Make Her Mine: A Single Mom Small Town Romance (Men in Charge Book 1)

MAKE HER MINE MEN IN CHARGE TORY BAKER CONTENTS Playlist Blurb Prologue 1. Rosaleigh 2. Nix 3. Rosaleigh 4. Nix 5. Rosaleigh 6. Nix 7. Rosaleigh 8. Nix 9. Rosaleigh 10. Nix 11. Nix 12. Rosaleigh 13. Nix 14. Rosaleigh 15. Nix 16. Nix 17. Rosaleigh 18. Rosaleigh 19. Nix 20. Rosaleigh 21. Nix 22. Rosaleigh 23. Nix 24. Rosaleigh 25. Rosaleigh 26. Nix 27. Rosaleigh 28. Nix 29. Rosaleigh 30. Rosaleigh 31. Nix Epilogue About the Author Acknowledgments Also by Tory Baker Copyright © 2023 by Tory Baker All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Cover Design by LJ with Mayhem Cover Creations Photographer by Sara Eirew with Sara Eirew Photography Editor Julia Good with Diamond in the Rough Editing Created with Vellum To anyone that lived a life they thought was perfect, until it wasn’t. PLAYLIST Make Her Mine Playlist You, Me, and Whiskey- Justin Moore Stoned- Parker McCollum Tears the Size of Texas- Ben Burgess Rock and A Hard Place- Bailey Zimmerman Flower Shops- ERNEST Daylight- Watchhouse Space and Time- S.G. Goodman Why- Read Southall Band Proud Mary- Tina Turner Just Like Leaving- Bella White So Low- Koe Wetzel Dirty Looks- Liner Wilson BLURB She was always the one who got away. Rosaleigh caught my eyes from the beginning, but I didn't make my move. She was too young. Unfortunately, my best friend didn't have the same morals. It killed me, watching from a distance as he disrespected the woman who was always meant to be mine. When she finally discovers the truth about him, all bets are off. I'm done holding back. I make my move, ready to prove she has a real man now—one who will have her back and give her the life she deserves. I won't let anything stop me. She's not getting away again. I'm going to make her mine. This is the first book in the Men in Charge series, each book will be a complete stand alone, the common denominator? An alpha Hero, a man that goes after what he wants, a guaranteed happily ever after, and of course steamy romance! PROLOGUE Rosaleigh Ten Months Earlier “Hey, girls, where’s your father?” I ask as I walk through the door. All the lights are off, minus the small lamp in the corner of the room. David’s patrol car wasn’t in the driveway, and neither was our second vehicle. Both of our daughters have blonde hair and a similar build to mine, minus the fact that one is my height while the other isn’t that far off, with eyes that are like looking at my own; only theirs are red and bloodshot, as if they’ve been crying on the couch, huddled together, a rarity these days. They’re usually at each other’s throats, especially in the morning when Rory is taking her sweet time on her hair and mascara while all Emmy wants to do is brush her teeth, run a comb through her hair, and call it a day. That’s when the arguments start and I have to wade in, unless David is home. Then the house is as quiet as a tomb, no one willing to wake him up if he’s been working the nightshift. “He’s gone,” my oldest daughter, Rory, who’s on the cusp of womanhood in the form of being a teenager, states. She’ll be thirteen in a few short weeks. Time has flown by, and that saying ‘Time is a thief’ couldn’t be more accurate. It feels like only yesterday when I admitted to myself that at the ripe age of fifteen, I was pregnant, a baby having a baby. It’s then I notice Emmy is practically on top of Rory, cuddled into her side, the tip of her thumb in her mouth, a habit she’s had forever but rarely uses unless a time calls for it, usually when she’s overtired, upset, or nervous. Tonight, it looks to be a combination of all three. “What do you mean, he’s gone?” I ask, stepping out of my shoes, dropping my bag to the floor, and walking closer until I’m sitting in front of them, ass to the wooden coffee table, unable to understand that short sentence. Rory’s lip quivers, Emmy has tears in her eyes, and my stomach, well, my stomach plummets to my feet. “He’s gone, Mommy.” I’m trying to wrap what those words mean around my head, David, my husband, their father, is a cop in small town of Abalee, Georgia. The place where David was born and raised. Me, not so much. I was a transplant from one of the many places my mom decided to up and move on a moment’s notice. Before moving here, home was a joke. We never stayed in one place for longer than a year because whoever the boyfriend or husband of the month my mom was after would be in another town, giving her the opportunity to quit paying rent on one apartment and leaving before getting evicted for her to do it all over again, a never-ending cycle. They say that history has a chance of repeating itself when it comes to you being a product of your youth. I may have been a statistic in some ways when it came to being a teen mother like my own was, but that’s where the similarities ended. A cycle I’m glad that I’m no longer a part of. “I’m