Daddy's Little Patient, page 1
Daddy’s Little Patient
Frontier Daddies Book Three
Honey Meyer
Contents
Welcome to Enclave, Alaska
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
A Note from Honey
About Honey Meyer
Welcome to Enclave, Alaska!
The fictional Enclave, Alaska is home to the Frontier Daddies series. While it’s most fun to read them in order (hello, cameos!), the books can be read as standalones.
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Chapter One
“Good morning, Miss Evelyn.”
Cricket’s stomach flipped, and she clutched the handle of her purse as she swallowed hard, and Doctor Owen Pierce stepped into the elevator.
She looked forward to the days Doctor Pierce was in the clinic—it was always a pleasant surprise to see him since he was mostly a bush doc who flew out to isolated communities, but his home base was here in Anchorage. If he wasn’t booked to fly out to god knew where, he saw patients at the clinic a couple floors down from her office.
Cricket knew she was blushing and probably had a derpy smile on her face when she greeted him, but she would imagine most people who were attracted to men would, so he was probably used to it. “Good morning, Doctor Pierce. You don’t have to call me Miss Evelyn, you know.”
Doctor Pierce stood next to her, his hands clasped in front of him. He had to be the most handsome man on the planet. Just looking at him made her heart race. Did scoping out hot doctors count as cardio? Probably not because if so, she ought to be able to run a marathon by now from all the times she’d ogled this man.
“And I’ve told you a hundred times to call me Owen instead of Doctor Pierce, but here we are,” he told her with a wink.
Yes, there they were indeed, with him mere inches away. Cricket was a bit claustrophobic, but she wouldn’t be sad if the elevator got stuck and she was stranded with the tall, dark, and mighty fine doctor. She loved their brief morning flirtations but they’d never really had the chance to talk, what with most of their interactions being the length of an elevator ride and all. Maybe if they had more time to get to know each other…
Although who was she kidding? While Cricket liked the way she looked, she couldn’t imagine that a lean and muscular as hell man like Owen Pierce was really in the market for a big girl like her. Especially since doctors seemed to believe that being heavy was some sort of moral failing. He probably wanted someone as hard-bodied as he was who he could go to the gym with or climb Denali with. And while some curvy girls were totally up for those challenges, that wasn’t her.
There was also the whole matter of her being a Little, and she didn’t even want to think about what his reaction to that would be. His loss then. She was a catch; she just needed to find someone whose particular tastes would mean they were thrilled when they caught her.
The elevator dinged and Doctor Pierce gave her a smile that could light up the entire dingy office building, and possibly the big sky overhead that was dull and grey this morning.
“Have a great day, Miss Evelyn,” he told her as he walked backwards out the metal doors that had slid open. How did he do that without tripping over himself or crashing into anyone? The man was blessed by the gods, that’s all there was to it.
“Thanks, Doctor Pierce. You too,” she told him, and had to stifle a yawn in her elbow that she hoped he didn’t take personally.
The cute little spread-fingered wave with his hand that he closed and then brought to his heart said no. But just because he liked chatting with her didn’t mean a thing. If he was actually interested in her, he would ask her out instead of the polite flirting he did whenever they ran into each other.
Cricket wasn’t in the market for another broken heart so she’d decided to wait for prospects to come to her, up the odds that they liked what they saw. Not that that’d helped last time she’d had a boyfriend but it was worth a shot.
In the meantime, she’d let herself enjoy the boost seeing Doctor Pierce gave her. She needed all the help she could get to make it through the day.
C. Evelyn Baker was the most gorgeous woman Owen had ever seen. Her curly red hair, bright green eyes, sweetly rounded face, and the spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks would’ve had him on his knees anyway. But on top of that she had bountiful tits he could suffocate in, thick thighs that made him wish his head was in between them devouring her pussy, and an ass that went for days. His palm itched thinking about how glorious it would be to take her across his lap, ruck up one of those pencil skirts she favored, pull down her panties, and spank her until her generous bottom was bright red.
Fuck. It would not do to walk into the clinic with a hard-on. He paused outside the door and tried to think of something that would turn a hose on his lust for that woman. Good luck with that.
Although the last several times he’d run into Miss Evelyn—what on earth did that C. on her badge stand for anyway? He needed to know—she’d yawned at least once, which he couldn’t ascribe to boredom since she seemed to enjoy their encounters.
Plus she’d been looking increasingly worn out. Dark smudges under her eyes, dull skin, and an air of overall exhaustion. It was concerning.
He wanted to ask if there was something wrong but that seemed overly personal for the kind of relationship they had. Maybe next time he saw her he’d make it the kind of relationship they had. If there was a next time.
If she rebuffed him, then she did. Hopefully it wouldn’t ruin the their morning flirtations which were a sweet treat to start off his days in the clinic. And if it turned out she needed help and was just waiting for someone to offer, then it’d be worth it. That whole hero complex he had just wouldn’t quit. Especially not when he looked at Evelyn.
She was a grown-ass woman, who, while she blushed when he was around, had always seemed independent to him—even if she also struck him as shy and a bit naive. Like she was on her way somewhere and wouldn’t be stopped, but might get startled on her way.
It was unlikely that she’d be interested in the kind of relationship he would want with her. No one had been yet.
Once Owen had gotten consent from his partner, he was domineering, strict, demanding, and as kinky as Alaskan summer days were long. Women tended to think he was exaggerating; that really what he was after was a little light bondage and role play. They were all for some sweet sugar kink to spice things up in the bedroom, but balked when it became clear he wanted so much more than that and wasn’t willing to settle for less.
Maybe it was for the best that he and Evelyn had only interacted in passing. If he’d gotten to know her, want her, it would have been difficult to keep a lid on his impulses where she was concerned.
Besides, there was a high likelihood that he’d be leaving Anchorage soon, for good. Today was his last official day at the clinic although he might take some per diem shifts depending on how things shook out on Enclave. The idea of not seeing Evelyn every week or two was already a needle of regret between his ribs—he didn’t need it to be a sword.
There, that had done it. Thinking about not seeing Evelyn ever again had squashed his ardor, and he could get to work without his erection tenting his pants. And the next time he saw her? He’d ask if she was feeling alright.
Chapter Two
Being in customer service wasn’t Cricket’s idea of a dream job, but her dream job was in short supply these days. There weren’t a ton of small family farms, or much in the way of affordable land to start her own.
Some day. Some day after she’d saved up a bit of money she’d be able to have the life she’d been missing since she was a kid. For now, though, Cricket stood and stretched, trying to wake herself up.
She’d been constantly exhausted for months. When she’d talked to her doctor about it, the man had said she should lose weight. That was his solution for everything, and apparently the only remedy he could fathom even though she’d been a curvy girl her whole life and this draggy, perpetually tired, run down, worn out feeling was relatively new.
She should find a new doctor—one who would listen to her instead of blaming everything on her w
By the time she got home in the evenings, she was lucky if she could eat something before she collapsed. Then her alarm would go off in the morning and she’d swear it felt like she hadn’t slept a wink even if she’d been in bed for ten or eleven hours. And her brain. Ugh. She’d heard it called brain fog, but fog didn’t seem bad enough. She thought she must have brain smog.
The next few customer calls passed by in a haze, like she was stumbling through a labyrinth filled with cloudy, noxious air and had been for hours. She had no real life experience with the tents and sleeping bags and other outdoorsy equipment she talked to callers about all day but it was easy enough to look up answers in her resources. Mostly customers liked her and that went a long way even when it took her a bit to track something down that she didn’t have at her fingertips.
She used to be able to remember just about everything they went over in trainings, but now she had post-its stuck everywhere that she kept meaning to organize but somehow could never find the time or the motivation to deal with. Cricket plopped back into her chair after a few stretches. Looking at all those brightly colored post-its gave her that familiar sensation of ambition mixed with dismay. She had been great at her job and could be again, she knew it. Someday when she wasn’t so tired…
The next thing she knew she was startled awake by someone shaking her shoulder. Crapsicles. That wasn’t the first time she’d fallen asleep, and by Nick’s stony features, her manager was well aware of that.
Cricket shoved her headset off and plastered a smile on her face. “Hey, Nick. Must’ve taken an accidental cat nap there. So sorry. Better get back to the queue. Those calls aren’t going to answer themselves.”
“No, they aren’t.” Nick sighed and her stomach dropped. This didn’t seem good. “Evelyn, let’s go have a talk in my office.”
That seemed a hundred times worse, and she felt like she was headed to the executioner as she followed Nick through the rows of cubicles. With its fluorescent lights, canned air, and drop ceilings, the office was already pretty miserable—and ironic for a company that made camping and hiking equipment—and that dreadful feeling intensified as they got closer to her boss’s office.
Plus it was a Friday afternoon, and that was classic firing time. She couldn’t lose this job. Especially not without a reference to help her get a new one. And if she was fired she wouldn’t be able to get unemployment benefits. She’d finally paid off her credit card debt, but didn’t have any savings to speak of, and her rent was due in a week.
Cricket’s stomach roiled as Nick indicated the chair in front of his desk. He was as dull as the office itself but he wasn’t a bad guy. Just boring and corporate as heck.
After he’d sat down on his side of the desk, Nick set his hands on the fake wood and laced his fingers together. “Evelyn. This is the fourth time you’ve fallen asleep at your desk in the past month. All of your call metrics have tanked over the last quarter, and frankly we can’t afford to keep someone on board who isn’t pulling their weight. I’m sorry, but we’re letting you go.”
Tears welled in her eyes and her throat tightened as Nick went on, but she couldn’t hear him anymore. She’d been fired, and she was in so much trouble.
The clinic had been surprisingly quiet today. Owen had been only too glad to take off when his co-worker said he’d handle the rest of the shift solo. Nice way to end his official time there.
Not that being a doctor up here—or anywhere really—came with nine to five hours, but there was still something psychologically powerful about getting out of work early on a Friday afternoon. What was he going to do with that time? Maybe give Taj Hovick a call to talk more about moving out to Enclave and whether that was going to be full or part time.
Owen had met Gavin Bayard and his wife Gwen at Covert, the kink club he belonged to, and Gav had introduced him to Taj and some other people in their group. A bunch of the mostly ex-military guys had bought an island in Cook Inlet and set up what was a cross between an Alaskan homestead and a kink resort. And Owen had been lucky enough to get in with that crowd.
They had a lot of muscles, brains, and know-how, but what they didn’t have was a doctor. Gwen was trained as a nurse, but she’d been in pediatric oncology for over a decade so she was a little rusty in the skills wilderness medicine often called for. Rook had some combat medic training as a Special Warfare Combat Crewman—what all the guys referred to as a SWCC which sounded like “swick”—but his role was really to keep a person alive until they could get to proper medical care. Which was where Owen could come in handy.
He’d been out to Enclave a handful of times, and it had quickly become one of his favorite places on earth. He was hoping to make that his home base, commandeer their pilot to take him to the isolated communities he favored serving. He’d already given up his time at the clinic in Anchorage, but if they couldn’t work out the details of Paul —who everyone called Apollo or ’Pollo because these military guys loved their nicknames—their resident pilot, being his on-call flyboy then Owen would probably be in Anchorage part time for now.
It would be phenomenal to make his dream of living in the Alaskan wilderness come true without abandoning his other love, which was medicine. Plus, he’d feel like a real asshole for spending all those years studying and training and taking coveted spots in med school and residency, taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that he was still paying off, and then saying fuck it to go fishing. Seemed like living on Enclave with Taj and his merry band of men would be the best of both worlds and a dream come true.
The only thing that could make it better would be having a Little girl of his own to share a cabin and a life with. Someone to spoil and care for, discipline and fuck. Someone who would crave what he had to offer and would fulfill his own particular needs.
Aside from the practicalities of needing someone to fly him to his patients, that might be the only reason he was tempted to be on Enclave part time—it wasn’t like there were any single women there to speak of. Then again, the universe had a funny way of working things out. All you had to do to see that was look at Taj and his wife Jojo, and Knox and his Little girl Lulu to know that was true.
Owen was supposed to take a trip out to the island next week and he couldn’t wait. It was for pleasure, not for business this time, but honestly those guys seemed to think hunting, trapping, fishing, retrofitting old buildings, construction, and doing all sorts of other hard labor was fun. That was fine. A perk, really. He’d enjoy harvesting some of his own food and living a subsistence lifestyle as much as he could. Couldn’t wait to get back to it actually. He smiled to himself thinking about being on the land.
When he got into the stairwell, his balloon of excitement popped like someone had stuck it with a pin. Someone was crying. It sounded like a woman, and her sobs echoed loud against the cement blocks, metal railings, and concrete stairs. He wasn’t the kind of man to walk away from someone in pain, whether physical or emotional, and whoever was bawling in the hallway clearly had some shit going on.
It took a second to realize the sound was coming from above him, but then Owen was jogging up the steps, taking them two at a time until he rounded the corner and saw Evelyn sitting on the landing.
