One Frosty Night. Janice Kay Johnson
that intense something was had kept his hope alive, even though she wasn’t receptive on the few occasions he managed to meet up with her during her visits home. When she had moved in with her parents ten months ago, to take over her dad’s business, he’d thought, Now I have a chance.
But apparently he’d been fooling himself, because she kept treating him like the merest acquaintance, not someone who’d once been a friend, never mind her high school boyfriend and first lover.
His fault, he knew, but still he kept thinking—
Didn’t matter. It was time he quit thinking about Olivia. Unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life alone, maybe he should start noticing other women. Much to his mother’s dismay, he hadn’t so much as gone on a date in the two and a half years since he’d come home to Crescent Creek with his stepson.
I should change that.
He gave a grunt of unhappiness and took one more look at the cemetery in his rearview mirror. A fresh bed of snow covered the graves, new and old. Only the headstones showed. The one he pictured most vividly said, “Jane Doe, Much Mourned,” and gave the date of the girl’s death.
Usually he ate at his desk or in the cafeteria with the kids. The one student he stayed far away from was his stepson. Most students likely knew Carson’s dad was principal, but the two didn’t share a last name, and Ben figured it was just as well not to remind anyone. Today Ben had felt the need to get away. Ever since Marsha Connelly had found the girl dead, he’d felt unsettled. No, that was putting it too mildly. He’d felt a gathering sense of foreboding, as if the one tragedy was a harbinger of worse to come. His worry increased with the second death following so soon, even if it was unrelated. He didn’t like the atmosphere at school. Sure, he’d expect kids to be disturbed about the death of a girl their age, but— This felt like more. Not whispers, he wasn’t hearing those. More like silence, unnatural for hormone-driven teenagers. Especially such sustained silence.
He frowned. Foreboding?
Slowing when he reached downtown, he thought with near amusement, Right. He was dramatizing his own depression. Call a spade a spade.
And then, right in front of him, he saw Olivia and her mother come out of Guido’s, the town’s one Italian restaurant. His foot lifted from the gas. The hesitation was enough to make him miss the light, which allowed him to watch mother and daughter walk side by side for a block without speaking, if he wasn’t mistaken. Both backs were stiff. They stayed a good two feet apart, careful never to so much as brush arms. Then they parted, with Marian Bowen looking both ways and crossing the street to her car, while Olivia continued on toward her father’s hardware store.
No, her mother’s store now, he supposed.
And there was a parking spot a half a block from the store. It was meant— He put on his signal, pulled into it and jumped out, his timing perfect to intercept Olivia.
Well, shit. Maybe he hadn’t given up hope after all.
* * *
HEAD BENT, SHE walked fast. Her eyes burned, and she thought seriously about not going back to work at all. Except...where would she go? Not home, that was for sure.
Home for how much longer?
Oblivious to her surroundings, she smacked right into somebody, who then grabbed her arms and kept her upright when she bounced back. Even before she lifted her head, Olivia knew who it was. Her body knew.
Ben Hovik. Tall, dark and handsome. The lanky boy who had, to her dismay, acquired muscles and matured into a man who would turn any woman’s head.
Except hers, of course. Been there, done that.
He was also the one person in town she went out of her way to avoid.
“Olivia.” His deep, slightly gritty voice was as gentle as it had been at her father’s funeral when he’d taken her hand in his. His expression was kind.
“I...excuse me. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
“You looked upset.”
She smiled weakly. “It hasn’t been the best of days.”
Her feet should be moving, but they weren’t. He stood there looking down at her, apparently in no hurry even though it was the middle of a school day.
Her heart cramped, as if she hadn’t already felt like a walking advertisement for Prilosec. Why did he have to look so damn good?
She had always noticed Ben. Mostly from a distance, until her first day as a freshman at the high school. He’d turned away from his locker and smiled at her, and she’d stumbled, dropped the backpack she’d just unzipped and spilled everything in it on the floor right in front of him. Lunch, pens, new gym clothes and athletic shoes. The rings on her binder had sprung open, compounding the mess. Her finest moment. When he’d helped her pick everything up and asked if she was all right, her crush metamorphosed into something a lot scarier.
The amazing thing was, he seemed to feel the same. He asked her out, she went. They fell in love. Made love. Talked about the future. Only, of course, she still had two years of high school left when he graduated, so he went off to college first, where there were lots of pretty girls his own age. She should have expected it, but she’d been stupidly naive and hadn’t. He’d broken her heart, and, nope, seeing him right at this particular minute in time was not making her feel better.
“I need to get back to work,” she said. Feet still not moving.
His dark eyes were penetrating, and his hands hadn’t left her upper arms. “You don’t look like someone who should be going in to work. Is it about your dad? I saw you were with your mom...”
Olivia laughed, a corrosive sound that had his eyebrows lifting. “Dad? Oh, sure. And Mom, who is apparently ready to throw off the old life and begin a new one.” Now, finally, she tried to shuffle sideways to go around him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Really, I need to go—”
“You need to vent,” he said firmly. “I’m here and willing. Plus, I’m discreet.” He looked momentarily rueful. “On my job, you get good at keeping secrets.”
Somehow she was letting him steer her to his Jeep Cherokee, which was right there at the curb. He must have just gotten out of it.
“Wait.” She tried to put on the brakes. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can talk. We can run through the Burger Barn drive-through and get drinks, then go park.”
The last time they’d parked... Not going there, she decided. They had “parked” a lot during their two years and five months as girlfriend-boyfriend. But the last time was when he’d said the devastating words: “I’ve met someone else.”
“No, I really should—”
“Olivia, you don’t want to go back to work looking the way you do.”
She closed her mouth on her protest. Even if she locked herself in her office, someone was sure to track her down. And she’d have to walk through the store to get to the stairs that led up to the loft where the offices were. She’d be waylaid ten times before she got that far.
Yes, but Ben Hovik...
There were worse people to talk to. Despite everything, she did believe he would keep a confidence. And he knew her parents, so he’d understand her bewilderment.
After a moment, she nodded and got in once he’d opened the door. From habit, she fastened the seat belt as he went around and got in, too.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother backing her Saab out of a curbside slot—which so happened to be right in front of the Home & County Real Estate office. Had she already listed the house?
Olivia’s coal of anger burned hotter.
Ben