Boxed Set: Intercepted by Love (The Complete Collection): Books One - Book Six by Rachelle Ayala Page B

fought over her face. Andie shrugged and pulled on her coat.
    “It was only one date. I was just humoring Dad. You know I can’t leave you guys. We’re a family together, the three of us, and now that Dad’s sick, we have to stick together. This guy, Cade, he travels around and I’m just getting to know him while he’s here.”
    “You like him, I can tell. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you were to find someone, we’d let you go.”
    Andie gave her mom a kiss. “Now’s not a good time. I’m going to go look for Gollie.”
    She’d called Fran and asked her to be on the lookout for Gollie, but unfortunately, no one had seen her in the neighborhood. Andie couldn’t sit around and do nothing.
    “Sure, I hope you find her, but don’t hold out on us about Cade. We want to meet him. Your dad might have had a stroke, but he’s still your father, and he doesn’t want to be left out.”
    # # #
    The weights clinked on the weight stand as Cade hefted the three hundred pound barbell from his chest. His entire body ached, but he had to keep in shape. Even though his shoulder bothered him, the remnants of an injury two years ago, he had to power through and be ready for conditioning camp.
    The late night with Andie and talking about himself had left him numb and drained. He hadn’t spoken about his foster parents to anyone, not his agent, or any of the people he met after going pro.
    Nobody had cared, and nobody admired weaklings.
    Hooking his feet on the sit-up board, Cade twisted and turned, and squeezed his abdominals at a punishing pace. Red lay at his side, his eyes following Cade’s motion up and down the board.
    “You think I do this for fun, do you?” Cade wiped sweat from his brow and fanned his damp tank top. “This body’s all I got, and football is all I have besides you, buddy.”
    Even as he said that, his heart ached for more, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Andie. She’d liked him for his good heart. She saw him as a friend, and in her eyes, he was the good guy. Now that they had this friendship, he wasn’t about to let his lust and sexual desire ruin it. She was never going to be one of his hookups or women he handed gift baskets to. She was better. She was his first friend.
    “Come on, boy. Let’s go for a run.” Cade pulled on sweatpants and a hoodie, and checked the temperature before donning his knit cap and running shoes. He grabbed a leash and buckled it on Red’s collar.
    The two of them bounded down the icy steps and slid across the sidewalk. Snow was actually fun for a California boy. Cade couldn’t help packing a snowball and drilling it into the side of a tree trunk.
    College Town was dead on a Saturday morning, and no one was at the bar. Plastic cups littered the sidewalk with an occasional bottle thrown among them.
    Cade and Red took off going up hill toward the campus. The university was surrounded by natural beauty, although right now, the trees were spindly sentinels devoid of leaves, and snow covered the landscape. The lake on campus was iced over, but droplets of water trickled down the partially frozen side of a cliff.
    Cade worked up a sweat running up a slippery street. Somehow, he found himself going by Andie’s house. Should he stop and look in on her? Or would that be too stalkerish?
    Her mother hadn’t been very welcoming when he’d dropped her off. Of course, everyone was worried about the dog, and it was very late.
    Hopefully the reward money would help, but maybe he should be looking for her too. He flipped his phone from his pocket and called the vet for an update.
    “Nothing yet,” Dr. Menon said. “I have an alert at the pound and sent their descriptions and pictures. Your reward money is very generous. Did you want it applied only to Gollie?”
    “No, all the dogs. They mean a lot to their owners. Also, I’m handling any of the fees for Gollie.”
    “Sure thing, except I haven’t examined her yet. From the way the male dogs responded to her,