Matthew

By Becca Fanning

Melinda Darling has always dreamed of being at the center of the Nashville country music scene. She thought getting her Master's Degree in Music Business would be her ticket to the top, but it turns out managers are a dime a dozen in Music City. With no other prospects and student loan repayments on the horizon, she takes an internship position under the devious Kitty Konstantine. The job was simple: find talent, introduce talent to Konstantine Talent Agency, and keep it all professional. When she finds The 4 Saints, she can see the men ooze with talent, their stage presence commanding rapt attention. When she lays eyes on Matt Saint, she knows she has no hope of keeping it professional...
Matthew Saint has a lot on his shoulders, and he's got the scars to prove it. As guitarist for The 4 Saints, he and his brothers have to live in two worlds. On the one hand, they're up and coming country music stars just trying to make it in Nashville. On the other hand, they're a clan of Bear Shifters that have to be careful who they let get close. Trouble is never far off, and since meeting Mel Darlin', he thinks maybe he's due for a little more trouble in his life.
This 12,000 word novella features a Happily Ever After, No Cheating, No Cliffhanger and lots of graphic primal hotness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gizmo Media
• Release date: May 24, 2021

Book preview

Fanning

Chapter 1

Melinda Darling let out a squeak as she hit bottom turning into the pothole-infested gravel parking lot of the Irish Town Pub.

Please, please, please don’t need any repairs, she muttered to her car. I just had you in, and I can’t spend another dime until payday, so please, please, please.

Slowing to a crawl, she made her way toward the front door of the old warehouse-turned-pub. The only thing the least bit Irish she could see was the color and the name—Kelly green covered the entire metal box, and there was a shamrock over the i in Irish—but the metal stairs leading up to the enclosed porch screamed warehouse entrance not friendly neighborhood pub. Not that Mel had ever been to Ireland to see what a real Irish pub looked like in person, but she had seen The Quiet Man and Darby O’Gill and the Little People, so she knew what a pub was supposed to look like, and this place simply did not mesh at all with what she had imagined for an Irish pub. Nor did the rows of beefy motorcycles lining the front of the building. Mel groaned once more as she brought her compact car to a stop next to a rusty blue van.

What am I doing here? she cried.

But of course she knew very well what she was doing here: Trying to save her job is what she was doing here. Fresh out of college with a master’s degree in music business, she had charged onto the country western scene in the Music City ready to discover and manage the newest and greatest bands Nashville had ever seen. Then reality had set in, as she learned that, like guitar players, Nashville was simply crawling with agent wannabes, and she had been forced to settle for an entry-level job with an established firm. Her boss from hell, Kitty Konstantine, kept all her minions out late at night, seven nights a week, trolling the small-time venues for the best and brightest new musicians and bands she would then discover. Fat bonuses and promotions had been promised to those minions who delivered, but in reality, following the Konstantine Rules barely allowed Mel to pay the rent and keep the lights on.

But why did they have to come here? she moaned. Couldn’t they have been seen hanging out at a pizza joint or a Mickey D’s?

The they in question were the members of a country western band she had heard the night before in a little dive down on Belmont Boulevard near her old haunts from her university days. They called themselves The 4 Saints, which had seemed a little weird until she’d learned the four members were brothers with the last name of Saint. Their music had absolutely enthralled her. Traditional in style, as they all played acoustical instruments only—guitar, double bass, mandolin, fiddle, and drums—they had a new, different sound when they sang, because there wasn’t a tenor among them. All four sang bass or baritone, and their voices had blended in a way that only siblings who had sung together all their lives could. They performed all their own songs, which had been a happy mix of up-beat tunes and ballads; hilarious and solemn; family-friendly and sexy.

When she’d first walked in, they’d been singing a song about animals on a farm that had had the audience rolling with laughter, but by the time she’d taken her seat at the bar, they’d switched to a love song, a ballad that had nearly broken her heart. There had been something about all of the brothers that had