Ever After (Love to the Rescue Book 3) (6 page)

Asshole.

“It’s probably a joke,” he said. “Chicken
ass
.
Butt
out. Get it?”

Oh she got it, all right.

She was going to need some serious meditation tonight to clear his negative energy out of her system. She hadn’t driven half a mile down Main Street when she passed a Dogwood County Sheriff’s cruiser headed in the opposite direction. It slowed, then made a U-turn to fall in behind her. Its lights turned on, and the siren blipped.

Christ on a cracker.

She pulled over, hoping against hope it was a coincidence and the deputy merely needed to get by on his or her way to an emergency. But no, the cruiser pulled in behind her and stopped.

She watched in her rearview mirror as Pete stepped out of the car and came toward hers. Her heart was racing, and not from fear. Actually, she had no idea what he wanted, but the thrill of seeing him made it clear her hormones had lost their common sense.

Keeping her eyes straight ahead, she rolled down her window and waited for him to make the first move.

“Who did this to your car?” he asked.

She shrugged, still refusing to look at him.

“Olivia?” His voice was lower, more intimate. And tinged with concern.

She looked up at him and saw her vulnerability reflected back at her in the mirrors of his shades. “Ask Deputy Hartzler.”

“Why? You filed a report with him?”

She nodded, grateful to her own sunglasses for masking the hurt feelings she still harbored over her recent experience. “Your colleagues don’t think very highly of me.”

His lips thinned. “So tell me what you told him. This is different from what I saw painted on your car the other day.”

“I washed that off after I reported it to Deputy Solomon, who also wasn’t the nicest.”

His expression betrayed nothing. It was so annoying how cops could do that. “Tell me.”

“Someone did this last night while I was asleep.”

His eyebrows pinched. “At your home?”

“Yes.”

“The other was done while you were at work, correct?”

She nodded.

“I don’t like this,” he said, and her stomach immediately filled with butterflies.
He cared.
“Coming onto your property while you’re at home is making things a lot more personal. The message is more personal this time too. Could be construed as a threat.”

A shiver snaked down her spine. “Or a joke.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Yeah, me neither.” She looked down at her hands.

“I’ll do what I can to look into it, but I have to be honest, Olivia. It’s not likely we’ll be able to make an arrest. There’s no evidence to investigate, short of someone coming in to report seeing something.”

He didn’t sound optimistic, but she didn’t care. She was elated by the thought of him looking into her case. At least he believed her and wanted to help. That had to count for something. “I really appreciate it.”

“I’ll ask around to see if anyone saw anything. And I’ll see if I can get a car to drive down your street once or twice during the night to look for anyone who shouldn’t be there.”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

“In the meantime, be careful. Make sure you’re locking your doors at night.”

She shivered again. “Definitely.”

“I’ll call you later,” he said, stepping back from her car window.

She nodded, and then he was gone.

Pete walked into the station and zeroed in on Hartzler’s desk. The older deputy could be a real ass when he wanted to be, and while vandalizing a vehicle was a minor offense, he was irritated that Hartzler hadn’t taken Olivia seriously. “I need to see the report you just did for Olivia Bennett.”

Hartzler looked up and adjusted his glasses. “What for? I haven’t even finished writing it up yet.”

“Well let me see it when you do.”

“Hey, you’re the one who arrested her last week out at the Halverson place, right? You think she’s doin’ this for attention?”

Pete clenched his jaw. “No, but I’m wondering if someone’s retaliating against her for spray-painting that chicken factory. ‘Butt out’ could be a threat.”

Hartzler shrugged. “Or a joke.”

Olivia had said the same exact thing. Had she been repeating Hartzler’s words? “How ’bout you treat it like a threat until you know otherwise? And let me see that report when you’re finished with it.” Pete strode toward his desk before the other deputy could question his objectivity on the case. Nonetheless, he was sure he’d be hearing from the sheriff about it.

He wasn’t objective where Olivia was concerned. No doubt about it. But someone had vandalized her car, twice. They’d come onto her property during the night while she was asleep. But if the message was meant as a threat, who would have motive? Who wanted her to butt out?

A question he needed to ask Olivia.

Tomorrow. Because he was technically already off duty. He’d stopped by the office, as he always did, to catch up on paperwork before he went home.

An hour and one small tree’s worth of paper later, he was finally on his way. It was almost five, and he’d been off the clock since three. In other words, an average day.

But somehow, instead of taking Walnut Street toward his townhouse, he found himself driving down Peachtree Lane to ride by Olivia’s house. He’d always had a protective streak. It was part of what made him good at his job, and he needed to see that she was okay before he went home.

She was in the driveway, in red shorts and a pink tank top, her hair tied back, scrubbing at the graffiti on her car. He cruised past before he could give in to the temptation to stop and help. She glanced up, and their eyes locked for a moment—he nodded.

Then he turned the corner and headed for home.

Olivia sat on the floor in the bathroom, a tiny furball in her lap, feeling a bit like a superhero. She’d actually done it. She’d tamed the kitten. It hadn’t even been that hard. She’d just sat in here several times a day for the last five days, talking and coaxing, and now she had a baby cat in her lap—of her own free will.

“You need a name,” Olivia told her.

“Mew,” she answered, those blue eyes wide and solemn. The sound of her itty-bitty purr filled the small bathroom.

“I was thinking Hallie, since I found you out at the Halverson plant. What do you think?”

“Mew,” Hallie said.

“All right then, Hallie. Don’t hate me for this.” She stood with the kitten in her arms. There was something dark and sticky in her white fur that the kitten apparently couldn’t clean up on her own. She needed a bath.

Olivia ran warm water into the sink, lifted the stopper, and lowered the kitten into the sink. Hallie’s claws came out in full force as she fought to scramble to safety. But as she weighed all of a pound, it wasn’t hard to hold onto her. Olivia kept one hand across her chest as she worked shampoo over the kitten’s scrawny body. Hallie cried plaintively, scratching in vain at the sides of the sink, looking like the proverbial drowned rat with her hair wet and slicked against her body.

Luckily, the gummy mess in her fur came out fairly easily in the bath. When Hallie was clean and soap-free, Olivia wrapped her in a warm towel and plied her with treats as a reward for surviving the ordeal.

“What a good kitten,” Olivia soothed as she settled her back into her lap.

Hallie gobbled the last of the cat treats, then set about licking her front paws.

From her back pocket, Olivia’s cell phone chimed a happy tune. She shifted to the left to grab it without disturbing Hallie, then frowned at the unfamiliar number. “Hello?”

“Olivia, hi. It’s Pete Sampson.”

“Oh—” She sat up straighter against the bathroom wall. “Hi.”

“Are you available this morning? I was hoping to swing by and ask you a few questions to follow up on your case.”

Which case?
she almost blurted. But she thought he meant her car and not her arrest. Hopefully anyway. “I’m not working until three today.”

“Great. Could I stop by in a half hour or so?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Okay, see you then.”

She stared at her phone, then at the kitten in her lap. “Looks like we have company coming, Miss Hallie. What do you say we get cleaned up for Deputy Hot Stuff?”

Hallie settled her head on the towel and closed her eyes.

“Okay, you take a nap, and I’ll get cleaned up.” Olivia set the kitten on the floor, still swaddled in the towel, and left the bathroom.

In the kitchen, she found two hyper and nosy boxers, still peeved that she hadn’t allowed them down the hall to sniff at the bathroom door since the kitten arrived. They sniffed her up and down, licking and jumping. That’s when she saw the puddle of pee in the kitchen.

“Bailey!”

The dog hung her head in shame.

“Bad dog. Seriously, you know better.” Except possibly Olivia hadn’t remembered to let them out since first thing this morning. She was
so
not cut out to be a dog owner. She led the way to the back door and put them in the yard, then turned her attention to cleaning and sanitizing the kitchen floor.

With that done, she jogged upstairs and changed into fresh clothes. She brushed her hair and put on some tinted lip gloss. Foolish, primping for the deputy coming over to ask follow-up questions on her case. Foolish because Pete Sampson wasn’t interested in dating her. There was probably a rule against dating people you’d arrested.

The doorbell rang, and she spritzed her neck with rose essence.

The thing was, she’d always been a foolish girl.

P
ete tucked his deputy’s hat under his elbow as he followed Olivia into her living room.

“Would you like some water?” she asked.

“Sure, that would be great.” Especially since his throat had gone dry at the sight of her. She wore a pink sundress, her hair long and loose over her shoulders. And she smelled like fresh flowers. He had the completely inappropriate urge to press his face against her neck and drink her in.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Dogs barked from somewhere nearby, out back maybe. Pete sat on the couch and leaned back to wait for her.

Olivia returned a minute later with two glasses of ice water. She handed one to him, then sat on the loveseat opposite the couch, one leg crossed over the other.

“Thanks.” He took a grateful swallow. “You have dogs?”

“Two boxers, Bailey and Scooby. They’re foster dogs. One of my friends runs a boxer rescue, so if you know anyone in the market, they’re looking for homes.”

“Ah. You really are dedicated to your cause, aren’t you?”

Her nose wrinkled. “Actually, the dogs are just a favor for my friend Merry. They’re a lot of work, and I’m not really a dog person.”

“No?”

She lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “No.”

“So how’s the kitten?” He’d been curious since he dropped it off here at the beginning of the week.

“Oh she’s doing great. You want to see her?” The shift in her mood was like night and day.

“Sure.”

Olivia stood and led him down the hall to the closed door of her half bath. Here she paused. “It’s kind of a tight squeeze.” Then she opened the door and slid inside, motioning him to follow.

He followed her into the bathroom, his back to the wall as Olivia pushed the door closed behind them then bent over a blue towel.

“I just gave her a bath.” She lifted the towel, and he saw the kitten’s scraggly white shape in its depths. It hissed at him.

“Looks like a rat,” he said. The kitten’s hair was still half-wet, stuck to its skin in places, sticking out wildly in others.

“I named her Hallie.” Olivia stroked her head, and the kitten purred.

“Hallie for Halverson Foods?”

She nodded. “Seemed fitting, right?”

“She’s tamed up nicely for you. Hard to believe that’s the same kitten I brought you five days ago.”

“Apparently it’s easy when they’re this little. And who knows, she might have had a home when she was born and been dumped outside town later on.”

“Well, good work anyway.”

“Thanks.” She looked up and met his eyes.

She hadn’t been wrong before—the bathroom did make for close quarters. Her floral scent filled his lungs and stole his breath. Her lips were pink and glossy, and he wanted to kiss her something fierce. His gaze slipped to her neck, where her pulse pounded, keeping time with his own.

Attraction thickened in the air between them, tightening around them like an invisible band. He pulled back and stepped into the hall before he lost his senses completely.

If he ever did kiss Olivia Bennett, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be in the bathroom while she held a wet kitten in her arms.

She followed him out and closed the door behind her. Neither of them said a word as they walked back to the living room. He was no fool. They’d both felt it. He was reasonably sure they could go on behaving as rational adults despite it.

“So the reason I’m here is to ask you a few questions about that message on your car.”

Olivia tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded as she sat in the loveseat.

“Let’s talk about ‘butt out.’ That mean anything to you?” He sat on the couch opposite her.

She shook her head. “Unless it was someone from Halverson Foods.”

“Why would they write that? You haven’t been back out there, have you?”

Her eyes widened. “Of course not! But anyone in town with Internet access knows I’m the one who spray-painted the factory. It’s generated a lot of traffic to my website, which has put fuel on the fire for what I’m trying to do.”

“Which is?”

“Have the chicken-processing plant shut down.”

A light bulb blazed in his head. “So the Halverson workers actually have good reason to tell you to butt out. If you get that plant shut down, they’re out of a job.”

She chewed her lip and nodded again.

This put a new kink in his gut. He’d seen the men who worked at that chicken-processing plant, and he didn’t like the idea of them hanging around her house after dark while she was asleep. Didn’t like it one bit.

It also brought a new angle to the sheriff’s interest in the case. If the Halverson Foods plant was shut down, it could hurt his chances in the upcoming election. He didn’t like to think ill of his boss, but the man had been known to mix politics and police work in the past. The sheriff might be inclined to go harder on Olivia to keep her from making more trouble for Halverson.

“So are you taking over my case?” she asked.

“Not officially.” Officially, he was supposed to be investigating Olivia as a suspect in vandalism around town, but seeing as she was now the victim of vandalism herself, maybe he could justify his interest by checking out whether the cases were related.

One way or another, there was a lot of vandalism going on in Dogwood these days, and an awful lot of it involved the use of spray paint. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

“Well thanks for looking into it anyway,” Olivia said.

“If it’s someone from Halverson, then we can assume they meant this as a threat.”

“It won’t work. I’m not backing off. Someone has to stand up for those poor birds.”

“Anyone else you can think of who might have written it?”

She shook her head. “Believe it or not, most people like me. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and since they drew chickens too, I feel like it has to be someone from Halverson. Probably some of the factory workers who saw me out there the day I washed my graffiti off their wall.”

“I don’t like the picture that puts in my head, Olivia.” He stared at her, hard. “Not that you aren’t perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, but those workers are all men, and there are a hell of a lot more of them than there is you. If anything else happens, you tell me or someone else in the department immediately, alright?”

Her brows bunched. “Of course.”

“And if you even think you hear a noise outside your house during the night, you call us.”

She frowned. “Now you’re scaring me a little.”

“You probably have nothing to worry about. They haven’t done anything violent, or even overtly threatening. Just be vigilant, that’s all.”

“I will be, and thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He stood and showed himself to the door.

Olivia followed, looking somewhat subdued.

“I’ll do what I can to try to find out who did this, and in the meantime, call me if you need me.” He rested a hand briefly on her shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

Olivia sat behind the wheel of her Prius, headed for her favorite relaxation spot. She had an hour to meditate before she had to be at work. This morning’s visit from Pete had been a twofold revelation. One, his concern had rattled her. She was a little freaked out to think of the men from Halverson’s chicken plant hanging around her house during the night while she slept, or worse.

And two, her attraction was not one-sided. No, she’d seen the same awareness on Pete’s face when they were in the bathroom together with Hallie, and again when he touched her shoulder before he left. He wanted her too, and that changed things completely.

Well, it made things more interesting anyway, if she did have to call him again about the vandalism. It almost made her wish for more trouble just for the chance to spend time with him. The way he’d gotten all protective on her behalf earlier had been pretty damn sexy.

She rolled the window down and let fresh air take the heat out of her cheeks. She turned into the entrance for MacArthur Park, once used as a cotton plantation, now a designated historic site open to the public and always crowd-free during the week.

She parked and walked up the hill behind the manor house to the towering pecan tree that was her favorite. From here, with her back against its trunk, she had a view of the old cotton fields and the trees beyond.

She raised her arms above her head and stretched, first her shoulders and arms, then her legs, loosening her body to let go of tension. Then she sat cross-legged beneath the tree, closed her eyes, and focused inward.

Long, deep breaths calmed her racing heart. As usual, she started with her toes and worked her way up, focusing on each body part as she relaxed it and let go of negative energy. By the time she’d reached her scalp, she felt the good energy flowing.

Fully relaxed, she turned her attention to the positive things in her life and the positive things she was working toward. By the time her phone began to chant that her hour was up, she felt rejuvenated and enthusiastic for the rest of her day. A good meditation session always reprioritized her for the best.

She arrived at the café ten minutes early. It was busy this afternoon, nearly every table occupied. Fall temperatures had finally arrived here in Dogwood, and Beatrice, their chef, had baked several of her famous fresh apple pies. There were a number of folks in town who stopped in just for a slice of pie and a cup of coffee.

Olivia sold five slices by the time she went on break and was starting to have a craving for some pie herself. She enjoyed a slice in the break room, then stepped outside for some fresh air before the second half of her shift. She’d be off by eight tonight, which wasn’t bad. Still, she preferred working mornings so that she could have her evenings to herself. Oh well. Better tips from the dinner crowd.

“Hey you!” A couple of men pushed off from the pickup truck they’d been leaning against and walked toward her.

She recognized them from having been inside the café earlier that afternoon. They’d sat in Courtney’s section and ordered some of the famous pie. “Can I help you?”

“You’re Olivia Bennett, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

They came closer, and that’s when she saw the Halverson Foods logo embroidered on their overalls. “We heard you was the one who painted that message on the factory.”

“Um—” She glanced around, but she and the two men were the only ones in the parking lot behind the café. “I need to get back to work actually—”

“We’re hard-working people, Miss Bennett. It ain’t always easy finding a job ’round here. I don’t know if you understand that,” the taller man said.

“Look, nothing against you personally, but I’ve seen the way the birds are treated inside that factory, and it’s inhumane.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

They stepped between her and the door, and her bravado faltered. The taller man stared down at her, his dark eyes narrowed. “They’re chickens. You eat ’em, I eat ’em. Someone’s got to kill ’em. That happens to be us. Don’t make it any of your business.”

Her heart thumped against her ribs. “Step aside, please.”

They did, one on either side of the door. “Back off, lady. Leave our jobs out of your little crusade.”

Olivia slid between them to enter the café, then ran down the hall to the break room. She dug her phone out of her purse and dialed Pete.

Pete was never going to sleep tonight. He sat on a red barstool, sipping his second cup of coffee while he waited for Olivia to finish up and wishing he’d thought to order decaf. She’d sounded terrified in the voicemail she left him, but when he called back fifteen minutes later, she’d told him she needed to finish her shift before she could talk to him.

He’d been off duty for hours, had already been home to change and taken Timber for a run. He’d been in the shower when Olivia called, and now he’d spent two hours cooling his heels at the café, except no part of him felt cool when she walked past and gave him a tight smile. From what he’d gathered from her panicked message, a couple of Halverson employees had hassled her in the parking lot, which meant he wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he knew exactly what had happened.

Finally, just past eight, she emerged from the hall behind the kitchen, apron free. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for you to rush over here and spend all this time waiting for me.”

“Not a problem. Why don’t we go outside and you can tell me what went down earlier?”

She led the way out the back door into the parking lot. It was dark now, but the lot was well lit with halogen lamps around its perimeter. “So I came out on my break just before five to get some fresh air before the supper rush, and these two guys were out here. I’d seen them inside earlier having lunch.”

“And they were wearing Halverson uniforms?”

She nodded. “I didn’t notice that at first. I didn’t notice them at all really until they started talking to me.”

“So they initiated the conversation?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, chin up. “Of course they did. I wouldn’t bother Halverson employees here where I work, or anywhere else for that matter. I was just going to go sit at the picnic table over there for a few minutes.” She gestured toward a picnic table at the end of the lot.

He smiled at her burst of temper. “All right. So what did they say to you?”

“Something like, ‘Hey, aren’t you Olivia Bennett? You’re the one who spray-painted the chicken plant.’ And then they started telling me how they needed their jobs, and it was none of my business what went on there, and that I should back off.”

“They said the words back off?”

She nodded. “And then they got between me and the back door. That was when I got a little worried.”

“With good reason.” He was a little worried himself.

“Anyway, I told them to step aside, and they did. So I went in and called you. But really, now that I’ve had a few hours to think it over, it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t think they meant me any physical harm.” She hugged herself and shivered. The temperature outside had dipped into the fifties now that the sun had gone down, and she wore only a light jacket over her uniform.