Page 1 of The Single Dad Project

CHAPTER ONE

AONE-NIGHTSTANDhadn’t been on Florence “Flo” Dennison’s bingo card, but who was she to argue when Fate wanted something for her?

And bysomethingFlo meant big, bearded and sexy as get-on-your-knees-in-your-prayer-closet sin.

To think, she mused, lifting her Sam Adams to her mouth for a sip, she’d almost gone directly home on her return to Rose Bend, Massachusetts, after being away for two weeks instead of stopping by Road’s End, the local—okay, the only—dive bar. Spending the past fifteen days in Thailand should’ve left her exhilarated. Tired from the travel but exhilarated. Instead, she was exhausted both physically and emotionally. And angry. So fucking angry.

She hadn’t wanted to return to Kinsale Inn, the bed-and-breakfast her family owned as well as where they all lived, with this thick, dark tangle of...rage stuck to her ribs like glue. Her parents and whatever siblings were hanging around would take one look at her and deduce something was up. And then poke and prod until she either confessed or screamed. Or confessedandscreamed. They were great and annoying like that.

But she didn’t want either at the moment.

She just wanted to...wallow.

Wallow in her anger. Her hurt. At twenty-four, maybe that wasn’t very adult of her, but there it was.

But now, looking at Big, Bearded and Sinful, she wanted something else.

To work it off.

And yes, if desperation threaded through that admission, well, again, there it was.

“Flo.” Maddox Holt, owner of the bar, stopped in front of her, nodding at her with a smile. “You good? Need another beer?”

She shook her head, lowering the half-empty bottle to the bar top.

“No, I’m still working on this one. But—” she tipped the bottle toward the stranger at the other end of the bar “—you can refill whatever he’s having. On me.”

Maddox’s dark auburn eyebrow arched high. Shaking his head, he rapped his knuckles on the wooden top, his smile widening into a grin. “I swear, you Dennison women never fail to make my evenings entertaining.”

Since her sister Leo and sisters-in-law, Sydney and Nessa, regularly held their girls’ nights here with their friends, Flo didn’t doubt Maddox’s words. They were all a handful when they got together. A hilarious, no-filter, show-tunes-when-drunk handful.

She smirked. “Well, I promise not to debut my rendition of ‘I’ll Always Love You’ for all and sundry, if that makes you feel any better.”

Leo couldn’t say the same as she’d jumped up on the empty stage and belted out the Whitney Houston version of the hit during their last visit. And though Flo’s older sister had been named after the famed opera singer Leontyne Price, her voice sounded more like cats battling it out in an alley. Yeah, not pretty at all.

Maddox winced before smiling again, wider this time. “It does. It definitely does.”

She raised her bottle to her mouth again and studied the man at the end of the bar.

Even though Rose Bend was a small, postcard-pretty town dropped right in the middle of the Southern Berkshires, strangers weren’t foreign to its borders. Not when nearly every season or holiday brought visitors far and wide for town-hosted festivals or carnivals or motorcycle rallies. Strangers weren’t odd around here.

But the impact this one had on her was unusual.

Or rather, the heat this one stirred inside her, like a sauna switched on high, was unusual.

She studied the man, trying not to be too obvious. But hell, it was a Tuesday night and besides them, only about fifteen other people gathered at the tables, played pool or bellied up to the bar. She couldn’t exactly hide her fascination.

And oh yes, she was indeed fascinated.

His high fade had her fingers tingling with the need to comb through that thick, textured hair. A neat, full mustache and beard framed a wide mouth, the sensual lips appearing almost too lush. Her belly pulled tight below her navel, the ache sweet and painful. The longer she stared at that mouth, the sharper the ache.

From this distance, she couldn’t catch the color of his eyes, but the patrician slope of his nose with its round, flared nostrils, and the bold, clean lines of his face declared his stark beauty from across the bar.

Or maybe it was just her.

Maybe she was the only one captivated by broad shoulders that stretched the soft-looking black sweater to its limits. Mesmerized by the big, long-fingered hands wrapped around a short tumbler of amber alcohol. Enraptured by the seemingly endless denim-encased legs that stretched out on either side of the bar stool. Absurdly fascinated by the large feet planted on the dark tile floor.

He was so...huge.

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