Page 20 of Second Chances

When Simona woke her, she was so happy and cheerful to have the day off that Olivia almost forgot about the text message.

To celebrate, Olivia made chocolate-chip pancakes with extra bacon and two cups of coffee for herself. She’d only gotten a couple hours of sleep and needed the extra boost.

She turned her phone back on while Simona was watching cartoons and jumped as her phone chimed in her hands.

-Ignoring me Babe?

She shivered at Brock’s nickname for her.

-Hello? I know you’re there.

-Answer me.

-You fucking bitch, you’ll pay for ignoring me.

-You think you can just do this to me? Lock me up? Take our daughter? Hide away? I’ll find you.

Tears stung her eyes as her phone slipped from her fingers. How was she ever going to get through this? Was she ever going to escape this madman?

Chapter 6

Having a pipe break in an old house wasn’t surprising and wouldn’t normally have thrown him. But he’d been halfway through a shower that he’d desperately needed when it had happened, making the situation a whole lot worse.

He’d spent the entire first half of his day on the roof, cleaning each of the fourteen windows, and he’d removed an old bird’s nest from the chimney area. That had led him to check out the other chimney, and he’d found a similar nest, this one wedged a little further down. When he’d climbed off the roof two hours after he’d gone up there, he was sweaty, covered in ash and soot, and hungry.

Since he’d run out of food again, he figured he’d head into town for a quick burger and then stop by the hardware store and then the grocery store once again.

He’d made several trips into town in the days since the graduation party. Each time, he’d hoped he would run into Olivia and Simona, but he’d had little luck so far.

He’d thought about their date tomorrow night and had wished he’d gotten her phone number so he could text or call her.

He had run into Rowan at the hardware store, twice. Rowan was in the process of remodeling one of his bathrooms and joked about living in the hardware store and how the bathroom was trying to kill him.

Todd reminded him that he was the only doctor in town and didn’t have the luxury of dying.

It had been nice to joke with someone and be asked to hang out sometime, after the bathroom renovation was done.

In the military, he’d been part of a bigger family. He’d missed that and had hoped that he would be able to find friends to watch a game or have a beer with.

But having only half a shower put him in a mood. Driving into town with his stomach growling, he pulled into the town’s only burger place, Roy’s Diner.

He walked in and took a seat at an empty table. Without looking at the menu, he ordered a burger and fries and an iced tea.

He knew the waitress was trying to be friendly to him, but he just wasn’t in the mood for it and pulled out his phone to go over his checklists.

He was frowning down at a few messages he’d received about his retirement and health insurance when he felt a tug on his shirt.

“Todd?”

He glanced over and felt his heart kick in his chest. All of his anger, his weariness, and stress melted away when he saw Simona standing there, smiling up at him.

“Mommy said I shouldn’t bother you cuz you look upset, but I just wanted to give this to you. I colored it.” She held up a place mat, like the one in front of him on the table, only this one was brightly colored. It was perfect.

“Wow.” He lifted her up easily and set her in his lap. “You did this?” He took the paper from her.

“Yes.” She smiled at him.

“All by yourself?” he asked, his eyes scanning the diner for Olivia. Seeing her watching them from a booth near the back, he nodded his greeting to her.