“You okay with it?” he asked, his warm, strong hands under her sweater, massaging her back, her shoulder blades. “If you’re not, we don’t have to go.”
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answers. I want to know how the administration allowed my father to pay off their staff.”
He kissed the back of her head and continued rubbing her back, and then his hands moved around her side and found her breasts. She closed her eyes as he explored, his warm lips on her neck.
And then she turned around and kissed him.
“Make me forget everything, Zach,” she whispered, snaking her arms around his neck.
And he did.
Chapter 15
In the morning, Olivia and Zach went back to the cottage to wait for Johanna. Zach listened in from the kitchen, but there was nothing much to listen to.
Johanna asked for the receipts with her usual dripping venom, Olivia handed them over, signed the clipboard, and all but shut the door in the woman’s face.
Olivia wanted to bait her, to tell her what she’d learned without naming names (Pearl’s) of her father’s active love life. That seemed to be the only way to get Johanna talking. But today wasn’t the day for that. Not with the trip to Pixford looming.
Johanna seemed surprised at how easily Olivia ca-pitulated. The woman eyed her, clearly curious that Olivia was suddenly not interested in making nice.
That settled, Olivia wanted to get out of the cottage as quickly as possible, so they got back into Zach’s truck and headed into town to pick up breakfast to eat along the way. She had no idea how long they’d be in Pixford or if she’d have time to buy her two items later, so she figured she might as HAUNTING OLIV IA
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well buy coffee and egg sandwiches from the Eat-In Diner and a couple of bottles of orange juice from the town store. In the diner she ran into Cecily Carle’s mother. Cecily was the girl who most worried Kayla, but of all the mothers, Rorie Carle was the nicest. She offered a warm and friendly hello when she saw Olivia at the counter, asked after Kayla, and chatted briefly about the pageant and how wonderful she thought it was for developing self-esteem in their girls.
The positive interaction actually perked her up a bit. She was so used to sidelong glances or out-and-out hostility that Rorie Carle’s smile and warmth was like a soothing balm.
And then Olivia and Zach headed north on I-95.
She stared out the window for most of the three-hour drive, the passing scenery not bringing back a single memory. It was just trees and the occasional rest stop, like on any highway she’d ever been. Only when they turned off the highway in Pixford did a knot begin to form in Olivia’s stomach. The town center was as she remembered. Not very interesting or the slightest bit quaint. Just some shops and a church. The pregnant girls hadn’t been welcome in town, so they’d rarely gone.
“Turn here,” she told Zach as they approached the dirt road leading to the home. There was a blue sign reading “Pixford Home, Private Property.” Pixford was in a rural area of Maine and the home was located a mile down the curving, bumpy road. She remembered how her mother’s tiny sports car had bumped on the holes and rocks on the road thirteen years ago, Olivia’s morning sickness at an all-time high. Back then she’d thought it a very bad 190
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sign that the powers that be at the home didn’t ensure a smooth ride for pregnant girls.
It was early fall when Olivia had been driven down this road for the first time, and the grounds were beautiful. Huge, leafy trees on both sides of the road covered the sky above so that there was almost an element of cocooning, an assurance that she would be protected, safe. At the end of the road, a circular driveway looped in front of the stately brick house.
Her mother had driven her, and they’d barely spoken during the ten-hour drive. Olivia had been a nervous wreck, staring out the window at the passing trees, at other cars. She’d been numb. In the dimmest recesses of her mind, she had heard a voice telling her to throw open the car door and run, right in the middle of the highway, or at least when they’d stopped for bathroom breaks. There had been many of those. So often Olivia had gone into a bathroom at a rest stop and come out with the vague idea of simply disappearing. She’d spot her mother smoking a cigarette by the picnic tables or waiting on line for a cinnamon bun or coffee, and it would have been so easy to simply walk away.
Of course, there were few places to go on a highway, but the freedom that had been hers during those breaks had been so tempting.
But then what? Go where? Take care of her baby how? She was sixteen. Two months pregnant. Her mother was her only family. Her father hated her.
She had a few friends from school, but no one she could confide in.
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should have trusted her instincts, which had told her Zachary Archer wouldn’t run from the pregnancy. She’d thought it so out of character. But she’d been too naïve to even consider what her father had done behind the scenes, behind her back.
“It’s the right thing to do,” her mother had said at least ten times during the trip.
Olivia had said nothing to that. Her baby had deserved better than what Olivia, at sixteen, could offer. She’d comforted herself with that knowledge.
And with the knowledge that her father had arranged a private adoption with a wonderful couple who’d love her child.
“Ready?” Zach asked, startling her out of her memories. “If you just want to sit here for a while and get your bearings, that’s fine. We don’t have to go in at all.”
Olivia took a deep breath. “I would like to just sit here for a little while. Thanks, Zach.”
He reached over and squeezed her hand.
In the dead of winter, the grounds weren’t quite as welcoming. There was no cocoon factor. Just bare trees and snow cover. Olivia could see a figure moving past an upstairs window, the silhouette of a heavily pregnant girl.
I hope you’re okay, she said silently to the teenager.
I hope you’re all okay in there.
Olivia glanced at Zach. He seemed shaken, and she had no doubt he was imagining her here alone thinking she’d been abandoned.
“I can’t believe what you had to go through all these months,” he said, his voice breaking. “God, it kills me.”
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“It’s okay, Zach. I was treated well enough. And our baby was born healthy—that’s apparent now.”
He stared up at the building. “I can’t even begin to imagine sending my child here. If Kayla, God forbid, got pregnant at sixteen, I wouldn’t send her away.”
“Good,” she said, placing her hand on his.
In her mind’s eye she could see her old room as if she were standing in it right then. Pixford had ten bedrooms, three girls to a room. There were five bathrooms—and always a line. Three square meals a day. Prenatal vitamins and checkups. Lamaze-type classes with no coach. Olivia spent most of her time in the library, reading or staring into space. The library had a fireplace and several rocking chairs, and she’d often rocked herself while staring out the window at nothing. Wondering where Zach was.
Wondering who their baby would be. She never thought she’d get the opportunity to find out.
“Let’s go in,” she said. “I’m ready, if you are,” she added.
“Ready.”
The moment they walked through the door, Olivia could see that absolutely nothing had changed, including the staff. Mrs. Mimbly, the effusive recep-tionist, sat chatting on the phone to someone who was clearly a prospective “client.” Olivia always figured Mrs. Mimbly had been hired to give girls and their families the illusion that Pixford was a warm and welcoming environment, that the pregnant teenagers would be treated with TLC. None of the other staffers were like Mrs. Mimbly. The nurses
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they’d heard of other homes where the girls were treated with respect and kid gloves. Olivia sure hoped so. It wasn’t the case at Pixford.
Mrs. Mimbly hung up the phone and turned her attention to Olivia and Zach. “May I—” She paused, staring at Olivia. “Wait a minute. You’re one of our girls!”
Olivia smiled. “Olivia Sedgwick.”
“Of course! I remember you. Prettiest girl we ever had. Your baby must be—” She stopped again, her smile gone in an instant. “I’m sorry. I just remembered that your baby was stillborn.”
Was she lying? Or had the doctor and nurse conned everyone on the staff ?
“We don’t have many stillborns,” Mrs. Mimbly continued. “I remember being so sad when I heard the news.”
“Thank you,” Olivia said. “I appreciate that. I’m wondering . . . is the doctor or nurse who handled the birth still working here?” She held her breath.
Mrs. Mimbly shook her head. “Goodness, no. In fact, both that OB and the nurse—Lindy was her name—left Pixford in the days after your delivery.”
Olivia and Zach glanced at each other. “Really,”
Olivia said. “That’s interesting. Do you happen to know where they’re working now?”
“Well, Dr. Franklin retired,” Mrs. Mimbly said.
“Somewhere in France, if I recall. He always used to talk about retiring to the French countryside. And Lindy left no forwarding information. She just up and quit and seemingly disappeared.”
With a wallet full of cash, no doubt.
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the phone rang. She turned to Zach. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Once they were back in Zach’s truck, Olivia let out the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding.
“William must have paid them well,” Zach said, shaking his head. “I have a birth certificate for Kayla.
It was sent to me out of the blue a year after she was born. I assumed by your father. We’re named as parents. And Kayla’s full name is on it.”
“I saw it,” she said. “At the pageant meeting. I almost cried at the sight of it.” She shook her head.
“My father really thought he was God,” Olivia added.
“God with a huge bank account.”
That afternoon, with Zach at work and Kayla still at school for an extracurricular activity, Olivia stopped in at the Eat-In Diner for a solo lunch. Ever since she’d returned from Pixford, her heart and stomach had been in knots. She couldn’t quite catch her breath. But she couldn’t seem to cry either, and she had a feeling a good long cry would help. Then again, she’d have to burst into tears in public, since she couldn’t go to the cottage alone.
Not with someone out there who liked to slash beds and leave nooses around people’s necks. She’d have some lunch, treat herself to something gooey and good for the soul, like cheesecake or a chocolate milkshake.
As she pulled open the door to the Eat-In Diner, she did a double take.
“Camilla?”
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around, her dazzling white teeth gleaming. “Olivia!
I was just asking for directions to your house. And here you are!”
Olivia hugged her friend, thrilled to see her.
“What in the world are you doing here?”
“Bitch Face is ripping off Allure’s feature of best beauty treatments around the country. Portland, Maine, has two incredible spas, so she sent me up here to write them up. Isn’t my face amazingly smooth? Seaweed facial. Anyway, I knew you were just an hour north, so I figured I’d surprise you.”
“I’m so glad you did. It is so good to see you, Cammie.”
Camilla linked an arm through Olivia’s. “Do they have rabbit food here, or is it total greasy spoon?”
Olivia smiled. “Don’t worry. There’s a whole section on the menu for people on low-carb diets.”
“Perfect. Let’s sit and have an early dinner. I have to be back on the road by fiveish or I’ll fall asleep somewhere on I-95 in Massachusetts.”
As Olivia sat down across from Camilla in the booth, she realized that she hadn’t given much thought to her old life. She didn’t miss her job or Manhattan at all.
“So tell me everything,” Camilla said after their Diet Cokes were ser ved. “Has it been hard to be back?”
Olivia filled in Camilla on ever ything that was going on.
It took a lot to shock Camilla, but her eyes widened. “Are you sure you’re safe here?”
“I’m staying at Zach’s, so I think so,” Olivia said.
“With your daughter,” Camilla said. “I still can’t believe it. Do you have a picture?”
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Olivia pulled out the pictures of her and Kayla that they had taken the other day and handed them to Camilla.
Camilla sucked in her breath. “She has your hair!”
“Otherwise she looks exactly like her dad.”
“Well, her dad must be very handsome,” Camilla said, “because Kayla is gorgeous. She’s at that awk-ward becoming-a-teenager phase, but I can see it.
She’s going to be a knockout.”
Olivia stared at the photo of Kayla, her heart surg-ing in her chest. “I’m in love with them both,” she said, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.
“Hey, sweetie,” Camilla said, covering Olivia’s hand with her own, “what’s the matter? Everything sounds great between all of you. And now you’re even living with them.”
“I guess I’m a little overwhelmed,” Olivia said. “I don’t want to do anything wrong by Kayla. But I hardly know how to be a mom. Here I am stepping in thirteen years later. What do I know about motherhood?”
“I think I know what this is about,” Camilla said.
“I think it’s about that awful place you visited today.
You left without her the last time you were there.”
“I signed my rights to her away,” Olivia said. “How could I have done that?”
“Olivia, first of all, you were sixteen. Second of all, it doesn’t matter how old you were. When you’re not in a position to take care of a baby, the right thing to do is to sign your rights away so that someone else who can do right by the baby will take good care of her. You were not in a position to take care of a baby then. Not emotionally, financially, or otherwise.”
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“Zach was only seventeen,” Olivia said. “Not much older than I was.”
The waitress delivered their salads and paninis.
Camilla waited until the woman was gone before she leaned in. “I’ll repeat what I just said. It’s not so much the age as the person at the time. Yeah, maybe you could have risen to the occasion when you were sixteen, Olivia, but maybe not. From what you told me, Zach had years of experience relying only on himself, taking care of himself. He knew how to take care of that baby or how to find help, as he did for himself. Maybe your dad knew that.”
“Are you saying my dad thought that I was too immature to care for my baby but that Zach, whom he thought was a total loser, would make a fine father?
Camilla, that makes no sense.”
“I’m saying your father didn’t want his daughter to have a baby at sixteen and he made that baby go away. Poof. Gone. Gone to the baby’s father, a streetwise kid who’d had to raise himself for seventeen years and clearly had something special about him if his own golden child daughter saw something in him.”
Olivia gasped. “You think my dad gave Zach the baby because I supplied Zach with some stamp of approval?”
“By default,” Camilla said. “It happens in fashion and beauty all the time. You know that. Olivia, you won the Inner-Beauty Pageant at fifteen. Tha
t told your father, along with all your other achievements, that your voice, your heart, who you are meant something. And the boy you chose to fall madly in love with, to lose your virginity to, to risk getting 198
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pregnant by was Zach Archer. That had to tell your dad something about him.”
Olivia sat across from Camilla stunned. She’d never looked at it that way before, never dared consider that her father actually respected her, albeit in a very bizarre, backhanded manner.
“Camilla, how in the world does the assistant beauty editor of Glitz magazine get to be such a genius in the field of psychology?”
“I read a lot of self-help,” Camilla said, pulling out a hardcover titled Thirty Days to Self-Esteem.
Olivia laughed. “How long have you been reading that?”
“Four months,” Camilla said, cracking up. “But I’m still on chapter three, “Three Days to Demysti-fying the Authority Figure in Your Boss.”
Olivia grabbed Camilla’s hand and squeezed it. “I am so, so happy you came to see me today, Mill. You have no idea how much the sight of you has done for me.”
“Me too, Livvy. So is there anywhere to shop in this town?”
Olivia had a brainstorm. As she filled in Camilla, her friend’s eyes got wide and excited. “Oooh, I love being a spy girl!”
As Camilla and Olivia entered Johanna’s Cashmere Emporium, a bell above the door jangled. Johanna was ringing up a sale at the counter; she glanced at Olivia and frowned.
As the other customer left, Olivia said, “Johanna, this is my friend Camilla. She’s visiting from New York City. She’s an editor at Glitz magazine, and HAUNTING OLIV IA
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she’s looking to buy a gift for the fashion editor. I suggested a gorgeous cashmere sweater from a local Maine shop.”
Johanna was flustered. “Glitz? Wow. Do you think you might be able to get a mention of my store in the magazine?”
Camilla smiled. “I can certainly try. I’m like this”—she twisted her fingers together—“with the fashion editor.”
Johanna rushed around the counter, falling all over herself to help Camilla choose among styles and colors. “Let me show you what just came in. To die for. So soft! The most gorgeous dark purple.”
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