“If it’s all the same to you…”
“All right, new topic.” He balanced his hand at the top of the steering wheel. “Do you and your dad always say goodbye like that?”
“Like what?”
“By saying you love each other. Or is it because of today?”
“It’s habit. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Just that…it’s nice. In my family, people don’t really talk like that to each other.”
“You don’t tell people that you love them?”
He laughed. “Honey, that is a foreign concept in my family.”
“Loving each other, or saying it?”
He stared straight ahead, concentrating on the road. “I’ve never said it,” he told her.
“Never said I love you?” she asked.
Shit, he thought. Should have left well enough alone.
“Is that because you’ve never actually loved someone, or because you haven’t said the words?”
“Both, I guess.”
“That’s sad.”
“I don’t feel sad. It just feels normal.”
“Normal not to love your family?”
“Now you make me sound like a sociopath.” And how the hell did they get on the topic of
his
family?
“I don’t mean to. And I think you’re full of baloney, too. For someone who claims he doesn’t love his family, you’ve done a lot of loving things.”
He laughed again. “Yeah, right.” And with that, blessed silence filled the car. He found a station he liked and turned up the radio as it played, appropriately enough, “500 Miles” by the Proclaimers. Connor wanted to kick himself for having let the conversation veer out of control. He never talked with anyone the way he talked with Olivia Bellamy. It seemed to be as true now as it had when he was a kid.
The silence lasted at least a dozen miles and finally, she seemed ready to talk about what had happened. She turned sideways on the seat, drew up one smooth, bare leg and propped her elbow on the seat back. “Okay, my dad had a sleazy affair while he was engaged to my mother, and he fathered a child he never knew about until today. Then, instead of breaking his engagement with my mother, he got her pregnant and had to marry her after all, and then she had a miscarriage. I just found that out, so forgive me if I’m not bubbling over with news for you.”
Connor cautioned himself not to be distracted by the bare leg, which put him in danger of driving off the road. He forced himself to focus on what she was saying, without showing any sort of surprise or judgment. He used to think people like his mother made terrible life choices because they lacked education and opportunity. Philip Bellamy was proof that stupid choices could cross barriers of wealth, education, class. When it came to matters of the heart, even a genius like Louis Gastineaux could blow it.
“I’m sorry,” he told Olivia. None of this was her fault, yet she was the one who’d gotten hurt. “I want you to know, I do care, and if there’s some way for me to help, then I’m all ears.”
“You drove me to the city today when I could have taken the train. I’d hardly call that nothing.”
“I was glad to do it,” he told her.
“I sure hope I did the right thing. I mean, Mariska never once contacted my father. Never said a word about Jenny to him. Maybe she had a reason for that.”
“You did what you did. Now the ball is in your dad’s court—his problem, not yours,” Connor said philosophically. He turned off the main road. “Executive decision. We’re going to make a stop in Phoenicia.” With a boardwalk lined with antique and curio shops and cafés, the small, picturesque town attracted tourists and collectors.
“I know you’re trying to distract me, to make me feel better,” Olivia said.
“So sue me.” He parked and got out of the car, went around and opened the door for her.
“Thanks, but your plan is not going to work.”
“It will if you let it.”
She grabbed her bag, smiling with an obvious effort. “Why are you really doing this?”
“You said the dining room looked bare and you wanted new chairs for the reception area.” He placed his hand at the small of her back and guided her to the Artisan and Antique Warehouse, which was an old red barn with an ancient ad for Mail Pouch Tobacco still visible on the side.
“I didn’t say I needed them today, but—” She broke off and looked around the co-op of craftspeople and collectors, whose open booths shared the huge, airy space. “This is incredible,” she said, examining a collection of vintage lamps. “It’s exactly what I need. There, I said it. I’m shallow and horrible. I just found out my dad has another daughter, and yet the prospect of buying a wrought-iron lamp has managed to make me feel better.”
“Quit being so hard on yourself. That isn’t good for anything or anybody. Your dad made his share of mistakes in the past but he’s still your dad. He said he’d be here next week. Sitting around and wringing your hands isn’t going to help anyone.”
She took a deep breath as though bracing herself for something painful. “I might as well go for it, then.”
They found everything from old spinning wheels to yard gnomes. There was a booth entirely devoted to salvaged architectural items. A twisted wrought-iron stairway led to an open loft with a display of vintage Catskills travel posters.
Olivia quickly bought several of them, and that was only the beginning. Connor finally got a glimpse of Olivia Bellamy, founder of her own firm, in full-on work mode. She introduced herself to a salesperson. She was decisive and made swift choices. In a remarkably short time, she acquired some major treasures—the posters for the dining hall, lamps and light fixtures, an antique table made of peeled pine logs for the reception area. She ordered bent-willow porch furniture, including a traditional hanging bed, for the lodge she was preparing for her grandparents. She even found a tall, leather-bound hotel register which had only a few entries on the first page, the last one dated 1929, which she wanted to use as a guest book. The saleswoman tallied everything up and arranged for delivery.
“You’re sexy when you’re like this,” Connor said.
“Nothing like a little retail therapy when you find out about your father’s secret life.” She was trying to be flip, but he could see her vulnerability in the almost imperceptible trembling of her lip. Sometimes, he thought, it was easy enough to forget she had endured so much heartbreak, but he’d always been able to see her, even when others couldn’t.
“So it happened,” he said, wishing he could take away her hurt. “You and your family will survive this.’
“Why do you keep trying to make me feel better?”
“Because it sucks for you, the things you found out today, and there’s no fixing any of them. And because I like you.”
“You like me,” she repeated.
“That’s what I said.”
“How?”
“What?”
“How do you like me? As a person you feel sorry for because I just found out some really bad news? As someone you’ve been working with this summer? As an ex-girlfriend you still have old feelings for?”
“Close. As an ex-girlfriend I have new feelings for.” There. He’d said it. Probably not the best timing in the world, but he wanted to put the concept out there.
“
Feelings.
That is such a broad term,” she said, visibly bristling with mistrust.
“That’s why guys like it. Lots of ways to interpret or misinterpret.”
“I see. So later, when you break my heart, I’ll say, I thought you said you loved me and you’ll say, no, I said I had
feelings
for you, and we’ll argue about that, about what you said and what you meant.”
“You’re assuming I’m going to break your heart.”
“You’re assuming you won’t.”
“Nice attitude, Lolly.” He thought about her three failed engagements. She was gun-shy for sure.
“You never did say what you meant by feelings, and I’m not supposed to notice that. Well, guess what? I noticed.”
Connor swore softly and shoved a splayed hand through his hair. “When I say I have feelings for you,” he told her with exaggerated patience, “it means exactly what you think it means.”
She did a quick scan of the barn, and he knew she was checking to see if anyone had heard. Sure enough, two women looking at fruit-crate labels had their heads together as they whispered something to each other. There were three more women examining old table linens a few booths away. An older man scurried away as though to avoid being tagged as a witness.
Olivia flushed red. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Connor didn’t give a shit who was listening. “We’ll talk about this now,” he said. “They’re my feelings. I’ll choose when to talk about them.”
“Maybe we could discuss this in the car—”
“Maybe we can discuss this right now.” He felt himself getting pissed. This was what had ruined them before, her insistence that other people’s opinions mattered. “It’s simple. When I said I have feelings for you, I meant that I think about you all the time. I wonder what it would feel like to hold you in my arms again. I start to think every sad breakup song on the radio is about us. Just a whiff of your perfume makes me horny, and I can’t stop thinking about—”
“Stop,” she said, her voice an urgent hiss. “I can’t believe you’re talking like this in…in public. You have to stop.”
“For God’s sake,” murmured one of the shoppers in the linen booth, “don’t stop.”
Connor tried not to grin. He was enjoying this way too much.
Olivia wasn’t; her face turned even redder. “What’s it going to take to shut you up?” she asked.
He spread his arms, palms out, and surrendered. “Give me something else to do with my mouth.”
She surprised him—and probably herself—when she took his head between her hands and kissed him full on the mouth. She tasted like heaven, but he could feel her pulling back way too soon. He slid his arms around her and held her in place, taking control of the kiss, deepening it until he felt her resistance soften and then dissolve. He would have stood there all day in the dimly lit barn, kissing her, but after a while, she pulled back, staring up at him. She seemed to have forgotten where they were, what people might think.
“Anyway,” he said, continuing the conversation as though he’d never been interrupted, “I guess you got your answer.”
“What answer?”
“That’s pretty much what I mean when I say I have feelings for you.”
Twenty-Five
O
livia’s head was spinning as she followed him out of the antiques barn. She felt herself being swept away, the way she’d been swept away by their kiss. She couldn’t believe she’d done that in a public place, just grabbed him and started kissing him. It wasn’t the sort of thing she did or even thought about doing—until a few minutes ago.
As they headed to Avalon, she kept quiet, though she was replaying his entire too-loud speech in her head. Though she hadn’t trusted herself to say anything, she knew she had feelings for him, too. But she hadn’t figured out what those feelings were, beyond raw lust.
“I’m hungry,” Connor said. “Let’s get dinner.”
“We really should be getting back,” she said.
“We’re going to dinner,” he stated.
“Fine,” she said. If he wanted to stop somewhere for a burger, she was okay with that. She sensed that resistance was futile. And she admitted to herself that it was a relief to surrender, just for today. She, the queen of all control freaks, was going to surrender to Connor Davis. It felt good, relinquishing control. Because it also absolved her of responsibility.
He took her to a place called the Apple Tree Inn, an historic converted farmhouse in the middle of an orchard, with the river on one side and the road on the other. A small red neon sign in the window said, Dinner and Dancing Nightly. Inside were comfortable chairs and candlelit tables with views of an apple orchard and the river. There were warm wooden floors and deep golden lighting. The hostess led them to a table in a corner that was washed by the colors of the setting sun streaming through the windows.
Okay, Olivia thought, so he had something more in mind than a burger and fries. She eyed Connor suspiciously. This was a date restaurant. Were they on a date?
“Enjoy your meal, Mr. Davis,” said the hostess as Connor held out a chair for Olivia.
“She just called you Mr. Davis.”
A date restaurant where they knew Connor’s name. Olivia said, “Did you do construction work here? Is that how they know you?” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d done it again. “Oh, God,” she said. “I didn’t mean…I meant…”
“That you can’t conceive of me actually being a guest at this place?” he suggested.
Yes. That had been exactly what she meant, and he clearly knew it. Mercifully, he didn’t seem insulted at all. Instead, he gave her a smile that caused her heart to speed up.
The sommelier stopped by the table. “Will you be having wine tonight?” he asked.
“Definitely,” Connor said. “Do you have a preference?” he asked Olivia.
“White, please,” she said automatically.
“A bottle of the Hamilton Russell Chardonnay.”
Olivia was surprised. Most of the men she dated had fancied themselves wine aficionados, but they were always clueless, covering it up by ordering according to the menu price. Connor, on the other hand, had chosen a genuinely excellent bottle of wine from South Africa. Maybe that was a coincidence, but maybe not. Maybe he knew what he was doing. Every time she turned around, this man surprised her.
The food was perfection, beautifully arranged on thick white china plates. They had buttered filets of rainbow trout, locally grown produce, cups of huckleberries for dessert. While they ate, darkness fell and the moon came up, and a trio arrived to perform on drums, piano and clarinet. Olivia let the soothing sounds of the ensemble flow over her as she sipped the last of her wine.
“Thank you,” she said quietly to Connor.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m not sure what I would’ve done without you today.”
“You’ve done fine without me for years.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Dance with me.”
The three little words should not have had the power to make her heart flip over in her chest. And yet that was her reaction, that and a flustered intake of breath.