Mending His Past Read online

  “I still appreciate it,” Olivia said. “I think I needed a quick rescue just as much as the dogs around here.”

  “You might be surprised just how many two-legged creatures we rescue. The sign outside reads Wounded Warrior Rescue. You can take that to mean that the veterans working here do the rescuing, or that this place rescues veterans.”

  “I’ve lived here all my life and the double-meaning of the name never crossed my mind.”

  “There’s something special about rehabilitating animals,” Kat said. “I can’t even tell you how many ex-military folks have come through these doors broken and left fixed. That’s sort of my calling in life—fixing what’s broken.” Kat winked. “You ready to meet the foreman?”

  “Yes. Are you sure he’s going to be okay with me bringing Molly along every day?”

  “He may be the foreman, but I’m the boss.” Kat arched an eyebrow and smirked. “He’ll be fine with it, or he’ll catch it from me. Come on.”

  Olivia and Molly followed Kat down a long hallway toward the south wing of the house. The ocean view was spectacular, and would have been even more breathtaking if half of the windows hadn’t shattered in the storm. As it was, the broken ones were boarded up, obstructing one of the best views of any house in town.

  “This damage is unbelievable,” Olivia said. “It’s a wonder this place is still standing after that storm.”

  “There’s more than enough work to go around, that’s for sure.” Kat shook her head, running her hand along the water-damaged wall beside her. “I’m just grateful none of the dogs were hurt.”

  A radio, set to an oldies station, blared from somewhere around the corner. “I think we found him,” Kat said.

  Olivia’s breath caught in her throat when she turned the corner and found herself face-to-face with Trent’s derriere once again. This time, he stood precariously on makeshift scaffolding consisting of an eight-inch wide plank of wood suspended between two rickety ladders.

  Standing at his full height, his long, chiseled arm had no problem reaching the ceiling to spackle over the screws holding recently installed drywall in place. There was no denying that Army life had been good to him. Real good.

  He’d left to join the military a boy, and had come back a man—a man with superhero-like proportions that were almost too good to be true. The humid afternoon air caused his close-fitting t-shirt to cling to his torso, putting every one of the taut muscles of his broad back on display as he continued working overhead.

  The way he stood up there in his army boots and camouflage pants was enough to make any woman stop and take a second look. With a tool belt strapped around his trim waist he looked like calendar-worthy eye candy.

  She glanced down at her own outfit. A pair of cut-off jeans and an old sleeveless tee. Her work clothes didn’t hold a candle to his. Of all the times to dress like a hobo! She must have looked like a hot mess to him compared to what she’d looked like a decade ago.

  Molly’s tiny fingers clinging to hers helped steady her racing heart. But why was it racing? Embarrassment? Sure, but there was more to it than that. She just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

  Olivia jumped when the same German Shepherd she’d seen a few minutes before barked. He stood, wagging his tail and panting.

  “Quiet down, Sport. Do you want the other dogs to get jealous that I snuck you in here?” Trent said, continuing his work.

  “Hey, Trent, how’s it going?” Kat asked.

  “Slow. Where’s that crew you promised me?” Trent kept his focus on his spackling job as he spoke. “You’ve got all the guys so busy working with the dogs and cleaning runs that there’s nobody left to help rebuild.”

  “They’re here.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Trent looked over his shoulder and locked his gaze onto Olivia, fumbling a putty knife filled with drywall mud in the process. He caught it against his shirt, smearing the mud across his thick, muscled chest.

  Kat cleared her throat and turned off the radio, fighting back a smile. “If memory serves, you two kids already know each other. No introductions necessary?”

  “You know we know each other, Aunt Kat. You used to take us to play on that very beach every summer when we were kids.” Trent scolded his aunt with narrowed eyes as he gestured toward the pristine sand just outside the window.

  “That’s right.” Kat bobbed her head in a slow nod as if she were only just remembering the summers they’d spent together. “You both always got along so nicely. Maybe you’ll be having more fun on that beach together later on this summer. You know, for old times’ sake.”

  Olivia didn’t miss the wink Kat shot at Trent, or the daggers he tossed back in her direction. That’s just great. She smelled a setup. Kat had been after her for a long time to jump back into the dating scene, but would she actually be so bold as to set a trap like this?

  Olivia glanced around the room. It was strewn with extension cords, power tools, and building materials. The one thing she hoped to see most in all the world was conspicuously absent. “Where’s the foreman, Kat?”

  “You’re looking at him,” she said, wearing an ear-to-ear grin.

  That’s what she was afraid of. She closed her eyes and rested a shaky hand on her stomach. How long was this renovation supposed to take? A month? Two months? However long the repair schedule was, it was too long for her comfort.

  Kat picked Molly up and sat her on her hip. “Molly and I are off to play with a litter of puppies. We’ll be back later with dinner. No need to rush. You’ve got all the time in the world to finish this reno.”

  Yep. Definitely a setup.

  The thumping of Sport’s wagging tail against the wall broke the silence that filled the room after Kat disappeared down the hall with Molly. Olivia held her hand out for the curious dog to sniff, wishing it was as easy to move past awkward moments with humans as it was with dogs.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” Trent said. “Kat’s overstepping her bounds. I’ll have a talk with her later.” A fierce rush of blood turned the dark-tan skin of his neck a deep shade of red.

  Olivia chewed the inside of her cheek. Trent clearly didn’t want anything more to do with her now than he had when he’d broken her heart years ago. That was fine—she wasn’t interested in having a relationship with him—or any other man, for that matter.

  She tore her eyes away from his brawny physique, reminding herself of the pain involved in allowing herself to get emotionally entangled with a man. It was just her and her daughter against the world. That was the way she liked it, and that was the way it was going to stay.

  Chapter Three

  Trent took a deep, steadying breath. She was here. Olivia Malone was standing less than six feet away from him. He hadn’t seen her in ten years, and he’d already managed to make a fool of himself in front of her twice in the past hour.

  He climbed down the ladder, his pulse thundering in his ears as his mind raced, trying to figure out how to break the ice. Hello? No, too weak. I’m sorry? Definitely not. That would be too much, too fast. Once he reached the ground, he used the putty knife to scrape his shirt as clean as possible—anything to put off having to speak for a few more seconds.

  “Well, this was unexpected,” Olivia said, stroking Sport’s velvet ears.

  Trent’s eyes shot up to meet hers. She returned his half-smile, easing the tension in his shoulders a bit. How he’d missed that smile. A familiar warmth filled his chest.

  “Tell me about it,” he said. “When Aunt Kat said she’d hire a crew for me, I expected…” Trent paused, searching for the right words. The tilt of Olivia’s head and her single raised eyebrow warned him to choose his next words carefully. “I expected more.”

  Olivia shifted her weight and crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Apparently he’d reached his quota of physical comedy for today, and now it was time to move on to putting his foot in his mouth. Seeing you could never disappoint me. That was what he wanted t
o say, but his chest tightened as the words refused to come out. It wasn’t like he was trying to profess his undying love. All he wanted to say was that it was good to see her, and he couldn’t even do that. As if he needed more proof that he wasn’t relationship material.

  “I expected more—as in numbers.” He choked the words out and a playful smile tinged with cynicism replaced Olivia’s frown. “I thought she was hiring a full crew. She keeps the other guys around here so busy with the dogs, there’s never a spare pair of hands to help with the repairs and renovation.”

  “Nice save. So, what do you have going on in here? Where do I start?” Olivia crossed the room, checking out the stacks of material. “You might be surprised how much the two of us can get done,” she said over her shoulder. “We used to make a pretty good team.” Her gaze traveled over his body, softening as her smile lost some of its joy. She turned back to the drywall and lumber in front of her. “That’s what Dad always used to say, at least.”

  Her dad hadn’t been wrong. Trent and Olivia had always worked well together both on and off the job site, until he’d left and ruined everything.

  “How’s he doing? Even though I only lived here during the summers, I spent more time with your dad than my own growing up. He taught me everything I know about tools. I miss him.”

  Olivia turned to face him. A guarded demeanor accompanied her searching gaze. “Is that all you miss?”

  Her penetrating stare halted the breath in his chest. No. He wasn’t the only one Trent missed. Not by a long shot.

  “Dad’s fine, by the way.” Olivia’s voice broke the awkward silence. “We don’t talk that much though. Gloria never came around to the idea of having me for a daughter. I think she took it as a personal insult when I made her a step-grandmother.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Your dad was the best teacher I ever had. The only lesson I ever learned from my dad was that work was more important than anything else—even family.”

  “Well, you always were a good student.” Olivia turned away.

  He deserved that last jab. She had no way of knowing that the whole reason he’d run off was to keep from following in his father’s footsteps. He rubbed the back of his neck and studied the floor at his feet. “Olivia, I…”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s ancient history.”

  Their past may have been ancient history, but it was very much a part of who he was. He’d made a mistake when he’d left her. A big one. There was no coming back from it, but at least he hoped to make peace with it. And the only way to do that was to make peace with her before he left for San Antonio. Now wasn’t the right time, but he was a patient man.

  “Dad sold the construction company a few years ago.” Olivia shrugged off the disappointment in her voice.

  “So, no more late nights working at the job sites with him?”

  “Those days were over a long time ago. The last time I was on a job site with him, you were there,” she said. “He did give me a few of his tools when he sold the business, though. Speaking of tools, we’d better quit standing around and get to work. Kat will be back with dinner before we know it.”

  Olivia was right. He hadn’t come here today to wallow in regret. Put your big boy pants on and go to work. Trent pointed to the far wall of the large room they stood in. “I’d hoped to finish hanging the drywall and get it all mudded in by the end of the day today. If there’s time after that, I—we need to rough in the partitions in the next room. Aunt Kat wants to turn it into a sort of meet-and-greet area with private, gated stalls for families to meet the dogs.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Olivia pulled a hair-tie from her back pocket and threw her long wavy hair into a ponytail. Sport sat on her foot and leaned his full weight against her, nearly knocking her off balance.

  “He really seems to like you,” Trent said, grateful to have a furry third wheel around. Nervous excitement tingled deep in the pit of his stomach. It was still difficult to wrap his mind around the fact that he was sharing the same space with Olivia.

  The moment he’d arrived in town, he’d been bombarded by memories of summers spent with her as a child and young man, but never in a million years had he expected to see her still living in her hometown. She’d been so full of dreams about making a name for herself in a big city in the old days.

  Olivia struggled to get out from under the dog. “He might like me, but I don’t know how I feel about being crushed,” she said, her lips curving into a smile.

  Trent patted the side of his thigh and Sport trotted over. “He may have lost some weight since coming to the rescue, but he’s still no lap dog,” he said, landing a series of firm pats on the dog’s chest.

  Olivia brushed a few strands of dog hair off her shorts. “He really listens to you. Anyone would think he’s your dog to look at the two of you together.”

  “No, this boy deserves more love than I have to give.”

  His eyes met Olivia’s curious gaze. He’d just summed up about ninety-nine percent of his issues with that one simple sentence. Somewhere between basic training and his four deployments to foreign war zones, he’d lost his ability to feel the way he knew he should. He’d erected barricades to protect against the heartache that accompanies war. Now that he was home, he didn’t know how to tear them down.

  He hadn’t been able to reconnect with his family when he’d gotten back. Not even with his twin brother. It was like someone had opened up his chest and taken all of the good emotions out, leaving behind nothing but a blank slate. He couldn’t give a dog—or a woman—what they needed. But it was all right. There were worse things in the world than being alone, and he’d seen them first hand.

  Trent cleared his throat, needing to change the subject before things got too deep. “I’m thinking we’ll move the ladders over and lift the drywall into place together. Then I’ll hold it up while you screw it on.”

  She held his gaze, seeming torn as to whether she was ready to move on from the miniature bomb he’d just dropped. “Let’s do it,” she finally said, moving toward the ladders.

  Trent breathed a sigh of relief, and in a matter of minutes they were climbing their ladders and fitting the final piece of drywall into place. Olivia drove a few screws in on her end before climbing down and dragging her ladder in front of his. She climbed back up and secured the bottom portion to the studs. “It’s kind of hard to reach the top from this angle. I’m going to have to climb higher. Can you steady my ladder?”

  With the bulk of the drywall’s weight supported by the screws already driven into the two-by-fours, Trent’s hands were free to steady her ladder. He hopped off his own and grabbed hers with both hands. She took a few steps higher until her stomach was level with his face. He couldn’t pry his eyes away from the perfect proportions of her hourglass figure. An inch or so of her midriff peeked out from under the hem of her t-shirt when she stretched to her full height to drive in a final screw near the ceiling. He took in a sharp breath at the sight, filling his senses with the sweet and mild aroma of her perfume.

  His heart battered his ribs from the inside out. If there was one trait he’d developed during his time in the army, it was self-control, but somehow every ounce of his seemed to be flying out the window. There was no way he should react to Olivia this way. She was a co-worker and an old friend. There was no pretty way to say it—she was his ex.

  “That should hold it,” she said, climbing back down. “Not too shabby for a two-man crew.”

  The way her lips parted when she smiled was more than he could take. With his head still spinning from their close proximity, he cleared his throat and stepped back from the ladder. He stood with his hands behind his back and his feet shoulder-width apart. “Yes, ma’am. Quality work.”

  Olivia’s satisfied smile vanished as a hint of hurt flashed in her eyes.

  Ma’am? Had he really just called her ma’am? She was the little girl he’d grown up with—the young woman he’d fallen in love with, and his first instinct was to
push her away.

  He’d hoped the tension from their surprise meeting would melt away. But instead, he’d only reinforced the wall between them when he’d uttered that one word. Ma’am. He couldn’t have chosen a better one to distance himself from her if he’d have tried.

  Never break ranks and run away while under fire. He could hear his old drill sergeant’s voice booming in his head. That’s exactly what he’d done back in college and it was what he was doing right now. The only difference was that he was a dumb college kid when his father had come along and turned up the heat, causing him to buck and run. But he wasn’t a kid any more, and he had no business acting like one.

  Chapter Four

  There was only one thing worse than being ambushed by an unwanted romantic setup—being paired up with a person who went out of his way to show he was uninterested. Olivia didn’t want to rekindle their relationship either, but she wasn’t going around calling him “Sergeant Roland” to rub it in.

  Trent’s sudden formality stung. They’d been through too much together to pretend they had no history—no connection. There had been strolls down Main Street to get ice cream as children. Hours spent together on the beach. Times when he’d vent about his strained relationship with his father. And that night she’d cried on his shoulder when her father had married a younger woman who wanted nothing to do with her. She remembered all those things, even if he didn’t.

  Olivia leaned one of the old wooden ladders against the wall and began climbing again, this time with a putty knife and palette of drywall mud in her hands. The only way to shorten the long day ahead was to get busy working her way through the tasks at hand as quickly as possible.

  “Careful of that ladder. That’s the one I was standing on,” Trent called out.

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were so attached to it. Somebody has to patch that spot up there.” She pointed to a drywall seam near the peak of the vaulted ceiling above them.