Page 31 of Gravity of Love
“Fine, I’m going!” Frankie threw her arms up, mimicking her grandma.
What could Liam have to talk to Yaya about?
What wasshegoing to talk to Liam about all day?
More importantly, what was she going towear?
Her good butt jeans, obviously.
“What did you have to talk to Yaya about?” Frankie asked for the third time since she’d walked out from getting ready and rendered him speechless.
Frankie Costas was the kind of beautiful that caught a person off guard and made men forget words existed. She had the sort of face that belonged on angels and princesses, not mortals and common folk. Her hair was spun gold, wild, falling around her shoulders. Her eyes, large and golden brown, were so expressive and intense that he could easily lose himself in them. Her mouth was wide, the top lip with a perfect cupid’s bow, and her lower was so full it was always in a pout. She was like looking directly at the sun, he couldn’t do it for too long.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Liam opened the passenger door of his SUV and told himself he was absolutelynotgoing to look at Frankie’s ass when she climbed in no matter how good it looked in her faded jeans. He was going to spend the day with a friend. A friend who was marrying his brother. That was it. His eyes were cast down until he heard her gasp. They flew up, and she was bent over in front of him, her ass on display like a billboard in Times Square, and he stifled a moan of appreciation that rumbled deep in his chest.
“You kept her!” she exclaimed as she perched on her knees, her body twisted so she was bent over the backseat, which had a hammock-style protector and a dog car seat/bed.
“Yep.” He shut the door and came around to the front seat. Liam had gone a little crazy ordering from Amazon, besides the car gear, new collar, leash, harness, beds for three rooms in his house, bowls for four, and a crate, he’d spent about five hundred dollars on other items that he had no idea if she needed or not.
As he climbed in, he got a text calling him in to work. His first instinct was to say he’d be there in forty-five minutes. It’s what he’d always done. In all the years he’d worked at Pine Ridge, he’d never not come in when he was paged. He also hadn’t had any sort of a personal life. He messaged back that he was unavailable and pressed send. It felt strange but also liberating. He felt lighter than he had, maybe ever.
The second the driver’s side door shut and he turned on the ignition, the rapid-fire questions began.
“What’s her name?” Frankie turned back around.
“Lucy.” He pulled out of the driveway.
“From ‘I Love Lucy’?” She put her seatbelt on.
“Yes.” He began to drive towards the base of the trail that led to the waterfall.
“Your mom loved that show.”
“I know.” Liam remembered her watching reruns of it all the time.
“Why did you keep her?”
“I took her to the vet before the animal shelter, he said that she had unhealed trauma.”
Normally he only said the bare minimum amount of words because he didn’t like talking to people. That wasn’t the case with Frankie. He was only telling her the basics because he didn’t want to upset her, she was very sensitive.
“Oh wow.” Frankie twisted as far as the belt would let her to pet Lucy’s head. “What does that mean? That sounds bad.”
“It was human-inflicted, so it means people didn’t treat her very nice.” Liam’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, thinking about anyone hurting Lucy. If he ever found out who did it and got his hands on them, they would have human-inflicted, unhealed trauma.
“Oh no, poor baby!” Frankie cooed, and Liam could hear Lucy’s tail going wild against the side of her car seat/bed. “So that’s why you kept her?”
He nodded. There was no way he was going to put her in a shelter where who knows who going to adopt her. The vet said she was an Irish Setter and was most likely bred to be a hunting dog and when they saw the hitch in her back leg, they ditched her. He said they needed to keep an eye on it, it could be serious or nothing. Liam wasn’t going to take the chance of a hunter adopting her and then finding out she had an issue and then discarding her. So now, she lived with him.
Frankie turned back around in her seat, so she was facing forward, took a deep breath and blurted out, “I'm sorry I kissed you.”
Liam sensed the shift in the energy, but he couldn’t help but grin. She always said the most unexpected things. It shouldn’t surprise him that they hadn’t been alone for more than a few minutes, and she was addressing the elephant in the room—well, one of the elephants in the room. At this point, they had a herd, a circus.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He shook his head.
