A Fair to Remember

by Barbara Ankrum

  She’d awakened in his arms, thinking now what? Now that you’ve laid yourself bare—literally—how do you go back? And even if you could, do you want to?

  Now, she was back in the land of childhood bedrooms and hiding places, feeling like an outsider. It was as if she’d had an out of body experience and was just now coming to her senses. Or, maybe it was just the opposite. Maybe she’d come to her senses in Jake’s arms and this was the way of madness.

  *

  She spent the day working in the ring with Magic, teaching a couple of students, and generally keeping herself too busy to think about Jake and what had happened between them. She’d heard nothing from him all day, not even a text, and she assumed that he’d been right about needing another day in Bozeman.

  She shouldn’t expect him to check in with her, after all. Why should he? She’d set the rules, after all. They were just going to fall back that once. Then… what?

  Still, she tried not to mope at dinner with her parents, who headed out to the movies for the evening. She had just settled into her favorite reading chair when her phone rang. The caller ID read Jake Lassen and she grabbed for her cell.

  “Hi,” she said, trying not to sound too anxious.

  “Hi,” he answered. “I just got back.”

  “You did? How’d it go?” she asked.

  “Well. Very well,” he said. “You wanna play?”

  She smiled at the sound of his deep voice, asking the question. “What, exactly did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, some cotton candy. A corn dog. Maybe a few rides? I’ll leave Monday with Ben.”

  She hesitated. She hated that she hesitated. “What time?”

  “Yesterday.”

  She bit her lip and smiled. “I’ll meet you at the horse barns in twenty.”

  *

  Jake spent the evening prowling the fairgrounds with Olivia, tasting the fair food—the good, the bad, and the decadent—sipping Dalton Orchard’s apple cider and feeling mostly anonymous in the crowds, which were thick, even for a weeknight. For a few hours, they put aside everything from their pasts and just had fun.

  Of course, Olivia wanted to wander through the cow and horse barns, where she marveled at the baby pigs and lambs. He was interested in touring the huge exhibit hall where every business in Marietta, and then some, had a booth hawking something. He bought them some chocolate, caramel, and sea salt confections from Sage Carrigan’s Copper Mountain Chocolates and they devoured them before they made it back outside.

  Jake took her on the Ferris wheel and the Swing-Around and he tried to talk her into the Zipper, but she chickened out halfway through the line. But he didn’t care.

  He loved hearing her laugh, loved the way she looked at him when he caught her eye. The look they exchanged was ripe with what had happened between them the night before… something he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind the entire day of meetings with bankers in Bozeman. He’d wrapped it all up quickly, determined to get back to Marietta, and Olivia, before nightfall. Because any distance farther than the one between them now just wasn’t working for him.

  If he closed his eyes, the memory of their lovemaking last night overtook him. He’d get hard just thinking about it. It had been a long, long time since he’d lost himself in a woman the way he had with her. Allowed himself to feel again. She was different from the girl he’d left so long ago. Different from what he’d expected, even. But she was exactly what he needed. She had him thinking the craziest things, like building her a home and having babies with her.

  The idea scared even him a little. But not more than the thought of being without her. That possibility lingered under his skin like undetonated ordinance.

  Rushing her seemed risky, but what the hell? If the past decade had taught him anything, it was that life was short and you never knew what waited around the next bend in the road. He wanted Olivia for more than just tonight or tomorrow or even next year. He was feeling forever-ish about her. He just hadn’t worked out when to let her know yet.

  *

  Olivia asked Jake to buy her a churro as they walked through the midway, with the screams of laughter and self-imposed terror echoing around the crowded walkway. Teenaged reminders of them strolled together in packs, looking full of angst and hormones.

  Olivia grabbed his hand and threaded her fingers through his. Being with him here at the fair made her unreasonably happy. “So tell me the truth. When we were kids, did you actually have a crush on me?”

  “No,” he said, staring straight ahead. “Nope.”

  “Oh,” she said, feeling a little deflated.

  “A crush is quick…” he began, “like a grenade. Flash, and it’s gone. A rush of lust. I won’t deny there was some lust involved then and there still is, because right now I’m having trouble keeping my hands off of you in a not-so-polite way.” His fingers tightened around hers. “But a crush? No. It was always more than that for me with you.”

  “Really?” Was it? “But… you were always dating someone else.”

  “That’s ‘cause you were always dating someone else.”

  She laughed softly. “We always did have bad timing, didn’t we?”

  “Past tense, I hope.”

  Olivia smiled, staring out over the crowd, seeing people she hadn’t seen in years. Some with children, some just coupled up, looking happy. She hoped he was right about the timing, thing. But it was still too soon to tell.

  They passed the stage area where a great band she’d never heard of had started playing a country set and a crowd was already on the makeshift, dirt, dance floor, doing a Watermelon Crawl line-dance to a cover of a popular Big and Rich song.

  “I haven’t done that in a long time,” he said, leaning over to talk in her ear over the loud music. “Wanna?”

  “A long time is an understatement for me,” she said with a laugh. Dancing was something Kyle detested, claiming it made him look foolish. “I would probably just step on your toes.”

  “They can take it. C’mon.” He tugged on her hand and dragged her out there where couples had formed a few lines and they ducked into a free spot.

  “Toe, heel, triple step, toe, heel, triple step,” someone was shouting as the dancers clapped to the beat of the song. “And slide. And slide.”

  They were both as lost as pennies under a sofa cushion, but they persevered until they mostly caught on, laughing along with everyone else who was doing their best to keep up. By the time the song ended, they had it, but she fell into his arms, giggling, when it was over.

  The next song was slower and the dance floor got crowded with couples. Jake pulled her tight up against him. This, he apparently knew how to do.

  “Do you realize this might be the first time we’ve ever slow-danced?” she said, letting him hold her close.

  “A crime that has not gone unpunished,” he murmured against her ear, and he felt her smile.

  “Aww. You were never lacking for a pretty girl to dance with, as I recall.”

  “Not the right pretty girl.”

  “Now you’re just sweet talking me, Lassen.”

  “God’s honest truth, Liv.” He tightened his arms around her as they moved together across the floor and she knew he must be able to feel the slam of her heartbeat against his chest.

  When the music stopped, she pulled away from him with a little blush, glancing at a pair of women whispering to each other and looking their way.

  “Who are they?” he asked, dipping his head down beside hers.

  “Um…”

  One of the women, a brunette with a forgettable face and too-large, horn-rimmed glasses, arched a knowing look in his direction. Jake frowned as she and the other woman, plainer and thinner than the first, approached.

  “Olivia Canaday? That is you, isn’t it?” The brunette asked.

  Olivia’s blush deepened. “Yes.”

  “See, Patty? I told you it was her,” the first one said. “Remember me, Olivia? Jeanne Marie Loquent… well, it used t
o be Baker. I’m married now. We both are, aren’t we, Patty? Our husbands are off at the cattle barn with the kids. Always looking for new stock, you know. Olivia, you and I were lab partners. Biology? Junior year?”

  Recognition dawned. “Oh, yes—”

  “Gosh, I heard you were back in town after your adventures in the big city,” she said, finally taking a breath.

  “Nice to see you again, Jeanne, Patty,” Olivia said. “You remember Jake Lassen.”

  The two women turned their gazes on him and nodded. “Hi, Jake,” they said in unison.

  He touched the brim of his cowboy hat. “Ladies?”

  “You know,” Jeanne Marie said, turning her attention back to Olivia, “you’re gonna think this is funny, but I always secretly wanted to be you when I was in high school. You were so… so talented and pretty and… such a rising star here in Marietta.”

  Olivia blushed and took a step backward. “No, no, I—”

  “And I was always kind of in the background of stuff. Getting teased, you know. I never was the prettiest flower in the bouquet. But you were real nice to me in that lab. You didn’t treat me like some of the others did. You treated me like a regular girl. And I was surprised, you know? ‘Cause you were such a star already. I mean, you could’ve been one of the mean girls. But, no. And I just wanted to tell you, I always appreciated that and that I’m real sorry it didn’t work out for you back East. I mean, the riding and… well… everything. The divorce,” she added, like a whispered footnote. “And no matter what people say, I’ll always remember that about you.”

  Olivia opened her mouth and closed it again, going pale. “I… I appreciate that—” she began, but Jeanne Marie interrupted her again.

  “You stay strong, girl,” she said, holding up a fist to bump, which Olivia tentatively did.

  “That’s right,” Patty seconded with a wink. “Stay proud.”

  The two women turned to go and disappeared off into the crowd. Olivia, still looking as if someone had just cocked her world a little to the left, stared after them.

  “I’m having a little trouble reading what just happened,” Jake said.

  “I think I should either feel flattered or deeply disturbed. But I can’t decide which. What did she mean by stay strong?”

  “Not worth pondering, probably.”

  Disconcerted, she turned back to him. “I suppose. At any rate, I think it’s time to go.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “Good call. Where to?”

  She inhaled and smiled up at him.

  Chapter Seven

  Twenty minutes later, Jake pulled the truck to a stop at the end of the Livingston Airport runway and parked so the bed was facing backward. Livingston was only ten miles down the road, but it seemed a million miles from Marietta and the crushing crowds at the fair.

  Like their other favorite spot, ‘The Rocks’, they’d spent many a Friday night parked right here, waiting for small planes to take off over their heads, watching the stars, and talking about their futures.

  Here, Jake had dreamed about the day he’d fly one of those planes. He’d dreamed of glory and battle and imagined what war would be like. He’d imagine the day when a kid like him, born to working-class parents with a modest little burger joint, could ever deserve a girl like Olivia, whose family had money to burn on things like stables and Warmblood horses and Mercedes Benzes.

  The flying part, he’d accomplished. In fact, he’d mastered it. Flying didn’t get any more down and dirty than landing a rescue chopper in a blinding rotor wash of desert sand at night. But the war? Not what he’d expected. Not the soul rending terribleness of it in the faces of the children who played near their compound, who seemed to accept their turn to die would come soon. Or in the terror of the soldiers whose clocks were ticking in the bay of his chopper. Or the bone-rattling horror when they went down in a hail of gunfire.

  “I haven’t been back here in years.” Olivia said, dragging him back from the desert and into the present.

  He pulled a couple of blankets from behind the seat, where they always were, and tossed them onto the oak rails on the truck bed. He lowered the tailgate and jumped in himself before offering Olivia a hand up.

  They stretched out beside one another as a Cessna taxied down the runway and headed for the end.

  “Look,” she said, pointing to the sky. “What constellation is that again? See? The big ‘W’?”

  He followed her finger up to the configuration of stars she was pointing at. “Cassiopeia,” he told her.

  “Oh, right. She’s combing her hair. She was the one put there by Poseidon for… vanity?”

  “He was a tough bastard.”

  She moved her finger. “And the Northern Cross, or… the Swan?”

  “Cygnus. Or Zeus, the seducer.”

  “Oh, the irony,” she quipped, looking over at him.

  “Yep, that’s me,” he replied with a grin.

  She looked back at the stars. “Remember when we could name them all?”

  “Were we nerds?” he asked, not requiring an answer.

  “Yes.” She laughed. “Or studiously avoiding other pastimes.”

  “Yeah, like kissing and having sex. I was a nerd and an idiot.”

  She turned a look on him that stuttered his heart for a moment. “No, you were the coolest boy I knew.”

  He rolled toward her, sliding his hand around her waist and propping his head on his left palm. “Yeah?”

  “Definitely.”

  He bit back a grin. “And now?”

  “Oh,” she said, “now you’re just… everything I knew you’d be… someday. You’re still the best man I know.”

  He rubbed a thumb across her ribs. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you today. About what happened last night.”

  “Ooh, look,” she said, pointing, “Sagittarius!”

  He laughed and pulled her finger down from the air.

  She looked up at him through her dark sweep of lashes. “Do we have to talk about it?”

  “Who said anything about talking?” he said, and dropped his mouth down on hers in a kiss that spoke of the primal urgency born of twelve hours of being without her. God, she tasted sweet. And hot. And delicious. She pulled him toward her, deepening the kiss and twining her legs around the back of his.

  Jake had managed to hold it together all day, but now, with her pressed hard up against him and her mouth on his, he forgot about everything but his need to touch her.

  His hand slipped under her blouse and he settled his palm against her breast. Her nipple was a hard bead and she arched her back against him, aching for more. If either of them remembered where they were at that moment, he couldn’t say, but he got lost in the kiss and could only think how much he wanted to be inside her again.

  Olivia’s hand slid inside the waistband of his jeans on his backside and she curved her fingers around his ass, pulling him closer still. Her touch nearly sent him over the edge.

  But a carful of teenagers came rattling down the road just then, and pulled to a stop, practically beside them. Apparently, old traditions never died.

  Jake dropped his forehead against hers, breathing hard. “Damn.”

  She shook her head with a small, embarrassed smile.

  “We could go back to my place. Ben’s there, though.”

  She brushed his hair from his eyes. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Yeah,” he reluctantly agreed.

  The handful of teenagers next door whooped it up as they piled into the bed of the brand new pickup truck. Jake could hear the clink of illicit beer bottles and the car radio began blasting rap music.

  He and Olivia stood, gathered up the blankets and jumped off the tailgate.

  Instantly subdued at the sight of the much older pair, the teens refused to make eye contact, as they sucked on their beers. Instead, they nodded self-consciously to the heavy beat of the music.

  Jake tossed the blankets in the back of his truck as Olivia
climbed in the cab.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, then, he turned and walked back to the truck bed full of teens. Their eyes widened as he approached.

  “How old are you?” he asked a girl who looked closer to thirteen than twenty-one.

  She lowered her beer. “What’s it to you?”

  “And you?” Jake asked another boy. All of them looked just old enough to drive. These kids weren’t from the side of town that had to scratch out a living. They were from the side where parents bought their kids trucks at sixteen and sent them on their merry way, trusting they’d make good decisions.

  “Hey, man, just leave us alone. We’re just having a party.”

  “Really?” Jake reached in and swiped the sixteen-pack of beers the four of them had planned on splitting.

  “Hey!” The boy with longish, brown hair complained, standing in the truck bed as if he was actually planning to take him on. “Those are—”

  “Sit down,” he said in a deathly quiet voice.

  The kid sat.

  “Not one of you is old enough to drink, much less understand the consequences of driving while you’re doing it.” Jake pinned each one of them with a look meant to intimidate. “Some little punk-ass just like you killed my parents on the road a few years back, just because he thought it was a good idea to party and drive at the same time. They died slow, painful deaths, alone, on a dark road because he couldn’t be bothered with the rules. So, yeah. I’m taking your damned beers.” He turned and dropped the beer into his truck bed. “And you should get your asses home before the sheriff, who I’m about to call, comes looking for the rest of those bottles you’re hugging. And the next time you think about driving drunk, you remember that you’re not the only ones on the goddamn road. You hear me?”

  They were all silent, but not one made a sound of dissent. The young girl tossed her beer out into the darkness.

  Jake, got into his truck and shut the door. It took him a moment to calm down and turn the key, but Orca hummed to life and Jake pulled off down the field, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  “You go, Jake,” Olivia said, eyeing him. “You really gonna call the sheriff?”