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Relief and disappointment double-punched him in the gut. Not Olivia, her sister. He nudged the dog over with his foot and opened the door.
Both of Olivia’s sisters stood on his front porch looking as if they were ready to storm the castle, all they were missing were pitchforks and torches. The dog obviously didn’t get the same we’re-here-to-slay-you vibe, since it had gone all waggle-butt as it weaved a figure eight around and between the sisters’ feet fast enough that he was nearly a blur. Neither Miranda nor Natalie seemed to notice.
“Where is she?” Miranda asked, worry making her voice hard.
“She’s not answering her phone,” Natalie said.
His stomach dropped to his knees and his chest tightened. “How long?”
“How long what?” Miranda snapped.
“How long since anyone has heard from her?” She was alright. She had to be alright.
“Two days.” Natalie twisted her fingers around the gold chain circling her neck. “Not since you were arrested.”
“She was here when I got home. We had…words. She drove off.” Then he’d called in sick and opened the bottle he’d crawled out of this morning. “I’ll alert the sheriff’s department and the highway patrol to be on the lookout for her car, just in case there was a wreck.”
Just the image of her trapped in that ridiculous yellow Fiat at the bottom of a ditch was enough to liquefy his insides.
“You don’t think Larry…” Miranda’s voice trailed off.
“He left town after the paramedics cleared him.” That’s why it had taken him so long to get home that night. He’d insisted on following the asshole’s car until he crossed the county line. “The deputies, highway patrol and my officers had a BOLO on his car just in case he decided to make a reappearance. He hasn’t.” He started to close the door. He had to get them out of here, then he’d spend the day combing the back roads looking for any sign of Olivia. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
“So that brings us back to you.” Natalie slapped her hand against the door, stopping him from closing it, and narrowed her gaze. “What did you say to make her leave?”
“The right thing.” He shut the door.
It had been the right thing. If it hadn’t, it wouldn’t hurt so much.
The chipper sound of the bells tinkling as he pushed open The Kitchen Sink’s door the next day stepped on Mateo’s very last nerve. The sun shining so brightly when he’d woken up this morning had stomped on the first. The dog’s cheerful, greeting followed by his fruitless search for Olivia in the house for the second day in a row and corresponding whimpers, had obliterated several more. The sight of her strawberry body wash in the shower next to his bottle of plain old no-smell shampoo had snapped more than a handful of nerves right in half.
He’d grabbed the bottle, her shampoo, her conditioner, her pink razor and some fluffy spongy thing hanging from a rope and dumped them all in the trash. It hadn’t done a damn thing to make him feel better. He still felt as if a tank had driven over his balls, backed up, and repeated the process until he had pancakes hanging between his legs.
“Well, look who decided to drag his sorry carcass in for lunch,” Ruby Sue said from her stool behind the cash register.
He just barely swallowed a snarly comeback. Biting her head off wouldn’t fix the FUBAR he’d made of his life by falling in love with Olivia, just like spending twelve hours driving every back-road, highway and country lane in a one-hour radius of Salvation yesterday hadn’t turned up even a flash of Olivia’s yellow Fiat. “I’ll just grab a table in back. I’m meeting Luciana.”
She grabbed two menus and led him through the crowded tables toward the booth in the back corner. “So you know half the town figures you have her tied up in some sort of sex dungeon. Personally, I think Olivia skedaddled after you flashed her your ugly.”
“Like anyone could miss it,” he said, not even trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice as his slid into the booth.
Ruby Sue smacked him on the head with the laminated menu before slapping it down on the table. “I’m talking about the ugly on the inside.”
“Look, Ruby Sue.” He picked up his menu as if he didn’t know every item listed on it and peered over the top at the woman determined to give him a what-for. “I love you, but I’m just not in the mood right now.”
“What, to hear that you’re acting like a moron? Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your big grumpy-man feelings, but you need to suck it up.” She slid into the booth opposite him, her narrow-eyed gaze pinning him in place and burning a hole right through the menu he was pretending to read. “I’ve been watching you with Olivia. I know what’s going on here. Life hurts and love breaks your heart nine times out of ten but when it’s that one, then it’s a whole other ballgame.”
“None of that matters to someone like me.” It couldn’t. He wouldn’t let it.
“What kind of someone is that?”
“One who manages to hurt everyone around him.” There. That was the ugly truth of it. He couldn’t be depended on because he always failed them in the end.
Ruby Sue reached an arthritic hand across the table and yanked the menu out of his grasp, forcing him to look at her. “Well my goodness, let me go get the bandages with all the cartoon characters on them so I’m prepared for the worst.”
All he’d wanted since he got out of the VA hospital was to be left alone, and he’d mostly accomplished that goal until Olivia rolled into town. Now he was trapped in a booth with the Sweet triplets’ self-appointed fairy godmother reading him a homespun riot act. There’d be no stopping her until she’d said her piece, so he settled back against the booth. “Just spit out whatever it is you think you need to tell me and then leave me alone.”
“Like I need an invitation to tell you what I think.” Ruby Sue waved off the approaching waitress. She fiddled with the gold band she always wore around her thumb. A bittersweet look came over her face, as if the ring were both a good luck charm and a curse. “A long time ago, I was engaged to Julian Sweet’s eldest brother, Josiah. Oh Lord, that man.” She looked up and smiled. It wasn’t her usual snarky grin, but a soft smile that gave a glimpse of the woman she’d been decades before. “Tall, dark and handsome didn’t begin to do him justice. He was the one who inspired my pecan pie recipe. I was making a pie one day when he stopped by to visit and spilled some apple moonshine in the pecan goo before it had gone in the oven. It was the best pie I’d ever tasted in my life, and I’ve never made it any other way.”
