Chapter 6
Olivia
The quiet didn’t last. I should’ve known better.
In this case, Jake’s condition was worsening.
It happened slowly, but obviously.
Pain meds weren’t working anymore. The cheerful energy he always put on in my presence wore thin. His walks became sparser, too. Most of the time, he lay in bed, wincing or turning, or too exhausted to do either.
The fever was the worst of it. Some nights, it just refused to go down. Our sessions stretched from morning to night to keep his fever manageable. I would constantly swap out ice packs and wet cloths because they warmed up as fast as I put them on.
If this kept up, his system was going to burn out.
I needed more information.
Donovan wasn’t letting up anymore.
“Jake will be alright,” Donovan said.
It was my turn to cross my arms. The two of us were in the hallway, once again having the same discussion we always had.
The difference was this time, my jaw ached from how hard I'd been clenching it.
“Have you seen him lately?” I asked. I tried to keep my voice low, but it was impossible. “He can barely stand up.”
“Just do what you can.”
“I know there’s something,” I said. “And you’re hiding something, and it’s hurting him.”
Donovan shifted his weight from one foot to another. He dragged a hand through the back of his hair.
“We’ve all done it before,” Donovan said. “Do your job the best you can, and we’ll do ours.”
Jake had little in the way of answers, too. The few moments he was calm enough to talk, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about his condition.
Today, his body sank into his bed like it was made out of liquid. He angled his neck toward the window, but he couldn’t turn it fully.
“How are the flowers today?” he asked.
“Lovely,” I reassured him. “The fountain’s crap, though.”
Jake normally laughed, but this time he only faintly grinned.
“Olivia?”
“Yes, Jake?”
He parted his lips, paused, and thought carefully. He opened his mouth again.
“I’m going to be okay,” he said.
Something tightened in my chest. My body stiffened. I tried not to show it. I hated that I was out of options.
It’s not fair…
I noticed Jake staring at me in concern. I forced a smile.
“I know,” I said. “You’ve never been one to let this condition kick you down.”
Jake nodded. He then settled deeper into his pillow and fell back asleep.
One afternoon, I lingered outside Caleb Ashwood’s study.
I contemplated if I really wanted to do it. Donovan already disappointed me. Jake was too weak to push. Caleb was the outlier. The only one who might actually talk to me.
I steeled myself and knocked.
“Come in.” Caleb’s voice sounded absent.
The study was similar to the other rooms of the house: wooden accents, patterned carpets, warm-colored art.
A tapestry of a bird stared back at me, a little too unsettlingly. I turned away from it.
Caleb was at the desk when I knocked — business papers in front of him, something he appeared to be reading, though he looked up immediately, like part of him was always listening for the hallway.
“Olivia,” he said.
I stayed where I was.
“I need to talk to you about Jake,” I said.
“What is it?”
I frowned. “His condition is progressing,” I said. “Faster than I’d like. What I’m doing isn’t working anymore.”
I went over everything that happened over the past week. Jake’s vitals, his pain readings, his daily intakes.
Caleb listened. He was good at that, but today I needed more.
“You’re right,” he said. “His condition is approaching its critical phase.”
“I know that,” I said, my patience already at its limit. “But what does a ‘critical phase’ even entail?”
“I —”
“Don’t give me anything vague, either,” I added. “How am I supposed to prepare for something I don’t understand? Jake’s the one who suffers if I get this wrong.”
Caleb’s hands pressed together. “You’re doing what you should. You don’t have to worry.”
“Of course I’m going to worry!” It was the first time I'd raised my voice at him.
I expected Caleb to shout back. Argue. Anything.
If he wasn’t going to give me answers, he could at least be adamant about it.
“Olivia.” His voice lowered. “You have to trust me.”
I slowed my breathing. No matter how much I wanted to fight, I knew it was going to go nowhere.
“You don’t get to ask me for trust,” I retorted.
I pressed my fingers against my temples and shook my head. “You know what? Whatever. You’re obviously not going to tell me.”
I walked to the end of the study. The papers shuffled.
I thought he might stop me. Nothing happened.
I closed the door behind me.
By the time Jake was anywhere close to sleeping, it was late night.
“I’ll be okay,” Jake murmured. “You need rest, too, you know.”
“I’m a nurse,” I replied. “I don’t really sleep.”
I adjusted the blanket over Jake’s bed as I checked his temperature. His eyes closed and he drifted off.
I carefully examined his breathing. It was steady for now.
My eyes then drifted to his tableside. Between the slurry of pain meds and vitamin supplements, I noticed an unopened book.
It was the one he’d asked me to bring down — a collection of regional histories, old enough that the spine was soft and the pages had that particular yellowed quality of paper that had absorbed decades of damp air. I’d been reading passages to Jake when the pain made sleep impossible.
Jake’s love of estate history extended to a passion for lore and mythologies. The times when we couldn’t do anything for his pain, I’d read a few passages to him. He said he already knew them all, but that my voice “added a new spin on things.”
I would have read it to him tonight, but we spent most of the evening dealing with his fever.
I meant to leave it and go to bed.
Instead I picked it up and made my way to the fireplace.
I paused at the entrance. The only other time I'd hesitated to go inside was the second time. I hated myself for making things awkward.
No, I cut myself off. You’ve been doing everything you can.
It was true. I could work as much as I needed to, but progress was a two-way street.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
I finally headed in.
Caleb was in his chair. The fire was lower than usual, its flames casting bouncing shadows that made it hard to read Caleb’s expression.
What I could make out was that Caleb wasn’t reading a book. Almost as if he forgot to bring one.
He saw me, but I ignored him. Instead, I made my way to my usual seat, turned on the nearby reading lamp, and opened Jake’s book.
“Good evening,” Caleb said.
I just raised my brows. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
“Reading a book tonight?” he asked. He was testing the mood.
“It’s Jake’s,” I said. “History, it seems.”
After a while, I turned a page I hadn’t read and noticed Caleb was looking at the cover.
“Not your usual read,” he said.
“Nope, but it’ll do,” I said. “Have you read it before?”
“It’s a collection of local myths.” Caleb looked at the fire. The corner of his mouth moved. “That explains why he’s been sleeping better.”
“Do you want me to try it on you?” I asked.
He glanced at me. The firelight did something to the pale green of his eyes — warmed them, made them less still than usual. “There’s one I know well,” he said. “A particular favorite. If you’d like to hear it.”
The question surprised me. Not the offer, exactly — but the way he made it. Tentative, almost. Like it mattered whether I said yes.
I considered the exchange earlier. How my frustration got the better of me.
I had every right to be annoyed with the circumstances, even more so when a patient’s life was on the line.
But even then…
I looked at Caleb’s eyes. Every time we spoke, they always carried this soft, gentle quality. It wasn’t the look of someone who chose to lie.
I remembered what Jake once said.
“Would you rather get hurt or avoid it, even if it meant missing out?”
Was that what it was for Caleb?
I eased back into my chair. I offered him a smile in return. My form of a peace flag.
“I’d like that,” I said.
Caleb didn’t read from any book. Instead, he leaned forward in his chair and told the story from memory.
“My… mother used to tell it to me,” he said.
He started.
“Once upon a time,” he said, “before there were towns — when the forests stretched farther than anyone could see — there was a wolf who loved his mate. He loved her the way he’d been taught to.
Completely. Without asking what she needed.
He chose everything for her. Where she went. Where she stayed.
“He didn’t think it was wrong. He thought he was taking care of her. Keeping her safe. Making her happy.”
Caleb spoke in a calm and steady tone. But it felt different from the way he usually spoke. It didn’t feel rehearsed or evasive.
For a moment, I could see Caleb baring every emotion he actually felt as he spoke. Wonder, tenderness… regret.
Caleb continued.
“The wolf kept his mate safe,” he said. “He built a life around her and called it devotion.”
“And what about the mate?” I asked.
Caleb’s gaze lowered. “She never left,” he whispered. “Because the bond between them made leaving feel like torture. Like ruin. She stayed because she was supposed to stay. Not because she chose to.”
Caleb paused. The fire shifted, a log settling lower, and the room dimmed slightly and then held. His hands clasped tightly. I could hear the pain in his voice deepen.
“The wolf believed he loved her,” Caleb said. “But he was wrong. What he had was a certainty. He was certain she was his, certain he knew what was right for her, certain his feelings were enough to excuse what he never asked her about. And certainty…” He stopped. “Can look like love.”
I didn’t say anything.
“In the end, the wolf came to regret it all,” Caleb ended. “He’d rather have lost her than kept her that way.”
His voice didn’t waver on it. It was the most certain thing he’d said all evening, which was a specific kind of irony I didn’t examine until later.
The silence that followed was different from the ones we usually shared.
He turned to look at me.
“Is that wrong?” he asked. “Wanting to let her go?”
I thought about it honestly. By now, the book I was reading rested neatly on my lap, closed. I traced its dark cover carefully.
I’d left enough places to have an answer. I thought about my parents, which I didn’t usually let myself do in the middle of conversations. I thought about every place I’d been that I’d chosen not to need.
I remembered the joy of things, and how much torment it was when it all went away.
“I think,” I said slowly, “I’d rather not get there at all, if it meant being lost in it.”
Caleb was quiet for a long moment, and I couldn’t tell if he was agreeing or only acknowledging that he’d heard me, and the difference felt important in a way I couldn’t articulate.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About earlier. In the study.”
“You don’t have to —”
“I do.” His voice grew louder. He was now sitting at the edge of his chair.
He sighed. “I know what this costs you, working without the full picture. I know that’s not fair to you or to Jake.”
It wasn’t the answer I wanted from Caleb, but something loosened in my chest. For once, Caleb was telling me something without hiding it.
“I don’t want to see you hurt,” he said. “Or upset. It’s the last thing I could ever wish for —”
“I understand why you can’t,” I said.
I meant it. I spent so much time the past few weeks fighting with how things were, that I never let myself sit with why they were there. Even if I didn’t agree with it, I knew everyone’s intentions came from a good place.
“Whatever it is,” I said. “I can see that you’re protecting something. I don’t have to like it to understand it.”
Something moved in his expression. His eyes softened, and he nodded solemnly.
“But I need you to promise me something,” I said.
“Anything.”
The word came without hesitation. It was such a simple word for the weight it carried.
“The moment it matters,” I said. “The moment telling me could prevent harm from being done — you tell me. Whatever it is. You don’t wait for the right time.”
Caleb held my gaze for a long moment. Long enough that I was aware of the distance between our chairs, which wasn’t much.
“I promise,” he said.
I nodded. I opened my book back to the page I hadn’t read.
“Thank you,” I said.
I stayed another hour. Caleb finally went on to read his own book, like he felt he had permission to do so without the guilt now.
We didn’t talk again, but the silence had a different quality than it had when I arrived.
I wasn’t trying to figure him out anymore.
I didn’t need to know where my place was — or to contest it.
More importantly, I felt something settle.
Maybe not about everything, but that Caleb cared in ways that were similar to my own.
When I finally stood to leave, Caleb said good night without looking up from the fire.
“Goodnight, too,” I said.
In the hallway, I thought about the promise he’d made, and what it would take for him to keep it, and whether those were the same thing.