Free Catch by Michelle D. Argyle Page B

bench.
    “First,” he said softly. “Here are your
pictures.”
    She looked down at the thick stack of her
grandmother’s pictures, still secured with the same rubber band as
before.
    “Thank you,” she croaked, taking them. “My
mom will be really glad to get these back. I am too. Thanks.”
    “No problem. I’ve got your purse in my car. I
can get it for you later. Is that all right?”
    She nodded and asked, “What happened, Ollie?
It’s been two months. I thought I’d never see you again.”
    He hung his head for a minute and slid his
white tennis shoes across the red bricks. “I called my father that
next morning after we had coffee. I told him I wanted to talk to
him about other options, and he said he was open to figuring
something out. Then I told him about the purses and he chewed me
out for ten minutes. He said if I wanted to work under him, I had
to talk to the police about what I’d done.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
    “Yeah, all the thefts had been reported
except yours. I haven’t told anyone about yours.”
    “What did they make you do? Did you have to
go to jail?”
    He shook his head and laughed. “No, like I
told you before, my father wouldn’t let that happen. They told me
if I could pay for the stolen items, I’d be let off. Of course, I
had no money to do that, really. So I had to go back to work for my
father and earn the money. That took me a few weeks. My father made
sure it was a painful process. He had me cleaning bathrooms at the
Bellagio.”
    She tried to imagine him scrubbing toilets,
and smiled. “You could have answered all those messages I sent you.
You could have told me a lot sooner what you were doing.”
    Hanging his head again, he tensed his
shoulders. “I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me. My
father was breathing down my neck every second, so I decided I
should try to move on from you, but then I couldn’t stop thinking
about you and I decided to do something about it. I remembered what
you said about safety and risk. The truth is, I think you’re worth
a risk.” He looked up, hope in his eyes. “You looked happy to see
me a minute ago. Are … are you?”
    She tried to keep a stern frown on her face,
but couldn’t. Her lips turned upward. “As crazy it sounds, yes, I’m
happy to see you.”
    “Good.” He let out a sigh of relief.
    “How did you find me?”
    “Ah, that. Well, I wrote your sister’s number
down before I gave your phone back …”
    “What!” She gritted her teeth, irritated that
Julia had talked to him and not told her.
    “Yeah, she told me you were going to ECU and
you’re living in Umstead Hall. I, uh, kind of followed you here to
class and thought I’d just send a message and see what
happened.”
    “Uh-huh. Sneaky.”
    “Your sister also told me if I broke your
heart, she’d send her boyfriend after me and he’d cut off my
thumbs.”
    Bursting into laughter, Miranda thought about
skinny Gavin brandishing a knife at Ollie. Yeah, right.
    “She told me about your other boyfriends,”
Ollie said quietly. “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt. I promise if you
decide to be with me, I won’t hurt you like that.”
    “Sometimes you can’t keep promises.”
    He looked straight into her eyes with the
same laser vision he’d used in the café. “I may have been a thief
at one point,” he said seriously, “but I always keep my
promises.”
    She looked away, angry with herself for not
being able to trust him yet—to trust anyone yet.
    His serious expression melted. “So, are you
saying you want to try?”
    “Maybe … but I’m kinda living here in North
Carolina and you’re all the way in Nevada. Doesn’t that make things
a little complicated?” She knew, deep down, that this didn’t matter
in the slightest. She wanted to know if he thought it might.
    “Well,” he said, standing up from the bench,
“I managed to talk my father into letting me get a degree in
business, so I’m only working for him