Page 128 of Labor of Love

Layla got hooked on writing as a child and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs, and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, and dreamers. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering, she can be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.

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BLURB

What does Vaughn Winery offer sommelier, Ledger Rain, who is running from past mistakes? Why everything, of course.

A meeting on a street in Bayfield causes Ledger to lose his mind and gain a mate who turns out to be his boss. Twelve months on, mated, married and pregnant with twins, life is about to take another sharp twist with the secret his mate has kept from him.

How does one give birth to vampire babies? Ledger is about to discover this out the painful way.

PROLOGUE

LEDGER

The fall of the first Vaughn brother.

June 2024

Ledger listened to the sexy sat nav voice he’d chosen tell him that he’d reached Bayfield, his destination. He slowed as he entered the town limits, and the corners of his mouth dipped in disappointment. What he’d envisioned when he’d received the sommelier job offer at one of the most prestigious wineries in the country was not what appeared to be a ranch town.

Dust and cowboys were all he could see out of the windscreen. Yes, cowboys absolutely were hot. And from those he could see roaming down the sidewalks, they were most definitely falling into the category. What wasn’t so hot was that it wasallthat Ledger could see. Most looked like they wouldn’t know an excellent wine if it sat atop a saddle.

He sighed, disheartened by the fact, in his rush to escape his last boyfriend, he’d accepted a job without doing any due diligence on the area. Vaughn's winery was synonymous withproducing some of the best wines and Champagne. But how did they do that from here? In the back of bumfuck nowhere?

Having come from a family that cast him aside for being divergent—someone who couldn’t shift into their inner animal—Ledger was never one to allow a defeatist attitude. He cast off the grump wanting to descend on him like a rainy cloud. No, Ledger didn’t look at life through the lens of defeat, he looked at it, seeing opportunities to be seized. Right now, though, he was willing to admit it was a little harder than usual.

Had he jumped from the frying pan into the fire?

He slowed, allowing a car to pull out of a street-side parking spot, which he then drove into. He didn’t have the exact address for the vineyard, just the town. The internet search had given him the town's name but no exact location and again, that should have raised a red flag. Especially when Thorn Vaughn suggested they meet in town and not at the vineyard or winery.

He cursed Sylvester for chasing him out of LA. His ex had turned into a major creeper in the end, besides always insisting he take heat blockers to prevent any unwanted babies. That had stung when what he actually meant was he didn’t want to chance being ‘lumbered with a divergent child’. His words, the asshole!

Yes, Ledger had focused on progressing his career, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want children. He most certainly did, with the right person, who most certainly wasn’t Sylvester!

Ledger was past thinking about the mistake that was his ex. No, he needed to concentrate on the immediate issue. Like how was he going to get out of the year-long contract he’d signed when he wasn’t sure Bayfield was the right place for him?

He moaned aloud, recalling the exact words Ky, his lawyer best friend, had said about the contract he’d asked him to look over. “Best damn contract I’ve ever seen.”

Ky, who was impressed by the diligence of whoever had drawn up the document, basically said Ledger was stuck for the next twelve months if he signed it.

A year isn’t that long, really!

On the sidewalk minus his jacket, because of the heat being a little overbearing, he strolled down the street, looking in shop windows, working on reinforcing the positives to himself. The disheartened feeling lessened at the artisan shops he passed. The place wasn’t giving him a bad vibe.

A little further down his nose twitched, catching some divine scents. He searched the line of shops and a grin appeared at the sign for Kit’s Cakes.

Result!

His stomach rumbled with delight and gave him the nudge to get something to eat since it had been hours since breakfast. His mouth watered as he peered through the gleaming windows at glass-fronted cabinets full of delicious looking pastries, cakes, cookies, breads, and a wide selection of open-faced sandwiches that could rival any LA bakery Ledger had frequented.

“Now this is cool,” he murmured to himself, his nose all but pressing against the glass. “A major plus for a bumfuck town in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m sure Kit will be pleased to hear that,” came a silky-smooth voice from behind him.

Ledger spun around, blushing and all but swallowing his tongue at the hunk of stunningness gracing the sidewalk. There was so much to take in his brain went into immediate overload.

The guy towered over Ledger’s five feet height. Sophisticated was his first thought. Elegantly dressed in expensive cut black slacks and a pale lemon fitted shirt, open at the throat to reveal honey gold skin. Stylish cut mahogany waves showed off a prominent forehead, bright blue eyes, chiselled, dimpled cheeks,and the fullest lips that Ledger had ever seen in person. Ones he wanted to taste.

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