Help Wanted: Grumpy mountain man seeks baby mumma. Job is an incubator position only. Surrogate must be impervious to grunting as the form of communication and nosy brotherly neighbours. Rustic mountain range housing available upon request.

I wanted to pummel my irritating brothers when they posted their own version of a wanted ad to help me with my life.

But I can’t fault the results once the right woman lands in my lap.

Becoming a single father is not a decision I made lightly. In fact, it’s the biggest decision of my entire life.

Which is why when I interview Trista, I know she’s perfect.

She’s wild, she’s opinionated, she wears cowboy boots. Even my pet goat loves her…

She’s the exact type of person I was holding out for.

And to my great horror, I realise on our first night of attempting this baby-making dance — when the lights are low, the cheap wine is flowing and the home-insemination supplies are laid out on the kitchen counter — I want to do a lot more than just make her my surrogate.

I want to make her mine.

Perfect for fans of:

Grumpy/Sunshine
Small Town Romance
Age Gap
Curvy FMC
Meghan Quinn and Tessa Bailey

Help Wanted: Grumpy Mountain Man seeks baby momma to grow his seed. Uterus a must. Ovaries negotiable. Boobs not required but a nice bonus. Job is an incubator position only. No parenting allowed. Surrogate must be impervious to grunting in the form of communication and impartial to goat droppings. Rustic mountain range housing available upon request. Interested parties can text 555-5456. Murderers need not apply. Expect sizable payment and signed legal contracts before insemination commences. Also, must be cool with brotherly neighbors…and no, that isn’t code for Why Choose.

“You fucking fuckers!” I roar as I slam my foot on the brakes in front of my brother’s cabin, sending a dust storm of gravel swirling around my truck. Jumping out of the driver’s seat, I charge up the steps toward my two siblings sitting on Calder’s front porch and come to a stop between them. I glare at their relaxed frames stretched out on a couple of wooden rocking chairs with tin cups of coffee in hand.

Like it’s just a normal Saturday fucking morning.

I hold up the piece of paper in my hand. “Which one of you posted this at the bar?”

“Easy there, Wyatt…you don’t want to hit your daily word quota all before lunch.” Calder laughs and sets his cup down on the end table beside him and snaps his fingers. “Although I guess ‘fuck’ was redundant, so you have a few more words to burn.”

Without warning, I reach out and grab his collar, yanking him out of his chair. I knew it was Calder. It’s always fucking Calder. “Is my life some kind of joke to you?” I seethe, feeling every muscle in my arms flex as I hold my six-foot-three brother up on his tiptoes. I’m only an inch taller than him, so it’s no easy task.

“How do you know it was me?” Calder’s eyes dance with mirth. Mirth that I am two seconds away from punching off his smug face.

I glance over at Luke, the youngest of us, who seems perfectly at ease as he scratches his short beard and enjoys the show. I slant my gaze back to the most typical middle child on the face of this earth—never mind the fucker is thirty-five now. He was a pain in the ass when we were young, and he’s a pain in the ass now. The only difference now is he has more disposable income and more “inspired” ideas for his shenanigans.

My voice is growly as I crumple the sheet between us. “‘Impervious’ was your word of the day last week, and you used it incorrectly for hours.”

The corner of Calder’s mouth tips up. “Pretty sure I got it right in that ad, though, didn’t I, Papa Bear?”

Rage spikes in my veins now that he’s confirmed his guilt. “I’m going to throw you off this mountain and burn your cabin down.”

I drag Calder’s floundering body down the front steps of his porch toward the lookout point in front of my cabin, ignoring his raucous laughter that echoes off the foothills. I spent weeks clearing trees from this mountain vista when I bought this land to create this view before I even built my home. I wanted a place to quiet my thoughts and bring me peace.

This is the opposite of peace.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Luke calls out, his boots crunching on the gravel as he jogs past me to press a hand to my chest. “It’s way too early in the day for manslaughter and arson threats.”

“No shit,” Calder scoffs, extricating himself from my grip. He steps back and straightens his flannel, concealing the ink scrawled across his chest. “This violent behavior will make finding you a Momma Bear very difficult, Papa Bear.” “Stop calling me Papa Bear,” I hiss, ruing the day I ever thought it’d be a good idea to have my brothers build on this secluded mountain with me.
I fist the ridiculous ad in my hand and glance up the hill at the three cabins we all built together almost ten years ago. Three brothers living on a mountaintop I bought in rural Colorado sounded like a dream back then. We all worked side by side to develop this stretch of land and build self-sustaining cabins to survive up here on minimal energy resources. Even in the snowiest of winters, we have everything we need to survive for days without contact from the outside world. Weeks even.
Sounds like fucking heaven.
Or it did…until something started to feel different for me. As though something was missing.
“This isn’t a fucking joke,” I grumble, running my hand over my short hair.
Calder’s expression shifts from cocky to damn near somber as he pins me with a serious look. “I didn’t make that ad as a joke, Wyatt. I made it because you’re a damn fool for going back to that agency in Denver that’s going to charge you six figures for a surrogate when there are decent women right here in Jamestown who will grow your baby for a fraction of the price.”
“It’s not about the cost, Calder,” I boom for the hundredth time. “I’ll pay whatever it takes to become a…” I hesitate to say the word out loud, my voice getting caught in my throat as the weight of it presses down on me.
Dad.
When will that word ever stop being difficult for me to say out loud? My eyes move over to the memorial bench Calder built and placed at the lookout point two years ago after our father passed unexpectedly. Our dad’s favorite saying is inscribed on it: We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time.

Dad was the salt of the earth—hardworking, protective, and challenging in all the best ways. I can close my eyes and still feel his presence all around me—his signature scent of Brut cologne, his chastising tone when my brothers and I were late to a jobsite, his bark of a laugh, or the way he never sneezed just once. It was always an attack of eight sneezes in a row. Fuck, I miss him.

And let’s not even think about how hard it’s been for my mom, who was just about to celebrate their forty-fifth wedding anniversary before he passed. Now, she’s a widow who still cries at family events.

Dad was the definition of patriarch, and when we lost him, we lost our guide, our anchor, our voice of reason. The world got a little darker.

Now, I want to bring some light back into our lives. I want to see my mom hold my kid for once instead of my niece or nephew. I’m proud of what my brothers and I have built on this mountain, and I want to share that with a child of my own.

And I’ll be damned if I let Calder fuck with my plan.

Calder playfully hits me on the arm, snapping my attention back to him. “You know, I might have some babies toddling around the foothills and not even know it. You’re welcome to one of those if you can find one.”

My jaw clenches, and I can’t tell if this comment is better or worse than the other things he’s said. A few months ago, Calder suggested I use Tinder and just go out and randomly knock someone up. And I admit that in a drunken stupor, I began to consider that idea but then remembered nobody goes to Calder for advice. Unless you want the name of a good sex club, maybe.

I open my mouth to argue with him for the hundredth time, but an approaching car forces all our heads to turn. I own the entire mountain, so all visitors are here for one of the three of us. When our eldest brother Max’s SUV appears on the horizon, we all murmur, “Fuck.”

Max isn’t a total asshole. He’s just a different breed than us.

And God love him, he can be a controlling, condescending fucker sometimes. He got even worse after Dad passed.

Back in the day, he worked construction for Dad’s renovation business just like the rest of us, but Max always had different life goals. He broke off early, went to business school, and climbed the corporate ladder to eventually break out on his own. He owns his franchise development company and is likely the wealthiest man in Boulder, but I’m not doing too bad myself. I just choose to hide in the hills of Jamestown, the tiny community at the base of this mountain, rather than flaunt my money with a fancy house. I’m not Max rich by any means, but my land is worth a pretty penny, and the green cabins we’ve built up here make our lives very affordable.

Plus, flipping houses has been good to all of us. Our father taught us well, and we’ve managed to continue growing his business in his absence. Honestly, we’re harder workers now than we ever were when he was here. His passing was a bit of a wake-up call. I only wish he was here to see it.

But the cash rolls the housing market has gifted to us for investments have been well taken care of the past decade, which is why I’m not concerned about how much it will cost for me to become a…

Dad.

Regardless of who has more money, Max likes to throw around that CEO boss energy everywhere he goes. And, well, we play by different rules on the mountain.

Like being able to cover up murder and arson relatively easily.

Max stands in front of the three of us and pulls his expensive sunglasses off his face to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Can someone please inform me why I just caught my teenage daughter making an Excel spreadsheet of viable candidates to be the baby momma for her uncle?” Max looks as confused as I feel.

“Oh yeah.” Calder grips the back of his neck and looks uneasy for the first time all morning. He clears his throat and stares down at his boots. “I posted that bar ad on Craigslist a few days ago and directed all calls to Everly.”

“You what?” Max roars, and I lunge for Calder, only to be grabbed around the shoulders by Luke, who I struggle to shake off. He’s not the biggest of the four of us, but he’s a wiry little shit.
Max blows past us, and just before his fist connects with our annoying brother’s face, Calder bellows, “This was Everly’s idea!”

“Dick,” Luke scoffs, looking disappointed. “Way to throw your niece under the bus. Super brave of you.”

“One of them is going to kill me if I don’t tell the truth,” Calder snaps back defensively and turns back to me and Max. “She was determined to do this and asked for my help. And you know I can’t say no to Evie girl. I honestly didn’t even know Craigslist was still a thing. Everly figured that out in all her research.”

Max’s stunned reaction causes him to pull back from Calder, his face cast in confusion. “Everly figured all this out?”

Calder straightens and tries to gain back an ounce of his manhood. “Yes.”

Max, Luke, and I all gape at him, dumbfounded by this onslaught of new information. I had a long conversation with Everly several months ago about my plans to find a surrogate to carry my baby, but I had no idea she was this invested in the whole thing.

Max’s voice is scathing as he turns accusing eyes at me. “You never should have told her, Wyatt. She’s just a child. She doesn’t even understand all this.”

“She was relentless with her questions, Max,” I argue, anxiety prickling the back of my neck at the possibility I did something that could have hurt her. “And she’s eighteen—it’s not like she doesn’t know how babies are made. And hell, she’s graduating from high school in a few months and moving overseas. If she’s old enough to move away to a foreign country, she’s old enough to understand all this.” My tone is bitter.

“She’s not moving away forever.” Max’s voice catches in his throat, revealing what we’re all feeling as I look around to see the same sad, desperate look on our faces. The look we’ve all had since Everly told us she was going to Ireland for college several months ago.

Evie girl is leaving us.

Another set of approaching tires breaks through our shared moment of depression, and when I see the familiar white Jeep truck pull up the lane, my heart aches all over again.
Everly Fletcher…my eldest brother’s first kid, the sweet little girl Max had with his college girlfriend before they even graduated, gets out of her truck and walks toward us all with a look of determination.

I was only twenty when she was born, still just a kid myself. Hell, Luke was barely a teenager. But the moment they placed that tiny pink bundle in my arms with a spray of fuzzy white hair and long, slender little fingers that wrapped around my calloused thumb… I became a man.

And when Max and his wife split up when Everly was just two, she became all our responsibility. This little girl would want for nothing in life, and it was Calder’s, Luke’s, and my job to make sure she felt no pain from that break. My brothers and I have doted on her for the past eighteen years. We still take turns taking her out on weekly uncle dates when her busy teen schedule allows it. She and my brother’s other kid, Ethan, who’s seven now, get plenty of quality time with us. They love it.

We love them.

Flashbacks of Everly as a little tyke with blond braids bouncing around this mountaintop, begging to bottle-feed my goat, Millie, flash through my mind’s eye. She would sleep over at one of our cabins every chance she got, which wasn’t as often as we liked after my brother got divorced. Shared custody was a bitch for all of us.

This is why I want to do this fatherhood thing with a professional. With a contract. With no strings attached at the end. I don’t want to share my time with my kid. Ever.

I’m still tormented at the thought of my only niece moving away. If I could take Everly to court and sue to keep her right here in Colorado, I would. Our girl in another country without all of us there to look out for her is unthinkable to me. My body tenses at the idea of something bad happening to her. Or hell, even someone just hurting her feelings. I can’t believe Max said yes to letting her go that far away to college when perfectly good colleges exist right here in the same state.

“Dad,” Everly exclaims, her tall six-foot frame striding toward us. “Don’t you go blaming them for this…it was all my idea!”

“That’s what I said,” Calder confirms with a guilty shrug toward Everly. “Sorry, kid, but one broken nose in my lifetime is enough.”

“You’re welcome for that,” Luke says with a smug grin. “Hi, Evie girl.”

“Hi, Uncle Luke,” Everly says sweetly, then turns her attention to me, hitting me with those clear blue eyes I’d give my life for. “Uncle Wyatt…don’t you be mad at Calder either. This was all me. You’re not having any luck finding a surrogate in Denver. That agency clearly doesn’t see you for all that you are, or you would have been matched by now, so I think it’s time you tried a new plan.”
“What plan?” I ask, feeling suddenly bone-tired at the idea of discussing this huge life-changing decision I’ve made with my entire family…again. I’m already exhausted by this process, and I only had to jack off into a cup once so far to ensure that my swimmers are good.

My boys are gold medal swimmers…or so that old fertility doctor told me. But what’s not earning me any medals is having to deal with my family’s fucking input during nearly every step of this process.

“I think I can find you a surrogate,” Everly says, her jaw taut with determination. “Someone who’s perfect for this job.”

“Evie,” I say, but she holds her hand up to shush me. So, I shush.

“Just give me one week,” she says, her youthful eyes flaring with so much grit I can’t help but root for her. “Next week is my spring break, and I will interview the viable candidates who reply to the ad and see if anyone might be a good fit for this project. I’m certain I can find you someone special you’ll never be able to say no to.”

I shake my head. “Everly, I have another appointment at that agency on Monday. I could find someone then.”

“Then we’ll cancel my plan, and this will all be for nothing. No biggie.”

“Everly,” Max expels under his breath. “Finding a surrogate for Uncle Wyatt is a very big deal. It’s real life, which is why he’s going through the proper channels and trying to hire a professional from an agency. You’re too inexperienced to understand all this.”

“Please, Dad,” Everly scoffs casually. “I’m not even a virgin.”

Calder screams. Literally screams. It echoes off the foothills, likely sending all the wildlife scrambling.

Luke stumbles and nearly drops to the ground, his shoulders rising and falling as he braces himself on his knees and pants heavily, a look of disgust smeared across his face.

Max’s jaw drops with horror as he stammers with what to say back to that very unexpected bomb his only daughter just dropped.

And I remain frozen, begging for a time machine to take this moment away immediately. Or, better yet, go back in time to whoever fucked my niece so I can kill that person before he has a chance to ever lay his eyes on her.

“Who is the fucker?” I rumble, my voice low and threatening. “Was it that Hilow prick who took you to prom last year? I thought you two broke up.”

“We did,” Everly exclaims defensively.

“Oh my God,” Max groans, looking like he’s going to be violently ill at any second.

“It was a one-night stand?” Calder coughs as he rakes his hands through his hair. “I knew I was a bad influence on you. I never should have hung out with you so much. I’m a dirty, filthy, disgusting, rotten pig. I’m never having sex again. This is my vow to—”

“Uncle Calder…get over yourself,” Everly drawls, her eyes rolling to the back of her head. “All of you, get over yourselves. This isn’t about me. It’s about Uncle Wyatt, who has dedicated so much of his life to making sure I was happy and loved and protected. Now it’s my turn to do something for him.”

My body stills with the weight of her words. Goddammit, when did she get so mature? The little girl we all helped raise is gone, and I’m looking at a woman now. A strong, independent, headstrong woman who I am so proud of my heart could burst. I turn around so she can’t see the tears forming in my eyes, my jaw clenching with humiliation over the power this teenager has over me. It will kill me not to see her whenever I want next year.

Her footsteps are soft as she comes close and wraps her tiny, manicured hands around my arm and rests her head on my shoulder. She used to have to stand on my feet to dance with me. This is so fucked.

“I know I won’t be able to find you love, Uncle Wyatt. You’ve made it crystal clear that’s not what you want in life. But please, let me be a part of helping you become a dad beNine fore I go.” She stands on her tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek and whispers in my ear, “Because I know you will make an amazing one.”

Well, fuck.

Out now in eBook

Paperback coming March 2025