belonged. “You didn’t want me, Jack. You made that clear. I wouldn’t have even known you were there except that my parents mentioned it. But that didn’t mean I shouldn’t pursue my master’s degree at one of the best schools in the country. So I did.”
The thought of Livvie in Chicago all that time, while he was slogging away in investment banking, made his head spin. She’d known where he was, had proximity to him and didn’t make contact.
You told her not to, scolded the internal voice again. Didn’t your mother tell you not to say things you didn’t mean?
She had, Jack knew. Back in kindergarten. He should have listened better.
“Because while the city was okay for a while, a means to an end,” Livvie continued in an easy voice, “I was glad to get out of there. Come back to Big Sky country.” She spread her hands out, leaned back and watched the encroaching night. “We used to count the stars at night, Jack. When they came out. Remember that?”
Oh, he remembered, all right. They’d look skyward and watch each star appear, summer, winter, spring and fall, each season offering its own array, a blend of favorites. Until they’d become distracted by other things. Sweet things.
A sigh welled from somewhere deep within him, a quiet blooming of what could have been. “I remember.”
They stared upward, side by side, watching the sunset fade to streaks of lilac and gray. Town lights began to appear north of the bridge, winking on earlier now that it was August. “How long are you here?”
She faltered. “I’m not sure.”
He turned to face her, puzzled.
“I’m between lives right now.”
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. She did, after drawn-out seconds, but didn’t look at him. She kept her gaze up and out, watching the tree shadows darken and dim.
“I was married.”
He’d heard she’d gotten married several years ago, but the “was” surprised him. He dropped his gaze to her left hand. No ring. No tan line that said a ring had been there this summer. A flicker that might be hope stirred in his chest, but entertaining those notions would get him nothing but trouble, so he blamed the strange feeling on the half-finished sandwich he’d wolfed down on the drive in.
You’ve eaten fast plenty of times before this, and been fine. Just fine.
The reminder made him take a half step forward, just close enough to inhale the scent of sweet vanilla on her hair, her skin.
He shouldn’t. He knew that. He knew it even as his hand reached for her hand, the left one bearing no man’s ring, and that touch, the press of his fingers on hers, made the tiny flicker inside brighten just a little. “What happened?”
“A really cute office assistant who doesn’t spend all her time with her head in books. Or so I was told.”
A curl of anger poised alongside the other feelings Jack worked to contain. The look on her face said wrath was unneeded, but old-fashioned sympathy? He squeezed the hand that felt so familiar—and so good. “The guy’s a jerk.”
She didn’t agree. Did that mean she still had feelings for her ex-husband? That she still loved him?
Well, why not? It had been over eight years since Jack cut Olivia loose.
Seeing her raised a wealth of memories. High school dances. Trips to the river. Hiking. Fishing.
Kissing.
She’d been his first date. His first kiss. His first love.
Then he’d blown it in a fit of infantile “why me?” temper.
And here she was, in Jasper Gulch, standing by his side on the worn, neglected bridge over Beaver Creek, and she was in love with someone else. He deserved no more, but for just a second he wished for more.
“Do you have kids?”
She shook her head, and he thought her eyes went moist, but the old-style lanterns at either end of the bridge cast her gaze in silhouette. “No kids.” She turned his way. “How about you? Married? Kids?”
He dropped her hand and shook his head. “Nope.”
“And you worked in the city for years,” she continued, looking up at him, straight at him, as if trying to decipher who he was from who he’d been way back then. “But didn’t go back after—”
“Losing my mother.” He stared into the night, wondering why talking with Livvie Franklin loosened his tongue. “You know, it’s strange, when someone’s so sick, Liv. You help, you care for them, you do all the little things you know are right, you try to be the good person, and no matter how sick they are, no matter how long it takes, when they’re gone, you still have this feeling like you didn’t do enough. Never enough.”
“And that would be the last thing your mother would want you to feel,” countered Livvie. “She loved you, Jack. She’d never want you to beat yourself up over her death, especially when you already tend to beat yourself up over things. Your mother knew that.”
She leaned against the bridge, but Jack pulled her forward. “I don’t trust these supports. The bridge has been let go for too long, and I’m not about to let you be the second Jasper Gulch tragedy.”
“Not fixing the bridge is a foolish lack of tribute to an old accident,” she replied. “I’m sure Lucy Shaw would be appalled to think it, if she’d lived.” She pulled her arm free with a speed that warned him off, and rightfully so, he supposed.
But being there? On the bridge they’d walked across so often as a young couple? The bridge that marked so much of their town’s history?
The surroundings, the trees, the thin-lit night and the sound of rushing water below made him feel as if anything was possible, and he hadn’t felt that way in a very long time. But here, with her?
He did. And it felt good.
It took every ounce of strength for Olivia to keep her cool when Jack took her hand, but she did it.
And when he talked about his mother’s death, about losing Mary Beth McGuire to cancer three years before, she longed to reach out. Hug him. And maybe never let go.
Residual nonsense from long ago, don’t you dare. You prepared for this possibility the whole drive down. Stay tough. Stay strong. Maintain a distance at all costs and, whatever you do, Do Not Stare Into Those Amazing Green Eyes.
Olivia’s gut recognized the sensibility of the mental tirade, but there was a spot around her heart, a fairly big spot, that longed to make everything right for Jack McGuire. Which meant she was a pushover for that cleft chin and crooked smile, even after all this time. She erected an internal Danger Zone sign and kept her voice calm, her face serene, but inside?
She wanted answers. She wanted love. She wanted something functional out of the past eight years of study, work, marriage and building a home.
And
