Free Ever After (Love to the Rescue Book 3) by Rachel Lacey

supporting her cause. So why couldn’t she seem to get any sanction passed against them?
    Yesterday, she’d started a campaign to get her followers to write to all of their congressmen and other local representatives requesting a change in legislation to better protect factory-farmed animals and chickens in particular.
    She’d included form letters and a handy little app that would generate an email to the appropriate representative if the person would just enter their name and address. If enough people wrote in…
    Her top priority, though, remained finding an existing law they had broken and proving it. That would get them shut down a hell of a lot faster.
    Her arrest had definitely shone a spotlight on the issue. She’d decided to milk it for all it was worth, owning up to her misdeed and detailing her struggles afterward. Traffic to the website had increased almost fifty percent, and she had over five hundred new “likes” on Facebook. So maybe her arrest hadn’t been totally in vain.
    If she could just keep the momentum going, she might finally be getting somewhere on her crusade against Halverson Foods. Feeling empowered, she reached out to rub the kitten beneath her chin. She jumped back, then came closer, sniffing Olivia’s hand.
    “That’s right. I don’t bite.” She gave her a quick rub, rewarded by a thin purr. “I gotta get you tame so we can quit hanging out in the bathroom like this.”
    The kitten ventured closer, sniffing her bare toes and up her calf. Definite progress. They bonded for a few more minutes, then the kitten retreated behind the toilet, and Olivia left the bathroom. She took the dogs for a walk, then meditated for a few minutes in her bedroom to get her energy centered before work.
    She hurried out to her car, then stopped dead in her tracks. The air whooshed from her lungs as she stared at the fresh graffiti on the side of her car. Again chickens had been crudely painted on the Prius, this time with the message “Butt out.”
    This time, someone had come onto her property. During the night.
    And that was scary as shit.
    Heart pounding, she stood there for several long minutes, unsure what to do. The sheriff’s office had all but laughed at her last time, but this was more serious. Wasn’t it? And what did “butt out” mean? Had someone from Halverson Foods done this?
    Whatever and whoever, it would have to wait until after she got off shift tonight because she was going to be late if she didn’t hurry. She was already one step away from losing her job. Tom wouldn’t be happy if she brought more trouble his way.
    Still rattled, she slid into the driver’s seat and drove to the Main Street Café. She parked at the end of the lot with the driver’s side facing the dumpster so that the graffiti wasn’t visible from the street. No one needed to know about this but her and the Dogwood County Sheriff’s Office.
    She smiled her way through her shift. Eight hours later, she was smiling her way through another police report. The deputy behind the desk, Deputy Hartzler, was not the same guy who’d taken her initial report on Sunday, and if possible, he was even worse.
    He flat out suggested she had brought this on herself when she spray-painted the Halverson Foods plant, and his promise that they would “look into it” left her fairly sure her report would never leave the corner of his desk.
    Asshole.
    “It’s probably a joke,” he said. “Chicken ass . Butt out. Get it?”
    Oh she got it, all right.
    She was going to need some serious meditation tonight to clear his negative energy out of her system. She hadn’t driven half a mile down Main Street when she passed a Dogwood County Sheriff’s cruiser headed in the opposite direction. It slowed, then made a U-turn to fall in behind her. Its lights turned on, and the siren blipped.
    Christ on a cracker.
    She pulled over, hoping against hope it was a coincidence and the deputy merely needed to get by on his or her way to an