“Great. And I know what a hard time this must be for you. The man who broke in was carrying a knife, and without your dog…” She broke off and shuddered. “I can only imagine. I know my producer spoke to you about keeping the focus on the dog, and we’ll do that, but I just want you to know that wherever your emotions take you during filming is fine. If you don’t like how something comes out, we’ll film it again. And when we’re done, we’ll go outside and do some mock footage of you arriving and Pepper getting out of your car. Maybe let her sniff around the parking lot. This was her home for what…?” She glanced at Megan, but Patrick answered.

“She was here for twenty-three days. If you count her time at what used to be our off-site property, it was a hundred and thirteen days total.”

Patrick’s directness clearly caused the reporter to do a double take. “A hundred and thirteen days. How about we round up to four months?”

As the reporter continued to run through the basics, attempting to ease the nerves of Pepper’s owner, Olivia’s attention was caught by two women standing nearby waiting for the interview to begin—but they weren’t paying any attention to the reporter, Pepper, or her owner. They were whispering to each other and had sly looks on their faces as they checked out something or someone in the rear of the room.

Curious what had their attention, Olivia followed their gaze and felt a shot of alarm when she realized it was Gabe they were staring at. At least, she was almost certain it was Gabe. They’d gotten separated a few minutes ago when Fidel had pulled him to the side to ask something about one of the older cats.

He and Fidel had finished up with whatever they were discussing and were watching the interview preparations like everyone else. And there was enough distance between Gabe and Fidel that Olivia felt convinced that it was one hundred percent Gabe who had the women’s attention.

Her heart thumped a touch faster. One of them was facing in Olivia’s direction, and even though she did her best not to stare, she couldn’t help but watch the woman’s lips to see if she could catch what she was saying. “I could make a meal of that, no question.”

The words were just loud enough to make out a few of them, but watching her lips, Olivia felt confident she’d understood most of it. Palms sweating and blood rushing to her face, she looked away. Maybe that wasn’t what the woman had said at all. Who was she kidding? It was, and you know it.

Olivia took a calculated breath, trying her best to refocus. Who cared if some woman wanted to make a meal of Gabe?