Pierce My Heart (Women of Willowbrook Book 1) (10 page)

I look back to Grace, her face a mask of disbelief but mingled with delight. Looking around, everyone
but
Evan has disbelief on their faces.

Seriously, what?

“Is that all you need from me?” I ask Grace.

Her face loses the disbelief and a knowing look takes its place as her smile gets bigger.

“Sure thing! You and your new girl are all set to go. You still have my card, right?” she asks, waiting for my nod. “Give me a call and we’ll get her all set up, or if you have any questions just let me know!”

I nod, giving her a small lip tip, grab the starter kit from the counter and make sure I have a good grip on Juliet’s leash before starting towards the entrance door. I hear footsteps behind me and figure Evan has finally disengaged herself from Manny’s side and is following us out.

I just put my hand to the handle before I hear him.

“See you around, sweetheart.”

I look at him over my shoulder, past Evan who is indeed following me.

His previous look gone and now amusement and promise color both his face and tone.

“Yeah, sure thing,” is my noncommittal reply.

There’s no way I’ll run into him again.

I’m not going to be coming here again, at least never on adoption day, and I’d gone twenty-three years in this town without ever seeing him.  

He smirks at me, a knowing look on his face, and crosses his strong arms over his chest. I hear a deep chuckle and swing my eyes to look at Rocco finishing, only to see Manny next to him with a huge, ass grin.

Seriously,
what
?

I decide I don’t want to know; I just want to leave.

I give him my eyes one last time, and then turn back towards the door, shoving my way out to the parking lot.

It’s time to go.

Lion’s Den

Shit.

I’m late.

*              *              *

I’d had to listen to Evan pester me with question after question about the whole ‘incident’ on the way home. They didn’t stray much from, “What the fuck Anna?”, “He was hot, seriously freaking hot, and he was in to you! You kept brushing him off.”, “Again, what the fuck?”

That was about the gist of it.

I had no answer for her. At least, not one she’d like or accept.

She wouldn’t agree with me, she’d just tell me to live and have fun.

I’d ‘lived’ and while the second experience wasn’t much fun, the first sucked something fierce. I did
not
want to bring that shit up then, or ever, so I ignored it. And when that didn’t work (Evan was like a dog with a bone about stuff like that), I distracted her with questions about Manny.

She noted my subject change with one of her signature looks that told me she knew, but didn’t seem to care much. Not if her nonstop talk about him on the way back to my place had anything to say about it.

They’d exchanged names and numbers and he’d said he would call her. The rest was filled with details about his voice—sexy—his hair—really sexy—and his body—so sexy she thought she’d cream herself on the spot if he’d touched her.

That earned a nose scrunch from me.

I loved her, but the girl was crude.

When we pulled up, Evan grabbed all the extras from the car and I grabbed Juliet’s leash to help her out. Luckily, she was calm during the drive because there was absolutely no room for her to roam around in the back. She ended up sprawled across the backseat with her head propped up on the center console.

As soon as she cleared the car she had her nose to the ground, snuffling loudly and exploring her new surroundings. It took a good five minutes for her to make it close enough to the door to entice her inside. And once she’d cleared the door to the inside, her nose was glued to the ground for a repeat.

I decided to give her time, praying that even though it was a new space she wasn’t going to mark her spot everywhere, and unclipped the leash from her collar. I half expected her to take off like a shot the moment she was free, and while she did wander a small ways away (not that there was very far to go) she kept me in range.

I hit the mouth of the hallway and saw the bags on the breakfast bar out of the corner of my eye, but Evan sprawled on my couch was what took my attention.

She’d stuffed the distressed navy toss pillows behind her head and kicked her shoes off. She knew if she didn’t I’d kick her off—literally, I’d done it before (you don’t put dirty shoes on suede, no freaking way). She also had the remote in one hand and was looking relaxed and comfortable as she started clicking through channels.

For some
insane
reason I thought she’d be leaving.

“Uh, Evan? What’re you doing?”

“What’s it look like? I’m getting comfy and checking out your DVR. You’re way better at remembering to record your shit than I am.”

Apparently she was sticking around.

I sighed and headed for the kitchen. Juliet, I noted, was dutifully following (and sniffing) along.

She was right and she was wrong about remembering to record things. If I hadn’t set the recording days (sometimes weeks) in advance, or gotten lucky to stumble across the show before it started, I had the memory of a goldfish when it came to stuff like that.

At least, that’s what Mom said.

But the shows I managed to record were shows I liked, so I did my best to remember to record them. Otherwise, there was Netflix and Hulu.

I could wait if I had to, though I usually preferred not to.

I grabbed the bag I got from Grace and ripped it open, pulling the dog bowl and food out of it. Looking around, I tried to find a spot where I wouldn’t trip over Juliet while she was eating and I was cooking, and zeroed in on the spot to the side of the back door.

I didn’t know if it had been the sounds of the bags rustling or the smell of the food, but she forgot all about exploring her new place as her whole body shook.

“Hang on, baby, I’m coming,” I said through a smile.

She let out a short bark that I’m sure meant, “hurry”, before her tongue lolled out and she started panting.

Too cute.

The second the bowl touched down, her face was in and she was hoovering it up. The way she was scarfing it down, I knew I’d have to get more and soon, but the small bag had enough to last us till after breakfast tomorrow.

I’d ask Maddy what else I needed tonight when we went over for dinner.

After I finished that, I headed back into the kitchen to start on the brownies.

*              *              *

It was after I mixed the brownies.

After Evan left her perch and threatened me with certain death if I didn’t hand over the mixing spoon.

And after shoving the brownies in the oven to bake with counter promises of certain death to Evan if she ate more than two brownies before we left (because I knew there was no way she wouldn’t eat at least two beforehand), that Evan reminded me what I was in store for that night.

I was in the process of changing out my white tank for a black one so I could throw my red gauzy shawl over it, when Evan came marching in and yanked the top out of my hand. I stood there for a minute, staring at her, wondering if she’d finally gone full-on mental.

“What the hell, Evan?”

“I know you met hottie with a body today, but Robby’s friend is coming tonight and you’re upping your hot.”

Crimeny.

How could I have forgotten their set up?

I didn’t dwell on that since I was stuck back at her ridiculous beginning.

“What does he have to do with anything?”

She gave me a look that screamed ‘duh’.

“Um,
hello
. Because he was
all
about you, babe. He saw you strut into the shelter, ass swaying, and he didn’t like it. And when I say he didn’t like it, I mean he didn’t
just
like it, he was all over, wrapped up in,
and
about
it. His eyes did not
leave
the door for a good couple minutes, and the only reason they did was so he could walk
his
fine ass in after you. Naturally I followed, and the other two followed behind me. No way were we missing the show.”  

I gawked at her.

Seriously?

“Evan, I didn’t even get his name and it’s not like he was on his knees begging for mine. He was just being nice,” I said lamely, looking for an excuse to diminish the situation.

I didn’t need her to figure out how much he’d actually affected me. She’d never let it go.

“Are you dumb? He was not being nice. That was
way
more than nice, girl,” she insisted.

“Okay, so his attention felt like more than just being nice, but wouldn’t he have at least asked me for my name?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Besides, Grace threw herself in his arms and he didn’t seem to have any qualms about her being in them by the look of happiness on his face.”

She had no response to that, just a look that said she clearly didn’t like that she had no response.

She sallied forth.

“Well, then all the more reason to look hot as Hades for the guy coming tonight. Show him that you’re worth
way
more than just asking for your name.”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, took a breath, then rolled them back to her.

She had a triumphant look on her face.

Mine was defeated.

“Whatever.”

After she’d picked my outfit out, helped me curl the ends of my hair and reapply my makeup, she took off so she could get ready.

She’d picked out a cute, albeit too fancy, three-quarter sleeve black dress that buttoned all the way down, not leaving much to the imagination. A wide black belt that had a braided infinity symbol hooking the two sides together to cinch and sit under my bust, and some never-wear-for-more-than-a-couple-hours-sitting-down black, peep-toe heels. They had a ruffles and stones decorating the material that crossed over my foot, all sweet and dainty while the heel was skinny, tall, and lethal.

There was absolutely no way I was wearing any of it.

It all said date. That I was trying
hard
to impress this mystery guy.

If I was doing this shit, I was doing it dressed as
me
.

I grabbed my sleeveless, white chiffon button-up that had studs on the collar—usually I paired it with my leather jacket, but I’d nixed it for my black cardigan. I switched out my flared jeans for my dark washed, skinny jeans and added my just-below-the-knee black boots to wear over the jeans. They had two straps covered in studs that crossed at the ankle and a good sized thick heel.

I
loved
them.

Deciding that the studs on my top made up for the difference, I slipped on all the silver I’d worn that day. Even without the studs, my heavier-than-normal makeup would’ve cinched the gap—Evan had a
dab
hand when it came to a smoky eye and she hadn’t disappointed.

After checking in the mirror and approving, I checked my watch and saw I had just enough to time to grab all my shit and get Juliet in the car to head over.

Unfortunately, Juliet decided to make a mess with her food by grabbing the bowl in her mouth and trotting around every room with it, leaving bits of food in her wake.

It was funny until I realized just how much she’d spread it out.

By the time I finished picking up all the food, and fixed my hair (apparently clean-up time meant play time to Juliet), I realized I was going to be late.

Hustling, I hooked her collar to the leash, grabbed my purse, the plates of treats and threw out a Hail Mary as I attempted to make it out of the house and to the car without incident.

*              *              *

Miracle of miracles, it worked and I pulled up to my parents’ place twenty minutes later, and half an hour late.

Mom (and everyone close to me) is
well
aware of my sucky time management skills, so when she told me 6:30 she’d really meant dinner was at 7:30. Giving me plenty of time to get here and relax before diving in to eat.

I see Robby’s metallic truck, Nate’s sweet Camaro with the thick black stripes from grill to fin, Evan’s Wrangler, and a big ass black truck I don’t recognize but figure belongs to Robby’s friend.

I can’t help my snicker when I think of what he might be trying to compensate for.

After I pull up and park, I shrug my purse on my shoulder, wrap Juliet’s leash around my wrist and free her, load my arms down with the plates, lock the doors and head up the walk towards the enormous ornate front door.

All of a sudden it swings open and Evan comes rushing out with wide eyes. Juliet gets excited and I have tip my head down to watch where she’s going so I won’t trip over her and end up sprawled on the concrete covered in brownies and cupcakes.

When Evan makes it to me, Juliet’s excitement grows and I have to do some fancy footwork to avoid getting tangled up.

“Fuck, Anna, I—Wait. That is
not
what I picked out for you,” she snaps in annoyance.

I glance up at her before dropping my eyes again and doing a sidestep out of Juliet’s way. “I figured if you two were determined to set me up then I was going to do it comfortable in shit I liked and picked out,” I say back, just as annoyed.

I start walking forward, trying to move closer to the door when Evan stops me.

“No, wait, forget the clothes. There’s something I’ve got to tell you. The guy, he’s—”

“Crimeny,” I mutter, interrupting her as I fumble with the plates. “Take these would you? If I fall I don’t want to listen to Nate and Robby bitch because I dropped their sweets,” I tell her, practically throwing the plates into her arms.

“Anna!” she snaps again, this time in impatience.

“What?”

That’s when it happens.

Someone must be heading towards us because Juliet gives a huge yank that sends me flying forward. A small scream makes its way up my throat but never clears my mouth. That’s because instead of face planting (almost for the second time that day) I find myself pressed against a hard body with strong arms surrounding me.

The familiarity is unmistakable, but it isn’t Robby, Nate, or even Dad.

Oh no.

It’s
him
.

What the hell is he doing here?

“What the hell are you doing here?”