by Debbie Burns
She nodded. “He’s okay. Thanks to you. But he came out too far away for us to catch him. When we saw you coming out of the water over here, the kids left to try to chase him down. He ran in the direction of the river access, and unless he runs back into the water, he won’t be able to go far.”
Gabe followed her as she wove through the strip of trees and over sloshy ground. Water was falling off him in sheets. When they reached open grass, he closed his palm over the small of her back. “Let’s get to my truck. I’ve got some dry clothes in back. They may not be the best fit, but they’ll feel better than what you’re wearing. And Samson can help us find that dog.”
Chapter 6
Maybe she’d never realized it before, but there were few things in life more rewarding than a good heater when you needed it. Especially the ones that blew from dashboard vents onto your face and hands with the strength of a blow-dryer set to medium.
Twenty minutes after hauling herself out of the chilly water, Olivia’s shivering was still emanating from deep in her bones. She leaned closer to the nearest vent, certain she could give a massage chair a run for its money if someone sat on her lap. When the branch had knocked Gabe under, she’d run in after him, tripping in a dip in the ground and coming close to being swept away herself. Thankfully, she’d been able to grab onto a tree limb that had been protruding into her path.
Gabe seemed to be warming up faster than her, which made no sense considering she’d had enough of a glimpse as he’d tugged off his ripped shirt to confirm how low his body fat actually was. And maybe she’d ogled a bit too. When he’d come out of the water, his lips had been light blue, but they’d transitioned to light pink. Color was coming back to his face too.
Olivia had changed into one of his spare hoodies. It was big and comfy, but her soaked bra was creating softball-size circles of dampness right through the cotton. After debating between ignoring it and hoping he didn’t notice or clamping her hands over her boobs until they dried, she chose the former. Hopefully the high heat would help dry the material out.
She was also wearing a pair of too-big flannel lounge pants that Gabe had tied around her waist with a strip of twine after realizing the tie string was missing. They were long and oversize, and there’d be no keeping them up without the twine’s help.
“I don’t think this smell is going to wash out of my hair in one wash,” Olivia said, sweeping a damp lock over one shoulder. She was also pretty sure even the deftest of scent hounds couldn’t distinguish her smell from that of the bottom of a pond.
She found a bit of reassurance in the fact that Gabe had to smell the exact same way. And aside from a dozen thorough sniffs of both of them, Samson didn’t seem to mind.
“Try rinsing your hair first with baking soda when you take a shower. It works well with dog odors.” As soon as Olivia glanced his way, he shook his head. “Sorry. I’m out of practice when it comes to talking about anything that isn’t vet-related.”
“Why?” Olivia studied his profile as he drove down the dirt road toward the river access in search of the dog.
“Why what? Why baking soda?”
“No; I’m already a believer in home remedies. Why are you out of practice?”
He pursed his lips. “Is the rigor of vet school enough of an answer?”
“If you need it to be.”
He looked her way, his bright hazel-green eyes standing out starkly from the gray skies behind him. “If you’d said anything but that, that’s the only answer you’d have gotten.”
“My sister tells me I’m good at cutting through the bull and getting to the point.”
“I’ve got no reason to disagree.” He drummed his thumb on the steering wheel. “Aside from a close friend who went to vet school with me, you’re the only girl who’s been in that seat for a while. By design.”
Olivia nodded and waited to see if he’d offer more. She had so many questions. They’d reached the end of the road, but the parking lot to the river access was a hundred feet away and underwater. The floodwater was flowing over the road, swallowing it up and reaching halfway up a signpost. If the dog had come this way, most certainly he’d angled off in another direction away from the river.
“I had a fiancée,” Gabe added after a bit of silence. “A serious one. Before I entered vet school. I was a firefighter-EMT with the city. We got engaged a little over a year after getting together.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Half a year into that, I had a bad experience in a fire. Things were going downhill between us before then, I guess. I just didn’t see it.” He scanned the horizon at the water’s edge. There wasn’t a living thing in sight. “Want to get out and walk around, or would you prefer I drive along the road in the other direction first?”
She’d do it if she had to, but Olivia was less than excited at the idea of getting wet again. If only it would stop raining. “I’m good to drive up and down the road once or twice, then we can reconsider our options.”
Gabe slipped the truck into reverse and turned around in the direction of the highway. Samson sat up on his haunches and looked out the window. Without seeming to give it any thought, Gabe cracked the window next to Samson several inches, and the retriever sniffed the air deeply before letting out a little sigh.
A wave of envy washed over Olivia about how perfectly used to each other they were. She’d never had that level of closeness with a dog, even though she’d loved several over the years. Her grandpa’s dogs had been farm dogs, lazing around outside all day and sleeping in the garage at night. She didn’t have anyone—person or animal—in her life like that. She and Trevor had had some semblance of it. Maybe. He’d known which pair of cozy pants she slipped into after a long day during the winter and how she liked fresh mint leaves in her iced tea in summer. And there were a hundred things she’d known about him without giving it any real attention any longer.
But when it came to people, knowing someone wasn’t enough reason to commit to a life together. After months of looking within as the wedding loomed closer, Olivia had realized that over the years they’d been together, she’d become someone who wanted something out of life that Trevor didn’t.
“Will you tell me what happened in the fire?” So many things had clicked into place at learning he’d been an EMT and firefighter.
He released a sigh like steam releasing from a teapot. “I stepped away from the line and got lost in the smoke. It was an old brick two-story house down near Lafayette Square. I’d have been a goner had it not been for Samson. I opened a door and found him in a room, locked in a kennel. I wrapped some kids’ pajama pants around his neck, and he led me out. Even with his help, I barely made it. It was the smoke and the heat. Me and two guys who’d been trying to find me were hospitalized a couple days. And while we were in there, one of our buddies died in a warehouse fire.”
Gabe swallowed and gave a light shake of his head. “After that, I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore. And not being able to do it knocked the wind out of me more than anything I’d ever experienced. It took a month for her to do it, but my fiancée walked away.” He shook his head. “By then I had Samson. The family he’d been with couldn’t bring him to where they’d relocated. He was taken to a shelter and treated for second-degree burns on his paws.
“When I got out of the hospital, I made for that shelter and tried to adopt him, but he was in treatment and wasn’t cleared for another few weeks. I went by every day to check on him. Then one day I showed up and he’d been cleared and they’d waived all the fees. That was five years ago. His paws still needed care, but they trusted me to do it. Being witness to his recovery was one of the things that started me thinking about vet school. I don’t think anyone there remembers it any longer, but that shelter is the main one I work with now.”
Olivia shook her head, closing her hands over her mouth for a second or two. “Wow. Absolutely wow. I don’t know what to say except no wonder you tw
o are so bonded.”
“We’ve been a good team. When I gave up firefighting, I wasn’t one hundred percent ready to walk away from the emergency-rescue world. Once Samson was fully healed and had his strength back, I went through search-and-rescue training with him. It took about six months, but I was able to get him certified to find cadavers both on and off leash.”
Olivia turned to give Samson a look of appreciation. He was still looking out the window, but she had a good view of his faded-gray muzzle. She’d never have guessed he’d once had such an impressive career. That either of them had.
“And believe it or not, he was pretty good at it,” Gabe continued. “He once found an old guy who’d walked out of an extended-care senior-living home in Festus. The guy had Alzheimer’s. He was dehydrated and had done a number to his bare feet, but he was okay. Most of the time, when it comes to search and rescue, that isn’t the norm. Samson had a few other successes, too, but they weren’t as rewarding, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do. That had to be hard. And by ‘was,’ I take it Samson’s not doing it now?”
“No, he’s been retired a little over a year. He gave it his all every time we went out, but after a couple months of him being super stiff in the hips most of the week afterward, I figured I needed to be the adult and find something else to do on weekends. School was pretty rough then, so I started taking him on hikes and camping trips just to get away from it all. He’s a trouper, and he’s got his own sleeping pad in back of the truck for when we camp.” He cocked an eyebrow. “His is twice as padded as mine. I’ve considered fighting him for it, but when he gets a good night’s sleep, that snore of his is a few decibels quieter.”
“That’s sweet. Really sweet.” Olivia was quiet a moment, picturing Gabe and Samson camping in the back of the truck under a star-studded sky. “So, this explains you asking me to take a picture of your license plate. And you having an ax and rope and a self-inflating life vest in the back of your truck. I thought maybe you’d been an Eagle Scout or something.”
Gabe chuckled. “I was in the Scouts but didn’t make it that far. But you know what they say…once a firefighter, always a firefighter.”
Olivia wasn’t convinced it was her place to bring it up again now that the conversation had taken a turn, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Your, uh, fiancée leaving… I’m sure that was hard.”
He brought the truck to a stop by a narrow strip of woods off to his left between two newly planted fields and scanned the trees. “It’s a deer. See it? Behind the cedar, a hundred feet in.”
Olivia leaned over the center console and followed the direction he was pointing. On the second sweep, she spotted a fleck of white that turned out to be the underside of a swishing tail. “Oh. There she is. She’s pretty. Want to stick around here a few minutes and see if the pointer shows up? Maybe he’ll catch her scent and come to investigate.”
Gabe made a face that seemed to say it was worth a shot. He pulled to the side of the empty road but left the ignition running, for which Olivia was thankful. Without the heat blowing on her, her shivering would certainly return full force.
She was beginning to think he wasn’t going to respond to her comment about his ex-fiancée when he spoke. “Her leaving was hard. At the time at least. I have to admit I’m pretty sure we’d have been among the fifty percent of marriages that wind up in divorce a number of years down the road. Probably not even very many years. So, I guess it all worked out in the end.”
His answer only made her want to know more. “Do you say that because you two were too different…or too much the same?” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she’d walked away from a guy and an engagement, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it until she knew his answer.
Gabe fell quiet and studied her for several seconds. Olivia let her gaze travel from those remarkable eyes to a pair of equally remarkable lips, and her heart pounded like a bass drum in her chest. When he wasn’t smiling, she could just barely make out the dip in his cheek from his dimple.
She was pretty certain she’d never wanted to be kissed more than she did right now. Only she’d been submerged in floodwater a half hour ago and probably still very much looked the part.
Even so, she suspected her hormones weren’t the only ones racing because he cleared his throat abruptly and looked back into the woods.
“There’s another one,” he said a moment later, nodding toward the deer who was chewing on a long, thin twig. “Curled up on the ground a few feet to her right. Based on the size, I’m betting it’s last year’s fawn.”
Olivia craned to see but couldn’t. She unbuckled and leaned over the center console for a better look. “Oh, there. What a cutie. I bet they’re tired of all this rain.”
She was still leaning over the console when he looked her way again. She swallowed, realizing that mere inches separated them. Inches that would be so easy to claim as her own. The skin of her face tingled as if there were an electric field between them.
She could hear her grandpa’s voice asserting that no one liked a woman who was too forward, but she took a leap that surprised her, brushing her lips over Gabe’s. Maybe he met her partway. Maybe it was all her. It was hard to tell because she closed her eyes just before they connected. It was a gentle kiss, subtle and with enough hesitation to fit the circumstances. Gabe’s thumb traced her jawline, creating a thin trail of pleasure along it.
She pulled away enough to meet his gaze. She’d just kissed someone in his truck mere hours after meeting him.
Gabe’s lips stayed parted slightly, and his eyes searched her face. This time, there was no doubt about it. He moved toward her, deepening the kiss and awakening a heat that swept through her veins on a superhighway she hadn’t realized was a part of her. His hand slipped from her jaw to the back of her head. His tongue brushed against hers with a subtle, unimposing force that Olivia let herself savor.
This. So much this. She’d dreamed of kisses like this back when she was a kid who believed in princes and happily-ever-afters. Dreamed of wanting and receiving and giving all blended into one.
With an ease that seemed impossible considering the bulky center console and the protruding steering wheel, Olivia made her way onto his lap. Maybe it was so easy because his hands quickly locked around her hips to guide her.
This is crazy. This is so crazy. You don’t even know this guy. But Olivia wasn’t listening to caution. She brushed her lips along the side of his neck, letting them trail over the smooth skin underneath a shadow of stubble, pausing over his Adam’s apple.
This wasn’t her. She didn’t do this.
Even so, it didn’t stop her from dropping her mouth lower and savoring the skin in the dip above his sternum. His hands slid underneath the hoodie, circling her bare back and then locking around her hips again, pulling her even closer.
She wasn’t entirely sure where she wanted this to go, but she didn’t want it to stop. It didn’t matter that her knee was digging painfully into the door and Gabe was wearing a seat belt and Samson was suddenly very interested in what they were doing. The curious dog gave Olivia’s ear a sniff and followed it with a solid lick across it. A few loose strands of her hair got caught in his mouth in the process. Olivia pulled back from Gabe, laughing and dragging her wrist across her ear. “Talk about a wet willy.”
“Samson, bud, lie down.” When Samson obeyed and sank back onto the seat with a grunt that seemed a touch exaggerated, Gabe unclicked his seat belt. After releasing it with obvious care so as not to catch her up in it, he sat up straight and kissed her with an intensity that made her feel as if she were melting into a puddle. “You’re so damn beautiful it hurts.”
So damn beautiful it hurts. No one had ever said anything like that to her. Ever.
She and Trevor had been in tenth grade when he’d asked her to homecoming, and they’d been friends as kids. She suspected she coul
d’ve dyed her hair gray and sported a pair of baggy overalls at their wedding and Trevor wouldn’t have noticed.
Gabe’s hands slipped underneath her hoodie again, confident and searching and respectful at the same time. Olivia was savoring the sensation of running her lips along the edge of his jaw and over to his earlobe when Samson woofed and Gabe jerked back abruptly.
“What the… Looks like we have company.”
Olivia sucked in a breath as she glanced out Gabe’s driver’s-side window. They did have company. And not just anyone. Her stomach flipped full circle. An instant queasiness settled in and her face burned hot. “Of all the luck.”
The man from the feed store was idling directly across from them in a truck, a look of clear disapproval on his face. I’ll be telling your grandpa I saw you.
Now he wouldn’t just be telling her grandpa. He’d be telling the whole town.
Olivia scrambled off Gabe’s lap and dove awkwardly to her seat, a considerably more difficult feat on return.
Gabe cleared his throat. “You okay if I see what he wants?”
Olivia pressed her eyes closed for a split second. “Yeah, go ahead. It can’t make things any worse.”
He rolled down his window. “Can I help you?”
“Looks like you two are helping yourselves, you ask me. I got off work and thought I’d drive down and see if you were able to save the dog.”
“We got him out of the pen,” Gabe said, ignoring the loaded comment, “but he took off. We’ve been driving around looking for him.”
“Have you, now.”
It was a declaration, not a question, and it was sharp and stinging. Gabe tensed enough that Olivia could count the muscles in his jaw.
She could hardly summon the courage to look the man in the eye but recognized that hiding wouldn’t help this not become the talk of the town. “There are a couple deer in the woods,” she offered over Gabe’s shoulder. “We think the dog might be drawn to their scent.”
