by Jae
“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.