Ever After (Love to the Rescue Book 3) Read online

  “Perfect.”

  He said good night to his sister and headed upstairs to call it an early night. Pete had worked thirty of the last forty-eight hours and was dead on his feet. He was covering a few shifts for Jimena Alvarez this week while her family vacationed at Disney World. As one of the few deputies without a family, he often volunteered to cover extra shifts. The extra experience, not to mention a few extra bucks, never hurt.

  Last week, he’d taken the detective exam. It was something he’d wanted for a long time, the next step in his career. The sheriff would be promoting one of his deputies at the end of the year, and Pete wanted that spot. Except he hadn’t officially applied for the position yet. The interview process would put a spotlight on his past and his family…

  He squeezed away a day’s worth of tension in the back of his neck and fell into bed, exhausted. The bed shook as eighty pounds of German shepherd hopped in next to him. Pete was too tired to object. As long as the dog didn’t try to spoon him, they’d be just fine.

  Timber, as it turned out, wasn’t the problem. Restless, Pete eventually found himself back downstairs, updating paperwork until his eyes crossed. Sometime in the wee hours of the night, he dropped back into bed and drifted off to sleep.

  He woke to the blaring of the alarm and four large paws on his back.

  Timber woofed in his ear, then leaped to the floor.

  “Who needs an alarm clock when I have you?” he grumbled. He staggered to his feet and stepped straight into a burning hot shower.

  Thirty minutes later, he was dressed and on the road. He stopped in at the sheriff’s office for an extra cup of coffee and to turn in some paperwork.

  “Yo,” Hartzler called from behind his desk. “Heard you caught our little vandal out at the Halverson plant night before last.”

  “Yeah.” He’d caught her, in both senses of the word. He tried and failed to suppress the memory of Olivia Bennett in his arms after she’d tumbled from her ladder.

  “Typical. You get the cute blonde, and I get the bar brawl. Ted lost two more teeth,” Hartzler said.

  “Ouch.”

  Ted Hackett, mid-forties and headed nowhere fast, had spent more than a few nights as their guest, sleeping it off after a bar fight. Pete couldn’t help but be glad Ted hadn’t been arrested this time and spent the night in the pen with Olivia.

  Then again, one whiff of his whiskey breath might have been enough to scare her straight. A girl like Olivia had too much going for her to waste it with stunts like the one she’d pulled the other night.

  Sheriff Linburgh poked his head out of his office. “Got a minute?”

  “Absolutely.” He followed his boss inside.

  The sheriff closed the door behind him and motioned for Pete to sit. “That girl you arrested at the Halverson plant the other night—what’s your read on her?”

  “She’s an animal rights activist who thinks slaughtering chickens is animal abuse.”

  “Animal rights activist. Hmm.” Sheriff Linburgh tapped his pen against the blotter on his desk. “You know, someone cut loose a bunch of Frank Holloway’s cows last month. Think it could be related?”

  Pete’s gut instinct said no, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t know a damn thing about Olivia Bennett other than that she’d broken the law night before last and that he couldn’t help but think about her long legs in those tight jeans. “Not sure. I’ll take a look at the files.”

  “Do that. We have several open vandalism cases that I’d like to see closed. Find out if any of it is related. And in the meantime, keep a close eye on Olivia Bennett. She seems like a troublemaker, that one.”

  “You know her?” Pete’s instincts rose to attention.

  “I know her type.” The sheriff stood, indicating their conversation was over.

  Pete walked out of the office, an uneasy feeling in his gut. He’d keep a close eye on Olivia all right. In fact, one of his first orders of business today was to swing by and make sure she was out there removing her graffiti from that chicken factory.

  * * *

  As Pete pulled into the Halverson Foods parking lot, two things struck him at once. One, Olivia Bennett was not alone. And two, the sight of her gave him a thrill he had no business feeling about a woman he’d arrested night before last.

  She was again at the top of the ladder, this time with a paper mask over her face, an aerosol can in one hand, dirty rag in the other, scrubbing her graffiti from the side of the building. A woman was on a ladder beside her, helping with the task as a man stood on the ground between them, holding their ladders steady.

  Chump. Letting the women do all the work.

  Several Halverson workers lingered near the back entrance of the building, smoking cigarettes and watching them work. At the sound of Pete’s cruiser crunching across the gravel lot, they hightailed it back inside. Olivia and her friends turned in his direction and stared. He cut the engine and stepped out.

  Olivia came down the ladder, tugged the mask around her neck, and stood with her hands on her hips as he approached. Her friends hustled over to their car and made a show of getting bottles of water from a cooler in the trunk.

  Not too eager to talk to him. Maybe they were the ones who’d been here with her the night she was arrested. Maybe he ought to go have a chat with them after he was finished with Olivia.

  “Come to check up on me?” she asked.

  “As a matter of fact.”

  Her eyes were hidden behind oversized sunglasses, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Sweat had beaded on her upper lip. Despite it being the first week of October, the temperature here in North Carolina had spiked into the mid-eighties, and she looked sun-baked in a red tank top and black shorts.

  “Well you can report back that I’m doing what I’m supposed to.”

  “So I see.” His gaze drifted to the swell of her breasts, the cleavage peeking from the lacy trim of her top. He yanked his eyes back to her face. “Hope it’s the last time I catch you out here.”

  She let out a sound of frustration. “I’ll try to keep myself in line from now on.”

  “See that you do.”

  “Seriously?” Her voice rose. “I don’t need a lecture, deputy. Spray-painting this place may have been a stupid idea, but they’ve been abusing chickens in there for years, and no one has done anything to stop it.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but some animals eat other animals. Nature isn’t always pretty. Halverson Foods is no different, but that doesn’t make it abuse. People eat chickens. Always have, always will.”

  She sucked in a breath, and her cheeks bloomed red. “Yes, but that doesn’t give the men in there the right to torture them before they’re slaughtered. All living beings deserve our respect, even if they’re destined for your dinner plate. The birds who come here are beaten and tormented needlessly, and that, Deputy Sampson, is abuse.”

  She spun on her heel and stalked off toward the ladder, leaving him at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

  “Look it up if you don’t believe me,” she called over her shoulder. “Google ‘Citizens Against Halverson Foods.’ If the undercover videos don’t make you sick to your stomach, then feel free to judge me. But I hope you’re not that heartless.”

  Heartless? No, he had a heart. It might be withered and hardened beyond recognition, but it was in there. “And how did spray-painting this place help the chickens?”

  She paused at the base of the ladder and gave him a discerning look. “Well see, that’s the stupid part. It didn’t. And I’ve learned my lesson, I promise.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  In fact, Olivia Bennett had just shocked the hell out of him. He’d had all manner of insults hurled his way in the line of duty. But not often did someone, much less a woman he’d recently arrested, stand up to him with such eloquence or intelligence while at the same time taking responsibility for her misdeed.

  Olivia Bennett was much more than a pretty face. She intrigued him in ways that w
eren’t purely professional, and that was a problem. He couldn’t allow his judgment to be clouded by personal feelings, not by Olivia or anyone else. Not ever again.

  * * *

  Olivia gulped a breath and held it, waiting for the lecture, or worse, the cuffs. Because surely telling off a sheriff’s deputy like she’d just done was a no-no.

  Deputy Sampson regarded her from behind his mirrored shades, hands on his belt, feet shoulder-width apart, the casual yet alert stance of the law enforcement officer. He stared for so long, and so intently, that she could hardly keep from squirming.

  “Have a nice day, Miss Bennett,” he said, finally, and strolled back to his car, apparently unruffled by her words. He’d probably stop for chicken nuggets on the way home.

  She blew out a breath and turned back to the ladder. “You can come out now,” she called to her friends, who’d been huddled on the other side of Terence’s Durango.

  “Check the balls on you,” Terence said with a cocky grin as he sauntered over. “I can’t believe you told off a cop like that.”

  “Seriously.” Kristi’s eyes were wide. “You schooled him for sure.”

  “Whatever. He wouldn’t think I was a drunk driver if y’all hadn’t run off and left me here the other night.” Her irritation had started to fade when they’d first come begging for forgiveness. Terence had a prior for smoking weed, and Kristi worked for the state. Neither of them could risk an arrest going on their record.

  But now they’d left her to face Deputy Sampson on her own twice, and she was pissed. Terence and Kristi shared her passion for animal rights and her crusade against Halverson Foods in particular, but when it came down to it, they were pretty lousy friends.

  And maybe it was time to start pruning the lousy friends from her life.

  “I’m really sorry about that.” Kristi at least sounded apologetic.

  Olivia readjusted her mask to block the worst of the stink, then sprayed Goo Off onto her blood-red message, however ridiculous it had turned out. Chicken Ass had no doubt made her a laughing stock among Dogwood’s finest. At least Chicken Assassins! would have gotten her intended message across. The letters dripped and ran down the side of the building.

  She swiped at her forehead and scrubbed harder. She meant what she’d told Deputy Sampson. From now on, she’d limit her activism to the right side of the law. She’d become notorious among her friends for her Facebook war against Halverson Foods, and she’d generated a lot of attention for her efforts. The local news had even mentioned her crusade a few weeks ago.

  She’d plead temporary insanity for her acts the night of her birthday.

  Mew.

  She spun on the ladder so quickly she almost fell, and this time Deputy Sampson wasn’t here to catch her. There it was again, a flash of white bobbing through the tall grasses behind the factory. Just a tiny little thing.

  “I think there’s a kitten out there,” she said.

  “I heard it too.” Terence squinted against the sun.

  “I’m going to look for it after I finish washing all this stuff off. It’s probably a stray, and I haven’t seen any sign of a mama cat.”

  “I’ll help,” Kristi said, from her perch on the other ladder.

  By the time they’d finished scrubbing, a handful of Halverson workers had gathered outside, smoking cigarettes and making rude comments.

  “You like chicken ass? I’ll show you my ass,” a man shouted.

  Several other comments followed, mostly in Spanish, but she got the gist. Despite her earlier annoyance with them, she was super grateful for Terence and Kristi’s presence. She made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder. The man who’d shouted was waving at her, making kissy faces. He wore red-splattered overalls, and Olivia was pretty sure he hadn’t been spray-painting anything.

  Gross.

  “Can you believe those guys?” Kristi whispered.

  Olivia kept her eyes on the side of the building. She’d left the paint thinner behind and was finishing the job with good old soap and water to remove the last of the residue. Water ran down her arms as she worked, soaking her shirt.

  The rumble of an approaching truck drowned out the voices of the plant workers. She glanced toward the road, and her stomach lurched. The big rig slowed and pulled into the parking lot behind her. Its freight bed was stacked high with wire crates.

  A shipment of chickens to be slaughtered.

  It pulled to a stop near the back of the building, where the workers had gathered. The putrid scent of animal waste wafted from the truck, making Olivia’s eyes water.

  Chickens were packed into wire crates stacked ten high, without room to stand or protection from the elements. They had likely traveled hundreds of miles to get here, without access to food or water.

  The birds were silent as the truck’s engine shut off, and a hush fell over the air. Olivia realized she was holding her breath, unable to move from the top of the ladder. A loud beep shattered the eerie silence as someone drove a forklift toward them to begin unloading the crates of chickens. One by one they were lifted from the truck and carried inside.

  “Holy shit,” Kristi whispered.

  One of the crates slipped to the ground. The door popped open, and a chicken tumbled out. It lay on the ground, unmoving. Tears sprang into Olivia’s eyes. Without thinking, she reached into her back pocket for her phone and snapped a quick photo of the fallen bird.

  A worker grabbed the chicken by its feet and waved it in her direction. “You like chicken ass? I’ll show you chicken ass.”

  She turned away, horrified. Birds squawked as their crates were jostled and moved. From inside the building came the clang of machinery. She swallowed past the urge to vomit. The last crate was lifted from the truck, and she watched helplessly as the birds were carried inside. It was wrong for humans to treat another living being with such a lack of compassion.

  At the far end of the parking lot, the little white kitten darted out of the bushes after a butterfly. It hopped on three legs, keeping its left front paw tucked as if injured, its fur dirty and bedraggled. A factory worker shouted an obscenity and threw a rock at it, and the kitten ran around behind the building.

  Several men loitered in the doorway, watching Olivia and her friends as they finished up.

  “Liv,” Terence said. “I think it’s time to get out of here.”

  “No argument here.” She scampered down the ladder and helped him fold it, then gathered their supplies and hustled for the SUV.

  She thought briefly of the kitten, but there was no way she could look for it right now, and she’d been ordered to stay off Halverson Foods property once her cleanup was complete. That meant she had to find a legal way to save it, because she wasn’t about to get arrested again. She couldn’t protect the chickens from those men, but she could damn well make sure they didn’t get their hands on that poor little kitten.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When Pete got off duty that evening, he went home and changed into gym shorts and a T-shirt and took Timber for a run. They headed for the paved jogging trail that ran around the outskirts of town and pounded out two miles down to the pond by the old mill.

  Timber jogged obediently at his side, head up, eyes alert and watchful. If not for his slightly unpredictable personality, he’d have made a hell of a K9 officer.

  Since they had the place to themselves, Pete unclipped Timber’s leash and let him chase fish and frogs in the pond. The dog had been bouncing off the walls by the time Pete got off work. He knew enough about dogs—shepherds in particular—to know that proper exercise was essential to their sanity.

  Pete knew the feeling. A good run always put him in a calmer state of mind as well.

  Timber sloshed toward him. Pete bent and grabbed a stick, which he chucked into the middle of the pond. Timber raced down the short wooden pier and belly flopped into the water. He grabbed the stick and brought it back, a slightly rabid look in his eye when Pete tried to take it from him to throw again.
r />   No doubt Timber’s instinctual prey drive was off the charts, thanks to selective breeding and rigorous training to prepare him for work as a police dog. Pete waited for him to drop the stick on his own rather than grabbing it out of the dog’s mouth.

  He tossed the stick a few more times, then clipped the leash onto the dog and headed for home. Back at the house, he hosed Timber down then took a shower. He poured a bowl of chow for the dog and fixed himself a meatball sandwich, which he brought to the couch to enjoy with some football. A few minutes later, Timber joined him, still licking his chops.

  After Pete had filled the gaping hole in his belly, he pulled out his laptop and typed in “Citizens Against Halverson Foods.” A website popped up, filled with photos that, even to his nonactivist eye, were disturbing.

  He clicked on a video. Three workers laughed as one of them tossed a chicken onto the concrete floor. It squawked as it lay there, unable to get up. What they did to it next made Pete’s meatball sandwich rise into his throat. Olivia was right. That was animal abuse.

  The website was filled with information on the efforts the group had made to have Halverson Foods’ chicken-processing plant shut down. There was a link to sign a petition and access to the group’s Facebook page, which had over four thousand “likes.”

  And the woman behind it all? Olivia Bennett.

  She was smart, all right. Smart enough to have known better than to break the law to further her cause. Smart enough to keep her pretty little self out of trouble from now on? He wasn’t sure about that. The fact was, she remained Sheriff Linburgh’s top suspect for a number of open vandalism cases around town.

  Pete had his doubts. Olivia seemed pretty singularly focused on Halverson Foods. If anything else went down on their property, he’d be willing to bet she was behind it. But he didn’t quite see her spray-painting a crude version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy with an erection on the front window of Beth’s Bakery.

  It was an election year, and Halverson Foods had backed Sheriff Linburgh in the last election. Certainly the sheriff’s interest in this case could be related to a need to keep the company happy, but it didn’t mean he was wrong about Olivia either. Had she turned loose Holloway’s cows?