Chapter 9
Gravel crunched beneath their running shoes as they jogged along the creek that ran through the entire length of Fair Oaks’s only park.
Leo sped up so she gained the lead on Holly. “Come on, slow poke!”
“We’re not…in…New York,” Holly puffed out behind her. “Slow down…and…enjoy the…scenery.”
Oh, I’m enjoying the scenery a bit too much whenever we’re running side by side.
As the sun slowly made its descent toward the horizon, the summer heat receded a little, but it was still hot enough to work up a sweat. The way Holly’s damp tank top clung to her had caused Leo to stumble over a root earlier, so running ahead of her was much less dangerous for her health—and their still-new friendship.
As far as she could tell, Holly didn’t have the same problem. She might be attracted to women, but either she was much better at ogling her without getting caught or Leo wasn’t her type.
On the one hand, it was refreshing to be around a woman who couldn’t care less about the way she looked, but on the other hand, it was tough on her ego.
Forget your ego and just enjoy her company. Leo lengthened her stride, taking advantage of her longer legs. “The last one to the bridge buys the scones!”
They raced toward the bridge with Holly hot on her heels, gravel spraying left and right.
By the time they reached the bridge, they were both gasping for breath. Leo didn’t even have enough air left in her lungs to brag about winning the race. They leaned on the wooden railing next to each other.
Holly’s face was flushed from the exertion, and her short hair stuck to her head in damp strands, but she was grinning as if she was the one who’d won the race.
Footsteps on the other end of the bridge made Leo straighten and look up.
Ashley walked toward them, leading a Golden Retriever by a leash.
Leo stifled a groan. Of all the people in Fair Oaks, they had to come across the person she least wanted to run into. Next to her, she felt Holly stiffen too, and Leo instinctively reached out to place her hand on the small of her back. As soon as her fingers touched the damp shirt, she became aware of what she was doing, but withdrawing her hand now would only call attention to it, so she left it where it was.
When Ashley saw them, her steps faltered, but then she plastered a smile to her face. “Out for a run?”
No, we’re going to the opera. That’s why we’re wearing running clothes. Leo bit back the words and just nodded.
The dog was wiggling its tail, whining and straining against its leash to get to Holly.
When Holly bent to greet the dog, the contact between her back and Leo’s hand was interrupted. Finally, she straightened and returned to Leo’s side.
Ash’s gaze flicked back and forth between them. “So you two…?”
“Are out for a run, like you just said,” Holly finished the sentence with a too-broad smile.
“Well, then, I don’t want to keep you. You could pull a muscle or something if you cool down.” Ashley tugged on the leash to get the dog away from Holly, and they continued on their way.
Leo watched her walk away before turning back toward Holly. “You know she thinks you and I are burning calories together in ways other than running, right?”
“Nah. I doubt she thinks that.”
Leo gave her an incredulous look. “Of course she does.”
“Would that be a problem?” Holly asked.
“Not for me. But what about you? The tabloids have been suspiciously quiet since I got here, but what if they start writing bullshit about me returning home for a little fling with a local woman?”
Holly shrugged, and Leo had to ignore the way the movement made the damp shirt stretch across her breasts. “Rumors about a hot affair with you could only help my reputation. I’ve been called a cold fish by some people.”
Leo nearly choked on her own spit. “Excuse me?” Holly was friendly and compassionate. Why the hell would anyone call her that? “Who said that?”
Holly kicked at a piece of gravel, which landed in the creek with a plop. “You know what? Let’s not spoil a perfectly nice evening by talking about them. I think I owe you a scone, so let’s go get it.” She jogged across the bridge without waiting for a reply.
Leo caught up with her. “Didn’t Slice of Heaven close hours ago?”
“Yeah, but being friends with the owner has its advantages. I’m sure she’s got a few left over for me.”
They ran side by side for a while, neither of them saying anything else. When they reached the edge of the park, Leo held her back with a hand on her arm. “Just for the record… I think they’re idiots.”
Holly put her hand on top of Leo’s for a moment and squeezed. “Thanks.”
When they reached Slice of Heaven, the front door was locked, and a closed sign dangled at eye level.
“Looks like we won’t be getting any scones.” Leo’s stomach grumbled in disappointment.
Holly peered through the glass, and after a second, Leo leaned forward and followed her example so that their heads were nearly touching.
Even after their run, Holly smelled amazing.
Leo tried to ignore it and turned her attention to the bakery. It was empty, and so was the display case.
Holly knocked on the glass.
It took a moment, but then footsteps approached, and someone unlocked the door. When it swung open, Sasha Peterson filled the doorway.
Leo rarely had to look up at other women, but she remembered that Sasha, who had been two years behind her in school, had already been her height back then.
The bandanna Sasha wore instead of a baker’s cap held back her braided hair and emphasized her strong features. When she saw Holly, a warm smile lit up her face and immediately made her look less intimidating. “Hey. Let me guess. You were in the neighborhood and wondered if there were any scones left.”
“Um, something like that.” Holly hugged her without seeming to care about the chocolate streaks on her apron, and Leo marveled at the affectionate way she interacted with her friend.
She sure as hell didn’t have any friends like that. Air kisses and pats on the shoulder were much more common in her circles.
Holly gestured toward Leo. “Sasha, you remember Leo?”
“Of course. Come on in.” Sasha invited them into the bakery with a sweep of her arm. She seemed entirely unaffected by being in the presence of a celebrity, and Leo was grateful for that. “I saw you when you came in a couple of days ago. Sorry I didn’t have time to chat.”
“Yeah, it looked busy.”
“Sasha has done really well for herself since she took over the bakery.” Pride colored Holly’s voice.
“Now if only I could get my aunt to stay out of the bakery and enjoy her well-deserved retirement.”
Holly and Sasha laughed as if it were a running joke.
Sasha led them into the back of the bakery, where a bread machine was whirring and several of the ovens were still running, heating up the room.
“You’re still working?” Holly raised her voice a little to be heard over the noise.
“Just trying out a new recipe. Give me a second, then I’ll get your scones.” Sasha put on oven mitts, pulled a sheet of what looked like chocolate cookies from the oven, and scooped them onto a cooling rack.
The heat from the ovens tinged Holly’s cheeks with an attractive flush as she leaned closer and stole a cookie. She blew on it and then took a bite.
“Uh, Holly, those are—”
Holly froze mid-chew. With a gulp, she swallowed the bite of cookie. “I don’t know how to tell you, but you might want to rethink that recipe. I liked your usual espresso chocolate chip cookies much better.”
Sasha laughed, a sound that filled the kitchen. “That’s because they’re not espresso chocolate chip cookies.”
“No?” Holly stared down at the other half of the cookie in her hand. “What are they?”
“Um, I call them Beagle Bites.” Looking at Leo, Sasha added, “I want to branch out and offer treats for our four-legged friends too.”
“You gave me dog treats?”
The wide-eyed look on Holly’s face made Leo join in Sasha’s laughter.
“Gave you? You snatched it up before I could stop you.” Still laughing, Sasha handed her a bottle of water. “Don’t worry. It’s full of ingredients that are good for you.”
Holly drank half of the water in one big gulp. “Will it make my hair all shiny?”
“If it does, let me know, and I’ll sell them as the latest health food to my human customers. All right, let me get you the scones.”
When Sasha left the room, the kitchen seemed much larger.
Holly made a face and emptied her water bottle.
Leo leaned against the counter and watched her with a smile.
“What?” Holly asked.
“Nothing.” Leo reined in her grin.
“Here you go.” Sasha returned and handed over a paper bag.
“What do we owe you?” Leo pulled out the ten-dollar bill she kept tucked into the pocket of her running shorts.
Sasha shook her head. “Nothing. A friend of Holly’s is a friend of mine.”
Being called Holly’s friend warmed Leo more than the residual heat from the oven. Usually, Leo hesitated to accept gifts because in her experience, they always came with strings attached, but Sasha’s brown eyes didn’t seem to hide anything. She put the money back into her pocket. “Thank you.”
When they stepped back out onto the street, the air seemed cool in comparison, and Leo shivered a little. She nodded back toward the bakery. “She seems like a good friend.”
“Yes,” Holly said. “I’m lucky like that.”
Leo marveled at how happy Holly was with what she had. She seemed to already have figured out who she was and what she wanted from life. Unlike me. Maybe it was part of why Leo enjoyed being around her so much. It had a grounding effect on her.
Holly handed her one of the scones. “Come on. Let’s head back before your mother reports us missing.”
Their steps were perfectly aligned as they strolled through the park, scones in hand. The setting sun bathed Leo’s face in an orange glow that softened her usually guarded expression. Or maybe she was more relaxed now that it was just the two of them, away from her parents’ house. Whatever it was, Holly enjoyed that new, at-peace expression on Leo’s face. It made her look even more stunning.
“You know,” Holly said as they stopped on the bridge to enjoy the way the sun shimmered on the water, “getting scones after going for a run kinda defeats the purpose.”
Leo grinned over at her. “Does that mean you don’t want your scone and I can have the rest?”
“Nope.” Holly took a big bite of her scone.
They sprinkled crumbs into the creek and watched small fish snatch them up.
The ringing of Leo’s cell phone interrupted the peaceful silence.
With a grin, Holly realized that Leo was using an Aretha Franklin song as a ringtone too, just that it was “Call Me” instead of Holly’s choice of “A Natural Woman.”
Grumbling under her breath, Leo fumbled the phone from the waistband of her running shorts.
Holly didn’t want to listen in, especially since she knew how sensitive Leo was about any violation of her privacy, but as she started to walk away, Leo put her free hand on her arm and nodded at her to stay.
That show of trust warmed Holly as much as the rays of the setting sun.
“Hey, Saul,” Leo said into the cell phone. “Yes, I know. Tell them I’m working on material for a new album. That should keep them off your back for a while.” She ran her free hand through her hair while she listened to the reply. “Yeah, kind of. You know creativity can’t be forced or hurried along.” She let out an aggravated sigh. “Don’t you think I know that? You’ve told me that a million—Jesus, Saul. Give me a break. Sometimes, you and the label really seem to think I have the IQ of a coconut!”
The corners of Holly’s mouth twitched, but she quickly hid it, not wanting to annoy or hurt Leo. The way she sounded, whatever was going on wasn’t a laughing matter for her.
“What? Saul, you’re breaking up. I’ll call you when I’ve got something for you.” She hung up without saying goodbye and hurled the rest of her scone into the creek, looking as if she would have rather thrown in the phone instead.
They watched the piece of scone drift downstream. It bobbed up and down a few times before either dissolving or being dragged down by fish.
The peaceful expression on Leo’s face was gone.
“You sounded pretty upset,” Holly said quietly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No. Unless you have a second job as an assassin.”
Holly rubbed her chin as if considering it. “Hmm, maybe I should. It certainly would pay better than nursing. Who’s the person you want me to off?”
“My manager.” Leo leaned both elbows on the railing and stared into the water. “He hates me dropping off the grid.”
“But he knows where you are, right? That’s not exactly dropping off the grid.”
“Try telling him that. He wants me in a recording studio in New York, not in Bumfuck, Missouri.” When Holly winced, Leo added, “His words, not mine. The only reason he hasn’t dragged me back is because I told him I’m working on new songs while I’m here.”
“Are you?” Holly asked, even though she already guessed the answer. As far as she could tell, Leo hadn’t opened her guitar case since she’d been home, and she had only played the piano once.
A crooked smile flashed across Leo’s face. “Well, yeah…if you count ‘Scone Woman.’”
Holly couldn’t help chuckling. “Um, I can’t really see that going platinum.”
“Probably not.” Leo sighed. “And that’s all my manager and the label seem to care about these days—how much money they can make with my music.”
“How about you? What do you care about?”
Leo kicked a pebble into the creek. A school of fish swam over, obviously hoping for more scone crumbs. When they found their hopes disappointed, they quickly scattered. “I’m not so sure I know that anymore.”
Holly turned to face her and leaned one hip against the bridge’s railing. Instead of peppering Leo with more questions, she waited because she sensed that Leo needed to work through her thoughts in her own time.
“In the beginning, everything was great. I finally had what I always wanted. Being up on stage, having the fans go crazy over my music… It was electrifying.” She grinned a little. “Better than sex.”
“That’s not hard to top,” Holly murmured under her breath. When Leo sent her a questioning look, she shook her head. “Nothing. So, what changed?”
“I think I got swept up in everything—the fame, the money, the fans shouting my name.” Leo half-turned too so that they were facing each other. “But after a while, I started to feel like I was losing my music…losing myself.”
“But you’re still writing your own music, aren’t you?”
“In theory.” Leo wrapped her arms around herself as if she were getting cold. “But in reality, my songwriters do it for me because I no longer have the time to compose. The more popular I became, the more time the promotion part of my career took up.”
Holly hesitated. She was a small-town nurse, so giving advice to a superstar felt strange, but she wanted to help, so she forged ahead. “I don’t know a thing about the music industry, so please tell me if I’m totally off, but can’t you cancel a few interviews and instead have time to write new songs?”
“Yeah, maybe. But it’s not just that. Saul—my manager—thinks I’m better off sticking to singing and leaving the songwriting to someone else. According to him, he knows exactly what my fans want.”
“Which is?” Holly asked.
“Basically, his concept is sex sells, pretty much like every other pop singer. So I’m stuck working out, shooting sexy music videos, and practicing provocative dance routines every day while my songwriters crank out one song after another about breaking up and making up.”
“I might not be a good representative of your fan base, but you know what I think about that?”
“What?” Leo asked.
Holly pretended to stick her finger down her throat and made gagging sounds.
Laughter burst from Leo, chasing away the shadows on her face.
Holly smiled in reflex. It felt unexpectedly nice to be able to cheer her up.
“Thanks. I really needed that.”
They crossed the bridge and moved back the way they had come, this time walking, not running.
“What about you?” Leo asked after a while. “Are you happy with your job?”
Holly nodded without hesitation. “Oh yeah. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
“Really?” Leo arched her eyebrows. “With patients like my father, it can’t be easy. Wouldn’t you rather work in a hospital, where there are other nurses who can help out?”
“I worked in a hospital for two years. Trust me, home health care is a much better fit for me. I don’t have to hurry from patient to patient. I can take my time getting to know the needs of just one or a few and really establish a relationship with them.”
“But doesn’t it make it much harder when one of them…well, dies?” Leo asked.
Holly blew out a breath through her nose. “Yeah. It does. But I think it’s worth it. It’s incredibly rewarding to know that I’m making a difference for someone, allowing them to be in their own home instead of a hospital.”
Leo reached out and lightly brushed her forearm with her hand, making tingles scatter across Holly’s skin. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re really making a difference for my dad. I couldn’t do for him what you’re doing.”
The praise made Holly’s cheeks heat. “Thank you.”
Leo sighed. “In comparison, it makes my job seem even more meaningless. I haven’t admitted it to anyone, not even to myself, but maybe my father is right.”
“Right about what?” Holly asked.
“About me having sold out. That woman up on stage…that’s not me. I’m just going through the motions and playing the part. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even want to pick up my guitar anymore.”
“Why don’t you go back to the roots, then? Make it just about you and the music again.” Holly remembered hearing her play at school events and summer festivals fifteen years ago—just Leo and her guitar. The experience had left her with goose bumps.
Leo shook her head. “It’s not that easy.”
“No, I guess it isn’t.”
They walked side by side without speaking for a while. When they turned onto Jefferson Street, Leo asked, “Are you on baby-monitor duty tonight?”
“No. It’s your mother’s turn.”
“Oh.” Leo marched a little faster up the street, so Holly couldn’t see her expression anymore.
She sped up too. Was that disappointment in Leo’s voice? A smile stole onto Holly’s face. “Um, did you want to do something tonight?”
“No, no, that’s fine. I just… Well, I could have kept you company, but of course you don’t want to hang around on your night off. You probably have plans.”
Yep, Leo was definitely disappointed—and not hiding it very well. She was nearly pouting. God, she’s cute. Holly’s steps faltered. Stop it. You’ve never been one for celebrity crushes, and you certainly won’t start now. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t Jenna Blake she admired; it was Leo.
“Yeah. I’ve got something special planned for tonight.”
“Have fun, then,” Leo said in a carefully neutral tone. She took two more steps before peeking back at Holly. “Hot date?”
Holly gave her a mysterious smile. “Something like that. Want to come?”
Leo stopped at the corner of the street where she had to go right while Holly needed to turn left. “You want me to tag along on your date?”
“You’ll see. I’ll pick you up in an hour.” Holly started to jog down the street. Leo’s gaze on her back was as intense as the setting sun. Without turning her head, she shouted back toward her, “Make sure to wear something you don’t mind getting slobber on.”
“Slobber?” Leo called back. “Who the hell are you dating?”
Holly just laughed and waved. She was already looking forward to introducing Leo to her date—or, rather, to her dates, plural.
“Don’t I get a hint?” Leo asked for the third time since Holly had picked her up.
“Quit whining. No hints.” Holly waved at a couple that had just left the gas station at the edge of town and then turned right onto the highway.
When they passed the Hy-Vee supermarket, Leo finally started to suspect where they were going. “Ah. You’re taking me to the Maple Street Deli for a burger?” Her mouth watered. “Is that why you mentioned drooling?”
Holly laughed. “No.”
“Damn,” Leo muttered. “I could have gone for a double-bacon cheeseburger now that my nutritionist and my personal trainer aren’t watching my every move.”
“Jeez, that has to be hard.”
“It’s not the fun part of fame, that’s for sure, but, well, sex sells, or so my manager says. So I have to stay in shape.” Leo patted her belly. “But that doesn’t stop me from craving a burger.”
“If you want, we can get one before we head home, but for now, I’ve got something else in mind.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see in a second.” Holly pulled onto a narrow gravel road next to the deli and parked in front of a one-story building with a sign that said small animal clinic. She turned off the engine and made a ta-da motion with her hand.
“Uh, that’s Beth’s clinic. Isn’t it a little too soon in our relationship to introduce me to your mother?”
Holly blinked. “What? No, I…” She growled and backhanded Leo’s shoulder.
It had been some time since Leo had last experienced an interaction like this. Everyone else walked around her as if on eggshells, as if she were fragile or needed to be revered. She liked the way Holly treated her, like an equal, not a celebrity.
“You already know my mother,” Holly said. “Besides, she probably went home hours ago.”
“What are we here for, then?”
“My, my, aren’t we impatient?” Holly unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the Jeep. “Come with me and find out.”
Leo followed her.
Holly unlocked the door to the vet’s office and held it open for her.
“You’ve got a key?” Leo asked as she squeezed past her.
“I sometimes help out by checking on the animals in the holding area or cleaning the kennel in the back.”
Their steps echoed on the tiled floor. Without any pets or people around, the reception area seemed strangely empty, despite the racks of pet food, flea collars, and dog shampoos.
“I’ve got to tell you, you’ve got strange ideas of a fun evening,” Leo said. “Must be because you’ve lived in Fair Oaks for too long.”
Holly bumped her with one hip. “Let’s see if you’ll still say that in a minute.” She led her toward the back of the building. “Um, this question might come a little late, but…you’re not allergic, are you?”
“Allergic to what?”
“To them.” Holly opened a door and motioned at something at the other end of the room.
A low whine greeted them as they entered.
Cages were stacked along one wall, but what drew Leo’s attention was a large wooden box that took up one corner of the room. A blanket was spread out in the box, and on it a yellow Lab lay on its side, nursing a bunch of squirming, whining puppies.
Leo’s heart melted. “Puppies!”
“Look more closely,” Holly whispered so as not to disturb them and guided her closer with one hand on Leo’s back.
The warm touch distracted her, so it took her several moments to make out what Holly was trying to show her. Five of the fur babies were indeed Labrador Retrievers—three yellow and two chocolate ones, but mixed in between them were three tiny kittens, nursing along with the puppies. All of them were well nourished, with fuzzy little pot bellies.
“Oh my God. That’s incredible. Where’s the momma cat?”
“We don’t know. Tom Gaines found the kittens in his barn, abandoned and nearly starved, so he brought them in. We were hoping the animal shelter might have a nursing cat who would adopt them, but Happy here took one look at them and decided they were hers.”
“Happy?” Leo raised one brow.
Holly pointed at the momma dog, who looked pretty happy indeed, tongue lolling out of her mouth in a doggy grin and her tail thumping against the side of the box. “She had to have a C-section. That’s why she’s here. She and her pups will probably go home soon.”
“And the kittens?”
“They’ll go with her until they’re old enough so we can find new homes for them.”
As Leo watched, the dog ducked her head down and licked their furry butts, cleaning puppies and kittens alike. “Amazing. She adopted them just like that?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if she thinks they’re strange little dogs, or maybe she doesn’t care what they are at all.”
Leo sighed. “Wouldn’t it be nice if humans were like that too?”
A wistful smile curved Holly’s lips. “Yeah.”
They looked at each other, and a silent understanding passed between them.
One of the puppies stopped nursing, wriggled out from beneath the pile of its siblings, and tottered toward them on its too-big puppy paws. One of the kittens followed its canine litter mate.
Their mother gave an anxious whine, but Holly produced a doggy treat from somewhere and petted her until she settled back down and continued to nurse.
The puppy tumbled over the low edge of the wooden box and skidded to a stop at Leo’s feet.
Leo bent down, then hesitated and peeked over at Holly. “May I?”
“Go ahead. I didn’t bring you just to look at them.”
Not caring how cold the floor was, Leo settled down on it and held out her hand to the puppy.
It yipped once, sniffed her, and then proceeded to lick her hand.
Laughing, she scratched behind its velvety soft ears with one finger. When the puppy settled down along her leg and started gnawing on the laces of her sneaker, leaving her other hand free, she picked up the kitten.
It let out a squeak of a meow that made them laugh.
Leo cradled the kitten in both hands and touched her nose to the cat’s. Its tiny whiskers quivered, tickling her and making her smile. She buried her face in its fur, which was soft and warm. Her eyes fluttered closed. She felt Holly’s gaze on her, but for once, she wasn’t afraid to let her guard down—not when it was just her and Holly surrounded by a pile of puppies and kittens.
She felt and heard Holly settle on the floor next to her.
“Mine,” Leo mumbled without moving her face away from the little fuzz ball. “Get your own kitten.”
Holly’s laughter mingled with the soft purring of the tiny cat.
Leo’s smile felt as if it were about to split her face. “All right,” she murmured into the kitten’s fur. “I admit this is much better than a burger.”
“Even better than a double-bacon cheeseburger?” Holly reached over to pet the kitten too.
The brush of their fingers against each other set off a sensual enjoyment of another kind. Leo opened her eyes. “Yeah.” Her voice came out a little raspy, so she stopped and cleared her throat before adding, “Way better.” She cradled the kitten against her chest. “Right, kitten?”
As if in response, the tiny cat began to knead against her chest.
“Ouch.” Apparently, kittens at that age already had claws—and they were needle-sharp. “Careful there, that’s my boob.” She tried to move the kitten away from her chest, but its claws were tangled in the fabric of her T-shirt.
Holly reached over and helped free the kitten’s paw. In the process, her fingers brushed the side of Leo’s breast.
A shiver raced through her, and her nipple instantly hardened. She lifted the kitten to provide some strategic cover and struggled to calm her breathing. When she peeked over at Holly, she didn’t seem to have noticed the accidental touch, but Leo’s breast was still tingling.
They sat so close together on the floor that their legs touched all along their lengths.
“Ready to go?” Holly asked after a while.
“No.” Leo wasn’t ready to have this experience end so soon, and it wasn’t just because of the kittens and puppies.
Holly chuckled and picked up another puppy that toddled over to them. “Then let’s stay a little longer.”
As they left the Maple Street Deli and got back into the Jeep, Holly peered over at Leo, who had chatted about the kittens and puppies pretty much nonstop since they’d left the vet’s office. She still had the broadest grin on her face that Holly had ever seen. Her sneakers were covered in dog slobber, and cat hair was stuck to her T-shirt, but to Holly, she was even more beautiful than she was in her music videos.
This wasn’t the reserved woman who had arrived in Fair Oaks two weeks ago or the famous singer she had seen on TV. She liked this side of Leo. Getting to see the puppies and kittens was always a highlight of her day, but sharing it with Leo had been extra special.
“I don’t know which one was more fun—the puppy or the kitten,” Leo said as Holly steered them back onto the highway.
“Why choose?”
“Right. They were both lethally cute.” Now more pensive, Leo stared through the windshield. “You know, with all the cities I’ve been to all over the world and everything I’ve seen, can you believe I’ve never petted a puppy or a kitten?”
“Never?” Holly echoed. “Didn’t you have a pet growing up?”
“No, never. I always wanted one, but my father thought it would distract me from practicing.”
“Practicing?”
“Playing the piano and the violin,” Leo said.
Gil had denied her the experience of growing up with a pet so she could spend more time practicing his preferred instruments? God. Holly was starting to resent him a little, and that wasn’t good. He was her patient after all. She was responsible for his well-being, not Leo’s. But she couldn’t help it.
“Well, you could get one now,” she finally said. “In five or six weeks, Happy’s puppies and kittens will be old enough to go to new homes.”
Leo brushed a few cat hairs off her shirt and watched them swirl through the interior of the Jeep. “I’ll be back in New York by then. Besides, with me traveling for concerts and interviews all the time, it wouldn’t be fair to the poor animal.”
Both were silent for the rest of the ride, their good mood dampened.
When Leo had first arrived in Fair Oaks, Holly couldn’t wait to have her leave again. But now she hated the reminder that Leo wasn’t here to stay. She would miss having someone to talk to and share scones with. Sure, she had other friends in town, but somehow, spending time with Leo was different.
All too soon, she stopped the Jeep in front of Gil and Sharon’s house and turned off the engine.
Instead of getting out immediately, Leo kept staring through the windshield. Finally, she turned her head, and a hint of the carefree smile from earlier flashed across her face. “Thank you for getting me a burger and especially for taking me to see the puppies and kittens. It wasn’t what I was expecting when you picked me up, but it has my usual dates beaten by a mile.”
Holly started to smile, but then the full meaning of Leo’s words hit home. Wait a minute! Usual dates… Did that mean Leo considered their little adventure a date? She knew she should speak up and tell her that it wasn’t, that she wasn’t into dating, just in case Leo might be thinking in that direction. That was how she had handled her friendships with women during the past few years, and she had found that drawing clear boundaries was always better in the long run.
Then why was she just sitting behind the wheel, gaping like a catfish?
Before she could make her vocal cords work, Leo said “good night” and got out of the Jeep. Only the banging of the car door jarred Holly out of her frozen state.
“Leo, wait!”
But Leo apparently didn’t hear her. She was already walking toward the house, her long legs quickly widening the distance between them.
Holly let her forehead sink onto the steering wheel, closed her eyes, and let out a long groan.