Bird Dog (Confessions of a Chick Magnet Book 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  What people are saying about Jenny Gardiner's books:

  Bird Dog

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lady Killer | Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Lady Killer

  About the Author

  Also By Jenny Gardiner

  What people are saying about Jenny Gardiner's books:

  Red Hot Romeo

  “Awesome". So enjoyed the romantic chemistry between the two characters. Read it non stop into the wee hours. Highly recommend this book

  —Mrs. K

  Blue-Blooded Romeo

  "Another brilliant, fun read from Jenny Gardiner. The book is fun to read and I thoroughly enjoyed every word. Jenny Gardiner has put the fun back into romance books and I look forward to each book in this delightful series.”

  —Anne Blyth

  “I had planned on only reading a few chapters at first but couldn't put it down. A terrific storyline, well-developed and extremely relatable characters, what's not to love?? Great read!”

  —Samantha Reeves

  Big O Romeo

  “I could not put this book down. Warning don't start this book late at night as you will not want to stop reading.

  —Di

  Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

  "A fun, sassy read! A cross between Erma Bombeck and Candace Bushnell, reading Jenny Gardiner is like sinking your teeth into a chocolate cupcake...you just want more."

  —Meg Cabot, NY Times bestselling author of Princess Diaries, Queen of Babble and more

  Slim to None

  "Jenny Gardiner has done it again—this fun, fast-paced book is a great summer read."

  —Sarah Pekkanen, NY Times bestselling author of The Opposite of Me

  Bird Dog

  (Book Four of the Confessions of a Chick Magnet series)

  by Jenny Gardiner

  Copyright © 2019 by Jenny Gardiner

  Cover art by Kim Killion, The Killion Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  http://jennygardiner.net/

  Dear Reader,

  Renowned Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo left behind a series of fascinating sculptures known as the Prisoners, housed alongside his masterwork, David, at the Accademia in Florence. These unfinished statues reveal how painstakingly Michelangelo took a block of marble, and through his brilliance and skill, fully formed bodies emerged. There’s a sense that these figures are trying to break free from the bonds of the block of marble in which they are permanently suspended.

  Not to compare myself to one of the most masterful artists in the history of the world, but finishing this book felt a little bit like trying to find some sort of workable form in a block of marble. Only this elusive shape was remarkably good at hiding from me. So much so that I finally postponed the original publication date for the book because there was just nothing I could grasp hold of and work with.

  I’d finished my last book in this series on my birthday, December 20 and sent it off to my editor. I was thrilled to have a break from writing; my kids would be coming in for Christmas in a matter of days, and it felt like there was a nice stretch of downtime looming ahead, with nothing to worry about and time to relax and enjoy being with family.

  That lasted for all of about twenty minutes when I got a message from one of my brothers asking if any of us had heard recently from our father. Alas, several text messages and phone calls later, we found out that he had passed away in his beloved winter condominium in Hawaii—a sad day for us all, but we were certainly grateful that he died where he was happiest and that he didn’t suffer.

  His passing then launched all sorts of unexpected to-dos that weren’t on any previous lists. We needed to close up my dad’s affairs, tie up his loose ends, conduct massive purges of his house and condo (he was a hoarder, so this was no small feat), and organize two memorial services, one in each location where he resided. Not to mention the inevitable emotional fallout of losing one’s last parent.

  Fast forward to late January when my book was due to my editor, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it. She generously extended my deadline first by one week, then two weeks, then three, then four. In late February, exhausted on my flight back from helping to close up my dad’s affairs in Hawaii, I finally recognized that I simply could not write this book at that time. Not only was I not there creatively, but my middle daughter was going to be married in late March, and lots of wedding-related things were on the horizon that needed my full attention.

  Hence, I took the unusual step of postponing this book, which is not an easy thing to do because Amazon doesn’t appreciate you changing your mind about such things and tends to punish writers who do. And of course, it meant disappointing readers who had been awaiting the release of the fourth book in the Confessions of a Chick Magnet series. To be honest, finally accepting that this book was officially stuck was the smartest decision I’ve made. In hindsight, I should have postponed it back in January, but I’m super grateful to my editor, assistants, and family who were kind, supportive, and patient and gave me the space I needed to get back to a place where I could create again. And I’m grateful to you, my readers, for your understanding and patience.

  As it happens, this new deadline somehow showed up much faster than I’d planned! Isn’t that always the case? But finally—finally!—I wrote this book. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and I appreciate your understanding that I had to tuck it away for a short while as life got a little bit in the way.

  Happy Reading!

  Jenny

  Chapter One

  Elise Jackson groaned as she stood smack-dab in the middle of Main Street and reluctantly let Candy Kettering tie a blindfold around her eyes.

  “Seriously?” she muttered as her thick blond hair became tangled in the knot after a tight tug. “Blindfolded?” She let out a growl. “This bridal party forced-frivolity thing is starting to pluck my last nerve.” They were back in her hometown of Bristol, Montana for the upcoming nuptials of a mutual friend.

  Candy patted her on the back, which wasn’t the least bit reassuring.

  “Now, now. Trust me, it’ll be fine. All we need to do is follow these directions and all will be right with the world.” She held up the sheet of paper and squinted against the bright sunlight to read it. “It says, Do something intimate with a strange man, then have your picture taken with him and post it on Instagram. We’ll do this, knock out the final thing on the list, and get busy drinking martinis.”

  At the rate things were going, Elise was gonna need to be two-fisted with those cocktails.

  “Can you define ‘intimate’? Am I supposed to get down on my knees and give some dude a blow job for the cause?”

  Candy laughed. “Have faith, Elise. How long have we known each o
ther? Do you honestly think I’d make you do something like that?” She pulled the blindfold over her friend’s eyes, centering it to secure it snugly.

  Elise tried to give her a deadpan look even though it was mostly obscured since she was blindfolded. “Let’s just say ‘no comment.’”

  Candy burst out laughing. “Thanks for that ringing vote of confidence.” She placed her hands on the shoulders of her former college roommate and steered her over to the street corner, where a group of people had gathered for some reason. “Hugs for Henry,” she said aloud as she read a sign tacked onto the lamppost.

  “What’s that?” Elise said.

  “I dunno. There’s this sign hanging up with a picture of some cute kid who must be Henry, and people have lined up I’m assuming to hug a couple of handsome men standing at a table. Not sure why. But that seems kinda intimate, no?”

  “And doesn’t even involve a strange guy’s dick in my mouth. It’s a win-win if you ask me. Quick—get me in line to hug one of these idiots and let’s get outa here. I’m starting to feel claustrophobic with this thing pressing against my eyeballs. And it’s so far over my nose I can’t comfortably breathe.”

  They were performing the final leg of a bachelorette party scavenger hunt. They had found themselves blowing up condom balloons with a couple of guys coming out of Nick’s Delicatessen, persuading a dad of two small children to sing “Like a Virgin” along with them as they pretended to be backup singers, and asking a sixty-something woman to write sex advice on a cocktail napkin for Jennifer Lipton, the bride-to-be, whom Elise was thinking of disavowing at this point.

  These supposedly wacky adventures were part of Jennifer’s bachelorette party fun and games extravaganza, all of which only served to reinforce in Elise’s mind that she was 100 percent down with a quickie elopement sans all those nuptial-related frills that she had grown completely sick to death of after having attended or partaken in at least ten weddings in the past year alone. That is, if she ever got married, which was about as high up on her priority list as having emergency dental surgery, so a bit of a moot point.

  Candy kept ushering Elise forward in line until finally, they got up to what must’ve been the front of it because now some guy was speaking to them.

  “Aha, we’ve got a little Fifty Shades action here?” the guy said.

  Ugh, the last thing Elise wanted was for someone to think she was some sort of S&M fangirl.

  “Yeah, I’m so desperate for a bit of bondage I even walk down the street blindfolded,” she said, snarling her lip. “I was just bummed my friend here left my ball gag back in the hotel room.”

  “Huh... Looks like you’ve got yourself a sassy one,” the guy said. “You might need to take a crop to her backside and put her in her place.”

  If Elise could see where he was, she’d whack him on the damn backside with that theoretical crop. What did he think she was—a horse?

  “Yeah, sorry. She’s a little cranky right now,” Candy said, elbowing Elise to play along. “See, we’re on a bachelorette party scavenger hunt. My friend here has to do something intimate with a strange man and then Instagram the picture. Because I’m a trusty friend, I’m going to keep it PG-rated and not do anything that would humiliate the poor thing. Besides, she’s got a bit of anxiety about this mask obscuring her vision, so please, be gentle.”

  Elise could hear the guy rubbing his hands together. She felt like a stallion with blinders on about to be auctioned to the highest bidder. And not in a good way.

  “Cool, cool,” he said. “Just so you know, I don’t normally hang out on street corners hugging people, but my friend’s kid Henry needs some surgery and they just lost their insurance and can’t afford it. So a bunch of us decided we’d do a fundraiser hugging people to raise money to help Henry out.”

  “Oh my God, that is so sweet,” Candy said. “Isn’t it sweet, Elise?”

  Elise had kind of lost her warm fuzzies over this project. “It is sweet, and I hope Henry gets his day in the OR. Now can we get on with this so I can remove this blindfold before a full-blown panic attack sets in?”

  “Your friend’s a little testy, eh?”

  “In all seriousness, she’s not often like this. I think she’s officially wedding’d out, and the blindfold was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. After this, we can go drink, so we’re totally incentivized to get it over with and move on to the real fun.”

  “In that case, let’s do it.”

  “Oh, but Elise, you should see this cute dog that waddled over to us.”

  “That’s my buddy’s dog. His name is Sherlock,” the guy said. “That’s a good boy.” His voice raised in that talk-to-your-dog coo.

  She wondered if he’d just leaned over to pet the thing since his voice sounded farther away.

  “What kind of dog is he?” her friend said.

  “He’s a basset hound.”

  “I could eat him up with a spoon, with those hangdog droopy eyes and the ears—Elise, they go all the way to the ground!”

  “Awww, man! You know I have to pet the dog now. But now I can’t even find where he is.” She pursed her lips, trying to figure out the logistics. “Here—help me so I don’t fall flat on my face.” She reached out her hand to steady herself on her friend as she bent down. Candy guided her hand to the dog’s head. “That’s a good puppy.” She puckered up her lips and let the dog lick her face as she made kissy noises to him while he slurped his tongue along her cheeks. At last, she stood up, dusting her hands off on her jeans. “Okay, now let’s get this over and done with so I can actually see the dog and give him the proper attention he deserves.” She paused, her hands on her hips. “How exactly does this work?”

  “Well normally when two people hug, one reaches out opened arms and wraps them around the other person, whose arms are also extended. They clasp, hold tight, then release.”

  “Oh, we’ve got ourselves a real rocket scientist here today,” she said with a smirk. “All righty, then. Arms open wide.” She spread her arms out. “Let’s hurry up and insert Tab A into Slot B already and get outa here.”

  A warm body pressed up against hers in a manner she hadn’t felt in far too long. Strong arms snaked around her torso, pulling her in tightly. Against her better judgment, she sank into his hard chest—how could she not? He felt so very yin to her yang. But yikes—was that... his Tab A suddenly nudging its way in the general vicinity of her Slot B? Because whoa, that was so not okay. Even though it felt kind of like Old Home Day for some bizarre reason. But no, she could not be pressed up against a stranger who was rapidly growing a hard-on. In broad daylight. Without her even seeing the guy. Ewww. Even if he did have a supposedly cute dog.

  Elise stiffened at the, well, stiffness, diplomatically pulling back from the man before he embarrassed himself on her, or worse, she embarrassed herself right back by being more receptive than the occasion dictated.

  “Okay, then,” she said, shoving her hands in her pockets, making it clear the touching thing was over. “Am I all good to take this blindfold off, Candy? Let’s get that picture and vamoose.”

  Candy worked to loosen the tight knot behind her friend until Elise was able to draw it over her head. She squinted and rubbed her eyes as they were accosted by brightness, then opened them to see standing before her the man who owned the most primo, A-number-one piece of real estate on her permanent shitlist ever: Wilson T. Montgomery. The high school boyfriend who took her virginity then dumped her in the douchiest of ways, leaving her reeling and weeping and cursing the very soil he walked on for years afterward.

  “You!” she said, her eyes widening as she pointed at him as if fingering a criminal. “How dare you touch me with your grubby little paws?” She grimaced for emphasis and pointed southward toward his crotch. “Not to mention that thing!”

  “Elise?” he said, his brows furrowed as he stared at her. “That was you beneath the blindfold the whole time?”

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe you
touched me with your, your, your cooties!” Not above making a scene, Elise shrieked.

  He lifted a brow. “Cooties? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about.” She grabbed for Candy’s hand. “Let’s get out of here. Now!”

  “Wait a second,” he said. “You can’t leave yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have to pay up.” He pointed to a woman who sat nearby with a cashbox. “That’ll be fifty bucks.”

  “Fifty bucks? To hug the guy who ditched me on prom night for slutty Shannon Cadbury, who never met a guy she didn’t do on the first half of a date before the entrée was even served? For that matter, even if it wasn’t her damn date to begin with?”

  He shrugged. “First of all, you are talking total nonsense. Second of all, you agreed to the hug, and we hugged. You did the crime, you gotta do the time.” He winked at her and gave her a thumbs-up, which made her want to slug him.

  She glared at him as she pulled money out of her wallet and slapped it on the little card table where the cashier worked.

  “I’m only doing this so that little Henry gets his surgery. I wouldn’t want him to suffer because you’re such a knuckle-dragging lout.” She lifted her lip in a snarl. “By the way—for what it’s worth, hugging you was like hugging a cactus: stiff and prickly.”

  “Oh yeah? You should be glad you’ve finally got something good and stiff in your life.”

  “I’ll show you stiff,” she said, rearing back as her arm seemed to get a mind of its own, powering the open palm of her hand across his face, with a loud smacking sound like the crack of a, well, crop. “Something I should’ve done years ago, buster.”

  With that, she stormed across the central plaza, not even bothering to wait to take the requisite photo to post on Instagram.

  Chapter Two

  Will was starting to get into the rhythm of this hugging-for-dollars thing. At first, when his friend Ricardo had suggested it, he laughed it off.