Chapter ONE
LAURIE
"Garret, Dmitri, get over here; no stop that, come on guys work with mom huh." Whatever possessed me to think I could do this?
I have a crap load of laundry waiting to be done, a house that looks like a hurricane sideswiped it, and what am I doing? Spending my Saturday morning in the park with my boys, that's what.
Why? Because mommy is a pushover that's why, and when they begged so sweetly to go swingy what could I do?
They've heard the word no so often in their young lives already it's good to be able to give them this. The park is still free thank heavens, because money was tight.
The dead beat who'd inseminated me has been long gone. Not that I blamed him completely. What eighteen- year old wanted to hang around for that?
Especially when the girl you knocked up was the sixteen-year old daughter of the local police chief, yikes!
Now the twins are three years old and into everything. We were barely making it, what with me trying to finish school while holding down a full time job.
Daycare was almost as much as my weekly paycheck, and government assistance was a joke.
My poor dad tries to help out as much as he can, but there isn't much he can do on his salary. Kids are expensive little bundles of joy.
I wasn’t complaining though, having the boys had changed my life in a way I hadn’t planned for, but each day got easier and the joys were outgrowing the fears and doubts.
I finally caught up to them, as they were about to pet this humongous dog that was almost as tall as me. Holy...
"Hey kid, you might not want to do that." They both stopped at the gruff command from the menacing looking guy that I'd missed, sitting on the park bench.
The dog growled low in his throat and I eased forward to get between it and my boys.
"Gunther cut that shit out." He remained seated on the bench while that thing that was posing as a dog had my kids trapped.
"Maybe you want to get up and grab your dog before he mauls my kids?" Was this guy for real?
"Maybe you want to teach your damn kids to keep their hands to themselves."
What the.... He turned that face my way and just wow. Figures, anyone that hot had to have major flaws, and one of his seemed to be being an asshole.
"Listen you jerk off, they're just kids; kids do stuff like that."
"Don't feed me your shit lady, my dog bite into one of your little darlings I'll be knee deep in law suits and bullshit."
"Watch your mouth in front of my kids, what's your problem anyway?"
"People; too many of the fuckers on the planet; more specifically annoying ass people like you, who can never accept when they're wrong. Now would you please get your damn spawns out of here? You're mucking up my morning routine."
"That's it." I didn't care that he was at least a good foot taller, it didn't matter that he looked like he'd chewed nails for breakfast either.
Right now, at this very moment, he was the embodiment of everything I hated. Like the asshole supervisor who was being a dick because I refused to sleep with his slimy ass.
Or the nasty ass customers who came into the diner and stiffed me because heaven forbid I was half a second late refilling their coffee cups. Before I could caution myself I was in his face fists folded.
My boys of course were cheering mommy on, no sense of danger whatsoever. I'll have to have another chat with dad about letting them watch UFC. For now though, I had this oversized jackass to cut down to size.
Hot or not, he wasn’t going to get away with being a dick to my boys for just being kids. “Look here you, this is a public park if you don’t want people mucking up your day then you should’ve stayed in your cage or wherever it is they keep your breed of species.”
Uh-oh. I guess the finger in the chest was going a bit too far if the way he looked from it to me was any indication.
I had the dumb thought that he had the most amazing eyes I’d ever seen on anyone. Laurie what the hell are you doing? I took a step back when his nose flared like he was inhaling my scent and I felt heat rising up my neck to my face.
Just what had my boys landed me in this fine morning anyway?
Chapter TWO
BRETT
Is this chick for real? I could bench press her one handed and here she was flying up in my face. I ought to snap that finger in half, but that would just land me in more shit.
I towered over her and growled when she poked into me. Meanwhile her damn minions were garbling some shit, like they really thought mommy could take my ass.
“Listen lady you might wanna move it before you lose it. What the hell is your problem anyway?”
Granted, I'm not usually such an asshole, and especially not to a complete stranger of the female persuasion.
But a combination of a fucked up workweek coupled with family drama bullshit, has brought me to the end of my fucking rope.