“Dance with me?”
“Do I look like I dance?” Hanna demands.
“Yup,” I tell her, and spin her out onto the dance floor.
We’re in a tent on the Hott property, and it’s Hanna’s granddad’s eighty-fifth birthday party.
Hanna is, true to her own self-assessment, not notably graceful, but I don’t give a crap. I just want her in my arms.
And I want to distract her from her sadness at the fact that her brothers aren’t here.
She tracked down the brother who’d gone off the grid and pleaded with all of them in email. And to be fair, their replies were kind. They all said they wanted to see her, that they missed her, that they were sorry things had worked out the way they had.
And they all said they couldn’t leave behind their busy lives to celebrate a man who, at best, had been a block of wood.
She resigned herself to that reality, but she’s a little melancholy tonight, so I’ve gone out of my way to cheer her up any way I can. Mostly that has involved bringing her sparkly drinks and plates of food, and forcing her to hit the piñata with me.
And most recently, coercing her into dancing.
Most of the women here are wearing short gowns, but Hanna is wearing this raspberry-colored sexy cropped halter-top-and-shorts combo that’s way sexier than any of the boring little-black-dresses that surround her. After discovering her bad, hot self, Hanna has fully embraced tighter and more revealing clothes, and I am completely here for it. Right now, for example, my hands are all over her mostly bare back. Her arms and shoulders are all silky, exposed skin. And the flower-scent of her wafts up and fills my brain, making me—
Well, making me hold her a little too close. I mean, not too close for my purposes… and not too close for hers (she wiggles naughtily against me)… but this is a family party, so when I start getting hard under my not-very-forgiving suit pants, I back the hell off and spin her away from me.
All around us people are having a blast. There may not be a lot of Hotts in attendance, but that’s more than made up for by the number of Wilders who are here, supporting Hanna and letting her know she’s surrounded by family and friends.
“Good thing it stayed warm,” Hanna says, smashing into my chest, rocking me back on my heels, and clutching my arm for balance. I stop us both from going down, while making sure to properly enjoy the feel of her body against mine. “Because I couldn’t wear a bra with this thing, and it would have been awful nipply. Not to mention all the goosebumps.”
“Nipply’s a bad thing?” I murmur, brushing my lips across her ear. Which causes a fine layer of gooseflesh to rise all over the bare parts of Hanna that I’m currently enjoying. I sigh. The party is starting to feel long, especially because I promised Hanna yet another shower afterwards. The term “giving head” has a very special meaning in our house, aka my apartment, where we now live together.
It’s summer now, and Bear and Cypress have gone back to Colorado. Hanna and I have stayed in touch with them—I think that despite everything that happened, you could say we’re all friends. They’ll be back this fall for a one-time special mushroom-gathering workshop.
After they left, Hanna and I hosted a foraging trip together. We fought about pretty much everything—where to go, how much gear to pack, the definition of “foraging”—but it was a huge success by every measure. Apparently—just like Lucy predicted—we’re our very own comedy show, as we discovered when we started putting videos we made together up on YouTube and TikTok. The videos have been wildly successful, and Lucy has all kinds of charts to show how many new signups have come in because of them. Gabe told me yesterday that Wilder is on track to make all of us very financially comfortable over the next several years. When I told that to Hanna she said, very dryly, that that would keep me in designer shirts for decades to come… and then she admitted that she likes the shirts, and then she removed the one I was wearing.
The lights dim, and Hanna’s aunt Meryl appears at the edge of the tent with a huge birthday cake absolutely covered with candles. Hanna and I are standing right next to Hanna’s granddad as the partygoers launch into “Happy Birthday” in the usual combination of twenty different keys. If I’m not completely mistaken, Fox Hott positively glows with pleasure. I mean, he’s not smiling or anything, but he looks… well, not miserable.
“Don’t you dare help me blow out the candles,” he warns his granddaughter—vintage Fox—and then manages to do it himself with one huge breath. Pretty impressive for eighty-five.
“What’d you wish for?” Hanna asks him, as various Wilder women crowd around to help Meryl cut and serve pieces of cake.
Fox glowers. “I wished your brothers would get their heads out of their asses.”
“Literally?” Hanna asks.
“Exactly those words.” Fox crosses his arms.
“Well? Maybe they will,” Hanna says doubtfully.
“Maybe,” Fox says, his bushy gray eyebrows ticking up a notch. “But I’m not going to count on it. I have a plan. You and I, we’re going to remake this property into your legacy, and they’re going to help.”
Startled, Hanna says, “They’re going to help?”
“Yep,” Fox says, with satisfaction. “Whether they like it or not. I’m going to win this in the end.”
And then he takes the first piece of cake, shoves it in his mouth, and tromps away.
“Wow,” I say. “What do you think he means by that?”
“I don’t know,” Hanna says, laughing, “but I’m guessing it’s not good for my brothers.”
“Probably not,” I agree.
“My grandfather’s pretty stubborn, and I wouldn’t bet against him.”
We both stare at Fox as he does the grumpy rancher version of schmoozing with his birthday guests.
“I mean, how much trouble can he cause?”
She bites her lip. “Guess we’ll find out?”
“Well,” I say. “Whatever happens next, I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“I mean, you kind of are,” she says, raising an eyebrow, mischief rolling onto her face. She grins at me. “Home with me, stat. But first, you’re going to grab us two pieces of that cake, to go.”
Hanna’s granddad’s nefarious plan draws her brothers back to Rush Creek and into steamy, hilarious romantic entanglements. Start my new series, Hott Springs Eternal, with Hott Shot, in which a grumpy scientist billionaire hero meets his sunshine-y match when he goes to work selling beauty products in his family’s spa.
Preorder HOTT SHOT now and it’ll drop onto your e-reader as soon as it’s available.
And if you need more Hanna and Easton, download a bonus scene!
Grab your WILDER AT LAST BONUS SCENE here.
For a sneak peek at Quinn and Sonya’s book, Hott Shot, keep turning pages!
Do you need to start the Wilder series from the beginning? Grab Gabe and Lucy’s grumpy-sunshine, enemies-to-lovers, fish-out-of-water story, and catch up on how Wilder Adventures became what it is today!
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