This Thing Called Love (A Mirror Lake Novel) Read online

  She placed a cold, clammy hand over his and he grasped it like there was no tomorrow. “You’re never out of control.”

  “Honey, you have no idea. I always pretended to know what I was doing in front of all of you. Underneath, I was scared shitless.”

  Her lips tipped up in a half smile. “This is the first adult conversation we’ve had.”

  “I love you, Sam. I’m sorry you got stuck being raised by me and not our real parents. They were . . . awesome. They knew what a real family was.”

  “So do you,” she said very softly.

  “You know, after Effie got sick, that lawyer threatened to split us up. They wanted to send you to Great-aunt Agnes’s and the boys to Uncle Stan on the farm in Iowa.”

  She raised one elegant brow. “I could have gone with Great-aunt Agnes? The old cat lady in Vermont?”

  “That was the plan. Until I got two other jobs and Effie got Doc Collins to say she was a whole lot healthier than she was.”

  “Oh, Brad.” She got up and threw her arms around him. The scents of fruity shampoo and gum wafted up. Funny how she looked more and more like a woman but still smelled like a teenager. “I guess I always resented I had to listen to you—my brother—instead of having real parents. I know I gave you a hard time, and I’m sorry.”

  Something Olivia said echoed in his head. “You were just being a teenager. It’s all right.” He patted her hand, stroked her curls. Silently begged for the waterworks to stop. “And I’ve been thinking . . . you should go ahead and apply to art school. It’s what you love, and it makes you happy.”

  She lifted her head, her eyes puffy but incredulous. “You said that’s not a good enough reason to pick a career, that I have to think of business things, too. Being financially secure. Making money.”

  “Well, I was wrong. All the money in the world won’t do a thing if you get up every day and hate yourself. Follow your dream.” God, that was tough. But somehow he did it, cut the balloon tether so she could soar.

  “I love you. I’m so glad you’re my brother.” Tears soaked the shoulders of his T-shirt.

  “Me, too.” He chuckled a little at his own joke. “But please stop crying now.”

  In that moment, he realized love could make up for a whole lot of mistakes. His youth and inexperience. His confusion in being a parent. At least he certainly hoped so, because he loved each of his siblings with all his heart.

  But with Olivia he’d held back. Blown the marriage proposal. Pushed against a wall, he’d panicked and there was no reason to believe she’d take that unromantic horseshit he’d tossed at her seriously. Especially when it contained words like you don’t have to work when it was clear she loved her job. No wonder she’d rejected him.

  He’d been afraid. Of putting himself out there. Of being out of control. Of being left. Well, here he was anyway, no better off than before.

  Way to go, rocket scientist.

  “I asked Olivia to marry me but it was bad. I didn’t even tell her I loved her.”

  “Maybe she thought you were asking her for Annabelle’s sake, not for her, you know?”

  He shrugged. Maybe he had hidden behind Annabelle to avoid expressing his real feelings. With each passing day, he feared Mirror Lake would become a dimmer reality for Olivia as she figured out how to navigate caring for Annabelle in the big city. And she would figure it out with flying colors, he had no doubt.

  Maybe in some strange way he had taken Annabelle because part of him couldn’t stop clinging to the fantasy of the three of them becoming a family.

  Yet he’d expected Olivia to make all the compromises, adjust her life. He’d always thrown himself into whatever challenges he’d faced one hundred percent, but not this. And he’d lost her.

  Maybe it was time to take his own advice. If it wasn’t too late.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Liv, honey, you’re not paying the least bit of attention. Would some sun-tea help? Julian just made some.” Ryan Connor nodded to his longtime partner, who stood in their big open kitchen slicing lemons and dropping them into a glass pitcher.

  “Oh, Ryan, I’m sorry.” Olivia snapped out of her trance in time to pretend she’d been staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows of Ryan’s oceanfront beach house instead of being lost in her own gray thoughts. “You invite me out to the Hamptons to get some work done and all I can do is drool at the view.” From her seat on one of two pillowy white couches that resembled massive fluffy clouds, the ocean stretched endlessly in front of her, each little wave crested with a sparkling silver cap of sunlight.

  Truthfully, she might as well have been looking out her apartment window at the brick wall of the building next door. Memories from the past few weeks both comforted and haunted her.

  Like holding Annabelle as she snuggled in the crook of her arm, kissing her tiny soft toes, blowing on her tummy until she smiled. Who would have ever guessed that in such a short amount of time, Annabelle had become a part of her, a deep and essential part, like a bone or a rib or a heart.

  And so had Brad, who was cocky and cynical and loyal and the gentlest, most kind-hearted man she’d ever met. She saw him in that stupid grocery line, doling out paper towels as if they were his solution to world peace. After they’d made love, he’d held her hand over his heart like she was . . . precious. But was she? He loved Annabelle but as for her—had she simply been nothing other than his flavor of the month?

  Lots of guys couldn’t say the L word. And he’d warned her, he really had. But dammit, this time had seemed so different. She’d never felt like this before about anyone—except him when she was eighteen. Had it really been one-sided?

  Ryan cast her a worried look. Despite working with him for the past year, only recently had they crossed the line from a strictly business relationship into friendship, and she was touched by his concern. “I’m fine. Really.”

  “You look exhausted.”

  She’d returned to her familiar, bustling life, with projects too numerous to fit into a day and not enough hours to sleep at night. Except when she did collapse into bed—and she waited until she was on the brink of exhaustion to avoid thinking—she couldn’t sleep.

  Every emotion was raw and on the surface. A baby’s cry on the subway. An irritable toddler clinging to his mother after a too-long day. Small things she’d never even noticed before suddenly seemed magnified and personal.

  Ryan raked a hand through his artfully spiky hair. Then he touched her hand, forcing her to look up from the screen. “You’re upset over working like a dog all week, then I hauled your ass out here for the entire Memorial Day weekend.”

  Memorial Day weekend. A sudden, shooting stab of pain in her heart over and above the usual constant gnawing reminded her that Bachelors Who Cook was tonight. At Brad’s restaurant. And she was here, hours away, miserable without him.

  Julian handed Olivia an ice-cold glass of cranberry-colored tea. “I’m warning you two,” he said. “Tonight we’re doing a clam bake on the beach, so you’d better kick it hard this afternoon so you can relax later. I’m not going to let this entire weekend pass with all work and no play.”

  Olivia smiled and sipped the tea. Ryan would easily work until midnight every night if it weren’t for Julian.

  Ryan flashed Julian a teasing smile. “You artists. Always so whimsical.”

  “Time for work and time for play, that’s the key to balance, right, Mr. Assertiveness?”

  Ryan laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it? I write about helping people live full lives, yet I need someone to force me to slow down enough to enjoy my own.”

  “Well, you’ve got to or what kind of father will you be?” Julian teased.

  “Father?” Olivia asked.

  “Hasn’t he told you?” Julian asked. “We’re adopting twins.”

  Twin babies. Even as she congratulated them, longing for her own baby clutch
ed at her heart.

  She’d just thought of Annabelle as hers. Her own baby.

  Olivia pressed her hands to her achy chest. Tried to breathe. Tears burned behind her eyes. How could she think of Annabelle as hers after so short a time? How had her heart expanded in ways she would never have thought possible?

  “Are you all right?” Ryan grasped her shoulder. “Here, take another sip of tea.”

  Even as Olivia said “no, thank you” for the tea and reported she was fine, Annabelle’s sweet little face appeared in front of her eyes.

  Her heart squeezed so hard she felt a physical ache in her chest. She missed Annabelle. She missed being Annabelle’s mother.

  What she’d done seemed necessary. Ryan and Sylvia and an entire staff of people were counting on the completion of this project. Brad had stepped in and offered a solution and she’d taken it. Then why did she feel so awful?

  She could have fought Sylvia. She could have had a heart-to-heart with Ryan. But for so many years, work was her number one priority, her only priority. The thing that drove her, made her feel like a success, and what kept the demons of a mother who’d abandoned her at bay.

  But things had changed.

  And now she had to, as well.

  Maybe Brad didn’t want her. Maybe he was all about Annabelle and providing her with a great life. He’d certainly let Olivia know that when she’d first come to town.

  But maybe she never gave him a chance. She’d made it clear her home was here, in New York, but was it? She no longer found any solace in her silk blouses, her designer shoes, or her office’s skyline view. Most of her friends seemed self-absorbed, totally into living a single’s life.

  Home now seemed to be the place where the people she loved lived. And it wasn’t here. Not any more.

  Ryan gathered up her hand and forced her to make eye contact. “All week I’ve been hoping you’d open up and share what happened when you went home, but you’ve seemed so upset. That’s why I suggested we work here this weekend. You looked like you needed a break.”

  Olivia’s eyes misted. He’d asked her out here for her own benefit, not just to work on the book. He was being a friend. But there was nothing he could do to help her.

  Julian raised an assessing brow. “Maybe we need something stronger than tea.” He headed back to the kitchen and returned with shot glasses, a box of tissues, and a bottle of Crown Royal. Olivia swiped at her eyes and laughed. “I must look like I need some serious intervention.”

  Ryan poured. “Because of you, this book is going to be bigger than The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I think it’s time we become real friends, the kind that tell each other what’s wrong.”

  “You wrote a spectacular book. It’s going to help millions of people.”

  Ryan slid the shot glass across the fashionably battered table. “Spectacular because of your genius editing. Now drink up and confess. We’re listening.”

  Olivia told them everything, about returning to Mirror Lake to take Annabelle, meeting Brad again, her struggles to learn how to care for the baby. She told them how she’d be nothing without her job, and how there didn’t seem to be any compromise. She even told them how Bachelors Who Cook was going to be featured on an upcoming segment of Marc Daniels’s Food Network cooking show.

  Finally Julian spoke. “I have one question for you. You say he asked you to marry him.”

  “Under pressure. Without an I love you. Probably for Annabelle’s sake.”

  “Is he the love of your life?”

  “Yes.” The word tumbled out without her even thinking. “Yes, he is,” she found herself repeating slowly. “No one’s ever made me feel like he does. But I can’t go back to Mirror Lake without a job. My mother did that and it was . . . disastrous. Besides, my job is everything to me. Or at least it was. Since I’ve been back I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but Brad and Annabelle.”

  Julian and Ryan exchanged glances. Then Ryan spoke. “When we met, Julian owned a gallery in San Francisco. He couldn’t imagine moving cross-country to a crowded city with a harsh winter.”

  Julian made a face. “I still abhor the crowds and the weather.”

  “But you did it anyway? For love?” Olivia asked, blowing her nose.

  He nodded. “I bought a second gallery in New York. But even now, I travel back and forth. Since we bought this place, we spend every weekend here that we can. I don’t feel that I gave up who I was to be with Ryan. You don’t have to, either.”

  Ryan turned to speak to her. “The fact remains, you did an amazing job on my book. No one works as hard or demands such perfection, yet you deliver your demands with such a sweet smile I can’t help but do what you say. Well, that and you’re usually right.” He laughed. “But Olivia, you’re an accomplished editor. You’ve got resources and connections. If anyone can figure out how to make this work, you can.”

  Dammit, why couldn’t she? For once in her life, why couldn’t she step out of the confines of the box she’d caged herself into and insist on putting her own life first? She’d been so afraid of not making it, of not being something. So afraid to deviate from the straight and narrow lest she get lost in the woods. But in the process, she’d lost her identity. Or maybe she’d never given herself a chance to find out who she was. “I guess I’ve been afraid. I’ve been letting my past hold me back.”

  Ryan set his glass down with a smack on the glossy coffee table that looked molded from a tree stump. “Don’t let fear stop you, honey. There’s a whole chapter on that in the book, remember? You were the one who told me to leave it in.”

  “You’re right. I am good at my job. But for the past ten years, that’s all I’ve done, twenty-four seven, without questioning. I need a little time and space for my own life right now, and no one is going to make that happen but me.”

  “You go, girl. Take that space. Be assertive.” Ryan turned to Julian. “Oh my God, this is so surreal. She’s living my book. I’m absolutely verklempt.”

  “I am going to be assertive. Starting right now.” Olivia stood and faced Ryan. “I want to finish editing the rest of your book remotely. There’s no reason not to. Do you trust me to do that?”

  Ryan stood and hugged her. “Honey, of course I do. I wish you would have said what was going on in the first place or I never would have insisted you come back.”

  “I won’t make that mistake again.” There were other mistakes she wished she hadn’t made. Mistakes that might be too late to fix.

  “It’s so wondrous to see my book in action,” Ryan said. “Maybe I’ll use you as an example in the sequel.”

  “How do you know it’s your book that’s given her this sudden revelation?” Julian asked.

  “Olivia?” Ryan looked at her expectantly.

  “Okay, your book helped,” Olivia said. “But it’s mostly because of my sister.”

  “Your dead sister?” Ryan asked.

  Olivia nodded. “Trish lived fully. She plunged into causes she believed in and every single day, she appreciated the people in her life. But it got cut short. She’ll never get to see her dreams fulfilled or her baby grow into a beautiful young woman. What if I die? What will I have to show for a job I’ve slaved over for every waking hour for most of my twenties? So your book is right, Ryan. I have to take action instead of being a zombie, following along blindly in my own life. Things have to change, starting right now.”

  “Wow. That was really inspiring, Olivia,” Julian said. “Maybe you should become a motivational speaker.”

  “Maybe I should have you write a few chapters of my next book,” Ryan said.

  Olivia laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think you’d want that, since I’m more an example on how to do everything wrong.” She’d poured her heart and soul into a job and forgot to live the rest of her life. She’d held her success like a banner above her head and waved it
to everyone to prove she was worthy no matter what her mother had done to her. And worst of all, she’d used her job as an excuse to avoid intimacy with the one man she loved—whom she’d loved for most of her life.

  Wasn’t that the bottom line? Sticking to the well-known script of her life had been the perfect way to avoid getting her heart broken. Far less scary than taking a leap of faith. Maybe Brad was afraid of committing to a relationship. But maybe he, like herself, was just afraid of being abandoned.

  Olivia glanced at her watch. Three o’clock. Bachelors Who Cook would begin at six. If she left now, she’d be pushing to get there in time to see Brad’s big opening and bid on him as a bachelor. Her bachelor.

  Because there was no way she was going to give him to Erika or any other woman. Not without a fight.

  She cursed, remembering she’d taken the Jitney bus from the city and had no car. “I’ve got to get to Mirror Lake by six. Would either of you mind giving me a ride to a rental car place?”

  Julian glanced at his Cartier watch then at Ryan. “Forget that. We’ll take the Bentley. If we leave now we can make it.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Ryan said.

  Olivia’s eyes teared up as she grasped their hands. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “I was planning on watching Bachelors Who Cook,” Ryan said with a chuckle. “Just not live.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Thanks to Memorial Day traffic and merciless miles of road construction delays, when Brad finally pulled up to the marina, the cooking part of Bachelors Who Cook had already started. He strode quickly down the dock, past long tables covered with bright plastic tablecloths and serving pans heated with Sterno.

  When Brad couldn’t reach Olivia directly, he called her downtown Manhattan office and Sylvia had told him Olivia was working in the Hamptons for the weekend. He’d found Ryan Connor’s beach house deserted. And he’d called Olivia’s cell a million times to no avail. Finally, time was up. It was enough he’d left his staff in charge all day. He had to show up at the auction for the sake of the fundraiser.