Ever After (Love to the Rescue Book 3) (21 page)

The shelter was closing for the day as she walked out.

“Olivia, wait up,” Tracy, the Adoption Specialist, called from behind her.

“Hi, Tracy. What’s up?”

“The Willises adopted Barney. They said he was the first dog you showed them. You’re a natural.” She smiled.

Olivia shrugged. “Lucky guess. I’m really happy for them though. Barney seems like a great little dog.”

“He is, and he had been here a long time.”

“Then I’m extra thrilled for him.” She and Tracy walked together toward the parking lot. “I don’t suppose you guys are hiring?”

Tracy snorted. “I wish. We’re on a skeleton crew right now, and funding is scarce. You looking for a job?”

She nodded. “And as much as I enjoyed walking the dogs today, I need to be able to pay my bills.”

“I hear you. Well, if anything comes up, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. Have a good night!” Olivia waved as she stepped inside her Prius. She ought to be exhausted after walking dogs all day, but truly she felt invigorated. It wasn’t any more tiring than waiting tables, and it had felt good to be working.

She drove home, determined not to be sad that she would be spending the night at her place tonight and not with Pete. That was silly. She was an independent woman, and this was where she lived. It was good that she wasn’t in danger, that the whole thing had been nothing but a fraternity prank.

And then she turned the corner and saw Pete’s Forester in her driveway. He and Timber sat on her front steps.

Pete watched as she got out of the Prius. He tried not to feel the way his heart lifted just at the sight of her. That messy blond ponytail of hers had always turned him on.

“What in the world?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him.

I missed you.
He cleared his throat. “I went and talked to the Omega Chi boys today. Thought maybe you’d want to hear about it.”

“Sure.” She motioned him in after her.

He followed her into the house. Timber tugged him down the hallway to the kitchen where Bailey waited in her crate.

“Oh what a good girl.” Olivia praised her as she opened the crate and ushered her out the back door.

Pete unclipped Timber’s leash and let him join her in the yard. Then he stepped Olivia back against the wall and lowered his mouth to hers. She yanked him closer, her fingers raking through his hair.

He drank her in, losing himself in the feel of her lips on his and the way it felt to hold her in his arms. Truth be told, when he’d come home to an empty house tonight, he hadn’t liked it a damn bit. And when he got to her house and realized he had no idea where she was or when she’d be home, he hadn’t liked that either.

“How was your day?” she asked, her lips tickling his cheek.

“Pretty average. How about you? Any luck on the job front?” He ran his hands down her back, pressing her flush against his body.

She shook her head. “I spent the whole day at the shelter.”

“The whole day?”

“Mm hmm. Consequently, I’m starving, and I need a shower. Care to join me?” She cocked her head to the side, and he went from halfway aroused to hard as steel, just like that.

“For which?”

“Both.” She was on her tiptoes, wiggling against him, and he lifted her so that her legs wrapped around his hips, his cock pressed between her legs.

“I could use a shower.”

She giggled. “You look like you just got out of one.”

True. He’d showered when he got home from soccer practice. “But I think you’re about to get me all sweaty again.”

“Maybe.” She grinned, then slid out of his arms. “Let me just get the dogs back inside before we go upstairs.”

He watched as she brought Bailey and Timber inside, rubbing them and chatting with them in that effortless way that had them both fawning all over her. She was mesmerizing to watch.

Then he took her upstairs, and they got naked and breathless together in the shower, rinsed, and repeated. When they got out of the shower, Olivia flopped dramatically on the bed. “Dude, I’ve had nothing but a bag of chips since breakfast. I need food.”

He dragged his eyes from the gorgeous sight of her sprawled naked across the bed. “Why haven’t you eaten?”

“I told you. I was at the shelter all day. I didn’t plan on it, so I didn’t bring lunch.” She bit her lip and looked away.

“What?”

“Nothing. I have tofu downstairs, and some veggies. I can make a quick stir fry.”

He grunted. “That hardly sounds filling. Let’s go out.”

“I can’t—”

“You can’t what?” He frowned. Was she worrying about money?
Dammit.
“Christ, Olivia. Let’s go to Torino’s and get you a big plate of pasta or something.”

She slid out of bed and pulled on a shiny pink bra and panties, which she covered with jeans and a matching pink sweater. “Tomorrow’s a week since I lost my job, and no eating out until I fix that.”

“Well I’m paying for your supper, whether or not you have a job. So let’s go.”

She huffed an indignant sigh and followed him downstairs. She put Bailey back in her crate and gated Timber in the kitchen, then grabbed her purse and walked out to the Forester with him.

He got it. Really he did. It had to be frustrating that she couldn’t pay her own way, even though he would have paid for supper regardless. Olivia was strong and independent, used to taking care of herself. She was quiet on the way to the restaurant, blond hair tumbling across her face, her pink lips set in a pretty pout.

He decided to leave her be until he’d put some food in her. She’d had a long day on nothing but a bag of chips.

Thirty minutes later, she was halfway through a plate of cheese ravioli and a glass of Riesling, and the Olivia he loved was back.

He choked on a bite of lasagna.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Fine.” He coughed. Not entirely in control of his own thoughts, but fine. And not in love with Olivia Bennett. It was just a meaningless phrase that had flitted through his mind.

“You look funny.” She cocked her head, her brown eyes twinkling. “Is your lasagna bad?”

“No, it’s great.”

“Okay. The ravioli is good too.”

He cleared his throat. “So I talked to the boys in the Omega Chi fraternity today.”

“Right. Anyone confess to a penchant for spray-painting chickens?”

“Not exactly. They’re guilty for sure, although we don’t have enough evidence to charge them.”

“Figures.” She rolled her eyes. “A bunch of frat boys can get away with vandalizing my house repeatedly and almost killing your dog. Me? I spray-paint
one
building, and I spend the night in jail and wind up with a criminal record.”

He shrugged. “Life’s not fair sometimes. Chances are they’re not smart enough to keep getting away with it, so I wouldn’t be too jealous.”

“True.”

“Anyway, there was a lot of deceptive body language. I didn’t quite like the vibe I got from them.” Almost like they were hiding something, something more than what he suspected them of.

What if it wasn’t just a college prank? What if someone at Halverson Foods had paid them to harass Olivia?

“Then nail their asses,” Olivia said.

“I’ll do my best.” Officially, the case wasn’t his to investigate. But his dog had almost died. Olivia’s peace of mind had been shattered. And he couldn’t let that rest.

O
livia polished off her wine—and her ravioli—and stared at the man sitting across from her. The man she loved. “Thanks for dinner.” She reached across the table to take his hand.

“Any time.” He smiled, and the candlelight from the votive on their table danced in his eyes. Goodness, he was handsome. He stood, and they walked hand-in-hand out of the restaurant.

“You brought Timber with you. Do you want to stay the night?” she asked.

His fingers tightened around hers. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“You missed me,” she whispered against his ear, pushing her luck. Truthfully, he probably hadn’t even had time to. After all, she’d only moved out of his townhouse that morning.

“Maybe a little,” he admitted.

His words hung in the air between them, and she tried—really tried—not to read more into them than he’d probably intended.

She bumped her shoulder against his. “Admit it, you just couldn’t face a night without Hallie to tackle you awake in the morning.”

He gave her a long look, his lips twitching with amusement. “There is not one damn thing about that cat that I miss.”

“Oh come on. She’s sweet.”

“And possibly rabid.”

“Not rabid.” She let go of his hand to step into the passenger seat of his SUV. “She doesn’t even have fleas. So you’ll stay?”

“Well, I am off from work tomorrow.” He went around to the driver’s side and climbed inside.

She pressed her hands beneath her thighs, chilled by the cool November evening. “I’m volunteering tomorrow morning at the women’s shelter. Want to come with me?”

He cranked the engine and backed out of the parking spot, his expression unreadable. “Maybe.”

They drove home in comfortable silence, both tired and stuffed full of Italian food. When they got to her house, they took the dogs for a short walk, then snuggled on her couch together and watched an episode of
Mythbusters
, which was apparently one of his favorite shows.

She was hard-pressed to say she’d ever seen an episode, but she enjoyed it. The guys spent the entire episode building things out of duct tape, and she and Pete laughed until their sides hurt. Then they went upstairs and got naked.

Pete was inside her and thrusting hard when something cold and wet brushed against her hip.

“Ah!” She lurched beneath him.

Pete froze, his eyes crinkled in concern. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“No—” She glanced to the side and found two canine faces watching them with rapt attention.
Christ on a cracker.

Pete followed her gaze. “Fuck. Get lost, you two.”

In response, Timber leaned forward to lick Pete’s thigh. He recoiled, shooting his dog a deadly look.

Olivia covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. Timber was staring comically at the spot where hers and Pete’s bodies joined. “You are a pervert!” she told him.

The dog whined. Bailey huffed a dramatic sigh and left the room.

Pete withdrew and chased his dog out of the room. He closed the door behind them, then flopped back onto the bed. “Fuck.”

“Next time we’ll remember to gate them in the kitchen.” She rolled against him so that his erection settled between her legs.

“That dog is not quite right.” He leaned in to kiss her.

She giggled again. “He’s a dog. He doesn’t know the meaning of modesty.”

“I’m hardly modest, but I draw the line at having an audience.” He thrust inside her, and they stopped talking, both eager to finish what they’d started.

Pete groaned, settling into an easy rhythm that sent her right over the edge. She clenched around him as she found release. Pete swore roughly. He rolled to the side, and a white kitten tumbled from his back.

Hallie landed right on her chest, then leaped off the bed and ran into the closet. Olivia’s body quivered, missing the heat and weight of Pete’s body on hers. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking pissed.

Hallie’s well-timed leap had interrupted him at the worst possible moment.

He shrugged into his jeans and left the room. Olivia pulled a nightie over her head and followed him downstairs. She found him in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

He grunted. “Damn animals.”

“They make our sex life more interesting, that’s for sure.” She kissed his cheek, then moved to the counter to pour her own glass of water.

“Interesting is not the word I would use.” He gulped from his glass.

They munched on some vegan cookies in her pantry and called it a night. And when they woke in the early hours of dawn, she made it up to him. Then she dragged him out with her in the chilly morning air to watch the sunrise over the trees in MacArthur Park.

“So you’ll come with me to the shelter?” she asked, her head on his shoulder.

“I should really get some stuff done at home.”

“Okay.” She threaded her fingers through his.

“But maybe I’ll come with you for just a little while.”

“That would be nice.” She couldn’t explain why she was pressing him on this. Maybe it was a greedy need to pry further into his history, his childhood. She wanted to understand what made him tick. But also, she just wanted to spend more time with him, time that had nothing to do with vandalism and police reports and everything to do with her and Pete.

So they stopped by his place for a change of clothes, and then they drove together to the Dogwood Women’s Shelter.

“Good morning, Pete,” Nancy, the shelter’s director, said with a warm smile as she greeted them at the door. “And you must be Olivia.”

“Nice to meet you.” Olivia returned her smile.

“Nancy.” He nodded. “Good to see you.”

“Have you brought us some more muffins? We’ve been missing your baking these last few weeks.”

Pete looked chagrined. “I’ve been busier than usual.”

Olivia hid her smile. He hadn’t had trouble sleeping since he started dating her. Her gain was the shelter’s loss. But surely they could bake some muffins for the shelter together during daylight hours.

“Well don’t you worry about it,” Nancy said. “We’ve got plenty to eat. So you’re both here to volunteer then?”

She and Pete nodded.

“Well, as you probably noticed when you got here, we’re buried in leaves right now. I was hoping to put you to work out here in the yard this morning if you don’t mind.”

“No problem.” Pete rested his hand on Olivia’s shoulder as they followed Nancy to the shed in back. She handed them each a rake and a fistful of plastic bags.

They settled into an easy rhythm together, raking and bagging leaves. And Nancy wasn’t kidding—the shelter’s lawn was covered with them. Olivia’s heart pinched as a couple of little girls raced through the yard. One of them paused to give her a shy smile, then leaped into the pile of leaves she’d just finished.

“Sophie! Ella!” a woman called, and the girls were off and running.

Olivia paused to watch them go. “Hard to imagine living here. Not having a home or belongings of your own.”

“It’s not a bad place to be.” Pete raked leaves into the pile the little girl had demolished. “And they can bring some of their own stuff with them, clothes and things. What most of these families come from…this is a big improvement. They’re safe here.”

She turned to look at him.

His dark eyes were expressionless. “I place a lot of women and children here after we remove them from abusive situations. Last week I brought a teenage girl who’d been living with her much older, drug-addicted boyfriend.”

“Why didn’t you take her home to her family?”

“She’d just turned eighteen, and she didn’t want to go back. Probably the situation at home was no better than what I took her out of.”

“Damn.” Olivia ran her rake over the ground. The scent of fresh earth and damp leaves filled her nose, reminding her of so many childhood afternoons spent raking leaves and leaping into them, of riding around the neighborhood on her father’s garden cart collecting bags of leaves to add to the compost pile in their backyard.

“You had a pretty cushy childhood, didn’t you?” Pete said.

“I guess I did.” And she felt very, very humbled now.

Pete didn’t comment on that. He just kept raking.

The van from the senior center pulled up to the curb behind them. Its doors opened, and a parade of women piled out, each carrying a casserole dish. Apparently the elderly citizens of Dogwood had quite a penchant for cooking for the less fortunate. And Olivia was starting to feel totally selfish for never having done anything charitable for her own species before.

“Your childhood wasn’t cushy,” she said. Pushing again. She just couldn’t help it.

He glanced over at her. “No.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It was what it was.”

“It must have been hard for your mom, raising you two.”

“She did the best she could.”

She thought she heard the faintest hint of resentment in his words, as if he thought his mom could have done better. “Did you ever stay someplace like this?” she asked.

“Once.”

She absorbed that quietly. Pete had seen things, lived things, that she never had and never would. “Was your dad abusive?”

“Not with his fists.”

She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but figured it had to do with drug abuse and the chaos that came with it. “Why is he in jail?”

“Because he killed a man.” His voice remained expressionless, but his eyes flashed with anger. He carried the last bag of leaves to the curb and walked quietly around the side of the house, toward the shed.

Olivia stood there, rooted to the spot with shock. Pete’s dad had killed someone?

She ran after him, eventually finding him on the back porch playing with the girls they’d seen earlier. One of them had put a tiara on his head, and the other was bandaging a “booboo” on his finger. He looked relaxed and at ease with the pampering so she left him there and went to find Nancy and get her timesheet signed.

Nancy met her at the front door. “Thank you so much for your help this morning.” She took the timesheet from Olivia’s hand. “I don’t usually let people come to the house who are fulfilling community service hours, but I know your dad and I heard what you were arrested for, so I figured you’re good people.”

“Oh.” Olivia blanched. “Yeah, you can consider it a one-time screwup.”

Nancy smiled kindly. “Well don’t we all have those? Say, I wanted to ask you about something. We get a lot of families here who have to leave pets behind. I do what I can to help them find someone to watch the animals, but most often they’re either left behind or end up at the shelter. I wondered if you knew of an animal rescue that might be able to help us out.”

Olivia’s heart hurt to think of these families, already leaving so much behind, not being able to bring a beloved pet with them. “I know a lot of people in animal rescue; I’m sure we could figure something out. Let me ask around and get back to you, but in the meantime, call me if you have someone coming with a pet that needs watching.”

Nancy’s eyes shone. “That would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Olivia.”

Olivia left that afternoon knowing for sure she’d be back, and not just to accumulate more hours on her community service timecard.

“So what next?” Pete asked as they climbed inside his Forester.

Olivia had been quiet since they left the women’s shelter. “I need to do some more job hunting.”

“Any leads?” He pulled onto the road and turned the car toward Olivia’s house.

She shook her head, thumbing through messages on her phone. “Wait a minute. The manager of the thrift shop wants me to come in for an interview.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Yeah. I’d like it there, I think. Let me call him.” She tapped the screen, then held the phone to her ear. “Mr. Henneby? Hi, it’s Olivia Bennett. You emailed me earlier about the daytime position at the thrift shop.”

Pete kept driving toward her house as she talked. When she hung up the phone a few minutes later, she was smiling.

“He wants me to come in this afternoon. I kind of got the impression the job was mine as long as I don’t screw up my interview.”

“That’s great. They’d be lucky to have you.”

“Thanks.”

He pulled into her driveway. “I need to take Timber for some exercise and get a few things done at home, but maybe we can get together later.”

“Okay.” She gathered her purse and led the way to her front door. Inside, Timber waited exuberantly in the kitchen while Bailey danced in her crate.

He bent to clip Timber’s leash to his collar, then pressed a kiss to Olivia’s lips. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“Call me later,” he said.

“I will.”

He took his dog and went home, determined to ignore the feeling that his home didn’t feel quite the same without Olivia sharing it. When he got there, he changed and took Timber for a walk. The dog was itching for a long, hard run, but it would have to wait until his body had finished healing.

After their walk, Pete showered, dressed, and was about to tackle the mountain of laundry in his mudroom when his cell phone rang. Hopefully it was Olivia—with good job news. He rushed to answer it.

“Hi.” It was Maggie.

“Hey, Maggie. What’s up?”

“Mom got divorce papers in the mail this morning. I thought you’d want to know.”

“What?” Pete reeled backward, anger raging inside him. His dad had filed for divorce? Of all the selfish, jackass things… His mom had stuck with him through thick and thin, and there had been a lot of thin, and this was how he repaid her loyalty?

“Yep. She’s pretty upset.” And by the sound of it, Maggie was too.

“I’m off today. I’ll go over and see her.”

“That would be great. I’ve got art camp this afternoon with the fourth graders so I’m busy until dinnertime.”

“I’m on my way.”

Pete left Timber in the kitchen and drove straight to his mom’s house. She opened the door wearing an apron and with flour clinging to her fingers. She’d been baking.

He nodded toward the kitchen. “Want some help?”