Make Me Yours

Ever the prodigal son, Gavin Danvers returns to Heron’s Landing to move on from his recent divorce. With his young daughter in tow, Gavin wants to rebuild his life—alone. He’s done with love and marriage forever.

Gavin’s resolve is tested when he meets his daughter’s pretty new teacher. Kat Williamson, with her sweet smile and her devotion to her students, is everything Gavin can never have.

Yet when Kat begins to receive escalating threats from a mysterious stalker, Gavin vows to protect her, even going so far as to invite her to live with him. With Kat now under his roof, Gavin can’t stop himself from kissing her. Holding her. Making her his.

As he realizes he can love again, Gavin must do everything he can to protect Kat—even at the risk of his own life.

On the first day of classes, Kat Williamson cursed the humidity rampant in August and hoped her hair hadn’t turned into a ball of frizz before nine AM.

Although the school where she taught computer classes to elementary students had AC, it struggled to keep up when the temperatures reached above one hundred, which was pretty common this time of year in Missouri. 


Kat hustled to the staff room. The copy machine always had a line this close to the bell. Normally Kat arrived earlier, but she’d woken up late and had had to hustle it to get to school on time. Two other teachers were ahead of Kat, and of course one of them ended up getting the copier jammed.


Kat sighed inwardly. Today’s going to be a mess, isn’t it?

Luckily, she didn’t have to teach until later that morning, but she still needed to finish her lesson plans. Normally she was way more organized, but she’d been distracted last night with messing with closing her grandmother’s cell phone account. Apparently telling someone the account holder was deceased wasn’t enough of a reason to close said account, Kat had found out to her immense frustration.


“Coffee?”
Kat turned to see her fellow teacher and friend, Silas Fraser, standing at her elbow. He was about her height, with light brown hair and a gap-toothed grin, and one of the few teachers around her age.

They’d bonded over their Millennial status and griped about how no one in this school knew how to use a computer.

Most of the teachers here were almost twice Kat’s age—not a bad thing, necessarily, but sometimes there was a bit of a culture gap.


“Yes, thank you,” she replied, taking the steaming mug. Normally she brought her own coffee, but apparently today was not going to go how it normally did. She sipped it and made a face. “God, that’s awful.”


Silas laughed. “It’s Folgers from 1994. I think.” He gazed at his own mug. “I think they stopped buying fresh coffee then. You know the school won’t even buy us creamer because it’s a ‘luxury.’”


Kat rolled her eyes. Right then, the teacher who’d jammed the copier managed to pull the offending paper and get the copier going again. The second the teacher finished, Kat practically wrapped herself around the copier: mine, don’t touch! 


Silas laughed at her. “I thought you knew better than to make copies right now.”


“Yeah, I know. It’s my own fault.” Kat tapped her foot. “Why is this thing so slow?”


“It’s older than me, that’s why,” said Silas.
“That seems to be a theme in this school.”

After Kat’s copies printed, she grabbed the papers and her cooling cup of coffee. 


“Wait, before you go,” said Silas shyly. He looked around, like he didn’t want anyone to overhear. If so, he’d picked the worst spot imaginable, as everyone was currently running around in circles in the break room, wondering where their things were, why the coffee tasted terrible, and complaining that it was so hot in here no matter how much they complained about the crappy air conditioners
Kat barely suppressed her impatience, but Silas was a friend.

“Shoot.” 


“Do you want to get a drink sometime?” A blush crawled up Silas’s face as he said the words, and he cleared his throat before adding, “You know, like a date.”


She blinked. She’d been expecting him to ask her to cover bus duty this week or something. Silas had been most decidedly in the friend category in her mind—not because he wasn’t dateable, but because he hadn’t shown the least interest in her up until now. She sipped her coffee again, mostly because she was figuring out what to say.


“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she finally said. She saw him blushing harder and instantly felt guilty. “I mean, I would, but with my grandmother and everything…” She trailed off, hoping he’d get the hint.
Luckily, he did.

“No, I get it. But think about it, okay? You don’t have to say yes or no right now.” He handed her the last of her copies. “See you later, Kat.”


Despite her best efforts, Kat couldn’t help but think about another man as she walked to her class. A man she wished would ask her out.

Gavin Danvers, who’d avoided her since he’d been so awkward at the farm-to-table festival earlier in the spring. 


Not only had Gavin fallen on top of her to keep a ball from hitting her, but he’d looked at her lips for an intensely long moment—like he’d wanted to kiss her. Until he’d sprung up like he’d been scalded and had subsequently avoided her.

Considering Heron’s Landing was ridiculously tiny, avoiding a particular person took a lot of effort. And Kat had definitely noticed Gavin’s effort in this regard.
Gavin was the black sheep of the Danvers’ family.

While his brother Adam Danvers ran the family vineyard, Gavin had moved away with his wife and daughter years ago.

But now Gavin was back, newly divorced, his young daughter with him.
Kat wondered if Gavin had ever asked a woman out for drinks, or if he just smoldered in their general direction and they came running. Then again, he’d been married at a young age. He might not have a lot of dating experience.

By the time it was time for Kat to teach an hour later, she’d gotten her brain in order, as well as her lesson plans. Kat had been able to stop thinking about Gavin Danvers—until Kat saw his young daughter Emma was one of the kids in her class. Of course she is, Kat thought to herself.