 by Lili Valente.jpg)
Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
I also managed to get into the kind of co-ed naked trouble with him that involved a nurse, a shotgun, a feral turkey, and a pair of pliers. But all's well that ends well, and we already have plans to meet up again.
It's early days, but I'm already thinking Drew might be The One.
Then I show up to my new nanny gig and who steps out on the front porch, holding the cutest little redhead in the world?
Yep, that's right. Drew is Andrew McGuire, my new boss, and he's not about to date the nanny. His daughter's happiness and stability are his top priority.
Considering I just fell in love with this precious, motherless girl at first sight, I would be inclined to agree with him. If it weren't for one thing—my heart already has a Drew-shaped hole in it.
I'm pretty sure I would miss him, even if we'd never met.
But how to convince this amazing man that his heart—and his family—are safe with me? And that he should be my bosswith benefits? Forever.
Welcome to Bad Dog where the men are incredible, the animals are ridiculous, and the happy ever afters are super emotional and steamy! Boss Without Benefits is a Standalone Romance with Spice!
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
MARGARET TATUM O’LEARY
A woman in search of a fresh start
where no one knows her name…
Every small town has that one family. That one, marches-to-their-own-kazoo family that’s been the butt of town jokes for years.
In the O’Learys’ case, it’s more like a century.
My great-grandmother moved to Fair Shot, Kentucky in the 1920s, presumably hoping for a “fair shot” at a new life with her American husband. But thanks to her thick Irish accent and habit of saluting magpies to ward off bad luck, she was pegged as an odd one from the start. Then she started attending the funerals of people she didn’t know—another very Irish thing to do, she swore to my embarrassed great-grandfather—and quickly found herself uninvited to every social event not held at the Catholic Church.
My grandmother didn’t have a shot of growing up to be anything but a spiritualist who talked to ghosts way before that was cool. After my grandfather died of a heart attack, she moved to the forest at the edge of town and reared my mother like a wild fairy.
Mom got knocked-up at seventeen by a guy who bailed, leaving Gram, Mom, and a string of deadbeat boyfriends to do their best with me. Spoiler alert: the boyfriends didn’t care about raising a toddler. As far as I could tell, they didn’t care about anything but drinking beer and playing video games.
Then Mom met Bruce, my sweet stepdad who mounts dead birds for a living. And there, in the woods, they brought forth six more children who they allowed to run weird and free, no matter what anyone in town had to say about it.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The O’Learys are the punchline of every Fair Shot town joke, the first suspects when strange crimes are committed—Gram did steal a headstone once but took it back when she was done cleansing it of bad vibes—and the last to be offered good jobs or juicy promotions.
By the time I left, I’d been working at the local daycare for five years and was still the lowest paid worker in the center. I’d been passed up for advancement so many times I had Candace, my supervisor’s, “So and So is just a better fit” lecture memorized. I showed up early and left late almost every day, leaving my heart on the playmat with those kiddos, but it didn’t make a difference.
No one seemed to be able to see past the O’Leary last name or the rumors that my six siblings all have different fathers.
Which isn’t true—I’m the only one with a different father; Bruce sired the rest of this generation’s weirdos—but even if it were true, that’s no reason to deny me, or my mother, career advancement. Mom’s been a kickass nurse at the same urgent care clinic since my little sister Molly was a baby and still hasn’t made shift supervisor.
Molly is now twenty-four and has a baby of her own.
It was at Molly’s baby shower that I finally realized I couldn’t stay in Fair Shot. I couldn’t take being judged by my flaming red curls and last name for the rest of my life.
Which is why I’m here, in Bad Dog, Minnesota, hundreds of miles from home, about to dive headfirst into my fresh start at a lakefront bar full of drop-dead gorgeous ice fishermen.
Ice fishing! That’s a cool thing you can’t do in Kentucky.
I’m fascinated by the frost in their beards when they swing through the pub door, and they look pretty interested in the new girl. These men are actually smiling at me. Smiling, without a snarky “she’s one of those O’Leary girls” look in their eye. One even bought me a martini and nicely backed off when I said forty years was too much of an age gap for me.
But props to grandpa for shooting his shot!
I can’t remember the last time someone bought me a drink. The best I could hope for back home was to sneak into the local Eagles club after everyone else was too tipsy to notice I was there. All O’Learys were banned from the club when the owner’s wife had a falling out with my grandmother over a spiritual reading gone wrong. Apparently, Gram correctly deduced that the woman’s husband was cheating on her, the woman incorrectly decided he was cheating with Gram, and our family was denied beer forever more.
The Eagles was the only place in Fair Shot that served drinks. We had one bar, two restaurants, and roughly ten thousand horse stables.
That’s it.
In Bad Dog, they have a super cute Victorian downtown with shops, restaurants, and coffeehouses, and a waterfront area with pubs and a restaurant called The Dirty Taco. The name sounds filthy (in more ways than one), but the fish tacos are legitimately delicious.
Good thing, since I’ll be staying in the apartment above the restaurant for the next month, until I’m able to sort out a long-term living situation.