by A. J. Pine
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was out of line. I just—I wasn’t counting on you, Olivia. And now I’m not sure how to make heads or tails of all this.”
“Cash Hawkins? It is you! Get on over here and say hello!”
They both glanced over Cash’s shoulders to find an older woman—presumably Cora of Cora’s Collectibles—calling him as she stood in front of her stall.
So that was that. The end of their conversation for now, and she still hadn’t addressed the elephant in the farmers market.
He loved her.
“Mrs. Abbott!” he said with a wave and what she recognized as his “for the public” smile.
Cora scoffed as they walked over. “You’re not in high school anymore. I think you can call me Cora.” She looked over the frames of her glasses. “And it looks like I need to start calling you Sheriff. Has it really been that long since you came here with Lucinda?”
She reached up to hug him, her short white hair and petite frame reminding Olivia of Gran and of why she’d come to Oak Bluff in the first place. Because she’d been starting to lose focus.
“Been a little more than ten years,” he said. “But you still see Lucinda from time to time, don’t you?”
“I sure do. About once a month.” She frowned. “So sorry to hear about your stepdaddy.”
“Thank you,” Cash said, then he checked his watch. “I was wondering if I could ask you a business-related question. It’s kind of why we’re here.”
Cora’s blue eyes brightened. “You mean you’re actually here to see me? Well, that is a treat. What can I do for you two?”
Cash put his hand on the small of Olivia’s back, and she sucked in a breath.
“This is Olivia Belle. Olivia—Cora Abbott of Cora’s Collectibles.”
Olivia extended her hand to shake, but Cora just pulled her into a hug, too.
“Oh!” Olivia said, then laughed. “It’s—nice to meet you.”
She cupped Olivia’s cheeks in her palms. “Aren’t you a pretty one. And where do I know that name—Belle?”
“My grandfather,” Olivia said, her voice suddenly a bit shaky. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt like she was on the verge of something. “He wasn’t from around here. My gran was, though. Oak Bluff, actually.”
Cora slapped her knee. “Anna Moretti!” she exclaimed. “Married that boy who went off to war. His name was Belle.”
“Holy hell,” Cash said.
“Oh my God,” Olivia added. “I didn’t expect you to know them. I just thought you might have their letters.”
Cora laughed. “Know them, sweetie? Your gran and I were in school together. Lost touch after she and your grandpa ran off and got married, though. And letters? What letters?”
Olivia’s heart had just begun soaring to new heights when four words—four words—sent her heart and her hope on a collision course with the ground.
Her throat tightened, and her eyes started to burn.
“Damn it,” Cash said under his breath. “I’m sorry, Olivia.”
Cora put her hand on Olivia’s arm. “What letters, dear?”
Olivia drew in a shaky breath. “Their whole courtship was letters,” she explained. “They had this one magical night together before he left for the war. But he courted her for years via his letters, and she gave him something to come home to with hers. When he got home, he gave her back the letters she’d written that he’d been able to save, and she kept them safe beneath a floorboard in her bedroom when they eloped.”
Cora’s eyes widened. “And then she never went back for them?”
“Said she didn’t need to once she had him.” Olivia shook her head and swiped at a tear. “I know it’s silly to react like this over something that was never mine to begin with, but…”
Cora gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I bet it would be a great love story for you to read. But if I’d have come across that sort of treasure, I never would have sold it. Though I’m not sure I’d have read them, either.”
“Why not?” Olivia asked with a sniffle.
Cora opened her mouth to respond, but Cash cut her off.
“Because it’s their story,” he said. “It’s theirs and no one else’s, which means whatever worked for them in their time and place could have only ever worked for them.”
His voice was gentle, but Olivia’s sense of loss was slowly morphing into anger. Because who was Cash Hawkins to tell her there were no answers in those letters?
“Thank you, Cora,” she said, taking the woman’s hand. “It was really nice to meet you, but I think we should probably get going.”
Cora patted the top of her palm. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, honey.”
Olivia forced a smile and then started for the car. She only slowed her gait when she realized it was Cash’s car toward which she was heading. She supposed she wouldn’t get very far without him.
“You’re mad,” Cash said from behind her, and she spun to face him.
“Yes, I’m mad,” she admitted. “You just discounted my whole reason for coming here. Do you have any idea how that made me feel?”
His jaw tightened. “Do you have any idea how it feels to tell a woman you love her and have her unable to respond without having the definitive answer of what love is from a relationship that originated decades ago?” He ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “Damn it, Olivia. I know you told me you’re a runner, but hell if there isn’t something real right here in front of you, and you’re still running.”
She placed her hands on her hips and huffed out a breath. “I am not running,” she said. “I’m standing right here telling you that you made me feel like shit back there. Has this whole week just been you silently judging me for why I came here? Oh that silly Olivia, thinking she’ll find the answers in some stupid letters.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what you implied.” Her shoulders slumped. Because even if that wasn’t what Cash had been thinking, had she?
Olivia had come here on a whim, but up until today she’d all but forgotten why. Now that the letters—or lack thereof—were staring her in the face, what had really been the point?
“Can you just—take me back to the B and B?” she asked, her heart sinking as she thought about saying good-bye to Rose and Marcus. Would she get a chance to see Lily Green again before she left? Olivia guessed she had her hands full with planning her ex’s wedding and figuring things out with Luke.
She hadn’t found her grandparents’ letters in Oak Bluff. But she’d found—something.
“Olivia…” he said softly.
Dixie, ever the intuitive dog, whimpered.
Olivia squatted in front of her and gave the German shepherd a scratch behind her ears.
“I’ll miss you, too,” she said. Then she straightened, meeting Cash’s gaze. “Please,” was all she said.
“Yeah. Okay.”
They rode in silence until they hit the outskirts of Oak Bluff. This was it—the street where they’d met.
Olivia laughed mirthlessly. How had she gotten herself into such a mess in the span of only seven days?
“Aw, hell,” Cash said, looking in his rearview mirror.
In a flash he pulled onto the shoulder of the road, grabbed his radar gun, and pointed it at the window.
Seconds later a black sedan flew by—a sedan she recognized all too well.
Cash clocked the car at eighty miles per hour. Then he threw on his lights and put the Tahoe in drive.
“Aw, hell,” Olivia mumbled, parroting his words.
The car pulled over as quickly as it had passed, and Cash slowed to a stop.
“So,” she said. “When is it a good time to tell you that’s my father?”
Cash let his head thud against his seatback. “Of course it is.”
Chapter Twelve
Olivia’s father would have been enough, but when Cash approached the driver’s side window, he could hear the crescendo of
voices with the glass still up.
He knocked, but the driver’s back was to him as he engaged in a heated argument with the woman next to him.
“Oh my God,” Olivia said, coming up next to him.
“This is official police business,” he said. “It’s safer if you stay in the car with Dixie.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah? Well, that’s both my parents in there.” She pressed her nose to the glass. “And Gran, too! Good Lord, they sent the cavalry after me!”
Cash pounded on the window with a little more force, and this seemed to get the occupants’ attention.
The glass lowered, and the car fell silent—until Olivia poked her head over his shoulder.
“Livvy!” her mom yelled from the passenger seat. “Oh, sweetie, I was so worried. I told your stubborn father to slow down, but does he listen? Even his own mother told him he was driving too fast, and—”
“Elizabeth!” Olivia’s father yelled. “There’s a damn sheriff at the window!”
“I can see the sheriff, George. He’s standing right next to our daughter, the reason we’re here.” She rolled her eyes.
Jesus. This was what Olivia had grown up with?
Olivia’s grandmother met her gaze and Cash watched her mouth, I’m sorry.
“Just remember that I let you ride with us,” her father continued. “Even with a GPS you still would have ended up halfway to Vegas before you’d realized you made a wrong turn.”
“Oh, yes,” the woman responded. “Thank the heavens I came with you so you could endanger us all with your daredevil driving and then get arrested.” She turned her attention to Cash. People usually did this a lot sooner in the whole pulled-over-for-speeding scenario. “You are going to arrest him, aren’t you?”
“Enough!” Olivia yelled.
Cash crossed his arms and took a step back.
“What are you even doing here? All of you?” she asked. “I didn’t ask you to come. I’m a grown woman. I should be allowed to take some time for myself.”
Her father threw up his hands. “You didn’t answer any of our texts. Is that something a grown woman does? We were worried!”
Olivia shook her head, then pointed an accusing finger toward the back seat. “You promised, Gran. I trusted you.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed, but instead of responding from where she sat, she opened the door and got out, standing to face her granddaughter.
The two women were the same height and even had the same slender build. But where Olivia’s wild brown curls whipped around her face in the breeze, her grandmother’s white hair was short and straight. But they both had the same fire in their brown eyes, and for a second Cash’s mind flashed forward fifty years. He imagined himself in his early eighties, Olivia looking much like her grandmother did now, and the thought knocked the wind clear out of his lungs.
“Anna,” the older Belle woman said, holding out her hand to Cash but still staring straight at her granddaughter.
“Cash,” he said, giving her a firm shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Anna. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
This got her attention, and she looked up at him. “Let me guess,” she said. “The letters?”
“The letters.”
“Can’t say I had any clue about your existence,” she added. “Unless, of course, you’ve only just met my granddaughter because you’ve arrested her for whatever reason.”
He chuckled. “No, ma’am. That was last Saturday.”
Anna shook her head and laughed, too.
Olivia waved a hand between them.
“Um…hello? Remember me—the person you’re talking about as if she’s not even here?”
“Sheriff, may I have a word alone with my granddaughter?”
“Am I getting a ticket?” Olivia’s father said, still sitting in the car.
“Yes!” Cash, Anna, and Olivia’s mother said in unison.
Cash pressed his hand to the top of the car and leaned down to the window. “And if I hear any more arguing between you two, I’ll write you both up for disturbing the peace.”
This effectively shut them both up.
He nodded to Anna and Olivia, a silent I’ll take it from here, and the two women set off a bit down the road where they found a slice of privacy in a bus depot.
It wasn’t his business what they were talking about, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious, so he kept himself busy by heading back to his truck and writing a ticket to the second San Francisco Belle he’d met this week.
“Mr. Belle,” he said, handing the man the citation. “You were close to thirty miles over the speed limit. I’m letting you off easy by giving you a ticket that says only half as much. This way you don’t have to go to traffic court in Oak Bluff.”
The man let out a relieved breath. “Thank you, Sheriff.”
Cash shook his head. “That’s not the end of our bargain. I’m gonna need your word on something—both of you—and I hope there’s honor to that word, sir. Ma’am.”
Olivia’s parents both nodded.
“I’ve known your daughter for a week, which isn’t long. And I don’t pretend to have learned the entirety of her family history in that time, so I know what I’m about to say may be overstepping, but I’m going to say it anyway.
“I don’t reckon the end of a marriage is easy, and it gets even more complicated when children are involved. But I think Olivia’s been hurting for a lot of years, and maybe it’s time you two put your differences aside long enough to ask her why.”
Elizabeth Belle’s jaw tightened, and she narrowed her eyes. “You got a lot of nerve, Sheriff. You don’t know anything about our family, about Olivia.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I have a hell of a lot of nerve, but it’s only because I’m in love with your daughter and want to see her happy—even if it’s over two hundred miles from here.” He handed Mr. Belle his ticket. “I do apologize for any disrespect, but I hope we have an understanding here.”
He straightened just in time to see Olivia and her grandmother approaching, hand in hand. Both women’s eyes were damp. Anna let Olivia’s hand go when they got to the car.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Sheriff,” the older woman said. Then she shook his hand and got back in the car. “Close the window and turn on some music, George. Let’s let these two have a moment.”
George Belle seemed none too happy to give Cash a moment alone with his daughter, but thankfully, it looked like Anna’s word was gold.
Olivia worried her bottom lip between her teeth.
“You’re going home,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
She nodded. “I can’t keep hiding,” she said. “I have to go back, face the mess I made, and try to clean it up.”
He’d known this was his last day with her, but somehow it hadn’t fully registered until now.
“Time to turn back into a pumpkin, huh?” he asked, forcing a smile.
She laughed, and a tear leaked out the corner of one eye. “It always was. Maybe I should have answered their texts so you didn’t have to deal with all this.”
He shrugged. “It’s all part of the job.”
“See?” she said. “I’m not a fairy-tale princess. Just a woman who needs to stop pretending. Though I did enjoy playing make-believe with you.”
His chest felt like it was caving in, but he wouldn’t put that weight on her. She had to go. Even if he somehow convinced her to stay in Oak Bluff, how would that be fair to her and figuring out what she really wanted?
“I’m sorry for diminishing your reason for coming here,” he said. “I was frustrated, and it was a shit thing to do.”
“Is that really what you believe? That I ran here for some silly letters that don’t mean anything?”
He shook his head. “I think you ran here hoping the letters were the answer, and I get that. I really do. I just hope, now that you know they’re gone, you can still find what you’re looking for.”
“What about yo
u?” she asked. “You gonna go to your ex’s wedding?”
He raised a brow. “I was sort of hoping you forgot about that.”
She nudged his shoulder with hers. “Hey. If I have to face my future, don’t you think it’s about time you faced your past?”
He laughed. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
She smiled, and he realized how much he’d miss seeing her do that for him.
“The sheriff and the reckless driver?”
He shook his head. “I think we’re a little more than that.”
He waited a beat, letting this moment—their parting—be her call.
She stepped toward him—thank the stars—and splayed her hands on his chest. “We’re so much more than that.” Then she rose on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
He didn’t care that they had an audience or that said audience was almost her entire family. Cash Hawkins kissed Olivia Belle with everything he had. He didn’t hold back. He didn’t worry about self-preservation. He just kissed her like it was the last time he ever would.
Because it probably was.
She melted into him, and for this one tiny pocket of time, he let himself forget there was anything other than her, right now, in his arms.
Only when they both needed air did they part, though oxygen couldn’t compare to how much he realized he needed her.
“I have something for you,” he said, letting his forehead rest against hers.
“What?”
He led her to the back of the Tahoe, where he opened the door and removed a shoe box. “I’m not good with gifts or good-byes, so just do me a favor and open it when I’m not around, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “But—I feel like this is too quick. I need to tell you—”
“No,” he said. “You don’t. I think this will be easier if we leave—certain things—unsaid from here on out.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Easier for whom?”
Him. Which he knew was selfish. But she already knew how he felt. Knowing her feelings either way wouldn’t change the fact that this was good-bye.
“It’s okay,” she said. “How about you don’t answer my question and I don’t say anything else. Not even good—”