Butterfly Cove (10 page)

* * *

T
HE IMAGES DRIFTED
up through her dreams, carried on currents of emotion. Half forgotten, the colors and sounds mingled in a restless dance.

Olivia had just turned thirteen. Rafe was almost sixteen.

It had been a bad time for Olivia. She hated the German class her father insisted she take. The sounds were rough and harsh and the grammar defied all logic. Her heart had been set on Italian, a language of beauty and architecture. She had even begun studying it on her own. But her father had scoffed and put his foot down.

German it would be. German was important for science and math and business.

In the end Olivia had yielded.

But that year her father had turned more distant, trusting her less and less. Every day he questioned her about where she went after school and who her friends were and why she didn’t study harder so she could make a success of herself. Olivia already spent four out of five school nights at home studying. Usually she spent Saturday mornings studying, too. But it never seemed to be enough for her father.

In desperation, she announced that she had been invited to join an advanced-study group. Since the others were children of her father’s closest friends, he gave complete approval. And so Thursday nights were spent at the library with people she hated. Olivia had suffered through the gossip, the competition and the cutting comments for one reason only.

She knew that Rafe would be waiting at her back fence, silent in the shadows, when she walked home. And for fifteen minutes every Thursday night, there beneath the big apple tree in her backyard, Olivia felt alive, filled with dreams and colors, determined that she could find a future that she chose, not her father.

Rafe was different there in the quiet of night, with the chirp of crickets the only sound. When he was alone with Olivia he was quiet and thoughtful. He listened to everything she said and gave careful answers that Olivia knew she could trust.

But there was more than listening there in the darkness.

There was restless tension and heated skin. When their hands met, she felt her face flame. She remembered that heat, the way her skin flushed and her throat felt dry and her body stirred with need. The heat was part of her memory, but there was joy and adventure and a sense of deep connection, too. She believed in Rafe and drank up his words when he talked about places he meant to see when he was a little older and he left Summer Island.

There had never been any doubt that he would leave Summer Island.

Where? Olivia wanted to know. What would he see first?

The Loire Valley.

Machu Picchu.

Umbria in spring.

Olivia drank in the names, wanting to go with him, wanting adventure and discovery and all the restless, hot, physical desire that he stirred in her blood.

Sometimes they kissed. As wind whispered through the trees, the brush of their mouths was gentle and tentative. Olivia knew there could be far more to a kiss. She knew Rafe could have explored her aching, sensitive skin and pushed that experience to a different place. Olivia would never have stopped him.

But he didn’t. He took a hard breath and whispered her name and then moved away to lean against the shadowed fence.

Their time always ended too soon. In ten minutes or in twelve, the lights would come on in the kitchen and Olivia knew that her father was there waiting for her, frowning as he checked his watch. And Olivia’s dreams died every night when Rafe squeezed her hand and then handed Olivia her nearly forgotten book bag.

He always made certain that her hair was smooth and her sweater was straight.

Because her father would check for that, too.

When she looked back through the quiet darkness, he raised his hand once and then slid into the shadows. Olivia wondered if her life would ever change and if she would be ground down by her father’s rules and expectations. All through that year and the next, when she was thirteen and then fourteen and her world felt grim and the anxiety attacks began to grow more frequent, Olivia shut everything away except Rafe and the dream of spices in a hot wind and the sound of bells in a mountain valley.

Umbria in spring.

Machu Picchu.

The Loire Valley.

Those dreams kept her whole when everything felt gray and bleak. Olivia swore to herself on the day Rafe left Summer Island, she would go with him.

She would go without a backward glance.

She already had a suitcase packed, hidden inside an old trunk up in the attic. She would go no matter what her father or anyone else said. She would see all those places that Rafe could take her.

Now, years later, caught in sleep, Olivia moved restlessly, her hands tense. She made a low sound of pain and loss.

Because in the end, it hadn’t turned out that way. Not even close. Her father had won after all.

* * *

O
LIVIA WOKE UP
to noisy banging on her door. She blinked, shaking away tangled dreams of Rafe and the old apple tree in her backyard.

When she sat up sharply, pain dug into her shoulder. Olivia winced and looked around her. No one was banging on the door. The sound was coming from the window, where a dry branch scraped hard against the glass. Even then the tangled heat of her restless dreams seemed to linger. Rafe had been in those dreams. She remembered him standing in the shadows, touching her hair.

Olivia blew out an irritated breath and shook her head. No more dreams. She looked down and checked her watch. She had been asleep for almost two hours, and now it was nearly dark outside.

Delicious smells drifted up from the kitchen. Olivia sniffed and decided it had to be Jilly’s amazing Southwest lasagna and some kind of chocolate dessert.

Right on cue, her stomach grumbled.

But first Olivia needed to clean up. Her hair was a wreck and she would have loved a shower, but that would have to wait. Struggling in and out of her clothes would be an ordeal, and she simply refused to ask Jilly for help undressing and getting dressed again. A splash of water and a quick brushing of her hair would be as much as she could manage.

When she opened the door to the little adjoining bathroom, she saw Jilly’s handwritten note taped to the sink, written in big block letters.
PLUMBING UNDER REPAIR. DO NOT USE.

Rolling her eyes, Olivia pulled on her sweater and shoes and made her way slowly downstairs to the small ground-floor bathroom at the back of the house. She was still feeling the effects of the pain pill she had taken before her nap. She didn’t handle medicine well, and these pills had been strong.

She shoved back her hair and glanced outside, hearing Jilly’s laughter and the sound of Duffy’s barking. Walker said something about a new invoice from the hardware store. Olivia frowned, trying to listen, but she couldn’t pick up the details.

The worry returned, heavier than before. She had no job and her savings were limited. There was no way she could help out until she found a job or until she managed to straighten out the mess of her father’s business accounts.

Distracted, she pushed at the bathroom door. It caught a little, as if something was stuck, but Olivia knew all the old house’s secrets. Half-asleep, she turned the knob backward. With a gentle tug, she lifted the handle slightly while turning the knob in the same motion.

The door swung open.

Warm air brushed her face. Jilly had probably taken a shower here recently. The way they had all been working on the repairs, this had become a second home for all of them.

She shot a quick glance in the mirror, frowning at the chaos of her hair. She wished she had a different set of clothes, something better than the old cotton sweater she wore while working.

Maybe she would ask—

Every thought flashed out of her mind as Rafe emerged through the steaming air from the alcove beside the shower. Olivia stood rooted to the spot, her heart pounding.

He was naked, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the tanned, muscular sweep of his powerful body.

CHAPTER EIGHT

H
OT STEAM DRIFTED
around Olivia’s face. Warm air brushed her cheeks and shoulders. She couldn’t seem to move, fascinated by the little beads of water running down Rafe’s tanned chest. There was a scar at the base of his right shoulder. Another one crisscrossed his collarbone. Olivia swallowed hard, thinking about Rafe in Afghanistan, wondering what had put those scars there. Or had they come long before Afghanistan, in some scrappy fight or mishap right here in Oregon?

She didn’t know how or why, but her finger rose. Gently she traced the scar that crossed his collarbone. When their skin touched, he seemed to stiffen. She saw his jaw clench.

She shouldn’t be here. She definitely shouldn’t be touching him this way. But none of that seemed to matter. Her finger tracked another little scar up the edge of his jaw to the side of his cheek.

“What happened?” Olivia asked, her voice low and raw with emotion.

Rafe reached up. His callused fingers curled around her wrist. “Olivia, you should go.”

“I want to know, Rafe. Can you answer one simple question?”

He muttered as her fingers moved, feathering over the locked line of his jaw. He blew out an angry breath. “What happened? Fighting. Angry men in angry places. Some of them were in a distant country, but not all of them. Men fight wherever they are,” Rafe said grimly.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia whispered. She brushed another scar along his wrist. “So sorry.”

“Why? You’re the last one who has to apologize. You were the only one who never hurt me, Livie. The only one who showed me...” Rafe shook his head, his eyes dark and troubled. “You were the only one who showed me that things didn’t always have to hurt. You could always reach me. You seemed to know exactly how.”

Olivia rose and kissed his jaw gently. “I’m glad,” she whispered.

A shudder ran through him. His fingers opened on her wrist. He slid their hands together and worked his fingers through hers. His skin was rough, warm; this slow touch brought back dangerously intimate memories.

Desire bloomed, racing blindly through Olivia’s chest, until every part of her was suddenly alive. Aware.

Needing more.

Olivia caught a long breath. She wasn’t sixteen anymore. She knew where this could lead. Once before they had come too close.

Her gaze locked with Rafe’s. The air seemed charged, heavy with old memories and emotions too powerful to face.

Rafe closed his eyes, leaning back against the tile wall, Olivia’s hands still caught between his fingers. “I should have come to say goodbye that night, Livie. But there were reasons—”

“I don’t care. It’s over, Rafe. This isn’t about the past.”

“Then what
is
it about?” His voice was harsh.

“I don’t have a clue. Not one single clue,” Olivia said hoarsely.

It was time to go. It was time to stop this dangerous thread of wishing things could be different, wondering whether they could go back. She blew out an angry breath and pulled her hand from his, needing to be anywhere but here, anyplace where the warm steamy air didn’t betray all her hard-won self-control. Olivia pressed a shaky hand against the corner linen closet and the door popped open, towels raining down on her head and shoulders. An old metal towel rack shoved in a corner spilled out and struck her head and she caught back a sharp sound of pain.

With a curse Rafe grabbed the long piece of metal. Carefully he lifted Olivia’s damp hair back from her cheek. “Are you okay? There’s a cut above your eye, Livie. I think you should—”

“What I should do is leave.” She elbowed him in the ribs with her good arm, blinking away tears. What had made her think she could go back? What had made her dream that anything could be different between them? “Let me go, damn it.”

Rafe took a slow step back. Distance filled his face. “I’m not holding you, Livie. And I’ve never meant to cause you pain.”

“But you did. I thought we had the same plans and hopes, when we weren’t even close. I guess I should thank you, though. You made me grow up a lot sooner than I might have,” she said roughly. “And I have one more thing to tell you. I don’t think we should see each other. Not ever. When I see you walking on the street, I’m going to cross to the other side. I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same,” she said coldly.

After a long time, Rafe nodded. “You’re right. You usually are. Fine. I’ll keep out of your way.”

He reached down and his long fingers locked at the top of the towel that was wrapped around his waist. Olivia looked away, determined not to study that strong, rangy body or the hard line of his chest and the powerful muscles that vanished below the edge of the towel.

If she looked there, if she let down her control, she would be lost.

Just the way she had been lost as a girl.

She turned her back to Rafe. She felt cold air brush her neck and then the sound of his feet moving to the door.

“I’ll keep out of your way. I only wish I’d been able to keep out of your way all those years ago.”

Olivia felt steam brush her face, followed by cool air as the door closed.

And then he was gone.

She put one hand on her chest to soothe her pounding heart. The sense of loneliness was crushing. Closing her eyes, she leaned back, feeling the cold tile at her neck as she began to tremble, caught by anger and hurt and years of regret.

And even then she wanted him.

* * *

“
E
VERYTHING OKAY,
R
AFE?”

Jilly was in the kitchen, her face flushed from cooking. “I thought you had two more hours before work?”

“Got a call. Somebody’s sick and they need me early.” If only that had been a lie. If only he hadn’t been showering in that spare bathroom he might have missed Olivia. He didn’t want to remember her surprise—or the way desire had flared into her expressive face. Rafe could always read that face.