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  NEARLY WILD

  MAIN STREET MERCHANTS, BOOK 3

  Copyright 2016 Linda Seed

  Published by Linda Seed at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any characters, organizations, places, or events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  NEARLY WILD.

  Copyright © 2016 by Linda Seed.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  The author is available for book signings, book club discussions, conferences, and other appearances.

  Linda Seed may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected] or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LindaSeedAuthor.

  Cover image by Diana Taliun.

  Also by Linda Seed

  Moonstone Beach

  Like That Endless Cambria Sky

  Fire and Glass

  For Pat and Jennifer

  The Nearly Wild rose (floribunda) blooms nearly continuously, thriving in the shade, in the sun, through the heat of summer and the winds of spring. She has stiff, prickly stems that form an almost impenetrable barrier.

  —From gardeners’ descriptions

  Chapter One

  Getting dumped sucked under any circumstances. But it really sucked, it turned out, when you had feelings for the guy who was dumping you. Rose should have known better than to have feelings, especially for an asshole like Jeremy.

  “You’re breaking up with me?” Rose Watkins glared at her date over a basket of fried clams at the Sandpiper, a restaurant overlooking Moonstone Beach. She felt stunned, the sting of tears making her eyes feel raw and hot. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “This is what I’m talking about,” the date said. “Do you have to be so profane?”

  Rose had been dating Jeremy, an English professor at the university in San Luis Obispo, for a couple of months. She’d known he wasn’t the one—couldn’t possibly be the one, with his self-important smirk and his inane taste in music—but she’d dated him anyway, because he was hot, and she had nothing better to do.

  And then she’d gone and cared about him. Stupid, rookie mistake.

  “I thought you liked my profanity. You said … Wait, let me try to remember … You said it was ‘refreshingly honest.’ Or was that just a line of bullshit to get me into bed?” Her voice was rising, and Jeremy looked uncomfortably around the restaurant.

  “Rose, I hardly think—”

  “That’s true.” Rose nodded in agreement. “That’s absolutely true. You do hardly think.”

  “Do we really have to make a scene?” Jeremy had that pinched look that always made Rose wonder if there was a pebble in his shoe. Or maybe a stick up his ass.

  “Well, yes. I think we do, Jeremy. Because, A, you brought me to a public place to dump me, thinking I wouldn’t make a scene, and I hate to be predictable.” She picked up a fried clam and threw it at him, and it pinged off the left lens of his glasses. “And B, you’re doing it over the goddamned appetizer, so I don’t even get a meal out of it.” Ping, another clam flew into his forehead. “And C, you goddamned well knew you were going to dump me before we had sex a goddamned hour ago! Which makes you a prick!” She rose from her seat, picked up the entire basket of clams, and dumped it into his lap. “So, yes, Jeremy, we do have to make a scene.”

  She picked up her purse and stomped out, leaving him there with a lap full of fried seafood. As she left the restaurant, it occurred to her that she should have thrown in some tartar sauce.

  Jeremy wasn’t worth being upset about. She knew that. She’d known, even as she was developing the dreaded feelings, that the two of them weren’t right for each other. But still, right or not, the feelings existed. The hot stab of rejection burned in her chest as she emerged into the parking lot. Then she realized that Jeremy had brought her here, and now she didn’t have a ride home.

  Shit.

  “You’re not saying, ‘I told you so,’ ” Rose observed from the passenger seat of Kate Bennet’s car.

  “Well.”

  “But you did tell me.”

  Kate had arrived in the parking lot of the Sandpiper shortly after Rose’s ill-fated date, and now she was driving Rose home through the sparse evening traffic. As she crossed Highway 1 and headed east into the hills of Cambria, California, she shot a concerned look toward Rose.

  “I wanted to be wrong,” Kate said. “I hate it that I wasn’t wrong.”

  “Ah, well. I don’t care,” Rose said stubbornly. She ran a hand through chin-length hair dyed the color of a Tiffany’s box. “He was a shithead.”

  “You do care,” Kate said mildly. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be this mad.”

  Rose shrugged, her arms crossed over her chest. She realized that while her words said that Jeremy hadn’t hurt her, her posture said otherwise. With some effort, she relaxed her shoulders and let her hands fall into her lap.

  After a moment, she raised one eyebrow, making her silver barbell piercing jump. “I threw clams in his lap.” One side of her mouth quirked up in a smile.

  Kate let out a guffaw. “I hope they were hot,” she said.

  Rose lived east of Highway 1 in a one hundred-year-old cottage surrounded by pine trees. She had neighbors, but the lots on either side of her were vacant, and that, combined with the trees, created the illusion that she was secluded in nature, alone in a world of birds and deer and gentle coastal breezes.

  Kate pulled up outside the cottage and let the car idle as Rose gathered her things.

  “You want me to come in?”

  “No,” Rose said. “No. You probably were in the middle of something when I called you for help.”

  “Nothing that can’t wait.”

  “Still.”

  “Do you want me to call the girls?” Kate offered. “The girls” were Gen and Lacy, the other half of their quartet of close friends. “We could all get together, drink some wine, and belittle Jeremy’s manhood.”

  Rose gave Kate a half grin. “That does sound fun, but … I think I need to wallow.”

  “Oh, honey.” Kate put a hand on Rose’s arm. “I hate to think of you all alone, wallowing. I thought you didn’t even like him that much.”

  “Yeah, well … I maybe wasn’t completely honest about that.” A fat tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped it away.

  “Oh, no,” Kate said. “God, Rose. I … jeez. I’m so sorry.”

  “And even if I didn’t care about him—which I shouldn’t have, because it was stupid—I could still enjoy a good wallow, couldn’t I?”

  “Of course you could.” Kate gave Rose’s arm a gentle rub. “Just don’t wallow too long. And call me if you need anything.”

  “I will. Thanks, Kate.”

  Rose got out of the car, waved goodbye to Kate, and let herself into the little house. She flicked on the lights and went into the tiny galley kitchen for a glass of wine. Wallowing was always bet
ter with wine.

  The house was a one-bedroom, with miniature appliances and a main room with knotty pine paneling, hardwood floors, and a freestanding cast iron fireplace. All of that wood might have been overwhelming—might have made Rose feel as though she were living inside a hollowed-out tree like Winnie the Pooh—were it not for the bursts of color that met the eye no matter where you looked. Rugs in shades of red and gold, the sofa with purple and orange scarves draped across the back, the jewel-toned floral mosaics on the walls that Gen, an art dealer, had found for her.

  It was hard to wallow in a place like this, but Rose was determined to try.

  In the kitchen, she opened a good Syrah, retrieved a wineglass from the cupboard over the sink, and poured herself a glass. She paced with it a little while, wondering what kind of wallowing would be best, and then settled on the idea of a hot bath.

  She went into the bathroom and started the flow of water into the claw-foot bathtub. The tub, with its elegantly curved lines and its chipped enamel, was probably original to the house.

  Bathing had become a dicey thing in Cambria, where a years-long drought had prompted residents to stop watering outdoors, abandon washing their cars, and master the art of the five-minute shower. Rose generally did her part, but today, she thought, Screw it. A girl who had just been dumped by an asshole she’d been stupid enough to care about deserved a little bathtub wallowing.

  The hot water made her feel better almost immediately, as though she could wash the grimy film that was the memory of Jeremy off of her body. But it wasn’t that easy. Once she was settled into the tub, still and silent, there was nothing to keep her from running through the whole thing in her mind.

  She’d met him in Cambria a few months before, when he’d come into De-Vine with a date to do some wine tasting. He had come back the next day—without the date—to ask her out.

  She should have known then that this wouldn’t go anywhere. While she’d been pouring two-ounce portions of chardonnays and pinot grigios for Jeremy and his girlfriend, he’d been checking out Rose’s ass. When he came back the following day to hit on her, he’d claimed that the girl was just someone he’d dated a few times. She hadn’t learned until later that they’d been together for months, and he’d broken up with her to go out with Rose.

  Red flag, waving in the breeze. She’d seen it, but had chosen to ignore it.

  The breakup had come down to her appearance, as things so often did.

  When they’d met, Jeremy had told Rose that he loved the way she looked. The colorful hair, the piercings—the one in her eyebrow and another, a delicate hoop, in her nose—the rose tattoo that adorned her left shoulder. He’d said that he loved her edginess, her unique style, that she turned him on in ways that women with a more traditional look never had.

  And, yes, he’d even said that he liked her profanity. He’d said she was “untamed.”

  She should have known that he would take it as a challenge to tame her.

  It seemed Jeremy had a double standard for his women. He wanted Rose untamed in bed, all right, but when it came to the big faculty dinner that was coming up at Cal Poly, turquoise hair turned out to be more of an embarrassment than a turn-on.

  First, he’d suggested that she might remove the piercings for the dinner. She’d agreed to that, because, hell. Why not? She could always put them back in later. Then he’d suggested that she dye her hair a more natural color, perhaps the medium brown she’d been born with. Then he’d wanted to choose her clothes.

  And then, finally, Rose had realized that he didn’t just want to change her appearance; he wanted to change her. She’d taken a stand, telling him that he could bring her to the dinner—Tiffany hair, facial piercings, and all—or she could stay home, and he could go alone. But parading her around in front of his colleagues while she pretended to be someone else—someone she wouldn’t even recognize—was not an option.

  She’d been feeling proud of herself, because it had seemed like he’d heard her, like he’d understood. Then, less than a week after that conversation, he’d taken her out to break it off over fried clams—but not until after he’d had one last naked romp with her blue-haired, “untamed” self.

  Shithead.

  She felt dirty, having been used by him. And she knew that was at least partly her fault. She’d let him do it. She’d allowed herself to be used.

  But why?

  She didn’t want to admit it, but it had something to do with Kate—and with Genevieve Porter, another one of her closest friends. Kate had found love, had moved her boyfriend in with her, and to all appearances, was living the dream of true romance like a goddamned Disney princess. That was okay, that was fine. But now Gen was engaged to a rich, sexy cowboy who worshipped her.

  It was one thing to be single in her late twenties. It was another to be single and watching her best friends get happily paired up, one by one. And being conspicuously single at Gen’s wedding in a few months? Yeah, that was a prospect that hadn’t appealed to Rose at all.

  She sighed, dunked her head under the hot water, and stayed there long enough to hear the quiet, feel the sensation of the warm water fully surrounding her. Then she emerged, dripping, and slicked her hair back from her face. She settled back and sipped some wine.

  Jeremy had been a shithead, and he wasn’t even that good in bed. She’d been settling, because it had seemed better than being alone. But, screw that. It wasn’t better. Being with someone who chipped away pieces of you, trying to create someone who didn’t exist? Hell no, that wasn’t better. That nagging feeling in your soul that told you that you were selling yourself, cheapening yourself, for the sake of someone who was embarrassed by you? That wasn’t better. And getting dumped over a basket of fried clams wasn’t better. Even if it had been somewhat satisfying throwing the goddamned clams in his goddamned, limp-dicked lap.

  By the time Rose finished the glass of wine and the bath, she’d decided she was done. Done with men, done with dating. If she felt like having a fling every now and then, she’d damned well do it. But relationships?

  Fuck that.

  Men and their expectations could just go screw themselves.

  Chapter Two

  Will Bachman was getting sick of birds. Particularly Charadrius nivosus, more commonly known as the snowy plover.

  The unassuming little brown and white bird was declining in numbers due to a variety of factors, and Will was trying to determine how the species, as a group, was attempting to adapt to such challenges as drought, climate change, and increased human activity in its habitat areas.

  At this point, he wouldn’t mind if they went extinct so he’d never have to see the damned things again.

  He got up from where he’d been sitting in the sand and gathered his binoculars, his spotting scope, his notebook, and the backpack that held bottled water, a jacket, an apple, and some granola bars.

  Enough of the snowy plover for one day.

  There were times when Will was certain he would never finish his dissertation and receive his doctorate. This was one of them.

  Sometimes he worried that his research would stretch on forever and that his future in academia was in peril. Then, he often caught himself thinking that maybe that was okay. If he finished his research, if he completed his dissertation, and if he finally earned the title of Dr. Bachman, it meant he’d have to figure out what came next.

  And that prospect was scary as hell.

  What if he never finished? What if he just stayed here in Cambria, living the life of a regular Joe who didn’t know ridiculous amounts of information about the snowy plover? What was the worst that could happen?

  That kind of thinking would lead him down a rabbit hole from which he might never emerge. It was best not to go there.

  He packed his equipment into his car, shook the sand out of his shoes, and began the drive along Highway 1 back toward Cooper House, an absurdly opulent mansion where he’d been working as caretaker for the past two years.

 
The weather was classic Cambria, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the low seventies, a light breeze rippling the tall grass that carpeted the hills beside the highway. Even in March—the beginning of snowy plover breeding season—he rarely needed more than a light jacket.

  If he wore that same light jacket at home in Minnesota this time of year, he’d be looking at hypothermia. This was better.

  He arrived at the road leading up into the hills toward Cooper House and made the turn. He followed the winding road up to the security gate, entered the code, and waited as the gate slowly retracted. Then he drove up through an alternate universe of obscene wealth—formal gardens with sculpted hedges and sparkling fountains; tennis courts; the swimming pool with its marble statues keeping watch; and of course, the mansion itself.

  Cooper House, which had been built in the 1800s by a local logging tycoon, was now owned by Christopher Mills, who’d been Will’s roommate at Stanford. Shortly after graduation Chris had invented PlayDate, a dating app that paired people based on their online gaming profiles. As a result, he was now wallowing in more money than he’d ever spend in his lifetime.

  When Will had needed to relocate to the Central Coast to study the snowy plover, Chris had offered him a position as caretaker at Cooper House. The place needed a caretaker, because Chris rarely visited—it usually sat empty while its owner lived in a sleek condo in the Silicon Valley.

  Will lived in the guest house on the property and managed the legions of maids, gardeners, security guys, pool guys, and maintenance crews that were needed to keep a place of this size in top condition for the twice-a-year occasions when Chris visited, or for the more frequent occasions when he sent friends, relatives, or business associates to spend the weekend.

  It was a sweet setup for Will, no question. But living at Cooper House, seeing the hulking Victorian and its grounds on a daily basis, reminded Will of the contrast. Here was Chris, a stunning success by any measure. And here was Will, with his meager bank account, a car that showed more than two hundred thousand miles on the odometer, and a future in academia that might never come to fruition. And even if it did, they didn’t pay professors all that much these days.