Fix Me Up: A small town, single dad romance, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Abby Knox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is coincidental.
Edited by Aquila Editing
Cover design: Cormar Covers
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This book is dedicated to all single parents who are in the weeds with these exhausting, adorable, precious, frustrating little creatures. I wish you ALL the naps.
fix me up
Abby Knox
contents
Fix Me Up
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
More by Abby Knox
About the Author
fix me up
Owen
One terrible blind date with the town doctor is not enough to make me get over her. Am I delusional? Very possible. Am I guilty of using my adorable toddler to talk to Dr. Daisy Allen every chance I get? Absolutely I am.
Daisy
When I moved to the charming town of Fate to set up my practice, I had no intention of finding love. I agreed a blind date with hot single dad Owen Mosley just to appease the townsfolk. That was … interesting. As much as I try to put that night behind me, it’s tough to avoid Owen—especially when he constantly makes appointments to see me with his perfectly healthy kid.
chapter
one
Daisy
“Sorry to bother you, Dr. Allen, but Mr. Mosley wants to see you. He says it will only take a minute.”
Yeah.
Thanks to the new security system that feeds into my office, I already know that man is here.
This will also take way more than one minute of my time.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, and take a moment to gather extra patience. “Here we go.”
Owen Mosley gets under my skin, but not because of the reasons Trisha thinks.
The man tries my bedside manner simply because he harbors an extraordinary amount of stress, even for a single dad, which no amount of professional reassurance can quell.
Usually, I’m great at helping anxious parents calm down about a child’s sniffle here or a rash there. But Owen is a different breed of parent altogether. In my medical professional opinion, the 30-year-old single dad has read way too many parenting manuals for his mental health, yet, mystifyingly, does not know how to Google basic questions like, “When should I call the doctor about my child’s temperature?”
As the locals say, Bless his heart.
And that’s it, really. That’s the whole of my feelings about him, and none of those feelings are influenced by one awkward blind date we went on last New Year’s Eve. I’ve put that evening behind me. Completely.
“Is he on the schedule?” I ask Trisha.
The receptionist tilts her head to the side and smirks. “I think you know the answer to that.”
I blow out of breath and stand up, my 35-year-old knees cracking. “Here we go again.”
The sound of Trisha chuckling behind me as I go to the front desk has me feeling self-conscious. Her tone when it comes to my interactions with Owen feels like a wink and a nudge.
This is probably why I get an involuntary tingle when I glimpse him as I walk through the door into the reception area. Eighteen-month-old Graham, red-cheeked and squealing, grabs at Owen’s mouth while Owen pretends to gobble up those little dimpled fingers.
The adorable, curly-haired toddler has his six-foot-four, 200-pound feed store manager dad wrapped around his chubby little finger. Out of context, I’d say Owen looks like a typical dad. But I’ve seen Graham in my office so many times in the last several months that even though I don’t like to be quick to assign labels, Owen is on the verge of a hypochondriacal diagnosis with regard to the way he fusses and worries over his perfectly healthy boy, Graham.
Graham is a wonderful kid, if a little bit temperamental. Owen, however, has been a thorn in my side—even more than the older patients who don’t like being told to fill out online forms, even after the phone nurse offers to walk them through it.
And yet I can’t help but sense a fiery crackle deep in my body whenever he makes eye contact.
Settle down, ovaries. It’s not happening. Nobody wants to have sex with someone with my…not-so-little problem. Especially because I’m a doctor, who everyone thinks is supposed to know everything about the human anatomy.
The aforementioned dirty little secret ended my last relationship. That personal issue was there in the back of my mind during that ill-fated blind date on the previous New Year’s Eve, which only contributed to my attitude all night long.
Ugh. I don’t need to think about that right now. It does not matter that Owen is cute and single, and I also happen to be cute and single. Everyone loves to point out how we’re both still available and haven’t dated anyone since that horrible first experience. But everyone needs to get over it.
I know I have. And I know for certain that Owen also has gotten over it, without a shadow of a doubt.
“Did you have a question about something?” I ask.
Owen overwhelms the space on the other side of the check-in partition. His flannel shirt makes his broad chest seem broader somehow. Graham’s soft toddler hand grips his dad’s masculine chin, making Owen’s face appear all the more chiseled and scruffy.
Okay. Fine. Owen is not bad to look at, and having an adorable child attached to him at all times doesn’t make him less attractive.
“Hi, Dr. Allen. How are you?” He gives me his usual crooked smile.
Good god, he sees me so often he must have hit his deductible by now.
“I’m fine,” I say, noticing how I was a little short with my greeting. People here love to ease into a conversation, and some days, it makes my head explode. I’m from Gold Hill. I’m a fast talker and I like to keep things moving. I guess it’s not so bad to slow down for a little small talk, even if Owen is here too often. Nervousness aside, he does have a polite demeanor and gorgeous cobalt-blue eyes. Not to mention his criminally long lashes that draw me in. “Everything okay?”
Graham has moved on to reaching for the brim of Owen’s ballcap. The dad runs two thick fingers over the scruff of his chin. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I…I was just wondering if I was supposed to give him Children’s Tylenol before the vaccine or afterward.”
I smirk. We both know that the printouts Trisha gave him when they left after Graham’s check-up this morning had all of that information in there.
“Did you lose it already?”
Owen stammers, “Ma’am, I’ve been losing everything since you rode into town.”
I have no idea what everybody’s horse analogies are supposed to mean but I go along with it. This time, I think he means the former doctor never gave anyone the necessary literature to take home, and he’s simply not used to keeping track of printouts.
I say, “If you need another one, just ask.”
Owen shifts his weight from one foot to the other while trying to avoid Graham’s grabby hands that still reach for the brim of his cap. I’m getting the sense that he has something else on his mind.
Graham starts to whine and wriggle, no longer wanting to be carried. “Down!”
“In a second, kiddo,” the dad replies.
My patience is wearing thin here. “Is there something else, Owen?”
He stammers, “Yeah…um…I was wondering if I could see you in private. It’s kind of a sensitive question.”
I blink at him. He stares back.
Now free of his father’s grip, Graham makes a beeline for the wooden blocks in the children’s waiting area.
Owen’s handsome, masculine face has taken on the expression of a kid in school who’s been called up to the whiteboard to do algebra. I remember that look from our unfortunate blind date. When he asked about my secondary schooling and I answered, I volleyed the question back at him. He was weirdly unprepared for such questions, which I still find odd.
I try “Is it a medical emergency? Is Graham having a reaction to something?”
He blows out of breath. “No, ma’am, it’s not that.”
“Daddy!” Graham calls out, begging the man to get onto the floor to play.
This man is wasting my time. I have a waiting room full of patients and a full roster today. There is something in Owen’s face that tells me this has less to do with medicine and it’s more of a personal nature. I have to check m
“I’ll tell you what. Add your name to the walk-in list, and I’ll see you as soon as I can. It’s only fair. Now if you feel like there’s a medical emergency, you know what to do, don’t you?”
A relaxed grin crinkles his blue eyes.
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
Owen tips his hat and turns away, loping across the waiting room to find a seat.
I notice how those jeans hug his backside as he walks away, both cheeks eating up the denim with every step.
What the hell is wrong with me? My friend Rebel would say I need to bang it out. Get all these horny thoughts out of my system. She should know; she met her man while they were both in costume at a gamer convention we attended a few years back.
But Rebel is much more of a free spirit than I am. Still, I have her to thank for telling me about the medical practice for sale here. It’s reassuring to open a practice in a small town where I know at least one person who lives here.
But now, with Rebel married and busy with her own life, I’m starting to feel the effects of isolation and it’s clearly taking a toll on me. Why else would I be staring at a single dad’s butt in the waiting room of my medical practice?
I’ll just have to get past how good he is to look at because there’s nothing cute about a doctor staring at a patient in that way.
I lock that thought in the vault and go back to work.
I have to, because I see Graham more than any other patient.
This all started at the town’s New Year’s Eve dance, where Owen showed up to our blind date, having forgotten to buy a ticket for himself.
Trisha and Rebel have repeatedly urged me to give him a second chance. Trisha’s friend, who works for Owen at the feed store, initiated the blind date idea in the first place. The blind date ended up being the New Year’s Eve dance at Ursula’s now-husband Noah’s ranch, which made the whole debacle even more of a public spectacle.
Everyone in my little universe doesn’t understand that not everything works out perfectly just because they had a role in setting us up.
The bottom line is that Owen and I did not click that night.
And besides, I don’t have time for a relationship. After only eight months, I’m still getting established in Fate. I’m an outsider, and although many people have welcomed me with open arms, I’m still adapting to small-town life.
Everyone’s obsession with me finding someone to date is simply everyone’s favorite pastime.
This town has a habit of attracting deeply hot people, only to see them snatched up by other deeply hot people. You only have to look at the population explosion here over the last seven years to figure out that there’s something in the water. People move here, fall in love, and start making families.
It’s an epidemic, and I know all about those. Me? I’m inoculating myself against love and marriage.
chapter
two
Owen
I’ll wait all day to see Dr. Daisy Allen.
Graham, on the other hand…
The odor of a recently filled diaper reaches my nose after I walk away from the reception area. Well, at least it’s not a blowout like he used to have when he was an infant.
I’ve learned that putting moments like this in perspective helps to preserve my sanity as a single parent.
Honestly, I do not know how my mother survived while raising me and my three sisters on her own after Dad left.
I quickly change Graham’s diaper in the waiting area’s restroom, wondering if now is a good time to start potty training. The most recent parenting book I read says now is a good time to introduce the idea.
God, that sounds like a nightmare I’m not ready for.
After I get the kid changed, we head to the little play area the doctor has set up in the corner with blocks and picture books. I sit on the floor with Graham in my lap, flipping through a duct-taped copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
It’s not long before Graham begins to whine, so I find his sippy cup of milk from his diaper bag.
He had a rough night last night, so it’s no surprise to me when the kid eventually falls asleep on my chest. And now, I’m not sure how I’m going to stand back up.
“You’re very good with him.”
The comment comes from the town busybody, 87-year-old Ernestine, who sits nearby, sporting a cast on her arm. Her opposite hand holds open a paperback.
I nod and smile politely. “Thank you,” I say.
The older woman doesn’t smile back, but she’s not what I would call a warm-and-fuzzy grandmother type. Still, I don’t dislike her. Ernestine is a frequent visitor to the feed store’s fledgling garden center that I’ve been trying to get established. “I know it’s hard, but under the circumstances, you’re doing great, honey.”
My eyes fall to the cover of that book she’s not reading. The illustration shows two naked people, a man and a woman, covered by nothing more than a bedsheet. The dark-haired man hovers over a red-haired woman, whose head is thrown back in the throes of passion. The man’s arm is placed in such a way that hides the woman’s bare breasts. I don’t know why Ernestine is so interested in my life when she’s got a far more fascinating book to read, but I would never say that out loud to her.
“That’s very nice of you to say,” I reply.
“Nothing nice about it. It’s the plain truth,” she says. “When I had my first baby at 17, I didn’t know which end was up. You look like you got a much better handle on things than my generation.”
This surprises me. I’ve never heard anyone older than me cop to being clueless. “To be fair, parents my age have the internet.”
“Hm,” she says, sniffing and adjusting in her seat.
“How’s the arm?” I ask, nodding to her injury.
She clucks, “It’s fine! I don’t know why I gotta keep coming back for more X-rays! I’m a busy woman and I just need to get this cast off already so I can get back to my cucumber patch. It’s going crazy and I don’t have enough hands to haul it all to the farmers market this weekend.”
I know for a fact that she broke it by falling off a ladder while trying to install a cistern on her own, so that arm is anything but “fine.” And if Dr. Allen says she needs to keep the cast on, then by god, that’s gospel in my eyes.
“I’ll be happy to stop by and pick up your veggies for you so you can rest.”
“I don’t need a rest,” the older woman snaps.
With a chuckle, I reply, “I’ll even share my table at the farmers market with you and split the profits. You won’t have to lift that arm.”
She points at me, “Split the profits my eye! You know damn well my cucumbers are the best in three counties. Don’t you dare.”
“Just teasing, Ernestine.”
With a gleam in her eye that her stubborn ways can’t hide, she sniffs again and says, “Sixty-forty.”
“It’s a deal.”
Satisfied that I’ve done my duty to help the elderly in the community, I look around the room, wishing that Trisha would call my name already before I bamboozle myself into another job to do.
“Is the boy feeling alright?”
I thought the older woman had gone back to reading, but when I turn toward her, she’s peering at me over the top of that paperback.
“Yes, ma’am. Why do you ask?”
“You’re here about as much as I am, if not more.”
I shrug.
“I like to take precautions. I get up in my head with questions about toddler milestones, and Dr. Allen is much better at putting my mind at ease than Google.”
Ernestine squints at me. “You don’t say.”
I smile awkwardly.
“The previous doctor would just send me away and tell me to stop worrying. Having a decent doctor in town feels like … I’m making up for all the information I missed out on with the old doctor. Or something like that.”
Ernestine studies my face for a moment, her expression undressing. “No. That’s not it.”
