River's End

  She’d expected him to deny it, to make excuses, rationalize. And she should have known better. He was a man with honor, one who’d been raised with it and with compassion. It was why what he did mattered, she thought now. Why he mattered.

  “I don’t hate you, Noah, and I won’t hate you for being honest about doing what you feel you need to do. But what I do feel is my own business.”

  “Not anymore it isn’t.” He said it lightly, but she heard the undercoating of steel in the tone. “But we can talk about that—about us—later.”

  “There is no us.”

  “Think again.” This time the steel was in his eyes. “But for now, why don’t you sit down?”

  “I don’t need to sit.” But she dragged off her pack, uncapped her water bottle.

  “Fine. Tell me about your mother.”

  “I was four when she died. You’d learn more about her from other sources.”

  “When you remember her, what do you think of first?”

  “Her scent. The scent she kept in one of her bottles on her vanity. I thought they were magic. There was one in cobalt with a silver band winding around it. It was something unique to her, warm, lightly sweet with a faint hint of jasmine. Her skin always carried that scent, and when she’d hug me or pick me up, it was strongest just . . .” Olivia touched her fingers to her own throat just under the jaw. “I liked to sniff her there, and she’d laugh.

  “She was so beautiful.” Her voice thickened as she turned away to stare out over the sea of flowers. “You can’t know, really. I’ve seen her movies now, all of them. Countless times. But she was so much more beautiful than they could capture. She moved like a dancer, as if gravity were simply something she tolerated. I know she was a brilliant actress. But she was a wonderful mother. Patient and fun and . . . careful. Careful to be there, to pay attention, to let me know that whatever else there was, I was the center of the world. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes. I was lucky in that area, too.”

  She gave in and sat beside him. “I suppose I was spoiled. I had time and attention and a houseful of toys and indulgences.”

  “To me the only spoiled children are the ones who have no appreciation or respect for those things. I’d say you were just loved.”

  “She loved me very much. I never had any cause to doubt that, even when she scolded me about something. And I adored her. I wanted to be exactly like her. I used to look at myself in the mirror and imagine how I would grow up to be just like Mama.”

  “You look very much like her.”

  “I don’t.” She pushed off the rock in one sharp movement. “I’m not beautiful. I don’t want to be. And I’ll never be judged on my looks as she was, too often was. That’s what killed her. In this fairy tale, the beast killed beauty.”

  “Because she was beautiful?”

  “Yes. Because she was desirable. Because men wanted her and he couldn’t stand that. He couldn’t tolerate the very thing that had drawn him to her in the first place. Her face, her body, her manner. If it appealed to him, it appealed to other men, and there would be no other men. The one way he could keep her only to himself was to destroy her. No matter how much she loved him, it wasn’t enough.”

  “Did she love him?”

  “She cried for him. She didn’t think I knew, but I did. I heard her one night with Aunt Jamie after I was supposed to be in bed. Earlier that summer when it stayed light until late. They were in Mama’s room, and I could see from where I stood beside the door, in the mirror, the reflection of them as they sat on the bed. My mother crying and Aunt Jamie with her arms around her.”

  And just like that, she took both of them back.

  “What will I do? Jamie, what will I do without him?”

  “You’ll be fine, Julie. You’ll get through this.”

  “It hurts.” Julie turned her face into Jamie’s shoulder, felt the sturdiness, longed for it. “I don’t want to lose him, to lose everything we have together. But I just don’t know how to keep it.”

  “You know you can’t keep going on the way you have been these last few months, Jule.” Jamie eased back to brush the deep gold hair from her sister’s face. “He’s hurt you, not just your heart, but you. I can’t sit by when I see bruises on you that he put there.”

  “He doesn’t mean it.” Julie rubbed her hands over her face, drying the tears as she rose. “It’s the drugs. They change him. I don’t understand why he started them again. I don’t know what he finds in them that I haven’t given him.”

  “Listen to yourself.” A whip of anger in her voice, Jamie pushed to her feet. “Are you taking the blame for this? For him finding his kicks and his ego in cocaine and pills and alcohol?”

  “No, no, but if I could just understand what’s missing, what he’s looking for that isn’t there . . . Oh God.” She squeezed her eyes tight and raked back her hair. “We were so happy. Jamie, you know we were happy. We were everything to each other, and when Livvy came it was like . . . like a circle completed. Why didn’t I notice when he started to crack that circle? How wide was the gap before I saw what was happening? I want to go back. I want my husband back, Jamie.” She turned around, one hand pressed to her belly. “I want another child.”

  “Oh God. Oh, Julie.” She was across the room, wrapped around her sister in two strides. “Don’t you see what a mistake that would be now? Just now?”

  “Maybe it is, but maybe it’s the answer. I told him tonight. I had Rosa fix us this wonderful dinner. Candles and music and champagne. And I told him I wanted us to have another child. He was so happy at first. So much like Sam. We laughed and held each other and started thinking up names, just as we did for Livvy. Then all at once, all of a sudden, he got moody and distant and he said . . .” The tears began to stream again. “He said how did he know it would be his? How did he know I wasn’t already carrying Lucas’s bastard?”

  “That son of a bitch. How dare he say such a thing to you.”

  “I hit him. I didn’t think, I just struck out and shouted at him to get out, get the hell out. And he did. He stared right through me, and he left. I don’t know what to do.”

  She sat on the bed again, covered her face with her hands and wept. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Noah said nothing as Olivia stood as she was, one hand still covering her stomach as her mother’s had. She’d taken him back, taken him there into the intimacy of that bedroom, into the female misery and despair. The words, the voices, the movements flowing out of her.

  Now, without looking at him, she dropped her hand. “I went back to my room, and I told myself Mama was rehearsing. She did that a lot. So I told myself Mama was being a movie, that she wasn’t talking about my father. I went to sleep. And later that night I woke up and he was in my room. He’d turned on my music box and I was so happy. I asked him to tell me a story.”

  Her eyes cleared when she focused on Noah again. “He was high. I didn’t know it then. I only knew he was angry when he shouted and he broke my music box. I only knew he wasn’t the way Daddy was when my mother came rushing in and he hurt her. I hid in the closet. I hid while she cried and fought with him and locked him out of the room. Then she came and sat with me and told me everything would be all right. She called the police on my little phone, and she filed for divorce.

  “It took him less than four months to come back and kill her.”

  Noah turned off his recorder, slid off the rock and walked to her.

  In automatic defense she stepped back. “No. I don’t want to be held. I don’t want to be comforted.”

  “Tough luck, then.” He wrapped his arms around her, holding firm when she struggled. “Lean a little,” he murmured. “It won’t hurt.”

  “I don’t need you.” She said it fiercely.

  “Lean anyway.”

  She held herself stiff another moment, then went limp. Her head rested on his shoulders, and her arms came up to wrap loosely around his waist.

  She leaned a little, but s
he kept her eyes open. And she didn’t weep.

  twenty-eight

  Noah asked questions on the hike back to camp, dozens of them. But he didn’t mention her parents. He asked about her work, her routines, the Center and the lodge. She recognized what he was doing and couldn’t decide if she resented or appreciated his deliberate attempt to put her at ease again.

  Couldn’t quite fathom why it worked so well.

  Every time she put up a barrier, he wiggled around it and made her comfortable again. It was a skill she had to admire. And when they stopped again, to look again, she found herself sitting shoulder to shoulder with him as if she’d known him all her life.

  She supposed, in some odd way, she had.

  “Okay, so we build the house right up there.” He gestured behind him to a rocky incline.

  “I told you, this is public land.”

  “Work with me here, Liv. We put it up there, with big windows looking out this way so we catch the sunset at night.”

  “That’d be tough, since that’s south.”

  “Oh. You sure?”

  She gave him a bland look with humor ghosting around her mouth. “West,” she said and pointed.

  “Fine. So the living room faces that way. We need a big stone fireplace in there. I think we should keep it open, really high ceilings with like a balcony deal. No closed spaces. Four bedrooms.”

  “Four?”

  “Sure. You want the kids to have their own rooms, don’t you? Five bedrooms,” he corrected, enjoying the way her eyes widened. “One for a guest room. Then I need office space, good-sized room, lots of shelves and windows. That should face east. Where do you want your office?”

  “I have an office.”

  “You need a home office, too. You’re a professional woman. I think it should be next to mine, but we’ll have to have rules about respecting each other’s space. We’ll put them on the third floor.” His fingers linked with hers. “That’ll be our territory. Kids’ play area should be on the main level, with windows looking into the forest so they never feel closed in. What do you think about an indoor pool?”

  “I wouldn’t consider a home without one.”

  He grinned, then caught her off balance by leaning in, capturing her mouth in a long, hard kiss. “Good. The house should be stone and wood, don’t you think?”

  His hand was in her hair, just toying with the ends. “This is hardly the spot for vinyl siding.”

  “We’ll plant the garden together.” His teeth scraped lightly over her bottom lip. “Kiss me back, Olivia. Slide in. Just once.”

  She already was, couldn’t do otherwise. The picture he painted was so soft, so dreamy she glided inside it. And found him. Found him surprisingly solid and real. And there. The sound she made was equal parts despair and delight as her arms locked tight around him.

  How could it be he who snapped it all into place? Who made it all fit? All the misty wishes of childhood, all the half-formed fantasies of a young girl, all the darker needs of a woman swirled together inside her and re-formed into just one question.

  He was the answer.

  Rocked by the tumble of her own heart, she jerked back. She couldn’t let it happen, not with him. Not with anyone. “We have to get started.”

  There was fear in her eyes. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about being the one to cause it. “Why are you so sure I’ll hurt you again?”

  “I’m not sure of anything when it comes to you, and I don’t like it. We need to go. There’s more than an hour left to hike before we hit camp.”

  “Time’s not the problem here. So why don’t we—” He broke off as a movement behind her caught his eye. He shifted his gaze, focused and felt the blood drain out of his head. “Jesus Christ. Don’t move.”

  She smelled it now—the wild and dangerous scent. Her heart slammed once against her ribs, and before she could get to her feet, Noah was springing up to put himself between her and the cougar.

  It was a full-grown male, perched on the rocks just above with his eyes glinting in the sunlight. Now he shifted, let out a low, guttural growl and flashed teeth.

  “Keep your eyes on his,” Olivia instructed as she rose. “Don’t run.”

  Noah already had his hand on the hilt of his knife. He had no intention of running. “Go.” He bared his own teeth and shifted when Olivia tried to step out from behind him. “Start moving back down the trail.”

  “That’s exactly right.” She kept her voice calm. “No sudden moves, no fleeing motions. We just ease back, give him room. He’s got the advantage. Higher ground. And he’s showing aggressive behavior. Don’t take your eyes off him, don’t turn your back.”

  “I said, ‘Go.’ ” It took every ounce of willpower not to turn around and shove her down the trail. One thin stream of sweat trickled down his back.

  “He must have a kill near here. He’s just trying to protect it.” She bent, keeping her eyes on the cat’s, and scooped up two rocks. “Back away, we just back away.”

  The cat hissed again, and his ears went back flat. “Yell!” Olivia ordered, continuing the backward motion even as she winged the first rock. It struck the cougar sharply on the side.

  She continued to shout, heaved the second rock. The cat spat furiously, swiped at the air. And as Noah drew the knife from his belt, the cat slunk away.

  Noah continued to move slowly, kept Olivia behind him, scanning rock and brush. “Are you all right?”

  “Stupid! Just plain stupid!” She tore her cap off, kicked at a rock. “Sitting there necking as if we were in the backseat of a Buick. I wasn’t paying attention. What the hell is wrong with me?”

  Furious with herself, she pulled the cap back on, wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs. “I know better than that. Sightings of cougar are rare, but they happen. So do attacks, especially if you’re just an idiot.” She pressed her hands to her eyes, rubbed hard. “I wasn’t looking for signs, I wasn’t even looking. And then sitting there that way, without keeping alert. I’d fire any one of my guides for that kind of careless behavior.”

  “Okay, you’re fired.” He’d yet to sheathe his knife and remained braced. “Let’s just keep moving.”

  “He’s not bothered with us now.” She blew out a breath. “He was protecting a kill, doing what he’s meant to do. We’re the intruders here.”

  “Fine. I guess we’ll build the house somewhere else.”

  She opened her mouth, shut it, then shocked herself by laughing. “You’re a moron, Noah. I almost got you killed or certainly maimed. What the hell were you going to do with that, city boy?” She swiped a hand over her face and tried to choke back a giggle as she eyed his knife.

  He turned the knife in his hand, considering the blade. “Protect the womenfolk.”

  She snorted out another laugh, shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not funny. This must be a reaction to gross stupidity. I’ve seen cougar a few times, but never that close up, and I’ve always been on higher ground.”

  She blew out another breath, relieved that her stomach was settling down from its active jumping. And that’s when she noticed his hands were rock steady.

  He hadn’t so much as flinched, she realized. Wasn’t that amazing? “You handled yourself.”

  “Gee, thanks, Coach.” He slid the knife away.

  “No.” Calm again, she laid a hand on his arm. “You really handled yourself. I wouldn’t have expected it. I keep underestimating you, Noah. I keep trying to fit you into a slot, and you won’t go.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t found the right slot yet.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think you fit into anything unless you want to.”

  “And what about you? Where do you want to fit, Liv?”

  “I’m where I want to be.”

  “Not the place, Liv. We’re not talking about forest or ocean here.”

  “I’m where I want to be,” she repeated. Or where, she admitted, she’d thought she wanted to be.

  “I have work th
at matters and a life that suits me.”

  “And how much room is there, in your slot?”

  She looked at him, then away again. “I don’t know. I haven’t had to make any.”

  “Get ready to,” was all he said.

  Neither of them was sure if it was a command or a suggestion.