EXCERPT 1
The person behind the desk is a stranger. 

It’s a man with long, wild reddish-brown hair, a beard that hasn’t seen a trim in probably months, and thick, assertively male eyebrows with a whole zip code of their own. He’s sprawled out, wide legged, in the receptionist’s chair, dwarfing it. 

He’s also vaguely familiar, which means he’s probably the groom Hanna said she’d send my way, a guy whose bride put her foot down at the eleventh hour and demanded he spend a day getting “the works.” Lily must have left the door open when she came in, and he helped himself to a warmer place to wait, even though it’s not yet ten. 

“There are plenty of chairs in the waiting area if you need a place to sit!” I call out cheerily, gesturing at the comfy armchairs on one side of the room. “That one’s mine.” I approach the desk. “Let me block some time out for you. You’re in luck because we’ve got plenty of room for walk-ins this morning. I’ve got someone who can do the hair and beard, and I can do your eyebrows if you want that, too.” 

His eyes widen. “What’s wrong with the hair, beard, and eyebrows?”

Yikes. I definitely got the wrong end of that one. “I’m so sorry! I was expecting a client with a beard this morning, and I totally assumed you were him. But you’re…obviously not. You must be here for something else. Massage? Or a dip in the springs?” Ugh—it’s never good to start the day off insulting a potential client, even if he’s sitting in my chair. “There’s a ten-percent-off coupon here with your name on it, an apology for my making assumptions about who you were—”

“No.” He scowls. “I’m not here for any of that. I’m here because due to circumstances beyond my control and yours and probably even God’s, I’m your new receptionist.”

I laugh, reflexively. And then I realize I’m the only one laughing and my laughter sort of…falls off a cliff.

“Yeah,” the bearded stranger says. “It’s not even remotely funny. Although I think my grandfather would have disagreed. I’m pretty sure he’s laughing all the way to hell.” 

“Your grandfather,” I repeat. I’m so lost, I couldn’t find my best self with a compass and map.  

He stands and holds out a hand. And I realize he actually wasn’t manspreading. He was taking up all that space in the chair because he’s legitimately huge—at least six-two and built like a warrior god. He wears worn jeans and a T-shirt that reads, I’m a chemist. To save time, let’s assume I’m never wrong. 

“Quinn Hott,” he says. “Hanna’s brother, Fox Hott’s second-youngest grandkid. And your new receptionist.”

EXCERPT 2
“You’re my new receptionist,” I say slowly. “Hanna’s text says you have to work at the desk. What does she mean by ‘have to’?”  

Because my plan calls for me to be at the front desk. Spreading sunshine and upselling like crazy and narrowing our product deficit slowly but surely. 

Quinn raises his eyebrows. “Hanna didn’t tell you about the will?”

“Your grandfather’s will?”

“Yeah.”

I shake my head. I hugged her at Fox’s funeral, both of us crying, but we didn’t get a chance to talk. 

“If my siblings and I want to keep the land, we have to do whatever he tells us.”

“The land…? You mean this land?” 

He nods. “And in my case, what he told me is that I have to be the Hott Spot receptionist for two months.” 

I’m having trouble tracking. “‘He’? You mean your grandfather told you? How?” 

“Letter,” he says succinctly. “He wrote me a fucking letter. He had a sick sense of humor, and he thought it would be a howl to put the guy who’s definitely not a people person on a front-desk job.”

I bite my lip. Because he’s just expressed my worst fear out loud. This is the worst time possible to put a “not a people person” at this desk. When I desperately need sales to go up, not down. 

At the same time, I’m not going to say that out loud to a guy who’s clearly going through some stuff of his own.  

“I bet you’re better with people than you think you are,” I tell him.

The look he gives me is ripe with scorn. “No need to butter me up,” he says. “I know who I am.” 

“I wasn’t—”

“Look,” he says. “You’ve already told me I need a haircut and a beard trim—and what was the other thing? Oh yeah. Eyebrows.”

“Please—forget what I said about the hair. I thought you were someone else.” 

“Who obviously needed a haircut.”

“No, I—”

“It’s fine. We both know I’m not pretty enough for the job,” he says. 

It’s true he doesn’t look like any receptionist I’ve ever hired for a salon or spa front desk before. More like a cross between a mad scientist and the mountain man you get snowed in with in a romance novel. In the tiny one-room cabin on the mountain with the real bearskin rug, the blazing fire, the super-rich dark chocolate, and only one bed. The one whose alphahole demeanor turns out to be just what you needed during sex. 

Not “pretty,” no. Something else entirely.