All He Desires – Nate & Eliza (Crossroads Book 12) Read online

  All He Desires

  by

  Melanie Shawn

  Melanie Shawn © 2017

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

  Cover Design by Wildcat Dezigns

  Copyedit by Deanna McDonald

  Proofreading Services by Raiza McDuffie

  Book Design by BB eBooks

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing

  Rev. 1.0

  This book is dedicated to

  Dr. Eliza, Jarmen, Martha, Arturo, Sako and the entire staff of Smiles on Olive in Burbank CA.

  It’s difficult for me to express just how amazing Dr. Eliza and the entire Smiles on Olive staff is and how much they mean to me, but since I’m a writer…I’ll try.

  The top-notch, cutting edge, and high-tech dental care at this office is balanced seemingly effortlessly with personal attention and warmth. From the moment you walk in their doors you never feel like a patient, Dr. Eliza and her entire staff treat you like family! They are compassionate, professional, caring, knowledgeable, affordable, and will go above and beyond to make sure your dental (and emotional, lol) needs are taken care of! I cannot say enough good things about Smiles on Olive…so I wrote a book and named characters after them!

  *Disclaimer: All characters, storylines, and events in the book are purely fictional.*

  I know it’s odd to love not only your dentist but the entire office staff, but I do! I love you Dr. Eliza, Jarmen, Martha, Arturo & Sako! Thank you for taking such amazing care of me and my entire family!

  For those of you in the Los Angeles area I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you go and see Dr. Eliza! Tell her Shawna from Melanie Shawn says HI!

  www.smilesonolive.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  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

  Excerpt: Taming Travis (Wishing Well, Texas)

  Excerpt New Series: Whisper Lake Romance

  Other Titles by Melanie Shawn

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Single.

  Eliza Young bit the inside of her lip as she stared at the S-word next to the box that represented her current relationship status. She was filling out a liability insurance form for the practice that she was now the sole proprietress of. She’d already filled in her age, sex and a brief rundown of her medical history with no problem, but now she was stuck…staring at a box.

  It was a box she’d never thought she’d be checking again. At twenty-seven she had not one but two failed marriages under her belt. She’d always been an over-achiever. She’d graduated from high school with a 4.2 GPA and was accepted into an accelerated dental program where she earned her bachelor’s degree and graduate degree from dental school in just over five years. When she put her mind to something, she succeeded. She lived by Yoda’s mantra: Do…or do not. There is no try. So having both of her marriages end, was not something that she took lightly.

  The first had been annulled after only forty-five days and the second dissolution had been finalized in a jarring, whiplash-inducing-swift twelve days after five years of not-so-wedded-bliss.

  Two marital unions with two different men that ended for two completely different reasons and only one common denominator…her. There was definitely a pattern developing that she couldn’t ignore and had no plans on testing in the near future, or ever again for that matter.

  The only problem was, by nature she was an optimistic romantic…which was evident by her taking the plunge twice before her twenty-second birthday. But she was just going to have to fight against her instinct, since she sincerely doubted that the third time would actually be the charm. She needed to accept the fact that she was partner-less and it looked like she would remain that way till death did she part.

  It wasn’t just her poor taste in men or the rose-colored glasses she wore that was working against her. She also had some bad juju that she’d brought on herself nearly a decade ago. She’d never been one to believe in curses or anything like that, but Eliza was starting to believe that karma was real and she’d earned her unlucky in love status on her eighteenth birthday in a cabin at Whisper Lake.

  She shook her head as she tried to rid her mind of the night that still haunted her. That night she’d not only lost her virginity but also had a Freudian slip that had sent her running away from her life. Away from her high school boyfriend, her hometown and the only life she’d ever known and into the arms of the first of two men that turned out to be very, very wrong for her. That was a road she had no interest in traveling again…ever.

  So yep, she really was single.

  Alone.

  Party of one.

  With a click of her mouse she marked the appropriate box and continued to scroll down the rest of the form before electronically signing and submitting it. She was covered through interim insurance for sixty days, but she wanted to make sure that there were no lapses. Then, she pulled up her action tasks spreadsheet and marked insurance forms off the list. Her eyes scanned the page, one task down, only three hundred and fifty-seven to go.

  “Okay,” she whispered under her breath as she attempted to focus only on the next thing she needed to do instead of the big picture. A picture that was so overwhelming she hadn’t come close to wrapping her mind around it. Her head was spinning from the whirlwind that her life had been the past two weeks.

  Fourteen days ago, she’d taken public transit to work on an overcast Monday morning a happily married…well, a married woman at any rate. She’d been one of two partners in a successful, cutting edge dental practice in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, built from the ground up by her and her husband, Doug.

  Cut to two weeks later, this crisp spring Monday morning she’d walked to work a freshly divorced woman and new owner of a practice built by the man that had filled her cavities and removed her wisdom teeth back in her hometown of Harper’s Crossing, Illinois.

  So much had happened so fast. Emotions were swirling through her, but thankfully sadness wasn’t one of them.

  She was definitely cried out at this point. Over the past two weeks she’d watched My Girl, Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment, Beaches, Love Story, Sophie’s Cho
ice, Marley & Me, Up, The Fault in Our Stars, and Me Before You. All of her current go-to tearjerker movies. Watching sad movies that made her cry was her therapy. It was her outlet to get all of the emotions that were bottled up inside of her out.

  Growing up as an only child she’d relied on movies for companionship. The thing about movies was, they were always there for you. They were dependable. Movies were more than just therapeutic, they were her social life. Unlike her ex-husbands, who’d made vows to her, they actually were there through good and bad. Whether she was celebrating success or grieving a tragedy, a movie marathon was always her answer.

  As she leaned back in her chair she did her best to hold at bay the panic that was rising up in her like a flash flood. Her thumbs grazed against the pads of her fingers, a nervous habit that she’d never been able to break.

  In an effort to distract her mind, she glanced around her office. Her new office. The walls still held pictures of Dr. Lewis’ family. The transition for her taking over Smiles on Riverwalk had been a quick one. In fact, most of the patients were still not aware of the change in ownership.

  Dr. Randall Lewis had served Harper’s Crossing and all of their dental needs for over thirty years. As far as Eliza knew, he’d planned on staying at the practice for another ten years at least. But when he’d suffered a mild heart attack a little over a week ago, his wife of thirty-five years had put her foot down and demanded that he retire immediately.

  His first call had been to Eliza and it could not have come at a better time. She’d received it after walking out of her divorce attorney’s office. She’d figured it was just her mentor calling for his monthly check-in. Dr. Lewis had kept tabs on her all through school and into her professional life. She’d almost ignored the call, but she’d known that he’d just keep calling. She was glad she’d picked up.

  His offer had been a lifeline when she’d felt like she was drowning. Her entire world had been turned upside down and inside out. She hadn’t just walked out on her husband after walking in on him, bare-assed, on top of their nineteen-year-old dental assistant in exam room two. She’d also walked away from her practice. She’d let her ex-husband buy her out of their condo and business because the thought of ever stepping into either place again made her stomach turn. Thankfully, her plan had been to return home right after college, so she was licensed in both states and she wasn’t due for renewal for three months.

  So here she was. As of yesterday, she was back in her hometown to start her new/old life. She’d packed up what belongings she’d wanted to take with her and driven straight through the night and arrived at the small duplex she was renting yesterday afternoon. Her parents had left Illinois two years earlier to move to California after her dad retired from his law practice.

  They were both very happy in Palm Springs and had sold her beloved childhood home. She’d wanted to buy it at the time, but her husband had talked her out of it because he’d wanted to put all of their resources into the practice they were in the beginning stages of starting. He’d always been on the controlling side, she’d just never expected him to be on the cheating side.

  Her feet warmed from the heated fur now covering them. She glanced beneath her desk at the only male she’d ever had a healthy relationship with. Farmer, her Golden Retriever. Farmer had been with her since her freshman year in college and was very in tune with her emotions. She’d named him after Kevin Costner’s character Frank Farmer in one of her favorite movies, The Bodyguard.

  One night when she was walking back to her dorm after a late-night study session at the library, a guy had come out from behind a tree and grabbed her. Before she’d had a chance to react, the guy was tackled to the ground by a stray dog. The dog held him by the neck and kept him there until the police arrived. Farmer had rescued her that night and she’d rescued him right back. Since her dorm did not allow pets, she’d moved out to an apartment and he’d been by her side ever since.

  Two years ago, she’d gotten Farmer certified as a service dog and he’d started working in her dental office as a dental therapy dog. He’d been a huge success. In fact the pediatric portion of their business had exploded. Kids who had anxiety about being at the dentist immediately calmed when Farmer was beside them.

  “Dr. Young, Becca Sloan is on line one for you,” a female voice sounded through the intercom in the otherwise quiet room.

  “Thanks, Jarmen. And please, call me Eliza, or Liz, or Liza.”

  Dr. Lewis had been old school and had required the staff to refer to him in a more formal fashion, but Eliza was new school. She didn’t mind if her patients called her Dr. Young, but her co-workers were another story.

  She picked up the phone and pushed the button that was lighting up. At her offices in Oklahoma City, all of the calls were routed through on the computer. The front desk communicated with everyone on a chat that would pop up on the screen. But here they were still using intercoms and landlines. There were computers, but they were probably ten years old and the programs were all outdated, upgrading them was #115 on her spreadsheet. As well as transferring all of the patient files into a computer program instead of the paper system they were using now.

  She placed the receiver to her ear and used the name that she’d always called her friend growing up, that now happened to be her actual title. “Hello, Dr. Sloan.”

  Becca Sloan was her oldest friend. Eliza had grown up next door to the Sloan sisters. Haley was the oldest, next was Krista, then Jessie and Becca was the youngest. She and Becca had not only been friends because they were the closest in age, but they’d also bonded over what they’d wanted to be when they “grew up.” Becca had wanted to be a doctor since she was in elementary school, after being hospitalized for a rare form of strep throat. And Eliza had wanted to be a dentist since she’d gone on a field trip to the dentist the same year. Dr. Lewis had shown them X-rays on a lightbox and dental tools, explaining and demonstrating how they worked. He spoke so passionately about his profession. Then he sent them all home with a bag filled with a toothbrush, toothpaste and floss. For some reason that trip had stuck with her and Dr. Lewis had seemed more like a rock star to her than the local dentist.

  Becca shared her passion for medicine, her overachieving ways and had graduated from Stanford School of Medicine in six years instead of eight and had just completed her residency. She was doing better in the love department though. She was marrying their childhood friend Brian in less than a month. The three of them had played together as kids and honestly, Eliza had never thought there was anything between the two of them, and apparently there wasn’t until a few years ago.

  “Hello Dr. Young. How is your first day going?”

  Eliza looked at the clock on the corner of her computer screen. Eight fifty-eight a.m. “Well, technically the practice doesn’t open for two minutes, but so far so good. Why didn’t you call me on my cell?”

  “I tried, it went straight to voicemail. I figured you forgot to charge it.”

  Shoot. She grabbed her phone off of the desk and saw that it was indeed dead.

  Growing up, it’d been a running joke in her family that she was the absent-minded professor. Her dad used to say that she’d forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on. She’d always gotten good grades, excellent in fact, she’d graduated from high school, college and dental school at the top of her class. But she was constantly misplacing and forgetting things. Which was why she’d started making lists. Unfortunately, “charge phone” was not an item on her spreadsheet.

  Becca continued, “I’m calling early because I wanted to snag you for dinner tonight. Haley will be there as well as a resident I work with. I’d love to see you if you don’t already have plans.”

  It was sweet of her friend to think she’d already have plans, but that was so not the case. Growing up Eliza hadn’t really run with the popular crowd. At least she hadn’t until Neil Holmes had asked her out the summer before their sophomore year. He was the big man on campus and she’d been accepted into t
he “in” crowd by default. She seriously doubted any of the people that even remembered her would actually care that she was back. “I got into town yesterday. I don’t have plans.”

  “Perfect!” Becca exclaimed. “How does The Plate at seven sound?”

  Eliza pulled up her schedule and saw that her last patient was at five. “Sounds good.”

  “Great, see you then.”

  “See you then.” As Eliza set the phone back in the cradle it hit her that she was really back.

  She was in Harper’s Crossing. A place that she’d avoided as much as possible since she left for college because she was scared that she would run into Neil or worse, his identical twin brother Nate. From what she’d been able to discover after a little light Facebook stalking, they were both back in town.

  Neil had never left. He’d stayed in Harper’s Crossing after high school, opting not to go to college. He’d gone to work for his dad’s real estate business. From his posts it looked like his life hadn’t changed much since high school. He partied. Hard. And did the bare minimum work that was required of him.

  Nate was the opposite. He’d graduated two years early from high school and left to attend MIT. She hadn’t seen him since he left for Massachusetts. But she’d known that in three years he’d earned his Master’s degree and then joined the Army. He’d completed Ranger training and had quickly risen in the ranks. After six years of service, he’d moved back home to Harper’s Crossing. He worked as a cyber security specialist at Elite Security and he was rumored to work as a consultant for the CIA in cyber terrorism, but as far as she knew he’d never told anyone that, it was just small town gossip.

  She’d met Nate on the first day of freshman year in human physiology. Nate was shy, brilliant and cute. Really cute. She’d had a huge crush on him from the moment he’d been assigned as her lab partner in Mr. Hawkins’ classroom. There were so many times that she’d thought he was going to kiss her, or at least make some kind of move. It was a constant stream of mixed signals. He’d do an incredibly thoughtful and grand gesture or drop these amazingly sweet compliment bombs and after they detonated she’d wait in anticipation for something, anything, to happen, but nothing ever did. His face would remain blank and that would be that. But, she always believed that one day that would change. She’d worked up this whole fantasy world where he’d confess his undying love for her and they would ride off into the happily-ever-after sunset together.