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Olivia Bennett is not having
a happy birthday. Instead of blowing out her twenty-nine candles, she’s
stuck in jail, caught red-handed in a graffiti incident that (perhaps)
involved one too many strawberry margaritas. Worst idea ever. The only bright side is that she ended up in the strong arms of the most gorgeous lawman she’s ever seen.
Pete
Sampson (aka Deputy Hot Stuff) faces intense pressure from the sheriff
to find out who’s behind a string of vandalisms. And after her
spray-painting spree, Olivia is suspect number one. Still, Pete can’t
stop thinking about her. Wanting her. Now he’s torn between his
duty and his overpowering desire for the vivacious waitress. But he may
have to bend the rules because true love is more important than the
letter of the law . . .
Excerpt:
Red
paint dripped from Olivia Bennett’s fingers. She tightened her grip on
the metal canister in her right hand and gave it a solid shake. Beneath
her feet, the ladder wobbled. With a startled squeak, she sent a burst
of spray paint onto her boots.
“Sorry, Liv,” Terence called from below.
“Watch
it, will you?” She pressed her palm against the cool, corrugated metal
of the factory wall and took a deep breath. Then she lifted her right
hand and pressed the valve on the spray paint canister, forming a
brilliantly red “S” on the side of the building.
“Almost done,” Kristi said.
Easy
for her to say, standing safely on the ground next to Terence. At the
top of the ladder, Olivia fought to keep her balance as the remnants of
several margaritas sloshed in her stomach. Hell of a way to end her
twenty-ninth birthday.
The
beam of Kristi’s flashlight cast Olivia’s shadow in stark silhouette
over her red-painted message. She leaned right to spray another “S” but
couldn’t reach. She’d have to come down and move the ladder to continue,
but a muffled sound captured her attention.
Mew.
The
sound was soft yet keening. A kitten? Some other baby animal? She
craned her head, peering into the darkness. “Did you guys hear that?”
“Hear what?” Terence asked, his tone wary.
“It sounded like a kitten.”
Kristi
panned the flashlight around them, plunging Olivia into darkness. She
leaned a hip against the side of the building to steady herself.
“I don’t see anything,” Kristi said.
“Okay, put that light back on me so I can get down.”
The
flashlight’s beam once more illuminated her, and Olivia scrambled
quickly to solid ground. “I heard some kind of little animal crying
while I was up there, so keep an eye out.”
“Will
do.” Terence moved the ladder over so that she could reach the next
section of wall to be painted and held it steady as she climbed back up.
Six
letters to go, and they were out of here. Terence would drive them to
his place for a post-graffiti celebration. Olivia was in no condition to
drive herself anywhere tonight. Adrenaline mixed with trepidation as
she stood at the top of the ladder yet again. The margarita buzz had
faded enough to know she was doing a crazy, stupid thing that wasn’t
going to do a damn thing to help the chickens who arrived here daily,
their only hope that death would be quick and merciful.
Based on what the undercover cameras had captured, that hope was slim.
She
ground her teeth, her fingers clenched around the spray can. It was
inhumane the way those birds were treated. Actually, it was inhumane the
way most factory-farmed animals were treated, but this was happening
right here in her little hometown of Dogwood, North Carolina.
Mew.
A
flash of white fur caught her eye, disappearing into the bushes behind
the factory. If it was a kitten, it was tiny. Was its mother nearby?
There weren’t any houses for miles around. Dammit. Now she was going to
have to go on a kitten hunt before she went home. She couldn’t leave it
out here to fend for itself.
“Hurry up, Liv,” Kristi called from below her.
Olivia
raised the canister and let loose another blast of red paint. She’d
just started “I” when the sound of an approaching vehicle reached her.
Her finger slipped, and a fresh coat of paint soaked her hands.
Kristi
and Terence must have heard it too, because the flashlight shut off,
leaving her at the top of the ladder in pitch darkness, afraid to move.
Headlights slashed through the night from Garrett Road, some two hundred
feet to her left. They slowed, then tires crunched over gravel as the
car turned into the factory parking lot.
Christ on a cracker.
“Get the hell down, Liv. We’ve got to get out of here!” Terence whispered.
A swirl of blue lights turned the night into a kaleidoscope of oh, s***. She pressed against the side of the building, stymied by paint-slickened fingers as she fumbled for the top of the ladder.
She was so not getting arrested on her birthday.
Except that she so was.
A spotlight shone from the cruiser, illuminating her in a blaze of
light so bright she could do nothing but press a hand over her eyes and
count how many ways spray-painting Halverson Foods’s chicken-processing
plant had been a bad idea.
The
ladder shifted beneath her, and she groped for the top rung. The
combination of the spinning blue lights with the piercing glare of the
spotlight was seriously disorienting.
“Hands where I can see them,” a male voice boomed.
She
shoved her hands into the air, managing to smack herself in the face
with the can of spray paint in the process. It fell to the ground with a
muffled thump. Oh, this sucked.
“Come down from the ladder, nice and slow, and keep those hands up,” the cop instructed. He sounded nice-ish. Maybe he’d go easy on her. Maybe…
Awkwardly,
she fumbled with her right foot for the next rung of the ladder. It
swayed dangerously to the side. “Terence!” she hissed, her fingernails
scoring metal as she tried to steady herself.
Silence.
She looked down, but the spotlight’s glare blinded her, preventing her
from seeing past her own paint-spattered boots. “Terence? Kristi?”
She managed to get her foot settled onto the rung and took a step down. No answer came from her friends. What the hell?
She
lifted her left foot to take the next step, and the ladder just dropped
out from beneath her. One second it was there, the next she was
plummeting through space.
“Oomph,” came a masculine grunt, as she slammed into someone’s chest and big, strong arms closed around her.
“Terence?”
Her voice was a squeak, because Terence was nowhere near this strong,
and he didn’t smell as good either. This man smelled faintly of
cinnamon, his arms solid as steel behind her thighs, and based on the
hard bulge stabbing into her kidney, he was also armed.
Oh, crap. Crap. Crap!
“Sorry,” he answered her question, setting her roughly on the ground. “Not Terence.”
“Oh.”
She staggered, still blinded by the spotlight aimed at her.
Disoriented, she turned her back and blinked at her shadow on the
factory’s gray wall. Terence and Kristi had deserted her. Bastards.
“Keep those hands where I can see them,” Invisible Cop said.
With
a sigh, she placed them on the wall before her. Her hands glistened
blood-red in the harsh light. She had been caught red-handed. Dammit. She’d always hated being a cliché.
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