Run To You (Puppy Love Romance Book 2)

by Georgia Beers

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By Georgia Beers

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  By Georgia Beers

  Synopsis

  Welcome to Junebug Farms, a successful, well-known animal shelter in upstate New York, where every day brings something new—love, stress, heartbreak, warmth —and not just from the animals.

  Catherine Gardner knows what it means to work hard. Growing up with little, it’s pretty much all she’s done for most of her life. As the bookkeeper for Junebug Farms, she handles the money. When Catherine finds herself undeniably attracted to Emily Breckenridge, daughter of the shelter’s largest donor, it doesn’t sit well with her. At all.

  Emily Breckenridge has spent her life in the shadows of both her family’s money and her brother Clark. But when the reins of the family’s charity foundation are taken from Clark and handed to Emily, it’s her chance to shine on her own. Everything about Catherine Gardner is unexpected, from her emotional reserve to the crazy magnetic pull she has…one Emily can’t seem to fight…

  RUN TO YOU

  © 2016 BY GEORGIA BEERS

  THIS EBOOK ORIGINAL IS PUBLISHED BY BRISK PRESS, BRIELLE NEW JERSEY, 08730.

  EDITED BY LYNDA SANDOVAL

  COPY EDITED BY HEATHER FLOURNOY

  COVER DESIGN BY STEFF OBKIRCHNER

  FIRST PRINTING: JULY 2016

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

  THIS BOOK, OR PARTS THEREOF, MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9966774-5-5

  By Georgia Beers

  Novels

  Finding Home

  Mine

  Fresh Tracks

  Too Close to Touch

  Thy Neighbor’s Wife

  Turning the Page

  Starting From Scratch

  96 Hours

  Slices of Life

  Snow Globe

  Olive Oil and White Bread

  Zero Visibility

  A Little Bit of Spice

  Rescued Heart

  Run to You

  Anthologies

  Outsiders

  www.georgiabeers.com

  Acknowledgements

  When you’ve been doing this for as long as I have, writing acknowledgments feels kind of like I’m saying the same thing over and over again. And I suppose that’s at least a little bit true, but the people I thank each and every time deserve my thanks each and every time, and so much more. So let’s do this.

  Thank you to Carrie and Susan at Brisk Press. They make a process that could (and often does) become difficult and tedious easy and painless instead. I realize what a lucky author that makes me, and I couldn’t be happier to work with them.

  Thank you to my editing staff, Lynda Sandoval and Heather Flournoy. They make me look good. And when I don’t look good, not only do they correct me (gently) (most of the time), but they explain to me why so that I learn and maybe get it right next time (or not). Their expertise is an invaluable tool for my career.

  Thank you to my friends, Nikki, Melissa, and Rachel, for their love and support. They are with me in some form every single day and a day when one of them is missing seems weirdly unbalanced to me. They encourage me, keep me sane, help me stay positive, and make me laugh when I need it. And sometimes when I don’t..

  Thank you to Steff Obkirchner, not only for the strength of her friendship, but for her amazing cover-creating talent. Nobody has the eye she does and I am never disappointed with a cover. Ever. She blows me away every time.

  Thank you to all the pets who’ve come in and out of my life, mine or those belonging to my loved ones. Each of them has touched me with their unconditional love in some way, shape or form, and I am eternally grateful for that, especially my Finley. I know he won’t be with me forever physically, but he will be in my heart always, and that’s a pretty amazing gift.

  Thank you to my wife Bonnie for getting me like no other person, for putting up with my crazy mood swings and weird obsessions, for throwing countless ideas and suggestions at me, even when I’m wearing my No Girl hat, and for supporting me, always, no matter what. I’m so lucky to have her in my corner..

  Last but never least, thank you to you, my readers. It is because of you—your support, your messages, your emails—that I can keep doing this weird, wonderful, crazy, awesome job of mine. You keep reading, I’ll keep writing, deal?

  CHAPTER ONE

  SATURDAY NIGHTS AT JOPLIN’S almost always boasted a full house. That’s the way Catherine Gardner liked it. A full house meant more tables to wait on. More tables meant more tips, and more tips were the point of working a second job in the first place, weren’t they? Instead of getting irritated at the gentleman at table sixteen (who had ordered his Porterhouse well-done—a tragedy in and of itself as far as Catherine was concerned—then turned around and sent it back because it was dry), she simply conjured up an image of the Michael Kors Sedgwick Embossed-Heel Black Leather boots she’d seen online that morning. They’d been marked down from $275 to $206 and Catherine was sure there was a pair in her size just waiting for her to rescue them from the lonely shelf in the big, scary boot warehouse.

  Tips, tips, tips. Tips will get me boots. She hummed a little tune, but kept the words in her head.

  As she pushed her way into the kitchen, Bobby King, resident chef, saw the plate in her hand and rolled his brown eyes.

  “Let me guess. Too dry?” he asked, heavy on the sarcasm.

  “Ding, ding, ding!” Catherine said with a half-grin.

  With a loud sigh, he pulled out another steak and tossed it on the grill where three others sizzled away. “I’ll never understand why well-done is even a thing,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t they know it ruins everything good about beef?”

  “And don’t you know the customer is always right?” Catherine teased him.

  “Yeah, that’s crap and we both know it.”

  While Bobby prepared a new steak for Mr. Doesn’t Understand Beef, Catherine headed back out to the dining room to wait on the new couple at table thirteen. She took them in quickly as she approached. Two women, one somewhere around thirty, one a bit older. Nicely dressed, both of them. The older one had blonde hair, cut in one of those expensive angular styles only certain people can pull off (she could). The younger one had dark hair that hung loose around her shoulders, and when she turned toward Catherine, her soft brown eyes were smiling and a dimple appeared on her left cheek. Catherine’s stomach did a tiny little flip at the sight.

  She smiled as she clasped her hands behind her back and greeted them. “Good evening, ladies. Welcome to Joplin’s.” She went through the specials for the night, flawlessly rattling off every detail of each dish. That had been the hardest part when she’d started working there…the memorization. None of the servers had pads or paper of any kind.
Each day, they were given a description of the specials and they committed them to memory, the restaurant before opening looking a lot like the wings of a theatre, actors mumbling the lines they’re trying to remember. Each order placed was memorized and punched into the touchscreen on a nearby computer. Luckily, Catherine’s head for numbers somehow seemed to make it easier for her to remember each thing. “Can I start you two off with a cocktail?”

  The blonde rattled off a year and vintage of wine that was obviously meant to impress the woman across the table, and Catherine immediately concluded the two were on a date, which was kind of cute. However, the blonde never looked at Catherine once, so points were immediately deducted from the cuteness department. The brunette, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to make up for the rudeness of her date by looking directly at Catherine with an intensity that bordered on sensual. Catherine cleared her throat and headed off to retrieve the wine.

  “They on a date, you think?” Bradley Snyder whispered to Catherine as she emerged from the wine room. He was her fellow server, had shown her the ropes when she’d been hired, and was as gay as an interior designer. At a Broadway musical. Drinking a Cosmo.

  “I think so. The blonde is working hard to be impressive,” Catherine said. “But I’m not sure if they’ve been together for a while or not.”

  “Nope. Blind.”

  “You think so?”

  “They arrived in separate cars and shook hands in the parking lot.” At Catherine’s raised eyebrow, he went on with a shrug. “I was out back having a smoke. Wasn’t sure if it was a business meeting or not.”

  Filing away that information, Catherine approached their table, set down two wine glasses, and showed the label of the bottle to the blonde. At her nod, Catherine set about opening it, noticing how any conversation between the two women (had there been any?) ceased as she used the manual corkscrew.

  “Is that a pain for you?” the brunette asked, her brown eyes fixed on Catherine. “I mean, there are so many newfangled, automatic openers. I wondered if using the manual kind is a pain for you.”

  Catherine smiled, noting the blonde still not looking at her. Rude. “Actually, I’m partial to the old-fashioned wine key. I like the feel of opening the bottle myself. Makes me think I’ve accomplished something.” As if on cue, the cork popped out and Catherine poured a small amount of wine into one glass. The blonde made a show of swirling the Pinot Noir, sipping it, rolling the wine around in her mouth. Catherine already leaned toward not liking her, but this display sealed the deal.

  “Oh, that’s good. That’s very good.” The blonde nodded at the brunette. “We’ll take that.”

  Catherine almost said, “Are you talking to me?” but managed to hold her tongue. It amused her that the blonde went through the whole tasting routine as if that’s why restaurants gave that first sip. In actuality, it wasn’t for the customer to decide if the wine tasted good. Taste didn’t matter, as once the cork popped, you’d bought the wine. It was to make sure the wine hadn’t gone bad due to a faulty cork or exposure to light or whatever. That was the purpose of the initial taste. For all her obvious refinement, the blonde apparently didn’t know this tidbit of information. And while it was true that, in fact, most people didn’t know it, Catherine still took delight in the blonde showing off knowledge she didn’t really have.

  The wine was very beautiful. Catherine loved that. As with footwear, she had a fondness for good wine and she actually really enjoyed pouring a nice red. You could almost anticipate the taste just by looking at it in a nice crystal glass. She used a white cloth to wipe the drip from the edge of the bottle, then set it down on the table. “Enjoy.”

  She took care of a couple other tables before heading for the kitchen. A glance back at the two women saw the brunette looking Catherine’s way, one corner of her mouth quirked up in a half-grin.

  Bradley was making two salads at the salad counter and looked up as she entered. “How goes the blind date?”

  “Not sure,” Catherine replied, waiting on two entrees for table twelve. “The blonde is still trying to show off, and she hasn’t looked at me once.”

  “Ugh. I hate that. So freaking rude.”

  “The brunette has, however.”

  Her tone made Bradley look back up at her and laugh with delight. “Go, you.”

  “You don’t think that’s rude?”

  “What? Her looking at you?”

  “Her looking at me when she’s on a date.”

  “A blind date,” Bradley corrected her. “One she is obviously not enjoying.” He swooped up his salads and opened the double doors with his backside as he winked at her.

  “Well, I think it’s rude,” Catherine muttered, grabbing the two plates that Bobby’s sous chef slid her way.

  After delivering the entrees, she stopped by the women’s table to take their orders.

  “I’ll have the filet,” the blonde said. “Well, please. And I’d like steamed rice instead of potatoes. What’s the vegetable?” Unsurprisingly, she said every word to the woman across the table rather than to her waitress.

  “It’s a mixed vegetable medley tonight consisting of peas, carrots, and green beans sautéed in a lemon butter sauce.”

  “Well, I suppose that’ll have to do.”

  Catherine gave a nod, working hard not to roll her eyes at the blonde’s tone. When she turned to the brunette, she caught a split second of her finishing up a quick eye roll and Catherine had to smother a grin.

  “Why even order the filet?” the brunette asked, and it took Catherine a minute to realize she was speaking to her date.

  The blonde looked confused.

  “If you’re going to cook all the flavor out of it, why bother?” At the blonde’s sheepish shrug, the brunette turned to Catherine and the spark of her brown eyes made Catherine’s stomach squinch a little. In a good way. “I am also going to have the filet, but I’d like it still mooing, please.” At Catherine’s polite chuckle, she amended, “Well, almost. I’d like a baked potato and those veggies that sound awesome.” Much as Catherine wanted to glance at the blonde to see what expression she was making now, she couldn’t. Something about the brunette’s eyes…

  Mentally shaking herself, Catherine took their menus, asked for their salad dressing preferences, and hurried back to the kitchen, feeling strangely out of sorts.

  As was typical for a Saturday night in an upscale restaurant with a good reputation, things had picked up steadily for the past half hour and the kitchen had gone from busy to super-bustling. Kitchen staff scurried around like worker ants, grabbing pots, pans, food, ran in and out of the walk-in freezer, listened to orders barked from the other end of the room. Pans bubbled on the enormous industrial stove and meat sizzled on the grill adjacent to the burners. Bobby called out for his Hollandaise sauce like he would die without it. The whole place was loud and chaotic, but Catherine’s full-time job was in an animal shelter, so she was actually used to such cacophony. She heard Bradley’s voice in her ear and jumped, not having heard his approach in all the noise.

  “You were totally right about that couple. I just watched that entire exchange. The blonde didn’t look at you once, and the brunette barely looked at anything but you.”

  Catherine grinned, shrugged, and shook her head. People were so weird.

  Once she’d delivered their entrees and refilled their wine glasses, Catherine was able to focus on other customers beside the couple. Even so, she’d glance occasionally at them and, more than once, she found the brunette looking her way. She even threw Catherine a flirty little wink, which Catherine was ashamed to admit made her blush like a schoolgirl, and she literally shook her head at her own reaction.

  When they were finished, Catherine took their plates and asked about dessert.

  The brunette looked to the blonde, then Catherine, then the blonde again. “I could do dessert. I mean, if you want to.”

  “Oh, no,” the blonde said. “I never eat dessert. I’m not a sweet person.”<
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  Obviously, Catherine thought.

  The brunette was clearly disappointed, but said, “All right. I don’t want to eat it alone. I guess we’re done then.”

  “I’ll be right back with your check.”

  At the computer, she finalized the bill. She smiled at other members of the wait staff as they hurried by, few of whose names she knew. It may have seemed cold, but this wasn’t her main job. She only worked one or two nights a week and she was here to make money, not friends. Bradley was an exception, only because he was relentless in his attempts at conversation. In the end, it was easier to talk to him than try to remain aloof. Plus, he was kind of hilarious.

  Tucking the bill into a black leatherette folder, Catherine returned to table thirteen. She didn’t know what came over her at that moment, but she suddenly felt a little streak of rebellion. I’m channeling Bradley here. The thought flashed through her mind as she recalled the superhero Bradley had invented. Snarky Gay Man (righting fashion wrongs with the wave of a judgmental finger and criticizing homophobic straights with a single sarcastic word…). Knowing full well that the blonde was running the show and most likely paying the bill, Catherine slid the black folder down in front of the brunette instead. “I can take that up whenever you’re ready,” she said, then turned on a heel and walked away, feeling smugly satisfied.

  A few moments later, she returned to the table to pick up the credit card. The blonde, not surprisingly, didn’t look at her, but radiated irritation. The brunette, however, openly grinned at her. Catherine rang up the sale, also unsurprised by the 12% tip, and for that slight, again left the folder in front of the brunette. “Thank you so much. Enjoy your night.”

  And in a move utterly and completely out of the scope of what would be considered Typical Catherine Behavior, she winked at the brunette before again turning on a heel and walking away.

  What did it matter? She’d never seen these two women before and she would most likely never see them again. Plus, it felt good. She felt like she was walking on air, which was not at all a feeling she was used to. Snarky Gay Man was going to be so proud of her…