Mending His Past

With a broken-down truck and bills to pay, unemployed single mom, Olivia Malone jumps at the chance to work at the rescue. The last person she imagined she’d see there was Trent Roland—the first man to ever break her heart. Despite her resolve to keep her distance, old feelings surface as Olivia and Trent spend their days, working side by side. His strong hands and tender eyes begin to unravel her defenses. They make a great team when it comes to rebuilding the dog rescue, but is she ready to risk trying to build a new family from the wreckage of their broken dreams?


The survival of the storm-damaged Wounded Warrior Rescue depends on Sergeant Trent Roland. But he never expected to see Olivia during his short-term construction trip, and he isn’t prepared for the way she still makes his pulse race. Every stolen glance reminds him of a promised future that never was. The warmth of small-town life and the urge to protect a woman he once called his own tempts him to drop his big-city plans and build the life they once dreamed of here, in Liberty Cove. But the scars of war he still carries tell him that he’s not the man he once was, and true love might be too far out of reach.


Spending time with Olivia and her young daughter make Trent realize that he’s fallen in love with more than one resident of Liberty Cove as he finds himself longing to step into the role of husband and father. But the unexpected arrival of Olivia’s ex-husband could mean that Trent has run out of time to take a second chance at love.

Dinner? With her ex? No, that was not how Olivia's first day on the job was supposed to end.

She strained to keep her emotions in check as Trent crossed the porch in front of her, choosing a seat on the second stair leading to the beach below. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut, promising herself she could do this.

Just a quick bite to eat—then she’d be on her way home to the real love of her life—her two-year-old daughter.

“I’m beginning to think there’s something seriously wrong with this dog,” Trent said, looking at the dog lying at his feet. “He didn’t even give that chicken lo mein a second look when he walked by.”

“The poor thing probably has no idea why he was left behind at the rescue.” She couldn’t raise her eyes to look at Trent when she spoke. “It’s hard to be left behind.”

Was she talking about the dog or herself? She reached out and grabbed a fortune cookie. The crackling of the plastic wrap was deafening as she opened the cookie in the silence that stretched between them.

Okay, she’d definitely been talking about herself.

It was time to stuff her mouth with food and stop yammering before she brought up the way Trent had walked out on her with hardly a word ten years ago.

“It is hard to be left behind,” Trent agreed.

Anger flashed from somewhere deep inside her. What did Trent know about being left behind? Things she’d wished she’d said to him all those years ago rushed to the forefront of her mind. She bit the inside of her cheek, her heart pounding in her ears as she sifted through a torrent of thoughts, looking for just the right comeback.

She looked up from her cookie with narrowed eyes, but the heated words she’d selected died on her lips. The pained expression on Trent’s face doused her anger like a fire extinguisher smothers flame. His gaze was a million miles away as he sat on the stair stroking the dog’s head. How could she be angry at someone who seemed so lost?

Trent sighed and met her gaze. “I see you still eat dessert before your meal.” A hint of a weary smile tugged on the corner of his mouth.

She swallowed what remained of the words that had boiled up inside her. “If you can call this crispy little piece of edible cardboard a dessert, then yeah, I suppose I do.”

Trent grabbed a fortune cookie of his own. “I might as well join you.”

Olivia broke open her cookie and pulled the fortune from the shards in her hand.

“What does it say?” Trent asked.

Did it really matter what it said? There were bigger things to talk about—heavy things that were hanging in the air above their heads, casting a shadow on everything they did. She stared at the slip of paper, looking but not reading it.

“Olivia?”

The sound of his voice took her back to their college days. It was hard to be so close to someone who looked the same but was a different person in all the ways that really mattered.

Olivia straightened the tiny slip of paper with her thumb and index finger and read it aloud. “A tall, dark person from your past will be a part of your future.” Their eyes met again, and she caught sight of something in his gaze that she’d seen long ago. Her pulse picked up its pace.

“How in the world did that cookie know I was coming to town?” Trent asked. A flash of the old Trent she knew lit up his face. Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe? She dropped her broken cookie on her plate and dried her palms on her shorts.

She tore her gaze away from his. No. This wasn’t going to work for her. He didn’t get to walk in and out of her life without warning and act like nothing had happened.

“What makes you think you’re the only tall, dark person from my past? You’ve been gone a long time.” Precisely long enough for her to meet, marry, then divorce the biggest mistake of her life.

He leaned forward, all joking aside, and captured her eyes with an intense gaze. “Am I?”

Olivia sucked in a shallow breath, her gaze falling on Trent’s pursed lips as he chewed the inside of his cheek. “I-I don’t kiss and tell.”

They sat without a word as if Trent were waiting for her to change her mind and tell him every detail of a part of her life he’d chosen not to be a part of. Heat bloomed in her cheeks and spread like wildfire throughout her body, a single question on repeat in her head.

Why was he so interested?