Add in the two new foster dogs and the additional work she’d taken on since the tornado had hit the shelter, and she certainly had her hands full.
No doubt that was the reason she hadn’t returned his calls or texts for the past few days.
“And then Ellie and Sparkle decided to run off and join the circus.”
“That’s great, Matt, and—wait, what did you say?”
“Does it matter?” his friend asked wryly. “Since you haven’t been listening since I sat down.”
“Sorry, I was thinking about Mollie.”
Matt’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Zeke sighed. “I’m worried about her. Seems like all she does is work with her dogs.”
“Some people could say the same about you and your patients, not to mention all the time you spend at the veteran support group.”
For Zeke, volunteering was the least he could do to try to repay the soldiers who had sacrificed so much. Soldiers like Patrick... In the months after his friend’s death, Zeke had reached out to the local VA and organized a therapy group for former soldiers to come and share their experiences. But no matter how many hours he spent helping the wounded warriors who had returned home, the time had yet to ease his own feelings of loss.
Of guilt.
“I’ve been home for months, and you haven’t mentioned seeing anyone special.”
Giving his head a quick shake, Zeke reached for his coffee and took a large swallow of the strong brew. “Maybe it has been a while,” he told his friend. Zeke realized he couldn’t remember the last woman he’d gone out with. Not that Matt would have known about his dates either way.
Ever since his broken engagement, Zeke had kept his dating life separate from his friends and family. Oh, sure, someday if he met a woman and things got serious, he’d have to cross that line, but he didn’t see that happening. Not for a long, long time.
Not after Lilah...
Lilah had moved to town right before his senior year, and the elder Fairchilds and Harpers became quick friends. Much to his teenaged mortification, his parents asked him to show Lilah, the new girl, around. They hadn’t understood how ridiculous the request was. In a small town like Spring Forest, the blonde, beautiful newcomer was instantly the most popular girl in school.
All the boys, including Zeke, were smitten. But even as a geeky teen, he’d known he didn’t stand a chance. Lilah had a type, and he didn’t fit the star quarterback, homecoming king, cool kid mold. She and Patrick had even briefly dated the summer before his friend went off to boot camp.
She’d left after graduation, but a few years ago she’d stunned the town by moving back home. At the time, Zeke hadn’t given it much thought. He’d grown up. He’d moved on. Lilah—and his ridiculous crush—were part of his past. Or so he thought, until he’d gone out with his coworkers and spotted her at the hottest new nightclub in Raleigh. In all the years they’d known each other, she’d never given him a second look. But that night, he’d felt the full-on impact across the crowded bar as she’d checked him out head to toe...
And with one look, he’d been hooked.
Their parents had been thrilled when he and Lilah started dating and absolutely ecstatic when they got engaged. Friends for over a decade, they’d celebrated the idea of becoming family... But when the engagement ended, so too did that friendship.
“I offered to fix Mollie up,” he told Matt.
“You?” Choking on a sip of coffee, Matt set his mug aside. “Sorry if I don’t see you in the role of cupid.”
Zeke waved the image of the arrow-shooting cherub aside. “I know Mollie better than anyone, and I’m good at reading people. I thought I could find the right kind of guy for her.”
“I’m, wow, really not sure where to start with any of that, but okay, Mr. People Reader. Who’s the guy?”
When Zeke had first mentioned the idea to Mollie, at least a dozen single guys had come to mind, but since then... Since then, he’d watched Mollie walk into a shop filled with sexy lingerie and he hadn’t been able to get the image of her draped in satin and silk and lace out of his mind.
If mixing his dating life with his friends and family was a line in the sand he wouldn’t cross, then even considering any kind of romantic relationship with Mollie was the Great Wall of China. He and Patrick had long ago sworn they were brothers in every way that mattered, which made Mollie like a sister to him, and he would not—could not—think of her in any other way.
But there was nothing to stop any guy she went out with from imagining all that and more...and he really had to ask himself why he thought Mollie dating was such a good idea in the first place.
“I’m—I’m not sure,” he muttered. “It can’t be just anyone.”
“Well, what about Dan Sutton?”
The local lawyer was well respected in Spring Forest despite the fair share of gossip surrounding the disintegration of his business partnership and marriage after his partner and his wife ran off together. Still, Zeke shook his head. “He has his hands full raising his three girls.”
“I don’t know,” Matt argued. “Maybe as a single dad he’s looking for someone to help lighten the load. And look how Dillon helped bring Ryan and Amanda together.”
Dillon was Ryan’s six-year-old son, and what had started out as a pretend engagement to appease the boy’s grandparents had quickly turned into a genuine love match.
“Dan’s a good guy, but he’s not right for Mollie. He’s a bit too conservative.” Zeke couldn’t see the man putting up with a layer of dog hair all over his expensive suits. “Mollie needs someone more down-to-earth.”
“What about Cade Battle then? You can’t get much more down-to-earth than a farmer,” Matt pointed out, but Zeke was already shaking his head.
“Cade’s too much of a loner.” Though the hardworking man had a soft spot for the Whitaker sisters and partnered with them to foster some of the less domesticated animals that showed up at the shelter, he barely gave the time of day to anyone else.
Matt brought up a few more guys—Grant Whitaker, the Whitaker sisters’ nephew, and Davis Macintyre, a vet tech at the shelter, but Zeke shook his head. “Grant is heading back to Florida after the renovations on the shelter are complete. And Davis is even more introverted than Mollie. She needs someone who can help bring her out of her shell a little.”
“The way you do,” Matt pointed out.
“Exactly! I mean, not me exactly. Mollie’s comfortable around me because we’ve been friends for so long.” And friends certainly did not picture friends wearing nothing but barely there lingerie.
“And you’re sure that’s all there is to it?”
“Of course it is.” Friendship was all there could be. “I’ve known her since she was in braces and pigtails,” he said, as much to remind himself as his friend.
Matt offered Zeke a sidelong glance. “So you think, just because you’ve known someone for years, you’ve already discovered all there is to them?”
Okay, maybe he didn’t know everything, but he knew Mollie better than anyone. But even after Matt named several more single guys they both knew, Zeke couldn’t picture any of them with Mollie. Whenever he tried...something inside him rebelled at the thought.
“Seems to me like no one around here is good enough for Mollie,” Matt finally determined.
Zeke couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief that they had drawn a blank. But he wasn’t about to admit that to Matt. “I’m sure there’s someone I’m not thinking of.”
“Yep,” his friend murmured into his cup. “Pretty sure there is.”
Needing a change in subject, Zeke asked, “How’s the new job treating you?”
After moving back to Spring Forest, Matt had taken a job with Bobby Doyle at his auto shop. A field mechanic during his years in the service, Matt had always had a way with machines, an
d the two veterans had hit it off from the start.
“The job’s great.”
“But?” Zeke prompted when his friend’s frown contradicted his words.
“I’m still worried about Bobby, man. I’ve seen him experience several flashbacks, even though he won’t admit it, and I know he’s dealing with PTSD.”
“I take it you still haven’t had any luck convincing him to come to one of the support groups,” Zeke surmised.
PTSD wasn’t the only issue facing former soldiers. Some dealt with anxiety, depression, survivor’s remorse. Some turned to alcohol or drugs to dull their pain, but Zeke did his best to get the word out about the therapy groups. To let veterans like Bobby know help was available.
But Matt was already shaking his head. “I’ve asked him to come a few times, but he always shoots me down. Bobby’s a whiz around cars—any kind of machine, really. He’s the guy people call when they need something fixed. I don’t think he’s ready to admit this is something he can’t fix on his own.”
Frustration and concern filled Matt’s voice. Returning to civilian life wasn’t easy for many veterans, and the mental scars of serving tours overseas didn’t stay overseas when the soldiers came home. “There’s gotta be something more I can do.”
The feeling was one Zeke knew well. How many times since Patrick’s death had he questioned what more he could have done to help his friend? During that last visit home, he’d sensed Patrick was struggling. More than once, he’d tried to get his friend to open up about whatever was bothering him.
But when Patrick had flatly stated that he wanted to hang out on his friend’s sofa, not on a shrink’s couch, Zeke backed off. He’d trusted Patrick when he said he simply needed to decompress and that when the time was right, they would talk.
But that right time never came. And though he and Patrick had hung out several times during that visit, playing a few games of hoops, shooting rounds of pool, sharing some beers while watching the college basketball championships, they never did have that talk.
Patrick had taken his secrets with him when he left Spring Forest, and Zeke couldn’t help wondering if those secrets and the weight his friend carried with him had been a factor in his death.
If Zeke had found a way, if he’d tried harder to convince Patrick to confide in him, would his best friend still be alive?
* * *
“Are you ready for this?” Amanda and Claire exchanged excited grins as the three women stood in Mollie’s bedroom, prepared for the big unveiling.
After spending what felt like endless hours being tugged and teased, spritzed and sprayed within an inch of her life, Mollie’s head was pounding. Her feet, crammed into a borrowed pair of too-small shoes, ached, and she was pretty sure she’d either bust a seam or possibly break a rib if she took too big a breath while wearing the dress she’d pulled out from the back of her closet.
Throughout the entire makeover, her friends had kept Mollie from catching even the smallest peek in a mirror. As much as she appreciated their efforts, she worried the end result would only be a disappointment. Even though the two women had brought over enough beauty products and styling tools to open their own salon, her own “plain Jane” look was bound to show through.
“You know this is crazy, right? I mean, there isn’t enough makeup in the world to cover up who I really am.”
“No one is trying to cover you up, Mollie!” Amanda insisted. “You are an amazing, wonderful, beautiful woman.”
“We want to highlight that, not disguise it,” Claire agreed.
“And you really think bright red lipstick and a beehive hairdo is gonna do that?” she asked dubiously.
Mollie had never been a hair and makeup kind of girl, despite—or perhaps because of—her mother’s “encouragement.”
Honestly, Mollie, are you really going out of the house looking like that? You could at least try to cover those freckles, and would it kill you to do something with that hair?
At a time when most preteen girls were dying to experiment with eyeliner, mascara and the newest celebrity hairstyle, Mollie had clung to her tomboy ways. A decade or so later, nothing had changed. Not her freckles, not her curly hair...and not her mother’s disappointment in her only daughter.
“Okay, first, that is Color Me Roses red, and this is not the nineteen-sixties. Your hair is in an elegant, timeless chignon, not a beehive.”
“Which you would know,” Claire chimed in with a hint of laughter in her voice, “if you actually turned around to look in the mirror.”
Realizing she was stalling, Mollie heaved a sigh, turned on her uncomfortable borrowed heels and stared at the woman staring back at her...
“Oh, my fairy godmother. I look—”
“Amazing!” Amanda interjected, but for Mollie that didn’t even begin to describe the transformation.
Gone were the flyaway reddish-blond curls that normally shielded her face. Instead, her hair was smoothly pulled back at the nape of her neck in an elegant twist. Makeup lightly highlighted her freckles and gave her skin a warm glow. Her fair lashes looked almost ridiculously long and lush, surrounding eyes that could only be described as smoky.
Add in the sleeveless, emerald silk wraparound dress—one her mother had insisted she buy for her cousin’s wedding last year—and Mollie hardly recognized herself.
Anticipation shot a dozen or so sparklers off in her stomach, and she clasped her hands at her waist, holding her head a little higher, her shoulders a little straighter. She couldn’t believe how confident and sophisticated she looked. How confident and sophisticated she felt.
Not like Patrick’s tagalong little sister. Not like Zeke’s best buddy. But like the kind of woman who would turn a guy’s head and keep him looking long after she’d walked by. Like the kind of woman a man would truly notice for the first time...
“Josh isn’t going to know what hit him!”
Josh...
Mollie gave a sudden start, hit by a mix of disappointment and guilt. Zeke wasn’t going to notice her at all because she wasn’t going out with Zeke. All this effort was supposed to be for Josh, but Mollie hadn’t given her date more than a moment’s thought since her friends arrived.
When Josh had called Mollie to confirm their date, he’d been outgoing and charming, every bit the catch his sister vowed he was.
But he’s not Zeke.
Shaking off the reminder, Mollie turned to give each of her friends a hug. “Thank you both for this. You’ve pulled off the miracle you promised.”
“No miracle. Remember, Josh already thinks you’re beautiful.” Amanda turned Mollie back to the mirror. “All of this is about making you believe it.”
Mollie tried keeping her friend’s words in mind once Amanda and Claire left and the doubts started to creep in. Josh was taking her to a restaurant in Raleigh. What if she ran out of things to say within the first few minutes and had to sit in the passenger seat in painful silence for the half-hour ride? What if the restaurant was some super-fancy place where she wouldn’t recognize any of the offerings on the menu? What if—
A knock on the front door interrupted her panic. Along with being outgoing and charming and handsome, Josh was also punctual.
But when she opened the door, the man waiting on the other side, highlighted by the fading summer sunlight, was not her date. Instead it was the man she’d so hopelessly fallen in love with.
Chapter Five
Zeke stared at the woman in front of him. Blinked his eyes hard. Stared some more.
If he didn’t know the road to Mollie’s house as well as he knew his own, if he didn’t recognize the door he’d spent a day last fall stripping, sanding and painting a bright red, if he hadn’t stood on this porch hundreds of times over the past few years, Zeke might have believed he’d somehow shown up at a stranger’s house.
Because the woman standing
in front of him—her hair caught back in some fancy twist, her lips stained a lush red, her body sheathed in a silky green dress that hugged all her curves—couldn’t possibly be Mollie.
Not his Mollie—the girl he’d saved from the fast-running creek that ran behind their childhood homes when she’d jumped in to rescue the dog she’d later named Shadow. The skinny tomboy who’d tagged along after him and Patrick every chance she could. The shy dog trainer who never wore anything but jeans and a T-shirt with her hair in a ponytail and nothing more than sunscreen on her face.
That was his Mollie. This—this was a woman he didn’t recognize.
“Zeke,” the not-Mollie said, a hint of natural color shining through behind the blush on her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m, um—” After his conversation with Matt and seeing some of the veterans with their service dogs at the center, Zeke had wondered if that might be the answer for Bobby Doyle. At first, he’d been disappointed to learn about the long wait lists and the years of instruction required for a dog to act as a disabled vet’s eyes or arms or legs. But Bobby wasn’t physically disabled. His needs were different, and perhaps less training would be necessary.
And who would know more about training than Mollie?
Plus, he’d needed an excuse to see her. Which was weird considering he’d never needed one before. Then again, Mollie had never ignored his calls and texts before.
Not his Mollie...
But his plan to help Bobby was the last thing on his mind as he gaped, slack-jawed, at the woman in front of him. “What are you wearing?”
And where on earth did she think she was going dressed like that?
“I’m—um.” Mollie glanced down, seeming almost as surprised as he was by the bare arms, the hint of creamy cleavage and shapely calves on display. As short as she was, Zeke had never imagined her legs could be so long. Hell, until the other day in her backyard, he’d never imagined her legs at all, yet now he couldn’t help but wonder how he’d gone so long not noticing.
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