Chapter 40 Olivia
Chapter forty
Olivia
Changing in the airport bathroom was a choice.
The heater blew weak warmth into the freezing tiles. I had to rub my arms just to pull on the sleeves of my sweater.
Standing in line for a ticket was a choice.
Boarding a three o’clock flight while knowing War was probably tearing apart half the city looking for me?
That was a choice too.
My choice.
Because for months, Warren Beaumont has been making all the choices for me.
But crying in my first-class seat next to the nicest stranger alive? That wasn’t a choice.
The woman beside me slid a tissue into my hand without a word, then pressed her unopened snack into my lap like it was medicine.
I should have went home to him, talked to him. Should have asked him what he knew. Or told him everything. That the mafia owned my family. That Baker’s Inn was theirs, and I was tangled in something I couldn’t undo. That I’d be a liability to a man like him.
But instead, I hung up on him and I ran.
I inhale a shaky breath, try to swallow it down.
“You feeling any better?” my seatmate asks softly.
I nod, wiping at my eyes. “Yeah. Thank you. I’m Olivia, by the way. Olivia Baker.”
She smiles; kind, warm, steady. “Selena Nandez. But you can call me S.J.”
Her hair is glossy brown silk, her hazel eyes bright with something sharp behind the gentleness. A book rests in her hand.
With her name on the cover.
“You’re an author?” I ask, surprised.
She chuckles, lifting the book and wiggling it. “Guilty.”
“That’s amazing,” I murmur, almost forgetting the ache in my chest.
She tilts her head, studying me. “Are you headed home?”
“Something like that…and you? Headed home or headed out?” I ask, desperate to shift the focus off me.
She smiles. “Oh, this? Just a connection. I’m on my way to California.”
I nod, fiddling with the tissue in my lap. “Work or play?”
“Work,” she says, lifting her book with a little grin. “Always work.”
Her expression softens into something that feels dangerously close to pity. “What’s his name?”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“It’s always relationship issues,” she says gently. “So what’s his name?”
“…Warren.”
“And what did Warren do?”
My throat closes. The truth burns at the back of my tongue.
“Nothing,” I manage. “That’s the problem. He just… gave. And gave. And before I knew it, I was swallowed up by all his things. His choices. His world. I didn’t realize he’d locked me in until I couldn’t see the way out.”
S.J. is quiet for a long beat, just watching me. Then she leans closer, her voice low but steady.
“Here’s the thing, Olivia Baker,” she says. “A man can give you the world. He can build you castles, hand you keys, lay down his empire at your feet. But if he never asks you what you want, it stops being a gift. It becomes a prison with gold bars.”
My chest tightens. She sees right through me.
She squeezes my hand, her grip warm and grounding. “You don’t need to run forever. You just need to figure out what’s yours. What you want. And if the man loves you—truly loves you—he’ll want that too, even if it scares him.”
Her words lodge deep, sparking something small and dangerous in my chest.
Hope.
***
The terminal feels too bright, too loud, too busy. I keep my head down, clutching my bag like it’s armor as I walk through the sliding glass doors.
And then I see them.
Logan, tall and gruff in his Baker’s Inn fleece-lined jacket, the logo stitched just above his heart, arms crossed like a sentinel against the cold.
Chase, the only sandy blond in the family, bundled in a flannel and puff vest, jeans still dirt-stained, crooked smile already tugging at his mouth as he opens his arms wide.
And Dean; messy brown hair peeking out beneath a knit beanie, the tallest of the three, barrels past them, the strongest as always.
“Baby sis!” Dean shouts, scooping me up before I can even breathe. My bags drop to the ground as he spins me, planting a noisy kiss against my cheek. I can’t help laughing through the sting in my eyes.
Chase is next, pulling me into his arms, squeezing tight. “Happy birthday, Livvy,” he murmurs against my hair.
Logan doesn’t say much. He just grabs my bags like it’s nothing and hauls them to the truck. When he comes back, he opens the back door for me. For a second, his gaze pins mine.
“You good?”
The shame crashes over me like a wave. They know. Of course they know. I’d called Dad in the rideshare on the way here, sobbing like a child. God, what a loser.
I climb in anyway, sliding onto the bench seat. Chase slips in beside me, wraps an arm around my shoulders, and tugs me against him until my head rests in his lap. His hand strokes slow and steady through my hair, the way he used to when I was little and scared of thunderstorms.
Dean climbs into the passenger seat, already fiddling with the radio. Logan takes the driver’s side, all silent focus as the engine rumbles to life. Music fills the cab, something upbeat, and we pull away from the curb.
The windows fog a little from our breath, the heat blasting, but I still can’t seem to get warm.
My chest aches and I wonder if I made the biggest mistake of my life.
Or maybe… maybe this is better.
Maybe I should just stay here.
I haven’t been home for two Christmases.
Two whole years of excuses. Work. Life. Warren.
Being back in Brokenwoods feels strange, like slipping into a sweater that used to fit but now hangs differently.
Dean’s the one who breaks the quiet. “We’re out of the city.”
I push up, straightening in the back seat, and press my hand to the window. The world outside changes, slower, softer, familiar.
Main Street rolls by, every shop stubbornly the same. The florist with the crooked sign. The bakery where I used to spend my last five bucks just to buy a single lemon square.
The restaurant where I had lunches with Ella every Saturday, where we thought coffee and fries were rebellion.
The truck slows, turning down our street, and my breath catches.
The park, dusted in snow. The swings still rusted. The bench where I had my first kiss at thirteen with a boy who smelled like bubblegum and too much body spray.
My chest twists.
Across the street from our house looms the Inn.
Baker’s Inn.
Our whole messy legacy.
It looks the same. Exactly the same. As if the years I spent away didn’t happen. My heart drops heavy in my chest.
“Mom’s watching the front desk for me,” Logan says gruffly as he kills the engine.
“And Pops is in the house,” Chase adds, turning with a crooked grin. “Waiting for you, Livvy.”
I swallow hard, nerves scraping my throat raw as I hop out.
I glance at Dean, the only one still watching me instead of the Inn. “Could you come with me?”
He doesn’t hesitate. Just nods. “I’ll get your bags.”
Chase and Logan head across the street, already slipping back into their rhythm, shoulders squared to carry the weight I dropped.
Dean falls into step beside me, solid and steady, as I walk toward the front porch of the house I swore I’d never need again.
My knees shake. My lungs burn.
But I keep moving.
Because my dad is waiting.
And I don’t know if I’m ready.
Dean turns the knob for me and swings open the door as I climb the patio steps, the wood groaning under my weight like it remembers me.
As soon as I step inside, I smell it.
The strawberry cake.
My cake.
The air is thick with sugar and vanilla, warm and familiar, and for a second I’m ten years old again, skipping through this hallway with sticky fingers.
I pass the living room.
The couch is still here—ten years old now, maybe more, sunk in the middle, still wrapped in Mom’s favorite color.
Periwinkle. A ridiculous shade for a couch, and somehow even more ridiculous that she fought to keep it all these years.
The fabric is frayed at the arms, faded in the sunlight, but it’s ours.
Photos line the walls, frame after frame. School pictures with bad haircuts. Family Christmases. Mama and Daddy on their wedding day. Chase holding my hand on my first day of kindergarten. The faces are frozen in time, smiling, laughing, alive in a way I don’t feel right now.
I make it to the kitchen doorway, and stop.
He’s there.
My dad. Standing by the counter, the strawberry cake waiting behind him like it’s been holding its breath for me.
The sight of him cracks something wide open. The tears come fast, hot, spilling down my cheeks before I can even try to stop them. A sob rips out of me, ugly and raw, but it doesn’t matter because the weight that’s been crushing me for months lifts in an instant.
“Daddy,” I choke, the word breaking as I stumble forward.
His arms are already open. I run into them, burying myself against the safe, solid wall of him. He smells like flour and coffee. Like home.
He hugs me tight and rocks me, the same way he used to when nightmares sent me running to his room. Safe. Untouchable.
“You’ve got four layers of protection,” he used to whisper. “If anyone wants to get to you, they’ve got to go through your brothers first. And then me. And no one, no one, is getting through me.”
My chest shakes as I cling tighter, the years between us evaporating.
“I messed up again,” I sputter against his shirt, ashamed, broken.
He presses a hand to my hair, gentle, firm. No judgment in his touch, none in his eyes when I finally dare to look up.
“Well, you’re home, my Ollipop,” he says, voice steady as bedrock. “You can hide out here as long as you need.”