authentication on your phone. Once that’s done you will be able to login to the banking and credit card websites and manage everything yourself. Let me know if you have any questions.
The email was stiff and formal, like I was just one of Pierce’s coworkers and not someone he had dated for years. I couldn’t decide if I was grateful for that, or if it hurt.
I followed the instructions in the email. They seemed convoluted and didn’t make much sense. I had to download a dual-factor authentication app on my phone, then create an account on my computer, then link the two together, then follow another set of instructions to sync my account with the existing banking accounts. Despite following the instructions perfectly I couldn’t get past the third step. Pierce’s instructions didn’t work.
I tried calling him but he didn’t answer. It went to voicemail after two rings.
After banging my head against the table for thirty minutes I called Bonny inside. “Can you read this and see if there’s anything I’m missing?”
She read the instructions and then walked through the steps on my laptop, just as I had done. “Uh. I don’t see the button for this next part.”
“Me neither!” I replied. “It’s nowhere on the website. I guess I’ll wait for Pierce to answer his phone so he can walk me through it.”
Bonny pursed her lips like she had bitten into a lemon. “That boy’s up to something.”
I drove to the Flagstaff Mall the next morning. Harper and Riley were already waiting in the parking lot. Harper was holding a tray of Starbucks coffee.
“I should be bringing you coffee,” I said, “since you’re the volunteers.”
Harper gave me a peck on the cheek. “Now we’re even.”
Riley gave me a big hug and a smile. “This is better than sitting around in the Ranger station on our day off.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Trust me,” Riley said with a grin. “I don’t think any of the guys at the Ranger station look that good in a skirt.”
We set up the tables in Macy’s and Nordstrom’s, which were the only two stores I had permission to use today. Rather than drive back to Happy Bones, I decided to hang out with the guys and help them gift-wrap. Being around them brightened my mood instantly, and I didn’t want to go back to the piles of paperwork waiting on my table.
Harper was lovey-dovey with me all day. Nothing too risque, just soft touches on the arm. Warm smiles. A caressing hand on my back while I took over gift-wrapping for a few customers. It was nice and made me feel loved.
Riley was friendly when I visited his table, but he was more focused on his job. “I’m going to out-earn Harper today, damnit,” he said when I asked why he was so intense.
“It really isn’t a competition,” I reminded him. “The money goes to the same place.”
He gave me a sidelong smirk. “You can say that all you want, but it just makes me want to beat him more.”
I decided that maybe his enthusiasm was a good thing since it was being channeled into raising money for my shelter.
After bouncing between the two tables all morning, I relieved Riley and told him to take a lunch break. I wrapped gifts for customers for a while and then saw him return from the food court, but instead of rejoining me at the table he walked deeper into the store. As soon as there was a lull in the customers I stored the donation jar in the manager’s office and went looking for Riley. I found him in the men’s clothing section.
“Shopping on the job?” I pretended to be aghast. “You’ll never out-raise Harper now.”
“I need a new dress shirt.” He held up two button-downs on hangers. “Which do you like better?”
I looked back and forth between them. “It’s tough to tell. You should try them on for me.”
We walked over to the changing rooms. There was no attendant, and the rooms were down a hallway that was hidden from the rest of the store. “I’ll wait here while—” I began.
“Come with me.”
Riley snatched my hand and pulled me down the hall. All of the changing rooms were open but he chose the very last door. He latched the door and put the hangers on a peg on the wall.
“I have a confession to make,” he said.
“What’s that?”
He grinned lustily. “I don’t need a new shirt.”
He kissed me up against the wall, pressing his body against mine.