A Fair to Remember (16 page)

“Didn’t I hear you were a helicopter pilot, Jake? Rescue of some sort?” the woman asked.

How the hell did she know that?
“Yes, ma’am. I was. In the army.”

“Oh, isn’t that fascinating?” When she turned her attention back to Olivia, she tipped her head at her like she was looking at a puppy with three legs. “Well-ll… we had heard you were back in town, didn’t we, Chet? After your… well, your divorce and all…” She tsked. “How
are
you, dear? You
have
had a hard time, I hear. But hope is on the horizon.”

Olivia’s face flushed and her eyes went dark. In response, the hairs on the back of Jake’s neck went up and he braced his hand against the small of her back.

“She’s doing just fine,” Jaycee said tautly.

“Yeah. If you don’t count the alien abduction a few months ago, the three of us,” Kate piped in. “Terrifying. Right, Eve?”

Eve caught the ball. “Or getting”—she shuddered dramatically—“probed. And let me tell you,
that’s
no fun. Livy doesn’t really like to talk about it.”

Mrs. Morgan blinked, her astonished gaze swirling between the three women.

Olivia rubbed a spot on the back of her neck and made a face. “Because now I have this little…
thing
… under my skin… right here. Wanna feel?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Mrs. Morgan sent an impatient look at Jaycee, who had steepled her fingers over her mouth. Kate and Eve were biting back grins while Reed cleared his throat, studying something on the white tablecloth.

“But otherwise, things have been going pretty well.” Olivia turned to Jake. “Wouldn’t you say, Jake?”

“Absolutely,” he answered, giving her a squeeze. “Aliens aside.”

“That’s all very amusing, girls,” Reeva said. “I was just trying to show my concern.”

“And that is so appreciated,” Kate told her brightly. “Maybe you’d like to stay for some birthday cake.”

“It should be here any minute,” Eve added. “Oh, and there’s a little, tiny spaceship on it, too… y’know, just to commemorate.”

The woman shot a look at her husband, who’d been scowling at her since they walked over, and he stepped in. “Thank you for the kind offer, but we must be going. We’ll let you folks enjoy the rest of your meal. Please forgive the interruption. And happy birthday, both of you.”

“Good to see you again, Chet. Reeva,” Reed mumbled, sending them a taut two-fingered salute.

As they disappeared inside the restaurant, the Canadays dissolved into helpless giggles.

“Oh, my God,” Eve snorted. “The look on her face… priceless!”

“A leeettle, tiny spaceship…” Kate gasped, squeezing the air between two fingers.

“A probe…?” Jaycee managed when she could speak again. “Oh, you girls…”

“What?” Olivia touched her neck again. “You wanna feel it?”

Eve shrieked with laughter.

*

When the cake
came out, the waiters sang happy birthday to them both. Olivia, who had drunk a little more wine than she’d intended to, let Jake put his arm around her and kiss her on the forehead. She’d leaned into his lips like a cat into a caress and wished they could be somewhere else to make that kiss the proper one they both longed to give each other. He made her feel hungry. Needy for more.

What was happening to her? She felt a little drunk on him, a little giddy, and a bit of the other emotion that had the habit of eluding her—
hopeful
—which, in itself, didn’t alarm her. Who didn’t want hopeful? It was the ‘
what if’
that scared her. What if she risked her heart again? What if Jake actually meant what his touch was saying to her?

What if
she
loved
him
? And not in a best-friend-with-benefits kind of way?

Too fast.

But maybe not. No one knew the real Olivia better than him. And, she suspected, no one knew him the way she did, either—the two of them, who they were before everything in their lives had blown up like a roadside bomb. Somewhere, inside, she was still
that
Olivia she’d been missing for such a long time.

Reed raised a glass to toast his family and, as glasses clinked together, Ben got a call and had to leave for an emergency call in Livingston. Since he and Jake had come together, Ben took Orca and Olivia promised to drive Jake home. Not an undue burden, she thought with a secret smile.

She was just dipping into her delicious concoction of strawberry cream and yellow cake, when her phone alerted her a text had come in. She hoped it was the farrier, texting her back.

She flipped it on and frowned at the screen. A number she didn’t recognize. She opened it. The text read: Happy belated Birthday, Olivia. Sorry I missed your big day at the fair. The cake looks delicious—Your Loving Husband.

K
yle.

A chill chased through her like she’d walked into a Sub-Zero. What the hell? How could he know I’m having—?

Dear God
.
He’s watching me.
Olivia scanned the patrons at the outside table. Nothing.

Shaking, she stood and told Jake, “I’ll be right back.”

Inside the restaurant, with her back to the glass door, she scanned the faces of each and every customer. Again, nothing. It wasn’t until she searched the bar that she found him, sitting alone at a table in the corner. Smiling at her.

For the occasion, he’d pulled out his best Armani slacks, one of his five-hundred dollar shirts that fit him like a glove and a pair of Italian shoes he’d bought three years ago in Florence. He stuck out like a choke weed in a field of clover sitting there amidst the cowboys and regular people of Marietta. His hair had gone completely gray since she’d seen him last and she secretly hoped she’d had something to do with that.

She made her way through the crowded bar to get to his table and sat down opposite him on the edge of the woven leather chair.

“How dare you follow me here? What are you doing in Marietta?” She kept her voice low and controlled so she wouldn’t scream.

“That’s not very friendly of you. A ‘
Hello, Kyle
’ wouldn’t be out of line.”

The face she’d once thought so handsome, now only sent an ache through her. “What do you want, Kyle?”

He lifted his bourbon, gave the ice a swirl and took a sip. How many of those had he drunk?

“I wanted to see my wife on her home turf. Try to figure the attraction.” He glanced around the bar. “This place, it really doesn’t suit you.”

“Ex-wife. We’re divorced. Completely divorced. And it suits me just fine.”

“No need to be snippy, Olivia. I know very well what happened to our marriage.”

What you did to our marriage
, she could almost hear him thinking. Because he blamed her for its failure, just as she had for so long.

His cool, gray eyes bore black outlines around the pupils. People were fascinated by them. They had graced the covers of dozens of magazines from
Horse and Rider
to
Details
, staring out from the magazine racks, a celebrity on horseback. His icy eyes mesmerized first-time watchers. They had done so to her. Not anymore.

A waiter came by and asked her if she wanted anything. She shook her head without taking her eyes off Kyle and the waiter backed off.

“You can’t do this. You can’t have me followed. Or show up in places like this. And how the hell did you get my phone number?”

“I’m not without my resources. Why haven’t you answered my letters?”

“Because,” she said clearly, “I’ve said everything I have to say on the subject of you and me.”

“I haven’t,” he said, leaning forward. “You should come home where you belong, Olivia. I want you back. I
need
you back.”

The words stole her air for a moment. “No, you don’t. You just hate that I left you.”

“That’s not true. I gave you everything. Taught you… everything. You’re the one who gave up on us. And you—you’re suffocating here. Hiding in your parent’s house like you’re five years old. You need to come back to New York and let me help you.”

“Help me?”

“You’re still not back up on a horse, are you, Olivia?”

She started to get up, but he grabbed her hand, stopping her.

“I can help you. I can save your career. We need each other, whether you like it or not.”

Her breath left her in a little half-laugh and she shrugged off his hand. “Don’t do this again.”

“I’ve changed,” he said. “I’m different now. I can be… different.”

There was some desperation in him now. There had to be, showing up this way. He turned forty this year, she remembered as she sat there trying to figure out how to end this gracefully. She saw his age around his eyes and his mouth. All those solitary years, on the back of a horse. He looked a little thinner than he had the last time she saw him. A little more insecure. But Kyle was still and always would be…Kyle.

“We’re not going to do this,” she said. “Go home to your horses. To your life. I don’t want you. And you don’t need me.”

A muscle in his jaw worked. “I never stopped needing you.”

“No, Kyle. Horses, you need. Victories? Ditto. The houses, the cars, and even your ‘resources’—you need them all just to feel… even. But a wife? A flesh and blood woman with needs of her own? You have no idea what to do with that.”

“I never blamed you for the accident. You took that on yourself.” He grabbed his highball glass and slugged back a gulp. “But you let it end us.”

She looked away from him. “We ended long before that accident. We just didn’t admit it to ourselves.”

“I think,” he said, “that you never loved me.”

That drew the stares of several people around them who whispered loud enough that she heard her name.

Quietly, she said, “Maybe you’re right. I don’t believe I knew what love was when I married you. Maybe I thought we could help each other. Fix each other. But we can only fix ourselves, can’t we? But that wasn’t really love. Not the kind that holds people together. But whatever I felt for you once, it’s dead now. It’s over.”

People at the tables nearby were starting to look at them. She pulled away and got to her feet, though her knees felt shaky. He followed her up and grabbed her upper arm so hard she nearly yelped.

“You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” he asked in a voice that carried across the bar. “That ex-soldier boyfriend of yours?”

The sound of blood rushing in her ears muted his accusation. Conversations stopped nearby. People gaped.

Quietly, she said, “If you don’t leave here and leave me alone, I will take out a restraining order against you. So help me, if you push me, I will take you to court.”

He pulled her up close to him. “Don’t threaten me, Olivia.”

“That,” she said, “is not a threat.”

“Let her go.
Now
.” Jake’s voice, like arctic steel, came from right beside her.

The look on his face sent a shiver through her.

Her heart sank. The very last thing she wanted was Jake in the middle of this.

“It’s all right, Jake,” she said. “We’re finished here.”

“I don’t think you heard me. I said let her go.”

After another beat, Kyle released her arm and she rubbed it where it stung from his fingers.

“And there he is, on cue,” Kyle announced to the patrons sitting nearby who had started to clear the area. “The big hero of small town Marietta, Montana. Jake Lassen. Come to rescue poor, broken little Olivia.”

“Shut up, Hightower,” Jake said.

“What is it Lassen? You haven’t fucked my wife enough yet to know how pathetic she really is?”

She didn’t even see the punch coming, it happened so fast. Kyle tumbled backward, falling over the chair behind him and sprawling on the floor. Blood spurted from his mouth and, dazed, he reached a hand up to touch it. Customers scattered out of the way. The bartender started to come around the bar but Jake bent down and dragged Kyle up by his five-hundred dollar shirtfront.

“Stop!” she cried, but Jake pulled Kyle out of the bar and through the front doors, tossing him toward the valet. Olivia grabbed for Jake’s arm, but he shrugged her off. Behind them, patrons were pressed up against the windows, watching everything.

“You want me?” Jake said. “C’mon.”

Kyle threw a punch at Jake that glanced off Jake’s shoulder and Jake came right back with another one of his own that had Kyle spinning sideways. He bent over his knees and spit something into the grass along with a curse.

“The first one was for her.” Jake flexed his bleeding fist. “That one was for me.”

Kyle staggered a little, recalculating his odds. Jake had three inches and forty pounds on Kyle. And that last punch had been a doozy. The restaurant owner, Beck Hartnett, stepped outside with the bartender, looking grim. “Gentlemen, please—this can’t happen here.”

“Jake…” Olivia begged, “Enough.”

“You see?” Kyle said. “She’s still worrying about me, Lassen.”

Olivia spun on him. “No, you’re wrong. If I cared enough about you to hate you, I would. But hate isn’t the opposite of love. Apathy is. And that’s what I feel for you now. Nothing.”