Snowbound

by Deborah Cooke

  “Just friends,” Spencer said. “I know that’s what you want.”

  Her smile was tentative. “That’s a lot of driving for you.”

  He shrugged, knowing he’d be glad of every second in her presence. “I don’t mind. Your mom could come, too, and see you off.”

  Their gazes held one last time. Spencer’s mouth was dry and he felt as if he was filled with words and arguments in his own favor. But he’d tried, and she wasn’t convinced. As much as he wished otherwise, he respected her right to choose.

  Even if she didn’t choose him.

  Steps sounded on the porch and there was a flurry of knocking at the door. He turned away and opened the door to Lexi, who fell into the cabin with a ton of snow. “Hey, you two!” she said, her eyes alight with the expectation that something had happened. “How’s that magic tattoo, Liv?”

  Olivia put down her mug and reached for her jacket. “I told you there was no such thing as magic, Lexi.” She flicked a glance at Spencer. “Sometimes you have to run an experiment to be sure,” she added softly as if Spencer needed any more confirmation that he’d lost.

  Chapter Six

  The ride to the airport was quiet. Liv drove Mindy, knowing it would be the last time, and her mom sat beside her. Spencer was in the back, and even though he didn’t say much, Liv was keenly aware of his presence.

  Of his hope.

  Of the fact that she couldn’t fulfill it.

  When they got to the airport, he was gruff. “I’ll watch the car. Go to the gate with her, Audrey. You don’t know when you’ll see each other again.”

  Liv got out and Spencer moved to get into the driver’s seat. He gave her an intent look but didn’t touch her, his eyes so blue that the sight stole her breath away. “Have a good flight,” he said softly, his gaze sliding over her. “You know where to find me.”

  Liv’s mouth was dry and her throat was tight. She felt her tears well as she nodded, and she wished in that moment that she could believe, even for a little bit of time, just because she wasn’t ready for this to end. She caught at his sleeve and kissed his cheek quickly. He’d shaved and she felt how smooth his skin was in contrast to their few days of seclusion, and smelled his cologne. She was keenly aware of his warmth in a way that was new, that she’d like to explore even more, and she felt that tingle of desire that seemed to only get stronger in his presence.

  It was better, she told herself, to walk away now, when everything was at its peak. She couldn’t bear the possibility of watching this incredible feeling fade to nothing before her eyes. She couldn’t stand if it she was the one who broke his heart or hurt him in any way.

  “Thank you,” she said, and his gaze clung to hers for a long moment.

  Someone honked behind them and he nodded once, then got into the car. Adjusting the seat seemed to take all of his attention. Her mom was standing on the curb with Liv’s suitcase and she joined her, linking arms to walk into the terminal.

  Liv didn’t look back.

  Her mom didn’t comment on Spencer. They talked about everything and nothing, then hugged tightly before Liv went through security. “I’ll call you when I get there.”

  Audrey pushed her hands into her pockets and nodded, clearly blinking back tears. “I’m so proud of you, Livvie. Never forget that.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  She knew they weren’t parting forever. Her mom had already talked about making a visit to England during the summer. But Liv felt as if she had been hollowed out, scraped raw, left alone. Was this the downside of being mindful? Would every sensation be more powerful? In a way, the ache of parting made her want to go back, to be numb again, but then she thought of Spencer’s touch and couldn’t regret a thing.

  Her feelings would fade. She’d lose herself in her work again. She was independent and logical and confronted with an excellent challenge.

  She was going to make a difference to the bees.

  Just like that, Olivia was gone.

  With no apparent plans to come back to Honey Hill anytime soon.

  Spencer didn’t like it.

  But there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. The way he saw it, he’d argued his side as well as he could given the time constraints. Whatever would be would be.

  And if he was a bit grumpy in the kitchen at the lodge in the upcoming weeks or months, he figured Gabriel had it coming.

  He sat in the car at the airport and waited for Audrey.

  The problem was that he’d seen the yearning in Olivia’s eyes when he’d made his confession. On some level, she either believed in love or wanted to—she just didn’t think it was for her.

  That was a helluva legacy for her father to leave.

  He was feeling irritable when Audrey returned to the car, but he tried to hide it. It wasn’t her fault and they had a long drive ahead of them. He opened her door for her and forced a smile.

  “Nice of you to buy Mindy,” she said, her tone neutral.

  “I felt bad that Olivia lost her buyer because of the snow.”

  “That’s pretty generous,” Audrey noted.

  Spencer shrugged and pulled into the traffic. “I’ve been thinking about getting rid of the truck. I’ll give this a try and can always sell if it doesn’t work out.”

  Audrey nodded understanding. She was a slender woman with dark hair that she wore short. She did the bookkeeping at the lodge and seldom volunteered more than was absolutely necessary. She was polite, but not a warm person. Spencer thought of her as all angles and efficiency.

  “I thought there might have been another reason,” she said after they’d been silent for a long while.

  “Like what?”

  Audrey shrugged. “It was just a thought. There seemed to be a little tension today, and I didn’t realize you knew each other well enough for that.”

  Spencer was well aware that Lexi had told Audrey that Olivia had stayed with her, and he wasn’t going to be the one who revealed the truth. “Well, we both know Lexi.”

  Audrey made a non-committal sound. “I think Livvie will enjoy that work in England.”

  “Yes. I believe she will.”

  They drove in silence again. The roads were good, having been plowed and salted, but there wasn’t much traffic. They were making good time.

  Spencer realized he had an opportunity to learn more about Olivia from the person who knew her best. He took a deep breath. “She told me about her dad.”

  He felt Audrey turn to look at him in her surprise. “Why would she do that?”

  “Because I told her that I love her. I think she might love me, but she’s afraid to give us a chance. She says there’s no such thing as love, that attraction is a biological impulse to encourage us to mate.”

  “Ah,” Audrey said and glanced out the window. She frowned. “Jeremy’s legacy.”

  “Or yours?” he dared to ask.

  Audrey didn’t take offense. “You’re right. Neither she nor Brandon are romantics, and I admit that I made sure of that.”

  “I’d like to try to change her mind.”

  “Are you trying to impose your objectives on her?” Audrey shook her head. “I don’t like that much, Spencer.”

  “No. I’d like her to give us a chance. I’ll stand by her choice. I just want to know why she’s not even interested in trying.”

  “Didn’t she make her choice by going to England?” Audrey asked quietly and Spencer sighed.

  He frowned, nodded, and shut up.

  They continued in silence until Audrey sighed. “I understand why you might love her, Spencer. I love her with all my heart.”

  “Then why teach her to close herself to love? Won’t it hold her back from happiness?”

  “I thought it would guarantee her happiness, if she found it in herself instead of relying upon a man to provide it.” Audrey shook her head and sighed. “She was only four, Spencer. She was devastated by Jeremy’s departure. He was everything to her. Because I saw her hurt so badly, I never ever wanted
her to go through it again. I tried to protect her from heartbreak.”

  Spencer nodded, recalling his own reaction when he’d thought that some other guy had broken Olivia’s heart. “I understand.”

  Again, silence filled the car, until Spencer pulled into Audrey’s driveway. She hesitated before getting out of the car. “Did you tell her how you feel?”

  Spencer nodded.

  Audrey frowned. “She didn’t want to go.” She turned to face him, her gaze softer than it had been. “I couldn’t figure out why, but maybe now we both know.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter.”

  “Maybe it will.” She smiled and touched his hand again. “Thank you for driving me to the airport to see Livvie on her way, Spencer.”

  “You’re welcome. Thanks for confiding in me.”

  “Good luck,” she said softly before she got out of the car.

  Spencer had a feeling he was going to need all the luck he could get.

  Liv couldn’t believe the power of her short time with Spencer. In just a couple of days, he’d changed her perspective completely and that had turned her life upside-down. She went through all the motions and she doubted that anyone realized the turmoil of her thoughts.

  Attraction was supposed to be fleeting. It was intended to drive people to make and make more. Pure biology. Once lust was satisfied, desire should vanish.

  Not get stronger.

  Once the object of desire was out of view, lust should fade. Thoughts should wander. The eye should seek another object of desire.

  But Spencer showed no inclination to fade from Liv’s thoughts and her desire for him—and his company—was stronger than ever.

  She was sure she just had to wait it out.

  But every day proved her wrong.

  She missed him so much that she ached with it.

  She joined the team in Cambridge and found them to be professional and enthused. She reviewed the work that had been done and the plans for the future, and accepted her share of the workload. There was some discussion about a need to expand the sample and look at bees in other geographic regions as a future endeavor.

  The lab was perfectly organized, in Liv’s view, and she had been known to change things around to make them more logical. There were no changes she could suggest.

  The flat they’d arranged for her was compact and ideally located. She could walk everywhere she needed to go, which was great. Her coworkers were excellent and she could see already that she’d be contributing to a meaningful endeavor.

  It was exactly what she’d wanted and what she’d expected.

  But it disappointed her in an unexpected way—because Liv herself was different.

  She tasted her food more than she had before, and she felt sensation more keenly than she had just a week before. She found pleasure in the softness of a knit collar under her chin, the smoothness of the cotton sheets on her bed, the weight of a wool blanket on a cool night. She smelled the lanolin in the wool and the coffee made in the morning by her neighbor. She examined the oranges at the market, recalling Spencer’s advice, and was ridiculously pleased when she picked three in row that were thin-skinned and juicy.

  She thought of him at the strangest times: when she was alone at night, of course, but also during the daytime. The memory of his smile would pop into her thoughts while she was at the lab and she would smile herself. She heard someone laugh at the pub, when she went out for a pint with her coworkers on her first Friday night, and her heart skipped with the certainty that it was him. It wasn’t and the power of her disappointment surprised her.

  Maybe absence really did make the heart grow fonder.

  Maybe what she felt for Spencer was more than attraction or lust.

  Could it be that Spencer’s hypothesis was right and not her own?

  Two weeks after her arrival, Liv paused at the grocery to consider a small chicken in the poultry display. She’d returned to her old habit of eating things from cans and prepared foods, but she found the food unsatisfying as she never had before. She eyed the chicken and her mouth watered. It was easy to recall the chicken Spencer had roasted and how delicious it had been, and to be tempted...

  Liv forced herself to be rational. It would be too much meat for one person. It wouldn’t taste nearly as good because she couldn’t cook as well as Spencer. It had been the company that had made the meal.

  She missed him.

  And Liv didn’t know what to do about that. It was new for her. Different. Unwelcome. Maybe it was even rational.

  Did she love Spencer?

  Just the thought made her heart clench.

  Liv found herself hoping her mom would share some news of Spencer during their regular calls, but Audrey never even mentioned him.

  Finally, she asked.

  “Grumpy as a bear,” her mom supplied. “I’m avoiding him.” She paused for a moment. “Have you talked to him?”

  “Of course not.”

  Her mother made a skeptical sound, although Liv didn’t know whether she doubted that Liv hadn’t talked to Spencer, or was expressing an opinion of her decision not to do so.

  Liv changed the subject. “How are Jane’s bees?”

  Her mother sighed. “Not good.”

  That made no sense. It was May. The hives should be humming with activity again. “What do you mean?”

  “When Jane did her spring check of the hives, there were a lot of dead bees. She’s devastated...”

  “Mom,” Liv interrupted her mom. “We need to find out what killed them. If it’s a parasite, the survivors could be spreading it to each other.”

  “Well, how will we do that?”

  “Jane would have to preserve them. Let me pull out my notes...”

  “Preserve them for who, Livvie?” her mom asked, ever practical. “Jane doesn’t need a lot of dead bees around, whether they’re preserved or not.”

  “I have an idea,” Liv confessed, feeling that rush of audacity again, the one that was becoming more familiar. She liked it now. It made her feel powerful. “Could you give me Jane’s number, please, and I’ll explain as soon as I can.”

  It was a cold spring, one that never seemed inclined to get started. Spencer could relate to that. He was thinking that hibernation was under-rated.

  It would be warmer for a day, just enough for a few inches of snow to melt, then it would snow again. Finally, the thaw came, but the skies were overcast and it seemed to Spencer that everything was grey and without hope. Then they had rain in Honey Hill, rain so cold and driving that Spencer thought the ground would never be dry again.

  Work progressed on the lodge and the summer bookings began to add up. There was a little bit of fresh produce coming in—the first of the asparagus and rhubarb, both from greenhouses to the south. He was trying to get excited about possibilities and failing completely.

  Mostly, he was thinking about Olivia.

  His phone rang one Tuesday afternoon almost exactly three weeks after she’d left—although he told himself he wasn’t counting the days. Spencer was waiting on an artisan cheesemaker who always seemed to be late. He didn’t recognize the number, so he answered, expecting it to be the cheesemaker using someone else’s phone.

  “Spencer Wolfe.”

  The line had an echo on it, like the echo of a satellite.

  Like a long distance call.

  He straightened.

  “Spencer? Is that you?”

  It was Olivia, sounding as if she was at the bottom of the ocean, or at least that far away.

  “Olivia! Hi.” He couldn’t keep the pleasure from his voice and realized belatedly that he sounded like a lovesick kid. He felt the back of his neck heat and ran a hand over it, embarrassed by his enthusiasm.

  “I always liked that you called me by my full name,” she said, surprising him with the words.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed special.”

  Spencer bit back the urge to insist that she was special. “It’s a p
retty name. I like it better than Liv or Livvie.”

  “So do I.” Her voice dropped. “When you say it.”

  Spencer folded his arms across his chest, not wanting to get his hopes up. “How’s England? And the research project?”

  “Good. Great, really. Fascinating work and a fabulous team. I’m learning a lot and I feel like I’m making a difference.”

  “Great.” Surely she hadn’t called to tell him she was never ever coming back?

  “How’s Mindy?”

  “Running perfectly.”

  Neither of them said anything for a moment but even the silence seemed to echo.

  “Look,” Olivia said, her words coming in a rush. “I wanted to try to cook something.”

  “Good for you.”

  “But you only taught me recipes for things that are supposed to lead to sex, and there’s no one I want to get lucky with.”

  “No one?”

  She cleared her throat a little and he could imagine that she was blushing a bit. “No one in close proximity.”

  “So, you’re scared to cook in case results aren’t desirable,” Spencer guessed.

  “I want to roast a chicken,” she said, sounding determined. “I want to roast a chicken and I want to make love on the kitchen counter while it’s cooking, when the whole apartment smells delicious, and I want to learn how to make it taste even better, and I want to keep making love all night long.” She caught her breath. “It would be kind of like howling at the moon or proving I’m alive or showing someone how I feel. It’s something I’ve never done before and ever since I thought of it, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “And so you called me for the recipe?” Spencer prompted, because she sounded nervous and he wanted her to smile.

  She almost laughed, then her next words were serious. “I called to see if you had any interest in being in closer proximity.”

  Spencer stilled. He knew he hadn’t misunderstood her.

  Olivia cleared her throat then spoke in a rush. “Because I can’t stop thinking about you, either, which makes me think that your hypothesis was the right one.”

  Everything in Spencer was tight. “You want to find out?”