This Thing Called Love (A Mirror Lake Novel)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Miranda Liasson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477829066

  ISBN-10: 1477829067

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary-Soudant / SOS CREATIVE LLC

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014921457

  For Ed, because you always knew I could.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Olivia Marks steered her grocery cart to the back of the crowded twelve-items-or-less line just as her baby niece began to cry. Wedged in her car seat between several bottles of diet cola, a jar of peanut butter, two frozen pizzas, a head of lettuce, and one roll of refrigerated cookie dough, Annabelle looked defenseless and diminutive. And mad as hell.

  Olivia surreptitiously dropped two Kit Kat bars into the cart. She had to get out of this store before the crying really got rolling. Annabelle waved her arms and wailed as loud as an EMS vehicle on the way to the ER, the very picture of despair. Olivia felt her pain. She had the same feeling bubbling up inside herself right now.

  People cast accusatory looks in her direction. Do something about that crying. What kind of mother are you? All around, people bustled about Gertie’s in their usual routines, but for Olivia, nothing was usual. Her life had changed faster than a Black Friday crowd rushing into Walmart, and she wasn’t at all prepared. She didn’t belong here, back under the microscope lens of her small hometown with a brand new baby she knew nothing about caring for.

  The crying suddenly accelerated to tornado-warning pitch. Everyone turned and stared. Olivia counted eight people in front of her in line. Eight!

  If only the older woman who had stopped to admire Annabelle in the vegetable aisle hadn’t clanged her necklace against the cart and woken her up, this nightmare wouldn’t be happening.

  A silent prayer rose to Olivia’s lips. Just let me get my peanut butter home. Olivia’s stomach rumbled in response. How long had it been since she’d eaten?

  Breakfast felt like a hundred years ago. The day had been a rush of meetings and loose ends too numerous to count. Then she’d rented a car and driven the two and a half hours from New York City to Connecticut, to her best friend Alex’s, to pick up the four-week-old baby.

  “Shhh, Annabelle, shush.” She held the baby’s tiny hand. It was so weightless—fragile—that Olivia pushed down a tide of panic. “Just a little while longer.” She sounded like she was begging, not comforting.

  A wave of helplessness engulfed her. Helpless was not a word she ever would have used to describe herself. Her job as an editor of self-help books at Andromeda Publishing in the city meant eighty-hour workweeks, high-pressure deadlines, and six-figure deals. But a baby . . . that was a whole other can of worms. One she had never expected to factor into her well-ordered life.

  Her heart squeezed painfully as she recalled the car accident that had claimed the lives of her sister Trish and brother-in-law Kevin. They’d gone out to the garden center to buy more flowers for their tiny yard. On a Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight, a drunk driver had crossed the median, killing them instantly. Accordion-pleated the entire front half of the car as easily as a teenage boy would flatten a Coke can between his hands. Yet miraculously, the tiny baby had survived, tucked and buckled into her car seat in the back.

  Desperation and despair threatened to thrash up inside Olivia like breaker waves over rocks, pummeling her and threatening to break her into a million pieces. Yet she was strangely numb, fueled by adrenaline and caffeine, and mercifully distracted by the impossible responsibility she’d been called upon to bear.

  The interceding week had been a blur of packing, rearranging her schedule, her commitments, her life . . . to return home and take guardianship of Annabelle as her sister’s and brother-in-law’s wills had dictated.

  Olivia set her jaw firmly and pushed down all the sadness, fears, and doubts that churned about inside her. Like why Trish had named her, the most unlikely of people, to take on such a critical job.

  No, she wasn’t going there, to that dark place. Annabelle deserved better, and Olivia was determined, for Trish’s sake, to do whatever it took to give her baby the best life possible. She owed it to her sister, and to Annabelle, because that’s what Olivia always did. Her best. Always.

  A middle-aged woman behind her whispered to her companion, “That’s why I never took mine out till they were six months old. Babies that age belong at home.”

  If only she had a pacifier. With chagrin, Olivia remembered she’d left the diaper bag Alex had packed for her in the car.

  “So disruptive,” the other woman said with a tsk.

  Why had she ever thought to bring the baby grocery shopping? It was only that she didn’t want to ask anyone for help on her first day back. Anything she could do herself, she usually did. Asking for help was never her forte.

  Of all the self-help books she’d edited and read, no well-meaning advice seemed to leap into her head for this situation. Meditate. Think positive. Send calming vibes into the universe. Avoid clutter. All useless in the face of a screaming, inconsolable infant.

  She wracked her brain. What else could she do to calm Annabelle? Rocking motion. She’d seen mothers do that with good results. Olivia began to roll the cart back and forth in what she thought was a soothing rhythm. “There you go, Annie. It’s all right, baby. Just a few more minutes.”

  Something dinged. Olivia looked up to see a flashing light on top of the cashier’s station.

  God, no. Not the help light.

  The cashier barked into a microphone, “Price check needed at register seven. Price check. Register seven.”

  Olivia shifted her weight from one foot to another. She still wore her heels, and right about now, her toes were screaming for flip-flops. She cracked her neck to dispel some tension, then bent low to whisper, “Four more people, Annie. You can do it.”

  Annabelle’s cries intensified to all-out wails. Her face turned reddish-purple as a beet, her tiny mouth contorted into a vibrating oval.

  That was the white flag of surrender. Olivia would have to take the plunge and pick her up.

  People stared, judgment written on their faces. Hadn’t anyone ever seen a baby cry before? She undid the belt between Annabelle’s tiny flailing legs and lifted her out of the car seat.

/>   “What’s that awful smell?” someone from the next aisle looked over and said.

  What sm—It soon became evident that the diaper had clearly leaked, leaving poo strewn all over the car seat and halfway up Annabelle’s back. The sensation of wetness covered Olivia’s hands and arms. She gulped and drew one hand away to find it covered with something she didn’t even want to vocalize.

  A groan escaped her lips. A cowardly image flashed through her mind of setting the baby back down and fleeing as far and fast as she could.

  She awkwardly bounced the squawking baby.

  I would never abandon you, Annabelle. Because I know what that’s like. And you will never experience that. Ever. Instinctively, she held the baby more securely. Trish might have been too young to remember when their own mother left, but Olivia remembered it like it was yesterday. Remembered all too clearly the betrayal and shock of knowing your own mother did not love you enough to stay.

  A man on the other side of her chuckled. The lady behind her folded her arms and muttered, “I’m complaining to the manager about this.”

  Olivia scanned the crowd. Wasn’t there another mom in sight? Someone, anyone to lend a hand? She was one away from the cashier, but how on earth was she ever going to check out? But put the groceries back? Impossible. She’d have to abandon them. What could possibly be more embarrassing?

  Behind her, she heard the rattle of groceries being shifted about. What was that awful woman up to now?

  Olivia spun about, ready to give her something much bigger to complain about, like a roll of cookie dough lodged somewhere unmentionable, but the woman was no longer in line.

  In her place stood a man, tall and lean. The muscles of his back pulled gently against the confines of a crisp white shirt as he rummaged through his cart. Rolled-up sleeves displayed tan, well-built arms. Perfectly tailored dress pants clung to a fine backside and looked made just for him.

  Hottie plucked out a roll of paper towels and turned. Olivia took one look at his face and gasped.

  No, it couldn’t be. Not here, not like this. Anytime but now.

  She recognized the same arrogantly cocked brow, as if he’d sized her up after ten-plus years and found her way below his exacting standards. The same square-set jaw: hard, obstinate, and unyielding. The same bright, piercing eyes: as pale green as sea foam and as displeased as Grandma when you forgot to wash behind the ears.

  She used to cut his wavy mop of hair because he could never afford haircuts. But now it was shorn close to his head, dark and coarse and dangerous, a little closer on the sides than the top. A haircut he’d clearly shelled out a bunch for.

  The contrast between the boy he was and the man he’d become sent a prick of remorse through her. Half of her wanted to rush to him, be gathered up in his strong arms like when she was a girl, while the other jaded half knew only too well exactly how much had changed.

  A graphic silk tie and Italian leather shoes completed his male model look and reminded her he was a bajillionaire by now. Entrepreneur, owner of five Zagat-rated restaurants, with another rumored to open soon. What was he even doing in a grocery store, when he had minions to do such a mundane task?

  “Brad,” she said on an exhale. She followed the movement of his long-fingered hands, sliding up his muscular arms before she could stop herself. Her gaze locked with those unusual green eyes that held a trace of amusement and something more—a mocking that suddenly turned her blood to ice. It reminded her that on the outside, this man might look as bright and charismatic as a poison dart frog but he was toxic as all get-out.

  “Olivia,” he said matter-of-factly, in a tone that guaranteed he’d been watching her for some time. He offered her a bunch of paper towels.

  She wished anyone else would have been handing them to her. Why Brad Rushford, her first crush, her first love, the one person she did not want to see with all her defenses down?

  Oh, but she’d better get used to it. She’d be seeing him plenty. He was Annabelle’s uncle, Kevin’s brother, and the one person who shared the commonality of this tragedy with her in exactly the same way. Whether she liked it or not, he was back in her life. And he did not look happy she had been the one named Annabelle’s guardian.

  Her sister had been married to Brad’s brother, Kevin. Her best friend Alex was married to his next-youngest brother, Tom. And her other best friend, Meg, had a years-long crush on the youngest brother, Benjamin. Good thing Olivia had fled a town where everyone she knew thought the Rushford brothers were the only eligible men around.

  They most certainly weren’t. But they were the most good-looking.

  She took the towels, trying her best not to snatch them in irritation. “Th-thank you.” Dammit, she’d stumbled over her words like a high school girl on a first date. It was only the baby’s screaming, the exhaustion, the horrendous stress throwing her off her game.

  “Looks like you could use some help.”

  It wasn’t a nice offer. Olivia could tell from the know-it-all tone and skeptical spark in his eyes that Brad was furious. He’d told his brother Tom, and then of course Alex had told her, that Olivia having custody was the worst mistake. He didn’t believe she was suitable to be a mother.

  For a second, her doubt, her pain, all her insecurities crowded tightly around her like a ring of horrible bullies on the playground. He of all people knew her history better than anyone. It hurt that someone she was once so close to would judge her like that.

  But maybe he was right.

  Olivia’s stomach churned sickly but she braced herself. She was too old to care what Brad Rushford thought. He was a part of her past and she could easily keep him locked away there.

  Except he smelled good, like spicy, woodsy cologne. And he was so much taller and more filled out than he’d been twelve years ago, when they were in high school. He was eye candy, the deep, dark-chocolate variety.

  Twelve years ago. Something flashed in her head. The strangest memory. They’d gone parking on the back roads of the local airport just outside of town. In Brad’s beat-up old clunker, it was pitch-black except for the glow from the cool blue lights lined up along the runways in the distance.

  The night air was bitingly cold, yet everything in that tiny car was hot. Rain beat loudly on the roof, encasing them with the muted noise, and their breath steamed the windows, creating the perfect curtain of privacy. Kiss after wet, languid kiss covered her lips until at last his tongue collided and tangled with hers, sending the sensation of shooting stars bursting through her and making her quiver all over.

  Brad’s youthful face hovered over hers, so close, those pale green eyes brimming with intensity and lust and something she had been certain once upon a time was love. “Let me make love to you,” he said, his voice solemn and worshipful and thrilling her to the core.

  It wasn’t their first time, but they were still tentative, still learning each other’s bodies. He made love to her so carefully, with such restraint, she’d had to tell him she was fine, just fine. They’d let loose together, uninhibited, free flying to heights she’d never experienced with anyone in all the time since. “I love you, Olivia,” he’d said in a hoarse whisper. “I swear I’ll love you forever.”

  Under the cold fluorescent lighting of Gertie’s, Olivia shook her head, pulled her libido and her sentimentality back in line. For a second she’d forgotten she was still in the middle of a grocery store checkout with a miserable, freaking-out baby and angry customers.

  Brad tossed out a cocky smile. Shit, he’d seen her ogling him. She had to be more careful, not display her emotions so flagrantly, or he would surely pounce on any weakness she presented.

  In her business life, she was used to handling aggressive men who tried to one-up her on big deals all the time. Usually by dishing it right back.

  “Always glad to rescue a damsel in distress.” Brad dangled another paper towel from his fi
ngers. She wanted to use it to wipe the smug grin right off his face.

  Instead, she placed it on Annabelle’s back.

  “Thanks, Brad.” Olivia smiled sweetly. “But I don’t need anyone coming to my rescue—especially not the man from Brawny.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Brad couldn’t help chuckling despite the mini-crisis before him. Olivia always had possessed the power to get his hormones rolling, and today was no exception, standing there with her big melted-chocolate eyes, like one of those long-lashed dolls his four-year-old niece played with that looked flirty and innocent at the same time.

  But neither of them was innocent anymore. Tragedy had intervened and torn a hole in their lives. His brother was gone, and this tiny baby was the only reminder he would ever have of him. Securing her future was all that mattered. And he would go to his grave doing it.

  Still, an unwanted warmth surged through him and shot straight to his groin. He fought the urge to tug the clips out of her crazy curly hair and plow his hands through it. Luxuriate in the silky mass that he knew would be soft as a baby’s skin. Kiss her full pink lips senseless.

  Brad struggled to squelch the lust factor. He’d known her when she was naïve and innocent. Hell, he had been, too. But together they’d made fireworks. Big, bold, Technicolor ones. Like out on the lake in that old fishing boat, a flannel blanket tossed over his backside for anyone who happened to be strolling by on that moon-filled night. He’d been up on his elbows in that cramped little boat, looking down at the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. “I want you so badly,” he’d choked out.

  She’d looked at him without hesitation. Those big brown eyes had glistened with feeling, making him tremble like he couldn’t control himself. She was beautiful, perfect, and her absolute surrender made him want to protect her forever. “I love you,” she’d whispered, her body arched against him.

  She had cracked his tough shell for the first time in all the hard years of his eighteen-year-old life. For that brief spot of time, the burdens he’d carried for his family had lifted, and his heart burst wide open, naked and vulnerable.