On the Edge Read online

  

  Maple Grove 7

  On the Edge

  Joe loves his new neighbors. Ben and Jericho are the sweetest men. Too bad their friend is a straight-up prick. Milo is also the sexiest man Joe has ever laid his eyes on. When they have an argument, sparks fly between them, and Joe can’t seem to stay away from the gorgeous man, even though Milo rubs him the wrong way.

  Milo has always lived a carefree life. When he suddenly gets custody of his niece, his world flips upside down. Instead of hot men in his bed and living life on his terms, he’s knee-deep in diapers and teething. He doesn’t think Joe wants to be saddled with a mate and a baby, so he keeps the human at arm’s length. But his jaguar isn’t having any of that, and soon Joe becomes an essential part of Milo’s life. He thinks things are finally going smoothly, until Nicole’s shady father shows up demanding his daughter, and Milo has a fight on his hands.

  Genres: Alternative (M/M, Gay), Contemporary, Paranormal, Romantic Suspense, Shape-shifter

  Length: 33,428

  ON THE EDGE

  Maple Grove 7

  Lynn Hagen

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  On the Edge

  Copyright © 2019 by Lynn Hagen

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-967-0

  First Publication: September 2019

  Cover design by Emma Nicole

  All art and logo copyright © 2019 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lynn Hagen loves writing about the somewhat flawed, but lovable. She also loves a hero who can see past all the rough edges to find the shining diamond of a beautiful heart.

  You can find her on any given day curled up with her laptop and a cup of hot java, letting the next set of characters tell their story.

  For all titles by Lynn Hagen, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/lynn-hagen

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ON THE EDGE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  ON THE EDGE

  Maple Grove 7

  LYNN HAGEN

  Copyright © 2019

  Chapter One

  “I’ll rent a car and be there sometime tomorrow,” Ben said on the other end of the phone.

  Milo was too choked up to reply, so he simply hung up. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done without his best friend. Fuck, this didn’t seem real. He still couldn’t believe he’d lost his stepsister. His chest hurt so badly that it felt close to caving in.

  Milo wished desperately that Ben was there now, but he was glad he’d see him tomorrow. There was no way Milo could do this on his own.

  He tossed his phone onto the couch and stared at the sleeping babe in the playpen. Alice hadn’t even had a crib for her daughter. Why hadn’t his stepsister told him about Nicole? Why hadn’t she called him for help? He would’ve dropped everything to help out with the baby.

  And that thought answered his question. Alice had always wanted to do things on her own. She’d never wanted to be a bother, no matter how many times he’d insisted that she wasn’t. But still, a baby should’ve made her put aside her pride and call him.

  As badly as it hurt to lose her, Milo was also angry that she hadn’t even bothered to tell him he was an uncle. He pressed his hands against his face, his heart so heavy that he felt as though he couldn’t breathe. If only he could talk to her one more time. If only Milo could hug her one last time and tell Alice how much he loved her. This was so fucked up on the deepest level.

  He rubbed at the pain in his chest before he grabbed the papers off the table and looked them over again. Alice also hadn’t told him she’d made a fucking will and named him Nicole’s guardian if anything ever happened to her.

  At least she had that much sense, although his stepsister could have told him beforehand.

  The boyfriend had cut out at the hospital, and Milo wondered if the douchebag had been the baby’s father. Jake hadn’t said anything to Milo about Nicole, hadn’t even looked at her after Alice passed away.

  Instead of sitting there dwelling on all the thoughts that tumbled through his mind, Milo got up and went to the nursery, if you could call it that, and began to pack Nicole’s things. He might not know how to take care of a baby, but Milo would be damned if he passed her off onto some foster care facility. She was family, and Nicole would remain with him.

  He would just have to watch a ton of YouTube videos to learn how to take care of her. He prayed he didn’t fuck this up. But Ben and his mate would be there soon, and that eased Milo’s worry.

  He cringed when Nicole started crying. It looked as though he would be watching his first video. While he’d had her at the hospital, the nurses had been a big help. But now Milo was on his own, and for the life of him, he couldn’t recall how to make a damn bottle.

  “I’m coming, baby girl.” He left the nursery and whipped out his phone, typing in the search engine and feeling like a complete moron. He found the bottles in the cupboard and a can of formula on the counter.

  “Give me a second and Uncle Milo will get you squared away.” Not only did he watch the video, but he also read the back of the can. Distilled water. Milo looked around, but he didn’t see any filtered water anywhere. He didn’t want to use tap water but had no choice. “Don’t worry, as soon as Uncle Ben gets here, he’ll save you from me.”

  Although Ben knew shit about babies. It had been Jake who had told Milo that Nicole was fifteen months old. Which meant Alice had just gotten pregnant the last time Milo had seen her.

  He ground his teeth and pushed those thoughts away as he made her bottle. “Here you go.”

  Milo gagged when he approached the playpen. “Oh my god, what the hell died in here?” He gave Nicole her bottle then looked around, but the source of the smell brought him right back to her.

  Milo looked at her diaper. It was sagging and smelled like she’d taken a healthy dump. “Please don’t tell me I have to change you.” Milo grabbed a clean diaper from her room and handed it to her. “You can do this yourself, right?”

  With her free hand, Nicole grabbed the diaper and threw it. With a grunt, Milo picked it up. He got back on his phone and watched a video on how to change a diaper.

  “Are you kidding me?” He looked at Nicole. “You owe me for this.”

  He found the wipes and pulled her from her playpen. She had the same bright green eyes as her mother. Milo’s chest ached as he cleared his throat, telling himself not to cry in front of the baby or Nicole might start crying, too.

  “We both don’t need to be in this house bawling our eyes out.” He placed h
er on the couch, armed and ready, and then pealed the tabs back.

  “Oh Christ!” He gagged again. “What have you eaten?”

  She kicked her legs, and Milo had to grab her ankles before she got shit all over the place. “You really owe me for this.”

  He tried to grab the wipes from the plastic box, but the damn things wouldn’t break away. Milo wrestled one-handed with them while keeping her ankles tucked with his other hand. The container fell to the floor, and Milo was left with a long line of wipes dangling from his hand. He used his boot to hold the container and whipped his arm up, thankful the wipes finally broke free.

  “This isn’t as easy as it looks, kiddo,” Milo said. “Try and work with me. Can you hold your own legs up?” He let them go and quickly grabbed them again when she started kicking.

  After taking a deep breath, Milo wiped front to back, cleaning her up before he pulled the diaper away. “No! No!” Damn it. She peed on the couch. The little bugger laughed and waved her bottle around.

  “Dit!”

  Milo had no clue what that meant. He moved her to the other side of the couch and wiped her again before turning the clean diaper around and upside down. “It’s a freaking diaper. You can handle this. It’s not rocket science.”

  He opened it and searched for the tabs, and watched the lady on the video as she diapered the baby doll. Milo did the same and held his arms up, cheering that he’d gotten it right.

  “I’m not useless, after all.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. “Now try not to soil this one too soon. I need recovery time from that grown-man smell.”

  With his fingers pinching his nose, Milo threw the diaper into the kitchen trashcan. That diaper should be considered hazardous waste. He gagged again, hoping the smell faded. His jaguar yowled, but Milo ignored his beast. He was doing the best he could considering he was thrust into this and had no fucking clue what he was doing.

  “Do you eat regular food?” he asked as he eyed her. “I’m starving. How do burgers sound?”

  “Dit!” Nicole slid off the couch and ran to him, stopping right in front of Milo. “Dit!”

  He furrowed his brows. “Are you saying shit?”

  “Dit!”

  Fuck. She was definitely cursing. He massaged his fingers in her brown curls. “We’re gonna have to teach you another word, kiddo. I’m not one for kids cussing, but I’ll allow you to say crap, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”

  She ran around the house, her bottle in her hand, while Milo grabbed the hamburger meat from the fridge. When he shaped the meat into patties, he made her a tiny one. Too bad they didn’t sell baby-sized buns.

  Milo looked at his watch and groaned. It had been only a half an hour since he’d spoken to Ben.

  This was gonna be a long fucking night.

  * * * *

  Milo sat in the passenger seat of the rental car as they pulled away from the cemetery. It had been just him and Ben in attendance. Jericho had agreed to stay at the house with Nicole because Milo hadn’t wanted the baby to be there. She was too young to understand what was going on, and he didn’t want her to see her mother lying in a casket.

  Milo had been barely able to handle the sight. But he sat there with mixed emotions eating away at him. After he and Nicole had eaten dinner—yes, she’d eaten the burger and fries, although Milo had been terrified that she’d choke—he’d searched Alice’s bedroom to find keepsakes he could hold on to for Nicole. He’d wanted his niece to have something of her mother’s.

  What Milo found shocked and angered him. It seemed he didn’t know Alice at all. She’s always been rebellious and walked her own line, but he never in his life thought she would be stupid enough to get involved with drugs.

  His stomach had turned over, and Milo thought he’d be sick as he stared down at her stash that had been hidden in the closet. Had Alice been high when she’d gotten into the accident? Fuck. Nicole had been in the car with her. She’d stayed a day in pediatrics just for observation, and thankfully she’d been okay.

  “Talk to me, bud,” Ben said as he drove to Alice’s so Milo could collect his and Nicole’s things before heading to Maple Grove.

  Milo told Ben what he’d found in her room.

  “Are you serious?” Ben’s jaw clenched as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “That doesn’t sound like the Alice we know and love.”

  No, it didn’t. Milo had a sneaking suspicion that her boyfriend had something to do with her drug habit. Was that why her house looked barren? Was that why Nicole didn’t even have a fucking crib? It was Milo who had run to the store to buy food, diapers, and formula because there hadn’t been a damn thing in the house.

  It was as though he hadn’t known who his stepsister truly was, as though she’d had some hidden dark side.

  “Hey, come out of that headspace. You and Nicole are coming to live with us. We’ll never know the story behind what happened, but we have to think about the baby. I think she’ll love growing up in Maple Grove.”

  “That sold on it?” Milo asked. “Well, duh, you did buy a house.”

  “It really is a quaint town, Milo. I think you’ll like it there, too.”

  Milo had been there all of a few hours before he’d gotten the call about Alice. He hadn’t had a chance to check the place out. Even if he didn’t like the town, Milo needed Ben, so he would stay and deal with it.

  They pulled into the driveway, and Milo jumped out, anxious to get inside. Jericho didn’t know squat about babies, and Milo wanted to make sure she was still alive.

  When he entered, he found Jericho and Nicole fast asleep on the couch. Some kid cartoon was playing on the television as Milo stared down at them.

  “Damn, he looks good with a baby,” Ben said from behind him. “I have a feeling my mate will be a big help.”

  Milo wasn’t sure how he felt. He was still reeling from Alice’s death and her funeral. He still felt kind of numb trying to figure everything out.

  Nicole opened her eyes and started crying. Milo picked her up and folded her into his arms. “I know, kiddo. I miss her, too.”

  Milo rocked her and rubbed her back until she finally settled down. He wasn’t the only one feeling the loss. Nicole had been thrust into a life with strangers, and it was probably scary as hell for her. He hummed as he bounced her, ignoring the big grin on Ben’s face.

  “Mind making her a bottle?”

  Ben’s eyes widened. “You’re asking me?” He waved at the kitchen. “I don’t know a goddamn thing about making one.”

  “Watch your language,” he said. “Nicole already picked up one bad word. I don’t need her learning any more colorful ones.”

  “Which word?” Ben asked.

  “Shit,” Milo mouthed.

  Ben chuckled. “I’ll watch my language.” He walked into the kitchen and looked around.

  With a sigh, Milo handed her off to Ben so he could make her bottle. He had two bottled waters and used one so he didn’t have to use tap water again.

  Now Milo made a bottle like a pro. He handed it to Ben. “I’m gonna grab our things and load them in the trunk. The sooner I get out of here, the better.”

  He’d made sure to grab any paperwork with Alice’s personal information on it. He’d shred it later.

  Milo packed the car then stared at the house. He might’ve been angry and confused at his stepsister’s choices, but fuck, he still missed the shit out of her.

  It took Milo, Ben, and Jericho an hour to figure out how to strap the car seat into the car.

  “That’s not right,” Jericho argued more than once.

  Ben held up his phone. “The video says we have to put the seat belt through the back of the seat.”

  Milo followed the instructions, yanked on the seat, satisfied it was secure. “Why didn’t we look up a video sooner?”

  “Because it clearly takes three shifters to screw in a damn lightbulb,” Ben said.

  “Wait.” Milo looked around. “Who has Nicole?”

&nbs
p; Jericho cursed as he ran back into the house, Ben and Milo right behind him. Nicole was on the floor, smacking cans against the kitchen floor.

  Milo sighed in relief. “Okay, from now on, one of us has to have eyes on her.”

  “Agreed.” Jericho picked her up. “Are you ready for a really long ride, Button?”

  Button? Milo didn’t ask. He was just ready to get out of there. “I’ll have to ride my bike while following behind you guys.”

  Ben nodded as they walked out. They took another twenty minutes trying to figure out how to strap her in. Not even the video made sense.

  “No, no, no.” Jericho stomped his foot. “The chest piece has to be over her chest, aligned with her shoulders.” He pointed at the phone. “You have the chest piece over her stomach.”

  With a growl, Milo fixed his mistake. “Don’t worry, kiddo. We’ll get this right…eventually.”

  Jericho loaded her diaper bag into the backseat. “I think we’re officially ready.”

  Milo felt as though he was forgetting something, but he was pretty sure they’d gotten everything. Just as long as they didn’t leave the baby behind, they were good to go.

  Milo glanced at the house before he started his motorcycle and made a U-turn in the grass. Ben pulled out behind him, and they were on the road in no time.

  As Milo drove, the impact of the situation hit him in the gut. He’d put on a brave face for Nicole, and told his best friend that he could handle this, but in truth, Milo was a fucking mess.

  Chapter Two

  “Is that a gray hair?” Mark teased as Joe pulled two beer bottles from the fridge and handed one to his brother. Mark sat there smiling with his laptop opened in front of him. “You know you’re not getting any younger.”

  Joe rolled his eyes. It was the same thing their mom said to him every time he visited her. She was constantly trying to fix him up on blind dates with whatever “cute” gay guy she thought would be perfect for him.