisted.

  And he didn’t. Faced with Deanna’s tears, Wyatt reached out and pulled her into a hug, wrapping around her as she spoke words they couldn’t hear, and her shoulders shook. He tipped her face up, wiping away her tears with his thumb before dipping his head and kissing her.

  Fi and Ari leapt up, fists pumping in the air. “Called it!”

  So they had.

  It looked like the next of Joan’s boys was ready to fall.

  Sneak Peek Baby, It’s Cold Outside

  Rescue My Heart Book #1

  A grumpy lumberjack

  Former Army Ranger Harrison Wilkes isn’t actually a lumberjack, but he's doing his best impression while hiding out in the mountains of East Tennessee. He needs to rest, recharge, and stay the hell away from people, while he wrestles with ghosts from his past and figures out his future. Neither includes a snowbound rescue of his favorite author.

  A runaway writer

  Ivy Blake is on a deadline. Her hero is MIA, and she's desperate to find some peace, quiet, and inspiration to get her book—and her life—back on track. She doesn’t plan on driving off a mountain. Or the mysterious stranger who shows up to save her.

  Who’s rescuing who?

  When Winter Stormageddon traps them together, Ivy finds the inspiration she didn’t know she needed in her real-life hero. As more than the fireplace heats up his one-man cabin, they both find far more than they bargained for. This intuitive author just might have the answers Harrison's looking for, but will their newfound connection survive past the storm?

  “Where are your pages, Ivy?”

  Ivy Blake winced at the snap of her agent’s voice on the other end of the phone. Marianne was pulling out her stern, mom-of-three tone. That was never good. “They’re coming.”

  At some theoretical, future time that was actually true.

  “You’ve been saying that for weeks. And you’ve been avoiding me. You only do that when the words aren’t flowing.”

  You have no idea.

  “The book’s been giving me a smidge of trouble.” Understatement of the century. “But I promise, I’m nearly done.” Flagrant lie. Ivy wondered if Marianne’s Momdar was sounding an alarm. Ivy’s own mama had an Eyebrow of Doom that could be heard over the phone when engaged.

  “You have to give me something to give to Wally. I can’t hold him off much longer.”

  Walter Caine—who inexplicably went by Wally, a fact that made it utterly impossible to take him seriously—was currently at the top of Ivy’s avoid-at-all-costs list. Her editor was brilliant but a bit like a banty rooster when he got angry. He had deadlines. Of course, Ivy understood that. Everything about publishing involved deadlines. He’d absolutely blow a gasket if he knew she was still
on Chapter One. The thirteenth version.

  It was probably a sign.

  “Next week.” Was this what it felt like to be in debt to a bookie? Making absurd promises in hopes of avoiding broken kneecaps or cement shoes? Except in this case it was Ivy’s career, not her actual life, in danger.

  “Ivy.” Marianne drew her name out to four syllables, which was tantamount to being middle-named by her mama.

  Ivy hunched her shoulders. “I swear I’m finishing up the book. In fact, I’m taking a special trip for the express purpose of focusing on nothing but that until it’s done.”

  Where the hell had that come from? She had no such plans. Apparently in lieu of offering up reasonable plot, her brain had decided to just spew spontaneous, bald-faced lies.

  Her agent sighed. “Fine. How can I reach you?”

  In for a penny…

  “Oh, well, you can’t. There’s no internet up there, and I was warned that cell service is spotty. The cabin has absolute privacy and no distractions. It’s perfect.”

  Actually, something like that did sound perfect. If she went totally off the grid, Marianne and Wally wouldn’t know where to send the hitman when she missed her deadline. The one that had already been pushed back once.

  You’ve never missed a final deadline, and you’re not going to start now.

  Marianne offered another beleaguered sigh. “Find an internet connection and check in on Monday or I’m hunting you down, understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ivy had no doubt she meant it. Despite her trio of children and the stable of other writers she managed, Marianne would absolutely get herself on a plane and show up on Ivy’s doorstep if she thought it would get results.

  “I’ll do what I can to hold off Wally. This morning’s starred review at Kirkus for Hollow Point Ridge should appease him for a little while. You know he loves nothing more than seeing you rack up acclaim.”

  “Because acclaim means dollar signs for us all,” Ivy recited. As if she could forget that it was more than just her depending on income from her books.

  “Damn straight. I forwarded the review to you. Check your email before you go,” Marianne ordered.

  She’d already seen the review this morning. Somebody had posted it in her fan group, which had generated a discussion thread that was already twenty pages deep about where she planned to go with the series next. But bringing that up would only prolong this conversation.

  “Will do.”

  “Happy writing.”

  For just a moment, Ivy considered coming clean and telling Marianne the stark, unvarnished truth. Her agent was, ultimately, meant to be her advocate. But right now, she was only more pressure. So Ivy held in her snort of derision as she hung up the phone and tossed it on her desk.

  It had been a long damned time since she’d been happy writing. The truth was, she had a raging case of writer’s block, and she was already weeks past her initial deadline. That wasn’t like her at all. She was a machine. Her first three books had poured out of her. The next three were each successively bigger, deeper, harder. And with each had come more success and higher expectations from her publisher, who wanted to capitalize on momentum to maximize sales. That was a business decision on their part. She was a commodity. Ivy understood that. And up to now, she’d been able to work with it.

  But along with the professional pressures had come the rabid excitement of her fans. They loved the world she created, the characters she’d given them, and not a day went by when she didn’t get emails and messages on social media demanding to know when the next book was coming because OMG they needed it yesterday! They had no idea the months, sometimes years of work that went into each book. What ate up her entire life occupied theirs for mere hours or days. And their insatiable enthusiasm was just one more stone piling on and crushing her with stress.

  This book wasn’t like the other six in her best-selling series, and she just hadn’t found the right hook yet.

  She would. Of course, she would. She just needed some more time and less pressure.

  “Why don’t you ask for world peace, while you’re at it?”

  Dropping into her office chair, Ivy shoved back from the desk and rolled across her office to the massive whiteboard occupying one wall. At this stage, the whole surface should’ve been covered with color-coded sticky notes detailing the assorted character arcs and how they drove and were driven by the action of the external plot. But it was empty other than the scrawl of “Michael” at the top in red marker. Below it a bright yellow note read, You are a stubborn, taciturn asshole, who won’t talk to me. In a fit of pique and stress cleaning earlier in the week, she’d stripped away version number twelve of her plot. Now she couldn’t face the blank space.

  Page fright was so much a real thing.

  Maybe she should get away. Find one of those out-of-the-way cabins to rent, with no phone, no internet, no way to be crushed under the weight of other people’s expectations. Maybe then she could hear herself think.

  Rolling back to her computer, she opened a browser, compulsively clicking on the little envelope that told her she had seventy-nine unread messages.

  She’d cleared her inbox this morning.

  “Why do I do this to myself?”

  She started to close it out when a subject line caught her attention.

  Come visit the brand new spa at The Misfit Inn!

  She’d forgotten about The Misfit Inn. Last summer, she and several girlfriends had taken a weekend trip up there in spontaneous celebration of Deanna’s divorce. The owners had mentioned they were considering adding a spa. Ivy had signed up for the mailing list and promptly forgotten about it. She opened the email, feeling the first hints of excitement as she read it. Okay, maybe that was desperation. But really? A spa? One set right in the gorgeous Smoky Mountains, just four short hours away? She desperately needed to relax. It had to be a sign from the Universe.

  Someone answered on the second ring. “Thank you for calling The Misfit Inn. This is Pru. How can I help you?”

  Ivy remembered Pru, the kind-hearted woman who’d done everything possible to make the inn feel like home.

  “This is Ivy Blake. I don’t know if you remember me, but a bunch of girlfriends and I stayed with y’all last summer for a Thank God I’m Divorced party weekend—”

  “Deanna’s group! Yes, certainly we remember y’all.”

  “Well, I got the email about the opening of the spa, and it did say call to ask about booking specials that covered the inn and spa, so here I am.”

  “Wonderful!” The genuine warmth in Pru’s voice had some of the knots relaxing. “How many?”

  “Just me.”

  “In need of some pampering?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Okay then. When were you wanting to come?”

  The sooner the better. “Um…today?”

  “Today! Good gracious. Y’all are all about the spontaneity aren’t you?”

  Sure, let’s call it that. “I know it’s last-minute, but I was hoping to book two weeks.”

  “We can certainly accommodate that. But you should know before you make the drive that we’re supposed to be having some really serious winter weather. Full-on snow and ice. The drive is liable to be pretty nasty and there’s a really good chance you could get snowed in.”

  Snowed in at an inn and spa for two weeks, far away from everyone who knew her? “That sounds absolutely perfect. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  Grief smelled of onions, cheese, and cream of something soup. Multiple tables groaned under the weight of death casseroles along one wall of the church fellowship hall. The scent of it wafted over as Harrison Wilkes walked in, simultaneously curdling his stomach and making it growl. A quick scan of the room told him the widow hadn’t made it over from the cemetery yet, but he spotted the man he’d come to support hovering near the dessert table. Careful not to make eye contact with the other mourners, Harrison wove his way through the crowd.

  If possible
, Ty looked worse than he had during the service. But then, he was here against medical advice and had served as a pall bearer. Sweat beaded along his brow. His shoulder had to be hurting like a son of a bitch from over-exertion.

  “Sit your ass down before you fall down, Brooks.”

  Ty lifted bloodshot eyes to Harrison’s. “You’re not my CO.”

  “I’m still your friend.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “You did your duty to Garrett. Don’t you go blowing all the work you’ve done in PT by pushing yourself too far.”

  Ty’s pale face turned mulish, but before he could pop off, another familiar voice interrupted.

  “Step aside, y’all. I’ve got food to add to the table.”

  Sebastian Donnelly muscled his way past, a casserole dish in hand. Its contents smelled both familiar and noxious.

  “Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Harrison said.

  Sebastian plunked the dish down on the table and took off the foil. “My famous barbeque beef casserole.”

  “More like infamous,” Ty said. “Only you would try to make a casserole out of MREs.”

  “I tried to talk him out of it.” Porter Ingram joined the group. “We all know how much Garrett hated that shit.”

  Sebastian straightened, suddenly sober. “Yeah, but he’d hate this damned wake even more.”

  They all lapsed into silence, aware of the dubious privilege of standing here able to bitch and moan about the wake. A privilege Garrett didn’t have.

  Everything about this sucked. Funerals sucked to begin with, no matter who they were for. They sucked worse when it was a friend. Someone you’d fought alongside, who’d saved your ass, who should’ve made it home. And they sucked most when they brought up old shit you were still trying to move past. There were too many ghosts stirred up for anybody to be comfortable.