“Mornin’.” Meathook filled the doorway of his bedroom from frame to frame and then some. His eyes were still groggy, his body stripped down to a pair of hip-hugging leather pants that left his massive chest bare—though bare wasn’t the best description for something so furry. He was a walking, talking biker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliché—something Dani usually tried to avoid in her life and her fiction. He was also a nice guy, who had done two tours in Vietnam, lost a child to death, his wife to denial of that death and dealt with it all by writing nonsense rhymes for children. A stereotype with a twist, she thought. She needed him, his innate goodness, more than she needed her soda or M&Ms. Though she was happy that his house had both.
He roughed up his beard and stretched. “Thought you’d st
