As You Wish

by Jude Deveraux

  She looked back at him. “We’ll have to find someone to take it over. Don’t you have some relatives who’d like to run a little local theater?”

  Kit smiled. Olivia had teased him about his huge family and he had been as glad to get away from them as she was. “I’ll put out the word and see who wants the place. Maybe the town will have a new play every few months. It could bring in some revenue. Are you ready to go?”

  She realized he’d done what he’d planned to and had replaced her tears with a smile. It was why he was so good in the diplomatic world, why “the prez” called and asked his advice. “Thank you,” she said as he pulled her chair out for her.

  “Anything for you.” He took her arm in his.

  After that day, their boundaries were set. They would never mention the very personal things that had happened to them in the years they’d been apart.

  But still, Kit had said that he’d come to despise his ex-wife, Gina. “Every rotten thing she screamed at me was true—and I hated her for so clearly seeing the worst parts of me.”

  “When you don’t love someone, everything they do is intolerable,” Olivia replied.

  “Exactly!”

  That had been the extent of their discussion of his marriage and divorce. As for Olivia’s marriage, she never mentioned it and Kit didn’t ask.

  She was glad of that because she didn’t want to confess that her husband had had a long-term affair. Actually, he’d had a whole other life. What was especially humiliating was that Olivia was sure it was her fault.

  The year after her summer with Kit, Alan Trumbull, a recent widower, had hired her to work in his family’s appliance store to answer the phone and take care of the accounts. She saw that he was overwhelmed with a baby and a store that was going downhill. But Olivia meant to keep to herself and not get involved in other people’s problems. She just wanted to work hard enough that she wouldn’t have the time or energy to think about the rotten deal Life had handed her.

  But after weeks of sitting quietly in the store, she broke. Watching Alan fumble with a baby and invoices and salesmen made her admit defeat. She couldn’t continue to sit there and do nothing. She pulled the baby from Alan and began directing his life, his business, his child, his house. As the months went by, Alan stepped back and let Olivia handle it all. He never actually proposed. He just mumbled, “I guess we better make it official,” and two weeks later, they were married. Their wedding night had been quick, perfunctory. Loveless. She’d stayed in bed until Alan went to sleep, then she got up and went over the quarterly tax reports. It was either do that or spend the night crying. Night after night, she thought, Kit, Kit. Where are you? Why did you leave me? Why was I not enough for you?

  Over the years, she’d used work and domestic duties to try to block out those questions, but her lack of help made her anger rise. Alan used to say, “You’re so much better at business than I am, Livie. You don’t want me holding you up.” Then he’d go off to play golf.

  It was only when he was dying of cancer that she found out that Alan didn’t know which end of a golf club to hold. She’d sat beside him in the hospital and listened to his story of how he’d had a secret life with a quiet, plump, sweet-tempered woman named Willie. They’d had a daughter together. And it was Olivia’s hard work with the appliance stores that had supported mother and daughter. There’d even been enough to send the girl to a good university.

  His confession about his love for his other family had so shocked Olivia that she couldn’t speak. Alan had taken her hand in his. “Please, Livie, don’t be angry and punish me. Let me see them. Please.”

  But she hadn’t been angry. She’d stood up and looked down at him. “Alan, I never knew you had such courage in you.” She started to leave the room, but then turned back and kissed him on the forehead.

  She would never have predicted it, but she was glad to find out that he’d had some joy in his life. Heaven knew she had never given him any. She’d fulfilled all the work and duties, but nothing she did came near to achieving true happiness—for him or herself.

  Willie came to the hospital, her pretty daughter drove in from Florida, and Alan’s son, Kevin, put his arms around all of them. In an instant, Olivia became the outsider.

  She wanted to walk away and leave them alone, but Willie was as incompetent as Alan was. The two of them, Alan dying and holding on to Willie with her endless tears, looked to Olivia to take care of everything.

  And she did. Doctors, medicines, alternative treatments that for a while gave them hope. They all fell onto Olivia.

  After Alan’s death, she made the funeral arrangements, and she was the one who held Willie while she cried herself to sleep.

  At the funeral, Olivia knew there would be questions about who Willie and her daughter were. If she told the truth, all sympathy would go to the wife. Olivia was the wronged woman. She’d given her life to Alan and his son, Kevin—and everyone in town knew that. And what thanks did she get? Her husband had set up housekeeping with a woman who was older, plainer, and less intelligent than Olivia. Unappreciative bastard!

  Yes, Olivia could have made people hate Alan Trumbull. She could have played the martyr and gained lots of sympathy.

  But only she knew the truth about her part in it. She decided not to sully her husband’s memory.

  It was only when the will was read that Olivia got a true shock. With the help of a prestigious law firm in Richmond, starting the moment he knew he was dying, Alan had managed to get everything put into his name—and he’d left the entire business to his son. Olivia got the house that she had found and remodeled, and she got the retirement plan that she had set up. But everything else went to Kevin. As for Willie and her daughter, Alan had made a trust fund for them years before.

  For a while, Olivia had been so angry at how he’d tricked her into signing papers, that she was tempted to tell people about his second family. To destroy the memory of Alan being a “nice guy” would get him back in a big way.

  For the second time, she didn’t do it. Alan, so very cowardly in life, had found the courage to tell Olivia what he thought of years of being on the receiving end of her managing his life. In death he’d taken away what had kept Olivia so occupied that she couldn’t think about the summer of 1970—and the aftermath of it.

  She turned the keys over to her stepson, then tried to occupy herself. Gardening, church work, cooking for fund-raisers. She did them all. She became the person who was asked for help whenever anything was needed.

  The town considered her a saint. She’d done so much for Alan and Kevin, and now she was dedicating herself to the town. Did the woman ever think about herself? they wondered.

  As for Kevin, Olivia did her best to stay out of his life. When he left the stores to run themselves, she said nothing. When he married a woman who ordered him about, Olivia felt it was her fault. It’s what she had made Kevin think a wife should be.

  Nor did she speak out when she saw Kevin and his wife, Hildy, spend masses. House, cars, trips, lavish wardrobes. The appliance stores faltered, then failed—and Kevin was left deeply in debt.

  When Olivia sold her house, cashed in her retirement plan, and bailed her stepson out of debt, the townspeople began to speak her name in whispers. A true saint of a woman.

  Olivia moved into a back bedroom of Kevin and Hildy’s big house—the one Olivia had paid off—and “helped out,” meaning that she more or less became their unpaid servant.

  That had lasted for fourteen months, then Kit Montgomery had returned to town, put up his theater, and everything changed.

  Except for the damaged lives, Olivia thought. Broken lives could never be fully healed.

  Chapter Three

  “Hi.”

  Startled, Olivia sat up and saw young Elise standing a few feet away.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was out walking and I saw a bit of
yellow and...” She shrugged.

  Olivia’s blouse was a pale yellow, her slacks a dark brown, not bright enough to be a beacon that was easily seen through the trees. It looked like Elise had been searching for her. “Are you hiding from Ray or your husband?”

  Elise smiled. “Both. Ray is stomping around, looking for something, but I can’t imagine what. And...” She hesitated. “By now my family knows I’m missing. They’ll be searching for me.”

  Olivia tried to imagine the enormity of being pursued by... What? The police? Had the girl been labeled as an escapee from a mental institution? Said to possibly be dangerous? “What will happen if they find you?”

  “I don’t know. Jeanne said that what they’re doing is illegal, but my father paid for a wing on the clinic, so I don’t think anyone will listen to me. I have no money of my own, and—”

  She broke off because Olivia put her arm out to the side. Elise sat beside her on the little stone wall and let Olivia hold her.

  “What did your husband do to make you so angry?”

  “He loved someone else,” Elise said simply. “He married me because our mothers have been best friends since college, and my father gave Kent a job and a house and...”

  She was crying and Olivia guessed that she’d done a lot of that.

  “I’m sorry.” Elise sat up straight. “I don’t mean to dump my problems on you. You’re so perfect and elegant, while my life is as sordid as something on 20/20.”

  “Doesn’t that show deal with murders?”

  “I’m sure Kent has thought about that with me,” Elise muttered. Olivia looked at her in alarm.

  “I’m kidding. Kent would never kill me. If he did, Dad would probably fire him. Maybe. And if I wasn’t his cover, Kent wouldn’t get to screw around with Carmen. And who would he present to the world without me? I’m the image he wants people to see. Not the gardener’s sister.”

  “Ah,” Olivia said. “Carmen gets the passion while you get the ladies’ luncheons that further your husband’s career.”

  Elise groaned. “I’m twenty-five years old and already I’m a cliché.” Olivia couldn’t help laughing.

  “It’s not funny.” Elise sniffed. “Well, maybe it is a little.” She gave a bit of a smile, then buried her face in her hands. “What am I going to do? I don’t know how to solve this.”

  Olivia took Elise’s hands in hers and looked at her. “We’re going to fix this. There are many lawyers in my husband’s family and we’ll set all of them on this. They’ll be like wolves going after lambs. How does that sound?”

  “Can I go after Carmen too? She came to my wedding. I felt so sorry for her because she kept throwing up. I knew she was pregnant, but I had no idea my husband was the father.”

  “She didn’t, by chance, have a girl, did she?”

  Elise’s pretty eyes widened. “She did. How do you know that?” She jerked her hands out of Olivia’s grasp. “You aren’t with them, are you? Did you—?”

  “No,” Olivia said calmly. “But it appears that you and I have some things in common. Alan, my late husband, has a daughter named Alana. She was born four years after we were married. I worked six days a week running the appliance stores that put Alana through college.”

  “Oh,” Elise said. “I’ve put on dozens of dinner parties for Kent’s clients. Every morning he gave me a list of things to do for him. I spent my life in a car as I ran errands for him. And it was all so he’d have more time to spend with Carmen.”

  “Alan told me he was playing golf. He was so passionate about the game that he went on several trips to play on fabulous courses. It wasn’t until he was dying that I found out that he didn’t even own a set of clubs.”

  Elise let out a full laugh, then leaned back on her arms. “My husband complained about how much I spent on groceries, but he was buying Escada for Carmen.”

  Olivia leaned back beside her. “Alan bought a vacation house for us. It was a cute little place just fifty miles away in the mountains. But every time we planned to go, he came down with some illness. I found out that his girlfriend and daughter lived there.”

  It was Elise’s turn. “While I was locked away, my parents came to visit and I said I knew that they’d known about Carmen all along. Guess what they said?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “My mother said, ‘Darling, Kent couldn’t marry the gardener’s sister, now could he? She’d probably serve tacos at a dinner party. How would Kent’s career progress with a wife like that?’”

  Olivia blinked at the coldness of Elise’s parents and she couldn’t top it. But giving sympathy might make Elise feel worse. “I don’t know about you, but I love tacos.”

  “Me too.” Elise was smiling as she sat up. “Thank you. You’re making me feel better.” She looked around. “What is this place?”

  Maybe it was having just shared confidences, or maybe it was because Elise had called her elegant, but Olivia told the truth. “It’s where my husband and I made mad, passionate, all-consuming love back in the summer of 1970. When the caretaker came after us with a shotgun, Kit and I climbed over the stone wall in our birthday suits and escaped.”

  Elise looked at her for a moment, eyes wide. “I wish I could have an adventure like that. But Kent saves everything for Carmen. I’m the one who picks up his dry cleaning.”

  Olivia smiled. “It was an adventure, and a bit dangerous. But back then, I would have followed him anywhere.”

  “Even past firearms.” Elise sighed. “That’s what I want. A man who’d brave a shotgun for me.”

  Olivia looked serious. “I bet if you broke into the dry cleaners at night, there’d be all kinds of guns involved.”

  Elise laughed. “You are making me feel better! You think we should go back and see if Ray is starving or not?”

  “It’s funny about men. They’re only helpless when they’re sure someone who will wait on them is nearby.”

  “So what’s his problem?”

  Olivia started to tell but thought better of it. “Let’s go back and ask him.”

  As they started toward the bridge, they heard a car door slam, then a woman’s voice.

  “Kevin! I told you she wasn’t here, now let’s go!”

  Instantly, Olivia stepped back into the trees, and Elise moved behind her. “Who are they?” Elise whispered.

  Olivia’s face fell. “My stepson and his wife. They are very, very angry at me.”

  “What dreadful thing did you do?”

  “I got married and moved out of their house. No more free cooking and cleaning.”

  “I had no idea you were such a selfish person.”

  Olivia put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

  “Come on, Hildy,” Kevin said. “I brought a picnic basket and two bottles of wine. You know her plane gets in today and of course she’ll come here. Let’s wait.”

  “Why she’d want to give up our beautiful new home for this horrible old place, I’ll never understand. Or why she married that old man.”

  “He’s rich—you know that,” Kevin said. “Olivia has always loved money. When I was a kid she was always working. If it hadn’t been for having a home with Willie and Alana, I don’t know how I would have survived my childhood. They always had time for me.”

  Just a few feet away, across the narrow piece of water, Olivia’s whole body stiffened. This was something she hadn’t heard before. She’d had to work. She had to support all of them. She had to—

  “So who the hell does he think paid for that home?” There was a great deal of anger in Elise’s voice. “Who gave them the time to do nothing?”

  When Olivia turned to look at her in gratitude, she saw that Elise was pulling her T-shirt off over her head. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to escape by going over that wall in my birthday suit. I ne
ed an adventure.”

  Olivia hesitated for only a second. She didn’t have the beautiful body she’d once had, but she’d kept in shape. She had a wooden ski machine in her office and spent twenty minutes a day on it. Expending the pent-up energy kept her sane, and vendors were used to talking to her when she was out of breath. She unbuttoned her blouse. “I’m with you.”

  Under her T-shirt, Elise wore a very pretty white bra made of lace. As she unsnapped it, Olivia said, “If you leave that here, Young Pete can add it to mine that he found so long ago. I’ve been told that it’s in a frame and on his wall like a trophy.”

  With a wicked little smile, Elise dropped the bra to the ground, then removed the rest of her clothes and tossed them over her arm. She unabashedly watched Olivia undress. “My mother would kill to have a body like yours. But lying on a table and having gorgeous men run their hands over her and calling it a massage hasn’t helped.” She nodded toward the house. “Are they still there?”

  “Oh yes,” Olivia said. “But they’re looking the other way. I think we can make it across the bridge without being seen.” As she stood there naked, she felt silly and embarrassed, but also a bit excited. She’d had her clothes off for most of her honeymoon, but this was different. This was someone else’s fantasy.

  Elise picked up a stone. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to throw it at the end of the terrace to distract them.”

  Olivia took the rock from her. “Let me.” It had been a while since she’d thrown anything, but she’d kept her arms strong—and well, maybe Kevin’s ungrateful words would help her aim.

  She drew back into a pitcher’s stance, leg lifted, and threw the rock. It sailed over the strip of water and hit the bottle of wine standing on the cooler. The bottle hit a rock and made a loud sound as it broke into pieces.