“It’s nothin’, Dad. I’m fine.”
“Okay. Well if you decide it’s somethin’, let me know.”
“It’s…”
“I’m listening.”
“You really like her.”
“I do.”
Jake kicked at the snow with his boot.
“What’s worrying you, man?”
Still nothing out of Jake. He waited for a while, but all Jake looked was uncomfortable.
“Okay, let’s get your brother, take the sleds back to the house, and get the truck. We can talk later if you want.”
Jake got on one of the snowmobiles and started it up, without answering his dad.
Bud came out on the porch. “I’ll ride one back with you. That way if you want to go out again this week, they’ll be up at your place.”
“Thanks, Dad. Hey, somethin’s bothering Jake. Any idea what it might be?”
“Nope. But I’ll try to get him to talk to me about it later.”
“Where’s Luke?”
“He’s stayin’ here. You won’t be able to get him away from those two pretty girls. Not sure which one he’s more taken with, Liv or her daughter.”
“They’re easy to get taken with.” Ben knew that first hand. “She okay? I mean, should I go in and see if she needs anything before we leave?”
Bud put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “She’s fine. You can be out of touching range for another five minutes or so, don’t ya think?”
“No. But I’ll leave her be anyway. She and Mom getting along?”
“As though they’ve known each other for years. You know, she reminds me of your mama. She’s got that way about her.”
24
Ben went into the kitchen in search of Liv and found her seated at the center island, deep in conversation with Allison and Maeve. Whatever they were talking seemed serious. He wondered if he should try to back out of the room before they noticed him.
“Heya, Ben,” said Maeve, stretching her hand in his direction.
“Am I interrupting?”
“No, Liv was telling us about the fall she took. Serious stuff. I can’t believe she’s skiing and riding the ranch on the back of a snowmobile only four months later. Isn’t it unbelievable?” said Allison, Matt’s wife.
“Unbelievable,” he murmured.
He still felt it, the pain, the worry, the hurt. He tried to push the hurt down deeper. She was here now, he didn’t want to think about it. He closed his eyes, and tried to shake the ghosts away. When he opened them again, Liv studied him. She’d been right yesterday. They did need to talk.
“Everything is cleaned up in here. Liv, you ready to head back to the house?”
“Sure.” She hesitated before she stood up, then stretched a little.
“Are you going skiing again tomorrow?” Maeve asked.
“It’s up to Ben.”
“I guess we should, that’s why you’re here.”
Liv’s gaze settled on him, and she put her hand in his. “Let’s go, Ben.”
“Let me find the boys.” He dropped her hand, trying hard to keep the hurt buried, but it wouldn’t. It had risen to the surface and he had no way of pushing it back down.
Ben carried Luke to the car—he’d passed out sitting next to Renie on the couch, while Jake sat on the other side of the room, sullen.
Bud and Ginny lingered on the porch saying goodnight to Liv. Ben came back up after he got Luke in the truck.
“Any luck with Jake?”
“Nope,” answered Bud. “He was closed up tight. Not interested in talking about anything, not even baseball.”
Jake wasn’t the only one in a funk. Ben was too and he couldn’t shake it. He was coming down from the heady rush of being with Liv again, but the reality of their recent past was raising its ugly head.
“Are you okay?” Liv asked when Ben got in the truck.
“You said it yourself―we need to talk.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “We do.”
Jake was sitting in the third row. Ben turned up the radio a little and motioned for Liv to lean closer to him.
“Something is going on with Jake. He gets more withdrawn with each passing minute.”
Liv had noticed. Luke had become her shadow, but Jake kept his distance. Even Renie was unable to jostle him out of his sullenness.
She had no business trying, or even offering, but she was willing to see if he’d talk to her. She asked Ben if he’d mind.
“I don’t think you’ll get anywhere, but if you wanna try…”
Ben carried Luke in and put him in bed, and when Liv told Renie she wanted a minute with Jake, she went downstairs too. Jake was ready to follow Renie when Liv stopped him. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you come sit with me?”
“I guess.”
Liv walked to the chair next to the fireplace and motioned for Jake to sit across from her.
“I can tell you have a lot on your mind,” she began.
“I guess.”
“Does it have something to do with my being here? Would you rather I wasn’t?” She kept her voice low and soft.
“No!” Jake’s cheeks flushed.
“Sounds as though you might be more worried about my leaving.”
Jake looked away from her and into the fire.
“Jake, I care about your dad.”
He flinched, and his eyes met hers. “He told us about you.”
She nodded.
“He wanted us to meet you. It was after he visited you, while we were in Arizona with our mom and Joe.”
Liv leaned forward, to hear him better. He turned back toward the fireplace, so she bent her head. “Keep talking.”
“Luke and I were excited to meet you, ’cause my dad told us you meant a lot to him.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you that visit.”
“My dad…he was so sad. He tried to cover it up, but he didn’t fool us. He didn’t want to talk that much, and my dad loves to talk.” That got a little smile out of him. Liv smiled too.
“He does like to talk. Go on, Jake.”
“Then you had your accident, and my dad was on tour, and then all that stuff happened when he thought you were in a coma, but you weren’t.”
Liv nodded, and felt her own cheeks warm.
“He was so sad.” Jake turned his head away from her, so she wouldn’t see his tears.
“Your dad tried to hide it from you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but I knew anyway.”
“Your dad tried to hide his sadness from you to protect you from it. He was hurting, and he didn’t want you to hurt too.”
“Is that why you lied to him?”
“Yes, Jake, that’s why I lied to him. I didn’t want him to worry about me. I wanted him to enjoy the tour, and be successful, and have all the things he’s been working so hard to attain all these years.”
“It didn’t work.”
“You’re right, it didn’t. What I did jeopardized it all. He hadn’t lied to anyone, but people thought he did.”
“When my dad does his talking thing, people don’t stay mad at him.”
“Your father is a very good man, and as soon as people get to know him, even a little, they see it. Even if it’s only seeing him on stage. They know he wouldn’t lie.”
Jake nodded.
“You’re afraid I’ll hurt him again.”
He nodded again. “You kinda do it a lot.”
He sure got right to the heart of it. “I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry for how it’s affected you. I care about your dad very much.”
Jake faced her.
“I don’t want to ever hurt him again.”
“That would be good, if you didn’t.”
Liv marveled at the depth of caring Ben’s son possessed. He was so much like his father.
“Do you ride, Jake?”
“Horses? Yeah.”
“I was hoping you and I could ride wh
ile I’m here. And someday soon, I’d like it if your dad brought you and Luke to my place. I board horses at my ranch. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Think you might like to take a ride with me.”
“Yeah, it’d be okay.”
“And come and visit?”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
“How about coming to see me race? Would you like to do that, too?”
Jake sat up straighter. A smile started to form.
“That’d be cool I guess.”
“Cool, you guess? Sugar, there ain’t nothin’ cooler than a barrel-racin’ cowgirl. The sooner you figure that out the better.”
He smiled. He had his dad’s smile. It lit up his whole face.
“Okay. It’s cool.”
“You got that right. And Jake?” She tilted her head again, hoping he would look her in the eye. “Thanks for talking to me.”
“Sure. Anytime.”
She said goodnight, and he went downstairs. Liv leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes.
Ben stood around the corner from Liv and Jake listening to their conversation. She might as well have been talking to him. All of Jake’s concerns were his, too. When would she decide she needed to leave again? And when she did, would he have any idea when he might see her next? And, how much a part of her life did she want him to be?
She’d answered all those questions while she talked to Jake. She made plans with his son. Plans for them to come and see her ranch, and plans for them to see her race. Those were significant plans. Coming to see her ranch meant she was willing to let his boys in, to get to know her better. He knew Liv well enough to know that she wouldn’t take his sons’ feelings lightly. She wouldn’t lie to them, and she wouldn’t let them think they mattered if they didn’t.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hi, Ben. Come sit with me.” Liv stood and moved to the couch, holding out her hand for him to join her.
“How’d it go?”
“It went well. He cares about you. He wants to make sure I do, too.”
“And?”
“You know I do.”
“I overheard your conversation with him.”
“I know.”
That made him smile.
Liv leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder, and put her arm around his waist. “You’re too used to being in control of everything to have let that go.”
“You think that was about control?”
“Of course it was. I was talking to your son. The one you’re worried about. If things had started to go badly, you would’ve stepped in to make sure he was okay.”
“I guess I would’ve.”
“We have a lot to work on, Ben.”
“If you’re willing, so am I.”
Liv stood and held her hand out to him. “Take me to bed, cowboy.”
They went back to the ski area the next day. A long-time snowboarder, Jake wanted to ski instead, so Ben rented him ski equipment.
“He’s got the best snowboarding stuff made, and today he wants to ski. What’s that all about?”
Liv raised her eyebrows. “You should consider this a good thing. At least he’s talking.”
She was right. If Jake wanted to be closer to Liv or Renie all day it was better than having him off sulking in a corner, or refusing to go along.
When Renie decided at the last minute to try snowboarding, Ben’s groan was audible.
“Great. Now he’ll want to go back to slidin’ down the hill. I know the guys in the rental place, I’m sure they’ll give me my money back.”
But Ben was wrong, Jake wanted to spend the day with Liv. The two of them went on several runs on their own and showed up twenty minutes late at their designated lunch stop.
Ben put his arm around his oldest son. “Tryin’ to steal my girl, are ya?” He messed up his son’s already mop-top hair.
“She enjoys my company,” answered Jake, standing up taller and throwing his shoulders back.
“We’re making dinner tonight,” Liv and Jake announced when the group met back at the lodge at the end of the day.
“Who is?” asked Ben.
“Jake and I are.”
“What are you making?”
“You’ll see.”
“Are you makin’ pizza?” asked Luke.
Jake started to answer his little brother, but Liv stopped him by putting her finger in front of her lips. “Shh,” she said.
Ben knew that if heaven existed, today was a slice of it.
“Stop at the market on the way back to the house. Jake and I will run in and get what we need.”
“But—”
“Ben, please, let us do this. Let go a little, it’s only dinner.”
Damn, she knew how to call him out on his shit. He’d always have control issues, because he knew control meant sobriety. That part he couldn’t let go.
To let go with other people, that took trust. And with Liv, trust was harder. He had visible tread marks lingering on his heart, left by her. If he was honest about it, every morning when they woke up, he wondered if that day was the day she’d leave him again. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get over it.
Jake and Liv made paella, along with other Spanish food. Liv also made an individual pizza for Luke. The kitchen was spotless because Liv insisted she and Jake clean as they go, the exact opposite of Ben’s approach.
Throughout dinner, Jake extolled the virtues of Liv’s style of food preparation at the expense of his father’s.
All Ben could think was how much he wanted this to be their lives, all the time. He wanted to spend every day with Liv, and Renie too, for that matter, and his boys. If this was his world, he would give up everything else in order to have it.
But it wasn’t their world. Soon the boys would go back to their mom’s, and then in January, Ben would be halfway across the world on tour. Renie would be back at school, and Liv would be out doing the thing that almost killed her only a couple of months ago.
Control? Shit. He had none over that. He wanted to wrap her up, and take her on tour with him, but then she’d be a thing, not a person, and her greatest fear, losing herself for him or anyone else would become a reality. Ben needed to figure out how to respect her independence, but not go insane with worry at the same time.
“Fret, fret, fret,” she whispered in his ear.
“You caught me.”
“Why the scowl?”
He hadn’t realized he’d been scowling. “I don’t want this to end.”
“None of us do. But that’s what makes it so special. Otherwise, diminishing returns, and nobody likes that.”
“What?”
“The more you have something, the less joy it brings you.”
“I don’t agree with that at all. I would be very happy to have your skin on mine all day every day, for the rest of our lives, and I would never, I repeat never, experience less joy from it. My joy will only continue to grow.”
“On the subject of skin on skin, what do you want to do for New Year’s Eve?”
Ben’s eyes roamed over the scene in front of him. “It may be what I want to do, but whether I get to or not, that’s another story.”
Liv smiled. “Blythe is flying into Gunnison tomorrow, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I’m glad you reminded me. She and Renie have been best friends since kindergarten, so the two of them are going to hang out and ski for a couple of days. Since we don’t have the room at the hotel any longer—”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know what I’m asking yet.”
“I don’t? You aren’t asking me if she can stay here?”
“No, as a matter of fact I wasn’t. I was going to ask you if you had any connections in town to help me get a room somewhere. I’ve called everyone, but they’re full.”
“I just said she can stay here, Liv,” Ben snapped.
“I didn’t want to impose, Ben,” she murmured.
He wasn’t sure why, but that made him angry. Something twisted inside of him. “Liv, for God’s sake. What are you, a guest here? Is that how you see yourself?”
She stood and walked toward the stairs.
“What are you doing now? Leaving?”
She turned back, her eyes met his, and he watched them fill with tears. She kept her hand on the stair rail as she slowly turned and sat on one of the steps.
Ben ran his hand over his head and walked back and forth in the kitchen, then hit the counter with his hand. “Shit, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
He sat down next to her.
“You said it because we’re pretending. We’re pretending that we know each other. We’re pretending that this is fun, and perfect, and everything we want it to be, but the truth is, we’re all walking on eggshells. Even Luke.”
She was right. The first thing Luke did every morning was come and crawl in bed with them. It was as though he was checking to make sure Liv was still there.
“The only person who has expressed and dealt with their uneasiness is Jake. I’m including myself in this, Ben. I haven’t done it either.”
Ben put his head in his hands. “You hurt me, Liv.”
“I know.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, you didn’t. You only scare me.”
“I scare you. As in you’re afraid of me?”
“I’m afraid of letting myself depend on you. I don’t know how. I’m used to being on my own, not relying on anyone else.”
“You rely on Paige and Mark. You rely Dottie and Bill, too.” He didn’t say Billy. He hoped she didn’t rely on him. “And Renie.”
“With the exception of my daughter, I keep very strict boundaries with everyone you mentioned, even Paige. Do you know the last time I talked to her?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. It was sometime before Christmas. But the thing is, it doesn’t matter. We’ll talk when we want to, but we don’t have to.”
“Are you suggesting that’s how you want it to be with us?”
“Not at all, but it’s the way I am, Ben. You need more.”
“Please tell me we’re not going back to that again.”
“But it’s true. You need more from me than I know how to give.”
Fall for Me (Cowboys of Crested Butte Book 1) Page 23
