Copper Creek: A Sawyer's Ferry Novel Read online

  Frankie:

  My life sucks.

  After spending a year jobless and on the edge of becoming homeless, I’d officially reached a level of desperation that, even if I wasn’t completely broke, retail therapy couldn’t fix.

  While Sawyer’s Ferry, Alaska, is the last place on earth I’d ever want to visit, when my best friend, Holden, begs me to fly out and plan his wedding, I can’t say no. What I didn’t expect was to stumble into the administrative chaos at Copper Creek Brewing—or its too-hot-to-be-legal owner.

  Clearly the man needs my help, and I’m willing to go above and beyond.

  Way beyond.

  Barrett:

  I am screwed.

  Six months after my assistant up and quit, I’m not any closer to finding a replacement, and things at the brewery are starting to fall apart.

  And then in walks Frankie. He’s not the typical guy you’d find in these parts, and he brings with him a world of confusion. Because as much as I need his help, I can’t seem to keep my eyes—or hands—off him.

  He’s supposed to be getting my life in order, but instead there’s a chance he could turn everything upside down.

  If you’d like to get up-to-date information, exclusive excerpts and content, and giveaways, be sure to sign up for Cate’s Newsletter or join Cate & Co. on Facebook to get in on the conversation!

  Published by Cate Ashwood

  Copper Creek: A Sawyer’s Ferry Novel © 2019 Cate Ashwood

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  All rights reserved worldwide. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared, or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Help support authors by purchasing only authorized copies.

  Cover Design © 2019 Cate Ashwood

  http://www.cateashwooddesigns.com

  Edited by One Love Editing

  http://oneloveediting.com/

  Content Warning: This work is classified as a gay romance. It contains graphic language and sexual content between two adult men. Not intended for anyone under the age of 18.

  Become an Insider

  Title

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon (and a Freebie)

  Other Books by Cate

  About the Author

  Thank you so much to all the readers who asked for Frankie’s story. When I was too tired to function, knowing there were people out there waiting for his book helped get my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. His Happily Ever After would not exist without you.

  Thank you to my girls (you know who you are!) for the cheerleading on this one. It’s been a rocky few months, but your support means everything.

  And to Sandra, as always, for keeping me from embarrassing myself with all my bad grammar habits, even though you run yourself ragged to do it. <3

  Frankie

  I was getting to a level of desperation where I had to ask myself, What would Britney do? I was actually considering becoming a stripper.

  Seriously, seriously considering it.

  The thought had crossed my mind more than once in the years leading up to my life falling apart, but before it was just for fun. Who wouldn’t want to see me covered in glitter and wrapped around a sturdy pole? But the prospect became a lot less exciting when it came from a place of necessity and not a desire to shake my booty for all I was worth in front of a group of adoring men.

  It had been a year since Westbridge Biomedical had been absolutely obliterated. A year since my boss had been carted off in handcuffs. A year since losing my job, which had been the icing on the clusterfuck cupcake my life had become.

  I’d lost count of how many interviews I’d been on, how many temp jobs I’d taken, but no one wanted to hire the executive assistant for a guy who was spending the next thousand years in prison for fraud. I’d had jack to do with Philip Prescott’s duplicitous empire, but try explaining you can’t provide references because everyone you worked directly for is in jail.

  I’d been kicked in the balls so many times it was pretty much guaranteed I’d never have children. Not that I wanted any. Living with my cousin, Gia, pretty much saw to it that kids were not in my future. Ever. I was way too high-maintenance to deal with tiny little shit machines who needed constant attention.

  I needed constant attention.

  “Hey, Frankie. You busy?” Gia poked her head through the door and stepped inside before waiting for me to answer. “I need to talk to you.”

  Why did I get the feeling my cousin was about to kick me when I was already so, so down?

  She lowered herself to the bed and tucked her feet underneath her. “You know how much Marco and I love having you here…”

  We were barely one sentence into our talk and I was already having a hard time containing my laughter. They did not love having me there. In fact, Marco and I had gotten into it more than once about how much I’d overstayed my welcome. It was cramped and crowded, and I tried to keep to my room or out of the house as much as possible, but even still, there were too many of us jam-packed into such a small space.

  “Don’t sugarcoat whatever you’re about to say, Gia.”

  She straightened. “We need you to find a new place to live.”

  “Yep. Got it.” I stood up and marched to the tiny cubby that passed for a closet and started digging through the piles of clothes heaped at the bottom for a bag.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Packing. You want me gone, consider it done. I’ll be out of your hair by tonight. I’m sure I can find a nice bench somewhere to sleep on until I find myself a sugar daddy to take care of me.”

  “Don’t be such a turd.” She stood and planted her hands on her hips.

  She was right. I was being a turd, but no one had ever accused me of not being overdramatic.

  “Frankie,” Gia said, pulling me out of my pity party for one. “We’d let you stay forever. You know that.”

  “Seems a little hollow after you just asked me to move—”

  “I’m pr
egnant.”

  It took me a second or five to process that. “Shit.”

  “That was my reaction too.”

  “Shit,” I repeated. Gia was a great mom, and she loved her kids, but Christ, she already had too many of them. They were bursting at the seams, and historically, pregnancies weren’t easy on her. “What did Marco say?”

  “Roughly the same. You know him. He’s over the moon, already picking out names… but he’s worried about me.”

  “When’s the baby coming?”

  “Not for a while. I’m only six weeks in. I wanted to give you as much time as possible to get something else lined up before—”

  “Before you toss me out on my ass?”

  “Yeah. That.” She laughed, took a step closer, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “And don’t forget to clean under the bed. I don’t even want to know what kind of depraved shit you keep under there.”

  “Only the stuff too big to fit in the nightstand.”

  Once Gia had left, I took a moment to freak the fuck out, but it wasn’t like this was a shock. To be honest, I was surprised I hadn’t been kicked out sooner. I’d been expecting this conversation months ago, and it would have been overdue then.

  Still, I’d been working at getting my feet under me for a long time, and so far, nothing much had happened. Maybe I needed to suck it up and live in the slums, or hunker down in a shithole studio apartment that smelled like tomato sauce and feet with three other guys and hope the cockroaches weren’t too aggressive. But the thought left me feeling cold.

  What if the rats chewed through my designer jeans?

  They were all I had left of my pre-police-raided, fabulous life.

  I was out of options, though, and it was time to figure my shit out. I’d been floundering for way too fucking long.

  I was deep in sulk mode when the screen on my phone lit up as it vibrated against my desk.

  “You haven’t gotten mauled by a bear yet?” I asked, answering the call and holding the phone up to capture my best angle.

  “Not yet.” Holden’s grinning face flashed on the screen. “Unless you count Gage. And he’s a little hairy, but I’m not sure he counts.”

  “Send over some nudes and I’ll give you a definitive answer.”

  Holden cocked one eyebrow as he laughed. “Not sure how Gage would feel about that.”

  “Jesus, Holden. Your devotion to that man is disgusting. Where’s your loyalty to me? Obviously, he doesn’t need to know. I’m great at keeping secrets.”

  “Oh, yeah. Not sure Greg would agree. I know an awful lot about his chlamydia.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He never explicitly told me not to tell anyone.”

  “Technically, he didn’t tell you. And I don’t think sexually transmitted illnesses are the type of information people normally like to have shared.” He paused for half a second. “You got another job lined up yet?” Holden’s redirection of the conversation was abrupt, and I resisted the urge to hang up on him. My job prospects were a sore subject and he knew it, and the question coming right after I’d been abruptly evicted made it sting even more.

  “No.” The word came out sounding slightly more bitter than I’d intended. “But I’m sure the agency will find me something soul-crushingly depressing before long.”

  “You’ll find something.”

  “It’s been a year… that’s a scary fucking thought… Maybe it’s about time I gave up on the dream of ever working as a full-time, permanent executive assistant again and start looking at the harsh reality that either I’m going to spend the rest of my life temping at random offices all over the city, or my next career is going to involve a polyester uniform and asking people what kind of dipping sauce they’d like with their chicken.”

  In the beginning, working for Philip Prescott had been a great job. I hadn’t loved my boss, but how many people actually did? The hours had been good, the pay was better, and I was damn good at what I did. I’d been naively optimistic about finding something I’d like as much, but here we were, and nothing had worked out.

  “You’ll find something,” Holden repeated. Easy for him to say. He had his pick of hospitals to work at. And he’d chosen one in backwoods Alaska.

  Alaska, for Christ’s sake.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  He grinned at me, but it didn’t do much to assure me. “You keeping busy in the meantime?”

  “If by busy you mean trolling clubs looking to get laid and trolling the city looking for shit to photograph, then yeah.” I shrugged. “Keeping real busy.”

  “Too busy to get outta the city?”

  I brightened instantly. “Where are you taking me? Aruba? You know I’ve always wanted to see—”

  “I kinda thought you might like to come for a visit.”

  “A visit. Like, visit Alaska?” He couldn’t possibly be serious.

  “I know you’re driving your cousin fucking insane.”

  “How the hell would you know?” The question dripped with indignance, and I resisted the urge to cross my arms and pout. I didn’t mention the fact that she’d kicked me out not twenty minutes earlier.

  “Because I’ve met you.”

  I scoffed. “I’m a pure delight.”

  “You certainly are.” He was placating me, but I wasn’t going to argue. “Which is why I was hoping you’d come.” There was a long pause because I’d known him long enough to know he wasn’t done. “And I have a proposition for you,” he finally added.

  “What’s that?”

  “You let me fly you out here, and in return, I give you complete creative control over my wedding.”

  “You want me to fly to Buttfuck, Alaska, to plan your wedding?” I wasn’t opposed to the idea of the task, it was more the location that made me second-guess the offer.

  “Think about it. We’d pay you. You could stay with Gage and me.”

  “You’re not gonna pay me.”

  “If I didn’t pay you, I’d be paying someone else because neither Gage nor I have the time to do this. We barely see each other as it is.”

  I considered it for a second. “I could plan it from here, you know.”

  “You could try. Sawyer’s Ferry isn’t New York, though. Businesses here don’t really have a heavy online presence. It would be easier in person. Plus, I thought it’d be nice for you to spend some time with Gage and me. Sawyer’s Ferry is a lot nicer than it seems.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. But that’s not the point.”

  How things had changed in a little over a year. Holden had been about as thrilled to be in Sawyer’s Ferry as a cat in a jacuzzi. I guess getting laid on a regular basis by a guy like Gage Emerson was enough to change his mind. Either that or the continuous orgasms had obliterated every last brain cell.

  Either way, I didn’t have a broad-shouldered mountain man to keep me warm in the wilds of Alaska.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Come on. I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “And your life has lost all meaning without me. I get it.”

  Holden laughed. “Something like that.”

  “I guess…” I’d been running through scenarios in my head since Holden had brought it up. It’d only been a few minutes of consideration, but my decisiveness over the whole thing was starting to waver. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. I didn’t really have anything else lined up. And he’d been more right than he even knew about Gia…

  I could get out of her hair for a little while, give myself some space to breathe, and save up a little money while I was at it. The whole thing didn’t seem like a terrible idea if I didn’t freeze to death or die of boredom the second I stepped off the plane.

  “Fine. I can’t guarantee your whole wedding’s getting planned, though. I’ll have to do the rest from here. This isn’t the kind of thing you can just throw together unless you guys had your heart set on exchanging vows under moose head at the lodge.”

  Holden m
ade a disapproving sound and wrinkled his nose. You can take the boy outta the city…

  “Come for the rest of summer. You can stay until just after the wedding. August twenty-third.”

  “You think I have a magic lamp stashed in my ass? Two months? No.” I shook my head. “I need at least a year. At least. And up there in the middle of fucking nowhere, where there are maybe five vendors and even fewer venues, it’d be even harder.”

  “Shouldn’t that make it easier?” Holden teased.

  “Only if you and Gage are good with frozen fish sticks served on plastic platters from the dollar store.”

  “You sure have a lot of ideas for shitty parties, but I don’t think we’re as backwoods as you think we are.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’d be all for you staying a year. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, but the warm season only lasts so long.”

  I scoffed. “Warm season.”

  The thought of spending two months in Sawyer’s Ferry had my skin crawling already, but honestly, it had been crawling even before Holden had brought the idea up.

  I’d always loved New York, but lately, the hits had kept on coming, and the city had lost a little of its gleam. It’s hard to celebrate the good things in life when the best thing I had going for me was Gia’s lasagna every Friday night. And suddenly that was temporary too.

  “If you’re paying, I’m flying.”

  He beamed so wide, his face almost didn’t fit on the small screen. “I’ll email you the confirmation.”

  Stepping off the plane in Sawyer’s Ferry had me swamped with regret already. There was still snow on the tops of the mountains, but the ground below my feet was thankfully dry. Still, I’d traded eighty-degree weather for fifty degrees of bullshit.

  The flight had been one long chance to consider what the hell I’d agreed to. I’d been so happy to see Holden on the screen, I hadn’t stopped to think about what I was actually going to do with myself in Sawyer’s Ferry for two whole months. The wedding planning would take up some of my time, but beyond that… I had no idea.

  I could suddenly imagine how Holden had felt walking through the tiny airport. At least my stay in Sawyer’s Ferry had an end date. He’d arrived on a one-way ticket.