“I thought you’d be ashamed of me or think I was stupid.”
His brows shot to his hairline. “You’re not stupid.” He stepped closer and lifted his hands to her shoulders. “Look at everything you’ve accomplished.”
“I didn’t accomplish anything. I never graduated high school.”
“And yet you took care of your dad, supported yourself, and stepped in and took care of Jack when he had no one.”
“Anyone could have done that.”
“No,” he said with a hard shake of his head. “Not anyone.”
“I’m going to get my GED. Olivia said it would take a while to get to the point where I can, but she thinks I’ll get there.”
“I know you will.” He lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers, right there in the middle of town after she’d told him her darkest secret. “I’m proud of you, Erica.” He lowered his head, but he yanked it back up before he kissed her again. “Wait a minute. Is that what you’ve been keeping from me? Is that the secret you weren’t going to tell me?”
She felt her cheeks flame. “Yes. Can’t you understand why I didn’t want to tell you? It’s embarrassing.”
“I thought…” He dropped his hands and looked up to the sky. “When you said something about your past, I thought you’d been abused.”
“What?” Erica couldn’t believe he’d think the worst. “Abused how?”
“I don’t know. You said your dad was a drunk and your brother left home when you were just a kid. I thought maybe your dad hit you or…or worse.”
“Oh my gosh! Do you really think I’d put up with that?”
“Kids don’t put up with abuse, Erica, they suffer through it.” He yanked her into a bone-crushing hug. “I’m so relieved you can’t read.”
Erica held very still and then relaxed into Lyle’s arms. He didn’t care. He didn’t think she was stupid. Olivia had been right all along. Telling Lyle wasn’t the end of the world. “I never expected that to be your reaction.”
“So you went into that hearing and told everyone Olivia’s been teaching you to read?” When Erica nodded, Lyle held her tighter. “That must have been scary. You’re so very brave and one hell of a woman, Erica Forrester.”
She pulled back and looked up into his beautiful face.
That wasn’t so hard
, Erica thought. The way he stared down at her with his dimples popping out made everything inside of her feel soft and gooey. “So are you, Lyle. I mean, one hell of a man.”
He laughed and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Any more secrets?”
“Not that I can think of,” she said.
“Okay. Let’s keep it that way. Come on.” He tugged her back inside the building. “Let’s go see if Olivia’s done.”
Chapter 47
After the beautiful wedding ceremony, where there wasn’t a dry eye in the church, and a limousine ride to Westmoreland’s fanciest hotel, Mrs. Tyler Bloodworth went in search of her best friend. She found Olivia poking her fork into a piece of chocolate groom’s cake at a table in the corner while the music blared and people—well, Ty’s grandfather—danced like loons.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jill sat next to Olivia. Being off her feet, if only for a moment, felt like heaven. “I thought you’d be ecstatic after the charges were dropped. You put on a good front during the rehearsal dinner and wedding, but I’m not buying it.”
“I am ecstatic. I feel like a giant weight is off my shoulders and I can finally make plans for the future. Sure, it stings a little that Cole got away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, but at least it’s over. How are you holding up?”
“I’m starting to wind down. I should probably eat something, but Mom said she’d pack us a basket to take to the room. I’m so tired if I tried to eat now, I’d fall asleep in my plate.” Jill watched her parents make their way to the dance floor. “I know you and Lyle think I’m crazy for going through with this wedding, but that right there” –she pointed at her parents laughing and swaying on the dance floor– “is why. She never had a wedding. My dad was in the navy and about to ship overseas. She loved every minute of today. They both did.”
Olivia smiled. “The wedding was beautiful. Ty really loves you, Jill. I’ve always known that, but it was so vivid on his face today. Everybody saw it.”
“I love him so much.” She gripped her chest when her heart swelled. “He’s so good to me, Olivia. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell him or show him how full I feel because of him. To know that he loves me and wants to spend his life with me…” Jill couldn’t help but notice how sad Olivia looked. She laid her hand over Olivia’s. “I want that for you, too. Why don’t you tell Jack how you feel?”
“I can’t. He’s not like Ty. He doesn’t need someone to complete his life, and if he did, it wouldn’t be me. I want what you have, Jill. I never knew how much until now.” She placed her fork on the table. “Well, until Jack.” She dropped her head in her hands. “I’m not going to get over him. I’m never going to get over him.”
“Oh, honey.” Jill rubbed Olivia’s back and tried to think of something, anything to say that would make her feel better. Words wouldn’t ease the sting. “You didn’t see the way he held you on the dance floor. He’s not unaffected by you, that’s for sure. I don’t know him well enough to read his face, but he cares about you, Olivia. I wish you’d tell him and take a chance.”
“I’m sorry to be such a downer on your big day.” She sat up and pasted on a fake smile. “I’m done whining. Things are good. I’ve been cleared of wrongdoing, I can redo my student teaching next semester outside of the county, and then who knows? I might even move out your way for a change. Maybe Atlanta, where it’s not so cold all the time.”
“Or Denver?” Jill asked.
“No, not Denver. Lyle said he’s almost done with the interviewing. Jack will be going home soon, and I can’t. I just can’t.”
Jill spotted Ty a few feet away talking to Jack. She winked at him, discreetly held up a finger, and hoped Jack paid attention long enough for Olivia to tell him how she felt after all.
***
Jack stood behind a potted plant and listened as Olivia poured her heart out to Jill. What did she mean “not Denver”? What was wrong with Denver? Was it because of him? He refused to panic just because she’d mentioned moving to Atlanta, but his heart didn’t seem to want to calm. When someone slapped him on his shoulder, Jack jolted.
“How’s the cake?” Ty asked. “I only got a bite.”
“Its good,” Jack said, feeling like a fool for eavesdropping behind a plant. “Congratulations. You’re a lucky man.”
“That I am. Thank you.”
“I take it you’re all settled back in North Carolina?”
“We are. Jill really likes it there, thank goodness, because that’s where my job is, and my family, of course.”
“Family’s important.”
“It is. If I could get Jill’s parents to relocate, everything would be perfect.”
Jack hated inane small talk, but he went along with it anyway. The guy was inordinately happy for someone who’d just chained himself to the same woman for the rest of his life. “I thought you were supposed to hate your in-laws?”
“If we can make it through this wedding and still like each other, I think we’re in the clear. Until the grandkids come along, or so I hear.”
“Starting a family already?”
“No, not right away, but in a few years. I’m actually looking forward to it.”
Something was going on inside Jack’s stomach. He felt nauseated and nervous. All the talk about happily ever after and kids, things he’d never considered, they now sounded possible. Satisfying, even. He shook his head. What was wrong with him? He’d never thought of marriage and kids as anything other than traps binding a man and keeping him down forever.
Then he heard Olivia’s voice and everything inside of him—the nerves and the tension—fused into only one thing, only one thought: Olivia. Marriage was a trap, but hadn’t he been practically living with her for the last few months and happier than ever? Kids were a drain, but wouldn’t it be a miracle to create a life out of love?
His head jerked up, and he almost dropped his plate. He loved her. Jack loved Olivia. He knew he’d been skirting around the fringes of it. He thought he’d kept himself just outside its hypnotic range, but he’d been wrong. That was why he couldn’t imagine going back to Denver. That was why he couldn’t bring himself to be truly happy the charges were dropped, allowing her to move on with her life. With another man. Just the thought of someone else touching her made him want to rip something in two. Jack Forrester, the man with a thousand reasons not to marry, had tripped and fallen. He’d be damned if the woman he loved would move across the country and start over after she’d changed everything, absolutely everything, about his life.
“Excuse me, please,” he said to Ty and walked to Olivia’s side. “Olivia? I need to talk to you.”
Jill stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Olivia’s feeling a little blue. Maybe you can cheer her up?” She walked toward her new husband.
“What’s going on?” Olivia said.
Jack simply held out his hand. After he’d made up his mind, he felt confident and sure. There was music playing, something soft and slow. He liked the idea of holding her while he told her she needed to change her mind about Denver. “Dance with me.”
She looked up at him, but she didn’t sound happy. “Okay.” She slipped her hand into his. He let her lead him through the tables and onto the wooden dance floor. He gathered her into his arms and tried to organize his thoughts. What he was about to say to Olivia was the biggest sales job of his life, one with shaky odds and the promise of riches like he’d never known. “When I lost my vision—”
“You can see, Jack, just not as well as you used to.”
“Okay, when my vision changed and I lost everything I held precious, I thought my life was over. Sure, I adapted, made some changes—new city, new career, new life—but it always felt like biding my time.”
“Biding your time until what?” Olivia asked.
“I was never really sure,” he admitted and dropped his head to inhale her scent. It seemed stronger, like it was a part of him and not just her. Or maybe the two of them created their own unique scent. “I came up with the idea of the book and approached a couple of editors, but I’m not sure what made me go with Lyle. I’d never heard of him; even my editor tried to talk me out of using him. He was an untested unknown. I figured, what the hell, I’ll take a risk. I’d made a career and a life out of taking risks. Why stop? Maybe I was itching for a challenge, maybe it was that he lived in Colorado and I wouldn’t have to go far, but something made me select him over some very qualified, very impressive writers who courted me.”
“Courted how?”
He breathed a little easier when her voice lightened and he felt her relax in his arms. “Oh, you know. A lot of smoke blowing and ego stroking.”
“Um, just what you needed.”
“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I didn’t enjoy it. But what I enjoyed more was telling them I’d chosen Lyle—the son of a romance writer. As expected, the smoke curled in a different direction.”
“Are you having doubts about Lyle?”
“Even if the book is a flop, and I’ve got to be honest, I don’t really care, I can’t regret coming here. Erica’s falling in love and, thanks to you, she’s reading and looking forward to the future.”
“She’s like a different person than the woman I first met with a huge chip on her shoulder and a mile high wall around her heart. Lyle’s changed that for her. They’re both sickeningly happy.”
“I’m a different person since coming here, too.” He pulled her back enough to look down at her face. He couldn’t see her features clearly, but he’d know if she smiled. She wasn’t smiling. “But not because I’m falling in love.” She faltered almost imperceptibly, but since he was absorbing everything about her—the quickness of her breath, the sway of her hips, the feel of her hand in his—he noticed and took it as a sign. “I’ve already fallen. As a matter of fact, I’m flat on my back. You kicked my legs right out from under me, Olivia, faster and with more force than waking up and being unable to see. I should be very mad at you.”
Her hand jerked before going completely limp. Her breath stopped and then picked up at lightning speed, her hips ceased moving right along with her feet and his heart. But her mouth—that luscious, delectable, gorgeous mouth—slanted into a smile so bright he could almost count her teeth. “What…what are you saying, Jack?”
“For a teacher, you’re not very smart.”
She smacked his arm. “I want to hear you say it. Say the words, Jack. I need to hear the words.”
“I love you, Olivia. I’m so stupidly, madly in love with you. And since you did this to me, I’ve got a few things I want you to do for me.”
“Anything,” she said. “Absolutely anything.”
“You’re going to student teach in Denver.” He held a finger to her lips when she began to interrupt. He wasn’t anywhere near done. “Once you’ve done your student teaching, if you don’t want to stay in Denver, we’ll move, but it has to be somewhere I can get around without feeling like a twelve-year-old.”
“I—”
“I’m not done.” He was far from done. Even though the song had changed to something fast and cheesy and people hopped and jolted around them, he kept swaying her. “I want to be married and settled before we start a family, so as soon as you can get things arranged, we’re getting married.”