Summer with the Single Dad, page 1
Summer with the Single Dad
The Single Dads of San Camanez
WHITLEY COX
The Brew Brothers: Book 2
Copyright © 2024 by Whitley Cox
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Cover Design: EmCat Designs
Editing: Bound for Perfection
Don't Forget
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A few other books by Whitley Cox
The
Single Dads of Seattle
Grab book 1 here
https://books2read.com/HBTSD-SDS
*
The Quick Billionaires
Grab book 1 here
Quick & Dirty
https://books2read.com/QDirty-QBS
*
The Harty Boys
Grab book 1 here
Hard Hart
https://books2read.com/HH-HB
*
The Young Sisters
Grab book 1 here
Not Over You
https://books2read.com/not-over-you
*
Doctor Smug
https://books2read.com/DoctorSmug
*
Hot Dad
https://books2read.com/Hot-Dad
*
Snowed In & Set Up
https://books2read.com/SISU
*
Love to Hate You
https://books2read.com/Love2HateYou
For Jenna Rutherford
my smut-loving friend.
Love you, girl.
Contents
1. CHAPTER ONE
2. CHAPTER TWO
3. CHAPTER THREE
4. CHAPTER FOUR
5. CHAPTER FIVE
6. CHAPTER SIX
7. CHAPTER SEVEN
8. CHAPTER EIGHT
9. CHAPTER NINE
10. CHAPTER TEN
11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
12. CHAPTER TWELVE
13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
20. CHAPTER TWENTY
21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
SNEAK PEEK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Bennett McEvoy plunked his elbows on the worn wooden desk of his office and hung his head, catching his scalp in his fingers and tugging harder than he probably should have. Baldness didn’t run in his family, thankfully, but he probably shouldn’t be testing the strength of his follicles anyway.
The business was hemorrhaging money, and it was up to him to stop it.
But his brothers figured because the restaurant was always full, the brewery continuously sold out of stock, and their cabin reservation book had a mile-long waitlist, everything was peachy keen.
Well, it fucking wasn’t, jellybean. It fucking wasn’t.
They took a massive hit during COVID-19. They stopped giving themselves a wage, but paid all their bills and staff from the beer sales. So even though technically, the business was slowly creeping back into the black, Bennett and his brothers themselves were struggling.
They poured every penny they had into buying the property and setting up the businesses, and although it was all successful, the price of everything needed to run a restaurant, brewery, and rental cabins just continued to go up. Fuck, even between now and a year ago, laundry detergent had gone up over fifty percent. And between the kitchen, dining room, and cabins, they did a fuck-ton of laundry.
And all that shit added up.
Not to mention, the electricity bill which pillaged their bank account like it was some medieval sheriff collecting taxes from the poor villagers.
It didn’t help that Clint just bought brewery equipment whenever he needed to, not bothering to discuss it with Bennett ahead of time. He just ordered what he needed—like a new unitank jacket conical fermenter, whatever the fuck that was?—which cost over a thousand dollars, and handed Bennett the bill, expecting Bennett to pull the money out of somewhere. His ass, maybe? Wyatt was the same way in the kitchen. He just bought a brand-new fucking commercial deep fryer for twenty-five hundred bucks, because the other one broke. And yeah, they needed it, but he didn’t even talk to Bennett about it first. He just told Bennett to deal with it.
A knock on his office door pulled him from his spiraling funk. “Come in,” he murmured.
“Daddy?” It was Aya, his seven-year-old daughter. Her nine-year-old sister, Emerson—or Emme, as they called her—was right behind her. They both had smoothie cups with reusable silicone straws.
“Hey, sweethearts,” he said, throwing on a smile and pushing his rolling chair away from his desk so Aya could perch on his knee. “What kind of smoothie did Uncle Dom make you guys this time?”
She offered him the straw. “Pineapple, spinach, mango. It’s really good.”
He took a long pull off the straw, regretting it instantly when the brain freeze tried to render his children orphans for twenty seconds.
“Brain freeze?” Emme asked with a giggle.
He blinked open his eyes as the pain receded. “Yeah.” Kissing Aya’s temple, he inhaled her fruit punch shampoo. “It’s a good smoothie though.”
“We’re boooooored,” Aya said. “What can we do?”
“Where are all your cousins? Go find them to play with.”
Both girls made faces and rolled their matching brown eyes. Eyes they inherited from their late mother, who was half Colombian. “The boys are playing video games and we don’t want to play video games,” Emme said. “And Talia is in Seattle with Brooke and Uncle Clint. She skipped school and went over with them this morning.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Bennett said, nodding. “Brooke had to chat with the police about—”
“All that crazy stuff that went down with her stalker-killer,” Emme replied, plunking a hand on her hip and shaking her head. At that moment, she reminded him so much of her mother. Both girls looked a lot like Carla, but Emme was her doppelgänger. Aya inherited Bennett’s mother’s blonde hair, but Emme had Carla’s dark-brown curls, darker skin tone, and long eyelashes.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, shoving the wave of grief and nostalgia down to the very bottom of his gut. He didn’t have time to deal with that right now. “And Uncle Clint went over for support. He also took over some shipments of beer. Talia tagged along because she just wanted to.”
The girls pouted. “I wish we could have skipped school and gone to Seattle.” Aya took a sip of her smoothie. “We never get to do anything fun.”
He tickled her ribs. “Oh, is that so?”
She giggled and squirmed on his lap.
“I seem to remember just last night, I let you both stay up late. We made microwave s’mores and watched two movies. That was pretty fun, wasn’t it?”
“You know what we mean,” Emme said, all sass and pre-teen angst.
Inhaling deep through his nose, he scrambled to collect every ounce of patience and compassion he could find. “I know,” he said, meeting Emme’s gaze. “It isn’t the same, but it’s something. It’s all I can offer you right now. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this discussion either.”
“I know.” Emme hung her head and broke eye contact.
“Maybe once school is out, we can take a couple of days and go camping or for a little road trip. It’s been a while since you’ve seen Abuela and Grandpa Lang.”
His in-laws lived in northern California and didn’t see their granddaughters much. Carla had been their only child and when she died, they didn’t take it well. It didn’t help that Aya and Emme looked so much like Carla. The girls were just a constant reminder of the daughter Luisa and Greg lost.
Gravel crunched under tires outside.
A quick glance at the clock on the wall said it was nearly five o’clock. His newest guest for the cabin said she would be on the four o’clock sailing from Seattle, so she was right on time.
“Are you coming home for dinner, Daddy?” Aya asked. “Uncle Jagger said he’d make us turkey tacos if you need to work late.”
“I still have a bit more to do here, but I should be up at the house by six. Tell Uncle Jagger to start the tacos and I’ll finish them when I get home. He can stay and eat with us, though.”
Aya hopped off his lap just as there was a knock at the office door. He never fully closed the door, and the kids knew that. So the knock was just a pretend formality and the guest pushed open the door.
He nearly swallowed his fucking tongue. He knew it was a solitary guest coming to stay for seven weeks at the cabin, but he hadn’t bothered to Google their name. It’d been a last-minute rebook. T hey had a cancellation, and this guest snuck in, just minutes after he reposted the vacancy. A gift from the universe because that loss of revenue would have hit them hard. He hadn’t even had to discount it because it was last minute. This woman—who was fucking gorgeous—paid full price.
“Hi!” Aya squeaked. “Who are you?”
“Aya,” Bennet scolded.
She glared back at him. “What? I just asked her who she was. How did I do anything wrong?”
“You asked in a rude way,” Emme said.
“Sorry,” Aya replied, clearly deflated. Her cheeks went pink. “Hello. Who are you … please?”
Emme snorted.
Bennett’s lip twitched.
“It’s all right,” the woman replied with a sweet smile directed at Aya. “I’m Justine.”
“That’s a pretty name,” Emme said.
“Thank you.”
“Checking in to cabin five?” Bennett asked, hating that his voice cracked like a thirteen-year-old boy’s.
“Yes, please,” Justine said, meeting his gaze. Her pupils dilated, and she swallowed.
Heat flared in Bennett’s chest, spreading instantly up his neck and down into his groin. He cleared his throat and broke eye contact, glancing down at the old-school reservation book on his desk. Yes, he had a digital schedule as well, but during storm season the power often went out, so he liked to have backup hard copies too.
“I’m Emme, and this is my sister Aya,” Emme said.
“I’m seven. She’s nine,” Aya added. “You’re really pretty. I like your hair.”
He lifted his gaze just enough to watch as a sexy flush bloomed in Justine’s cheeks, but her smile grew causing her cheeks to apple. “Thank you. I think you two have lovely hair as well.”
Bennett’s daughters beamed and preened themselves, toying with their curls, which had grown a little frizzy over the day due to running like wildlings at school, and the never-ending humidity from the early June weather.
“Girls,” he started, directing his attention to his daughters for a moment, “why don’t you head on up to the house and find Uncle Jagger. Let him know the dinner plans. I’ll be up shortly.”
His daughters pouted, still clearly enamored with the new guest, but they nodded.
“We hope you enjoy your stay here,” Aya said. “Come find me if you have any questions.”
Justine snickered. “I absolutely will. Thank you.”
The girls waved to Bennett and Justine, then disappeared with their smoothies through the door.
Now, the only person he could look at was the beautiful woman with almond-shaped brown eyes, freckles, and a slender neck. His daughters weren’t wrong. She was very pretty. Gorgeous, in fact. He would guess she had at least one parent of Asian ancestry. Her hair was black with subtle highlights and hung in a long, sleek ponytail down her back.
“If you’ll follow me, I’ll get you all checked in to your cabin. Do you need a hand unloading?” He stood up, averting his eyes from her face at all costs. He’d never had such an intense, instant reaction to a woman like this before. Not even Carla.
It was throwing him for a loop, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“Uh, that’d be great. Thank you,” she said, following him out the door, but not before he stopped to grab the cabin key from the row of keys. It was the only one on the hook since the rest of the cabins were occupied.
However, him stopping so abruptly like that caused Justine to bump into his back.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she apologized, stepping back.
He glanced over his shoulder, flashing her a smile. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have stopped so suddenly. Just this way.”
Her sleek black BMW SUV was parked on the gravel in front of his office—which was, in essence, just a little shack built onto the side near the brewery. Nothing fancy, nothing special. But it served its purpose as a place for him to conduct business with vendors, staff and guests.
She unlocked the SUV and popped the trunk.
“Oh, you can park in front of your cabin,” he said. “You don’t have to unload from here.”
Another rush of color entered her cheeks. “Oh … okay.” This forced her to wander behind the vehicle and manually close the hatch.
“It’s just down that lane there if you want to drive. I can meet you there.” He pointed in the direction of her cabin and waited for her to climb into her vehicle.
He welcomed the fresh air and the absence of this enchanting woman.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Why was he having such a carnal, visceral reaction to her?
He reached cabin five in less than a minute, the gentle rumble of the BMW behind him. She parked in front of her cabin and turned off the engine.
He unlocked the door and opened it, then circled around to the hatch, which she’d already popped. She met him at the back and they both reached into the trunk at the same time.
Of course, they reached for totes adjacent to each other and the back of his hand brushed the back of hers.
Like he’d just touched an electric cattle fence, a shock raced through him.
She was the first to pull her hand away. “Sorry,” she murmured, adjusting her approach and grabbing the lidless tote in a different way so their hands were nowhere near each other.
“My fault,” he muttered, deciding to grab a big, plastic Coleman cooler instead. He followed her into the cabin, breaking his promise to himself to not check out her ass.
Dammit, she had a great ass.
A rocking ass. And it filled out those tight jeans like nobody’s fucking business.
He swallowed and made his way into the kitchenette, plunking the big cooler on the floor near the fridge.
“We have Wi-Fi,” he said, turning to face her. “Password is ‘ON THE FRIDGE’. But the ‘o’ in ‘on’ is a zero, and the ‘e’ in ‘fridge’ is a three. Then there’s an exclamation point at the end. You’ll see it in the guest binder on the coffee table.”
“On the fridge,” she breathed, a small grin curling her lips. “That’s clever. So when someone asks, what’s the Wi-Fi password? You can answer with: “It’s on the fridge’.”
They said that last bit in unison.
“My youngest brother came up with that gem.”
“I like it.”
He nodded, cleared his throat, and made his way into the kitchen. “The stove is gas. Nothing fancy, no tricks to it. Just don’t leave it on. Obviously. The shower, on the other hand, takes a solid minute to warm up. No matter what we do, it runs cold for a full sixty seconds before it starts to heat up. So don’t jump in then turn the water on because you’ll get a shock.”
“Noted.”
“You’re next to a pub, so quiet time in the evenings follows the pub hours. When it shuts down, that’s time for the parties here to quiet down too. We ask people to keep it quiet in the mornings until eight. So if you need to pack up and leave before then to catch the ferry, please do it quietly.”
She nodded.
“Ummm … there’s no television. We’ve stocked you with towels, and enough toilet paper and paper towels for about five days, after that it’s on you. We do have coin-operated laundry in a little area off my office back there. There’s a sign-up sheet that guests seem to find helpful since there are only two sets of machines. You’re welcome to just use the washing machine then hang your clothes on a line. I think there’s one strung on your patio out front.” He craned his head around to indicate outside.
“Okay.”
“Oh! And I almost forgot.” He reached into the back of his jeans. “All guests get these free drink vouchers to be used at the pub. So … here.” He held out the stack of free drink tickets and, of course, just like before, when she reached for them, their fingers touched.
That same electric fence sensation was back, and it was Bennett this time that pulled his hand away first.
What the fuck was going on? Did she just scuff her shoes along the carpet and touch something metal?
“Let me help you finish unloading,” he said, a little too loudly. He spun around and headed back outside to her Beemer, grabbing another tote—this time a plastic one with a lid— and carrying it into the cabin. She followed him a few seconds later with a suitcase and a duffel bag.
