CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“MEN ARE IDIOTS,” Sabrina Leighton said, as she passed Olivia a glass of wine.
“Serious idiots,” Lindy agreed.
“They’re okay,” Clara Campbell said.
“No they aren’t,” Sabrina protested. “They’re pigs.”
“Even Alex and Liam?” Clara asked.
“They have their moments,” Sabrina said, speaking of both her and Clara’s fiancés.
Olivia appreciated very much that her friends were giving her an after-hours pick-me-up at the little cheese restaurant down in town. They had all worked together at Grassroots for a couple of years, and they had been incredibly patient with Olivia and her general lack of social skills during that time.
During that time, Olivia had seen Clara and Sabrina fall in love and go through the initial uncertainty of it, but both were incredibly happy now. Olivia wished she could have similar confidence. But right now, Clara and Sabrina were seated on one side of the table, with Olivia and Lindy on the other. And Olivia had a feeling that was symbolic in some ways.
Bellissima was a vaguely Italian restaurant that was somewhere at the crossroads of fancy and family style on the edge of Main Street in Gold Valley. Grassroots supplied most of the wine, which meant that the Grassroots team made occasional deliveries there during the week. And this week, after the winery had closed, the group of them had decided that they would stay and have drinks and bread.
They had said it was because they had not been together in months—Clara no longer worked at Grassroots, so they only saw her when she was able to get away from the ranch—but Olivia knew it was because of her sadness, and not so much because they were all suddenly spurred by a desire to hang out.
“I appreciate the support,” Olivia said. “And he is an idiot. But I’m kind of an idiot, too. I... It’s not like I was terribly in touch with my feelings until him, really. He’s the one that made me like this. He’s the one that made me feel things. He’s the one that made me care.”
“Burn the witch,” Sabrina said.
“Yes, this is his fault,” Lindy said.
“Stop it,” Olivia said. “You’re making me want to defend him. And that’s the worst.”
“Okay,” Clara said. “Then I’m sure he had a very good reason for rejecting you and stomping on your heart after he took your virginity.”
Olivia wrinkled her nose. “That’s not really better.” She sighed heavily and tore a piece of bread off the remaining loaf in the center of the table. “I’m sorry,” Olivia said.
“Sorry for what?” Clara asked, lifting a can of Coke to her lips.
“I’m sorry that I’ve been kind of a difficult friend over the past couple of years. You’ve all been wonderful, and I’ve been difficult to get to know.”
“You haven’t been,” Sabrina said. “Anyway, we all have our things. It’s not like any of us are the easiest group of people.”
“Speak for yourself,” Lindy said. “I am a delight.”
“An endless delight,” Sabrina said. “But, also a bit prickly at times.”
“I’m your boss,” Lindy pointed.
“Yeah,” Sabrina said cheerfully. “But you’re not going to fire me. I’m family.”
“You were family,” Lindy corrected, her tone lacking heat. “I divorced your brother. I can get rid of you, too.”
“No you can’t,” Sabrina said. “You like me.”
Lindy snapped her fingers. “Dammit!”
Olivia smiled in spite of herself. “I just... I’m learning. I’m learning something from all of this. That I’m not perfect, and that’s okay. I was afraid of that. I was afraid of what it might mean if I admitted that.” She explained the entire situation with her sister, and how it had affected her. Hurt her. How she had been afraid that if she didn’t keep tight control on everything, the worst part of her nature would come out, and then ruining her sister’s life would be for nothing.
“You make yourself sound terrible,” Clara said. “And we know you’re not. You’ve always listened whenever we had problems, even if you had your own opinions on how we should handle things.”
“I’m judgmental,” Olivia said. “Mostly because I was afraid that if I wasn’t...”
“You would fall into bed with the first hot cowboy that you saw?” Clara asked.
“Now that you mention it,” Olivia mumbled.
“I mean, that’s what I did,” Clara said. “No judgment here.”
“Same,” added Sabrina.
“You’re human,” Lindy said. “Welcome. It’s terrible.”
“Apparently,” Olivia grumbled.
“None of us are all good or all bad,” Lindy said. “We’re just doing our best.”
Olivia looked down at the bread in her hand, and suddenly it looked like sawdust. “Well, my best apparently isn’t good enough for Luke Hollister.”
“Then he’s an idiot,” Sabrina said, circling back to her earlier statement.
Lindy’s phone buzzed and she looked down at the screen, scowling. “I have to get going,” Lindy said. “I have some paperwork to get from Damien and I’d rather die, but I also want all of this settled once and for all. Down to car titles. Of all things.”
Sabrina grimaced. “I could go with you. He is my asshole brother, after all.”
Lindy studied her manicured fingers. “No. That’s okay. I’d rather have an alibi than witnesses.”
“We’ll say you were with us all night,” Clara said.
“My word would have been more helpful a few weeks ago,” Olivia said. “Prior to me destroying my reputation as a levelheaded paragon.”
Lindy shrugged. “I probably won’t kill him. I haven’t yet.” Lindy looked around, searching for the waitress so they could collect their bill.
“I’ll put it on your tab, Lindy.” Janine, the owner of Bellissima, popped her head out of the kitchen.
“Okay,” Lindy said, waving, and the group of them got up and walked out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk.
Olivia still felt miserable. Hanging out with her friends hadn’t magically healed her broken heart. But the conversation with her mother earlier this morning, the long workday and then this conversation had made her feel... Not alone.
Part of her wanted to cling to the idea that her heartbreak was singular, and that no one had ever been through anything like it before, but there was also something therapeutic in knowing that they had. Though, for Sabrina and Clara, and for her mother, all of it had worked out in the end.
Lindy, for her part, was still rebuilding her life. But she was doing it.
When Clara and Sabrina said goodbye and headed off to their cars, Lindy paused and turned to Olivia. “I know it’s hard, because it worked out for them,” Lindy said. “It’s hard for me sometimes. This whole being alone thing.”
“It’s not hard,” Olivia lied.
“It is,” Lindy said. “I don’t miss Damien, but I miss being with someone. And accepting that everything went wrong sucks. It really does. To have believed in something with all of yourself only to have it blow up in your face is awful.” She smiled. “You can’t let them make you bitter. Don’t let this make you shut yourself off again. This is just the first relationship. The first real one. In a line of what I know will be good ones.”
“I have to go through a whole line of them?” Olivia sighed heavily.
“Maybe not,” Lindy said. “But if you do, you’ll be fine. You don’t need a man to have that happy ending that you’re looking for.”
“I need Luke to have a happy ending I want,” she protested.
“I know it feels that way right now. Right now, I’m currently involved in a passionate love affair with the winery. Unexpected. And kind of awesome. And you know what? Better than my marriage. So. I thought I would never get over it, but here I am. I’m over it.” Then she shrugged. “Okay. I’m mostly over it. Whenever I have to go see him I feel a lot less over it.”
“You were married for ten years. If you were over it...”
“I know,” Lindy said.
“So what do I do now? Have a fling? Luke kind of was my fling to get over my boyfriend, and then I fell in love with him even harder. But then, Luke is also the only man I’ve ever slept with.”
“I haven’t graduated to fling stage yet,” Lindy said. “If I do, I’ll let you know.”
Olivia felt affirmed by that, because she really didn’t want to go out and find another guy. Actually, she found it kind of interesting that she didn’t even want to do anything to try and win Luke back through subterfuge, like she’d tried with Bennett. She wanted Luke back. But... It needed to be because he loved her.
That was the other difference when it was real, she supposed.
“Thank you,” Olivia said, leaning in to give Lindy a hug.
“No problem.” Lindy gave her a half wave. “See you tomorrow.”
Olivia nodded and walked the opposite direction from Lindy, heading toward her car. Now that she was without her friends, she felt a little bit depleted. Maybe she would call her mom and talk to her on the way home so she didn’t have to be left alone with her thoughts and her sadness. That seemed like a pretty good solution.
She shook her head and slipped her coat on, buttoning it up to brace herself against the cold.
Then she started to walk down the sidewalk, one foot in front of the other. The streetlights had started to turn on, pools of light showing the cracks in the sidewalk. The shop windows were dim, showing the outlines of chairs and window displays. There were no Christmas lights anymore. The season was over. And that felt somehow metaphorical for where she was at now.
Christmas was over. Now it was just winter. And she had to hope that on the other side of it would be spring, because it had always come in the past.
But right now it felt like it wouldn’t. Right now, it felt like it would be like this, cold, and gray, for the rest of forever. In her heart and outside.
The bar was starting to fill up with people, because it was Saturday, which was an even bigger drinking day than Friday. She thought about going in for a second. Throwing darts. That just made her think of Luke and kissing whiskey off his lips.
She didn’t even want to play darts. The man really had broken her.
This whole town was filled to the brim with Luke Hollister. Everywhere she looked. Everywhere she had been. He was part of it.
She ached to tell him that, because she knew that in a lot of ways he would find that pleasing. That he was synonymous with the town. That he had roots here, even if he didn’t know it.
But she couldn’t tell him. Because he didn’t love her.
She was going to have to walk down the streets, go to all these places they had been together. She was going to have to run into him at the grocery store.
In line for coffee.
She was going to have to pretend that he had never seen her naked. That he had never kissed her, tasted her. That they hadn’t been intimate. That he didn’t have a piece of her heart buried deep inside of him that she would never be able to get back.
How was she going to do that? How was she going to do it without folding in on herself completely?
She knew how she had done it in the past. She had closed parts of herself off. Had given herself goals. But she didn’t want to be that person anymore, either. So she supposed she just had to endure this. Be one with her pain and all of that.
It was overrated.
“Olivia Logan,” came the sound of a rough voice to her left. “As I live and breathe.”
She turned and saw Luke, the window rolled down in the passenger seat of his truck, him staring across the bench seat at her.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Driving,” he said simply.
“You’re talking to me.”
“If you know what I’m doing, then why did you ask me?”
He was not doing this to her. Not now. She stomped her foot and whirled to fully face him. “Luke Hollister, how dare you tease me? Don’t you do it. I will... I will throw my purse at you.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll just keep it until you agree to talk to me.”
She frowned. “Why would I want to talk to you?”
“A question for the ages. But then I’m not quite sure why you wanted to kiss me. Why you wanted to touch me. Why you wanted to be with me at all.”
“Because I loved you,” she said, choking on tears that were threatening to rise up. “And you know that. So don’t act confused now.”
“Did you stop loving me that quickly?” he asked, his expression losing the amusement it had held only a moment before.
She gritted her teeth. “You don’t have the right to ask me that.” She wrapped her coat more firmly around herself and began to walk more resolutely down the street. Luke’s truck engine rumbling along with her.
“Olivia,” he said, “I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Olivia...” She kept on walking. “Olivia!”
She stopped and whirled around on her heel. “What? What do you think I have to say to you?”
“Maybe nothing. And that’s okay. I understand. But I have something to say to you,” he said. “You did a lot of talking last night, and you don’t owe me anything more than what you already gave me. But I let you down, and I want a chance to fix that. I’ve been doing a lot of driving around. A lot of lifting heavy rocks. A lot of thinking.”
“I don’t tend to like where your thinking leads,” she said.
“I’m sorry about that,” he responded. “I’m sorry about a lot of things. About a lot of damn things. You’re right. I’ve always loved you. From the time you were eighteen years old. It tore me up inside. Caring about you like that. I didn’t want to care about anybody like that. Let alone you. This pretty little rich girl who had a plan for her life. Who had everything all set out before her. I knew that I wouldn’t do anything but disappoint you. There was no other alternative for that. Ever. And I felt... I felt certain that love... My love was never going to be good enough. Not for the likes of you. It wasn’t good enough for my own mother, Olivia. How could it be good enough for you?” He shook his head. “I failed at love.”
A sharp honk came from behind Luke breaking that sense of isolation she’d been shrouded in, that feeling that they were the only two people in the world. Olivia looked back and saw a battered old truck behind Luke with the engine idling. Luke hung his head out his window and shouted, “Wait a damned second, Hank! I’m busy.”
Luke turned back to Olivia. “I was wrong, Liv. I was flat-out wrong. I want the chance to explain myself.”
Hank honked his horn again. Luke hit the side of his truck with his open palm and hung his head out the window again. “Hank! I’m declaring my love here. Don’t make a scene.”
“I think we’re the ones making a scene,” Olivia said, looking around, suddenly conscious of the fact that she was standing on the sidewalk, with Luke blocking the whole of Main Street, right in front of the Saloon, the big picture windows offering everyone inside a prime view of the proceedings.
“I think we’re owed a scene. Look at me,” he said, his voice frayed. “Me. I’m cool about everything. I don’t make scenes. I don’t care enough about anything. Not until you. I almost punched Bennett Dodge out last night. I carried you out of the saloon like a caveman, in front of God and everybody. And here I am, blocking traffic.” He looked behind him at the one truck backed up in the lane behind him. “Such as it is.”
She did her best to hold back the tears that were building in her eyes. “You hurt me. So much.”
“I know, kiddo,” he said, his voice pained. “I know I did. I’m sorry. Give me a chance to explain. Give me a chance to make it up to you.”
She had a feeling the old her would’ve closed herself off now. Out of fear. Would have clung tightly to all that hard-won control. To goals and logic. But she didn’t care about any of that now. And she wasn’t the old her. She was different. Changed forever by Luke. So, she figured she should give him a chance.
“Okay,” she said, climbing into the truck. Anyway, now Hank could go. She buckled the seat belt and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the feeling of rightness welling up beneath the pain in her chest. Even though he’d hurt her, even though it was all uncertain, it was better to be close to him than to be away from him.
“I have half a mind to sit here and make him wait for being obnoxious.”
“I hate to break it to you,” she said. “You’re the one being obnoxious.”
“But I’m doing it for you,” he pointed out. “That has to mean something.”
“It means something to me,” she said softly.
He started driving down the road then, and Hank honked at them a couple of times just for good measure. They were silent on the drive, and it didn’t take long for Olivia to realize he was driving her out to the new property. To the ranch.
They were silent all the way down the dirt road, and then he parked in front of the house. That house that had felt so instantly perfect to her when she had walked inside. “Come out here with me,” he said.
Then they stood out there, in front of the house, the porch light casting a golden glow onto the ornate wooden scrollwork that ran between the support beams, casting shadows made of lace onto the ground below.
Luke walked toward her and took her hand, the warmth of his touch washing away her pain, her doubts.
“Suddenly, it seemed like this place was perfect,” he said slowly. “Right around the time you asked me for help, it seemed like the time to use that money I’d held on to for twenty years. I told myself it was because I couldn’t leave it sitting there forever. That this was the right property. That it was the right time. Just because the money had been there so long, and it needed to be used. That wasn’t it.” He let out a heavy breath. “Come with me.”
He led her across the gravel, out to the field that stretched between the house and the barn. The grass was damp from condensation, seeping through her pants as they walked out toward the center. “Look up,” he said. “All the stars. The view out here is perfect. No lights coming from town. No noise from traffic.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, turning her focus back to him, “but I’m not sure I understand.”
“I thought earlier today... I wanted to give you everything. That I wanted to pull the stars down from the sky and give them to you, and I would if I could. Then I realized I might not be able to bring them down to earth, but I can give them to you all the same.”
“Luke, I don’t understand,” she said, desperate to understand. Desperate to erase this distance between them. It had been there long enough. The two of them had cultivated that distance over years, because they’d known on some level where closeness would lead. Now that she’d experienced life without it, without space, without clothes between herself and Luke, moving back to distant was intolerable.
“It was never for me,” he responded. “This. It was never the right time to spend the money for me. It was because of you. This is for you, Liv. That’s why it was right. It was finally time to get a place of my own because it was time for me to have a wife. It was time for me to make my move. To claim that life with you. The life that I always wanted. Dammit, watching you with him... Watching you want him... It tore me up inside, but there was nothing I could do about it. I wouldn’t even let myself acknowledge it, because I had to protect you from everything I couldn’t give. But I was just such a dumb-ass. Bennett made me see it. Bennett, of all people.”
“Bennett?” she asked, incredulous. “What did he say to you?”
“It’s not love that fails, Liv,” he said. “It’s fear. And that changed everything. All this time, I believed that the love my mother had for me, the love I had for her, wasn’t enough. That it failed in some way.” His voice deepened, went rougher. “It was just that fear had the victory that day that she died. It doesn’t mean love never mattered. It doesn’t mean that life we had wasn’t something. And knowing that has made a difference in me. I have a choice. We do. To let fear win, or to let love win. This whole road was leading me to you. It was leading me here.
“I am such a fool,” he said, shaking his head. “To think that it just so happened that a property owned by Cole Logan was the one where I wanted to hang my hat. It’s because this field, that barn, that house, it’s yours, kiddo. Yours and mine. Not for my life, for our life. That money... That money was always about love. My mom loved me the best that she could. I saved it, but it wasn’t worth using until I loved someone enough to spend it. And that was you. That was you, all this time.”
Luke’s words poured through her like rain, washing away all of her doubt. All of her pain. She didn’t want to hold back. She didn’t want control. She just wanted him.
Olivia flung herself into his arms, and he spun her around beneath that blanket of stars, her stars. Their stars. Wet grass whipped dewdrops up around them, but she didn’t care. “I love you,” she said. “It was always you for me, too. Always. Luke, I love you so much.”
She clung to him, standing in the field, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might go straight through her chest.
“Fear almost won,” he said. “With me and with you.”
“I know. It’s why I avoided you. Why I was so mad at you all the time.” She kissed his cheek, pressing her fingertips against his skin, tracing that beloved line of his jaw. “Luke, remember when we went to the beach? I was so mad at you that day. Because you looked so good, and I couldn’t understand why I wanted a man that drove me crazy, and not the one that I thought I should be with.”
“Oh, I remember that day,” he said. “You had that prim little black swimsuit on that didn’t even show all that much skin. It shouldn’t have turned me on, but it did. But I just pretended it was because you were a pretty girl and I liked pretty girls.” He cupped her cheeks with his big hands, staring down at her. “You’re not just a pretty girl. There are millions of pretty girls. But there’s only one you. And you have had me, had my heart, for a hell of a long time.”
“You have mine. And I was going to ask for it back. But I think I’m going to let you keep it. As long as I can keep yours. Then I think we’ll be pretty even.”
“I think we will,” he said.
“Can we make a deal?” she asked.
“Anything.”
“If ever we’re afraid, we can’t push it down. We can’t hide it. We have to tell each other. Fear is a part of life. We’ll never get rid of it altogether. But we can choose how much power it has. I think bringing it into the light steals that power away. Talking to you, sharing with you, that’s what changed me. I don’t want to go back to holding it all inside.”
“You have my word,” he said. “You come first. You’re the only person that’s ever known me. You’re the only person that ever made sure I couldn’t get away with keeping my secrets. And I’m never going to keep them, not from you.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her, with all of the desire inside of him, and she thought she was going to explode from her love. She had been right to be afraid of this. Because it was so big, so powerful and so life-changing. She’d had to be ready to accept it. But now that she’d made fear step aside, it was all love. Brilliant and blinding. And everything that she needed.
“Come on,” he said, taking hold of her hand and leading her back toward the truck. She felt reluctant to go. Reluctant to leave this place that was going to be theirs. Theirs. They were going to have a life. A future. And she was so blinded by happiness that she couldn’t picture it clearly. Couldn’t see any golden retrievers.
She didn’t need to see that perfect picture. She only needed to see Luke’s face.
She thought Luke was going to lead her back to the truck, but instead, he surprised her by guiding her up the steps and onto the front porch. Then, Luke got down on one knee. Her heart lurched in her throat, everything in her shivering in anticipation.
“Before I came looking for you, I came out here. I made sure the house was ready. That the power was turned on, that it was clean. Then I stopped at a jewelry store. I chose this because it’s classic. An antique, actually. But it reminded me of you. Because it’s a little bit old-fashioned, beautiful through and through. And one of a kind.” He pulled a ring from his shirt pocket and held it up toward her. It was ornate, with a beautiful gold setting and diamonds that glittered beneath the simple porch light.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, the uncertainty on that handsome face, a face that was never uncertain, sending a shock wave of love through her.
A terrible thought occurred to her then, as she looked down at the man of her dreams, offering her a ring after being together for such a short time. “You don’t have to ask me so quickly.”
She had the reputation of being the girl who broke up with men because they wouldn’t marry her. And now he felt like he had to.
“I want to do it so quickly,” he said. “Anyway, it’s not that quick. I’ve loved you for years, woman. I’m just finally awake. Marry me. So that I don’t lose you again. Marry me, Olivia. Be my roots. Be my family. Be my home.”
The word welled up inside of her, the answer she’d been dying to give to a proposal for so long. This wasn’t the way she’d imagined it. Not when she’d been with Bennett. When she’d hoped for a proposal during a crowded Christmas celebration, with all manner of fanfare and attention.
This was just her and the man she loved. It was more than enough.
He slipped the ring on her finger, then swung her up into his arms.
“I told you,” she said, clinging to him. “It’s becoming a habit.”
“Good,” he said. “And anyway, I need to practice this.” He carried her up the front porch steps, toward the door of the house. “Practice carrying my wife over the threshold.”
And that was exactly what he did. Carried her through the front door and into their life together.
Olivia supposed it could be argued that it was irresponsible to get engaged so quickly. And up until Luke Hollister, Olivia had always been responsible. But with Luke, she wasn’t responsible. She was just in love.
She had been incredibly peeved that day when her tire was flat, that Luke Hollister had been the salvation she hadn’t wanted. But oh, that bad boy had been the salvation the good girl had desperately needed.
Since her big breakup with Bennett, she’d been slowly learning what she wanted out of her own life. But in the end she’d found something even better. She’d found a way to their life. Hers and Luke’s.
All of the fear, all of the uncertainty, that bound up feeling inside of her faded away. She didn’t need to be good. She just needed to be her. Because Luke Hollister loved her, and she loved him.
And that was as good as it got.