A Fair to Remember (17 page)

Kyle dropped his fists, his narrowed gaze going between her and Jake. “Well, I’m glad we got this straightened out, Olivia. Then, take her, Lassen.” He swiped the blood from his lip with the back of his sleeve. “You’re welcome to her. I
give
her to you.”

“You can’t give me shit, Hightower. She doesn’t belong to you. She never did.” Jake pulled a hundred dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Beck Hartnett with a sincere apology. Then, taking Olivia’s hand and he tugged her toward her car, leaving Kyle swaying, alone on the walkway.

*

“You’re mad,” Jake
said as they drove down the darkened road, breaking the silence that had descended on them the minute they’d gotten in the car.

Olivia was headed toward his house, her fingers bloodless on the steering wheel.

“Don’t expect me to apologize for what happened. I won’t. He had that coming.”

“I had it handled.”

“That dumbass was drunk and jealous and he had no right to talk about you that way.” He wrapped a bandana around his bleeding knuckles.

“And I told you I had it handled.”

“I think you
thought
you did. But he might as well have had his finger on the pull-pin of a grenade. Guys like him… they escalate until something happens. You know I’m right.”

Maybe he was. But it was all too complicated to be that simple.

“I am not a little girl who needs you to rescue me, Jake. I straight up admit I stayed with him years longer than I should have. And yes, maybe I didn’t have the guts to get out of it sooner. But I managed to do it all on my own, eventually, without any help from you, thank you very much.”

“We’re not talking about your divorce. We’re talking about a moment. In a bar. Between you and him and, apparently, me. How the hell did he happen to be there anyway? And why haven’t you blocked him on your phone?”

“I’ve changed my entire number. I have no idea how he got my new one or how he found me there. Maybe he… I don’t know… triangulated me. He probably had someone watching me, waiting for me to step out of my cave.”

“Really.” Jake scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I’m officially creeped out by that, aren’t you? I mean… stalking? Hell. No dangerous precedents there.”

“He’s just jealous because of you, Jake. Competitive. And it’s not even that he wants me. It’s that he doesn’t want to lose to someone else.”

“I don’t give a shit about him or his reasons for coming here to harass you, because if he ever comes near you again, what happened today will just be a fond memory compared to what I’ll do to him then.”

She stared straight ahead at the twin cones of light on the road.
He won’t come again
. Jake had humiliated Kyle and he didn’t have a prayer of redemption. No, he wouldn’t come back unless he had a death wish. But Jake didn’t seem to grasp the implications of a scene like they’d created back there.

“Everyone, and I mean
everyone
saw it,” she said. “They had their faces pressed up to the window like kids at a candy store. It will be all over town by morning. Because there aren’t enough people talking already.”

“So what? Let ‘em talk. What do you care what they think?”

She nearly swerved, jerking a look at him. “What do I care? I have to live here, even if you don’t. Already they’re spreading—” She stopped.

It was bad enough that she’d heard the awful rumors.

But he didn’t miss a beat. “Spreading what?”

Heaven help her
. “Rumors. About us.”

“Us?” he repeated. “As in you and me?”

“Yes. As in our helicopter date, etcetera…”

Inconceivably, he smiled. One of his heart-stuttering smiles that had, lately, made her go all soft and melty.
Damn him.
She forced her eyes back on the road and scowled.

“Exactly what about this situation justifies a smile right now?”

“The etcetera part.” He reached for her knee and curled his hand over it like he’d been doing that forever. “Look, people don’t talk about smoke, if there’s no fire behind it.”

Oh, there was fire. There was plenty of fire. That was the problem.

“That,” she said, “is not a good thing.”

“I think it’s good. Yeah…” He nodded, as if he’d just figured out the final Jeopardy answer. “I like it.”

“I can’t believe you,” she muttered.

“What can’t you believe? That I’d want to protect you? Or that I just kicked your ex-husband’s ass and enjoyed it?”

Olivia turned down the long tree lined drive that led to Jake’s parents’ house. In the dark, spires of pines fluttered against the midnight blue sky and incredible wash of stars. The full moon cast long, shivering shadows on the ground. She parked in front of his house and he got out. He came around and opened her door. After a beat, she got out and followed him around to the other side of the car. But she stopped and leaned against the door instead of following him down the sidewalk.

He turned back when he realized she wasn’t beside him and walked back to her.

“What?” he asked and took her hand in both of his. “Come in.”

She curled her fingers around his. “My parents probably think I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Or, abducted.” He pointed up to the sky and grinned. “You can call them when we get inside.”

She had to look up at him when he stood close. His eyes were pinning her to the spot, those Absaroka-blue eyes that never missed anything. His nostrils flared on his once-broken nose—from what other fight?—and his mouth… his mouth, so beautiful, had already sensed what she was about to say. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

She pressed her back against the cool metal of the car. “My staying… it’s not a good idea tonight.”

“Yes, it is. Ben’s gone. We have the place to ourselves.”

“I think I should go home. This is all”—she swallowed thickly and looked away—“going too fast.”

Though she was staring at the ground, she could still feel his eyes on her, as if he was trying to see into her, as if he couldn’t imagine what she was doing right now. “Too fast? Not for me, Liv. I say its taken twelve years too long.”

“That’s just it. Twelve years. You don’t really know me anymore. I’m not that girl. The Olivia you think you remember. I’ll disappoint you. Maybe even break your heart.”
Or mine
.

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”

“Because,” she said, “seeing Kyle tonight reminded me of all the things I promised myself when I got out of my marriage. And all the things I’ve already failed at. But I don’t want a man to save me, Jake. I want to save myself. And I don’t want to be a victim anymore. I don’t want people to look at me that way. But you can’t fix it for me. Only I can.”

“Don’t do this, Liv.”

She swiped a hand across the moisture on her cheek, silent.

Jake tilted his face up to the full moon, perched so haphazardly in the sky. “What are you afraid of? Us? Me? Being happy?”

“I don’t know.” She felt nauseous. Sick. Frozen. Seeing Kyle again had churned up everything in her mind like she was under a giant wave that just kept spinning her and pushing her down. What was she afraid of? Believing she might be loveable? That if she risked it again, she might just drown and never come up?

“You asked me the other night why I came back here, if it was just for that promise we made. I came back for you, Olivia. For the possibility of us.”

Olivia pressed her fingers against his mouth, trying to stop him, but he wouldn’t be stopped.

“No,” he said, pulling her hand away. “I need to say this. Whether you think I’m crazy, or it’s too fast or… whatever.
I
know. I want you. I’ve spent the last twelve years wanting you.”

He spread his arms wide. “There it is. That’s it, right there on the table. I want to spend every day with you for the rest of my life. I want to sleep next to you, make love to you, make a family with you. And, yeah, I want to protect you and save you and I want you to do the same for me. Because that’s what two people who love each other do. I think. Tell me if I’m wrong. If I am, then I’m flat wrong about everything.”

“I can’t…”

“Can’t what? Say I’m wrong or accept that I’m right?”

She slammed her eyes shut, unable to speak. She’d warned him, hadn’t she? Oh, what the hell did warnings matter when he made her feel this way?

“Tell me you don’t want me, Liv, and I’ll go. I’ll leave you alone. Tell me you don’t feel like I do, like some piece of you that’s been long gone has fitted itself back inside you when we’re together. That the last twelve years of hard times haven’t funneled us right back here, where we found each other again.” He put his hands on her upper arms. “Go on, say it.”

Tears leaked down her cheeks. “I—don’t want to lose you, Jake.”

“Then don’t.” A stark plea from a man not given to pleading.

“Can’t we just—”

“Maybe you can, but I can’t.”

She shook her head, and tried to pull away from him, but he pressed her back against the car, letting her feel his opinion on the subject as his hips settled against hers. He tipped her chin toward him, dropped his mouth down on hers and kissed her. It was a kiss that left no doubt about what he wanted. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her against him—his tongue swirling against hers, taking and giving and wanting and promising all at the same time—until he’d kissed her insensible and she felt utterly confused.

And just as suddenly as he’d kissed her, he let her go and took a step back. Olivia braced herself against the car so she wouldn’t fall. Every female bit of her was aflame and there was nothing she wanted more than to follow him into his house and make love to him, one more time. But if she did, she would surely be lost.

“Do what you have to do, Liv,” he said. “But I won’t wait another twelve years for you. I can’t.”

And with those stark words, he turned and walked into his house, where Monday was waiting for him. He shut the door behind him, and she felt something crack inside her. And she knew it was the sound of fear, winning.

O
n Thursday morning,
her mother threw open the blind, flooding Olivia’s bedroom with sunlight. She moaned, flung the blankets over her head and curled into a tighter ball.

“Time to get up, Olivia, and face the day,” Jaycee said in a voice that brooked no argument. “It’s noon. Ry Barros and his daughter are here, shoeing Jinx, and it’s impolite to not at least go say hello.”

She argued anyway. “You say hello. I’m sleeping.” Her hair was a rat’s nest of tangle and her mouth felt like a tumbleweed had found its way inside.

“No, you’re not. Thirty-six hours is long enough for any human being to sleep. You’re getting up.” She flung off Olivia’s covers with a billowing flourish and began pulling the bedding off the bed at the corners.

She sat up, wearing only a tee-shirt and panties. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Washing the sheets.”

She tugged the sheets back. “Mom!”

Jaycee put her hands on her hips and gave her one of her most motherly scowls. The one she’d given her when Olivia had pretended to be too sick to go to school or to visit her father before he’d died. “What, Olivia?
What
? Do you expect us to stand by and watch you disappear? You haven’t eaten, haven’t spoken, haven’t gotten out of this bed since the night of the birthday dinner. You can’t stay in here forever.”

She flopped backward on her pillow. “Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t. Not in my house.”

“Why not? At least here I won’t be generating any more gossip!”

“Gossip can only flourish in a vacuum where truth doesn’t show up. If you’re not there to live your life as you want it to be,
they
will make it up for you. That is absolutely true, Olivia. Is that what you want?”

She crossed her arms over her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I always screw it up anyway.”

“The only way to screw up your life is not to live it the way you want to. There will always be someone out there, telling you it’s impossible, or unwise, or that you don’t deserve it. But listen to them, or to those little voices in your head that tell you you’re going to fail, and let them dictate who you’ll be, and you abdicate your life. And what a terrible waste that would be.”

Olivia nodded and covered her face with her hands.

Maybe,” her mom said, “you’re just really scared because you’re about to do something really brave.”

She sat up, cross-legged. “I think I love him, Mom. But I pushed him away. I’ve got to try to fix it now.”

“Here, resort to Yoda, I must,” said her Star Wars geek mother, who often yielded to the wisdom of Yoda when faced with a wall of resistance from her daughters. “
Do or do not. There is no try
.”

Olivia tilted her head and smiled, loving her mom for being such an unabashed geek. “You’re still a nut. But a wise nut.”

“Thank you. But if I were you,” Jaycee continued, “I’d get a move on. Eve saw Jake sitting with Eleanor Styles of Style’s Realty at the Main Street Diner yesterday afternoon, signing papers.”

Olivia sat up straighter. “Paper? What papers?”

“Apparently, he’s selling his parent’s place.”