by Claire Adams
“I really can’t believe you’re here.” How many times had I said that in the past hour? “So…you just up and decided to come out here and find me?” I asked after our waitress had taken our order and delivered us a pot of tea. I poured some into the tiny handle-less cups, the steam swirling in the air. “I have to say, you definitely get the award for most romantic gesture ever.”
He smiled. “I’ll gladly accept that award. Though it wasn’t exactly how it happened. You’re probably not even going to believe it, but Ryan was trying to sabotage me.”
“What? Ryan? From the ranch?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean, he was trying to sabotage you?”
“Well, I didn’t really explain it to you at the time, but I broke up with you because I thought I was losing my mind. Because all those weird things were happening—the water being left on, Ditto getting out—and I thought that I was just so caught up with you that I was forgetting to do the most basic things. I think that’s kind of what Garrett and Marie were thinking, too. So, trust me when I say that I didn’t want to break up with you, but I felt like I had to because those things were happening. But then it came out that Ryan had been doing it all along.”
I put my teacup down. “Really? How do you know?”
“He admitted it, finally. Because he messed around with the brakes on my truck, but then Garrett was going to take it, and Ryan told him before he was able to get in and drive away.”
“Seriously?” I frowned, trying to work my head around everything he’d just said. Ryan had done that? “Was he that pissed that we were together?”
Ollie shook his head. “I don’t think that played a role. Or if it did, it wasn’t the main reason. No, Garrett’s two sons put him up to it, because they wanted to get rid of me. They didn’t want Garrett to leave me in charge of the ranch, and they figured if they could make it look like I was incompetent, then he’d change his mind. Ryan was just the one they got to go along with it.”
“I can’t believe that. What an asshole! All three of them.”
“Yeah, it was pretty shitty. On the plus side, though, I’m not actually losing my mind. And when I realized that none of the stuff that had happened was because of me, I knew I had to come out here. Even if you were going to tell me that you never wanted to see me again, that you’d moved on, I had to come out here and tell you that because . . . well, because I’ve never felt this way about someone before. I know that sounds cheesy as hell, but I really feel that way.”
“I do, too.” We sat there smiling at each other. I felt so happy; it was like my heart was going to burst.
We eventually made our way back to Darren’s, and he got home not long after we did. He hugged Ollie, then he hugged me, then he grabbed both of us and said we needed a group hug.
“I am so happy to have the two of you here,” he said, letting us go. He went out to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine and three glasses. “This requires a toast.” He handed us each a glass and poured. “I just had a feeling when I first saw you two together that it was meant to be, and I’m usually not wrong about these things!” He held up his wine glass. “So, let’s toast the two of you!”
“This is a pretty nice spot you have out here,” Ollie said, taking a sip of his wine. “You’ve done good for yourself. I’m glad to see that.”
“Thank you,” Darren said. “The two of you are more than welcome to come out and visit any time. And if you’re ever thinking of moving out of state, I’d be thrilled to help you out in whatever way I can. Hook you up with a job, place to live, you name it.”
It was rather tempting, but I’d miss Colorado too much, and I was, after all, a small-town girl. I knew Ollie felt the same way.
That night, neither of us could wait to go to bed. We were kissing before the bedroom door was even shut all the way, pulling at each other’s clothes, discarding them only when we managed to pull away long enough.
His touch was electrifying, not just on my breasts and between my legs, but everywhere his hands went, my whole body seemed to ignite. I grabbed his cock and dropped down to my knees and took him all the way into my mouth, moving my head up and down as he raked his fingers through my hair. With each movement, I could feel him get bigger, harder, until it was impossible for me to get him all the way into my mouth anymore. I pulled back and sucked on just the head of his cock, moving my tongue around in a circular motion as I did so. He was trying not to cry out, his fingers wrapped up in my hair.
I stopped abruptly, a strangled sound escaping his throat as I did so. I lay back on the bed and pulled him down toward me. I wrapped my legs around his torso, and he lowered himself down, kissing my neck. This might’ve been considered the most mundane or vanilla sex position, but I’d never let a guy fuck me missionary before. Most were more than happy for me to get on top, or to do it from behind, but a few had pushed for it, to which I had always firmly rebuked them. I never offered an explanation, but in my head, I knew it was because I just couldn’t have a guy on top of me like that. Even though it hadn’t happened before, I knew I’d feel trapped, pinned underneath his weight, helpless to get up.
But with Ollie, it was different. He kept himself propped on his forearms, so I was able to touch his chest, run my fingers over his smooth, supple muscles. His dick pressed against me, rock hard, and I shifted a little, moved my legs further apart, scooped my tailbone so I could try to get him into me. He continued kissing me, his lips moving down over my collarbones, then to my breasts.
Once he was inside me, he moved his hips slowly. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down closer. He moved faster, and I moved with him, rocking my pelvis, his cock pushing deeper and deeper into me. I tried to breathe slowly, wanting to prolong the sensations for as long as I could, but he’d found his rhythm, and he started to come. I was a few seconds behind him, but when it happened, it felt as though the whole world had fallen away and there was only the two of us, the feeling completely obliterating anything and everything else. I bit his shoulder to keep from crying out and dragged my fingernails down his back. We clung to each other until the feeling started to subside, and only then did he roll off, stretching his arm out so I could nestle myself beside him.
“I missed you so much,” he said. “That was incredible.”
“That’s about the best feeling in the world. I could do that every day and not get tired of it.”
He grinned, his eyes fall closed. “Yeah? Can I get that in writing?”
We both laughed, and I could feel the drowsiness get heavier. Ollie yawned.
“I’d love to stay out here longer—it’s actually pretty cool for a city—but I need to get back to the ranch,” he said. “Not tonight or anything, but Wednesday at the latest. It’s too late in the season for Garrett to find a replacement for Ryan, so it’s just been him and Jesse handling the wrangling right now. He was nice enough to agree to let me come out here, though I probably would have done it even if he’d said ‘no.’”
“That was nice of him,” I said. “And we can go back whenever you want. If you have to go back tomorrow, that’s fine. I do have a business of my own to run, after all. Though from the sounds of it, they seem to be doing just fine without me. But you’re right—we should plan on getting back soon. I’m totally fine with that.”
He traced his fingers up my arm, and I let my eyes close. This had turned out to be a very good vacation after all.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ollie
As the season continued and summer wound down to a close, life fell into a comfortable routine. If I wasn’t needed for a group ride, I’d head into town after the morning chores were done and sit at the counter and visit with Wren for a little while. She’d come over to the ranch in the afternoon after the restaurant closed, and we’d go for a ride or a swim. We’d alternate where we slept; some nights it’d be at my place, some at hers. The nights we were apart getting to be fewer and fewer.
The article in
that magazine came out, and it was weird as all hell to see my face there and to read the words. The article was called “A Second Chance at Love,” which was pretty sappy, if you asked me, but I supposed it was the sort of thing that would appeal to the women readers of the magazine. Plus, it was accurate.
But I should have known the summer wasn’t going to end without something else happening; that’s just the way things had been going. I’d just gotten back from a visit with Paula, and Wren and I were planning to go for a ride before the afternoon chores. We were heading over to the barn when I saw an unfamiliar guy walking toward us. I knew he wasn’t one of the guests, but figured maybe he was a friend of Garrett’s.
“Hey,” I said as he got closer. “Are you looking for Garrett?”
The guy shook his head. Now that we were closer, he looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “No, I’m not looking for Garrett. You’re Oliver, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Then you’re the one I’m looking for. My name’s Kevin,” he said. “Kevin Wentworth.”
The way he said it, it was as if we should know him. The name did sound familiar, though I couldn’t figure out where I’d heard it before. I glanced at Wren, wondering if she had any clue. She was looking over at me, and I could tell she was wondering the same thing.
He was well dressed, his khaki pants pressed and his shoes a burgundy leather. “My brother was Isaac Wentworth.”
Next to me, Wren stiffened. “What do you want?” she asked.
So, here he was, the brother of the man I had killed. I’d thought about him before, about Isaac’s whole family, how what I had done affected them. And now one of those family members was standing right here in front of me. I swallowed and was about to say something when Kevin started talking.
“I apologize for showing up here unannounced,” he said. “I wasn’t even sure if you’d still be around this area. But my wife saw the article about you two in one of her magazines. I live in Boston now.”
“Okay,” Wren said slowly. “So, what is it you wanted?”
“I was there that night,” Kevin continued, looking at Wren. “I know it’s been a while, so you probably don’t remember me.”
“I’ve tried to block most of that evening from my memory.”
He nodded. “I don’t blame you. I have, too. It was awful for everyone involved. But…after my wife showed me that article, I felt like I should come by here.”
“You flew all the way out here from Boston just to…to what?” Wren asked. “I am utterly confused by this whole thing.”
“I’m back and forth between here and Boston a lot,” Kevin said. “My parents are still out here and, unfortunately, not doing so well health-wise at the moment. My wife and I are trying to convince them to move back east with us, but they’re being difficult. Anyway, that’s not why I came by. I don’t exactly know why I came by, other than I felt I should.” Now he looked at me. “To tell you something, I guess.”
“Tell me something?” I asked. This whole conversation was getting more baffling by the second.
“Yes.”
“Well, before you do that, I want to tell you that I’m sorry. And that apology goes for your whole family. I didn’t mean to kill your brother. I know that doesn’t really matter, whether I mean to or not, because the fact of it is he’s dead, but that hadn’t been my intention. And I am truly sorry for the pain that has caused your family.”
“I do appreciate that,” Kevin said. “And I know that my parents will, too. I imagine that you’ve probably felt quite a bit of guilt concerning the whole thing.”
“I have.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Wren asked. “To try to make him feel worse? You saw that article and thought that he actually looked happy and didn’t deserve it? That’s a pretty shitty thing to do, if that is the case. Ollie has more than—”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Kevin said quietly. I reached out and touched Wren’s forearm, hoping to calm her down. I understood why she was getting defensive and acting hostile toward Kevin, but he wasn’t here to start shit—that much I could tell. And I wanted to hear what it was he had to say.
“I’m here,” he said, “because I know something that no one else did, about my brother. I’m here because I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it, and I myself feel a huge amount of guilt over it.” He looked down at his shoes and then back up at me. “Isaac was not a happy person for much of his life. It wasn’t always that way—I do have memories of us having fun together when we were younger, but once he hit the teen years, something changed. My parents were never willing to admit it—and he was pretty good at hiding it from them—but he was different.”
“I never really knew him that well,” I said.
“I did,” Kevin said, “whether I wanted to or not. He kept me around because he knew I was his little brother and I’d be loyal to him. And he was right.” His gaze went over to Wren. “I knew that night that he was going to try something with you, whether you wanted it or not.”
“How did you know?” she asked.
“That’s what he said on the drive over. I’m going to get laid tonight. She doesn’t even have to be good-looking; I don’t care. He said it a few times, and then, later, when you got there, he leaned over and whispered to me that he lucked out because you were good-looking. In much cruder terms, nothing that I care to repeat now.”
“Great,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So, your brother’s a premeditated rapist. You felt the need to come all the way out here to tell us that?”
“Wren.” I squeezed her arm gently. “Let’s let him talk.”
She pulled her arm away. “Why? So he feels better? Is that what this is about? You making some pilgrimage out here to make yourself feel less guilty?”
Kevin shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t really know. It’s not so black and white. I wish it were.”
“You’re basically coming out here and telling us that you knew what your brother was going to do, yet you decided to do nothing about it. Just sit there and be a bystander while your brother did something really shitty to someone else.”
“I’m not proud of how I handled it. And part of me just hoped that maybe the two of you would hit it off and you’d like him and he’d get what he wanted without feeling like he had to take something from you.” He shook his head. “I realize how ridiculous that all sounds. And I also realize how cowardly it was of me. There’s no excuse for it. I have a daughter of my own now, and I can’t stand the thought of her ever being around someone like my brother. But he was planning on doing something else, too. He was going to drive up to Boulder the next morning, go to the open air mall on 29th Street, and shoot as many people as he could. He’d gotten two AR-15s from this guy that was a friend of our father’s. Or used to be; he started to get really into all these government conspiracies, and my parents stopped seeing him. But Isaac didn’t, and he somehow got these two guns from him. I don’t know if he stole them or bought them from the guy or what—I didn’t ask. And I didn’t tell anyone because Isaac said he’d kill me if I did.”
Wren folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin. “So you thought it was better to let him go commit a mass shooting.”
“I was scared. And I’m not proud of how I handled it. But that’s what Isaac was planning to do the very next day. He hadn’t told anyone but me. He didn’t want me to be a part of it, to go with him, but he couldn’t keep the thing to himself. He needed to share it with someone, and he knew that I wouldn’t tell anyone. He knew I’d keep his secret for him. Which I did. I always have, up until now.” Kevin took a deep breath and looked skyward. “And the reason I’m telling you now is because I want you to know that you did what I couldn’t do, even if you didn’t realize it. On more than one count. You prevented a sexual assault from happening, and you also prevented him from carrying out his plan. You might always feel guilty for taking a life, but by doing so, you spared a lot
of other people.”
I could only stand there, my brain trying to process everything he said. Was he just making this up? It wouldn’t make sense for him to do that, so I had to believe it was true. Did that make a difference? Did it make me feel better that the person I had killed had been someone who was planning to do some awful things?
“I realize this is a lot of information to just have confronted you with,” Kevin said. “And maybe it won’t make you feel any less guilty—I don’t know. But I have been plagued with guilt own my own because of my inability to do anything. It hasn’t ruined my life, but it’s come close because it’s changed the way I see myself, and not for the better.”
It almost felt as though he needed me to absolve him from that, to say the words that might make his guilt go away. I didn’t know what words those were, though. I didn’t know if I felt any less guilty because of what he’d just said.
“My parents thought that the worst thing in the world was Isaac getting killed,” Kevin said, “but they didn’t realize what he’d been planning to do. I could never tell them that. But if he’d done it, if he’d actually gone through with it—that would’ve been the end of them. There’s no way they would have been able to live with themselves. The details were sketchy enough with what happened between you two that they could tell themselves Isaac hadn’t been in the wrong; he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They could feel bad for him as the victim because they didn’t know the details. Do I miss my brother? I do. I miss the brother I remember, not the one who seemed completely detached from society and just wanted to do harm to other people. I have a few good memories of him, and that’s what I miss.”
“You never came forward with that?” Wren asked.
“Why would I have? He was dead. He wasn’t going to be able to hurt anyone. I thought it was over with.” He looked at her, frowning. “You didn’t come forward, either. I knew your first name, but I didn’t know your last, and I kept waiting for you to come forward, but that never happened. Until now, anyway.”