“He’s not mine,” he snapped.
With a final sloppy kiss to her hand, the dog scurried back over and sat down on Mateo’s right boot.
One eyebrow went up and she snorted. “Sure seems like he is.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.” The dog’s fat tongue lolled out of his mouth. The fuzzy bucket seemed happy enough, but he wasn’t about to become a dog owner. His plate was full already and with the Sweet triplets back home in Salvation, things were only going to get worse.
Chapter Four
Still slightly waterlogged from the night before and sore from sleeping on a pullout couch, Olivia opened the door to her new office at Sweet Salvation Brewery, squeezed her hand between a giant cardboard box and the wall and flicked on the light switch.
She immediately wished she hadn’t. Brown cardboard boxes started at the green vinyl floor and went up to the ceiling. Stretching her neck, she peeked around the stack closest to the door and spotted a green metal desk covered with more boxes. The musty scent of old papers and forgotten information filled whatever pockets of space weren’t taken up by boxes. A defeated groan escaped before she could stop it and she slumped against the doorjamb.
“I’m really sorry about this.” Miranda gave her a quick squeeze around the waist. “We’ve been using this as storage because we thought we had another couple of months before you came home to become the brewery’s marketing chief.”
“So did I,” Olivia muttered as she slipped from her sister’s grasp and slid sideways through the maze of boxes to the opening in front of her desk.
No one would confuse this mess for the tenth-floor offices of Matrix Public Relations in Los Angles, but she could make it work. She had to. It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go. The family brewery was all she had left. She pushed a box on top of the desk with her finger. It didn’t budge. Maybe she needed to take a lesson from the box.
Her uncle had left her an equal share in the failing brewery, along with her sisters. They’d done their part to get what had been a doomed business back in order, now she just had to figure out how she could be a part of the Sweet Salvation Brewery’s turnaround.
Executing a quick spin, she came nose-to-nose with her oldest sister.
“Are you ready to spill?” Miranda gave her a total big-sister-knows-best glare. “I know you were holding back last night.”
“You know you’re only a few minutes older than me. I don’t think that’s enough to call seniority.”
“It’s six minutes and I’m not pulling rank so much as trying to figure out what’s going on with you. Last time we talked, it sounded like your boss was insistent on two months’ notice before you could leave for good. It wasn’t something that loser you were dating did, was it?”
And wasn’t that just like Miranda to examine all the angles until she came up with a likely scenario. Salvation was lucky Miranda hadn’t been the wild Sweet triplet or the busybodies would have spontaneously combusted from all the gossip she would have generated. As it was, Olivia had caused enough trouble on her own. She’d have to explain everything to her sisters eventually, but not yet. Her sisters had spent a lifetime helping her clean up her messes, this time she wanted to do it herself.
Olivia shrugged off her sister’s question. “It’s a long story and more appropriate if there’s a bottle of wine handy.”
“You better not let Sean hear you say that.” Miranda giggled. “This is a beer-only zone.”
“I’ll remember to watch it.” Relieved the deflection worked, she scanned the room again, hoping it wouldn’t look as bad since the shock had worn off. No such luck. “So where are we going to put all this stuff?”
Natalie poked her head in the room, her glasses askew and her lips swollen. “Give me ten minutes. I just have to grab the charts I made outlining how to label each box and where we’ll store them.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Some things never change.”
Sean crossed in front of the open doorway, tugging Natalie along with him. “Make it thirty.”
Natalie turned about ten shades of red and waved her fingers at her sisters as she disappeared down the hall.
Or maybe they do. It took a couple of seconds and several slow blinks to get past this latest shock. Who’d have thought the uptight middle triplet would be sneaking off for a little afternoon delight at nine in the morning?
“Close your mouth or you’ll gather flies.” Miranda shoved a box into Olivia’s arms. “Come on, we’ll load up one of the delivery vans and take everything over to self-storage.”
She snapped her jaw shut hard enough that her teeth clinked. Was nothing the same anymore? Because everything sure looked different. Following her sister out into the hall, Olivia ignored the misgivings making her stomach clench.
“Don’t worry, after we get home tonight, we’ll find a way to give you some privacy there,” Miranda said. “Maybe we can convert the living room to a bedroom with some standing screens. If only Ruby Sue hadn’t rented out Sean’s old house, but as it is, we’re five people in a two-bedroom farmhouse.”
“No big deal.” The box in her hand felt ten pounds heavier, weighed down by embarrassment about what had brought her to Salvation and elbowing her way into a house filled with couples in love. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find some place in town to rent.”
Now, how she’d pay for it, that was a whole new problem. Until she figured out a way to tell her sisters how her entire life had gone straight to hell in a designer handbasket, laying all of her humiliations bare, she had to act like money wasn’t a problem.
Boob sweat was the worst sweat. After almost two hours of moving boxes from her office, beads of perspiration slinked down between Olivia’s considerable assets, which just happened to be covered by a bazillion nerves. It took everything she had not to stuff a pound of paper towels down the front of her shirt to end the torture. Only the near-constant presence of Sean kept her from seeking relief. Of course, there was a good chance he’d never notice with the way his eyes stayed glued on Natalie.