Chapter 2
WARRICK
Ididn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. Dirt on her cheek, fire in her eyes, standing in the middle of my property like she had every right to be there. Telling me to help instead of threaten. Looking at me like I was the problem.
Maybe I was the problem.
By three a.m., I’d given up on rest and started making lists instead.
Lease provisions that had been violated.
Potential liability issues. Talking points for my conversation with Dr. Hanson.
Logical, practical things that had nothing to do with a volunteer coordinator who smelled like dog hair and wildflowers.
By five a.m., I was at the feed store in Hartsville, loading my truck with supplies I had no business buying. By 7:30, I was pulling into the lot, my truck bed packed with fifty-pound bags of dog food, stacks of blankets, and a dozen collapsible crates.
The rational part of my brain—the part that had made me wealthy before thirty—was screaming that this was a mistake. That I should be establishing boundaries, not erasing them.
The rest of me didn’t care.
I parked near the staging area and killed the engine.
The operation looked more organized than yesterday—still overwhelming, but with a sense of purpose now.
Volunteers moved between stations with confidence.
Dogs barked from the holding areas, but it wasn’t the desperate sound from before. More like conversation.
I climbed out and dropped the tailgate, reaching for the first bag of dog food. Fifty pounds of premium kibble—the good stuff that cost twice as much as the generic brands.
I didn’t even own a dog.
What the hell was I doing?
I knew the answer, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I’d started investing at sixteen because I’d seen what poverty did to people—how it trapped them, limited them, made them small. I’d watched my parents scrape by, always one emergency away from disaster, and I’d sworn I’d never live like that.
So I’d learned about money. Studied it. Figured out how to make it work for me instead of the other way around. By twenty, I had a portfolio. By twenty-five, I had real estate. By thirty, I had more wealth than my parents had earned in their entire lives combined.
But somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten why I’d started. It wasn’t just about security anymore—it was about control. About never being vulnerable, never being caught off guard, never letting anything touch me that I hadn’t planned for.
Then Peyton had looked at me with those eyes, and all my careful control had crumbled like wet paper.
I hauled the first bag to the staging area and went back for another. The physical work felt good—mindless, productive, something to do with my hands while my brain tried to sort itself out.
“What are you doing?”
I turned. Peyton was standing ten feet away, clipboard in hand, the same ponytail threatening to escape, the same smudge of exhaustion under her eyes. She’d probably slept about as well as I had.
“Unloading supplies,” I said, hefting another bag onto my shoulder.
“I can see that.” She stepped closer, suspicion written all over her face. “Yesterday, you were threatening to shut us down. Today you’re bringing dog food?”
“I wasn’t threatening. I was explaining the lease terms.”
“You were definitely threatening.”
I set the bag down harder than necessary. “Look, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about—” I stopped myself before I said you. “The dogs. The situation. I figured if I’m stuck dealing with this mess, I might as well make myself useful.”
She studied me for a long moment, clearly not buying it. Smart woman.
“Dr. Hanson is still slammed,” she said finally. “We had two more emergency surgeries overnight. She’s not going to be available for a lease discussion anytime soon.”
“Fine. Then put me to work.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“I’m here. I’ve got supplies. Either tell me where they go, or I’ll figure it out myself.”
Something shifted in her expression—not quite trust, but maybe the beginning of it. “The food goes to the feeding station. Blankets to holding area two. Crates…” She checked her clipboard. “We could use them in overflow. Joel can show you where.”
“Joel?”
“Volunteer. Tall guy, red jacket. He’s by the intake tables.”
I nodded and grabbed a stack of blankets, heading in the direction she’d pointed. I felt her eyes on me the whole way.
The morning passed faster than I expected.
I fell into the rhythm of the operation—hauling supplies, setting up crates, helping wherever an extra pair of hands was needed.
The volunteers accepted me without question once they saw me working.
No one asked who I was or why I was there.
They just handed me tasks and moved on to the next crisis.
It was strangely freeing. No politics, no positioning, no careful calculation of how every action might be perceived. Just work that needed doing and people willing to do it.
Peyton found me around mid-morning, when I was helping reinforce a kennel that had started to buckle under the weight of too many occupants. “You’re pretty handy,” she said, watching me tighten the last bolt.
“I’ve done some construction.” I straightened, wiping my hands on my jeans. “Nothing professional, but I can swing a hammer.”
“Investor, property owner, handyman.” She tilted her head. “What else?”
“That’s the short version.”
“Give me the longer one.”
I hesitated. I didn’t talk about myself—not the real stuff, anyway. Business contacts got the polished pitch. Casual acquaintances got deflection. Nobody got the truth. But Peyton was looking at me with genuine curiosity, and I found myself answering.
“I started investing when I was sixteen. Saved up from odd jobs, learned everything I could about markets and real estate, turned a little money into more money.” I shrugged.
“I was good at it. Still am. Moved here about eight years ago because I saw potential in the area. Bought some land, built some relationships, watched the value climb.”
“And now you own half the town?”
“Not half. Maybe a quarter.” The joke landed flat, and I sighed.
“I own this parcel—the land the firehouse and vet trailer sit on. I lease it to the town at a fair rate. The agreement has specific terms about use and traffic and liability, and this operation…” I gestured at the controlled mayhem around us. “Violates most of them.”
“So why are you helping instead of lawyering up?”
Because of you, I thought. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Because something about the way you stood your ground yesterday rewired my entire brain. Because seeing how you cared for those dogs made me want to take care of them too.
“Because the dogs needed help,” I said instead. “And sometimes doing the right thing matters more than protecting your assets.”
She smiled at that—a real smile, not the guarded one from yesterday. It transformed her whole face, made her look younger and softer and even more beautiful.
That was going to be an impossible face to resist.
“Come on,” she said, nodding toward the holding area. “There’s a dog I want you to meet.”
I followed her through the maze of kennels and crates to a quiet corner where a large mixed breed huddled in the back of his enclosure. He was skinny, his coat matted despite someone’s obvious attempt to clean him up, and he watched us approach with wary eyes.
“This is Bear,” Peyton said softly, crouching down to his level. “He came in yesterday. One of the worst cases. He won’t let anyone touch him yet. Just sits there, shaking.”
She didn’t reach for him—just sat there, patient and still, murmuring soft words I couldn’t quite hear. After a long moment, the dog’s trembling eased slightly. He didn’t come closer, but he stopped pressing himself against the back wall.
“Hey, buddy,” she whispered. “You’re safe now. Nobody’s going to hurt you here.”
A little of the ice around my heart thawed. Watching her with that broken, terrified animal—the gentleness in her voice, the patience in her posture, the way she gave him space while still letting him know she was there—I understood something I’d been trying to deny since the moment I saw her.
This wasn’t attraction. It wasn’t infatuation or inconvenient chemistry or any of the other words I’d used to dismiss it.
This was it. She was the one. The person I hadn’t known I was looking for, hadn’t believed existed, had certainly never planned for.
And all my careful strategies, all my protective walls, all my years of keeping everyone at arm’s length—none of it mattered anymore.
I was in serious danger of falling for her.
And watching her comfort that scared dog, her voice soft and sure, I found myself not minding at all.