He followed her gaze and was only half-surprised when it landed on a guy about his age behind the wheel. He had dirty-blond hair and was wearing a faded hoodie, and his mouth had fallen open in surprise at the sight of Olivia.

“Everything okay, Olivia?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed hard enough that he heard it, then broke into a flurry of activity, lifting their empty fry container off the table and folding it flat into her wrapper along with a bit of her discarded bun. He didn’t think it was his imagination that she’d gone a few shades lighter.

“I was trying to find a way to bring it up. I guess this is another thing about life out in the middle of nowhere that I’m not crazy about. You end up running into the one person you’d enter a half marathon to avoid even though you hate running.” She gave Gabe a pleading look. “It’s getting pretty dark. We should look for the dog again while we can still see. I’ll, uh, be just a second though.”

When she reached for the trash, Gabe waved her off. “I’ll get it.”

Old boyfriend, he guessed as she headed over to the driver’s-side door of the guy’s truck. The guy didn’t seem that eager to get out. It wasn’t until Olivia came to a standstill by his window and a few awkward seconds had passed that he opened the door and stepped down from the cab.

Gabe gave the last bite of his burger to Samson, gathered the trash, dumped it, and returned to his truck with the dog trotting along at his heels. After getting Samson loaded with help of the stool, he checked his work email on his phone. He skimmed the subject lines to see most were sales pitches by drug companies and a few were responses from clients to the automatic follow-ups they received after bringing in an animal for a visit. He’d look at the messages later.

He kept tabs on Olivia in his peripheral vision. Gabe didn’t need to be an expert at body language to know she was stressed. Her whole body seemed stiff and tense. Her arms were tucked over her chest, and she shook her head abruptly a couple of times, sending that remarkable hair of hers tumbling over her shoulders. The guy didn’t seem to be antagonizing her or Gabe would’ve stepped out. His head was tucked, and he was staring at the ground more than he was at her. Finally, the guy tipped his hat and took off for the ordering window.

Gabe gave her time to get settled in the truck before reversing and pulling out of the lot. Once she was buckled, he asked, “Back to where we came from?”

She nodded, tucking her hands under her thighs.