AllFreeNovel
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And she had a point.
Len and Thea's relationship had never been what would be called friendly. Sharing Millie had been tough enough, and now Thea found out about my friendship with Len. Sharing irked them both.
The night with Len cleared my head a little, but by Saturday morning, I was back to where I started: my brain wracked with ways to convince Thea to drop the pretense that we weren't together. That we shouldn't date. Because I had made up my mind to marry her when we shared that first kiss.
And even as she tried to distract me from my goal by going out of town for a singles’ event I was glad to have more time to convince her as much.
I sipped a cup of coffee, expecting Thea but instead spotting a gray sedan carefully picking its way down the pitted road. I pushed myself off the rocking chair on my porch to stand.
Dana.
She'd just moved to New Hampshire on Wednesday and I hadn't expected to see her until sometime next week.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, gripping my coffee mug in one hand and hanging over the railing.
"Whitney said she'd be in town and wanted to check up on a bull moose and I wanted to tag along."
I frowned at that. "You're not going into the cage, right?"
She shrugged.
"Well, if you are, give me a heads up and I'll tag along."
We had a strict policy of not going into cages alone at the rescue. While most of the animals were standoffish or, with the bear, downright docile, years ago an otherwise sweet animal had mauled my grandfather's arm.
So far I'd run the place without any medical incidents more serious than some scrapes and falls. Whitney, while competent, tended to be too brave for her own good and I didn't want Dana to get the idea that she'd be working close up with the animals by herself.
On top of that, something about the new bull moose put me on edge. When he first came in, hot off being bounced off a truck, he’d been docile but once he got better, he'd charged Jim one day. The incident rattled Jim and that was hard to do. I’d breathe a sigh of relief when we could release the moose back into the wild.
"Will do," Dana said with a smile.
"You want a cup of coffee while you wait?" I asked, holding up my empty mug.
Dana looked toward the road. "Sure. That'd be nice. I went out this morning to run some errands, but the coffee shop wasn't open yet."
I gestured for Dana to follow me into my house. The tiny cabin didn't look like much on the outside, but the interior was cozy. More than enough room for me, anyway. The front door opened up into a postage stamp sized living room and I rounded the small breakfast bar to the coffeemaker.
"Yeah, that's Tammy's fault. She used to open the place at six so the workers at the cabinetry shop could get a bite to eat before their shift, but she broke her hip last winter and can't be bothered anymore. Sometimes she doesn't open the place until nine."
"Couldn't they just hire someone else?" Dana followed me inside, her face wrinkling in confusion.
I laughed. "Not around here. Tammy only keeps the job because she enjoys being the town gossip and the owner lets her bring her dog into work. I don't think that meets the health code, but who's complaining?"
"No one who wants coffee."
I opened a cabinet and pulled out another mug. "Exactly. Now, how do you take your coffee?"
"Black would be great." I poured a cup, handing it to her and gesturing for her to take a seat.
She settled onto a stool. "What are you up to this weekend?"
"Going out of town actually," I said, nodding toward the overnight bag placed by the door.
"Doing anything fun?" She took a sip of coffee and shot me a smile.
"Yeah, actually." I ran a hand through my hair, unsure of exactly how much to spill. "Thea and I have tickets to a thing."
She raised an eyebrow. "So, are you two…"
