by Jill Shalvis
Again.
Which, actually, was a good reminder. This happiness in Lucky Harbor was tenuous, and it all depended on the facade that she’d built remaining in place.
Here she wasn’t the child star.
She was just herself. A sole proprietor. A simple woman with simple needs.
The minute she became Sharlyn again, everything would change. This happy life would vanish. Everything good would go away. Her friends. Maybe her business. Cole.
And if that wasn’t a sobering thought, there was the realization that this too, this life she’d made for herself in Lucky Harbor, was temporary.
God. God, she hated that. But the truth was, this life was nothing more than another show, another illusion.
Or delusion, as it were…
“Olivia? You still with me?” Cole asked.
Yeah. She was. The question was, how long would he be with her? “Yes.”
He paused, and this time the good humor was gone from his voice when he spoke. “Gotta say, it was unexpected waking up alone.”
She cleared her throat. “The whole night was unexpected. I didn’t plan on sleeping with you, Cole.”
“And I didn’t plan on you being gone in the morning.”
So honest. So up front. Again, no games, no hidden agendas, just…Cole.
She had no idea what to do with that. Or him, for that matter. She’d never met anyone like him. He’d probably never hidden from the truth about anything, and she knew damn well he expected the same from those he cared about. And that openness of his, not to mention those unspoken expectations, were a mystery to her.
“Women who are brave and pull perfect strangers out of the ocean shouldn’t make a run for the door,” he said.
She wasn’t sure what to say, but she did get a warm glow from him calling her brave.
“We need a do-over, Olivia.”
Her body quivered at the thought of a do-over and what it might entail. After last night, she no longer had to wonder how he’d be in bed. She could close her eyes and feel him moving over her, hear the rough timbre of his voice in her ear. He’d been…amazing. Intuitive, giving…deliciously commanding.
Which, of course, meant one thing. They couldn’t do this again. Because the closer they became, the more intimate things got between them, the sooner the end would come. “I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Me too. I’m late for a swim with Tanner.”
She pictured that for a moment, two of the hottest guys she’d ever known powering through the water. “That sounds…” Hot. “Crazy. It’s freezing.”
“We have special wetsuits.”
“Still crazy.”
“Nah,” he said. “It’s fun. We have extra gear, if you wanna join. Except no trying to save me. Copping a feel? Hell, yeah, go for it all you want. But no rescuing.”
She smiled and realized she felt…light as a feather.
Happy.
Terrified. “Can I ask you something?” she asked quietly.
“Anything.”
And wasn’t that just the thing. He was an open book.
And she…she didn’t even have a book.
“When you walk away, just do it, okay?” she asked. “Don’t try to sugarcoat it or drag it out. Just walk.”
There was a beat of silence. “Just walk,” he repeated, an odd note in his voice.
“Yeah,” she said. “And I’ll do the same. No hard feelings, I promise.”
Another beat of silence. “Is that how things are done in Kentucky, Olivia?” he asked softly.
Oh, God, that voice, that low, gentle but slightly pissed-off voice. She flinched at what he believed to be her past, the reminder harsh and unwelcome. Panic licked at her.
Trapped by her own lies.
“It’s how things are done in my world,” she said.
In her real world.
“Well, not in mine,” he said. “I don’t just walk away.”
Chapter 18
The day before Halloween, Olivia found herself having difficulty concentrating on anything. She blamed another sleepless night where she’d tossed and turned, reliving the time she’d spent with Cole in this very bed. And on her floor. And back in her bed…
He was hard to forget.
I don’t just walk away.
His words, and the meaning behind them, kept replaying in her head. They meant that she was sleeping with, and quite possibly falling in serious like with, a guy who had a moral compass that never wavered.
She liked that. She loved that. But it would only make it worse in the end. She was already counting down to the day he would leave her—and no matter what he said, he’d eventually leave her—and she was both needing it and dreading it at the same time.
Instead of dwelling on that, she buried herself in work. When the kids arrived for Drama Day, Pink and Kendra came in holding hands with Becca. As talk turned to Halloween, it came out that the twins were the only two kids who wouldn’t be trick-or-treating, because they didn’t have costumes.
“That’s okay,” Pink bravely told Olivia. “We get to dress up today, right?”
Olivia met Becca’s subdued gaze and understood the problem—their dad was still facing serious financial woes. She swallowed the lump at the back of her throat. “Absolutely,” she said. “Everyone dresses up for Drama Day.”
The girls squealed and bounced up and down like pogo sticks. Then they raced for the dress-up circle and sat with mock patience, restless as if it were the last day of school.
Olivia went into the back and dragged out her trunk, which she’d brought in as she did every week.
Pink pulled out the Cinderella costume and handed it to Kendra. “Here, Sissy.”
Kendra reverently clutched the frothy pink thing to her torso, her expression rapturous as she stroked the material.
Drama Day went on as usual, with each kid playing the part of their choice from a script Olivia had saved for today because it revolved around Halloween. She’d brought candy for them as well, and afterward, when everyone had changed back into their own clothes, they were allowed to dig in.
Olivia found Kendra in the back alone, still Cinderella. “Kendra?”
The little girl didn’t look up at her. Instead she let out a telltale sniff and kept her head lowered.
And Olivia’s heart cracked right in two. Becca came up behind Olivia and took in the situation. “I’m stopping at the drugstore with them on the way home,” she whispered softly to Olivia. “I’m going to buy them costumes.”
No. Not going to happen. Not on Olivia’s watch. Dropping to her knees before Kendra, Olivia gently lifted the girl’s chin and looked into huge, swimming green eyes. “I want you to take the Cinderella costume for tomorrow night,” she said.
Kendra’s impossibly huge eyes widened even farther, and her mouth fell open.
Pink had come in behind Becca. “We don’t have any money,” she said.
“I’m not selling it,” Olivia told her. “I’m giving it to her.”
Pink let out a joyous whoop, jumped up and down, and then grabbed Kendra and spun her around. “You hear that?” she asked her twin. “You get to be Cinderella for Halloween, just like you’ve always wished for! That means wishes come true. And that means that maybe we’ll get our other wish!”
Kendra grinned.
“What’s your other wish?” Olivia asked.
“That Santa comes for Daddy this year and brings him what we hear him asking for on the phone sometimes.”
“And what’s that, honey?” Becca asked.
“Something called credit so he can buy us a house.”
The lump in Olivia’s throat was back. “Well,” she finally said softly, “I’m betting Santa will do his absolute best.”
Pink nodded and reached for Kendra’s hand. “Come on, Sissy, we gotta go. The others are waiting.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Olivia said to Pink. “Your costume.”
Pink’s eyes got as big as Kendra’s
. “Wow, I get one too?”
“Of course you do,” Olivia said, choked up anew at the thought that Pink had actually believed that she and Kendra couldn’t possibly be lucky enough to each get a costume. “Your pick.”
Pink threw herself at Olivia and hugged her around the waist tight. “I hope Santa comes for you too,” she whispered fiercely.
And then they ran out of the back room into the front, right past Cole standing in the doorway, holding two to-go coffee cups. He smiled at each of the twins, exchanged a quiet, familiar greeting with Becca, and then, when they were all gone, he handed Olivia one of the cups.
“I like watching you with the kids,” he said. He stepped closer and put his mouth to her ear. “Admit it, you’re just a big softie.”
She pulled back and met his gaze. “Am not.”
Leaning in again, he kissed her jaw, working his way back to her ear. “Softie.”
Her knees were wobbly and she was breathing erratically, but she tried to keep her cool. “Bite your tongue,” she said.
Instead, he nipped her ear, making her quiver all the more. “You gave them costumes from your trunk, the one you so carefully keep separate from your usual stock because the things in there mean something to you.”
She sucked in a breath. “How do you know?”
“Because you almost took my finger off when I touched it the other night.”
Well, he had her there. “I’m not a softie,” she repeated.
He just smiled.
“Am I that transparent?”
“No,” he said. “You’re actually hard as hell to read. You don’t give away much.” He paused, waiting until she met his gaze. “I just happen to know you now. I’m guessing I know you more than you usually allow.”
She sucked in a breath, getting a good lungful of his scent while she was at it, which had her body doing a repeat on the quiver. “You think you know me?”
He grinned a confident, alpha grin that said why yes, he thought he knew her well. “Just because we’ve done…it,” she said, “doesn’t mean—”
“We discussed your sexual vocabulary. ‘It’ is not on the list of acceptable descriptions for what we did.”
“Fine,” she said. “We had wild monkey sex that ruined me for all other men. Happy?”
“Getting there.” He moved in close. Real close. “Tell me more,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, pushed him away, and sipped her coffee. “Thanks for this, by the way,” she said, studying him over the steaming rim. He wasn’t dressed in his usual cargoes today, but in basketball shorts and a T-shirt. “What brings you by?”
He shrugged. “On my way home from a run.”
“How’s your shoulder? Your doctor okay with you running?”
He rolled his shoulder. “It’s great.”
“Is that what your doctor says?”
He flashed a small smile. “Okay, so the great part’s my own personal opinion.”
“And the professional opinion?”
“A few more days before I’m one hundred percent,” he said. Paused. “Maybe a week or two.”
Her breath shuddered out and she set down the coffee. “Oh, Cole. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “I’ve got plenty to do while Sam and Tanner take over. I could watch paint dry, for instance. Or—”
“Bring me coffee,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah. And I’m looking at that hanging dress display,” he said, his gaze on the contraption she’d created the day before to show off some vintage designer dresses. “No offense, but it looks like you jury-rigged it with…yarn and silk ties?” He shook his head. “It’s about two minutes from falling on someone’s head.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve got to take it down before I kill someone.”
“I can fix it.”
“No one can fix it,” she said. “It was a whim, and it’s a disaster.”
“Bet me.”
She looked at him, startled. “What?”
He smiled that smile she imagined the spider gave to the fly. “Bet me. If I fix it, I win.”
Her heart tripped. “You win what?”
“Winner’s choice,” he said, and casually sipped his coffee.
Casual, her ass. “So if you can’t fix it?” she asked.
“Your choice,” he said simply. Except nothing with him was simple for her. Not a single thing.
“Now?” she asked, stalling for time, but she was talking to his back because he’d passed by her and was studying her haphazard display. “You’re in workout clothes,” she said. “You’re not packing any goodies in your shorts.”
He chuckled low in his throat, as if he knew damn well he was packing plenty of goodies, just no tools.
“Is sex all you think about?” she asked.
“Around you, yeah. You have anything stronger than the ties? Rope, maybe?”
“I’ve got two sets of handcuffs to go with the police costumes I ordered.”
He craned his neck and looked at her, his expression showing first surprise and then a wicked, sexy mischievousness. “You feeling playful?” he asked softly.
She bit her lower lip and made him laugh.
“Good to know,” he said. “But one thing at a time.”
Half an hour later, he’d fixed the display. When he was done, he rose to his full height, the silk ties she’d used in hand.
He smiled, a badass smile, and then headed toward her.
“Wait,” she said with a laugh, backing up right into her desk, lifting a hand to ward him off. “I never said—”
He kept coming at her until her hand bumped into his chest and then got sandwiched between them, his eyes shining with both amusement and heat. “I win,” he said.
Her heart skipped a beat. And there were all sorts of other reactions as well. “And you pick…?”
“You,” he whispered, and slid his hands to her wrists and pulled them behind her back.
Oh, boy…
Cole smiled against her jaw, she could feel it, and then she felt the soft silk of the tie as he began to wrap it around her wrists, and then…she felt something else.
His phone vibrating.
And vibrating.
“You going to get that?” she asked.
With a rough exhale, he let her go, pulled his phone from his pocket, and stared at the screen. “Shit.”
“Problem?”