No Perfect Hero
Nicole Snow
About the Book
Bossy. Heart of stone. Snarly mess next door.
Send help before I'm prick-matized...
My next big mistake has a name.
Warren Ford. Best kept secret in this weird little town.
An alpha's alpha. Spartan abs. Too blunt for everybody's good.
Moody, broody, mysterious, and totally up in my business.
I thought Heart's Edge would be safe.
No two timing exes. No pink slips. No hulking, loud, inked up – Oh. Right.
Leave it to a badass to bring the drama piping hot.
Then he goes and saves a cat who means the world to my little niece.
Making me a mushy little puddle of wishes.
Wishing I didn't know his savage kiss like my own reflection.
Or how erasing tears must be his superpower.
Wishing I'd never poked his scary past.
Or heard him growl when he swears it's not our future.
There's no way this works.
He's no white knight. I'm no princess.
I need to go. He says stay.
Even our sheet-ripping nights can't work miracles.
Only an answer as the danger closes in.
Is Warren my perfect slice of hero?
1
Drop Down With The Top Down (Haley)
There’s nothing like a drive across the Pacific Northwest with the top down and the summer wind in your hair to make a girl feel human again.
Sure, it’s a little bit of a cliché.
The typical girls’ road trip, me and my niece in a convertible sipping strawberry smoothies every hundred miles, the sun beaming down on us like Zeus blowing a kiss. It's too perfect.
You'd almost think I'm totally not running away from my problems, darting off to the middle of nowhere to find myself after a colossal heartbreak.
But when you walk in on your ex-fiancé with your ex-best-friend-ex-bridesmaid in a fitting room with the ugly bridesmaid’s dress you paid for hiked up around her hips and his untailored tux down around his ankles...
You earn the right to be a cliché.
I’d say I’ve earned a lot more than that.
Especially after I found my layoff notice sitting in my inbox.
Right-sizing. That's what they called the terminations at the massive faceless mega-corporation I called my day job. I was out the door with an awkward hug and a mumbled half apology from my supervisor.
Then – oh, but then – everything really went to hell in a handbasket.
My side gig – my true passion – got tanked when the gallery I’d been working with practically pitched my paintings in a dumpster.
Low sales, they said. Lack of interest.
They might as well have pulled an Angela Bassett.
Get your shit, get your shit, and get out.
So I got my shit.
I packed it in the back of my sister’s borrowed classic convertible – a pretty midnight blue shimmer 1988 Ford Mustang. I kidnapped my sister’s ten-year-old daughter, Tara, because she’s better company than some backstabbing, fiancé-stealing best friend anyway.
And now that I’m knee-deep into being a cliché, I wish we were leaving Vegas.
But we're actually leaving Seattle so I can start a new life in Chicago. We'll steal a spare room at my old college friend Julie’s house for a month or two until I can get a new job and pay the rent on a place of my own.
I’ll give the kid back eventually, I guess.
In a few weeks, when her parents get home from Hawaii.
I’ll care about responsibility later.
Right now, I’ve got the mountains on the horizon, tall trees all around, the wind in my hair, the sun on my back, and enough of a grudge against life that I’m good with not making big decisions for a while.
I’ll figure out what to do after I get to Chicago and see what the local job ads serve up. It’s a big city. Lots of opportunities.
Until then, I’ll enjoy the drive. The open road.
Sweet freedom I've prepaid for with a savage bee sting to the heart.
Tara snoozes half asleep in the passenger seat, her dark brown hair whipping across her face. She’s a sun baby, dozing in the heat, curled up like a cat perched on a summer stone.
The radio shifts as we pass out of one zone into another, and she stirs at the crackle, yawning and scrubbing at one eye. “Auntie Hay?” she mumbles.
I hate when she calls me that. Mostly because it makes me feel old when my first instinct is to say hay is for horses, baby – and twenty-five is way too young to be throwing out that spinster crap.
But she’s too adorable for me to twig her about it, so I glance over from watching the road, offering her a smile. “Morning.”
She blinks at me drowsily. “It’s afternoon...isn't it?”
“Not to you, apparently.” I check the GPS.
We’re just past Lolo National Forest and Missoula after a quick pit stop in Glacier National Park for Tara's sake. We swung up to Whitefish to take in the scenery. Next stop should be Billings. There's maybe a day or two of driving to Chicago after that, but it’s not time to look for a hotel for the night just yet.
Tara's little hand goes over her yawning mouth.