Page 2 of Cowboy Bear’s Hope (Motley Crewd Shifters #3)

“ N urse Brown!”

I cringed inwardly—and probably outwardly, too, if the way Casey, the newest addition to the school nursing staff, arched an eyebrow was any indication.

She looked at me with a mix of amusement and pity. I just couldn’t help it.

The man had a way of making my skin crawl, always teetering on the edge of inappropriate with his overly familiar tone and invasive demeanor.

I’d done everything in my power to steer clear of our new assistant principal, but avoiding Mr. Dryden felt like trying to dodge a heat-seeking missile.

Somehow, he always managed to track me down whenever I was at work.

“Nurse Brown, there you are!” he exclaimed, his voice carried across the hallway like nails on a chalkboard. “I was hoping we could take a coffee break together.”

His grin spread wide, revealing teeth that were yellowed and streaked with tobacco stains.

The truth was, he stunk like an old ashtray, the kind my Paw Paw used to have overflowing in his old Buick.

Ew.

I resisted the urge to visibly recoil, though my stomach twisted in protest. Why was it always the ones with no sense of boundaries who had the audacity to act like we were in some office rom com?

Seriously. No, thank you.

Casey shot me a look that said, Good luck, Av, you’re on your own with this one .

I never wanted to scream more. But I was a professional, and if little kids with bleeding boo-boos, snotty noses, and toilet accidents didn’t scare me, then neither did this creep.

I glanced at Casey one last time, to see if she might help, but nope. She busied herself with the files on the desk, leaving me to fend for myself.

Forcing a polite but strained smile, I responded, “Thank you, Mr. Dryden, but I’ve already had my coffee.”

And if he kept this up, I was going to need something a lot stronger.

“Oh, drat. That’s a shame. Well, tell me, how is little Rosalind?” he asked, and I refrained from rolling my eyes.

“ Rosalie ,” I corrected, “is fine.”

“No more incidents, I presume. We had a nice little chat she and I,” he said, eyes gleaming.

“What? When?”

“I had Miss Dembeck bring her to my office after the morning snack for a talk about how to play nice with our friends,” he said, smiling at me as if he was some sort of hero.

Alarm bells went off inside my brain and it was all I could do not to punch him right in his stupid throat. I was barely resisting the urge, keeping the fact I needed a job to pay the bills firmly in my mind.

Most importantly, I had to pay the mechanic who just informed me I needed a new transmission on my piece of shit car. It broke down this morning on my way to school with Rosie and both of us had been late.

It was the third time this year that stupid hunk of metal had crapped out on me and transmissions were not cheap. Luckily, Rosie and I could catch a ride with Penny after school, since she was usually at the bakery around that time.

The mornings would suck since that was when it was coldest, but we’d get by. We always did.

First, I had to deal with this dickwad.

“Excuse me? You did what?” I asked, hoping I’d heard him wrong.

He was new to town and to this position, but ever since he’d arrived less than two weeks ago, I’d had the worst feeling about him. Like something was off with the tall, skinny man.

Big time off.

But since I tended to be uptight about new people, I tried to ignore it. My defenses were always on high alert. I mean, I was a single mom.

Once bitten, twice shy. Wasn’t that a song?

“I would think you’d be happy Rosalind, and I were becoming such good friends,” he said, still saying her name wrong.

Was he serious?

“I’m sorry, am I understanding you? Did you really speak to my child without my knowledge?”

Oh, hell no.

“Well, after that little incident with Lisa on the playground yesterday, I felt someone should step in to guide Rosalind’s behavior. I know how being a single parent can be detrimental to some children’s development. I also know Rosalind has no father at home. But you and I seem to get along, don’t we? I was sure you wouldn’t mind?—”

Well, it looked like my first instincts were correct. The man was nuts.

“Stop right there, Mr. Dryden. The fact is, I do mind. Very much,” I said, feeling that familiar rage only another single parent could identify with, build inside of me.

This was bad. I couldn’t afford to blow up at work, but really? What did he expect? That I would be grateful for him sticking his big nose in my business?

I knew Rosie was having a difficult time getting along with her friends right now. And there were a million possible reasons for her behavior, but I was working on it with her.

Mr. Dryden had just started at the school and the fact was he didn’t know me or my child from Adam.

How dare he?

My sweet little girl had been showing signs of being overly emotional just lately. But I was working with her on positive ways to process her feelings as well as acceptable ways to express them without violence or tantrums.

It was a work in progress, and Miss Dembeck was aware since we’d discussed it together. We even came up with a plan of action to help in case Rosie became upset during school.

And absolutely none of those plans involved this man marching in and taking my child to his office without my knowledge or permission. I didn’t give a crap if he was the assistant principal.

“You have no right to have my child taken out of the classroom for private chitchats in your office about anything, do you hear me? You have seriously overstepped,” I said, barely hanging on to my temper.

“I am sorry you feel that way, Avery. I thought you would appreciate it, and I assure you my actions fall very much in line with my job description,” he said, presenting himself as Mr. Do-Gooder with what I knew was false sincerity.

But I had no proof. And I needed my job.

“Well, in your job description or not, consider this your notice that I, as Rosie’s mother, do not give you or any other faculty member at this school permission to speak to my child alone without my presence. I will be sending this in an email to Principal Jefferson. Right now, in fact,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the man.

He might be taller than me, but I was pretty sure I could take him in a fight. And right then, I wanted nothing more than to pummel his dumb ass.

“I understand you are upset, but I think you’ll see I only meant to help Rosalind, Nurse Brown. I’m sure when you have a chance to think it over, you will appreciate my efforts. Don’t worry, we can try coffee again on Monday,” he said, touching his fingertips to my arm before walking away.

What the actual fuck?

I stormed into the nurse’s room and covered my face with my sweater so I could scream into it without causing a commotion.

“Um, Av? Are you okay?” Casey asked.

“No! I am not okay. Did you hear that?”

“I did, and I agree. The man overstepped, and he is so gross,” Casey whispered.

“And coffee? Does he really think I would drink coffee with him? Ugh. Well, I’m sending that email. I do not want him talking to Rosie again. He couldn’t even get her name right!”

I sat down at my desk and opened a blank email, which I filled with my complaint and my request.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I sent the thing. Marked urgent.

A few minutes later, I received a vague reply from Principal Jefferson saying she’d pass my request to Miss Dembeck, Rosie’s teacher.

Of course, I’d already emailed her as well, and she apologized profusely for the entire thing.

For some reason, Miss Dembeck was under the impression I was dating the new assistant creep and that he had my permission to parent my daughter.

As fucking if.

Rosie might not have a dad, but even if I were in the market for a father figure for her, it sure as fuck would not be that pencil dick asshat.

The image of one particular man came to mind when I thought of prospective dads for my Rosie, but I quickly pushed it away.

Dante Bianco was not mine.

Whatever shenanigans went on out at the Motley Crewd Ranch, that man was none of my business.

Sure, my BFF had married and mated—which after she’d come out to me as a newly made Jersey Devil Shifter, I assumed was referring to some claiming ritual and not just the badoink-a-doinking that was going on out there—a Shifter, but that didn’t mean everyone else was that lucky.

It took me like a day to understand what the heck Penny had been talking about, but after she transformed into a very red and very furry creature with wings, I’d just accepted it as fact.

Supernaturals were real.

And they lived really fucking close to me.

I had no idea if the rest of the staff at Motley Crewd shared Max and Penny’s gifts, but I was sure they were more than human.

Especially Dante.

He was just so big and powerful. I mean, all the guys were handsome, but he took the cake as far as I was concerned.

Those velvet brown eyes and plump lips. Impossibly wide shoulders and thick, juicy thighs of his could only be the result of some supernatural force.

In other words, the man was too damn hot for words. Definitely too hot for a single mom with wide hips and stretch marks on her belly and boobs.

Don’t judge. Having a baby was hard on a body, fuck you very much.

I wasn’t self-conscious, just self-aware. Anyway, Dante and I had our chance to see if we were compatible, but we missed that opportunity by a mile.

He didn’t want a single mom as a girlfriend or possible mate, if that was his thing.

I’d heard him talking to his friends after the tumultuous kiss we’d shared at Emmet and Jezebel’s wedding and what it all boiled down to was bad timing.

I was the girl who carried too much reality to the party. The one with excess baggage.

Oh well. Story of my life.