One Walk in Winter

by Georgia Beers

  Olivia shrugged. “I agree with my mom. Nobody should be alone on Christmas. And I feel terrible that Hayley’s family doesn’t do the holiday together.”

  “Some families just don’t. My college roommate takes a cruise every Christmas. Alone.”

  “That makes me sad.”

  “No reason to be. She’s not. Maybe Hayley isn’t either. Maybe she’s used to this.”

  Olivia had to concede. “Could be.”

  “But she’s coming, yes?”

  “She said yes to my mom, so…”

  “Yeah, you don’t back out on Angela Santini. It’s just mean.” Their light laughter died down, and again, they sat quietly for a moment. When Tessa spoke again, her voice matched the relaxed atmosphere. “You okay?”

  “You know what it is?” The reality didn’t hit Olivia then. Rather, it seemed to float up and settle gently on her shoulders. “I don’t know what to do.” A lump unexpectedly lodged in her throat and she did her best to swallow it back down.

  Tessa nodded, her expression knowing, as if she’d just been waiting for her friend to give the correct answer. “You hate that. It’s very unlike you.”

  “Exactly.” More silence. Then, “What do I do, Tess?”

  “Well.” Tessa wiggled her butt a little, snuggled more deeply into the couch, and put her feet up on the coffee table. She crossed them at the ankle, sipped her brandy, and finally looked at Olivia. “You ready for this? ’Cuz I’m about to hit you with some Granny Wanda wisdom.”

  “Oh, good.” Olivia nodded and grinned, recalling several stories Tessa had shared about her maternal grandmother over the years. The woman had an answer for everything, and more often than not, her advice was spot-on.

  “If there’s one thing Granny Wanda taught me, it’s the simple act of standing still.”

  Olivia furrowed her brow. “Explain.”

  “When I was about twelve or thirteen, Granny Wanda told me that in her experience, when you don’t know what to do, the best course of action is to do nothing. Stand still until your answer becomes clear. And sometimes that’s really, really hard to do, but every time I have, it’s been the right move.”

  “So, you’re saying I do nothing?”

  Tessa tipped her head one way, then the other. “Pretty much, yeah. Have you talked to Hayley about any of it?”

  Olivia flashed back to the conversation outside the fitness center, then made a sound that was half snort, half laugh. “We tried.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she brought it up and we both admitted that we like each other. We didn’t get much further than that. It was kind of ridiculous, two grown women who can’t manage to discuss the fact that they made out in the woods and feel strange about it.”

  “So, you like her.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Olivia nodded. Somewhat reluctantly, but nonetheless… “I don’t want to.”

  “I get that. It could get messy.”

  “It’s already messy.”

  “God, you worry too much.” Tessa sat up, spread her arms out in joy. “You need to lighten up. Loosen up. Have some fun. Stop worrying about rules and appearances and just…enjoy yourself!” They looked at each other for a brief moment before Tessa brought her arms down. “Okay, some of that might have been the brandy.”

  Olivia laughed. She couldn’t help it. “You think?”

  Dialing down a notch or twelve, Tessa sighed. “Seriously, though. Just breathe. Okay? This might be awesome. It might be nothing. But there’s no reason to drive yourself crazy. Just breathe.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Tessa studied her face in the colored lighting for several seconds before she closed a hand over Olivia’s and said, “You can just be, Liv. You know that, right? You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to get all worked up. You can just be. That’s allowed.”

  Those words would stay with Olivia for the rest of the night and, like the reality of the situation earlier, sit on her shoulders with considerable weight. Which was silly, because if she was supposed to lighten up and just be, what was the point of having more weight set on her?

  You don’t have to do anything…stand still until your answer becomes clear.

  The advice made sense, but it went against everything Olivia believed in. It went against the very nature of the kind of person she was. She didn’t stand still. She never had. She made decisions. She led. That’s who she was. This waiting, this…indecisiveness was driving her a little crazy, and maybe Tessa was right. Maybe the indecisiveness would go away if she simply stopped trying to make a decision. She didn’t have to. There was nobody waiting on one. Nothing depended on what she decided.

  So she and Hayley had made out.

  So they liked each other.

  Nobody was holding a gun to her head and screaming at her to make a choice.

  Just breathe.

  * * *

  Renting an SUV instead of driving her cute little sporty two-door probably would’ve been the smarter thing to do when Hayley came to Evergreen Hills. That was the thought in her mind as she slid along the roads into town. She’d gotten her driver’s license at sixteen, just like every other kid in her school, but living in Manhattan meant you didn’t really need a car. She had her Beemer, of course, but she didn’t use it all that often. She walked, took the subway, or used the family’s car service to get where she needed to go. Driving her own car to Evergreen Hills had seemed like the independent thing to do, but now as she fishtailed around a corner, she was rethinking that choice.

  Luck was with her, both on the ride and once in town, because she nabbed a parking spot only a few yards away from the front entrance to Brushstrokes.

  “There she is,” Ross Edwards said in happy greeting when she entered his shop. “You made it.”

  “I did. Barely.” Hayley blew out a breath of relief as she set down her supplies and held out a hand to shake his.

  “Yeah, you need four-wheel drive around here in the winter.” He let go of her hand and came around the counter to help her with her stuff. “I was glad to hear from you.”

  She’d been painting like crazy over the past few days, but painting in her hotel suite didn’t feel right somehow. Hayley couldn’t put her finger on exactly why. Was it the lighting? The ambience? The mess? She wasn’t tidy—she could admit that—and she felt bad for housekeeping. They’d been good about hiding their disdain at the state of her suite, but she’d caught a look or two.

  The reason she’d been painting like crazy for the past few days was that she didn’t know how else to channel her energy. She felt like she was all over the place, thanks to the mess her thoughts were, like a bowl of spaghetti, all tangled and twisted up with each other, and they all came back to one thing: Olivia Santini.

  Ross Edwards interrupted her thoughts, thank God. “Follow me.” He led her back behind the counter, through a doorway closed off with a burgundy curtain, and into a shockingly wide-open space that she hadn’t expected, even though she’d known it was there. She stopped in her tracks and just took it in. Sort of a warehouse/industrial type area with a solid concrete floor and gray walls. Skylights in the ceiling told Hayley that there was likely some terrific natural light in the daytime, and she made a mental note to come here on her day off rather than in the evening after her shift, like tonight. Four people sat at easels, brushes in their hands. Workstations for six more were set up in different places along the walls.

  “Wow,” she said quietly. “This is amazing.”

  Ross stood a little taller, his pride obvious. “Right?” He carried her things to a space to the right. There was an empty easel, a small table, a few rags, a stool. “How’s this?”

  “It’s perfect.” Hayley set down the bundle of three canvases she’d been carrying and leaned them against the easel stand as Ross set her tote bag of supplies on the floor next to the stool.

  “This space is yours for as long as you want it.” Ross kept his voice down, se
emingly to not disturb the other artists. “All I ask is that you buy your supplies here and you show up to work at least once a week.”

  “Seriously?” Hayley asked, completely surprised. “Can’t I pay you rent or something?”

  He smiled as he shook his head and waved her off with a hand. “Nope. Not how I do things here. I just want people to have a space to feel creative and do what they love to do most. It’s always been a dream of mine to have a gathering place for artists like myself.” He gestured to the workstation directly across from hers, which looked very lived-in with all the opened tubes of paint, palette knives, and various canvases spread around. “I’m over there. Once I close the shop at nine, that’s where I’ll be.”

  “This is amazing, Ross. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Harness your creativity. That’s all the thanks I need.” With a nod, he left her to her art and headed back through the curtain and into the shop.

  Hayley took a deep breath and inhaled the various scents of the space: paint, clay, paper, dust. She loved it instantly; it made her feel whole, like she belonged. It was the same feeling she’d had in that very first art class she’d ever taken. Junior year in high school. She’d walked into Mrs. Burton’s art room and felt immediately like she was right where she was supposed to be.

  She’d been chasing that feeling ever since.

  The other artists in the studio glanced at her, sent smiles her way, but mainly kept to themselves. Two were painting in watercolors. One was sketching with a charcoal pencil. The fourth was sitting at a table and shaping clay with her fingers and various tools of her trade.

  My people.

  It took Hayley a few minutes to unpack her things and lay them out the way she wanted to. She laid out her tubes of paint, making a mental note of what colors she didn’t have. She’d left a lot of her stuff back at her apartment in New York, knowing she had no plans to stay here forever, but now she was acutely aware of the things she’d left behind. She had one pallet knife with her, but not her favorite. She had a freestanding easel back in New York and loved it. When packing to come to Evergreen Hills, she’d brought a tabletop version and had been struggling a bit with it, so having a standing easel here was much better. She liked having her work up and facing her, as she preferred to paint while standing.

  The one thing she needed when she was in the mood to paint, the tool she couldn’t paint without, was an oversized denim shirt. It had belonged to her mother and it went everywhere with Hayley. She knew it was impossible for it to still have some of her mother’s scent clinging to it, but there were days when she swore it was true, and she’d bunch up the fabric, hold it to her nose, inhale deeply, and miss her mother so badly it made her chest ache. Now she slipped her arms in and buttoned it up. The shirt was like the combined history of her and her mother’s art, stained with more colors than she could count, the elbows worn thin, two buttons missing and long lost.

  Her art helped her think. Hayley wasn’t quite sure how that managed to work, but it did. Automatically, her focus would split evenly between whatever piece she was working on and whatever was on her mind at the time, and somehow, she’d be able to see and think clearly. More clearly than at any other time. That was the case now as she mixed three different paints with her pallet knife to get the exact shade of green she wanted for the canvas she’d been working on for two weeks now.

  Sunday was Christmas, which meant Saturday night was Christmas Eve. The night she’d be having dinner with Olivia and her family. To say Hayley was nervous was an understatement. To say she was nervously excited was an even bigger one. Bowing out had never even been an option, and that was something Hayley found interesting. Couldn’t explain it, other than to say more time around Olivia was a good thing—wasn’t it? Getting to know more about her sounded perfect—should it? Spending the holiday with a family, even if it wasn’t her own, sounded so much better than pretending she was fine being alone.

  And how had that happened? How had Hayley been instantly, magically, totally okay accepting such an offer? It wasn’t like her at all, especially given that Olivia hadn’t been thrilled by the invitation. That had been so obvious to Hayley that she’d almost laughed out loud at the expression of horror that zipped across Olivia’s face when her mom brought it up. But she’d covered it quickly and played the good daughter, something Hayley suspected Olivia did on a regular basis. Probably had all her life.

  The complete opposite of Hayley.

  The thought made her chuckle internally, even if it was a little bit sad.

  Really, though, this was good. Going to the Santinis’ for Christmas was good, because if Hayley wasn’t alone, she’d be less likely to fall into an emotional tailspin of missing her mom like she had last year.

  As she stroked her brush along the canvas, blending the green into some of the brown she’d added last week, thoughts of Olivia crowded into her mind. Because of course they did…she’d thought of little else since their make-out session in the woods last week, and—oh, my God—don’t get her started on how mind-blowing that had been. What exactly was the deal with the two of them? She couldn’t figure it out. Even when they’d talked about it, Hayley had left slightly confused.

  There was attraction. Obviously. First and foremost. The moment Hayley had laid eyes on Olivia in the woods that very first day, she’d been taken with her beauty, with those big brown eyes and all that was held within them, with the sultry shape of her body even in the bulky winter outerwear, with the olive tone of her skin and the mystery behind her smile. It had been instant and tangible for Hayley, like never before.

  She didn’t really know Olivia very well. Yet. She wanted to, though. What she’d seen so far—Olivia’s intelligence and wit, her kindness to others, like the woman in the fitness center, her passion for her job—she’d liked very much, and she wanted to learn more. Problem was, she wasn’t sure Olivia felt the same way about her.

  Hayley had the job Olivia should’ve gotten. That would’ve been obvious to her even if Olivia hadn’t practically pointed it out. And while it wasn’t Hayley’s fault, she still felt bad, and she knew Olivia probably felt betrayed by the company she’d been loyal to for years. Hayley couldn’t blame her, and she wondered if she could ever come back from that, get out from under the shadow of something Olivia most likely saw as an injustice. Hayley also had her own issues to deal with regarding Corporate—aka Dad, who she owed a phone call but was avoiding like the plague—and that was another thing that stuck with her: Olivia didn’t know the truth of who she was.

  “That looks great.” Hayley hadn’t heard Ross come up behind her, and she flinched slightly at the sound of his voice, which made him put an apologetic hand on her shoulder. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “You’d better get used to that,” the woman working with the clay said, a good-natured tone in her voice. “The guy moves like a ninja. You’ll be lost in your work and then bam! You have a mild heart attack, because he’s suddenly standing next to you.”

  Chuckles and nods came from the other artists.

  Ross shook his head with a smile as he turned back to Hayley’s canvas. “Your use of shadow among the evergreens is fantastic.” His eyes moved from the photograph she’d clipped to the easel to the painting itself and back again. “Really, really nice work.”

  Just like that, Hayley was back in college, in the first real painting class she’d ever taken, and even though Ross was not her teacher, the approval made her stand up a little taller, assess her own work with new, more confident eyes. “Thanks,” she said, feeling the blush in her cheeks. “They’re much harder to capture than I was expecting.”

  “Nature almost always is,” Ross said. “A still life is one thing. By definition, it doesn’t move. But nature herself? Trees and grass and leaves and things that are almost constantly in motion? A whole different story.” With that, he walked away and left her to her work.

  Hayley glanced toward the sculptor, who was looking
back at her with a smile and a fun glint in her eyes. With a shrug, she said, “Yeah, he does that, too. Drops little nuggets of wisdom and then walks away. He should carry around a little microphone to drop each time.”

  Hayley laughed, as did the others in the room, and she turned back to her piece, tilting her head to the side, narrowing her eyes, concentrating on the color, the light, the shadow, and felt utterly at peace. Which surprised her. She hadn’t felt so comfortable among like-minded people since she’d entered her first ever gay bar when she was nineteen.

  Yeah. She liked it here.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “As you well know, I’ve had this very same issue in the past.” Mrs. Haverton was a semiregular guest at the Evergreen. Olivia was very familiar with her and also with her particular disdain for scratchy sheets.

  “You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Haverton. I’m very sorry about this. Why don’t you head over to Split Rail and have one of those Manhattans you love so much. Tell Mike it’s on the house. I’ll make sure your sheets get replaced. Okay?”

  There was nothing Olivia loved more about the hospitality business than taking the wind right out of somebody’s sails, making it impossible for them to argue further. She smiled pleasantly at Mrs. Haverton, a seventysomething widow with more money than she knew what to do with, and waited her out. Stephanie stood next to her, also smiling.

  “Fine.” Mrs. Haverton looked from one of them to the other and back. Then she took her little clutch purse off the counter and clicked along the tile toward the restaurant. They watched her go.

  “Who was that?” Hayley was suddenly next to her, and Olivia’s entire body tingled without her permission at the proximity.

  “That was Mrs. Haverton. She’s a K-hack,” Stephanie said, then turned to grab the phone and give housekeeping the instructions to change out the woman’s sheets.

  “A what?”

  Olivia turned to meet Hayley’s gorgeous eyes, which was ill-advised as the tingling intensified. “She’s a guest we want to ‘keep happy at all cost.’” Olivia kept her voice low as she made air quotes with her fingers. “K-H-A-A-C. Or K-hack.”