Authors: Rebecca Royce
“Olive.”
She ignored him and hustled to the forest. He didn’t remember but that didn’t mean that she could erase what happened. Six months had happened. His love of her sister happened. Screw him for not remembering.
The herbs she’d piled on the ground were right where she left them. She’d do anything for a bucket. Since the island hadn’t given them that, she’d have to carry them using her dress like a little girl carrying flower petals in a field. Or at least that’s what they did in pictures. She’d never, as far as she could remember, carried flowers in her skirts in any kind of field.
“Olive.”
She whirled around dropping her herbs. Campbell leaned against the tree, his face two shades paler than he’d been on the beach.
“Have you lost your mind? You have no business walking around.”
“Well.” He laughed, a hard, cold sound. “Since you ran off into the woods, you left the hero side of me with nothing to do but chase you. I don’t know what’s out here. What if you got hurt?”
“You’d what? Stumble to my rescue?”
He shrugged. “If I had to.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re in no condition to do anything like that.” She pointed to a large rock. “Sit down there.”
“As you wish.” He manipulated himself onto the boulder and watched her for a few minutes as she worked. “Sandwich.”
“Yeah. I’d love one, too, but we’re going to have to wait.”
“No you don’t.” She looked up. In Campbell’s hand appeared a sandwich. Turkey and lettuce if her eyes didn’t deceive her.
“Did you conjure that?”
He looked down at it and then back up at her, grinning a tooth-filled smile. “Looks that way.”
“You have enough energy to do that?”
Campbell nodded. “Yep.”
“Yesterday you didn’t seem to be able to do magic.”
She ignored his shrug. His attitude of nonchalance made her want to throttle him.
“Today I can.”
“Amazing.” She hadn’t even felt him use the magic. Campbell had always been remarkable in the subtle ways he could use energy. “Are you going to eat it?”
“No.” He held it out to her. “You are.”
Hunger beat out pride and she took it from him. “Thank you.”
Olive took a bite, savoring the feel of the grains on her tongue. Her favorite kind of a sandwich. She couldn’t chew fast enough.
“I’d like to conjure you fifteen of those. Put some weight back on your body.”
“I’m considered much more attractive now. Fashionable even. No one uses the word ‘curvy’ to talk of me anymore.”
“Oh, Olive.” His voice caressed her like satin on her skin. “I love your curves.”
She shook her head. “Nope. You don’t get to say that to me.”
“Sure I do.”
“Oh yeah?” She wanted to kick him. “Why is that?”
“Because I didn’t leave you for your sister. At least not on purpose.”
“Really?” The conversation made her nuts. “Someone forced you to cheat on me? To love her? They came at you with a gun to your head and insisted?”
“No.” He stood back up. “They hexed me. Same damn thing. And when you took me from their influence the curse let go and I released it. That’s why I couldn’t remember. I’ve been under someone else’s control for six months.”
“You know what?” She had to sit down. Straight on the ground. The world had shifted around her. Or maybe it hadn’t. Perhaps she’d finally reached her breaking point. “I can’t afford to believe you.”
“Why not?” He looked so earnest and it made her heart turn over.
“Because what if it isn’t that? What if you’re simply not remembering it because of the hex? I believe you. I forgive you for six months of hell. I let my heart out of the ice I’ve encased it in. And then you remember that yes you do love Cindy.” He flinched when she said that. “I have to go through the pain of the whole thing.
Again
. I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. I really don’t think I can do it. Ever.”
“Listen to me very closely.” He stood up and walked to her, stronger than he’d been before. “I know this is what happened to me. Do you want to know how I know? Because I love you. I have loved you since you were fourteen years old, when I should not have loved you.”
The blush that always touched her cheeks when he said that started. She could feel the heat. “You were all of nineteen.”
“Well, it was too old for you. So I stayed away.”
She nodded. If this was the last time she heard him tell the story, she wanted him to get through the whole thing.
“And then years later you weren’t too young anymore. I couldn’t resist.”
He laughed, his eyes bright. “No. I did stay away until you were done with my class. Then, I went after you with everything I could muster. I got what I wanted.” He squeezed her hands.
She looked away for a second to steady herself before she glanced back. “Yes, you did. I got my wish, too. The hot T.A. who I’d wanted since I’d turned fourteen picked me over every other girl in the universe.”
“You sound sad when you say that.”
“They’re nice memories.” She would always hold on to them. “But they’re over now.”
“Over?” He caressed the side of her face. “There’s nothing even remotely finished about us.”
Campbell leaned close. There would be plenty of time to stop him if she wanted to. His breath felt warm on her cheek. She closed her eyes when his mouth laid gentle kisses right below her lids.
Forehead to forehead, they breathed together. Her cheek tingled where he’d kissed her.
“Well.” She swallowed and opened her lids. “It’s fair to say I’ll always be affected by you.” When he leaned in to kiss her mouth, she backed up. “Look, I want you, but that doesn’t mean it’s a smart idea. In fact, right now it’s downright wrong.”
“Nothing could ever be anything but right between us.”
She shook her head and stood up. “Yesterday morning you were standing at an altar ready to love, honor, and cherish my sister.”
“Because I was under a curse. I don’t want to be in front of an altar with anyone but you.”
Olive hiccupped. Her stomach hurt. “Why didn’t we then? Ten years we’ve known each other. You never proposed. Six months with my sister and you’re heading down the aisle. That’s why I’m convinced you’re not remembering something you really wanted and that you weren’t hexed to be with her. If you’d wanted to be with me, you would have asked me to marry you. But you never did.”
“I know.” He stood up. “But I was going to. And I can’t believe that I’ve lost six months of my life so that I have to stand here and tell you that.”
She wished she could believe him outright. If the last six months had taught her anything it was to not believe anything on face value. Campbell could tell her he’d meant to propose. He never had.
“Listen, I don’t want you to have to say anything because you’re on the hook here. I—”
He interrupted her. “You’re twenty-four years old. I met you when you were fourteen. I’ve had to hold myself back most of our relationship. Wait for you to be ready. Not rush you because I’m older.”
“Are you kidding?” She stormed forward until she stared right up at his face. “I’ve been running my own business since I turned twenty. You haven’t held back because of me.”
“I didn’t want you to lose your fun years tied to me. I got to be twenty-four without having to be pressured to do things.”
“Hell, Campbell, when you were twenty-four, we were living together in my apartment. We were still living there when you moved out.”
He paled. “I moved out?”
“What did you think? That you’d stay there after you broke up with me? You’re living with Cindy now.”
“Hell, no.” His jaw set. “We’re going to have this out with your sister. I bet she’s behind this.”
“Look, I wouldn’t put it past her to do any number of horrible, cruel things. Maybe she hexed you. Or maybe you fell for her, realized you’d been banging the wrong White sister. Cindy makes men nuts with how beautiful she appears.”
“I’m not attracted to your sister. Never have been.”
“That’s funny considering you’ve been sleeping with her for at least six months, maybe more.” The second the words were out of her mouth, she regretted saying them. But maybe she’d touched the heart of the problem. He’d been sleeping with her sister for months and even if it turned out Cindy had hexed him, and it looked like maybe that happened to be the case, she might never be able to get over the image of the two of them in bed together. Touching, kissing, sweating….
“Do you have any idea how completely violating it is for me to even contemplate that? If she hexed me—or someone else did—and then I slept with her against my will, well, that’s like being….” He shook his head. “I can’t even say it.”
Campbell began to pace around their small area of the woods. “And now the idea that I’ve lost you? When I have no memory of any of it? When it feels like I woke up yesterday, went to work, studied up for my next lecture, and planned to come back home, wake you up, make love, and fall asleep wrapped around you?”
Tears flooded her eyes and she covered her face with her hands.
“Olive. Please don’t cry.” He moved next to her and placed his arm around her shoulders. “I didn’t tell that to you to make you cry. I’m trying to explain.”
“I’ll tell you what.” She wiped at her eyes. “If this turns out to be real, if she or someone else has done this to you, then I will beg your forgiveness? Okay? I’ll tell you how truly sorry I am that I hurled nasty words at your head. But for now, and I need you to understand this, please. You are still the guy who left me for pretty much the worst person you could ever have left me for. Didn’t care one bit about my feelings. Flaunted the whole thing in my face. Disappeared from my life like you’d never been there except when I had to be forced to endure watching you almost make love to my sister in public every time I came near.”
Campbell nodded. He looked away from her and sucked in a breath. “So basically, I’m an asshole. For now at least.”
She walked to the tree line. “I guess so.”
“Does it matter that I’m sorry?”
Olive whirled around. Campbell’s color had been better. Paleness had returned. She grabbed his arm, dragging him with her to the beach. The afternoon sun blared down on them.
Yesterday, she’d loved the heat. Now, after the night she’d had and the endless rounds with Campbell, she wished for some cold air to cool her off inside.
He didn’t argue with her making him sit down and wiping his face with a torn piece of her pink dress, which told her more than he could imagine. Campbell was wiped out.
“Sit here for a while. Fall asleep if you can. I’ll be around, and I bet by the time you wake up someone will be here to get us. It’ll all get worked out one way or another.”
He didn’t let go of her hand. “Did you hear me say I’m sorry?”
“I did. And I appreciate you saying it more than I can say. Let’s be honest, though. You can’t really be sorry for something you don’t remember doing. Unless you suddenly do?”
“No. Anything that hurts you makes me sorry. If I caused it, even if I can’t remember it, that makes me more remorseful than I can say.” He tugged her down to him and kissed her before she could stop him.
When their lips touched, she didn’t remember why she’d told him not to kiss her in the first place. Campbell had always been able to move her when they touched mouth-to-mouth. His tongue danced with hers and she groaned.
It had been so long since they’d been intimate. She missed him, body and soul. He pulled her up against him until they pressed so close she could feel his heart beat against her chest. His hands explored her body, stopping at her waist where he squeezed it gently. She squirmed against him and he pulled back.
“Tell me you forgive me, Olive.”
“What?” Her mind didn’t work when they were together. All she could focus on involved getting him back to where they’d left off.
“Tell me you can get to a place where you can take me back. Let me come home to the life I don’t remember leaving.”
A buzz sounded in her head and she jerked back. Someone had used magic. She knew it hadn’t been her. Nothing buzzed when she combined her herbs into hot water. Campbell looked up and squinted.
“Magic.” He looked left and right. “You?”
“Not unless I’m doing it again without knowing I’m doing it. Zapping from the church to here is probably all I have in me for a lifetime.”
“That means that we’ve been found.” He tried to stand and she helped him.
“What are you two doing?” Olive didn’t have to turn around to know who addressed them. Cindy’s voice gave her the same reaction as nails down a chalkboard. “What have you done to him?”
In the course of two sentences, she’d decided Olive had done something to Campbell. For his part, he stepped around Olive, putting her behind him.
“You.” His voice pounded into the air around them. “I know what you’ve done. You hexed me.”
“What?” Cindy rushed forward, tears in her eyes. “I’ve been searching for you everywhere. Finally, when I found you in this place, I moved the heavens to get here.”
“You hexed me. The last six months I’ve been under your control.”
Olive didn’t have any intention of staying behind him for the remainder of the conversation. She maneuvered her way around Campbell.
“Someone did hex him. He has no memory of the last six months.”
Her sister no longer wore her wedding dress but had donned a pair of designer jeans that Olive had no doubt paid for and a pink tank top that turned to the color purple on the edges. A pair of flip-flops completed the look. Her dark hair fell perfectly on her shoulders. Like it always did. There were no smudges marring her face, no stressed out appearance to indicate she’d been up all night worrying about him.
When Olive had lost Campbell, she’d all but stopped breathing for days. Her mind churned around that thought. Cindy’s fiancé had been ripped from her arms at the altar of a church. The women looked like she’d left shopping at the mall to come get him.
Simply your run-of-the-mill, casual rescue. Like she’d dressed for any other day of the week
.
Cindy pointed at her and rushed to him. “She did something to you, darling. If anyone hexed you, it’s her. Not me. Did she tell you I did something? How can you think that after all we’ve been through together?”