Olivia
“Where are we going?” I say, as I adjust Betty into the crook of my arm and follow August through the scrubby underbrush. It’s hot as Hades out here. We’re two days into a heat wave and you’d think the whole world had gone crazy.
I’m starting to think the same of August. I have half a mind to just dart back to the car, because I can’t see how walking farther into the scrub is going to help us cool off, but I follow dutifully behind him because he accompanied me to Fairhope to help Jake with one of his pups, and he sat around patiently for a half hour talking to Jake while Ellie badgered me with more questions.
On the way home, August had said he wanted to show me something, and when a hot Marine tells you he wants to show you something, you damn well better take a look.
Zora jumps around excitedly between us, getting lost in the tall grass. She might have a hard time letting her inner Marine go, but apparently, she turns into a damn puppy-dog when she’s walking through the scrub. It must have been so hard for her all those long months in the Afghani desert, not to mention being cooped up in a kennel all day long after her service. In fact, this is the first time I’ve seen her drop her guard and switch off her internal soldier. A working dog can’t ever just be a civilian again. Their training stays with them always, just like the rest of our infantry men. War doesn’t end when a Marine returns home to U.S. soil. For some, it’s just the beginning.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I say with a teasing lilt to my tone because I just can’t help but push this man’s buttons. The angry Marine turns around with a raised brow, and I raise my own in return.
“You know,” he says, continuing to walk at a clipped pace despite his prosthetic. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d jumped up out of that hospital bed and demanded to get back to work just hours after he lost his leg. “You harp on about me not trusting anyone, but I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that about yourself?”
I stop in my tracks. “I do not have a problem with trust. I’m very trusting.”
“Uh-huh,” he says with a laugh. “You know you’re a control freak, right?”
“I am not.”
“You are. And you’re slower than molasses in January,” he says with another dark chuckle. “And I only got one leg, so I know slow.”
“Did you just make a joke?” I laugh, and then my breath is stolen from me as we come to a clearing. August’s lips pull up in a grin. “Oh my God.”
“Aren’t you glad you trusted me now?”
There’s a small waterfall—only about fifteen feet high—and a deep aquamarine pool glistens in the sunlight as if it were a mirage. Everywhere there is lush, green vegetation and craggy rocks slick with wet moss. “It’s beautiful . . . I . . .”
Zora makes a beeline for the water, running and splashing nose-first as she barks and doggy paddles to the middle. Betty squirms in my arms and begins squealing. I set her down because I don’t want her to hurt her leg, and she takes off after Zora.
“Can she swim?” August says, watching her.
“Apparently,” I say. Jude’s gonna kill me for getting her cast wet, but I don’t say as much to August because I know how he gets when I mention the good doctor. “Is that safe from gators?”
“Well, if it’s not then we’re screwed.” He pulls off his T-shirt. I ogle every inch of his broad scarred back, longing to reach out and touch it, wanting to kiss the hollows and dimples where I assume pieces of shrapnel were once buried. Other women might see his scars and be intimidated or pity August for all he’s been through, but not me. I find them beautiful. Glorious in their imperfection. Before I can stop myself, I reach out and trace my hands over the worst on his upper right shoulder. He stiffens. My insides tighten, and the breath leaves me in a rush. He turns to face me. My fingers trail over sweaty marked flesh, and he meets my gaze. I retract my hand, but he grabs it and presses it back in the spot it was resting. Not in the center of his chest, exactly, but over another deep scar on his left pectoral muscle, the side that took the brunt of the blast. He lets my hand go, and I trace my finger lower, over hard flesh to another scar marring his abdomen. I long to explore all the valleys and plains of his body, every indentation, every muscle, every mark.
August watches my expression with his head bowed. His lips are just a few inches from mine. It would be so easy to stand up on my tiptoes and kiss him, but the moment is stolen from us by Zora dashing out of the water to head-butt my leg and shove her way between us. Clearly someone is a jealous bitch.
I swallow hard and take a step back, releasing my hand. August doesn’t stop me this time, and I’m both thankful and saddened by it. He bends to show her some love, roughing up her hackles as he coos to her and calls her mamma.
Yup. Someone is definitely a jealous bitch, and it ain’t the dog.
August unbuttons his jeans, and I can’t tear my gaze from him. His gaze locks with mine, and he doesn’t look away as he unfastens his belt and jeans and then he shoves them down his legs and sits on a nearby boulder in nothing but his boxers. His right leg is all torn up from shrapnel with a long red scar spanning the length of his shin, and the other is a titanium leg with a moving foot joint. August is a transtibial amputee—he still has his knee and a small amount of flesh and bone below that. Of course, I can’t see that, because a thick flesh-toned prosthetic liner covers his knee and everything below it. He removes his shoe from the prosthetic and slides his jeans all the way off.
I stare, not because this is the first time I’ve seen a prosthetic, but because this is the first time I’m seeing August’s prosthetic, and he’s watching me as closely as I am him. I don’t know if he likes what he sees on my face, or if he’s surprised by my non-reaction, but he stands and turns away, slowly navigating his way over the rocky landscape to ease down into the water. Zora comes and splashes all around him, Betty too, and I swear to God, my heart about melts as he picks up the piglet who’s growing fatter every day and holds her close to his chest.
“You comin’, princess?” he taunts, letting Zora lick his face. Oh, to be a dog right now. I strip off my little summer dress and throw it on the rock beside his jeans. I’m down to my underwear, a lace balconette bra with matching panties that practically have his eyes bugging out. My underwear is the color of spring skies, and August is looking like spring sky is his favorite. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and his heated gaze turns to an eruption of laughter as I run across craggy rocks to dive bomb into the water. It isn’t so much a dive bomb as it is a belly flop. When I come up for air and brush the wet hair back from my face he’s standing much closer than he had been a second before. It startles me, and he smiles when I suck in a sharp breath.
“Blue is my favorite,” he says, as if I’d asked him the question.
“Really?”
“Uh-huh.” He takes a step toward me through the water, and I take one back. With a grin, I dive and swim away, ducking under the waterfall. I come up for air and tread water, waiting. I think maybe he’s not coming when he breaks the surface mere inches from me. I startle. August moves closer, gently resting his palm on my chest and pushing me, so that my back is pressed against the jagged rock wall of the waterfall and we’re both hidden away behind it, sharing one another’s breath, holding one another’s gaze. He leans in and places his hands on the rock either side of my head.
“I didn’t know blue was your favorite color,” I say, stalling. He makes me nervous. I must have fantasized about this man a thousand times or more, but being alone with him—wet and nearly naked—without another soul around to interrupt turns my head to mush and my stomach to butterflies.
“Now you do, princess.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“I wish you’d stop talkin’,” he says, as he leans in, and my mouth snaps closed. I wait with baited breath, and then Zora barks as someone comes crashing through the bushes and we break apart.
“What the hell?” a familiar voice says, and August swims away from me through the heavy spray of the water. I sigh and let my head fall back against the rock wall.
“August Cotton, Josiah said I’d find you here.”
Sheriff Webb? What does she want?
“Don’t suppose Olivia Anders is with you, too?”
Dang it. No point in hiding, I suppose. I push off the wall and swim through the falls. “Guilty as charged.”
“The whole town’s been looking for you two,” she says in an accusatory tone. “Course I went to Tanglewood first; you weren’t there. Went to the shelter; you still weren’t there, but my nephew was.” She glares at me. “Working in hundred-degree heat while you two are here, fooling around in the water, happier than pigs in shit.”
Okay, so it looked bad. But it wasn’t as if I was making them work for free anymore. I was paying both boys a wage. A small wage, but still. “He’s getting paid to work,” I assure her.
“Oh, I’m sure he is,” she replies wiping the sweat from her brow. “Just like you’re working now. Or should I say working it?”
I open my mouth, about to volley back a snide retort when August says, “What’s wrong, Shona?”
“Bettina’s in the hospital.”
I gasp and cover my mouth. “Oh my God.”
August wades through the water toward her. “What happened?”
“Seems she got into it at the daycare center with another kid. He was sprouting stories about you. She pushed him, he pushed her back, and she fell over and broke her arm. She’s in the hospital right now with Miss Sue.”
“How long ago?”
“’Bout an hour, like I said. I’ve been all over town looking for you two. In the future, Mr. Cotton, maybe take your damn cell phone with you,” she says and trudges back the way she came.
August is already out of the water, making his way over weather-beaten rocks. There’s a small hole in the back of his prosthetic, a release valve, and the water shoots out of it so his leg doesn’t fill up and become a lead weight. He slips and almost topples, but he rights himself and moves faster, hopping over the obstacles in his path to get to his clothes. Betty, already grown tired of the water, snuffles around the long grass, no doubt looking for treats, but Zora stays silent and watches August’s every move like a hawk. Dogs are good at picking up tension. If he’d just let me train her up as an emotional support dog, she’d already be helping him feel more at ease right now. Though I guess even the dogs in my program would have a hard time calming someone like August when his little sister is in trouble.
I dress quickly and scoop Betty up instead of making her trudge through the long grass. The poor baby is completely tuckered out. Her cast is soaked, and swollen, and I know I’m going to have one hell of a time convincing Jude it’s purely by accident that it’s this waterlogged.
“She’ll be okay,” I say reassuringly. August ignores me.
“Come on, Z,” August says, and she looks at him with her head cocked to the side. He rolls his eyes and turns to face her, using a hand gesture. “Zora, come.”
She whines and runs alongside him. August may only have one leg but damn that man can move fast. I hurry behind and finally catch up when we reach the truck. August opens the door.
“Get in the car,” he says, and then turns to the dog. “Zora, in the truck.” The dog whines, and I don’t miss the fact that his commands to her were a little bit nicer than the orders he gave me, but I try not to overthink it because his little sister is sick.
I dive in and set Betty on the seat next to Zora. She could take off the piglet’s head in about three seconds flat if she wanted to. Like most MWDs, she’s trained to attack when necessary, but the dog doesn’t pay my little piglet any mind. She’s panting and her ears are pinned back low to her head, indicating that she’s stressed. It could just be the hike through the bushes at August’s clipped pace, but I’m betting it has more to do with her daddy’s anxiety rubbing off on her and everyone else in this truck. I rifle through my purse and find my phone. I have thirty missed calls, most from the shelter, but others from numbers I don’t recognize.
August climbs in, shoves the keys in the ignition, and slams the truck in reverse before I’ve even had time to locate my seatbelt, and then we’re tearing down the road toward town.
I hit a few buttons and Josiah’s voice comes through the speaker, “Hey, Olivia. It’s me. Josiah. Um … you’re gonna wanna call me here at the shelter, apparently Bett’s in the hospital and I don’t know what to do.”
Shit. The poor kid sounds terrified. I don’t bother listening to the rest of the messages, I can do that later. Instead, I call Josiah and tell him to shut up the shelter and head home to Tanglewood, and that August and I are on our way to the hospital. Slipping the phone back in the bag at my feet, I clutch Betty tight as August flies around another corner.
“August, you need to slow down,” I say, holding onto the doorframe for dear life. “We’re not going to make it there if you keep driving like this.”
“My sister is in the hospital, Liv. Don’t tell me what I need to do.”
“She’s gonna be fine, but she won’t be if you total the car and wind up—”
“What?” He takes his eyes off the road to glare at me, and there’s so much anger, so much venom in his gaze that it’s impossible to reconcile this man with the one who was about to kiss me beneath the waterfall just a few minutes ago. “Dead, like my parents?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” I throw him an apologetic look.
“My baby sister is sitting in a hospital room, probably scared out of her mind, and the whole time I was here fucking around with you.” He takes one hand off the wheel and rakes it through his hair. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
Ouch, that stung like a bitch. “Are you saying this is my fault?”
“Well, if you weren’t here I wouldn’t have taken you down to the falls.”
“You couldn’t have known that she’d get hurt. I hardly think that’s my fault. Accidents happen all the time.”
“You think I don’t know that? My parents are dead; my leg is gone, blown to smithereens along with my dog. I know all about accidents, Olivia.”
“I just . . . where are you going?” I say, noticing that he just flew right by the turn-off. “The hospital is on the other side of town.”
“Well I can’t exactly show up with a dog, a pig and some random woman in tow, can I?”
Random? “You know what? Stop the car, let me out.”
“No.”
I glower at him. “Let me out or I’ll jump.”
He pulls over to the side of the road and I swing the door open, grabbing Betty from the seat. I call Zora because I know he can’t take her to the hospital, and she can’t sit in the hot car all day, but she doesn’t come.
“Zora, out,” August snaps. The dog whines and follows his command, jumping out of the truck.
“Heel, Zora,” I say and she does, but she barks at August.
“Go with Liv,” he says, and then he disappears in a cloud of dust.
Only after he’s gone do I realize that I left my purse, and my phone in his truck. Shoot. It isn’t the walk that bothers me. It’s not that far, and the exercise will do me good, even though the hot sun threatens to burn me from my scalp to the top of my boots. It’s the fact that I almost kissed this man, I have kissed this man, and if the sheriff hadn’t shown up today, well, maybe that almost kiss would have led to a heck of a lot more. Maybe not, but these last few weeks I feel like I finally got under August’s skin. I broke through some of his walls only to have him slam a barricade in their place. It seems that’s the way it is with August Cotton.
“Come on, ladies. It’s hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch out here, and there’s a carton of Ben and Jerry’s with our names on it in the freezer.” I tuck Betty under my arm, afraid she’s already had too much exercise for one day, and I issue Zora with a command by lowering my voice the way August does when he orders her to do something. She walks alongside me, and the three of us head for home. We’re not on the road for more than twenty minutes when a car approaches, headed out of town. It’s one of those sleek black sports cars, and I know who owns it the second it slows and I see that shiny Aston Martin winged badge on the hood.
The car passes, turns around, and pulls up alongside us. Zora isn’t happy about the intrusion. Her jaws snap, and her big body jerks with every bark. The car window rolls down and she jumps up, completely savage.
“Zora, down!” I shout, grabbing her collar and yanking her back. She sits—albeit grudgingly—but she doesn’t take her eyes off the doc.
“You know I pulled over because I didn’t think it was safe you being out here all alone, but I guess there’s no chance of anyone getting near you with your guard dog there,” Jude says.
“I’m sorry. She’s an ex-MWD.” I sigh. “I guess approaching cars for her are still a trigger. We’re trying to socialize her, but there are some kinks,” I grimace. “Obviously.”
“That’s August’s dog, right?”
“Yeah, sort of. How did you know?”
“I’ve seen the two of them around town.”
“She couldn’t be rehomed.” I shrug. “And she’s not fit for the field, so it was Paws for Cause or an injection that would take her over the rainbow bridge. She deserves more than that. August seems to be the only one she’ll listen too.”
“Right.” He twists his mouth into a hard line. “And he what, loaned her to you for the day?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, at the risk of having my face chewed off, do you ladies want a lift?”
“Oh, that’s okay. We can just walk.”
“It’s one hundred and fifty degrees out,” he deadpans. As if the sweat pooling between my boobs didn’t already tell me that.
“Okay, that’d be great, thank you.”
“Hop in.” He removes his Wayfarers and places them in the center console. My gaze flits over his tailored black pants and a button-up dress shirt. He’s too dressed up for a day at the clinic.
“I’m not ruining another date, am I?” I say, almost afraid of the answer because now that I’ve felt that cool air-conditioning wafting through the window, I don’t want to give it up.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she’ll forgive me.”
“Oh, my God, really?” I glance down the road. “Okay, that’s it. I am not cock blocking you again.”
“Great, then get in,” he says with a smile that could catapult Colgate sales sky-high.
I laugh and open the door, but Zora goes on high alert, barking at Doc. “Like pet, like owner, huh?”
I frown, but let that one slide. I don’t know what their history is, but I know these two men have a list of issues a mile long.
“In the back, Zora,” I command, though I try using the playful high-pitched tone of voice August takes with her. That way she’ll know I’m not threatened by the doc, and hopefully, we can make it back to Tanglewood in one piece.
The dog whines and hops up on the leather upholstery, jumping into the tiny backseat. Almost immediately she leans forward to breathe down the doc’s neck. I wasn’t sure if she could sense that this man had been far too close to a lot of doggy butts with his thermometer or if she just didn’t like him in principle because August would have hated me hopping in his car, but as far as Zora is concerned, there is no love lost for this veterinarian. Poor guy.
“And how’s my favorite patient doing?” he coos to Betty, and as if her and Zora couldn’t be any more different, Betty practically jumps out of my arms and into the doc’s lap and kisses his downturned face by nuzzling against his lips with her snout, her tiny tongue poking out every now and again. Jude chuckles. “Now, why can’t your owner take after you?”
I shake my head and close the door. “I’m not climbing on into your lap to lick your face, Doc.”
“You got me,” he says, making out like I just shot him in the heart. Jude glances down at Betty's leg and frowns, gently touching the swollen plaster. “Olivia, why is her cast wet?”
Uh-oh.
“Um, we might have taken a little dip in the water,” I say this as if it’s a question, which obviously it’s not, but for someone so pretty, Jude has a mean cranky doctor face.
He scrubs a hand over his cleanly shaven jaw. “You took her swimming?”
“Maybe?”
“Jesus,” he says and starts the engine. “You realize you could have undone all of the progress she’s made.”
“I didn’t know she’d go in,” I explain. “Who knew pigs could swim?”
“Everyone,” he says impatiently. “There’s a damn resort in the Bahamas where you can swim with pigs.”
“Huh.” I frown. “I did not know that.”
“We’re gonna have to set her cast again.”
“Okay, just tell me when you want us to come in.” Jude just looks at me. I grimace. “Oh, you mean now?”
“Yeah, Olivia. I mean now,” he says. Betty hops over onto my lap, and I have to admit, her cast does look bad. “What? You have somewhere else more important to be?”
“Nope, not a single place in the world.” And I don’t. August wouldn’t have left the hospital yet, and at this point, I’m not even sure he wants me back at Tanglewood at all.
An hour later, when we pull in the drive at Tanglewood, August waits on the porch step, but he’s on his feet and storming toward us before Jude has even pulled the car to a stop.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demands, yanking my door open. “And what the fuck is he doing here?”
I glower at him as I climb out and set Betty on the ground. “Driving me home.”
He scoffs. “It had to be him, didn’t it? I bet you just couldn’t wait to call him.”
“Really, August? I didn’t call him. I didn’t have my goddamn phone because I left it in your truck. He happened by when we were stranded by the side of the road.”
“Of course he did.” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “Jude du Pont always comes to the rescue.”
“Well thank God he did, because if not I’d still be out there, getting heatstroke because you left me by the side of the road.”
“Wait. You left Olivia out there on her own?” Jude says. He’s out of the car now, Zora is too, and all the warming she’d done toward him in the last hour simply vanishes.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“It’s not fine.” Jude steps closer to me. “He left you out there by yourself where anything could have happened to you. What if Cole Webb had been the one to find her?”
August flinches involuntarily, as if that thought hadn’t even occurred to him. It hadn’t occurred to me either, but Jude makes a good point. August sneers at the doc. “You’ve got two seconds to get your ass the fuck off my property, du Pont.”
“You need to calm down. You’re scaring her,” Jude snaps, stalking away from me and closer to August. Zora growls.
I frown at Doc. August doesn’t scare me. Okay, well, he doesn’t frighten me in the sense that I am afraid for my safety, but my feelings for him scare the shit outta me.
“I mean it. Get the fuck off my property.”
“I’m going,” Doc says, and steps back, almost running into Zora, who’s practically circling him with her hackles raised.
“Zora, here, now,” I snap at her, but she pays me no mind. She continues to growl at Jude, and I glare at August. “Can you call off your dog, please?” He ignores me. “August!”
“You know it’s not too late for you to come with me,” Jude says. “You’re not safe with him.”
“Not safe?” August roars. “Not safe with me? You got some fucking nerve showing up here.” He turns to face me; his eyes burn bright with rage. “Did this asshole tell you what he did?”
“August—”
“Nah, you know what? He’s right. Maybe you should leave too. Because if you’d rather be with him after the damage he caused, then you’re perfect for each other, but I don’t want you around my kid sister.”
I scowl at him. “What are you talking about?”
“He fucked my fiancée, Liv.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jude murmurs.
I glance between the two men. “Is that true?”
Jude shakes his head and sighs. “It . . . it was a mistake.”
“A mistake that you repeated all summer long. A mistake that wound up—”
“I loved her too,” Jude snaps. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him close to losing his temper. “And she wasn’t exactly innocent in all this.”
“You were my goddamn best friend.”
“I think you need to leave,” I say to Jude. He frowns but opens his car door. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Anytime,” he says, and there’s more than a hint of sarcasm to his tone. I’m thinking the doc isn’t much for self-preservation. He climbs in the car and speeds off down the drive, and I turn and face August.
“Where’s Bettina?”
“Upstairs, asleep.”
“And you’re not watching her?”
“Am I supposed to?”
I sigh. “Yes, you are. You’re sure as hell not supposed to be down here arguing with some guy who stole your girlfriend in high school.” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “God, men.”
“She wasn’t my girlfriend.”
I just shake my head as I walk past, but he catches my arm. I seethe. “Let go of me.”
“I don’t want you seeing him.”
“You don’t get a say.” I attempt to wrench free, but he tightens his hold. “Take your hands off me, August.”
He frowns and glances down at his hand on my arm, as if he wasn’t aware of the punishing grip he has on me. “I’m sorry. I . . . shit, Liv. She was my everything.”
“And she chose someone else. It’s been, what, thirteen years?” I snap. “Get over it already.”
“Eight,” he says abruptly. “She was my fiancée. She was the reason I enlisted.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry. I just . . . I don’t like seeing you with him. I don’t like him showing up on my property after we were—”
“You left me by the side of the road, August.” I turn and glare at him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, yanking me back to him. “I panicked. She’s the only family I have left. I . . . I just keep screwing things up.”
“She’s not the only family you have left,” I snap. “Lay your hands on me like that again, and she will be. And I’m not your ex.”
“Liv—”
“Don’t.” I pull free and stalk inside, slamming the door behind me. I come face to face with Josiah. I’m so startled that for a beat my heart jackhammers about as if I’ve been caught doing the wrong thing. I press my hand to my chest. “You scared me.”
His eyes are dark and angry, focused solely on the man outside as if he could burn holes through the screen and raze August where he stands. “You alright?”
“I’m fine.” I attempt to move by him and up the staircase, but he frowns and gently grabs my arm. The small gesture forces a lump into my throat that I can’t swallow down. Tears sting my eyes, and I exhale impatiently. Josiah looks like he doesn’t know whether to hug me or let me go. The choice is made for him when August opens the screen door.
“Liv,” he says quietly. I don’t look at him. I can’t. “I’m sorry.”
His broken timbre forces a sob from my chest, and I run upstairs and shut myself in the bathroom, leaning my weight against the heavy oak door as I sink to the floor and fall apart. It wasn’t the force with which he grabbed me, or the fact that he’d left me by the side of the road, really—because I’d expect nothing less when it came to Bettina, she would always be his first priority, and I wouldn’t change that for the world. What hurt most is the way Josiah looked at me, expecting me to demand more, expecting me to know how to fix this situation, and I was just as clueless as the broken seventeen-year-old boy staring back at me, maybe even more so.
I’ve fallen in love with August Cotton, but I don’t know how to fix him any more than I know how to leave.