8. Olive
Olive
Iwas standing at the reception desk of the clinic, sorting the morning mail when my phone buzzed. I hoped it was a text from Holden.
He’d promised me a surprise for our date tonight, and I’d spent the entire morning trying not to smile every time I thought of him.
But it wasn’t Holden. The text was from my sister, Claire.
Olive, call me when you can. Mina just heard Holden got a serious offer from his old camp in Montana. A big raise and some kind of guaranteed contract. Brent says it’s nothing. I don’t know what he’s decided, but I wanted you to hear it from me before camp gossip got to you.
I stared at the screen, the words blurring together.
A serious offer. Montana.
Holden hadn’t said a word about it to me.
“Are you all right, Olive?” Doc Hansen asked.
“Um. Yeah. Fine. Perfectly fine.”
But something cold and practical locked in place inside my chest.
Of course he was leaving. He’d warned me he was a drifter. He’d practically told me his entire life was a series of temporary stops, and yet I’d blindly let myself believe Red Oak Mountain was going to be different.
That I might be different.
But the worst part wasn’t even Montana.
It was that everyone else seemed to know before I did.
Mina knew. Claire knew. Brent knew. Maybe half the camp knew. And I was standing here in teddy-bear scrubs with a patient chart in my hand, realizing I had let myself start dreaming about porch lights and muddy boots and a man who hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me his life might be changing.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket, my hands shaking.
I couldn’t fall apart right now.
I was at work.
And people were relying on me. I turned away from the desk and grabbed the next patient file with trembling fingers. Then I walked into the exam room, forcing a professional smile onto my face.
Shelly and Amos were sitting inside, their six-month-old baby girl cooing happily on the exam table. Amos was making silly faces at his daughter, completely oblivious to the fact that the future I’d barely let myself imagine had just crumbled.
He was another lumberjack who used to work in that camp before he’d gone to work for Zane’s logging operation instead.
Right now I never wanted to see another lumberjack as long as I lived.
“All right, let’s see how our favorite little girl is doing,” I said with false cheer.
“She’s been eating like a champ, Olive,” Shelly said proudly, smoothing the baby’s soft hair. “Amos thinks she’s already getting ready to crawl.”
“Cassidy’s a strong one, just like her mama,” Amos beamed, wrapping a thick arm around his wife’s shoulders.
I went through the standard motions: measuring the baby’s length, checking her reflexes, and logging her weight.
But every time I looked at Amos and Shelly, a hot, unbearable pressure built behind my eyes.
I wanted that.
And I’d thought, just for a foolish, na?ve second, that Holden might want that with me.
I finished the exam, charting the numbers with jerky, mechanical movements, and sent them to sign out with our receptionist, who was finally back from sick leave.
Then I practically fled the room before the tears could spill over. I made it as far as the hallway before I stopped and leaned my forehead against the wall.
“You charted her head circumference in the weight column, Olive.” Doc Hansen’s dry voice echoed in the empty hallway.
I turned my head. My boss was standing a few feet away, his arms crossed over his white coat, watching me closely.
“I’ll fix it,” I whispered, hastily wiping a stray tear from my cheek. “I’m sorry, Doc. I’m just having an off morning.”
Doc Hansen calmly called me out on my bullshit response. “I assume this has something to do with that giant lumberjack who was monopolizing my waiting room for a week straight.”
I let out a pathetic laugh. “Yeah. That’s the one. Remind me never to date a lumberjack again. They’re all evil.”
“Well, what’s the trouble?”
The doctor and I were close. And I felt like I could tell him almost anything, even though he was my boss.
So I whined out, “He got a job offer in Montana. With a two-year contract. He’s leaving, and I’d been imagining babies and white picket fences and all the stupid things women are taught to dream about.”
“Did he tell you that himself?”
“No. My sister told me. Her best friend’s husband is his boss.
” I sniffled, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. “I should have known better, Doc. He’s new in town.
Men like that don’t stick around. He was just looking for a temporary distraction.
And I got carried away by his man-muscles and cute smile. ”
Doc Hansen let out a slow sigh. “Olive, hon. You know you’re a brilliant nurse, but you can be remarkably blind when it comes to yourself.”
I looked up at him, confused. “What?”
“That man came in here every single day for a week to have his hand checked. I’ve put a hundred lumberjacks back together in my career.
Not one of them ever came back for a voluntary check-up, even when I demanded it.
They wrap it in duct tape and avoid me like the plague.
Holden didn’t come here all week because of his hand.
He came here because he was looking for any excuse he could find just to look at you. ”
“Maybe he was just horny,” I grumbled.
“You’re wrong,” Doc Hansen said softly. “I’m forty and single, Olive. I’ve spent too much of my life alone. And I can tell you right now that man is a fool for you. And I could be wrong, but I usually judge people right. He seems like a decent guy to me.”
I studied my boss. He was a good-looking man, and I’d always assumed he just liked being single. Half the town was trying to catch his eye. But here he was, lonely just like me.
“Don’t write him off because you’re scared. Go talk to him. In fact, you should take the rest of the day off. I don’t want you crying on my patients.”
He headed to the reception desk for our next patient while he waved me out of the clinic.
Best. Boss. Ever.
After I left work, I called my sister for a cry-fest, then showered and changed before driving out to the Harrison Logging Camp. My stomach was knotted up with nerves, but I went anyway.
When I got there, Holden was standing right by his truck.
He looked handsome as always. He was wearing a clean blue flannel shirt, his hair pushed back, and that devastating, cocky grin already spreading across his face as he watched me get out of the car.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he rumbled, stepping toward me. “You ready for our surprise date?”
I slammed my car door shut and crossed my arms over my chest. I refused to let him see how much he was hurting me.
“When were you going to tell me about Montana?” I asked.
The easy grin vanished from his face.
For one second, Holden looked so startled that I almost hated myself for showing up angry like this.
Then his expression changed.
“How did you—” He stopped talking, his jaw tightening. “Claire told you. Was it Brent? Was he the one who told her?”
“That’s not important, but if you have to know, Mina told Claire.
Then Claire told me. Brent just said Claire had it wrong, but he wouldn’t give any more details than that.
Which means somehow this thing that affects my life and my heart, and whatever this is between us managed to make its way through the entire mountain before it made it to me. ”
His face went pale beneath his tan. “Olive—”
“Were you going to tell me tonight?” I asked, my voice shaking despite every ounce of effort I put into holding it steady. “After the surprise date? After you smiled at me and called me gorgeous and made me feel stupid for falling for you?”
He took one step toward me. “You are not stupid.”
I laughed once, but it broke in the middle. “That’s debatable.”
“No.” His voice hardened. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. Not because of me.”
That almost undid me. But I wasn’t willing to cry in front of this man. Not when he was about to break my heart.
I crossed my arms tighter over my chest, trying to hold myself together by force.
“Then explain it to me, Holden. Because all I know is that you were offered exactly what you told me you wanted. Money. Security. A guarantee. A way to stop being the new guy who has to prove himself every second of the day.”
He dragged a hand over his mouth.
“And you didn’t tell me,” I whispered. “That’s the part I can’t get past.”
“I know.”
His answer came too fast. No joke. No grin. No charming little dodge.
Just guilt.
“I should have told you yesterday,” he said. “I picked up the phone three different times, Olive. I just didn’t know how to say it.”
“So you let me hear it from my sister instead?”
Pain flashed across his face. “No. I talked to Dylan last night because I needed an answer before I could talk it through with you. I wasn’t trying to hide it. I was trying to make sure that when I looked you in the eye and told you I was staying, I wasn’t making a promise I couldn’t keep.”
My breath caught.
“Staying?”
“I’m not leaving, Olive.”
My heart wanted to believe him so badly. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
But there was truth in his eyes.
“I mean it.” He stepped closer, slow and careful, like I was a wounded critter he didn’t want to spook. “My old boss, Dutch, called me yesterday. He offered me a lead spot, a big raise, and a two-year guarantee in writing. It was a hell of an offer.”
My throat tightened. “Then why did you turn that down?”
“Because it isn’t home.”
The words hit me square in the chest.
Holden’s eyes locked on mine, dark and steady.
“Montana has money. It has a contract. And a job title that sounds real nice on paper. But it doesn’t have you.”
A tear slipped down my cheek.
He reached for me, then stopped himself, letting his hand fall back to his side.
“I’m crazy about you, Olive. And I know it’s fast. I don’t want to scare you off. But I see something serious with you. I think we could have a future together. I was going to talk to you about all this out at Jasper Rock tonight.”
“Jasper Rock?” That was where all the locals went for the best stargazing.
“Oh, shit. I let the surprise out of the bag.”
My heart tried to come back to life on me, but I told it to stay locked in its dank, dark cage for now. It wasn’t safe to come out yet.
“What did you and Dylan talk about?”
“I told him about the offer,” Holden explained, his dark eyes locking onto mine.
“And that I needed to know if I was just temporary help to him, or if he saw me staying on this crew long term. Because I couldn’t look you in the eye and ask you to bet your heart on me if I was going to lose my job at the six-month mark. ”
“Really? You’re not just bullshitting me right now?”
“Do I look like I’m bullshitting you, hon? Dylan gave me his word.” Holden looped his fingers into the pockets of my jeans and tugged me closer. Then he rumbled quietly, “He told me the job is mine as long as I want it. And I do. I want to be here… with you.”
I stared into his eyes, searching for any hint that he was spinning lies, but I didn’t see any. I saw the same thing that Doc Hansen had seen.
A good man.
“You turned it down,” I breathed, letting the reality of it wash over me.
“Yeah. I turned it down,” he confirmed, his thumbs tracing slow, warm circles against my hips. “I’m staying because this is where my crew is. This is where I belong. And most importantly, I’m staying because you are here.”
I let out a breathless laugh, throwing my arms around his neck.
Holden caught me, his arms wrapping tight and secure around my back. And then he kissed me, pulling me flush against his chest right there in the middle of the logging camp parking lot.
“Hey! Get a room, you two!” a loud voice hollered.
I pulled back from Holden, my cheeks flushing hot as we both turned to look.
Shane, Brent, and Dylan were standing by the cookhouse. My sister Claire was next to Brent, with a relieved smile on her face.
Mina pushed past the guys, wiping her hands on an apron. “Finally. Lord, you two have been dancing around each other long enough. Does that mean you’re staying, Holden?”
“I was never leaving in the first place,” he said before hollering out louder, “Everyone hear that? You’re stuck with me now.”
Quietly, I told him, “You should know something.”
Holden looked down at me, his smile softening. “What’s that?”
“I was upset because I thought you were leaving.” I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening around his. “But what really hurt was that you didn’t tell me about the job offer. I need the truth from you, Holden. Even when it’s messy… even when you don’t have the answer yet.”
His expression sobered completely.
“You’ll have it going forward,” he promised. “Every time.”
And I believed him.
Maybe that made me reckless.
Or brave.
Or maybe love was always a little bit of both.
“Good. Because from now on, all major life decisions require my approval,” I sassed.
“You’re a menace, Nurse Olive,” he grumbled playfully, tugging me even closer.
“You love it,” I teased.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough and sure. “I really do.”
His eyes darkened with a promise that sent a fresh thrill straight down my spine. He grabbed my hand, lacing his fingers securely through mine, and started pulling me toward his truck.
“Where are we going?” I asked, happily jogging to keep up with his long strides.
“We’re just getting started, hon,” Holden told me, pulling the passenger door open for me. “I’ve got a special night planned for you up on Jasper Rock. We’ve got a lot of celebrating to do.”
“What are we celebrating?”
“Dylan told the Harrisons about the offer I got, and they gave me a raise. It’s not as big as the Montana money, but it’ll pay for a few good dates.”
That was great news. I was so happy for him.
I climbed into the cab of the truck, and the familiar scent of sawdust and pine washed over me. It was a smell I could get used to, especially when it came with a man like Holden attached.
As I watched him walk around the front of the truck, with his big shoulders relaxed and a grin on his face, I realized what Doc Hansen had said was true.
Holden was crazy about me.