Make Me Yours
Heron’s Landing Book 3
Iris Morland
Blue Violet Press LLC
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Enjoy this exclusive excerpt
Also by Iris Morland
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Make Me Yours (Heron’s Landing Book 3)
Published by Blue Violet Press LLC
Seattle, Washington
Copyright © 2016, 2020 by Iris Morland
Cover design by Qamber Designs
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.
Published 2020.
First edition published 2016 under the title Desire Me Dearly (Heron’s Landing Book 3). Second edition 2020.
Author’s Note
Dear Readers,
Before you begin Gavin and Kat’s story, please know that Make Me Yours was previously published under the title Desire Me Dearly. This second edition has been edited and expanded to include 20% more content than the original.
The main storyline remains the same as the first edition, but I always felt Gavin and Kat’s story needed more.
All my best,
Iris
Chapter One
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
