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

  Brad bit back a grin. “Pass it over,” he said, coming to stand next to her.

  Startled, she looked up, her big brown eyes rounding even larger. She covered her forehead with her arm and slumped down further onto the couch. “Not you again. Please God, anyone but you.”

  “It’s me, all right.” He took a small foil packet from her and ripped it open with his teeth. “You look pretty stressed. That’s not even all of it. All that gray, pasty skin, bags under your eyes . . .”

  She didn’t really look like hell. Okay, maybe a little. Mostly she looked exhausted, and he almost felt guilty for tormenting her.

  There was a blotch of formula on the shoulder of her wrinkly white T-shirt and a threadbare spot on the thigh of her old jean shorts with white threads hanging down. She shouldn’t have been sexy. But she was, dammit, even sick and pissed off.

  Her toned legs stretched out for miles. He wanted to run his hands all over their smooth softness. Her hair was splayed out and wild around her head, begging for him to plow through its rich thickness. There was something about her reclining on that couch, exhausted, unguarded, yet wary, that overwhelmed him with the need to help her. Protect her. Jump her bones.

  The jumble of conflicting feelings tormented him. What was wrong with him? He’d have to get his pleasure by tormenting the hell out of her instead.

  She snatched at the pill but he held it just out of reach.

  Outrage washed across her face in bright hues of red. He almost smiled at how much he was still able to agitate her. “Get these headaches often?”

  “No, it’s just the lack of sleep, the stress.” She almost grabbed it that time, but he was still on his game.

  “And you aren’t even working now. Just wait till you’ve got to be up all night with a baby then have to negotiate your six-figure deals the next day.”

  “Hand me my medicine or I swear to God you’ll die in your sleep tonight.”

  “Coming, coming.” He handed her the packet and a paper cone of cold water from the corner water cooler. “Plus you’re a perfectionist who’ll demand a lot of yourself . . . and Annabelle.”

  Olivia’s response was to shoot him a death glare over the top of the paper cup.

  “Alex said Annabelle needed a bottle. I’d be happy to feed her.” The baby was still in his arms, sucking quietly on her fingers. She was a warm little football-sized bundle, compact and cute as a Christmas puppy. He loved his niece and nephews, but this little thing—well, he’d never had such a strong urge to safeguard anyone from harm.

  Maybe it was the baby’s blissful unawareness that the entire trajectory of her life had been altered in a single moment. It was too terrible a blow, and he wanted to do everything in his power to shelter her from any others.

  Brad rummaged through the diaper bag. “You know what happens to kids raised by perfectionist mothers.”

  Olivia was lying almost flat on the settee, elbow crooked over her forehead. She groaned softly, from aggravation or pain, he wasn’t sure. “Please, please go away.”

  “Right after this story. You know Sally Hopkins, don’t you? Drove her daughter up to Julliard to sing for an admission tryout and the poor girl was so stressed, not one sound came out. Like she was mute or something.”

  Olivia looked at him like he was a pure, raving lunatic.

  “Never did sing in public again. Want to know what she’s doing now?”

  “No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”

  “She heads up the late show at the truckers’ lounge out on route fifty-four. Heard she does a hell of a rendition of ‘You Light Up My Life.’”

  “You can totally leave now.”

  “Isn’t there a bottle in here somewhere?”

  “Yes, and I can handle it. I really don’t need your help.”

  “As I recall, I think you said that before, the other day in Gertie’s, and we all know how that turned out.” He found a full bottle, and took it to the small employee break area where he ran it under some warm water. Then he rummaged through the old corner fridge. “Here you go.” He placed a towel with ice wrapped inside not un-gently over her forehead.

  “You’re like the man who rocks the cradle while he pinches the baby. You pretend you’re being helpful, but the whole time, you’re subverting me.”

  He bit back a grin. “Honey, I’d love to subvert you, but I don’t have time now. I’ve got to get back to work.”

  She sat up, wincing and grabbing her head. Then squinted at him like the dim light in the room was the Red Sox stadium floodlights. “I’m good now. Hand her over.”

  He shook his head and pushed her firmly back onto the settee. “So prideful. You’d still rather cut your right arm off than ask for help.”

  “Since I’m left-handed, that might not be such a big deal.” He moved the ice bag to better cover her forehead and this time she didn’t fight him. “And you still have that same overdeveloped sense of responsibility.”

  “Other parts of me are overdeveloped, too.”

  “When I saw them last, they weren’t that developed.”

  “As I recall, the only complaints that ever passed your lips about my size were that you were afraid you couldn’t take it all.”

  “You must be mistaking your ego for your penis.”

  He laughed. Couldn’t help himself. Some perverse part of him loved her wit, her humor, her sass way too much.

  Brad stole a glance as Olivia leaned her head against the cushion. He was glad her eyes were closed, because he couldn’t take his off her. Dark, arched brows, long lashes, a beautiful oval face. He could do wicked things with those full pink lips, taste them and lick them and nip them and thrust his tongue deep until she whimpered low in her throat. Rove his hands over her fine breasts and her flat, taut stomach until they were both begging for more.

  A volley of memories shot at him right and left, pummeling him with all the times they’d been desperate for each other, out of control and frantic with need.

  He distracted himself by gazing over at the platform where all the brides stood to look at themselves in their dresses. “And then there’s that dais with the three-way mirrors.”

  Olivia cracked open an eye. “What about it?” she asked cautiously.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember that time you were working late and we came back here and turned on those runway lights and . . .”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Remember when Alex’s aunt came back to investigate the noise?” Brad asked. “We hid in that tiny closet over there.”

  They’d been buck naked, he failed to mention out loud. He still remembered the feel of her silky warm skin, smooth and soft and naked under his roving teenage hands.

  God, that was the best sex of his pathetic, hardworking teenage life. Weird thing was, maybe it was the best sex ever. And that was just plain scary.

  Olivia cleared her throat. “This place still smells the same as ever.”

  “Rotty hundred-year-old wood and this morning’s burnt coffee. What’s not to love?”

  “I was thinking more in terms of lilac and rose sachets. They were stored in that closet with us, remember? You know, for the brides.”

  Brad couldn’t tell one flower from another if it came down to his life, but as far as smells went, the smell of rain always reminded him of her. When they were seventeen, he’d walked her home from his soccer game and they’d gotten stuck in a downpour. They’d run into the gazebo in the middle of the town square to wait it out. One minute they were running and laughing and out of breath, and the next he was just staring at her, mesmerized by the raindrops coating her long lashes, her smooth, soft skin, and the sudden serious look in her eyes. Their gazes locked, their smiles faded, and he’d kissed her. The perfect beauty of that moment had stayed with him all this time.

  Olivia looked over
at the runway, as if she was eager to change the subject. “This is a magical place. Generations of brides have come through here to start their happily-ever-afters.”

  He snorted, mostly to try and push away the nostalgia that had socked him so hard in the gut. “I’m sure Alex and Meg buy into all that baloney.”

  Olivia frowned. “Wow, who soured you on love?”

  A loaded question, considering their past.

  “I’m just being realistic. Love isn’t a fairy tale. It leads to a lifetime of responsibility—kids, a house, car payments, college expenses.”

  “I’m sure it was hard raising your siblings but you’ve done a great job. Aren’t you proud?”

  She had no idea how badly he’d messed that up. Especially his little sister Samantha, who rebelled every blessed chance she got. “Love is a luxury for teenagers who have time to be moony about it,” Brad said. “For everyone else it leads to harsh realities.”

  “I don’t care what you say. Love is magical. The feeling when it’s right is the best, most perfect feeling in the world, and you have no choice but do everything in your power to make it work.”

  Brad hadn’t understood that at nineteen. He’d been too overwhelmed by work, by the feeling that his own future was on hold for his family. What could he have offered her, when her life was beginning to soar and his was grounded by financial and family burdens and cares? He would only have dragged her down.

  What they had way back then had been special, but they’d been kids. He wondered what she thought about it. But he couldn’t go there—it was too personal, too deep.

  Or maybe it was just too damn scary.

  He adjusted the nearly empty bottle so Annabelle didn’t swallow air. “Frankly, I’m surprised you think that way after your mom took off.”

  He had little recollection of Olivia’s mother. But his grandmother had told him she’d been an archaeologist who’d felt suffocated in Mirror Lake. One day she left for a dig in Rome, met a guy there, and never came back for as much as a stitch of clothing or a single possession.

  And definitely not for her two little girls.

  “Maybe that made me believe in it even more,” Olivia said. “I constantly dreamed of what life would be like if she suddenly decided she couldn’t live without us, if she came back.”

  She kicked off her shoes and sighed. A simple movement, but it fascinated him, like so much else about her. Much to his chagrin.

  “The fairy tale never lasts. Like what we had in high school.” He shouldn’t have brought it up. But part of him needed to know, did she feel like he had back then? Or had he just embellished it for all these years?

  Olivia removed the ice pack and sat up a little. Their gazes locked. Bridal Aisle fell away. Had any woman—and there’d been plenty—ever possessed the ability to stop him dead in his shoes like she did, with that clear, honest gaze that drilled right through all his bullshit with a single glance?

  “That was first love,” she finally said, her voice low and quiet.

  “What’s your verdict on that?”

  She shrugged. “It was wonderful, intense, scary, and . . . I was completely swept off my feet.”

  Loving her had been a wild, uncontrolled, crazy ride. He’d put his whole heart out there, gave her everything he had. It had been an impossible love from the start, between a brainy girl who was going places and a hack like him, barely getting by in school. But somehow it was magic.

  When he’d visited her that first fall at NYU, he’d been as out of place as a Picasso in an antique shop. By Christmas, they’d become more uncomfortable around one another. She talked of studying abroad and internships in the City with publishing companies. He hadn’t even considered college a possibility with his family’s financial status teetering as precariously as a high wire in a big wind.

  That Christmas, she’d come home. It was snowing, and they’d gone for a walk in the town square. The Christmas tree that she’d always loved was decorated and lit, right next to the big white gazebo where bands played and kids caroled. Where he’d first kissed her when they were seventeen.

  But that year, all she talked about was the millions of lights on the Rockefeller Center tree, how huge it was, how it was the greatest tree she’d ever seen. That—yes, that simple comment—was the beginning of the end.

  Her dreams were as big as that Rockefeller tree. Too big for him. He was like that puny tree—simple, unsophisticated, not glitzy. His love would drag her back here and crush her dreams and he couldn’t abide that. He’d had no choice but to let her go.

  Lots of high school lovers break up. It’s a rite of passage for many. People realize they’ve grown apart and move on, and soon the old love is forgotten. He’d told himself that for many years, yet it sometimes seemed that his feelings for Olivia were like gum on your shoe—persistent, still there after you’ve scraped it off a zillion times.

  Olivia’s voice brought him back to the present. He was glad to see she’d changed the subject. “Look,” she said. “I know I didn’t have the best example in my life to show me how to be a mother. But you learned to be a father to your siblings and I can learn how to take care of Annabelle, too. Even if it is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

  Her determination in the face of her fear got to him. His impulse was to comfort, but he bit back the words. Ones that would tell her she was doing her best and it would all work out, regardless of the scars her mother had left behind.

  “I know you’ll do the right thing for Annabelle.” Weak, but what could he say? In Brad’s experience, people didn’t change. He’d almost forgotten that Olivia would always be a hard-driving, high-achieving woman. And Annabelle would suffer for it.

  From the diaper bag, Olivia’s cell phone rang. Brad picked it up and read the caller name. “It says Sylvia,” he said.

  “My boss. I have enough headaches now.” She hand signaled to him to put the phone back. “I’ll talk to her later.”

  “How is your job? You edit self-help books?”

  “Relationships, self-esteem, work-life balance, overcoming adversity, getting organized.” She smiled. “I love it.”

  “Why?” She’d always read a lot as a teenager, but he’d usually seen her with romance novels.

  “When you have as messed up a childhood as I had, self-help books are tantalizing. They teach you that there are a whole lot of other people just as screwed up as you are. And that gives hope.”

  Interesting. “Which one’s your favorite?”

  “Hard to say. Putting Karma Back into the Kama Sutra was a blockbuster. Huge.”

  “You edited that?”

  She laughed, a deep, belly laugh with a little snort she couldn’t control. He hadn’t heard her laugh like that in years. “I’m teasing, Brad. Just teasing. I just wanted to prove you’re not beyond looking at self-help books, either.”

  “Honey, I’m never ashamed to be an innovator. Not that my skills need improvement, mind you. But I’m always open to new ideas. Especially that kind, if you know what I mean.” He waggled his brows for emphasis.

  He’d made her blush. Good, because she deserved a little payback. He’d forgotten how funny she could be. Together, they could joke and tease and play off one another like the old days. And that was a very scary thought.

  Meg popped her head around the door. “They’re gone. Oh, can I hold her?”

  “She . . . needs to be burped, and I’ve got to get back to work.” Brad handed Meg the baby, suddenly desperate for some fresh air.

  “Oh, I love burping babies,” Meg said as she hoisted Annabelle over her shoulder and rubbed her back.

  Alex handed Olivia a cold can of diet soda. “Here, honey, thought this might hit the spot.”

  “Thank you all for helping me,” Olivia said. She turned to Brad. “And you for tormenting me.”

  “Always a pleasure.” He m
ade certain to sweep his gaze slowly up and down her body, lingering at all the right places just to piss her off.

  And he was pleased to see another bright scarlet flush spread up her face.

  As Brad walked out, he caught a whiff of lavender and the faint, sweet smell of roses. All that sappy talk must have gotten to him. He breathed in a big lungful of lake air to clear his head.

  Olivia was clearly a woman struggling to come to terms with events that had pitched her whole world into a careening tilt. But he preferred the Evil Editor version. Less complicated, less hard on his libido. Not to mention his heart.

  The way he saw it, he had a few choices. He could get her into bed and do certain things that would drain the fight right out of any normal woman and reduce her to a whimpering, sated heap of jelly. The sexual currents certainly still buzzed strong between them.

  But knowing all the kick and fight in Olivia, she’d brawl with him to her last gasp.

  No, with a sassy chick like her, he’d have to approach it more cerebrally. She’d admitted her soft spot, the one part that wasn’t protected by that sarcastic coat of armor. So he’d use it, all right—and find a way to get her to realize on her own she wasn’t the right person to raise Annabelle. He might have helped with her headache, but he was not going to help her become Annabelle’s mom.

  CHAPTER 5

  Later that afternoon, migraine tamed, Olivia stepped into the sunny lobby of Mirror Lake Assisted Living, expecting to find Brad’s grandmother patiently waiting on one of the sprawling, comfy couches in the theater-style reception area. What she hadn’t expected was to see Brad’s image, supersized, on the giant television screen.

  She set down Annabelle’s baby carrier to stare. The bright green eyes that haunted most of her waking moments crinkled as his lips curved into a smile. He full-out laughed, taking him from handsome to off-the-charts dangerous and shooting an electric frizzle clear down to her toes. Normal-size Brad was mesmerizing enough, but this was flat-out ridiculous.

  The ring of Olivia’s cell phone forced her attention away. The name Sylvia appeared on the screen. Her boss again.