Love, Tussles, and Takedowns by Violet Duke Read Free Book Online Page A

across the way. One of my friends works with the community outreach programs out where our troops are deployed in the Middle East, and I know they rarely get things for the kids so I was thinking of sending her some cool toys that she could ship over for them to hand out.”
    She smiled. “Okay. How about I meet you in the town center in about a half hour?”
    “Sounds like a plan.”
    A plan in theory, perhaps.
    But in reality, the second Lia stepped foot into her shop, two people immediately stopped him in the street to essentially ask him ‘what his intentions were’ with their Lia. The kindly old woman in the hand knit sweater who stopped him first was perhaps just as fierce in her warnings as the gruff biker dude that growled out a brief, “Don’t you dare hurt that sweet woman.”
    He’d managed to get two-thirds of the way down the main street when he saw that half his time was already up and if he wasn’t mistaken, Lia was already at the town center, getting chased around the grassy area by a screeching swarm of kids.
    “I take it you’re Lia’s mystery guy. The one everyone’s buzzing about this morning,” said a cheerfully amused voice from the next bench over.
    Hudson had always been good with faces, but not names. “You were at Luke’s wedding a few weeks back, right? You’re the brother of one of the other groomsmen.”
    The man’s eyebrows hopped up in recognition. “You were in the wedding party too—Luke’s friend from high school. Sorry, I didn’t recognize you there for a second. And yeah, I’m Brian Sullivan. Good memory. Connor’s my brother.”
    Hudson looked over at the kids, wholly astonished to see them now quiet, and marching in a military-grade single file behind Lia holding what looked like… He squinted. “Are those play-fort sized Lincoln Logs ?”
    Brian chuckled. “This town has some very unique amenities.”
    Clearly.
    Seeing the children now gathered around Lia, silently hanging on her every word, Hudson marveled, “She’s really great with them isn’t she?”
    “Yep. You wouldn’t guess it from how quiet she is, but Lia definitely has a way with kids, in a way that’s uniquely her own. MaGyver-ing games out of random things around town like she’s doing now is just one of the reasons why they love her. I know my kids and my niece”—he nodded over at a cute little girl with Connor’s blue eyes—“are definitely huge fans. To them, Lia’s one of the town amenities they’re always wanting to visit Cactus Creek to come see.”
    Hudson could see why. Lia had a very…unassuming charm the kids seemed drawn to. There wasn’t a single trace of rah-rah kid’s show host in her actions, nor did she carry herself like a singing dinosaur. She was more like a modern day Pied Piper, quietly inspiring fun, effortlessly cultivating life. In fact, just watching her lead the kids over to a tire swing tree at the center of the park, he half expected smiling daisies to slowly bloom to life out of the ground in her wake.
    While it had been crazy sexy to see her passion about antique rifles, mind-blowingly erotic to see her this morning in her thin white tank top and cute boyshort panties…this…seeing her directing the now dozen or so kids that had gathered around her as if she were the Pied Piper—it tugged on a part of his heart he hadn’t really thought was accessible anymore.
     
    * * * * *
     
    “OKAY, GANG ARE we ready?” called out Lia. “Are all the logs in place? We’re going for a strike so we need to make sure it’s in a nice, clean triangle.” She walked back over to check on Skylar Sullivan, the designated “bowling ball” in today’s game. It was an honor bestowed on the lanky teen by the town children primarily because she was the only one of the bunch taller than three feet, but also because they all just flat-out adored her. Lia didn’t blame ‘em. Skylar was one very cool soon-to-be-sixteen-year-old. Lia didn’t know many high schoolers