Of Winged Creatures & Nesting Grounds: (A Quirky, Sexy, Dirty Doctor Romance) Read online

  By

  A. Wilding Wells

  Copyright 2016 A. Wilding Wells

  All rights reserved.

  This work, Of Winged Creatures & Nesting Grounds, is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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

  For more information, please contact A. Wilding Wells at [email protected].

  www.awildingwells.com

  www.instagram.com/awildingwells

  www.pinterest.com/awildingwells

  www.facebook.com/awildingwells

  www.goodreads.com/awildingwells

  PrologueCrazy…like confetti in a blizzard

  Chapter 1Safety equals poison

  Chapter 2Dislodge…Goodbye

  Chapter 3Don’t Forget to be Awesome

  Chapter 4Eight-letter Word for Daring. Fearless.

  Chapter 5It’s okay to be okay

  Chapter 6____ as a bird. *Free

  Chapter 7Bloom again. And again. And again.

  Chapter 8Four-letter word starting with H and ending with P. *HELP.

  Chapter 9Off-roading: For Personal Growth & Good Times

  Chapter 10Clue~Icarus. The White House. Wizard of Oz Monkeys.

  Chapter 11Scratch that same song on repeat

  Chapter 12Heart…meet heart

  Chapter 13Heart beats burn

  Chapter 14Impulse sweet and heavenly

  Chapter 15Pull me to you…swim in my flood

  Chapter 16Life can eat you or you can eat life

  Chapter 17Cleave my heart~ take it

  Chapter 18Free those wants

  Chapter 19Madness is a thirsty bitch

  Chapter 20Glitter…and all her other colors

  Chapter 21Birds can build houses out of anything

  Chapter 22Hand in the cookie ___. *jar

  Chapter 23The badassedest ever x a gazillion

  Chapter 24Clue~ seven-letter word for provocative

  Chapter 25Bravery equals silent demons

  Chapter 26 Five-letter word that means peachy

  Chapter 27Eden~ A pleasure off the map

  Chapter 28Clue~ remarkable as a coincidence *weird

  Chapter 29I am the light I want to bathe in

  Chapter 30Clue~ my bad *sorry

  Chapter 31It’s up to me…to be free

  Chapter 32Clue~ swing without connecting *miss

  Chapter 33Sometimes goodbyes mean hellos

  Chapter 34Shiny cages are still cages

  Chapter 35Don’t forget to be awesome

  Chapter 36Clue~ out of this world *just dandy

  Chapter 37Embrace your inner weird, fierce and amazingness

  Chapter 38Clue~ joyously content *happy

  Chapter 39Flying…like a bird

  Chapter 40Clue~ very tasty *delicious

  Chapter 41Let it go

  Chapter 42Eight-letter word for captivating~ *adorable

  Chapter 43I am in charge of my happiness

  Chapter 44Clue~ hardly an Einstein *idiot

  Chapter 45Trust the universe

  Chapter 46Unscattered

  Chapter 47Shine and sparkle

  Chapter 48Clue~ zero on a court *love

  Chapter 49Rainbows follow storms

  Chapter 50Clue~ treading water *limbo

  Chapter 51Off-ramp. A one-way road leading off a main highway.

  Chapter 52Six-letter phrase for not forgotten *in mind

  Chapter 53Blissed-out

  Chapter 54Floating on solid ground

  Chapter 55Speed shmeed. It’s about progress.

  Chapter 56Seven-letter word for affected by love *smitten

  Chapter 57Birds of a feather...

  Chapter 58Eight-letter word for in-combination *together

  Chapter 59Twinkle. Shine. Sparkle.

  Prologue

  Crazy…like confetti in a blizzard

  Hunt

  I’ve made hanging on to people my religion, and heartbreak my house. If you don’t say goodbye,there are no sad endings, or so I continue to convince myself. And maybe that’s the problem and the reason I’m missing my future family. My someday wife…and my children. It doesn’t seem possible to miss people you’ve never met, but here I sit doing exactly that.

  I gulp down my cocktail, too stunned and crushed to speak.

  “Please say something.” Sela, my girlfriend, who has just refused my marriage proposal, worries her bottom lip through her teeth as we linger in a teary-eyed stare. “Tell me you’re pissed, or that you hate me,” she says.

  “Pissed is a guy whose girlfriend of two years refuses his proposal. But, when she tells him she’s pregnant, it’s not his, and she doesn’t want his ring on her hand… Shit, sweetheart, I can’t tell you what I am, besides heartbroken.” I dab her falling tears with my thumbs; her long slender fingers encircle my wrist and she kisses my palm.

  “Sure I can’t convince you to stay? We could make it work. I love you that much.”

  “You’re too good for me.” She drops my hand and presses her fingers to her lips. “Isn’t there something wrong with you, Hunt? I’m carrying another guy’s kid and you still want me?”

  She drapes her torso across my knees and sobs.

  After hauling her into my arms, and hugging her shaking frame, I kiss the top of her head. I should hate her. But I love her.

  “You should be yelling at me, telling me to get the hell off your sister’s deck.” She shrugs, her face reddening. “And out of your life.”

  “You won’t ever be out of my life. You know I don’t do goodbyes.”

  A hopeful gaze softens her red-rimmed eyes. “And I love that about you. You’ll still be my doctor, then?”

  “Of course I will.”

  She threads her fingers through mine and sniffles. Her long black locks frame her heart-shaped face and wet glowing green eyes.

  “You’re going to find her.” She offers a confident nudge and smile. “She’s out there.”

  “You were the one.” Flaws and all.

  “You don’t want me.” Sela slides off my lap, tugs her sweater over her head, and saunters to the edge of the deck. Her willowy frame cuts an elegant silhouette in the San Francisco skyline.

  “You want a woman who’ll settle down and have kids,” she says when I approach her and sling an arm over her shoulder.

  “You’re my woman and you’re having a kid.”

  The metal deck door screeches. “Hey, lovebirds,” my sister Francie says, thrusting two glasses toward us. “We’ve poured champagne, time to celebrate!”

  My sisters’ good news. Lucy’s pregnancy. Jo’s new baby. Amelia’s new house. Francie’s engagement. Helen’s first wedding anniversary.

  Everyone is moving forward. Everyone else.

  I cross the deck and take the flutes. “Thanks, give us a sec, we’ll be right in.”

  Sela and I clink glasses when our gazes meet. “I’m here for you, okay?” I say.

  “Whatever you need.”

  “I know it’s asking a lot that we stay friends, but I need you in my life. Please don’t abandon me.”

  “Sweetheart…”

  “I know.” She dips her chin and smirks. “No goodbyes.”

  Bubbles dance across my tongue then die in my throat. No goodbyes, except t
he one to my future, and the only thing I want: a family, with Sela as my wife.

  Chapter 1

  Safety equals poison

  Six months later

  Happy

  “An ant farm?” I say to my best friend, Cece, who’s at my house cheering me up since my bird died this morning. I fucking hate death. Though it finds me like flies find shit.

  “It’s a reminder of the life you don’t want to live.” She mops my tear-stained face with a wad of tissues, while I study the ants marching through little tunnels in their planned-out world.

  “I’m a little offended that this is how you see me.” I laugh through my tears.

  Cece drags my journal across the table and smiles as she looks over my plan; page after page of what I’m working toward.

  “Based on some of the things you’ve written, I think you’re making massive progress.”

  After setting the ant farm on my kitchen table, and pushing it as far away as I can reach, I scribble the words off-road in my open begging-for-unplanned-miracles journal.

  “I also brought you this.” She hands me an envelope.

  I sniff, then rip open the crisp white flap. “You cannot be serious!” I inspect the familiar ship emblem printed at the top of the ticket. “The cruise?”

  “You’ve been talking about booking one, so I took the liberty.”

  “My pop-the-cherry cruise! We’re going to have a blast!”

  “You’re going alone. I’m too crazed with trying to hire a new agent, and the kids are almost out of school for the summer.”

  My plan included Cece coming too, but she doesn’t plan very well. Her life is a little different than mine since she runs her own travel agency and has three kids under the age of eight. She wings everything with wanderlust aplomb, except the plans she makes for her clients. I pretty much idolize her, since I struggle to do anything if it’s not on my plan. Though it’s in my plan to change my plan.

  I throw my arms around her neck. “I love you, C.”

  Post hug, she scoots away from the table, uncorks the bottle of wine she brought, and fills two glasses. “You know, love is still an option. I don’t see it in here.” She taps my journal; I roll my eyes when her glass kisses mine.

  Love. I had that once, I thought. I still want it someday if I’m brave enough along the way to add it into my plan.

  “One thing at a time.” The bouquet of red wine bursts on my tongue as I swish it around in my mouth.

  Cece purses her lips. “Just keep your mind open.”

  “Open mind, open legs,” I answer.

  “How about open heart? You know damn well you’re ready to date.”

  “Not yet. I’m in mourning.” I pat the signature blue Tiffany & Co. box that holds my dead bird, whose name is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. “Soon though.” I need to grow some balls and add dating to my plan. “No judging.”

  “I do judge, since judgment is defined by one’s ability to make measured decisions or come to sensible conclusions. Saying you don’t want to date because you might fall in love, which means you might crash and burn, is not a sensible reason to avoid dating. Neither is the bullshit sitting on the tip of your tongue about your spreading skin condition. The right man won’t care. Therefore, I judge. Plus, I’m your bestie, and I judge with love. Think of me as the little morsel of bread you use to push that last tasty bite onto your fork. It’s always the best bite. I don’t want you missing out on life’s best bites.”

  I scribble a bird with massive balls flying out of a cage. Cece draws a big dick on him then makes an attempt at drawing what I want to believe is a girl bird getting fucked by the other bird.

  “Don’t quit your day job, Picasso.”

  “Your plan order is a little askew,” Cece says, drawing arrows and circles in my journal.

  “Says the chick who gave birth in high school, dropped out and married the kid’s forty-year-old grandpa, divorced him and married the dad’s brother. Then started a company, got her GED, went to college, and dropped out. Now that’s askew.” Cece explained her situation to me the first day we met five years ago at school during our performing arts class when we were undergrads. We were meant to be buds, our dramas colliding then melting into each other, forming a clump of bestie love. And when my drama went into full-on detonation mode, the year I turned twenty, she was the only person there to help me gather my soul. I’m still gathering. Aren’t we all?

  “Fine,” she says, scribbling the phrase don’t forget to be awesome across a fresh page in my journal. “Life is wacky. And messy and…” She makes a gesture with her hands and I beatbox a drum roll.

  “I know. Doesn’t always go according to plan. I know that more than anyone.” Shit, do I.

  “Add a few holding spots to wing it here and there if you feel the need to plan your off-roading.” She taps my journal with her middle finger.

  “I’m trying.” I flip around my used-to-be-brown-until-last-week hair like I’m in a shampoo commercial. “I did go blonde since they have more fun. And, instead of sulking all night, I’m going to choose a random bar where I can mourn and get drunk alone, with my journal and books.”

  She bursts out laughing. “You party animal!”

  “Eat me.” I flip her off then guzzle half my wine. “It’s off-roading.”

  If only I could keep my life in permanent off-road mode. The problem is, I was driven so far off road five years ago—when my fiancé pulled his sick stunt—that traveling off plan seems like an impossibility most days. Every day.

  Chapter 2

  Dislodge…Goodbye

  Hunt

  After the last students exit the room, Lucy and I stroll out of the lecture hall. Once a month we address a group of med students in regards to the business side of being doctors.

  “I might blow early.” Lucy rubs her belly as she waddles beside me. “I need someone on call. This kid has already dropped.”

  “I’m taking some time off, gotta Sela-rinse my brain again at the beach house. I can get to the hospital if you need me. Not leaving until tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll ask one of the girls, you take your vacation.”

  “They have too much shit going on. Moving into new houses, babies. Fuck all of you.” I scratch the stubble on my jaw.

  “Hey.” She looped her arm through mine.

  “Sorry. I want to go home to my wife and kids too. I want to hug a pregnant belly.” I pat hers.

  “There has to be one woman you want to date. Come on, think. I’m going to track someone down.” Lucy’s always been our family’s cheerleader and comforter. It’s no wonder she’s about to give birth to her fifth son. She’s one of those people who can calmly handle any situation that’s tossed at her. She was there for me when our brother Hugo died in my arms, and there for my mother, who almost died of a broken heart afterwards. She was there when our sister Helen, who was born deaf, needed a big sister to learn sign language with as a toddler. She was there when I pushed my chips to the middle of the table and opened my third Ob/Gyn practice in San Francisco.

  “It’ll happen. You’re too ridiculously handsome, smart, and successful for it not to.”

  “You’re my oldest sister.” I wink. “You have to say that kind of shit to your forlorn little brother.”

  “I don’t have to say anything, monkey. Get her out of your system. Move on. It’s been six months. It’s not your kid; and let’s face it, she’s only pretty on the outside. She’s a crap-filled pastry.”

  “Honesty doesn’t always suit you, babe. You’re talking about the woman I loved.” Love.

  “Past tense? This is progress.”

  We cross the street and enter a café where we’re meeting a mutual friend, Bowie Brig.

  “You might have that kid today!” Bowie says as we approach the table where he’s seated.

  “Better not, I have a C-section in three hours that I’m not missing. Twins.” She clears her throat, yanks paper and a pen out of her purse then slams them down in fr
ont of Bowie. “Three names, professor. I don’t care if they’re some of your students. We need dating options for this one.” She nudges me in the side.

  “Seriously?” I say.

  “Aren’t there any patients you want to date? I’d start there. You’ve seen the headlights, looked under the hood, you know what kind of merch you’re dealing with,” Bowie says.

  “That is the most disgusting thing you’ve ever said.” Lucy cringes when Bowie and I crack up. “Not to mention unethical.”

  “What?” Bowie says. “You’d rather I offer up chicks who ride poles and appreciate dollar bill showers and—”

  “Pig!”

  “I’m a guy.” Bowie laughs. “Just relax, it’s a joke.”

  We order drinks, then food while I work to strong-arm the conversation away from me. As it turns out, that’s as unachievable as ridding my mind of Sela.

  Lucy excuses herself to use the ladies’ room as the waitress distributes our lunch.

  “How about we forget this matchmaking crap and check out Roulette tonight,” Bowie says.

  “I have a crazy afternoon, so that might be perfect.”

  Lucy slumps into her chair minutes later, then taps Bowie on the hand. “At least tell me you saw through Sela’s crap.”

  “Can we please move on to a different topic, something other than my suck-shit love life?”

  “I just want you to have what you wanted with her. She wasn’t it.” Lucy rolls her eyes. “Wasn’t good enough for you.”

  “He does like his projects though,” Bowie says.

  “She was good enough. I’m not perfection either.”

  “Blind,” Lucy says. “I swear, Hunt, you’re fucking blind.”

  I’ve had plenty of one-nighters in the six months since we broke up, a few second dates, but no one has tripped my heart and made me think there could be more. Maybe it’s unrealistic to want to look into a woman’s eyes and see her soul. I guess the soul I saw in Sela was never mine to unite with in the first place.

  Chapter 3

  Don’t Forget to be Awesome

  Happy