Barking up the Wrong Bakery (Happy Tails Dog Walking Mysteries Book 1)
Page 19
Buying the brownstone would make it harder for Olivia to leave the small town that she had grown up in. Even worse, the thought of going into business with her sister had horrified her—but things had changed.
Together, Olivia and Janelle faced the crazed killer of Yvette Dunn and managed to bond.
Olivia had found the strength to tell her sister the truth, and Janelle had agreed to be more cautious about the sale.
In fact, her sister had taken all of her advice. But now …
“I’m not signing anything without reading it,” Olivia said, reaching for the papers. “But I’ll look them over before the deadline. I see that you’ve signed them. Did you bother to read them?”
“It’s a standard contract of sale, Olivia. Don’t be so paranoid!” Grabbing some paper cups from the cabinet, Janelle slid one into a cardboard sleeve and poured out steaming coffee. “Promise me that you’ll look them over tonight.”
“I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to do it tonight. I have another meeting with Lacy to discuss flowers. I thought I wanted lilies, but now I’m not so sure.” It turned out that planning a wedding was a complicated affair. Olivia had all been ready to just marry Andrew in the courthouse, but everyone else in the world had dug their heels in at her suggestion. So she’d started tentatively planning a wedding, only to discover that it was a horrendous affair. She’d hired the best, Lacy McBride, to help her get everything put together. Olivia had never been much of a girlie-girl, but she suddenly had the urge to plan the perfect wedding.
Maybe it was just the competitive side of her talking.
Inhaling the comforting aroma of the coffee, Olivia closed her eyes and took the first sip. As the warm liquid slid down her throat, she felt instantly more amiable.
“I think you have a problem,” Janelle muttered. “You are addicted to caffeine.”
Olivia just shrugged and smiled. “You didn’t make the whole pot just for me. I’ll see if I can’t look at the papers before the end of the week. You could have given them to me this afternoon.”
“Like I said, you’ve been busy.”
“You could have given them to Mom. She seems to have no problems hunting me down.” Pamela Rickard had been overjoyed that her youngest daughter was finally getting married, and she’d thrown herself into the wedding planning. She hadn’t minced words in expressing her displeasure when Olivia had hired a wedding planner, and Olivia’s mother and Lacy had done nothing but butt heads since the very beginning.
The rain had eased up, and Olivia headed back up the steps to retrieve Clyde. “I’ve got a few other dogs that I need to walk this morning. I’ll call you as soon as I look over the papers.”
“Sign them and you’ll have a dry place to keep the dogs rather than forcing them run in the rain,” Janelle reminded her smugly.
“Yeah, yeah.” Clyde moaned in despair as Olivia carried him down the stairs. She tucked him easily under his arm and ignored his protests. “See you later, sis!”
Outside, she glanced at the sky in speculation. Although it was only drizzling, the clouds looked as though they were merely taking a break. It was a good ten-minute jog to Clyde’s owners house, and Olivia wasn’t really one to jog.
“Olivia!â€�
Whipping her head around, she saw Andrew walk briskly toward her. Smiling, she took a moment to drink him in.
Andrew Patterson was one of the handsomest men she’d ever met. A newcomer in Happy Corner, he’d moved from Connecticut to head the IT department at the hospital in Lowell, a neighboring city. He was a few years older than Olivia. His shaggy dark hair was perfect for running her fingers through, his dark smoldering eyes sometimes took her breath away, and his impish smile melted her heart. Although she had been hesitant at every step in their relationship, he never seemed to doubt her for an instant.
“My, isn’t this a surprise?” she said flirtatiously as she put Clyde down and embraced Andrew. “You can’t go more than few hours without me?”
Rather than playing along, he just frowned and drew something out of his coat pocket. “Olivia, what is this?”
Confused, she glanced down at the brochure in his hand.
He was upset. That was rare.
“That’s the brochure for the wedding venue. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Gorgeous? Olivia, it’s four hours away. Why do we need to travel so far to get married?”
All the doubts Lacy had been able to dismiss with a wave of her beautifuly manicured hand came rushing back. Olivia blinked and marshalled Lacy’s arguments. “Lacy just purchased some shares on the land. That gives her clients first choice when picking a date. I know it’s a bit of a drive, but people travel all over the country to get married there. It’s got a gorgeous view of the river, several ballrooms for entertaining, and rooms for the guests to stay in, not to mention that we’re getting a great deal. I thought that you’d love it?” In an attempt to soothe him, she reached up and pressed her hand to his chest.
Normally, when she did that, he’d take her hand and kiss her fingers, but this time, he just shook his head.
“Why are you moving so fast to plan this wedding? I told you that I’d give you all the time you wanted during the engagement. I know how you are about change.”
He wasn’t wrong. Normally, Olivia hated change, and for a while, the thought of getting married had made her break out in hives. It didn’t help that the whole town was watching her and making bets on whether she’d go through with it. Until Andrew had come along, Olivia had been notorious for breaking up with her boyfriends before their one-year anniversary, but the wedding-planning process—especially since she’d hired Lacy—had gone smoothly.
Lacy had pointed out the obvious. The sooner they had the wedding, the sooner it would be over.
“This is just how Lacy gets things done. I don’t have any doubts about marrying you, Andrew. I just want to do it as soon as possible. Don’t you feel the same?”
He ignored her question. “We need to sit down and talk tonight, Olivia. We had a budget set up for a longer engagement. We can’t afford to get married this quickly.”
Puzzled, she cocked her head. Was he suggesting that they couldn’t afford the wedding she’d spent so much time meticulously planning?
Silence fell between them, and he finally sighed. “Why don’t I give you and Clyde a ride back? The weather doesn’t look like it’s going to hold much longer.”
“Don’t you have to go to work?”
“I have time, Olivia. We have time.”
The implication was clear, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she bent and gathered Clyde back into her arms, and they headed to Andrew’s car. The drive back was silent as Olivia tried to collect her thoughts. Everyone was pushing her to get married, and now that she’d embraced the traditions of wedding planning, she couldn’t seem to make anyone happy. Her own mother wasn’t speaking to her, her sister didn’t seem to care, and now even Andrew was upset with her.
Andrew was never upset. Even when she’d investigated Yvette’s murder—after he’d told her not to—he didn’t get angry. When Samantha had nearly run her over, he still hadn’t yelled at her. But now, when she was throwing herself headfirst into wedding planning, he wanted to argue about things?
How backwards was that?
And it didn’t escape her notice that when she’d asked if he wanted to marry her, he’d ignored the question.
She knew that Andrew loved her.
It wasn’t possible that he was getting cold feet—was it?
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