Olivia (32 page)

Juicy Fruit looked at her and whined, and she scratched his ears again. Once you got past the sad eyes and big teeth, he was a beautiful dog. He was soft and gentle, nothing more than a great, big, ol’ teddy bear. She hugged him and he licked her ear, making her giggle. She needed a dog like Juicy Fruit in her life. Maybe Clete would be willing to let her borrow him for awhile when she had to hand George over to him. Maybe Juicy Fruit would help dull the pain of an empty heart.

“
Olivia!
”

She jumped out of her skin and whipped her head around as a
very
pissed-off Clete came flying through the patio doors. He grabbed her by her arm and pulled her out of the lawn chair, dragging her into the house.

“Where the hell were you?” he demanded, his face so close to hers she could feel the heat of his breath on her nose. Her eyes crossed from his close proximity and her vision blurred.

“I…” she stammered. She had never been scolded by Eugene, so she wouldn’t know for sure, but Clete’s anger made her feel all gooey inside, as if she were being punished by her father. Or yelled at by Mitch.

“I’ve been driving all over hell and back looking for you! Don’t
ever
leave this house again without telling me where you’re going!” He let go of her arm and grabbed her hand and shoved something into it. “And keep this on you at all times!”

He left her standing alone in the living room again, and this time the bedroom door didn’t click closed behind him. It slammed. Her heart hammered and her breath came in little bursts and she looked down at what he had shoved into her hand. Her cell phone.
Oh
…

A normal person would have felt bad for worrying him, but not Olivia. Once her heart rate slowed in recovery from its fright, it sped back up again in anger.

She was an
adult,
goddamn it! If she wanted to go for a run, she could. She didn’t need his permission. She didn’t need his permission to do anything! Hell, she could stick a fork in a toaster while standing in a tub full of water if she wanted to, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it! She set her jaw and furrowed her brow and burst into his bedroom without knocking. He was standing at the window, glaring out into the yard, and he turned at her intrusion.

“Fuck you, Clete!”

“Fuck you, too, Olivia,” he said, his face void of expression, and turned his back on her.

She slammed the door, then opened it and slammed it again, then stomped down the hallway to Allie’s bedroom and slammed that door, as well. She flung herself onto the bed and cried in wracking sobs for George until she cried herself to sleep.

*  *  *

When she opened her eyes again, it was dark. For a moment she forgot where she was, until she saw hundreds of Nick Jonases smiling down upon her. Her eyes were hot and matted from crying, the bump on her head still hurt like hell, and she wanted to go home. She rolled off of Allie’s bed and cracked open the bedroom door. The smell of food cooking wafted up her nose and made her stomach rumble. She hadn’t eaten all day, and now it was night and she was hungry.

One of the duties of babysitting Olivia was feeding her, and she crept out of the bedroom and down the hallway to remind Clete of that fact. She found him in the kitchen. Pots were simmering and meat was frying, and her stomach growled like a bear when her eyes fell upon a warm apple pie cooling on the counter.

He looked up from the stove. “Hungry?”

Olivia shrugged.

“Grab a plate,” he instructed and pointed to an upper cabinet.

She pulled out a plate with a pretty pattern on it, and handed it to him. He piled it high with fried chicken and mashed potatoes and something green, added a biscuit and some gravy, then handed it back to her.

He reached into the cabinet for a plate for himself and said, “There’s beer in the fridge.”

“Do you have milk?” she asked.

He looked at her in surprise, then reached into another cabinet and handed her a glass.

“Umm… How about the chocolate stuff?”

He crossed the kitchen to dig through the pantry. When he handed her the Nesquik, he was wearing a hint of a smile. “It’s Allie’s favorite, too.”

They sat across from each other and ate in silence. Clete was a good cook, not as amazing as George, but he was good, and Olivia ate with gusto. She even tried the green stuff. She damn near gagged to death when she did. She pushed the pile of goo as far away from her mashed potatoes as she could get it so her spuds wouldn’t be contaminated by being in the vicinity of the horrible taste. Clete watched her and tried to hide a smile, but she caught it.

“What?” she demanded.

“Don’t like your kale?” he asked.

“Is that what that is?”

He nodded and scooped a big forkful of the slimy green stuff up off his plate and ate it.

“That’s disgusting,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose.

“It’s good for you.”

“I highly doubt that,” she said and resumed stuffing her face on everything except the nasty-ass kale.

When they finished, Clete cleared the table and did the dishes and Olivia sat at the table and looked at the apple pie. She
really
wanted a piece of that pie. She’d seen a tub of Cool Whip in the fridge when she’d got the milk out, and that made her want it even more.
Mmm
…pie and Cool Whip, Cool Whip and pie. Yum. Yum. Double
yum!

She looked at Clete, looked at the pie, looked at Clete, looked at the pie, looked at Clete and tried to control him with her mind to slice her up a big ol’ piece of that pie. But he continued doing dishes.

Since wishing was getting her nowhere, she tried a more direct approach and asked, “So… what’s for dessert?”

“Nothing,” he answered and continued scrubbing the frying pan.

“But… I… But there’s a pie over there.”

“I know.”

“Can’t we have that?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You didn’t finish your dinner,” Clete answered. He had his back to her so she couldn’t tell if he was joking.

“But…”

“No pie, Olivia.”

“Seriously?” she demanded.

“Seriously.”

“You… you… you
suck!
” She stormed out of the kitchen, down the hall and into Allie’s room where she proceeded to slam the door. She dug through the room until she found her cell phone, then dialed George’s number. He answered on the fourth ring and, without saying hello, she cried, “Clete won’t let me have any pie!”

“What?” George laughed.

“
Pie
, George. Clete won’t let me have pie!”

“Why not?”

“How the hell should I know?” Olivia cried out in exasperation.

“Well, what did he say?” George asked.

“He said I didn’t eat all my dinner.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go.” George laughed harder. “Next time eat all your dinner.”

“This isn’t funny, you know,” she grumbled.

“Yes, it is,” George countered, still laughing.

“When are you coming home?”

“A day or two,” he assured her.

“I miss you, Georgie.”

“I miss you, too,” George said, his voice still holding onto the laughter, but turning soft and warm, like melting butter.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

George sighed and said, “Because I love you too much to let anything happen to you, and you’ll be safe with Clete.”

She pouted. “He hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t, Liv,” George said with certainty. “He just gets worried about you and sometimes that worry comes out as anger. Believe me, he doesn’t hate you.”

“He hates me,” she insisted. “He tried to feed me kale.”

“
Eww
,” George said and then laughed. “Even I won’t eat kale.”

“See! If you won’t eat it, then I shouldn’t have to eat it, either! Hang on a second…” Olivia opened the bedroom door and headed down the hall. Clete was still in the kitchen finishing up the last of the dishes, and she tapped him on the shoulder. “George would like to speak to you.”

Clete took the phone from Olivia with his dripping, soapy hand. He talked to George for a minute, said a lot of “uh-huh’s” and “unh-uhs,” and then handed the phone back to Olivia without a word to her.

“Well?” she demanded of George.

“Sorry, babe, I tried.” George sighed. “No pie for you.”

Olivia snarled at Clete and stuck her tongue out at him then flounced into the living room and turned on the television. She kept George in her ear and talked to him while she flipped through the channels. He said his day was long and dull and plagued by lawyer-speak, and that he missed her and loved her and promised to bring her a surprise when he came home. Olivia lied and said she stayed in the house all day when he asked. Clete leaned out of the kitchen and raised his eyebrow at that one. She threw a sofa pillow at him and he returned to the kitchen.

Olivia and George said their goodbyes and she hung up the phone and settled into the corner of the sofa. Clete came out of the kitchen with a huge slice of pile and a mountain of Cool Whip, and had the audacity to eat it in front of her. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of even a glance in his direction while he made a pig of himself. Instead, she tossed the remote at him and even though it was only 8:30 and she had just taken a nap, she went to bed.

Chapter Fifteen

At 1:30 a.m., Olivia cracked open the bedroom door and peeked out. The house was quiet and dark. Clete’s bedroom door was closed and no light came from under it. She snuck down the hall and put her ear to the door. Silence. Either he wasn’t a snorer, or he was sleeping on the sofa. A quick tiptoe around the corner revealed he was indeed sound asleep on the sofa, and at the moment not snoring.
Crap.

She
really
wanted a piece of that pie. Ever since Clete told her she couldn’t have any it was all she could think about. She leaned a bit further into the living room and strained her ears. His breathing was regular in pattern, so he was probably deep asleep. But he was also a cop, which meant he would probably wake up at the slightest sound or movement. And the little sucky noise the fridge makes when you open it would probably be all it would take to bolt him upright.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

And then it hit her.
Walmart sells pies!
All she had to do was get to Walmart. She ducked back into the hallway and into Allie’s room.

Allie’s room only had one window and it was kind of small, but it faced the street and wasn’t too far off the ground, so it wouldn’t be too hard to slip in and out of. As a precaution, Olivia ran her fingers along the sill and the edges before she opened it. As she suspected, there was a wire.

Of course Clete would have a security alarm. He was a cop, after all. But she hadn’t seen him arm it when they came home earlier in the day, so maybe it was only Allie he didn’t trust and not the rest of the world. She crept back down the hallway and into Clete’s bedroom. She felt along his window, and when her fingers touched another wire she knew she was screwed. He didn’t trust anyone.

She sat on the edge of his bed in dejection. Damn it, she wanted some pie! She was going to have to press her luck and hope she could open the refrigerator door slow enough to try and minimize the sucky.

As she headed for the door, her bare toe slammed into something sticking out from under the bed. She hopped and cursed under her breath and lay back on the bed with her hand squeezing her baby piggy toe until it quit throbbing. When it did, with curiosity piqued, she pulled the box out from under the bed and snuck back down the hall with it to Allie’s room, and closed the door.

The bedside lamp was only a nightlight, but it was bright enough for what she needed it for. She flipped open the box, expecting to see what every man hid under his bed from the time he was thirteen—porn. But what was in it instead surprised her. The box was full of family photos, specifically those of his ex-wife. Olivia grabbed a handful and started flipping through them.

Apparently, they had known each other for a very long time. There were pictures of a little Clete and his sweetheart at football games and school formals and family get-togethers. They were geeky together and grew up together and apparently had eyes only for each other all through their teenage years. They went to college together. They got married, had a baby and started careers.

At about the same time Allie started appearing in the pictures, so did another person. He also wore the uniform she had seen Clete in almost every day, and they appeared to be partners. Maybe more than just work partners, because most of the pictures were taken at Clete and his wife’s house.

One in particular caught Olivia’s eye. It had been taken in a backyard in the summertime, the picture so sharp and clear Olivia could almost smell the steaks grilling. There was a pink wading pool in the background, and a very young Allie wearing a yellow swimsuit splashed around in it. Clete’s wife and another woman were sitting in lawn chairs, looking up at Clete and his fellow officer as they posed for the picture. They were in swim trunks and bare-chested, and each had an arm around the other’s shoulders in a half-hug, holding each other closer than two half-naked men should be holding on.

She had all the proof she needed right there in her hands… Clete had left his wife to be with another man. That’s why they got divorced. Suspicion confirmed. Officer Cletus Wade was gay. Great news for George, but crap-ass news for her.
Shit
.

Suddenly feeling guilty over what she had discovered, Olivia shoved the evidence back into the box and closed the lid, rushing to return it to Clete’s room before he woke up. When she turned toward the door, Clete was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and his face set in angry stone.

“I… uh…” she stammered.

“Put that back where you found it,” Clete commanded in a low tone that made Olivia jump to meet his demands.

She ducked past him and into his room, shoved the box back under the bed, and hurried back to Allie’s room, with her hand protecting her bottom in case he had the urge to spank her.