by Maisey Yates
“And you think... What? Living with you is going to make Olivia depressed?”
“I just can’t... I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve for her to love me. And it won’t fix anything. It won’t fix me.”
Bennett shrugged. “You can’t accept love.”
“No,” Luke said.
“Not at all?” he pressed.
“You have a point, Bennett?” Luke snapped.
“I do. What do you think this is?” Bennett asked, gesturing around them.
“A fucking ranch,” Luke responded.
“Not the ranch, dumb-ass. All of it. Us. Wyatt, Grant. My father and Jamie. What do you think holds us here? What do you think holds it all together?”
Luke gritted his teeth. “That’s different.”
The Dodges were the best family Luke had ever known. Not that he’d known many. Not perfect, not like Leave It to Beaver, but they loved each other. And Quinn Dodge was his father figure, sure as hell. The man was made of grit. He’d raised his kids mostly alone and had taken Luke onto the ranch when he was a surly teenager.
“Is it? If I didn’t love you like a brother, Luke, I would have flattened your ass the minute I saw you with Olivia.”
“You said I wasn’t like you.”
“Because I was pissed,” Bennett said. “And I was jealous, which is bullshit, because you’re right. I’m not in love with her. I feel protective of her, and that’s not the same thing. If you’re really in love with her, and she’s in love with you, then dammit, man, you’ve got to do something with that.”
“Why? You were going to marry a woman you didn’t love. You clearly don’t believe in it, either.”
Bennett shook his head. “I cared for her. I’ve never expected more than that. I wanted to protect her, and I mean that. I never would have hurt her. But you obviously have something with her. Something that has you acting all kinds of messed up. Something that has her acting crazy. I’ve never known Olivia to act crazy in my life. So it has to be something serious. That kind of thing my dad had with my mom. And that he has with Freda. My dad believes in love, even though he was hurt. Even though he lost someone.”
“Your mom’s death is different than mine. It just is.”
“I’m not going to pretend I understand exactly how you feel,” Bennett said. “But I know loss. I understand what it does to you.” Bennett spoke with such depth that Luke had to wonder if he was still talking about the loss of his mother, or if there was something else. Bennett had said Luke didn’t know everything about him. That made him wonder. “I think that’s what’s holding you back. You’re afraid of losing someone you care about.”
“Well, I lost Olivia, so your theory doesn’t really hold up.”
“You lost her on your terms, man. That’s not the same thing.”
Luke scowled. “I don’t need a lecture from you, Bennett. Run along.”
“Shut up,” Bennett said. “Luke, I’m sorry that you lost your mother. And I’m even sorrier that I didn’t know about it until now. I know that losses like that leave scars, but I can’t let you sink into that. I wouldn’t be family to you if I didn’t put aside the anger I’ve had for you for the past couple of weeks. If I didn’t put aside any lingering issues I have with Olivia and tell you that you should be with her. Because any woman who makes you look that miserable obviously matters. Any woman who makes you just about start a bar fight matters. Matters in a way that goes way beyond anything I’ve ever felt. You should be with her. Because she deserves that. Deserves a man who looks this miserable when he’s not with her. That man isn’t me.”
“I know it’s not,” Luke said. “But that doesn’t change things. Olivia deserves everything. I want to...give her everything I have. I want to give her diamonds and that little farmhouse on the property I just bought that made her eyes light up like she was looking at the most beautiful mansion in the world. I want to pull down the sky and give her the stars. But it doesn’t change who I am. It doesn’t change anything.”
“You deserve her, too,” Bennett said. “You don’t deserve to live this half life, hanging on to the past. You always deserved to be here, always deserved to be part of our family. And you deserve to be with the woman you love.”
It was a strange thing, having the man he had just gotten in a fight with twenty-four hours ago standing there looking at him and telling him he deserved to be happy. But then, all of this was strange.
“I just can’t see how it’s going to be enough,” Luke said, feeling weary down to his soul. And it had nothing to do with moving boulders.
“It’s not love that fails people. It’s fear,” Bennett said. “I know a little something about that. And right now, you’re letting fear win. So stop it.”
“I...” Revelation washed over Luke like a tide, and any words he’d been about to speak froze in his throat. “It can’t be that easy.” He finished the sentence by tearing those words out from deep inside himself.
“Why not?” Bennett asked. “Nothing is broken between you two. You haven’t destroyed anything. You’ve...changed each other for the better. Hell, I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s happier with you, Luke. Take it from the guy who was with her before.”
Then Bennett tipped his hat and walked away, leaving Luke standing there feeling like the grade A asshole he was.
He stared at Bennett’s retreating figure, backlit by the sun that was piercing through the furious gray clouds slowly breaking into pieces above the mountains. Mountains he knew by heart. Mountains that encircled this land he knew better than his own heart.
For years, this place had been his heart. This place, and the people on it.
It wasn’t love that failed.
Suddenly it all hit him with blinding clarity. He had love all around him. It was easy for him to think that he’d had it and lost it when his mother had died. But that wasn’t it.
He had been loved from the moment he had stepped onto the Get Out of Dodge Ranch. Had been embraced and accepted by them. And if there had been any distance, it had been on his part. Because he had resisted caring too much. He had loved this land with all of himself. And he had found a new ranch, a new place to love.
And there was Olivia.
He had loved her from the beginning. From the moment he had first begun to see her as a woman. And in all that time, that love had sustained him. The love of this place, the love of the Dodge family. And now, his love for Olivia. It had been enough.
Suddenly he couldn’t breathe, pain slicing through his chest like the sharp edge of one of his whiskey tumblers had broken off and stuck in there last night when he’d tried to drink all this away.
It wasn’t that love had failed the day his mother had killed herself.
It was that fear had won.
His mother’s fear of the future. Her fear of walking through that darkness she’d been in for the next ten years, twenty. The fear that it would never get better. And maybe even that it would never get better for him if she didn’t do something drastic.
On that day, fear had been stronger, and there had been nothing he could do to combat it. But right now he had a choice. A choice between love and fear. He couldn’t have both. He knew it. They couldn’t exist side by side.
One had to win. He had seen that play out.
But today it was his choice which one got the victory.
He pictured Olivia’s face, the way that he had left her, curled up on the floor, and the way he had spent the night curled up on the floor after. He had made them both miserable because of his choice. And he wanted to fix it. He just had to hope that she would let him.
Love was going to have to be enough. It was all he had. But he had it. And for the first time in twenty years he was ready to embrace it.
When he had driven himself to Get Out of Dodge at sixteen, in that old beater car of his, his heart torn t
o pieces, he’d imagined that love had let him down. But all this time he’d missed that love hadn’t failed him. Love was what had held him up.
And now it was the only thing strong enough to make him move forward.
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 k
now 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.