The Big 5-Oh! (33 page)

Before he could continue, Josie and Katie turned the corner.

“Olivia, if you’ll bring the plates, I’m going to light the candles and we’ll serve some cake.”

Liv looked into Jared's eyes, hoping she could find some hint there of what might have been spilled, if only they hadn’t been interrupted. But all she found was a hundred golden flecks of light, and they weren’t spelling out a thing.

“Sure,” she replied in resignation, turning toward the cabinet.

“What can I do?” Jared asked.

“You could get the forks,” Katie suggested. “Can’t have cake on plates and not have forks.”

“Or napkins,” Josie added as she touched the fire to each of the candle wicks. “Why don’t you get those down, Katie Marie?”

“Okay, Granny.”

Liv flinched with regret, her brain buzzing with possibilities about what Jared might have said.

Dinner with Georgia … more than just dinner … staggering news …

“Fooooooor,” Josie sang as she walked into the living room, and everyone joined in right away. “She's a jolly good mommy, for she's a jolly good mommy, she's a jolly good mo-o-mmmy …”

Josie completed it alone. “And we’re glad to have her home.”

Applause erupted as Hallie blew out the candles.

“Thank you, everyone.”

“It's the one with the raspberries in the middle,” Katie told Hallie. “Remember we had it for Papa's birthday?”

“I do remember.”

“I ’membered how you said it was the best cake you ever had. So that's the one we bought you.”

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“I forgot the knife to cut the cake!” Josie exclaimed.

“I’ll get it,” Liv said, and then she gave Jared a covert little “Follow me, for crying out loud!” roll of her hand as she passed him.

She produced a cake knife from the drawer, and then stood there waiting for Jared to make his way into the kitchen.

“Wha-at!” he asked, making no effort to disguise his amusement.

“What were you going to say before?”

“When?”

“Before.”

“Before what?”

“Before, before,” she replied, groaning.

Why was he being so obnoxious?!

“Ohhhh,” he said deliberately. “Then. Right. I think I was telling you about the night I had dinner with Georgia, wasn’t I?”

“Yes. And you said there was more to it than dinner.”

“Riiiight.”

“Jared, why are you acting like this?” she blurted, smacking him on the arm. “If you have something to tell me, just come out and say it. If you’re not interested in pursuing the relationship we started when I was in Florida, you can just be honest. You know?”

“Is that what you think?” he asked her, and his entire demeanor softened. “I’m sorry, Liv. Come here and sit down.”

She let him lead her toward the table, and she felt rather numb as he guided her down into a chair. But when he sat down across from her, his smile set her at ease again. Maybe it wasn’t so dire and irrevocable.

“So you and Georgia had dinner,” she sighed.

“Yes. And I invited her to go somewhere with me,” he explained. “Truth be told, I’d been thinking about it for a very long time. Maybe ever since I—”

“Aunt Liv!” Katie cried as she slid across the floor toward her. “We need to cut the cake.”

“I’m sorry,” Liv said, and she handed her the cake knife. “You be very careful with this, okay?”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“In a couple of minutes. I have to talk to Dr. Jared about something first. You go ahead, and we’ll be right in.”

“But the cake—”

“I’ll have some cake in a bit, okay, Katie?”

Josie poked her head around the corner just then, and she innocently asked, “Don’t you two want cake?”

Jared smiled, and Liv sighed until she was deflated.

“Of course we do,” she said. Then she looked at Jared and suggested, “Can we come back to this?”

He snickered and, with a nod, replied, “Of course.”

Prudence rounded the corner of the glade, and she’d just set her front hoof to the path leading down into the meadow. Some fresh morning grass would surely make her feel better.

But the kind of feeling better Prudence was about to feel had nothing to do with fragrant green grass, and everything to do with the biggest and most wonderful surprise of her short donkey life.

The stallion! Her stallion. He was standing right there in front of her.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Where else would I be?” was his reply.

J
ared had Hallie to thank for telling him Liv's favorite restaurant and providing directions to find it.

“Take her and go,” Hallie had whispered to him as her three children vied for Liv's attention to the point that he couldn’t
seem to finish a sentence. “Seriously. Run like the wind. Save yourselves.”

Jared had rehearsed what he wanted to communicate to her for nearly the whole plane ride north. He’d even jotted down some notes to help him remember to hit the finer points. He never once thought that he should have also run through a plan to get her alone. He wasn’t sure how Liv felt about being surprised, or how she would take the news that he had to deliver, and it certainly wasn’t something for which they needed an audience.

The drive to the restaurant was a quiet one, and Jared pondered just pulling over to the shoulder of Sharon Road, turning off the ignition, and just blurting out what he had to say. But just about the time that consideration seemed almost worthy, he spotted a sign introducing
The Grand Finale.

He turned into the parking lot, and Liv gasped. “This is my favorite restaurant!”

“I know. Hallie told me.”

“This is where we’re having dinner? I hope you made a reservation.”

Jared rounded the car, opened her door, and took her hand to help her from the car. He wasn’t a man given to extreme cases of nerves, but this night was an exception. He couldn’t even anticipate how Liv was going to react to what he had to tell her.

The Grand Finale
was a large Victorian-style house with dining areas on two floors. Antique furnishings, floral tablecloths, fine crystal, and tasteful artwork created by the restaurant's owner mingled together to create a perfect fusion of upscale comfort and ambiance that inspired instant understanding for Jared. Of course, this would be Liv's favorite restaurant. It had her name all over it.

They were seated at a small table for two near the window on the first floor. Liv's eyes sparkled with familiar appreciation for her surroundings, and she beamed at Jared.

“Isn’t this place great?”

“It's beautiful.”

“I’ve been coming here for years,” she told him. “Birthdays, anniversaries, or just to reconnect. I think every milestone I’ve had in the last twenty years has been celebrated here.”

“What's your favorite appetizer?” he asked. “Show me what's good.”

“I always get the artichoke fritters,” she admitted. “They’re fantastic. But you would probably like the crabcakes. They come with a corn salsa and this really amazing mustard sauce.”

“Let's order both.”

Once the order was placed, Jared observed an awkward, let's-get-down-to-business expression that surfaced on Liv's face. There was no mistaking it. She wouldn’t wait any longer for him to get to it.

“There have been a lot of interruptions today,” he remarked. “It's good to finally get you alone.”

“Well, now that we are,” she said, “why don’t you tell me what you came all this way to say to me?”

Jared couldn’t help but wonder what Liv was imagining. Did she have some inkling of the truth, or was she taking a smidgen of what she thought she knew and mashing it into something else entirely?

“I’m not sure where to start.”

“I do,” she stated. “Start with the dinner you had with Georgia the night I called you.”

“That seems like a good place,” he said.

Am I sweating? Is it hot in here?

“Well, you know that Preston told Georgia he didn’t think they were meant for one another.”

“Yes. I was sorry to hear that.”

“I had plans of my own that night, but when she told me he’d broken things off with her, and I saw how gloomy she was about it … well, I asked her to join me for dinner.”

He paused and took a sip from the glass of cold water before him.

“After dinner, I asked her if she was interested in helping me make a decision I needed to make.”

“A decision. ”

“So we left the restaurant and were heading out to my car, and that's when you called.”

“So you had to go somewhere to make this decision.”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

If only he had those notes he’d made on the plane.

“The thing is this, Liv. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

She looked away, gazing through her own reflection in the window and out into the darkness that had fallen since their arrival.

“I thought I did,” she replied in a tone so soft that he had to strain to hear it.

“Well, I don’t want you to doubt that, if that's what you’re doing. I love you. If nothing else, believe that.”

She glanced back at him and tried to smile, but it fell a little short of her eyes. “I love you too.”

“I know you kept saying how your life is here in Ohio, and mine is clearly on Sanibel Island,” he continued. “But when you left, I think it really hit me for the first time that you meant it.”

“And so you’ve moved on,” she surmised. “Of course, you did. That's the natural flow of things when one thing comes to an end. I mean, I know after Robert died, I—”

“What?” he interrupted. “No! I haven’t moved on at all. In fact, Olivia, I’m having a really hard time even
thinking
about moving on.”

The waiter arrived at the table with their appetizers. His small talk as he laid out plates and wished them a pleasant dining experience was nothing more than a hum in the background of Jared's own fast-moving thoughts.

Okay, thank you, move on, please.

“Let me know if there's anything else you need,” the waiter said. “I’ll be back to take your dinner order in just a few minutes.”

Once he vanished Jared smiled at Liv and sighed. “Where was I?”

“Moving on,” she replied as she slid the plate of artichokes toward him.

“Right. Moving on.” He took a bite and brightened. “These are great.”

“I love them.”

Jared closed his eyes for an instant, and he rubbed his temple.

“Jared, just say it. I can take it.”

He laughed. “Are you sure?”

“I survived cancer. I’m not a weak woman. Just tell me where you and Georgia went, and what decision you’ve come to.”

“We went to Bonita Springs,” he told her. “To Coconut Point.”

“Isn’t that—that's a hotel resort, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You took Georgia to a hotel?”

She looked at Jared as if she were just about to ignite lift-off, and before she could blast out of her chair and run out of the restaurant, he exclaimed, “No! No. I didn’t do that. I mean, yes, I took her to a hotel, but not the way you’re thinking.”

“Jared, you’re confusing me.”

Her eyes turned a stormy, deep-sea green, and Jared thought she looked like she was just about to cry.

“I know. I’m sorry. Let me just tell you this right up front: I am not, and I repeat
not
—” “Olivia?”

Liv's focus on him was torn away like an unsuspecting flag in a hurricane, and the separation left Jared stinging.

“Becky?” Liv said.

“How crazy to run into you here,” the woman said, glancing at Jared with curiosity. “My husband and I are celebrating our anniversary.”

“Congratulations.”

“Becky Watson,” the woman said, extending her hand toward Jared.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Liv said as he shook it. “Becky, this is Dr. Jared Hunt.”

“A pleasure,” Jared replied once he caught his breath again.

“Becky heads up the Human Resources department at the hospital where I work,” Liv explained.

“Speaking of which,” the woman remarked, “we’re all so excited to have you coming back to us next week. You look just phenomenal, Olivia. You really do. I’m so happy you’re recovering so well.”

“Thank you.”