The Fairy Shop

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Author

  By Tara Lain

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  The Fairy Shop

  By Tara Lain

  When Nate Hawthorne meets Asher Dane, the huge, tattooed hunk is the personification of Nate’s dreams. But Nate knows there’s no future, because Asher is also the personification of his beloved five-year-old daughter Delly’s nightmares. She’s frightened of big men. Things turn around for both of them, however, when Delly goes Christmas shopping at the Fairy Shop and begins her quest for a wand that will make her brave. Neither of them guesses that the Fairy Shop will be the source of far more than Delly’s courage. On Christmas Eve, under the influence of a very unusual fairy, Nate’s life will change forever.

  To the people of Ashland who make everyday living magical.

  Author’s Note

  IF YOU’RE ever looking for an amazing place to visit for the holidays, I can recommend Ashland, Oregon. Though the town is best known for its famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival that runs March to November, attracting tens of thousands of tourists, in December the much quieter town square is decorated with millions of twinkle lights, Santa arrives via one of many parades, and the town’s upscale restaurants blaze with sparkling fireplaces and decorations. All this loveliness inspired The Fairy Shop.

  Chapter One

  OAK WITH a heart of alder for strength. A sprinkle of protea with a pinch of borage, lots of glitter for magic, red and yellow feathers—into the box, waiting for its owner.

  “SLEEP WELL, sweetheart. Miss Marjorie’s right here if you need anything. And tomorrow we’ll go to town and get some new ornaments for the tree.” Nate Hawthorne leaned over the bed and kissed his daughter, Delphine.

  She nodded a little too fast, her wide, dark eyes too shiny.

  He grinned. “No bedbugs biting, okay?”

  She swallowed hard, and he tried to get his heart not to crack. It had been six months. He wanted her to get less fearful, but her life experience lately hadn’t exactly supported bravery. It made him want to punch the wall.

  He kissed her cheek again and had started to stand when her arms flew around his neck. “Daddy, are you sure it’s okay?” She clung like a tiny octopus.

  “Delly, we know it is, right? We checked every door and window. Didn’t we? And under the bed, and the closets?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. You sleep good, and I’ll come in and kiss you when I get home.” But oh please, let me kiss somebody else before then.

  Trying not to look back, he strode from the bedroom to the front door.

  A couple minutes later, Marjorie, his neighbor who supplemented her income by babysitting, came out of Delphine’s room. She was a stalwart woman of maybe fifty-five who worked hard as a medical technician and had grown children of her own. Marjorie was reliable, and Delphine needed a whole lot of that.

  She smiled. “She’ll be fine, Nate. Poor baby. They tend to develop fears at five or six anyway, and what with her experience in her mom’s house, she’s more high-strung than most.”

  “Yeah. I appreciate you staying with her.” He wiped a hand on the back of his neck.

  “Come on, you haven’t been out of this house except to work in half a year. You need a little time off.”

  Oh man, was that true. He didn’t want to spend the evening pissed at his ex—like every other evening. He wanted to drink a little too much and maybe, just maybe find somebody ready and willing for some no-strings extracurricular activity. He hadn’t looked at a guy in more than six months, and that was way too long. “Call instantly if you have any problems. I don’t want her frightened. I just want her to sleep through the night on her own and realize everything’s fine. Okay?”

  She patted his arm. “No worries. I got this. Go have some fun.”

  He glanced around the room one last time like he could chase any monsters away with his X-ray vision, and then walked out the front door and down his porch steps. Sadly, it wasn’t monsters Delly was afraid of. It was men. Big, loud, out-of-control men who showed up drunk and yelling in the middle of the night—like Raina’s boyfriend.

  He strode onto the sidewalk of Ashland’s Railroad District and turned right toward downtown. Christmas tree lights shone from the windows of the Victorian-style cottages, and Santas and miscellaneous reindeer decorated the yards and roofs. This would be Delly’s first holiday when she didn’t live with her mom.

  Okay, quit. Look forward to the evening. Tomorrow we’ll worry about making this a great Christmas for Delly.

  He cut across Lithia Way, pulling his jacket and the muffler around his neck a little tighter. Ashland had moderate weather in winter, but nights dropped into the twenties or lower. Still, he hadn’t wanted to look too dorky by overlayering. It was a ten-minute walk to the Rose and Crown. He’d survive.

  The plaza was shining with a gazillion holiday lights that he and Delly had watched get turned on the day after Thanksgiving, following the holiday parade and the arrival of Santa Claus. Of course Delly hadn’t been willing to go anywhere near Santa, since he was a big scary man. He’d tried to persuade her, but parents waiting in the line had told him the fear of Santa wasn’t that unusual, so he hadn’t pushed.

  Nate walked down the sidewalk to the staircase that climbed to the club. The Rose and Crown was a popular nightspot with everyone in Ashland, but a couple nights a week, they had special events that catered to the gay community. Tonight was Nate’s night.

  Climbing the super steep stairs, he took a big breath. When it came to meeting and picking up guys, he was out of practice. Hell, he’d never been in practice. After what he sometimes called his marriage of twos—two years, too young, and too foolish—he’d finally come out of the closet he’d never exactly chosen to go in. But by that time, everything had been about giving Delly a good life, even though she lived with her mom part of the time. Not much time to develop smooth moves.

  Since he’d become single two years before, a couple of the other professors at the college had tried to fix him up, but in the last six months since Delly had come to live with him full-time, leaving Delly for even a few hours at night hadn’t been possible. He’d gone on one lunch date, but he quickly realized he didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on starting up an actual relationship. He wanted no frills, no strings, no regrets sex, and chatting over coffee just wasn’t going to do the job.

  At the top of the Rose and Crown stairs, he glanced around the open room divided into areas—a big bar that blended into a restaurant and a corner where darts and pool commanded the space. A majority of the chairs and stools were occupied, mostly by men of many ages, but there were some women chatting with other women.

  Truthfully, he was probably putting too much stock in the chances he could meet a hookup there. Downtown Ashland wasn’t exactly a hotbed of kink and leather daddies, but Nate couldn’t be gone from home long enough to find someplace with more potential for attracting the kind of guy who turned him on.

  He walked to the crowd at the bar and stood behind two guys waiting for drinks. The one closest to Nate was wearing skintight gray jeans, and Nate allowed himself to enjoy the view for a second before the bartender yelled his way, “What can I get you?”

  “Uh, white wine.”

  Mr. Tight Gray spun to face him. He waved a hand in a graceful arc. “Oh come on, cutie. How will I ever get you drunk on white wine?”

  The answer surprised Nate so much he barked a laugh. “Well, I didn’t notice you trying.”

  The guy reached into the pocket of his pants, though how he got his hand in there, Nate couldn’t figure, and pulled out a couple of bills, which he held over his shoulder ever so coolly. The bartender grabbed the money and walked to his cash register.

  Nate said, “Wait. I didn’t mean that. Sorry. I can buy my own wine. I—”

  “Too late.” The guy grinned.

  Actually the man was cute—medium height, slim, great ass, longish bleached blond hair, blue eyes enhanced with guyliner. Normally he’d be way too twinky for Nate, but hell, clichés about beggars and choosers came to mind. “Thank you. I’ll get the next one.”

  The guy stuck out his hand. “Lewis.”

  “Nate.”

  A guy in front of Lewis started to slide off his barstool, and Lewis practically pushed him on his ass as he scooted right onto the stool from the other side. The departing guy gave Lewis a look, but Lewis flashed him such a charming grin the other guy had to smile back.

  Lewis grabbed Nate’s hand and pulled him onto the stool beside him, sliding one cheek off so Nate could slip his one cheek on the other side. Cheek to cheek.

  Lewis said, “I don’t recall seeing you in here before, and I’d remember because you are cuuute.”

  Nate grinned and felt some heat in his face. Still it was nice to hear. He might only be twenty-six, but some days he felt like seventy-six. “I haven’t been in much and not at all for a long time. Family issues.”

  “Oh sorry. Well, the club’s loss is my gain.”

  Nate gazed at his wineglass. “Thanks for saying that.” He took a breath. He needed to get into this. “So what do you do, Lewis?”

  “Hair, darling, what
else?” He flipped his blond locks that were actually well done, if a bit much for Nate’s taste. “You?”

  “I work for the college.”

  Lewis flipped his do again. “Ooh, a professor?”

  “No. Just a boring old administrator.”

  “Gee, you don’t look boring to me.” His wide blue eyes traveled over Nate’s body.

  “I don’t?” Nate swallowed.

  Lewis snorted. “I love a man with self-confidence.”

  “It really has been a while.” Nate chuckled.

  “How does one so young and adorable get to be an administrator?”

  Nate shrugged. “I got a master’s in educational leadership, and I’m working on a PhD. But very slowly.”

  “Good grief, no wonder you haven’t had time to come to the club.”

  “It’s more because of my daughter.”

  Lewis looked genuinely shocked. “You’re freaking kidding me.”

  “No. She’s five.”

  “How old were you when you had her? Twelve?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “Whoa, that’s tough. You’ve packed a lot in.”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t say he’d packed too much in, but that was the truth. Without working all day and studying all night, he might have noticed Raina’s declining home life faster. Raising the glass, he downed a big mouthful of wine. This conversation wasn’t exactly foreplay. Lighten up! “So tell me about being a hairdresser.”

  Lewis seemed to sense that talking about Nate’s life wasn’t going to get him very far, so he plunged into funny stories about his clients and their idiosyncrasies. He had Nate laughing and ended with, “I have one client who always brings her dog to the salon. Totally against the health rules, you understand, but I own the shop so I can bend the rules if I want. The dog sits on her lap with the plastic cape around it while she gets her haircut. At the end, I have to blow out the dog to get all the extra hair off it.”

  Nate laughed some more. He quickly glanced at his watch. He’d only been gone an hour and a bit, but he felt weirdly antsy and unable to relax. Marjorie hadn’t texted, so Delly must be okay, but worrying about Delphine constantly for so long wouldn’t let him off the hook.

  “Someplace you need to be?”

  “Sorry. I’m just worried about my kid. This is the first night I’ve left her—I mean with a sitter, not alone. She’s at that age where she’s afraid of a lot of things.”

  “Sorry, darling. What I don’t know about kids would fill Google, but how long has it been that you haven’t left her?”

  “Six months.”

  “Holy crap.” Lewis moved close—closer. “Well, sweetheart, it seems like time to end your drought, don’t you think?”

  Whoa, the words Nate had been waiting to hear. His cock wasn’t 100 percent into it, but maybe with little coaxing…. He smiled.

  The bartender leaned over toward Nate. “Want another?”

  Nate glanced up to say no and— Oh my God.

  Sitting at the far end of the bar, next to the wall, looking entirely alone was a guy. What a guy. Nate let out a long slow breath, and as he exhaled it seemed to inflate his cock, which rose like the sun over the Siskiyou Mountains.

  The man was big, really, really big. Considering how he towered over the bar sitting down, he had to be six four or more with curly dark hair that fell over his forehead. His shoulders stretched so wide they almost touched the man next to him. That man’s eyes kept sneaking sideways toward the loner, but the big man never even gave him a glance. He stared into a glass of beer, his muscled and corded forearms, covered in tattoos, lying on the bar as he flipped some small object.

  “Scuse me, did you want two more?” The bartender sounded rushed.

  Nate dragged his eyes away from the end of the bar. “Sorry. Yes, please.”

  Lewis looked surprised and definitely disappointed. “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

  Nate smiled. “I owe you.”

  He twirled his hair around his finger. “Welllll, I can think of other ways you could show appreciation, but I thank you for the drink.”

  Nate glanced across the bar again. The big man was sipping beer, staring down at whatever was in his other hand. Suddenly, he looked up and his eyes met Nate’s—maybe an accident, maybe not. And maybe, just maybe the corners of his mouth turned up.

  A streak of fire shot from Nate’s balls straight into his cock. He inhaled sharply and glanced at Lewis, who followed Nate’s line of sight. His eyes widened and lips parted. “Oh my.”

  “Sorry. I got distracted.” Nate swallowed a big mouthful of wine and coughed as part of it went into his nose.

  Lewis patted his back. “Easy there, fella.”

  “S-sorry. Swallowed wrong.” He coughed a couple more times and glanced up to see the big man staring at the bar but grinning.

  Lewis got a snarky smile. “Easy to understand why a guy could choke—on many parts of that dude.” Lewis took a big mouthful of his new drink. “So that’s your type, sweetheart?”

  Nate shook his head. “Not sure I know what my type is.” That was kind of true.

  “Well, sweetie, if you get a hard-on over him, I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it for you.”

  Had Lewis noticed his hard-on? “You’re adorable.”

  Lewis splayed his fingers beside his head. “So true.” Then he sighed dramatically. “But if alpha’s your thing, I’m not your guy. Just an adorable, boring bottom.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  He leaned forward and kissed Nate’s cheek. “So go get him, tiger.”

  Nate glanced across the bar again at Mr. Sexy and Solitary. Even if Nate was desperate, that much nerve he didn’t have. “No, I better get home to my kid.”

  “Really? You’re not going to try to tap that? I definitely saw a, shall we say, flicker—” Lewis chuckled. “—of interest.”

  Nate released a breath. So Lewis saw. “Naw, my daughter’s having some problems. I can’t leave her with the sitter too long.”

  Lewis cast his eyes unsubtly toward tall, dark, handsome, and a little scary. “You sure you don’t have time for just a little pickup action? I could be your wingman.”

  Hell, there wasn’t enough time in the world for all the things he’d like to do to that guy. “I gotta go. I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Why don’t you give him a try?” He wanted to bite his tongue for suggesting it.

  Lewis patted his cheek. “You’re not a waste, darling, and I’m afraid that dude is just not my thing. You’re the adorable one. I tend to come here most LGBT nights. Feel free to say hi anytime.” He leaned close to Nate’s ear. “I give a helluva blowjob.”

  Nate laughed to hide the pure confusion of his penis. Blowjob sounded ridiculously good, but in the face of the embodiment of everything he found sexy, Lewis looked like good buddy material. “Thanks, Lewis. I’m glad I met you.” He extended his hand.

  Lewis waved a hand and planted a kiss on Nate’s cheek. “You too, cutie. Hope I see you again.”

  Nate dropped some extra money by his empty glass, rose, and, with one longing glance toward the end of the bar, he walked down the stairs and back onto the sidewalk. He raised his shoulders and dropped them. At least it was good to know that he could react that strongly to a guy.

  Oh well. He trotted across the street onto the plaza and stopped at the crosswalk, but he couldn’t resist looking back.

  Holy crap. Standing outside the building under the lights of the portico, kind of like he wanted to be seen, was the man. The big, big man.

  Chapter Two

  NATE HELD Delly’s hand as they walked the few blocks to Main Street.

  “Daddy, I want a unicorn ornament and a Tinker Bell.” She bounced more than she walked.

  “We’ll try. You’ll have to see what they have. I’ll bet you can find some great things at Paddington Station.”

  “Yes!” She clapped. The big store carried some of everything, so it was endlessly entertaining for Delphine.

  When he’d gotten home the night before, Marjorie’d told him she was sleeping, but the second he walked into the room, her eyes had opened. She’d smiled and gone to sleep for real. In the sunlight with no other people around, she was like a different kid, full of spunk and adventure.