“She’s going to be with me,” I tell them. “You can reach her through me or through David,” I tell them. “You have my number and his also.” I put my arm around her and turn her around to walk out of the prison. I don’t even bother looking back, and when we get into the car, she puts her head back and closes her eyes.
“Are you okay?” She opens her eyes and shakes her head.
“No.” She blinks away tears. “I’m not okay. Nothing about this and today was okay and that sucks.” I’m about to say something. “It started so well and then this.” She turns to look out of the window, and I don’t say anything else. I watch her, and when we get on the plane, she takes a bite of her food and then goes to lie down. I sit next to her while she lies down on the couch that they turned into a bed. I watch her the whole time, my own thoughts going all over the place and when the wheels touch down, I pick her up and carry her to the truck. She mumbles and wakes up for just a minute and looks around.
“Did we land?” she asks, and I push the hair away from her face.
“We did,” I say. “Rest.” She puts her head back and closes her eyes. I make my way to the house and when we get there, I see the lights are off and I know that Jacob and Kallie left this afternoon when they arrested Dominic’s guy. I pull up and as delicately as I can I take her out of the truck. She is dead to the world, everything that she went through the past couple of months finally came full circle today. I tuck her into the bed, after I take off her shoes. I undress myself and grab a bottle of water going to the bed. The whole night I don’t sleep, instead I watch her, making sure she is okay.
When the sun comes up, she stirs next to me and she blinks open her eyes. “What time is it?” she mumbles, stretching out beside me.
“Six,” I say, just watching her and taking in everything thing about her.
“I guess I was really tired.” She laughs and then looks over at me. Her eyes are lighter this morning.
“Are you hungry?” I get out of the bed now, afraid to touch her, knowing that one touch would not be enough, knowing that with her one touch is never enough.
“I am just a bit,” she says, watching me grab a T-shirt and put it on. “Do you have to get going?”
“I have an appointment with Beau in an hour,” I say, avoiding her eyes. “I’ll go start the coffee.” Turning to walk out of the room my chest is so tight, it’s surprising I can breathe. I start the coffee and stand here, watching it drip. My head is telling me that it’s better this way, my heart yearning to go back into the room and declare my love for her.
The soft knock on the back door makes me look up, and I see Kallie standing there with Jacob behind her. I walk over, unlocking it, and the door opens.
“Hey,” Kallie says to me. “Is she up?” She looks over at the hallway, and I nod my head. She starts to walk down to the spare room, but I stop her.
“She’s in my bed,” I say, and when she turns to say something, I put my hand up, and she must see something else because she doesn’t say a word. She says nothing. All she does is turn and walk to my bedroom.
I wait until she is out of sight before I turn to Jacob, and he just looks at me. “Did you get the news?”
“I did,” he says. “I got a call from the detective early this morning. He was hanging in his cell.”
I shake my head. I want to say I’m surprised, but nothing about Dominic surprises me especially the way he took the coward’s way out. “Derek sent me an email at three forty-seven. He was revived on the scene but died on the way to the hospital.” I shake my head. “Fucking coward.”
“He knew the end was coming for him,” Jacob says, and I walk back over to the coffee machine and pour myself a cup. “It was only a matter of time. Does she know?”
I shake my head and take a long gulp of the hot coffee. “No, I haven’t said anything to her.”
“Do you want me to do it?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“No, I’ll do it when I come back,” I say, putting down my coffee.
“Where the hell are you going?” he asks, his eyes almost glaring.
“I have to meet Beau in thirty minutes.” I avoid his eyes this time.
“You really going to leave her?” he asks. I don’t know if he’s asking about now or in general. Either way, I don’t have an answer for him. I have nothing.
“She’s with Kallie. She’ll be fine.” I finish the coffee, ignoring the burning in my stomach. “Let her know I’m going to be back.” I turn to walk out of the room.
“Don’t do this,” he whispers, and I turn around. “She needs.” I stop him before he says the words I don’t want to hear.
“She has everything she needs here. I’ll be back,” I say, walking to the front door and slipping on my Nike’s. I grab my keys and my baseball hat and walk out of the door. My heart and chest are hurting more and more the farther I get from the door. I get into the truck, and I turn off everything. Or at least I try, but nothing, nothing helps this time. I should be good at this; I should be able to do this.
When I turn off my property, the beating in my heart speeds up, and the pain hurts even more. Turning the radio on, I try to bury it deep, and when I park my truck in front of Beau’s stable, my whole body screams to go back.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Beau asks when I open the door and step out. I look over at him and see that he’s wearing his workout clothes and carrying a saddle. “Didn’t you just get back?”
“Yeah.” I ignore the first part of his question and follow him into the barn. Beau and I have become a lot closer in the past few years, especially with our businesses crossing paths.
“If you just got back, why the fuck are you here?” he asks, throwing the saddle on one of the mustangs that he bought from me six months ago.
“We have a meeting,” I say. “Did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget.” He looks over at me. “I assumed we would reschedule since your woman just went through hell.”
I look at him. “She isn’t my woman.” As soon as I say the words, I feel like I just swallowed a handful of nails.
“Wow.” He shakes his head. “You’re really that fucking stupid.” I glare at him.
“You are one to talk.” I put my hands on my hips. “How is Savannah?” I ask him, and it’s his turn to glare at me. “You can dish it, but can you take it?”
“It’s not even the same thing,” he says.
“Isn’t it? You’ve loved her your whole life. The whole town knows it. The only one who doesn’t know it is Savannah because you haven’t told her.” I point at him.
“You told Olivia you love her?” he asks, and I glare. “I mean, you do love her, right? You have to. There is no way you would have her in your house if you didn’t. That is your place, your ‘woman-free space’.” He uses quotations, and I want to throat punch him, but instead, all I can do is stand here and listen to him. “If you let her walk away without telling her how you feel, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life.”
“How would you know?” I say. “You are glued to Savannah’s side, yet you never told her.”
He looks at me. “She has a kid with my best friend.” He looks down, and I know that deep down it cuts him to the core. “Besides, there is no way she would ever feel the same about me. It would just make it awkward for everyone.”
“You never know until you tell her and hear what she has to say,” I say, and he walks toward me now.
“Are you going to take your own advice?” he asks, and I look down.
“Her whole life is in Los Angeles.” My heart skips a beat. “Her whole life is nothing like I can give her here.”
“Maybe all she wants is you, dumb ass,” he says, laughing. “By the way, I’m canceling our meeting right now.” He turns and walks back to his horse and gets on it. “Go home and take your head out of your ass,” he says as he nudges his horse to ride. I watch him longer than I want to, and the whole time, my head is going around and around.
When I
finally open the front door and walk into my house, I stop when I walk past her room and hear her. I turn to walk to her and see her turning to the closet and grabbing her stuff. My feet are stuck to the floor. I watch her walk back and forth to the suitcase twice before I notice that her face looks like she’s been crying. I stand here not able to say anything, wondering if she heard about Dominic and that is the reason she is crying.
“What are you doing?” The words finally come out. She jumps at the sound of my voice, and I see right away that she has a shield up. Her eyes are clouded over, and her smile is fake as fuck.
“Well,” she says, trying to sound upbeat, “I figured that you needed me out of your hair.” She puts the clothes into the suitcase, and I want to walk up to it and take them out. But not replace it in the drawers in this room. I want it in my room and the thought of her leaving is too much to bear. “I’ve been cramping your style for far too long.” She avoids my eyes. “I’m going to go and stay at Kallie’s house for now until I figure it out.”
“Until you figure out what?” I ask her, stepping into the room, the whole time my hands itch to grab her.
She drops the clothes into the suitcase and then looks up at me. “Until I figure out where the next step is.” I look at her up and down and notice that she changed from her dress and is now wearing shorts and a sweater. “One thing I’ve decided is that it’s not LA.” It’s almost as if she kicks me in the balls with that last sentence, but then it’s nothing like the next part. “It’s not my home.” She turns and walks back to the closet and grabs a handful of hangers. “I want to find a home.” She smiles sadly. “With everything that happened around me, I figured one thing out. I’ve never had a home. I’ve never had roots. I want to build a home and then plant all the roots.”
“Darlin’.” I say her name softly, and she blinks and looks down, but I can’t stop staring at the lone tear that rolls down her cheek.
“I know you won’t get it because you’ve had a home your whole life,” she says, taking the shirt off the hanger and then looking up at me. “So you probably think it’s silly, but …” She shrugs. “I want a home.” Her eyes glisten with tears. “I want a family that is my own. I want to bake and cook for them.” She laughs now. “I mean, I have to learn, but still. I want to.”
“Stay,” I finally say, my tongue finally working, and she looks at me. “Stay here.”
“What?” she whispers, and I take a step closer to her. “And I know that I said I didn’t know what love was or that I didn’t deserve it or the fact that I don’t want to have kids but ...” She shrugs, looking at me almost in defeat. “But I am worthy of love. I’m worthy of loving someone, and I’m worthy of someone loving me. I want to be a mother and a wife. I want all those things and more. You said yourself that you’ll never get married.” She reminds me of the words I told her, and I suddenly want to go back to that day by the creek and take it back. But I can’t touch her yet. I need to get this off my chest before I touch her.
“That was then,” I say. “That was before I knew how much I want to be married. I’m saying that because I want you to stay here with me. You once asked me about the room upstairs. Why I built it.” I take one more step. “And I told you I did it for my nieces and nephews, and I never said I did it for my kids, and the reason was because I was never going to get married.” I watch her as she processes what I just said. “I was never going to let myself get serious with someone. It was easier.” I take another step. “And then I met you.” My heart is beating. “I met you, and everything that I thought went straight out the window.”
“Casey,” she says, shaking her head and now a sob rips out of her.
“I watched you sleep last night,” I say. “I watched your chest rise and fall, and the whole time I told myself I wasn’t going to tell you how I felt because I didn’t want to pressure you into staying.” The tears that run down her face flow faster now. “I didn’t think I was good enough, or that I had what you needed. I didn’t have anything to offer you. I don’t even know if I have what you need or want but …” I shake my head, blinking away my own tears. “I want to build this home with you. I want to help you plant those roots, and if you don’t like it here, we can plant the roots wherever you want. The only thing I know is that you are the only one I want to do this with.”
“Casey,” she whispers again, and this time, I close the space between us, and I’m standing in front of her. I take the hanger out of her hand and toss it on the bed. She puts her hands to her face and sobs. I pull them from her face.
“I love you.” I finally say three words I’ve never said to anyone in my whole life, not counting my family. “I love you so much.” Her eyes light up. “All of you.”
“Cowboy,” she says, hanging her head and coming into my arms and crying in my neck. My arms wrap around her, and for the first time today, my heart beats properly. Like it’s found its missing piece.
I kiss the top of her head. “Don’t cry, darlin’,” I say, hugging her even tighter.
“I thought you wanted me gone,” she finally says softly. “You wouldn’t look at me this morning.” She doesn’t move her face from the crook of my neck. “I thought you were disgusted by me.”
“What?” I shriek out and push her away from me so she can see my face. “How can you think that?”
“You wouldn’t even look at me,” she says softly, avoiding my eyes, and I put my finger under her chin so I can see her, and she can see me. “I just ...”
“I left because I couldn’t stand the thought of you wanting to leave. I left because I couldn’t imagine you not here.”
“Well, that was dumb, cowboy,” she says and smiles. “I love you.” Her whole face lights up, and I see her shield is down, and that she is bursting. “I have never loved anyone like I love you. I didn’t think I was good enough for you,” she says. “I didn’t think you would want to settle with someone who has never had a family.” She wrings her hands together. “Someone who has such a dark cloud over her head.”
“You have more than you know, Olivia,” I say. “You are more than I deserve.”
“Ask me again?” she says, and I finally smile for the first time today.
“Stay with me.” I don’t really ask her. “Build a home with me.”
She looks down at her hands, and when she looks up, she smiles so big her eyes look like she’s squinting. “Yes.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Olivia
“Why are we doing this again?” Casey asks from beside me, and I shake my head and try not to laugh.
“We are doing this because Beau is one of your good friends, and he invited us over to help celebrate him winning the mayor’s seat,” I say, leaning over and kissing his cheek. It’s been one month since he asked me to stay and build a home with him. It’s also been a month since my dreams have come true. I called Meryl and was about to quit my job. I didn’t give a shit, but she just gave me the same deal she gave Kallie when she called her. When Casey found out, he called Kallie, and they redid the office exactly like it was at home. I was so overwhelmed that I thanked him right there on the desk.
“But I thanked him already.” Casey moans, and I look over at him. I forced him to wear slacks today, and you would think I asked him to pull out his wisdom teeth. He looked over at me and gave me a list of sexual positions we would have to do in order for him to dress like that. I rolled my eyes the whole time, but little did he know that I was probably more excited than he was.
When we get to the big mayor’s house, two men in tuxedos wait for us. One opens my door and the other runs to the other side and opens Casey’s. I step out and my heels click on the sidewalk as I wait for Casey to come around the truck. He grabs my hand and then kisses me silly right here in the middle of the sidewalk while people arrive. “I hate when you wear pants,” he says, and I look down at my white capri pants I wore for the night with my one-sleeved black shirt. “It just takes longer to do you when we get home.”
“That was not my fault.” He smirks at me. “You bent over.”
“To get a fork I dropped.” I throw my head back and laugh. “It was not an invitation.”
He shrugs when we walk up the five steps, and the door is opened for us. It’s an old Victorian house with the American flag hanging beside the front door. “Welcome.”
“Thank you,” I say, walking in and seeing the high ceiling with a crystal chandelier. “This is beautiful,” I say, taking in all the old Victorian touches everywhere. The spiral staircase on the side of the room, and the pictures of the family all along them. “Do they really live here?”
“If you are mayor, you live here,” Casey says from beside me. “So he has no choice but to move in here, no matter how much he bitches.”
“But doesn’t his father live here?” I look over at him and spot servers walking around with champagne on trays. I take a glass and look back at Casey. “Awkward giving your father the pink slip to move out.”
“It’s about time,” Casey says, and then we walk past the room on the right that has the mayor’s office on the closed door. “We need new blood.”
I don’t have a chance to ask him what he means when we come into the big open room that leads out to the huge backyard. Where over a hundred people all stand mingling with each other. I spot Beau standing next to his father and then look next to him and see someone else. “Who is that?” I ask Casey, pointing.
“That’s Liam, Beau’s brother,” he says, leaning in. “He’s also a fucking tool.” I shake my head as we walk out onto the back patio, and I spot Kallie and Jacob with Ethan standing on one side.
“Look at how pretty the willow tree is,” I say, pointing at the tree and then turning to smile at Kallie, who is dressed in a pencil skirt with a button-down shirt. “Hello, everyone.”
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