This Thing Called Love (3 page)

The tiny downtown was quaint as a postcard, but to Brad it was just home, a place he’d lived every day of his life. Bound in with his blood and bones, and therefore not usually contemplated. Yet he couldn’t help wondering what memories it stirred for her.

That big pine tree on the square by the gazebo where he’d first kissed her. The canoe they’d often used to paddle out onto the lake from his grandmother’s house on balmy summer nights. Sitting on the porch swing under his grandma’s watchful eye.

And that red brick Victorian on the corner with the big side yard and that turret, where they’d snuck in one fine spring evening.

Back then, he hadn’t been out to conquer one woman after the next. He’d dreamt of forever.

Fool boy that he was. What did he know?

Too late, Rushford. Ten years too late. Let it go. Bygones and all that.

Brad broke out of reminiscing and looked in the rearview mirror, to find Olivia staring at him. She quickly looked away. “Town look the same to you?” He kept his tone casual.

Olivia nodded. “This part of it, anyway.”

“Hasn’t changed much on the outside, but on the inside it has.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s grown up. Become more tourist-conscious. The marina’s gotten built up the last couple of years and the downtown’s opened up more specialty stores and restaurants for visitors who want to stroll and shop.”

“I’m glad to hear it’s prospering.”

He had a sudden urge to point out his own restaurant on the marina, nearly done being renovated. His baby, his pride and joy.

Too personal.
He kept the conversation light until he drove the mile and a half to an old neighborhood of century-old homes and pulled up to a tiny craftsman-style house with a low-gabled roof and fat columns holding up a covered front porch.

“Thanks for the ride,” Olivia said.

Brad stepped out and opened the back door. Olivia unhooked the baby’s seat and Brad lifted it out. Annabelle sat in a relaxed slump, completely passed out from exhaustion.

Together they crunched up the gravel driveway to the front door.

He paused while she rummaged inside her bag for the key. Her hand shook as she placed it in the lock and turned the knob.

She glanced up at him briefly as the door opened. Uncertainty and doubt flashed over her face before she could neutralize her expression. He knew what she was thinking,
felt
her thinking it. She was on her own, in her sister’s old house, being a parent for the first time. All on a week’s notice.

Suddenly he felt as lost as she did. She of all people understood the shock of losing someone you loved. That fact had changed both their lives and would bind them forever, regardless of the anger he felt over her getting the baby.

“Well, thanks so much for helping me.” Olivia steeled her shoulders, snapped her professional mask carefully into place. “Annabelle and I . . . really appreciate it. I’ll make certain to reimburse you for the groceries.”

Brad waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s the least I can do. Do you need anything?”
Dammit, there he went again
. Didn’t he even have the sense not to stand too close to the flame in case it burned him again?

“Just a much-needed bath—both of us.” She gestured toward her clothes.

Yeah
. The heat flared again, ready to singe at any moment. Images flashed through his head that had no business there. Involving her gorgeous curves soaking in a tub full of bubbles.

Brad stepped back, grasping frantically for rational thought. “What’s your plan with Annabelle?” he blurted, mostly to douse the hormones flying rampantly between them.

Olivia curved a brow in surprise but answered calmly. “I’ve got two weeks off. It was all my boss could spare. I’m nearing a deadline with a big author and he can’t be kept waiting much longer.”

“I see. Then you’re taking her back to the City?”

She nodded. “That would be the most reasonable plan.”

“But is it the best plan for her?”

Remorse pricked him as he watched delicate lines appear between her eyes. He didn’t want to be an ass but there was no pretending he felt peachy about this.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re single, aren’t you?”

“Lots of people are.”

“And you work a lot, right?”

Olivia shook her head. “I’m not getting into this with you. Thanks for the ride, Brad.” She walked through the doorway but he stepped up and prevented her from shutting the door.

“All I’m saying is, Annabelle’s whole family is here in Mirror Lake. If you take her away, you take her away from all of us. Is that really what you want?”

She set the carrier down and poked a manicured finger into his chest. “If your idea of raising a child is for a mom to abandon her business suits for a red-checkered apron and bake cherry pies all day long, you are living on Sexist Idiot Planet Number Nine. There are all kinds of mothers and, from what I’ve seen, you’re no expert.”

“I am an expert, sweetness.” The hairs on his neck bristled. Was she criticizing the job he’d done with his siblings? Every minute of raising them had been worry and torture, something he never wanted to tackle again. “I know it takes a lot of sacrifice and delaying gratification. Something you might not know with your big city life.”

“You know nothing about me or my ‘big city life.’” She handed him her keys and addressed him over her shoulder. “You can take my car home. I’ll get it back later.”

“Don’t need to.”

She spun back around. “What?”

“That’s my house right there.”

Olivia’s head snapped up to follow the direction of his outstretched arm. Another old house, similar to its neighbor, sat surrounded by a tidy white picket fence.

“You’re kidding.”

He shot her a big Cheshire grin. The outrage on her face told him she knew he wasn’t.

“Trish never told me you lived next door.”

Those big brown eyes tossed daggers at him. She was mad as hell. Once upon a time, he’d been on the receiving end of all that zest for life. Strangely, his anger ebbed, replaced by a sudden hard yearning that socked him out of nowhere. He wanted to bask in all that vitality and passion that stroked him in all the wrong places.

It was one hell of a turn-on.

Instead, he stepped away. “Kevin gave me a heads-up when he found out their neighbor was moving and I made an offer. The deal just came through after . . . after the funeral. It’s only temporary until I find a bigger place.” Maybe one of those big Victorians on the square, tall and proud and neglected. He didn’t mind putting in the work and it would be good for the town, too.

“I see.” Her voice was total Popsicles. An awkward silence filled the space between them. “Well, thanks again.”

Olivia clearly wasn’t pleased. Well, neither was he. His baby sister, Samantha, was finally in college and his grandma had just moved to assisted living. For the first time in his life, he was free, and he wasn’t about to ruin that freedom by dredging up some long-lost love affair from high school. Especially when his niece’s happiness lay on the line.

Olivia wasn’t the same girl he knew. And he wasn’t sure he liked the woman, no matter how many other parts of his anatomy still did.

He had two weeks to secure Annabelle’s future. And to get Olivia to do the right thing. If that meant having the self-control to keep his hands off her, so be it. With all the arguing they’d just done, it should be easy.

Then why did he have the feeling he was in for two of the longest weeks of his life?

CHAPTER 3

“Dad?” Olivia shuffled groggily across the kitchen and fumbled to unlock the door. Bright spring sunlight shined in wide golden beams across the refinished wood floor. As she flipped the latch, she glanced at the boxy clock with a big gold pendulum hanging on Trish’s wall.
Seven a.m.

She’d been up three times with Annabelle during the night and her bones ached to collapse back into bed. Her head felt like she’d had one too many drinks the night before except without any memories of having fun. Olivia peeled her tongue off the roof of her dry, pasty mouth and managed a smile for her father, who crossed the threshold to envelop her in his burly arms.

“What are you doing here so early?” Olivia asked. It was the first time she’d seen him since the funeral. That thought blew in a rush of others, scattered and brittle as fall leaves despite the inflow of balmy air that promised a beautiful May day.

Guilt pierced Olivia as she admitted she hadn’t exactly seen her dad—really
visited
with him—in a long time. Trish had been the good daughter. The one who moved back after college and worked in town as a librarian. Who had time to volunteer and sit on committees and plant a garden and spend time with their aging father. Olivia had been far too busy building her career to spend much time in Mirror Lake.

And, to be honest, Mirror Lake, this lovely, quaint “Hometown for America,” as the town motto proclaimed, held a cache of painful memories, of her mother and of Brad. Olivia had avoided coming home for a long time. But now Trish was gone. Her dad deserved a better daughter. But how could she ever fill the void that Trish had left?

“Hi, Livvy.” Frank Marks gave his daughter a big squeeze and placed a kiss on top of her head. His greeting was cheery but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, signs of the stress the last few weeks had brought. “Bill Daniels came by the store and said he saw your lights on early this morning, so I thought I’d stop by.” He waved a white bakery bag in front of her nose. The smells of cinnamon and fresh dough invaded Olivia’s nostrils, made her mouth water.

“Cinnamon rolls? From Mona’s?” Olivia couldn’t help smiling as she peeked into the bag at the special treat. Every Saturday morning for years, her dad had brought them home and she and Trish would roll out of bed to devour them before he went off to work. He claimed it was a way to get them up and doing their Saturday chores.

What he didn’t know is that they usually dove straight back into bed afterward, but always rushed to get the chores done by early afternoon when he returned. Neither wanted to disappoint the man who worked tirelessly to be both a mom and a dad to them.

“I would’ve brought coffee, too, but I figured you’d already have some on. Brought you the paper, though.” He pulled a rubber band off the rolled newspaper and set it on the kitchen island.

Olivia, more awake now, opened cupboard doors. Trish and Kevin had beautified the old kitchen with dark craftsman-style cabinets, golden-veined granite, and modern-looking pendant lights over the island with pretty green, blue, and red glass shades. Trish had always had an exquisite sense of decor. For the thousandth time, an ache split her heart. She knew her dad must be thinking of them, too.

“No coffee.” Olivia couldn’t keep the dismay out of her voice as she stood on tiptoe to view the top shelf of a corner cupboard. The thought of going back to the grocery store made her shudder. She found two small pottery plates and set them on the small island. Her father was already sitting, reading the paper.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked as she plunged her hand into the bakery bag and took out a warm roll, tore a small piece off the end and popped it in her mouth.
Heaven.
She hadn’t eaten anything this decadent in ages.

“Charlie’s watching the store. We don’t open till eight anyway.” Olivia couldn’t remember a weekday when her dad hadn’t shown up at Mirror Lake Hardware by seven. “Heard you had a little problem in Gertie’s yesterday.” Her dad’s eyebrows raised inquisitively over the top of the paper.

“Who told you that?”
Uh oh
. If her dad knew, so did everybody else.

“About ten or so people who came into the store yesterday afternoon.”

Olivia groaned. “Annabelle just got a little fussy.” No sense in going into detail. The only time a person had a moment of privacy in this town was on the commode. And even that wasn’t guaranteed.

“Heard Brad Rushford helped you out.”

Just the mention of Brad’s name made her heart skitter. Stupid muscle memory. “He did,” she said in a tone she hoped sounded nonchalant. She left out the part about her hands being covered with baby poo and the fact that she’d lost her purse.

Her dad looked at her good and hard over the top of his bifocals. “I know you’ll be running into him now and again—”

“Dad, he lives
next door
.”

Dead silence. “Well, like I said, you’ll see him occasionally, but that doesn’t mean—”

Olivia stretched her arm across the island to cover her dad’s hand with hers. “Brad was a long time ago. We’ve both moved on.”

Her father set the paper down, making it crinkle loudly. “He’s dated a lot of women and from what I’ve heard, he’ll be cherry-picking as long as there’s fruit in season.”

“Dad!” He was always big into metaphors but . . . really. Still, her father was right. Brad had it all—brains, money, looks—and, apparently, the pick of the orchard.

“Heard he’s doing some sort of bachelor cooking competition at his restaurant over the Memorial Day weekend and the women in town are all riled up about it. I don’t want you to be another notch on his bedpost.”

“Okay, enough already.” Olivia felt her cheeks heat like she was fifteen years old.

“I just don’t want to see you hurt again.” Brad had been a huge blip on her screen of life, and her father had seen the explosive attraction and the devastating end. No wonder he was wary.

Brad had been everything to her—kind-hearted, hardworking, and sexy as sin, and she’d loved him with all her eighteen-year-old heart. Yet life had an uncanny way of playing “Gotcha!” She’d wanted that scholarship to NYU since she was twelve years old and learned what editors did to the books she’d treasured, but the day she got it, she’d cried tears of anguish.

Something deep inside her knew that going to New York would be the end for them. How could it not? In many ways, Brad’s future was held prisoner by the needs of his family, and hers had no limits.

Her father had spoken like Brad was still a threat. Olivia wanted to assure him he most definitely was not. “Last night he was just helping out.”

Her dad shot her a skeptical look, but he remained silent. Then he slid back his stool, indicating the conversation had ended. “The baby’s all right?”

Olivia nodded. “Eats a full bottle then crashes like a lumberjack.” Too bad the crash part only lasted a couple hours at a time.

“And how about you? Caring for an infant on your own is exhausting.” He stood and neatly folded the paper, left it in a tidy pile.

Olivia, lacking a napkin, ran the back of her hand over her mouth and licked at a cinnamon gob on her lower lip. It was impossible to be neat with anything from Mona’s. She sighed. “I don’t know, Dad. My boss gave me two weeks’ leave to figure it out. I’ve always dreamed of being a mother someday, but not like this.”

Her father patted her forearm. “Life sometimes throws us curveballs. But you have to stay in the box and swing away.”

He’d been doing that—gently patting, prodding, and delivering platitudes—since the day her mother left when she was nine years old. Raised two girls all on his own. How had he done it, when taking care of one tiny baby felt like scaling Everest without an oxygen tank?

Words pushed against her throat, demanding exit, but she choked them down.
Why me?
She wanted to know.
Why did Trish pick me?
But her father was doing his usual comforting in the face of his own grief—how could she demand more?

Honestly, Olivia feared her father’s answer. It might be something funny, like
beats the hell out of me
, or something practical, like,
don’t know but you’ll have to make the best of it
, but she was certain it wouldn’t be
because you’re the natural choice.

She knew she wasn’t. She’d always thought of having babies as some pleasant, distant event, way
way
in the future . . . not today, catching her off guard with her breeches at her knees.

Olivia would never do what her mother had done—make promises she couldn’t keep. Promise this baby a life and then leave her. No, Olivia would do what she always did—assess the situation, examine her options, and do what was best for Annabelle. She owed that much to Trish.

Sensing her confusion, her dad continued his pep talk. “I raised you to be resourceful and figure out how to help yourself, and by God, you have.”

Yes, she had, that’s what she’d done, but far away from here. Guilt pummeled her. Truth was, she’d always felt a ferocious need to flee, to make a success out of her life far away from Mirror Lake. She didn’t want to remember the failures—not being good enough that her own mother would stay and care for her. And not good enough for Brad.

Her father smiled. He’d always just loved her. Period. “I’m glad you’re here, Livvy, and I know you’ll figure out how to make this work. Just a shame it took something like this to bring you back.”

She gave her father a sideways hug as she walked him to the door. “Don’t forget,” she said, “dinner tomorrow at six. We’ll order out.”

Olivia opened the door. She was surprised to find Brad standing on the other side, dressed in immaculate gray slacks, a pressed blue shirt, and Ray-Bans, looking like a tanned Italian billionaire and holding a cardboard drink carrier with two steaming coffees. The strong, rich aroma lit up all the caffeine-deprived centers of her brain. He handed her one and, without missing a beat, offered the other to her father. “Morning, Mr. Marks.”

Olivia’s father mumbled a non-enthusiastic “Morning, Bradley,” and declined the coffee by holding up his hand.

“Does everyone around here rise before the chickens?” Olivia asked, making a feeble attempt to comb through her bed head with her fingers. She feigned indifference as Brad swung his shaded gaze slowly over her, but it was like the room temperature had just shot up twenty degrees. Like he’d drilled right through her rumpled exterior and was seeing her stark, buck naked—and liking it.

Heat blazed low and deep in her abdomen. Visuals of his strong, capable hands roving all over her body rolled unwanted through her brain. She was addicted to his particular type of pheromone crack, helpless in the face of it, regardless of how much she disliked other parts of him.

If only she was wearing makeup and a suit with heels, something dignified and professional. But she had the feeling that not even that protective armor would shield her from the sensual force that was Brad, leaving her as flustered as the girl she had been at eighteen.

Wait a minute
. Why was he suddenly here with coffee, sucking up to her father? He’d certainly changed his tune from yesterday. It was time to act less like a nervous teenager and more like the guarded businesswoman she was.

Frank Marks eyed Brad warily as he navigated the steps down from the wooden deck. He’d always been leery of Brad. Halfway down the stairs he turned. “How’s the construction coming on the restaurant?”

“We’ve managed to stay open through the chaos, but the grand opening celebration’s in two weeks,” Brad said. “And thanks for recommending Paul Dunn. The other electrician just wasn’t working out.” Brad’s tone was nothing but friendly, compared to the edge in her father’s voice.

“You’re welcome. Think I will take one of those coffees after all.” Olivia’s father lifted the coffee from the carrier then waved a cursory good-bye as he climbed into his old white van with the ladder on top and
Mirror Lake Hardware
painted in navy letters on the side. As the van disappeared down the street, Olivia turned to Brad, who grinned widely.

“Look, I’m not sure why you’re here, but I—”

Brad threw his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I come bearing coffee. And I came to apologize for being so . . .”

“Judgmental?”

He exhaled. “I was going to say unneighborly, but yes. Judgmental. I’m sorry.”

His quirked-up smile looked sexy, not sorry.

“Then what’s so funny?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I just find it hard to believe your father still wants to kill me after all these years.”

“He senses what you did to me way back then.”

“Take you to prom?” Brad asked innocently.

Olivia’s cheeks flushed. “As I recall, we did a little bit more than just go to prom together.” They stood in the doorway. She was blocking Brad’s way into the house and wasn’t sure if she should move. The conversation seemed headed into dangerous territory.

He stepped closer. She could smell the light scent of his cologne—tasteful and expensive—and the lingering scent of menthol shaving cream. He loomed tall, his elegantly creased dress shirt fitting over his broad shoulders like a second skin. Sexy, successful, confident. More crack. “Let’s see, I believe you’re right.” He pretended to rub his chin thoughtfully. “We also attended the senior picnic and canoe trip. The canoe trip was especially fun.”

“We got lost and ended up alone in the rapids.”

“See what I mean? Once we navigated the rapids, it was just me, you, and that canoe.
Especially
fun.” Brad waggled his eyebrows.

“As I recall, riding the rapids wasn’t the biggest thrill that day,” she mumbled. Joking with him was irresistible, just like old times, but as soon as the words were out, she wished she could take them back. The images they conjured were too flirtatious. And too vivid.

“No, sweetness, it wasn’t.” Brad took off his sunglasses and trained those cool green eyes on her. His expression was unreadable but it unnerved her, sent tiny prickles of awareness pinging everywhere.

His old pet name renewed her blush. Or maybe it was from remembering how they’d beached that old canoe deep in some low-hanging tree branches and made desperate, sweet love for hours that sunny, steamy May afternoon. “Don’t—call me that.”