by Claire Adams
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Well, the guy she was rollerblading with was gay—you should’ve seen how short the shorts were he was wearing—but that’s not the point. The point is, he was kind enough to give us a few minutes to talk, in which time Annie told me, in no uncertain terms, that I’d broken her heart and she’d never forgive me for it. Yet she also thanked me because if I hadn’t broken up with her, she probably never would have moved out here to begin with.”
I swallowed, even though my throat felt like sandpaper. Sure, some of the details were different, but the major points were all the same. I’d broken up with Wren, so she came out here and if I were to find her, she’d just send me packing, though not before thanking me for—inadvertently—setting her life on a new course.
“I realize that’s probably not what you want to hear,” the cab driver continued, “but I am just struck by the similarities. We can hope that your ending goes better than mine.”
“You’re still out here,” I said. “Why did you stay?”
“At first I stayed because I thought she’d change her mind. We’d been together for so long, had so many good memories together, I figured she just needed some time to be angry at me, to punish me, and then we’d get back together. But . . . that never happened. She meant it when she said she had moved on. It was the biggest mistake of my life, and one that I wasn’t able to undo.”
We sat in silence for the rest of the drive. I didn’t know what to say other than his little story had completely freaked me out, because of course that’s exactly what was going to happen to me, too. Even though this whole time I told myself it didn’t matter if she turned me down—what mattered was just telling her, regardless of her response—that was bullshit. I wanted to tell her and have her say she forgave me and she wasn’t planning on staying out here forever and we could go back to Colorado and pretend that whole thing had never happened.
But I knew it didn’t work that way.
You couldn’t erase the memory of something no matter how hard you tried, or how much you wanted to. Even if you were able to scrub it from your waking thoughts, it would resurface later as a dream. That was something I knew all too well.
When we got to the park, he wished me luck, gave me a look that might’ve been pity or maybe empathy, and then drove off. I stood there for a moment, trying to get my bearings. What I needed to do was forget about that whole conversation, but that was impossible. I felt as though I’d just had a dozen cups of coffee in quick succession. I started to walk toward the Conservatory, which was a large, white, dome-shaped greenhouse with smaller buildings flanking both sides. Beds of brightly colored flowers set amidst the vibrant green grass. It would be easy enough to get distracted by the scenery, so I tore my eyes away from the flowers and looked at the people. None of them were Wren.
I climbed the steps and went into the greenhouse. General admission was eight dollars, which would be worth it even if I didn’t find Wren here because the whole place felt like you had stepped into another world. I felt myself start to calm down a little. I had no idea what most of the plants and flowers were called, but you didn’t need to know specific names to appreciate the beauty. It felt soothing to be there, and I figured if Wren was going to be anywhere in the park, there was probably a good chance she was here.
I wandered through the different sections, each room representing a different climate. The room with the orchids was warm and humid, and though the flowers were beautiful, I could only stand to be in that temperature for a few minutes. I looked at each person’s face as I made my way through. No Wren.
Being in there lulled me into a sort of waking dream, where it felt as though I could just wander amongst the plants forever. And if I did, I wouldn’t have to face the reality that maybe I’d come out here for no reason, maybe I wouldn’t find her, or, if I did, she’d tell me to go to hell.
Finally, though, I made myself leave.
After I left the greenhouse, I walked down the steps and then followed one of the paths to the Dahlia Garden. I looked at the brightly-colored flowers and tried to think about where I should go next. There were other places in the park, but I didn’t have a map. I figured I could just start walking, and maybe end up walking the entire city, if I had to.
But as I was passing the stairs that led back to the entrance of the Conservatory, I stopped in my tracks.
There she was.
Sitting there on the steps, looking down as she dug through her purse.
I walked closer but stopped a few feet away. She continued to rummage, oblivious to the people passing by.
“Shit,” she said, under hear breath, but loud enough that I could hear. “Of all the days to forget my phone . . . .”
I took another couple of steps, close enough now to touch her. “You can use my phone,” I said.
25.
Wren
I looked up, started to decline the kind offer, and then stopped. My jaw dropped as my eyes tried to compute what I was seeing.
“Wren,” he said.
At first, I didn’t believe it was really him.
But he’d just said my name, hadn’t he? And he was standing right there.
I blinked, halfway believing that he’d just disappear. That I was missing him so badly that my brain had somehow conjured up this mirage of him.
He smiled, which was an attempt to mask his uncertainty. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was expecting me to ignore him, or tell him off, or to turn and walk in the opposite direction.
And maybe a part of me wanted to. He had broken my heart, after all. I’d fallen in love with him without even realizing it and he so easily dismissed it, like it didn’t matter at all. Yet here he was, and he was smiling.
“Ollie,” I said.
I couldn’t think of what to say after that, the only thing I knew was that it really was him, so I stood, leaving my purse there and on the steps and then jumped up, wrapping him into a huge bear hug. It felt as though our bodies were melding together, two pieces of a puzzle finally re-joined.
I finally let go and stepped back so I could see his face, both of us grinning like fools. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” I’d let myself get lost in the Conservatory of Flowers this morning, my mind going off in a dozen different directions, trying to imagine that I was somewhere else, on a completely different planet, maybe. It had felt good, that illusion of being elsewhere, but now I was having difficulty believing that Ollie himself was not just an illusion that I’d made up.
I touched his arm. “You’re really here.”
“I am,” he said. “I know it’s probably a big surprise. But there was something I needed to tell you, and I couldn’t do it over the phone or by text.” He paused and took a breath. “I’m so sorry I hurt you,” he said. “I realize what an idiot I was. And I hope it’s not too late, but if it is . . . if you’ve moved on or want to tell me to go to hell, I’ll understand. I really will. I had to come out here, though, and tell you this to your face. I realized that I don’t want to lose you, that you do make me happier than I’ve ever been. And that’s not something to take lightly. I want you in my life, Wren. And if you’ve decided that you want to stay out here in San Francisco, well . . . I’d pack my stuff up and move out here, too. If you wanted to be with me, that is.”
“Of course, I forgive you,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about you so much. Well, trying not to think about you, but that’s been impossible. But . . . what are you talking about? Moving out here?”
He gave me a confused look. “Isn’t that what you’re planning on doing? Staying out here?”
“I like it out here a lot, but I don’t think I’m really a city girl at heart . . . .”
“I stopped by the diner and Lena said she had talked to you and that you told her you weren’t going to come back.”
I vaguely recalled the phone conversation he was referring to. “Oh,” I said, starting to laugh. “I wasn’t saying that literally. I mea
n, I’m having a great time out here and everything, but this place is too damn expensive even if I wanted to stay!”
“Oh,” he said, looking visibly relieved. “I thought . . . .”
“You thought she was serious.” Slowly, I was putting two and two together. He’d come all the way out here because he’d misunderstood Lena and thought I wasn’t coming back. “You would really do that? You would uproot your whole life and move out here because of me?”
“I would.”
I put my hand around the back of his head and pulled his face to mine. “You don’t need to do that,” I said. I brushed my lips against his, not quite a kiss. His eyes closed. “I have every intention of going back to Colorado. But if we get to go back there together, well . . . I can’t even put into words how happy that makes me. I’ll just have to show you, instead.”
I pressed my mouth against his, felt his hands wrap around my waist, his tongue intertwining with my own. I didn’t care that we were out in a public place, I didn’t care who saw us kissing; this was exactly where I wanted to be right now, doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Though I could’ve stayed there forever, kissing him in front of the Conservatory, we decided to walk, and went over to the Japanese Tea Garden and to get some food at the Tea House. It felt surreal to be sitting there with him and I couldn’t stop smiling.
“I really can’t believe you’re here.” How many times had I said that in the past hour? “So . . . you just up and decided to come out here and find me?” I asked after our waitress had taken our order and delivered us a pot of tea. I poured some into the tiny handle-less cups, the steam swirling in the air. “I have to say, you definitely get the award for most romantic gesture ever.”
He smiled. “I’ll gladly accept that award. Though it wasn’t exactly how it happened. You’re probably not even going to believe it, but Ryan was trying to sabotage me.”
“What? Ryan? From the ranch?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean, he was trying to sabotage you?”
“Well, I didn’t really explain it to you at the time, but I broke up with you because I thought I was losing my mind. Because all those weird things were happening—the water being left on, Ditto getting out—and I thought that I was just so caught up with you that I was forgetting to do the most basic things. I think that’s kind of what Garrett and Marie were thinking, too. So, trust me when I say that I didn’t want to break up with you, but I felt like I had to because those things were happening. But then it came out that Ryan had been doing it all along.”
I put my teacup down. “Really? How do you know?”
“He admitted it, finally. Because he messed around with the brakes on my truck, but then Garrett was going to take it, and Ryan told him before he was able to get in and drive away.”
“Seriously?” I frowned, trying to work my head around everything he’d just said. Ryan had done that? “Was he that pissed that we were together?”
Ollie shook his head. “I don’t think that played a role. Or if it did, it wasn’t the main reason. No, Garrett’s two sons put him up to it, because they wanted to get rid of me. They didn’t want Garrett to leave me in charge of the ranch, and they figured if they could make it look like I was incompetent, then he’d change his mind. Ryan was just the one they got to go along with it.”
“I can’t believe that. What an asshole! All three of them.”
“Yeah, it was pretty shitty. On the plus side, though, I’m not actually losing my mind. And when I realized that none of the stuff that had happened was because of me, I knew I had to come out here. Even if you were going to tell me that you never wanted to see me again, that you’d moved on, I had to come out here and tell you that because . . . well, because I’ve never felt this way about someone before. I know that sounds cheesy as hell, but I really feel that way.”
“I do, too.” We sat there smiling at each other. I felt so happy, it was like my heart was going to burst.
We eventually made our way back to Darren’s, and he got home not long after we did. He hugged Ollie, then he hugged me, then he grabbed both of us and said we needed a group hug.
“I am so happy to have the two of you here,” he said, letting us go. He went out to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine and three glasses. “This requires a toast.” He handed us each a glass and poured. “I just had a feeling when I first saw you two together that it was meant to be, and I’m usually not wrong about these things!” He held up his wine glass. “So, let’s toast the two of you!”
“This is a pretty nice spot you have out here,” Ollie said, taking a sip of his wine. “You’ve done good for yourself. I’m glad to see that.”
“Thank you,” Darren said. “The two of you are more than welcome to come out and visit any time. And if you’re ever thinking of moving out of state, I’d be thrilled to help you out in whatever way I can. Hook you up with a job, place to live, you name it.”
It was rather tempting, but I’d miss Colorado too much, and I was, after all, a small-town girl. I knew Ollie felt the same way.
That night, neither of us could wait to go to bed. We were kissing before the bedroom door was even shut all the way, pulling at each other’s clothes, discarding them only when we managed to pull away long enough.
His touch was electrifying, not just on my breasts and between my legs but everywhere his hands went, my whole body seemed to ignite. I grabbed his cock and dropped down to my knees and took him all the way into my mouth, moving my head up and down as he raked his fingers through my hair. With each movement I could feel him get bigger, harder, until it was impossible for me to get him all the way into my mouth anymore. I pulled back and sucked on just the head of his cock, moving my tongue around in a circular motion as I did so. He was trying not to cry out, his fingers wrapped up in my hair.
I stopped abruptly, a strangled sound escaping his throat as I did so. I lay back on the bed and pulled him down toward me. I wrapped my legs around his torso, and he lowered himself down, kissing my neck. This might’ve been considered the most mundane or vanilla sex position, but I’d never let a guy fuck me missionary before. Most were more than happy for me to get on top, or to do it from behind, but a few had pushed for it, to which I had always firmly rebuked them. I never offered an explanation, but in my head I knew it was because I just couldn’t have a guy on top of me like that. Even though it hadn’t happened before, I knew I’d feel trapped, pinned underneath his weight, helpless to get up.
But with Ollie it was different. He kept himself propped on his forearms, so I was able to touch his chest, run my fingers over his smooth, supple muscles. His dick pressed against me, rock hard, and I shifted a little, moved my legs further apart, scooped my tailbone so I could try to get him into me. He continued kissing me, his lips moving down over my collarbones, then to my breasts.
Once he was inside me, he moved his hips slowly. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down closer. He moved faster, and I moved with him, rocking my pelvis, his cock pushing deeper and deeper into me. I tried to breathe slowly, wanting to prolong the sensations for as long as I could, but he’d found his rhythm and he started to come. I was a few seconds behind him, but when it happened it felt as though the whole world had fallen away and there was only the two of us, the feeling completely obliterating anything and everything else. I bit his shoulder to keep from crying out and dragged my fingernails down his back. We clung to each other until the feeling started to subside, and only then did he roll off, stretching his arm out so I could nestle myself beside him.
“I missed you so much,” he said. “That was incredible.”
“That’s about the best feeling in the world. I could do that every day and not get tired of it.”
He grinned, his eyes fall closed. “Yeah? Can I get that in writing?”
We both laughed and I could feel the drowsiness get heavier. Ollie yawned.
“I’d love to stay out here longer—it’s actua
lly pretty cool for a city—but I need to get back to the ranch,” he said. “Not tonight or anything, but Wednesday at the latest. It’s too late in the season for Garrett to find a replacement for Ryan, so it’s just been him and Jesse handling the wrangling right now. He was nice enough to agree to let me come out here, though I probably would have done it even if he’d said ‘no.’”
“That was nice of him,” I said. “And we can go back whenever you want. If you have to go back tomorrow, that’s fine. I do have a business of my own to run, after all. Though from the sounds of it, they seem to be doing just fine without me. But you’re right—we should plan on getting back soon. I’m totally fine with that.”
He traced his fingers up my arm and I let my eyes close. This had turned out to be a very good vacation after all.
26.
Ollie
As the season continued and summer wound down to a close, life fell into a comfortable routine. If I wasn’t needed for a group ride, I’d head into town after the morning chores were done and sit at the counter and visit with Wren for a little while. She’d come over to the ranch in the afternoon after the restaurant closed, and we’d go for a ride or a swim. We’d alternate where we slept; some nights it’d be at my place, some at hers, the nights we were apart getting to be fewer and fewer.
The article in that magazine came out, and it was weird as all hell to see my face there, to read the words. The article was called “A Second Chance at Love,” which was pretty sappy, if you asked me, but I supposed it was the sort of thing that would appeal to the women readers of the magazine. Plus, it was accurate.
But I should have known the summer wasn’t going to end without something else happening; that’s just the way things had been going. I’d just gotten back from a visit with Paula, and Wren and I were planning to go for a ride before the afternoon chores. We were heading over to the barn when I saw an unfamiliar guy walking toward us. I knew he wasn’t one of the guests, but figured maybe he was a friend of Garrett’s.
