Chapter 7
Thirteen years ago
As she did every day after school, Olive climbed into Noah’s truck. Katie had left early for a doctor’s appointment, so it was just Olive and Noah today, and her pulse kicked up a notch at the sight of him in his faded-to-a-buttery-softness jeans, battered running shoes, and a T-shirt that showed off all the work his coach had been forcing on him in the gym.
His gaze was on his side mirror, studying the traffic. “You’re late”
was all he said, his tone holding zero recrimination, calm as always.
“Sorry.”
He turned to look at her and his easy expression turned to surprise. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Your clothes are torn and . . .”
He leaned in and her heart stopped because he was going to kiss her. God, please don’t let her have bad breath from that bag of nacho chips she’d eaten—
He pulled something from her hair. A leaf.
She was an idiot. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re bleeding.”
She eyed the rips in her jeans and her equally torn skin. Damn.
Noah took her hands and flipped them over, eyeing her bloody palms. “Did you fall?”
More like she was pushed.
Noah put the truck back into park and unbuckled his seat belt. “Who?”
“No.”
He stared at her. People didn’t say no to Noah Turner.
Just then Olive and Katie’s numero uno nemesis, Cindy, came out of the school and crossed the street in front of the truck. She also had sticks and leaves in her hair, her sweater was torn, and she had the beginnings of a black eye.
Noah turned to Olive, brows up.
“Hey, it’s not like I started it.”
She couldn’t quite keep the satisfaction out of her voice. “I just finished it.”
He grinned. “Proud of you.”
Present day
The first half of Olive’s day consisted of working with Holmes lying at her feet. Between his front legs sat Pepper, barely the size of his paws. The two had become inseparable. Holmes had been downright cheerful, and the kitten seemed to think the dog was her mama.
It was the cutest thing Olive had ever seen, and she enjoyed their company as she and Stephanie, her administrative assistant and the closest thing she had to a BFF in the UK, spent several hours on the phone, discussing their current clients and their campaigns one by one.
And as always when business was finished, Stephanie tried to turn it personal. “So . . .”
There was a smile in her voice. “How’s dating in the States treating you?”
“I’ve barely been here a week,”
Olive said.
“And?”
Olive laughed. “Give it a rest.”
“I would, if you’d put yourself out there even a little, tiny bit. You do know that your parts are in danger of shriveling and dying, right?”
“That’s not a thing.”
“You sure?”
Olive disconnected and then looked down at her . . . parts. “Don’t give up on me yet, okay?”
Her parts pleaded the Fifth.
She called her parents again and had to leave yet another message. Why hadn’t they called her back? She’d talked to Gram about it—daily—but her grandma insisted this was on brand for them.
Olive knew that to be true, but it didn’t erase the worry.
When it was time, she picked up Joey from pre-K. Once back home, they went into the kitchen to make him a snack. “What would you like? PB&J? Cheese and crackers? Grilled cheese?”
she asked, listing the top three things in her cooking repertoire.
“Carrots with hummus.”
She blinked. “Are you five or fifty?”
He smiled. “Veggies are good for you.”
“Did your mommy put you up to saying that?”
“You’re funny, Auntie Olive. Even Holmes loves carrots and hummus, and he doesn’t like much.”
Olive looked at Holmes. His tail thumped on the wood floor. Pepper looked up at her with equal expectation.
“See? They want to share our snack,”
Joey said.
So they all ate carrots and hummus. Well, not Pepper, who watched, fascinated, as the humans played cards. It was then that Olive learned that Joey had inherited Katie’s memory after he handily beat her at a matching game.
Three times in a row.
“So you’re cute and smart?”
she asked, smiling at him.
He beamed. “Mommy says I get it from my daddy.”
She laughed. “And your mommy.”
He nodded. “She says you just gotta concentrate. I’ll help you,”
he said, reminding her so much of Katie that her eyes stung.
With his help, she won two out of five, but she was pretty sure he let her win. The house was quiet around them. She knew Amy was on an overnight girls’ trip and Katie was still at the hospital, but she had no idea where Noah was and he didn’t show up. She told herself she was relieved.
“Uncle Noah’s at the hospital with Mommy,”
Joey said.
Which meant on top of his mommy’s memory, he also had her uncanny ability to read people’s thoughts. She sure hoped he couldn’t read the X-rated ones she’d been having about his uncle . . . “You hungry for dinner?”
Joey roared like a lion.
“I’m going to take that as a yes. Let’s go to Gram’s for dinner.”
They were followed by Holmes and Pepper, who watched as they made their own personal pizzas, layering on cheese and pepperoni.
Joey also added spinach leaves and pineapple to his, but Olive and Gram preferred their pizza as pizza-y as possible.
When Joey fell asleep on the couch, Olive covered him up with a throw blanket and then she and Gram tiptoed into the kitchen to catch up with each other. She was trying to figure out how to ask why Gram hadn’t mentioned Noah helping her out around the house, not to mention the borderline diabetes diagnosis, when her grandma distracted her.
“My friend Phyllis, she owns the Sunrise Cove Diner. She asked me to have you call her. She’s been trying to find someone to help raise the diner’s profile. When she heard you were in town, she got so excited. Can you call her?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks, honey. I owe her because she set me up with her older brother. We had an okay time, but he’s eighty, which is too old.”
“Aren’t you eighty-seven?”
“Yes, but I’m a young eighty-seven.”
Gram sighed. “I miss sexy men. I miss men who still have their own teeth. And I really miss having a good butt to stare at. Old men don’t have butts. Their back goes straight into their legs.”
She couldn’t find fault with that argument. She liked good butts too. Just that morning she’d tried valiantly to fight the urge to stare at Noah’s and failed. She’d definitely spent a few seconds staring. Okay, a minute tops. She probably deserved some sort of medal. “Still nothing from Mom or Dad?”
she asked, needing a subject change.
“No, but you know them. They’ll call back when they call back.”
Olive understood that, understood them, but she couldn’t say that it didn’t hurt, not crossing their minds enough to remember her. And now her gram was hiding things from her.
“What’s on your mind, honey? Something’s bothering you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had diabetes? Or that you needed help around the house?”
Gram stirred her tea for a beat. “I guess I didn’t want to worry you.”
“But I worry anyway.”
Gram sighed, then reached for her hand. “If Noah’s in town, he comes over and handles my honey-do list. It’s the stuff I can’t do for myself, like climb up a ladder to change a lightbulb.
If he’s gone for a long time, which is often the case, he sends Joe if he’s home, or Katie if Joe’s not. Sometimes he pays a high school kid to help. It’s sweet of him to look after me. And I think he does it because he cares so much about you.”
Well, she was wrong there. “The diabetes—”
“I’m diet controlled, so it’s not too serious. I’m careful, and I’ve been educating myself. As for not telling you . . .”
She smiled ruefully. “It goes back to the not wanting you to worry thing.”
“Gram . . .”
“I know”—she squeezed Olive’s hand—“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry enough to tell me what goes on with you from here on out?”
“Scout’s honor,”
Gram said.
They streamed an episode of Survivor, and it felt just like the old days, like nothing had changed, and it made Olive feel like things were under control.
It was a nice delusion that ended when she carried Joey across the shared driveway and tucked him into bed, because everything had changed. She’d left here with her tail between her legs, walking away from the only people who’d ever made her feel like she meant something.
And now she was struggling to find her way back into those relationships. Well, with the exception of Noah, who’d made it abundantly clear that wasn’t an option, which she was relieved about.
Liar, liar, pants on fire . . .
She’d planned to go straight to bed, but veered to the kitchen and made herself a bag of popcorn. She was pulling it from the microwave when Katie came in the back door, face pale, eyes suspiciously red.
Olive put a hand to her heart. Joe. “What happened?”
“Besides the love of my life being in a coma? Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Oh, Katie. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want my damn husband to wake up and smile at me. I want him to tell me one of his dumb dad jokes. I want him to attempt to make me breakfast and burn water. I want him to annoy the crap out of me by leaving the toilet seat up. I want him to send me a hundred dumb reels while he’s in the bathroom for a year.”
Her voice cracked and broke Olive’s heart. “I want him back, Olive.”
She moved close, but Katie, correctly interpreting that Olive meant to hug her, shook her head. “Don’t! I’ll break.”
So Olive simply, gently, bumped her shoulder to Katie’s.
Katie closed her eyes. “Thank you,”
she whispered.
“For the affection?”
“For not hugging me.”
Olive snorted and Katie gave a very small smile. Then, very slowly, she dropped her head to Olive’s shoulder. “I’m tired of holding it together all by myself,”
she whispered.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not by yourself,”
Olive said. “You’ve got your family, and me. We’ll hold it together for you until he wakes up.”
“You’re my family too, you wonderful idiot.”
Katie pushed free. “One of these days you’re going to go back to believing that again. And hopefully, you’re also going to tell me why you even left here in the first place.”
She made a sound that could have been interpreted as agreement, while thinking not likely . . .
Katie drew a deep breath. “I really don’t think I could do this without you.”
“Are you kidding? You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. You used to shrug off the mean girls in school. You never cared about fitting in.
You managed to find a way to learn, even when your teachers didn’t understand you, or even try. You’ve always embraced being exactly who you are, and you went out and got yourself a beautiful life, one that suits you. You’ve made more of yourself than I could ever hope to do.”
As always, uncomfortable with praise, Katie looked around. “Joey being good?”
“Yes, though his allergies might be acting up. He told me his ear hurt. I asked him inside or outside. He walked outside and came back in and said both.”
Katie smiled. “I might be saving too much for college.”
She snatched the bag of popcorn. “What, are you a Neanderthal?”
She poured it into a bowl, grabbed a gallon of ice cream out of the freezer and two big spoons, and met Olive at the table. “What?”
she asked when Olive just stared at her.
“Well, for one, you never eat empty calories,”
she said. “And two, you’re lactose intolerant.”
“The ice cream’s dairy free, and I gave up denying myself a luxury the day Joe landed in the hospital. Life’s too short.”
“Here, here,”
Olive said, and they dug in, eating in companionable silence until she realized Katie was staring at her. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
“Did something happen between you and my brother?”
“Uh . . .”
Were they talking about the past, or—
“Because he was at the hospital tonight and seemed pretty grumpy.”
“How can you tell?”
Katie chortled. “Let me guess. He was an idiot.”
“Again, how can you tell?”
Katie studied Olive. “Words, please.”
Right. But how to explain her and Noah? “To be honest, I kinda need someone to explain to me first. Even the CliffsNotes version would be great.”
Katie’s gaze went thoughtful. “There’s something about you that’s always sort of smoothed him out and de-stressed him. It’s like he can be his true self with you. He doesn’t seem to give that power to anyone else.”
Feeling a little gutted by that, Olive let out a long breath. “Thanks, Yoda. I’ll be careful with the Force. But really, there’s nothing going on between us.”
Katie raised a brow.
Olive stuffed a huge bite of ice cream in her mouth to keep from spilling her guts, but gave herself a brain freeze. Dropping the spoon onto the table, she cupped her own head and sucked in air.
“Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth,”
Katie said casually. “And that was such a rookie move. Now I know something’s happened between you two.”
“The only thing that happened is that he’s kind of a jerk.”
“Ouch,”
Noah said as he came into the kitchen.
“But true,”
Katie said.
Noah ruffled his twin’s hair. “Most definitely.”
He didn’t ruffle Olive’s. Just gave her a hooded look she couldn’t begin to interpret.
Holmes wandered into the room and moved straight for Noah, who loved up on the old man. His new shadow, Pepper, proceeded to wind herself in and out and around Noah’s legs, purring so loudly it sounded like an engine rumbling. She made sure to look at Olive often, and it didn’t take a cat translator to know what the kitten was saying—back off my man.
If Olive could speak Cat, she’d have assured Pepper that she could have Noah.
The man himself moved to a cabinet, opened a small pack of cat food, and poured it into a bowl.
The kitten attacked it like she’d never eaten before.
“Aw,”
Olive said, heart melting. “She was starving.”
“She’s always starving.”
He looked around. “Where did Holmes go?”
“Not far,”
Katie said. “Not without his baby.”
They found him in the pantry, his food bag opened and spilled, the dog sleeping on top of the whole mess, in a clear food coma.
Noah smiled. “I guess if you can’t hide the crime scene, just pretend you’re the victim.”
They all moved back to the kitchen.
“Oh and hey,”
Katie said to her brother. “Guess what Joey said early this morning when he dropped his lunch box on his toe. He said, ‘Truck me.’?”
Noah winced. “Uh . . .”
“Seriously?”
Katie asked.
“Hey, he was helping me change the oil in my truck and I dropped a heavy wrench on my foot.”
“What’s wrong with ‘truck me’?”
Olive wanted to know.
Noah bit his lower lip, looking as if he was trying to hide a laugh.
“Well,”
Katie said, jabbing the spoon at Noah again, this time connecting with his chest, leaving a chocolate stain on his T-shirt. “Joey has trouble making the F sound.”
She looked at Olive. “So you do the math.”
Olive laughed. “Oh my God.”
“Not funny.”
Katie narrowed her eyes at her brother. “When his principal calls to tell me the kid dropped the f-bomb, I’m going to forward the call to you.”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’ll talk to him. I’ve just been gone so much, I forget to watch my language.”
“You know he worships the ground you walk on,”
Katie said. “He wants to be like you.”
Noah looked pained. “I’m not exactly the best role model.”
“Then try harder.”
Olive, enjoying Noah being in the hot seat, jumped in surprise when Katie suddenly whirled on Olive with her big spoon. “And you. You’re no better. You stay away because . . . well, I have no idea why, you’ve been mum on that subject for years. I’m over it. The both of you need to make a real effort or . . .”
Katie tightened her lips together. A massive sign of emotion from the woman who didn’t often reveal herself. “Oh, forget it. You’ll both do whatever you want anyway.”
She tossed the spoon into the sink and turned to leave. “I seriously can’t believe I’m the mature one in this room.”
Noah caught her hand. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.”
“I’ll do better. I promise.”
“We’ll do better,”
Olive said, glancing over at Noah just as he slid incredulous eyes at her, his brows lifting.
Katie nodded and left the room.
“We’ve hurt her,”
he murmured, gaze pensive. “I’m a lot of things, not all of them good. But at least I can accept blame.”
She stared at him incredulously. “You think I can’t?”
Was he serious? She’d walked away from everyone and everything she’d ever loved because she’d accepted blame for what had happened to him.
Her phone, sitting on the counter between them, suddenly buzzed with an incoming call. They both looked at the screen.
It’s Max So Answer Me was calling.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,”
she said, and answered to her graphic designer. “What’s up?”
“Sorry it’s so late there for you, but I’m getting an early start over here. Just wanted to let you know we got all the info on the new client. Love that you took on a zoo. Loved your draft ideas. We’ll all add to it ASAP. When do you plan to be back? We miss you.”
“Miss you too,”
she said. “And I don’t know yet.”
She disconnected and turned back to Noah.
“Thought your boyfriend’s name was Matt.”
There was something in his tone, but it couldn’t be jealousy. Noah Turner didn’t do pointless emotions. “Max is my graphic designer.”
He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a set of tiny footsteps padded down the stairs, and then Joey burst into the kitchen, hair wild, his little PAW Patrol pj’s crooked and wrinkled.
“I heard her, I heard her!”
Noah caught the little guy up in his arms. “Whoa. Heard who?”
“The tooth fairy!”
He put his hands on Noah’s cheeks. “Did you hear her?”
“Not sure,”
Noah said. “What does the tooth fairy sound like?”
“You don’t know?”
“Well . . .”
He exchanged a quick look with Olive. “It’s been a long time since, uh, the tooth fairy came to visit me. Also, why would she come by tonight? No one’s lost a tooth.”
“My friend Sarah did. But she and her mommy don’t have a place to live, and she was afraid the tooth fairy wouldn’t be able to find her in their car.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve done something about that?”
Noah asked.
“I put her tooth under my pillow for her and promised I’d bring her the money I got. But the tooth fairy never came.”
Again, Noah glanced at Olive. “How many nights has it been?”
“Three.”
While Olive’s heart ached, Noah looked Joey in the eyes. “Bud, sometimes the tooth fairy’s super busy. I mean, she’s got a lot of little kids across the whole world to look after, right? So it can take a few nights to get to everyone. Keep the faith, I’m sure she’ll still come.”
“You think?”
Noah nodded solemnly. “I know.”
Joey looked hugely relieved. “?’Kay.”
He put his hands over his belly. “I gotta tummy ache.”
He scrunched up his face and then came an unmistakable sound. “I farted,”
he announced.
Noah smiled. “That always makes me feel better too.”
Dammit, why did the man have to be gorgeous, smart, and sweet too? It really wasn’t fair. This would be so much easier if he indeed was the jerk she’d told Katie he was.
Joey sighed. “I want my daddy to come home.”
A look of pain crossed Noah’s face. “I know. So do I.”
At that, Joey looked up. “You do?”
“Very much.”
Joey looked to Olive, and she nodded. “All of us do,”
she said softly.
“Maybe we could google how to help him wake up,”
Joey said hopefully.
“Hey, did you know that Olive is older than Google?”
Noah asked the boy, who gasped in horror.
Olive smiled sweetly. “And did you know Noah is even older than me?”
“Only by two months,”
Noah said.
“Which is the definition of older.”
Joey took in this new information about his uncle being ancient. Or at least that’s what Olive assumed he was doing, but his next words proved her wrong.
“Are you and Uncle Noah going to get married and have babies so I can haz cousins?”
Olive, who’d just popped the last piece of popcorn into her mouth, promptly choked hard enough that it almost came out her nose.
Noah reached over and patted her on the back.
“My daddy hugs my mommy when she’s coughing,”
Joey said.
Noah snorted, and then to Olive’s shock, he stood up, dropped Joey into his chair, and moved toward her. He stopped in front of her and then waited.
For her to give him permission, she realized. She wanted to smile, but couldn’t. Instead, she stood too, put both arms around his waist, and set her chin on his chest, looking up at him.
He drew in a surprised breath and then his arms closed around her, pulling her the rest of the way against him. She almost closed her eyes to enjoy the feeling of him holding her so close, but kept them open because he was looking at her, like really looking at her. They stood like that, staring at each other, only moving apart when Joey clapped his hands in amusement.
“Okay, Trouble,”
Noah said, then scooped him up, hanging him off his back, to the kid’s utter delight, before carrying him out of the kitchen and presumably back to bed.
Olive stood in the middle of the kitchen with an odd ache in her chest and wasn’t even sure why. Maybe it was because she thought Joey was the best kid on the planet, not that she was biased or anything.
But maybe it was also, at least partly, the way Noah was with him. Funny and playful, but also sweet and gentle and loving, which was a whole new side of the man who claimed not to want a family of his own. A side she hadn’t been privy to, all thanks to a promise she’d made.
It always came down to her choices, didn’t it. She didn’t like regrets, but the truth was, she had plenty.
She startled when she realized at some point he’d come back into the kitchen and was watching her.
“You okay?”
he asked quietly.
His concern only intensified her ache. “It’s you guys I’m worried about,”
she said, just as quietly. “Not me.”
“Because you’re fine.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “Still always fine. Still never needing anyone. Must be nice.”
“So are you the pot or the kettle here?”
She shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
And she took herself off to bed.