Trouble on Tap Read Free Page A

say.
    Olivia sank back against the wall and fought against the tears she refused to shed. She should have known better than to fall for a pretty boy like Mateo Garcia.
    She hadn’t cried this morning when her modeling agent told her she’d walked her last runway because the trend was for slimmer, less-curvy models. She hadn’t cried growing up when practically everyone in her hometown of Salvation had treated her and her family like dirt. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to cry now—no matter how much she wanted to.
    So she would start her new post-modeling life without the man she loved. She could deal with that. She clamped her jaw tight to stop her chin from trembling and sniffled back the threatening tears. It didn’t matter. She’d find the place in the world where she belonged all on her own. No one knew better than a Sweet from Salvation that life rarely gave you what you wanted. You had to fight for it.
     
     

Chapter Two
     
    Today
    Tucking Handsome into her red-and-white polka dot trench coat to protect the overweight three-legged cat from the spring downpour, Olivia Sweet pushed open the door of her bright-yellow Fiat and stepped out onto uncertain terrain. A flash of lighting illuminated the soggy night, followed by a boom that rattled her teeth and scared the bejesus out of the mangy cat, if the claws suddenly embedded like tiny daggers in her boob were anything to go by.
    “He empties the bank accounts and the apartment but leaves you . What a prince of a douchebag ex-boyfriend.” She pried Handsome’s razor-sharp claws out of the very flesh that used to pay her bills.
    Her back tires mired hopelessly in the mud just off the highway, Olivia looked up the hill toward the dirt driveway leading to Uncle Julian’s house on the outskirts of Salvation, Virginia. Even in the limited light from her Fiat’s headlights, it was evident that the rain had turned the drive into a squishy, slimy mess.
    Great. She had a good quarter-mile walk in this mess, uphill, in the dark, in heels, with a snarling, not-quite-tame L.A. alley cat clutched to her chest, and no one was expecting her. Hopefully her sisters would be happier to see her than Mother Nature, who—it turned out—was a royal bitch.
    Grabbing her purse and the keys with her free hand, she slammed the door shut and half slid/half skidded her way up. She’d managed three lurching steps before the thick mud swallowed her canary-yellow stiletto whole. Only the top of her ankle bone poked out of the muck.
    It was times like these when only a girl’s inner Samuel L. Jackson could fully express her frustration. “Motherfucker.”
    The shoes that would have been worth some real money if she could find a buyer online were now impractical decoration. Just what she needed more of in her life.
    Handsome twitched and made that weird mrowly-cat-growl noise.
    “Watch those claws, fur ball, or I’ll leave you out here.”
    The cat hissed.
    Olivia balanced her weight on her still-free right foot, flexed her left foot, spreading out her toes inside her Jimmy Choo for a better hold, and tugged her leg upward. The mud released her foot with a wet slurp, but retained custody of her obnoxiously expensive shoe.
    As she stood with one leg up like a half-drowned, bedraggled flamingo, another flash of lighting and bang of thunder snapped what was left of Handsome’s tentative grasp on reality. The cat lost his shit—clawing and squirming his way free from the confines of Olivia’s trench coat.
    He perched his fat, furry ass on her shoulder for a heartbeat before using her as a launch pad to propel himself into the darkness.
    The force of his leap knocked Olivia off kilter. She whirled her arms around, her heart pounding against her ribs as she fought to stay upright in the slick mud. Backward. Forward. Backward again. The earth and the sky repeatedly traded places. She wibbled and wobbled, clawing at the raindrops for balance before toppling forward.
    Faster than a