Chapter 26
Hudson
Aweek passed with no word from Olivia and no relief from the constant pang in my heart as it attempted not to shrivel and die.
The house became a constant reminder of her.
Perfume that clung to every fiber of cloth, stray hairs caught on my jacket, a tube of lip gloss left in the bathroom.
But it was the empty side of the bed that rattled me every night, the warmth that was missing.
And not the warmth of just anybody. It was her warmth, her essence, that no longer filled the space.
It was a sensation that had engulfed me when she’d left the first time and that I’d only ever had with her.
On Friday, I received an email from her assistant with specifics on the next stages of the ranch, and I emailed him back saying I wanted to hear directly from her. My only reply was a curt email from her saying to send the assistant my recommendations for builders or they would hire someone.
It chafed, rubbing against the wound she’d left, but somehow I knew it was her defenses. She wasn’t ready to talk yet. Hadn’t found whoever she was searching for by cutting herself off from me.
After the third week, I knew I couldn’t take much more.
The phone sat in my hand, her contact information up, my fingers ready to text her.
To say what, I wasn’t sure. I stared at her name, yearning clawing at me until I closed it out and put the phone away.
She would call me when she was ready. I just didn’t know when that would be or if I could survive that long.
Having her gone left me only time to think, and as the days compounded the agony that spoiled my mood and kept me from going into town, even after the snow cleared up, I considered what my options were if she didn’t want to leave New York and concluded that asking her to do so was selfish.
Either way, one of us looked selfish, but she had lost so much in her life.
Some stolen from her, some sacrificed. Her mother, her childhood.
Her relationship with her brother. Me. I wasn’t certain I could ask her to sacrifice more, even if it was just a few days a week of traveling between homes.
I wiped my hands on my jeans and left the barn, my stomach growling even though my appetite had been lacking. When I reached the porch, I found a package. I hadn’t even heard the delivery truck.
Snow still covered the land, the air a bitter reminder that winter was here.
Snagging the package, I kicked the snow from my boots and took them off at the door.
After hanging up my coat and hat, I carried the package to the island and ripped it open, falling to the stool when I found the pink journal I’d given Olivia.
The leather had a worn look, the pages full when I flipped through it.
And under my dedication to her was a note.
I can’t let you love me until you know who I really am.
Olivia
My heart thudded in an erratic pattern as I grabbed a glass of water and took a seat with the journal on my couch.
If I’d known how engrossed I would become, I might have grabbed a beer and lunch, but I hadn’t, and it was well past dinner by the time I finished reading.
The journal fell with a flop into my lap as I contemplated all I had read.
Moments that had taken place during the years we’d dated.
All the times she had told me not to visit her, to stay home and she would find a way to see me.
She would come to stay with my family in the summer, sometimes for a week or two.
Other times we would meet halfway and spend the day together.
Never had it been enough, and our breaks became torturous events.
Perhaps they had hardened me to being without her for long periods, but regardless, I had hated them.
And all the time, she had been hiding the violence, both physical and emotional, the constant belittling, the emotions that would have tipped any person over the edge.
Keeping it caged and never sharing it with me until now.
Within every memory were the reminders of what I had provided for her.
The constant focus on my strength and how it kept her from faltering, how returning to me eased the strain and gave her a reprieve.
The force of my love for her and the conviction that it would never fade.
I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands.
The urge to call her, to comfort her, screamed through me like a wicked storm.
My stomach grumbled again, and I rose, taking the journal to my office and storing it away with the paper horses I’d tucked back into my desk after she had left.
My fingers drifted over them before I closed the drawer and made my way back to the kitchen.
With each step, my resolve strengthened.
It was time to take the burden from her and be the one to sacrifice this time because if I didn’t, she would sacrifice again, and it would be me she would give up.
I pulled my phone out as I took a beer from the fridge and dialed Jessie.
“Hey. How are you?” She and Carl had texted multiple times, but I hadn’t been ready to talk. Still wasn’t.
“Surviving.” That was a stretch. “Can you and Carl mind the ranch for me for a few days?”
I could hear the smile in her voice when she answered. “Sure. When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Nothing like short notice. We’ll be there.”
I hung up, and, after settling the horses for the night, sat at my computer and booked the first flight out to New York City.
I rubbed my neck, trying to quiet the headache that was pounding. City life had always grated on my nerves. Too loud, too many people, too much of everything.
“So the prodigal son returns.”
I turned to see my brother, Parker, coming toward me.
He put his hand out, and I took it, tugging him into a big hug.
Unlike Olivia and Gabe, Parker and I hugged whenever we were back together.
I pushed him back, holding my hands on his arms and checking him out.
He looked sharp in a gray designer suit, pressed perfectly and accented with silver cufflinks.
Parker and I were the same height, but where I had my mother’s blond hair, he had my father’s thick head of black hair.
Only our brown eyes matched. Otherwise, it was difficult to tell we were brothers.
“This look is good on you,” I said, letting my hands fall. The last I’d seen him two years ago, he was in jeans and a button-down, visiting me on the ranch for the weekend.
“Funny to see you without that damn cowboy hat,” he joked, tussling my hair. “You put that fancy suit on for Mom?”
I adjusted the sleeves of the suit I’d bought on the fly when I’d gotten into town the day before. It was restricting and reminded me of my life here and what I was giving up for happiness. An exchange of one joy for another. It seemed an even trade.
“Yeah. Best I could do on short notice.”
“She’ll call you out for the brand, but at least you tried.” He ribbed me in the side, and I shoved him back. “Come on, she’s waiting.”
“Seriously? She made me schedule the time with her, and she’s complaining about waiting?” I was early for the nine-thirty meeting with my mother, knowing she’d mention it if I was even a second late.
“You know how she is.” His expression turned serious. “You really want to do this?”
When I’d called him the same night I’d asked Jessie to watch the ranch, it had taken three times of him asking if it was the same Olivia Icinda before he believed me.
Did I want to do this? No, but for Olivia I would. “Yes.”
“Have you talked to Olivia since you got into town?”
“No. I need to get my ducks in a row first.” Like she was. I supposed we had both needed our space. Her to find herself and me to realize what I’d be giving up if I let her walk away again.
“What if she says no, Hud?”
I shrugged. “I go back to Montana with my tail between my legs.”
“And you think Mom will let you do that?”
The thought of talking to my mother, of groveling to gain my way back into her favor, had my stomach bunching.
The fact that I had to schedule time with her was just another slap in the face.
Once I bargained with the devil, would she let me go so easily if I’d read Olivia wrong?
If I were overstepping by stepping into her world?
“I’ll deal with it.” I tugged my sleeves down.
His brows crinkled, his chestnut eyes holding understanding.
“Let’s get you in there before you’re late and she cancels the meeting.”
“She would do that, wouldn’t she?” I said with a chuckle.
“Yes, she would.”
He led me from the reception area where I’d been waiting, as if I weren’t her son and simply some intern waiting for an interview. Her punishment for my leaving.
“What kind of mood is she in today?” I asked, scraping a hand through my hair before quickly patting it back in place so it wouldn’t look messy. Since when did I worry about my hair looking messy? Since I’d decided to sell my soul back to the devil.
I looked around the floor, into the offices with stylish people and expensive clothes. Lesser versions of Olivia without the beauty she held.
My mother’s office was at the end of the floor, its view the best in the city, overlooking the Hudson River, which my parents had named me after. My brother had an office next door, my old office.
“You’ll see. Stop by on your way out. Maybe we can grab a beer tonight?”
I scratched my cheek, missing the constant stubble that was normally there. Missing the mountain air and my horses.
“Yeah. Let’s see how today goes. Might need a few if it doesn’t work out.”
“It will,” he said, slapping a hand on my back. I gave him a nod and a forced smile before continuing to my mother’s office. My knock on the door had her answering with a terse, “Enter.”
Hesitation gripped me right before I grabbed the doorknob and entered.
A panoramic view of the city and the river spanned before me, but my eyes focused only on the woman behind the desk.
In the decade since I’d last seen her, gray had invaded her blonde hair, which she now wore in a sleek bob.
Her blue eyes rose and evaluated me before she stood from her desk.
Intimidating was the word people used to describe my mother.
And as she walked around the desk, her heels added to her five-eleven stature, so she stood almost eye level with me.
But while my mother was hard and refined in the business world, demanding and feared, she was nothing like Olivia’s father.
“Hudson.” She gave me a smile as she stood before me, her eyes sweeping over me right before her arms embraced me.
As stubborn and expectant as she was, I had morphed our reunion into something loud and argumentative, keeping my distance since the day she’d cut my inheritance off and kicked me out of her office.
Time had given me insight into her disappointment and her reasons, but never the strength to pick up the phone and call her, to make amends, even with Parker telling me to.
“Hi, Mom.” I returned her hug, inhaling the mint and vanilla scent from my childhood.
Even if my plan regarding Olivia didn’t work out,, her return had been the impetus for this moment, one that might never have come if she hadn’t opened my eyes to how miserable I’d been by closing myself off for so long.
“Let me look at you.” She pushed me back and walked around me, ruffling my hair as she did. Perhaps the time apart had softened her some because she seemed more relaxed than I’d ever remembered. Or maybe it was age.
Leaning on her desk, she said, “I should have known with how stubborn you are that you’d avoid me. Of course, twelve years is a long punishment.”
“You disinherited me and kicked me out of your office. It wasn’t a heartwarming memory,” I grumbled.
She waved her hand, dismissing the words. “I was angry with you for throwing your future away. An opportunity that most people would kill for.”
“An opportunity I didn’t want.” And here we went. This was why I hadn’t called her. “This is Parker’s thing. It always has been, and you tried to stuff me into that same box.”
With a sigh, she uncrossed her arms and gestured for me to sit. I remained where I was, hesitant to get too comfortable.
“You had potential.”
“But not the drive, and you knew that.”
Head tilting, her blue eyes observed me, softening some before she said, “I did. You were always different from your brother. Your mind on the farm with those damn horses you loved so much.”
I held my breath, waiting for the lecture on how I’d disappointed her.
“If I’d known this rift would form between us, I wouldn’t have forced your hand, but I thought you would come back.”
“I told you I was leaving for good.”
“I know. But this is your home, and what did you have out there? No girlfriend, that Icinda girl ruined that for you, no family, no money.”
I cringed at the mention of Olivia, remembering how even years after she’d left, I was still a walking wound.
“I didn’t disinherit you,” she said with a nonchalance that didn’t match the confession. “I was angry, and the words came out, but I never would have.”
I squeezed my hands, balancing myself as her confession nearly knocked me off my feet.
“But I meant what I said about the money. That was all I’ll give, so if that’s why you’re here, Hudson, turn back around and leave.”
There was the shrewd businesswoman who held her own in a world where men dominated until she toppled them.
“I’m not here for money. I have a proposition.”
Her brow arched, and she crossed her arms, waiting to hear my words.
I ached to run my fingers over the brim of my hat, to roll it through them and have an outlet for my nervous energy, but there was none, and showing any weakness like putting my hands in my pockets would throw doubt in my mother’s mind that I was serious.
My future with Olivia was on the line, so I couldn’t afford for that to happen.
Instead, I cleared my throat and said the words I’d dreaded for every mile the plane had crossed to get me to this point.