Chapter 8
Liv
The mirror reflected someone I didn’t know.
A woman I had never been. I turned to look at my butt in the tight jeans, thinking maybe I should have given them a try after college.
I’d forgotten how good they made it look.
Skirts and dresses. Heels and blouses. Designer and one of a kind.
That was my life now. I’d left jeans and T-shirts, sweatshirts and comfortable clothes behind the day I’d left Hudson.
They were part of a life I couldn’t have.
I was my father’s perfect daughter. The one who constantly needed to strive for the top and climb above it to even catch his attention. I had turned my back on what I wanted, seeking his attention even while I was plotting revenge against him.
Sighing, I turned around and gave myself another look.
The shirt and jeans Hudson had picked up were the last things I’d tried on.
That shirt. Damn, that shirt made me look sexy.
I poked my breasts where they gathered with too much flesh puffing above the low neckline.
The tight fit squeezed them together, so they looked about a size bigger.
The uneven hem of the shirt showed flashes of my stomach where some of the fabric rose higher than others.
All I needed was a cowboy hat, and I’d fit right in.
I shook my head and pulled the shirt off, throwing it into the pile of shirts Sheila had picked with me.
A few other jeans lay on the floor near a pair of tan cowboy boots.
I rubbed my temple, thinking how I wanted to be back in New York drinking away memories of Hudson before I stopped and stared at myself.
Was that what I really wanted? I was thirty-seven.
My life was lonely, and if I really admitted it, empty.
Gabe and Tori were the only part that made it livable, and that rugrat of theirs, even though I would never admit that to them.
I sat on the small bench, shoving the clothes over, and rested my head in my hands.
I didn’t like what being here with Hudson was doing to me.
How it was lowering my defenses, making me question the life I had, the cage I’d built to shield the world from knowing my emotions and protect me from those emotions that I’d buried so far they stood no chance of harming me.
“Are you okay in there, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart? I wanted to shout about how demeaning that was, but something about her tone told me everyone was a sweetheart to her. Damn, two nice women in one town. Where were the nasty looks and judgmental side-eyes, the insults about how cold I was or how I needed to smile more?
“I’m fine,” I said, standing and finding my dress. “Just overwhelmed by the amount of cotton in here.”
“This is farmland, sweetie, not the city.”
“I know.” I pulled the jeans off and threw them with the other clothes.
Once I had my dress buttoned, I stepped into my heels and fixed my hair.
My loose curls looked frizzy, and my makeup was fading.
I rubbed the side of my nose, seeing the splatter of freckles, light brown and easily hidden by foundation.
A memory of Hudson’s lips sliding across them as he murmured how he loved them flickered in the distance, and I turned from the mirror.
Stepping from the dressing room, I threw my hand in the air and said, “I’ll just take it all. There’s no other choice, and I’m sure he’ll insist on having me clean piles of shit if I don’t get them.”
She chuckled, making her way to the counter. “Just bring them up and I’ll get you all set,” she said as a bell jingled.
“Good luck getting her to do that, Sheila. She doesn’t do manual work.” Hudson tromped into the dressing room and gathered up the clothes.
“That’s better,” I said until he shoved them into my hands. I struggled to hold them all, a few shirts dropping as they slipped through my fingers.
He shook his head and bent to pick them up, holding out the one he’d chosen and meeting my eyes. A smirk, sexy and devastating, formed, causing the blood to stir in my lower body. “Bet that’s something to look at,” he mumbled, piling them into my already full hands.
He didn’t give me time to respond before he trounced back to the dressing room, emerging with the boots, which he plopped on the counter. I stood with my pile, trying to keep the clothes from falling and half-tempted to throw them at him.
“Good Lord,” he muttered, grabbing them from me. “How do you accomplish anything?”
He tossed them onto the counter.
“With paid help,” I snapped.
The look he gave me caused my knees to shake.
“Aren’t you two fun? Hudson, I haven’t seen you this animated in…well, ever.”
He grumbled something unintelligible, snatching a necklace with a black leather cord for the chain and throwing it into the pile.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
He didn’t answer as Sheila went, “Oh, that’s good thinking!”
She bustled from behind the counter, rummaging behind me and mumbling about accessories as Hudson and I kept our gazes locked.
It was intense holding his eyes. Broody, like a swirling storm.
I couldn’t read him, nor understand why he would add the necklace.
I had plenty of jewelry, none of it here but the diamond bracelet and earrings I’d worn, but nothing seemed as personal as that necklace. A statement. One I didn’t understand.
Sheila returned to the counter, placing a thick belt and matching bracelet on the stack of clothes along with a handful of socks.
I picked up the bracelet and studied it.
Black leather with fake diamonds. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I kept the reaction to myself as she started ringing the items up.
I lowered it, my fingers draping over the necklace. The turquoise stone was so large and bold that it was as much a statement as Hudson choosing it for me. He snatched it from me and put it on the side of the pile.
“Ring this up separately. She can pay for the rest with her fancy credit card.”
I huffed, pulling my wallet out of my bag and bumping against the notebook I’d brought with me. Damn, I’d wanted to discuss the ranch over lunch. Ranch? Why did I care now if I called it a farm or a ranch? There was a reason I was here, and it wasn’t to dredge up old memories.
Hudson looked at the necklace tag and took forty dollars out of his wallet. He put it on the counter with the necklace and walked away. “Pack it up with her other stuff. See you at the festival, Sheila.”
“Festival?” I asked as he stormed from the store. “Does he always walk like a Clydesdale?”
“Not as heavy as he is today, but everyone knows Hudson’s the grumpy type.
Would give the shirt off his back to help someone, but carries a load on his shoulders no one has ever lifted from him.
” She peeked up at me as she scanned the tag, like she was waiting for my response.
As if I had the cure for easing his load.
I hated to tell her I was the one who had caused it, but maybe she knew that already.
“And the festival?”
“Starts next Friday and runs through the weekend. Fingers crossed this storm doesn’t delay the company that sets it up from arriving on time. It’s the highlight of the fall. Candy apples, music and dancing, games, even a hayride. You should come.”
“Oh no. I won’t be here that long.” I would have been gone already if not for my meddling brother. “I’ll leave after the weekend.”
She shrugged. “Not if the storm hits like they say it will.”
Which was why she’d insisted I buy an extra pair of jeans and a few extra shirts. Hudson had my mind too frazzled to argue with her when she’d put them in the dressing room. It didn’t matter; I’d just donate it all when I got home.
She placed the clothes neatly in a brown-handled bag stamped with her store logo and then wrapped the necklace in a sheet of tissue paper before stuffing a few extra sheets over the top.
Handing me the bag, she said, “I reckon you had your reasons for destroying that man the way you did. I don’t know the story, but I know he still carries it.
No one has been able to break through the damage, and maybe it’s not my business.
” No, it isn’t. “But we’re all family in this town, and he’s like a son to me.
He needs happiness again, and if I had to guess, so do you.
Find it in each other, and if you can’t, then part ways before you wreck him more than you have. ”
I didn’t know why her words didn’t have my defenses up. Or why they left me scrambling for some explanation, something to ease her concern.
“I didn’t…” Maybe it was the time in the dressing room, or maybe it was the opening of wounds that left me raw and vulnerable, that left me like a newborn foal wobbling and unsteady.
“I didn’t want to hurt him.” My voice cracked, the words barely a whisper.
Tears fought the restraint I had placed on them so many years ago.
This woman with her kind eyes reminded me of my mother.
On the good days when love shone in her hazel eyes, her smile, so blinding, would lift me even on the worst of days.
But those days had become sparse, a flickering of lightning in a storm of depression that had swallowed her.
The weight of Sheila’s hand brought me from my pain, and I exhaled for the first time in years, the truth of my life and all that I’d lost threatening to pour from me.
Green irises studied me, and I wondered if she could see below the veil, the little girl who watched her little brother take the brunt of her father’s anger over and over until it left her so broken she had to sew a mask on to keep anyone from seeing her pain.
“Maybe not, but I don’t think you fared any better than he did. Find your peace, Olivia, and let him find his.”
I swallowed, pulling my hand free and replacing the emotion with the facade that protected me from it.