She curled her hand under her chin, and tipped her face against the window, watching the landscape slide by. She was grateful to Jake for bringing her up here today to see this. She had to admit, she’d mostly shut herself in at Lane’s End for the past six months and it felt good to be somewhere else. With him.
Her gaze flicked to Jake, flying the helicopter like he was born to it. It made her heart tighten. He’d accomplished his dreams. At a cost, she knew. But when wasn’t there a cost to achieving one’s dreams?
What are you waiting for? Her mother had asked. She didn’t know. She had told herself that it was enough that once, she’d made the U.S. Team. That she’d competed at that level. Except for Kyle’s part in it, she’d loved it. She truly didn’t know if she even wanted that anymore.
But the riding. Oh, the riding…
Jake had said, “What the hell, Olivia? Riding was like… freaking breathing to you.”
Once. It was. Now, it was the opposite. When she thought of getting on a horse, she lost her air. She looked like Jake had in that bar last night, like Kendy must have felt when that squirrel or rat or whatever it had been, snuck across her path.
Jake was right about her being scared. She was. And it bled over into everything else—like kissing him.
So it was enough that she spent her days around horses, teaching… training, helping horses like the one she’d worked with this morning.
Something had happened to her the day she’d nearly died. And she couldn’t explain it to anyone. It was like she’d lost a limb and the phantom ache of it still blindsided her when she least expected it.
*
Ten minutes later, they circled in on what looked like an actual helicopter pad with a giant, green grass X marking the spot. And in the distance, no hovel of a mountain shack, but a beautiful, two-story, glass and wood structure with a creek running through it, that probably should, if it hadn’t already, found its way into Architectural Digest.
Olivia was still gaping at it after Jake landed and climbed out of the pilot’s seat.
“Not what you expected?” he asked.
“I-I… no.”
“I know. That’s pretty much everybody’s reaction when they see it. C’mon. I’ll help you out.”
Holding Monday’s leash, they ducked under the rotors, then Jake went back to help Sammy unload the large box she’d shared the passenger compartment with.
With a handshake and a few words between them, Sammy was back and lifting off to return to Livingston.
The man who emerged from the house was tall, slender and not a day over sixty. He bore a striking resemblance to Jake’s late father, William with the same light brown-going-grey hair and the Lassen eyes, all smoky lapis-colored. He was thinner than Jake’s father, and a little Mr. Roger-ish, with a cardigan over a blue button-down. His jeans and hiking boots were essential Montana wardrobe for any local male. Deke wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all.
She leaned close to Jake and whispered, “Old and not very steady, huh?”
“Well, you know… it’s all relative.”
“Olivia, I presume,” Deke said, clasping her hand in both of his in a tellingly firm handshake. “You’re every bit as beautiful as Jake promised. Welcome.”
She blushed. Of course Jake must have cleared her visit with Deke first. “Mr. Lassen? So nice to meet you. And you’re much younger than I expected.”
“I’m flattered you think so, but please call me Deke. ‘Mr. Lassen’ reminds me of pocket protectors and laminated nametags, which, as you can see, are annoyances I no longer contend with.”
“Deke, then,” she agreed. “What a spectacular home you have.”
“Thank you. It’s solar, green, and self-sufficient, but I’ll show you all that later.” He turned to Jake and enveloped him in a bear hug, clapping him on the back. “Damnation, boy. Are you still growing?”
Jake laughed. “Only if I eat here too often. And not in the way you mean.”
Deke chuckled. “I’ve made lunch, so prepare to do just that.” He took Olivia’s arm and started for the house. “So, Olivia, are you fond of birds?”
*
After an amazing lunch of organic greens and a to-die-for homemade mushroom risotto, Jake followed behind as Deke showed Olivia the two story aviary he’d built into the house for a pair of falcons he kept, birds he’d raised from chicks after their being abandoned in their nest. They wore jesses on their legs for training, which Deke explained he removed when he released them for hunting so they didn’t accidentally tangle in the branches of a tree. The birds had become something of an obsession with Deke, who lived here alone and they were surprisingly affectionate with him.
Monday, who couldn’t get close enough to the birds, stayed watching them while Deke gave Olivia the ten-dollar tour of the rest of his amazing home: the gourmet kitchen—Deke’s sanctuary of experimentation with the organics he grew in his quarter acre garden plot out back—the incredible master bedroom which over looked the valley with a series of floor to ceiling windows and a bath that made Olivia’s eyes go wide with envy.
Deke’s office was the only room in the house that felt cluttered. Jake guessed his uncle owned the patents on several dozen inventions in the solar technology world and was still working on refining a solar cell which could be incorporated into roadways. His desk was covered with paper and the walls, pinned with diagrams and engineering sketches of what Jake could only guess was Deke’s latest technology. All of which, apparently, left Olivia at a loss for words as she took it all in with wide-eyed wonder.
As content as Jake believed Deke was, years of living alone, building this place to his exact specifications and design, had taken its toll. He wasn’t getting any younger and it didn’t escape his notice that his uncle had lost weight since his last visit. He would try again to convince him to bring a housekeeper out to keep a surreptitious eye on him and take the load off him in terms of upkeep. And perhaps, more importantly, to give his uncle a companion who wouldn’t fly away.
After lunch, they packed up their gear to go fishing and Monday loped on ahead of them, clearly relishing the freedom of this beautiful place. She had a funny way of running, with her tail wagging and her mouth open in a goofy smile that just made Jake happy.
Deke brought the falcons and loosed them to fly upstream, swooping and gliding above them, never getting too far afield. Jake was constantly amazed that they didn’t just disappear over the horizon. But they were bonded, the three of them, and the falcons had no desire to fly away.
By the time they’d outfitted themselves with waders by the water, Monday had already lapped up half the river as she searched the rocky banks for frogs and turtles. Deke was already fishing upstream twenty feet or so.
Deke loved fishing and spent his summers right here in the Yellowstone River casting for the sleek, rainbow-bellied trout that ran these waters. He released most of what he caught, but he’d taught Jake to love the meditative beauty of both the sport and the place.
When he’d come back from the war, he’d spent a few months, right here, side by side with Deke in the water. God knew, he hadn’t been fit for the real world yet and Deke had given him a sanctuary to find himself again. Most days they didn’t even talk—because Jake had no words to explain who he’d become over there.
Being back in the water with a fly rod in his hand felt like coming home. Being here with Olivia merely closed two edges of that circle.
A sprinkling of clouds cast shadows that slid across the river, dappling the surface of the water. The pine trees, whose lower branches remained still down by the water, rocked gently at the top with a breeze that carried their sun-warmed scent.
“I remember you tried to teach me this once before,” Olivia said as they waded out into the cold current up to the knees of their waders. “As I recall, it ended with your favorite fly permanently up a tree.”
“Not permanently,” he said, guiding her to a flat spot in the river. “You climbed that tree
and retrieved it.”
“Uh-huh. Right before I fell into the river. Remember that?”
The outline of her breasts against her wet T-shirt he remembered just fine. He dropped his gaze and she caught him.
“Eyes up here, Lassen.” She forked two fingers in the direction of her eyes.
He supposed nothing much had changed. “What? I’m remembering…” he said.
“Uh-huh.” She hand-flung the fly out onto the water. It landed ten feet away, then she jerked the rod a little and wound the thick line back in. She repeated that process several more times as he spun his line out across the river in an overhead arc.
“That’s cute,” he said, eyeing her technique. “What is that, exactly?”
“My cast.”
He suppressed a grin at the way she stuck her tongue out a little with each toss. “That’s a girl-toss and it’s more likely you’ll hook yourself than a fish.”
“A girl-toss?” She looked a little indignant.
“Just sayin’.” Grinning, he demonstrated his expert cast for her, sending the tip of his rod sideways off his right shoulder with a little flick-flick-flick, while the thick line he held in his other hand spun out over the water.
“I like my way better,” she told him, and dropped her line in again. “I’m sure there are fish closer in than where you’re sending your line. I’ll catch the close ones.”
“Whatever you say.” He reeled in his cast. Upstream, Deke netted a fat trout and held it up for them to see. Jake gave him a thumbs up and cast his line out again. The falcons dropped out of the sky, then zoomed past him just above the water toward Deke.
“You don’t think I’ll catch anything?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe some cottonwood pollen.”
“Is that a challenge?”
He tugged at the brim of the baseball cap shading his eyes. “Only if you want it to be.”
She narrowed her eyes in a look he remembered from long ago. That competitive streak was still alive in her whether she wanted to admit it or not. “Oh, I do.” She tossed her line back in where it sank like a stone.
“You’re on,” he said.
“First one to catch a fish wins.”
“Agreed.”
“Time limit?” she asked, a determined look glinting in her eyes.
Jake tugged his baseball cap down over his eyes. “By the time Deke lands his third.”
She frowned. “What if he doesn’t catch any more?”
Deke would have his limit in the next fifteen minutes if Jake didn’t miss his guess. “We could be out here all night.”
“Now you’re just trying to scare me.”
He thought she’d never looked more adorable than she did, right now, in waders and the prospect of spending a whole night with him.
He laughed and spun his line out again. Being out all night with Olivia Canaday wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever had. But he’d promised to get her home before dark.
“What if I win?” he asked.
“I cook,” she said.
“Nah, that’s Deke. He’s a gourmet. A little particular about his kitchen. How ‘bout, if I win, I get to… oh, I don’t know… kiss you again. And”—he let his gaze drift down to her breasts—“I get to say where.”
She narrowed a look at him. “Where, as in under a tree? In the helicopter?”
“Where,” he clarified, “as in, on you.”
The sexy combination of arousal and outrage on her face amused him.
“I don’t really think—”
“And if you win,” he said, “you get to do the same.”
She tilted her chin up. “What if that’s not what I want?”
He raised his brows. “What if it is?”
She thought about it for a minute. “Fine.”
I’ll be damned. “Really?”
“Yes.” She tossed her line in again, this time with more fervor, searching beneath the surface for the speckled glimmer of a trout.
“All right, then.” Jake grinned and tugged his cap, glad, for the moment, to be wearing waders as he went hard as a rock, imagining exactly where he’d put that kiss. And even if he lost, which was unlikely, he still won.
Deke shouted across the water. “You two quit dilly-dallying over there and catch some dinner.”
Five minutes later, Deke caught another one, bigger than the last. Olivia flicked a look at Jake who’d been feeling a nibble in a little pool halfway across the river. He jerked his line back, but the fish dropped off.
“Don’t get cocky, yet, Lassen.”
“You just focus on your own girl-toss, Canaday. And I’ll take care of my end.”
A few minutes later, her eyes went wide and she tugged in her line. “Ooh! I got one! I got a fish!”
Oh, no she didn’t. “Careful,” he told her. “Easy. Reel it in slow and steady.” But she was so excited that the moment she’d pulled it in and reached to grab for it, it shimmied off the line and escaped.
“Ahhhh!” She slapped the water with the rod.
“Oooh.” Jake tsked. “Bad luck.”
“But… but I caught one,” she argued. “You saw it.”
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Only counts if you land it and take the hook out.”
“That wasn’t in the rules,” she said, testily, “but fine.”
Jake cast his line out and hit the pocket he’d been aiming at for the last five minutes. He glanced up at Deke who was deeply focused on a pool shaded by a leaning pine tree, then at Olivia, who’d moved a few feet downriver from him.
She looked eighteen again, he thought, with her lip caught between her teeth and those freckles still chasing across her nose. He contemplated kissing those freckles, one at a time. But then he thought of other things he wanted to kiss.
Or suck. Or lick.
Sweat trickled down the side of his neck. Where the hell were those damned trout?
Incredibly, not thirty seconds later, both of their lines had strikes almost simultaneously. He didn’t want to think about the fact that she was actually catching fish with her lame-ass toss while he had spent years perfecting his own cast.
At any rate, he’d let her worry about setting her own hook while he concentrated on getting the job done. As they wrestled the fish in—his feeling some two pounds heavier than hers looked—he unhooked a net from his belt and scooped his safely in. Only then did he gently unhook the lure from its mouth.
She was still fighting to catch the slippery thing in her hand.
“Need some help there?” he asked.
“Gloating is unbecoming.”
“Yeah, I was gonna say it’s a tie anyway. No gloating. I’m officially impressed.”
She finally managed to grab the fish. “You mean we cancel each other out?”
“Hell, no. A wager’s a wager. But to be fair, especially considering you actually caught a fish with that… toss of yours, we both win.”
Which meant they both got a kiss. Which meant the smile tugging at Olivia’s mouth was either her contemplating her choice of location, or trying to figure out a way out of it altogether.
He was hoping for the first case scenario.
Delicately, she unhooked her catch, held the hook up for him to see, then tossed the fish gently back in the water. At his astonished expression, she said, “All you said was I had to land it and unhook it. You didn’t say anything about keeping it. I told you I was a catch and release kind of girl. Besides, we have more than enough fish for dinner.” She jerked her chin in Deke’s direction as he pulled in a three pounder.
“Playing fast and loose with the rules,” Jake observed, his gaze dropping to her mouth. “I like it.”
She blushed, then stared at something over his shoulder. “Oh-oh.”
Jake turned to see thunderheads, ominous and steely, spilling over the crest of the mountain. He’d been so intent on winning he’d missed the smell of the electrical charge in the air that always preceded a storm like the one hea
ding their way. It wasn’t unusual for weather to sneak up on the mountains here. This one was coming fast.
By the time they’d packed up and headed back to Deke’s place, a drenching downpour had soaked them through. They ran to beat the lightning and deep rumbles of thunder pounding up the valley toward them. Jake leashed Monday in case she got spooked. But she thought it was a game and had fun trying to trip them as they ran, with the falcons dive-bombing them. They were all laughing by the time they stumbled back into the shelter of Deke’s house and dripping wet.
When Jake’s cell rang, he knew it would be Sammy, suggesting a pass on the return trip back tonight. The storm was here until at least until after dark. Sammy would come for them first thing in the morning.
Jake glanced at Olivia, toweling off Monday, her skin glowing and flushed, her eyelashes, spiky and black with droplets of water, and her clothes clinging to her like a second skin. His heart gave a little lurch at how happy she looked. Away from Marietta and her childhood bedroom and all the hell she’d been through in the last few years, this was the Liv he remembered. Laughing and happy and grabbing life as it came with both hands. He wanted to protect her and keep those shadows dogging her at bay. To be the one who made her smile like that every day.
He just needed to find a way in.
Chapter Five
Olivia wouldn’t go so far as to say the weather had conspired against her, personally, but she couldn’t help but imagine someone up there laughing at the idea of her and Jake sleeping under the same roof tonight and trying to keep everything copacetic.
By that, she meant friendly. With a capital ‘F’.
This… proximity was not in her game plan. In fact, it was so far out of her game plan that her pieces had fallen off the board entirely, with the heart-thudding prospect of the kiss he’d promised her.
After calling home to let her parents know they didn’t have to worry about her flying in a helicopter through the storm, she’d changed into one of Deke’s old shirts and sweatpants while her clothes dried in the drier. Jake had requisitioned a pair of khaki shorts and a too-tight T-shirt that clung to every ripped muscle in his torso and curved around his well-defined shoulders and biceps, as they’d helped Deke get dinner on.
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