The Big 5-Oh! (16 page)

She was still working on putting some resolve behind the plan when a car pulled up right in front of her. She peered into the window and saw Jared's smiling face, and then she heaved a huge sigh of relief as he hopped out, hurled her bicycle into the trunk, and offered her a hand.

“Let's go, Grandma,” he said. “Your chariot awaits.”

“Oh, thank the Lord.”

Liv sat submerged to her shoulders in the steaming whirlpool of Jared's hot tub while he tended to salmon on the barbecue grill at the other end of the patio. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the rim and flexed her ankles, making circular patterns with both feet.

“Do you want to come and have some dinner?” he called to her.

“Can’t I eat in here?”

“Not so great for the digestion,” he replied. “But I’ll meet you halfway with a plate.”

“Deal.”

Liv climbed out of the hot tub, careful to do it while Jared's back was turned. The evening had been humiliating enough without him catching a full body shot of her in a swimsuit, for crying out loud. She wrapped her sarong around her waist and tied it into a knot at the hip. Stepping into rubber sandals, she scuffed toward him with a capricious smile.

“Any better?” he asked her.

“Much.”

“Good,” he replied, setting down two Talavera-style plates bearing salmon, grilled asparagus, and baked potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil. “Everything you’ll need is on the table. Sit down and relax.”

“You’re a very kind man, Dr. Hunt,” she said, easing down into the nearest chair with a slight whimper. “And I am eight hundred years old.”

“Well, you wear it well,” he told her. “You don’t look a day over a hundred and thirty-five.”

Balling her fist up and shaking it at him, Liv clucked, “Funny. You’re such a funny guy.”

Jared opened a carton of fat-free sour cream and doctored his potato. “The truth is,” he told her, “I should have realized that your body has recently completed a round of cancer
treatments.” Then, without hesitating, he reached across the table and did the same for Liv's potato as he continued. “You weren’t ready to ride a couple of miles. We should have started out by circling the block.”

Liv laughed.

“Salt and pepper?” he asked.

“Please. I was trying to impress you,” she said, and then cringed at the admission. “How’d I do?”

“You’d be hard pressed to do anything I didn’t find impressive, Liv. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of taken with you.”

Liv glanced up from her dinner, and his eyes caught hers. She gave a halfhearted attempt to look away, to no avail.

“The feeling's mutual,” she finally told him.

Jared's smile warmed her face, and then the heat moved down her neck to her shoulders and chest.

“That's odd,” he commented, and then he took a bite of grilled salmon.

“What is?”

“It feels like the miles between here and Ohio just doubled somehow.”

Liv set her fork down on the rim of her plate and softened with a smile. “When I planned this trip, I sure didn’t plan on you.”

“Any chance you’ve fallen in love with the place and might have thoughts of making a move?”

Liv sighed. “I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. My job is there. My friends. My doctor.”

“There are doctors here,” he reminded her. “In fact, I happen to know a few of them.”

“My life is in Ohio, Jared.” The words, although true, felt suddenly hollow and sharp-edged.

Jared pushed the food around on his plate with the tip of his fork in silence. “I understand,” he finally said. “But what about extending your trip? Is that a possibility?”

She couldn’t say the thought hadn’t crossed her mind a few hundred times already. But her disability leave had already been exhausted, and her savings cushion was just about depleted.

“I don’t know,” she told him. “It's complicated.”

Josie's coming home and will want her house back. I only have five more years before I’m eligible for early retirement at the hospital. My follow-up appointment with the oncologist is scheduled for a week from Friday.

The thoughts buzzed, and her stomach rocked.

Picking up her life and moving to Florida because of a man she’d just met? The idea was absurd! Who did that kind of thing? And yet—

“Hey, Dad. Olivia.”

Liv's head popped up as Rand led Shelby across the patio toward them.

“Hi, Rand. How are you?”

“How was the sunset?” Jared asked.

“Magnificent!” the girl piped up.

“Olivia, you remember Shelby Barnes?”

“Of course,” Liv said. “Good to see you again.”

“You too.”

“Can we join you two for a minute?” Rand asked, and Liv took note of his cautious tone.

“Of course,” Jared replied. “Sit down.”

Rand and Shelby exchanged wary, nervous smiles. Rand scraped his chair closer to hers, and then took Shelby's hand.

“This looks ominous,” Jared observed. “Do I need to strap myself in?”

“Maybe,” Rand admitted.

“Randall. Did you wreck the Sun Runner?”

“No, Dad. The boat is fine.”

Liv noticed that Jared started to ask an additional question and then stopped himself, looking to Rand.

“Well,” he began, and then he glanced at Shelby for an encouraging smile and a nod. “Dad. When I head back to London to start the spring session, Shelby's going with me.”

“Really.”

“I know we haven’t known each other for long,” Rand began, taking on the somewhat frantic cadence of motivation to get his final shots in before his father's objections. “But we’ve known each other long enough to know we’re in love. And we’re getting married.”

Liv pursed her lips tight, her eyes darting from Rand to Jared and back again.

“Married.”

“And we’d like to do it here. Before we leave.”

Liv admired Jared's calm demeanor at the timbre of this news. Less than two weeks ago, Rand had knocked at her own door, inviting her out on a date. And now here he was, stiff and guarded, announcing his plans to marry Shelby Barnes.

“How old are you, Shelby?” Jared asked.

“Twenty-two.”

“Have you spoken to your parents about this?”

“No, sir.”

Jared paused and rubbed his temple.

“The thing is, Dad,” Rand interjected, “we’re not here to ask your permission. We’re just here to tell you our news.”

Liv winced.
Probably not the wisest plan of attack
, but …

“And I was hoping you’d be my best man.”

Nice save.

Rand stood up first, and then Shelby popped up in response, slipping her hand into his.

“We’re on our way over to speak to Shelby's family. You take some time for this to sink in, give it some thought, and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

Jared nodded. Caught in the headlights of his son's departure, he sat motionless and silent until well after the now-engaged couple was gone from sight.

“Are you all right?” Liv whispered as she cupped her hand over his. When he didn’t respond, she added, “Jared?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have nodded off. I just had the most unbelievable nightmare.”

She couldn’t help herself, and she released a sudden burst of laughter.

“I’ll just clear these dishes,” she said, stacking his plate onto hers. “I’ll wake you in a little while.”

Prudence slinked back toward the pond again, and this time she held her breath as she did. With all the caution and care she could muster, and her eyes clamped shut, she stepped right up to the edge of the water.

She eased one eyelid open, and then the other, daring to look at her own reflection for a second time.

“It's always a surprise,” she told Horatio as he fluttered to her side.

“What's that?” he asked.

“Seeing yourself from outside yourself, instead of always only seeing the rest of the world.”

“Ah,” Horatio nodded. “You’re right about that. It can be quite jarring.”

O
n the one morning that Liv might have slept in, when there were no neighbors (or reptiles) taking liberties in the
swimming pool, and Boofer was uncharacteristically quiet atop her bright pink bed cushion, Liv couldn’t sleep.

She brewed a cup of herbal tea at 2 a.m., took a spin around the dark house at 3:30, and was wide-eyed and alert, flat on her back and staring at the ceiling, as the digital clock blinked 5:41. She couldn’t get the picture of Rand and Shelby out of her mind.

More to the point, it was Jared's reaction to their news that was stirring up her anxiety.

There they’d been, talking in loose terms about the future over salmon and asparagus, Liv stumbling around her thoughts, hoping against hope for a way that she wouldn’t have to say good-bye to Jared. And then …

Rand and Shelby want to get married.

After knowing each other not much longer than Liv and Jared had, they were ready to peel away their inhibitions and dive into the marriage pool. No life preservers, no inflatable orange jackets, just them and the choppy Gulf of Matrimony. It wasn’t until she’d seen Jared's reaction to the news—he’d compared it to a “nightmare”—that she realized how truly foolish she had been. Rand and Shelby's announcement acted as a mirror reflection in which Liv was able to see a clear and shining truth. She and Jared were no more ready to make a change in order to be together than Rand and Shelby were. Yet for those few minutes leading up to the awakening, she’d been harebrained enough to swim around in the fantasy.

Boofer didn’t make a sound as she hopped up to the bed, slipped into the curve of Liv's arm, and lay down. The dog gave her new friend an understanding glance and then sighed as she closed her eyes.

Poppety-pop.

Liv chuckled as she stared her down, but Boofer was unfazed.

I knew it was a mistake to bring home a chunk of salmon for this dog! Back to dry food and Milk-Bones.

She clamped her eyes shut and whispered a little prayer that she might come to her senses about Jared.

“Let me just enjoy the time we have together, and then have the strength to walk away from him and go home.”

Boofer punctuated the prayer with a sleepy groan.

“And amen,” Liv added.

As the clock rolled over to 6 a.m. Liv made the decision to put her feet back to the floor. There was nothing more unproductive than thinking in the dark, and so she made herself a fast cup of coffee and then headed into Josie's office to fire up the computer and set about changing the course of her morning.

With her birthday looming, and subsequent plans for snorkeling with Jared, Liv determined not to head into another activity without being fully prepared. She wasn’t going to let the fact that she’d never been snorkeling or scuba diving, or even fishing, in her life become another bike ride in the making! And so she navigated to her favorite search engine and typed into the box.

Snorkeling for dummies

Amazed that there was actually a book by that title, she scrolled through some of the results before trying a different tack.

Sanibel snorkeling preparation

The World Wide Web could be counted on for nothing if not diversity. As she worked on her coffee, Liv learned all about the gear that would be used and the reason for each piece, the surprising world beneath the surface of the sea, and what to expect from a day on the water.

She scribbled down items for a
Seaside Survival Kit
.

• Sunscreen.
  Of course
  .
  
• Sunglasses and hat.
  To shield the sun
  .
  
• String cheese or peanut butter crackers.
  In case of low blood sugar
  .
  
• Hand sanitizer.
  For icky ocean things
  .
  
• Insect repellent.
  Pesky mosquitoes
  .
  
• Vinegar or rubbing alcohol.
  In case of jellyfish sting
  .
  
• Breath mints.
  Just in case
  .
  

She hit PRINT on a how-to list that rattled off while she changed into her swimsuit. Then she grabbed the snorkeling equipment she’d spotted in a net bag hanging on the hook inside Josie's front closet and headed out back to the pool.

Liv sat on the edge of the first step and slipped large green flippers over her feet, then accidentally sloshed the how-to paper with water, smearing some of the fresh ink.