As You Wish (The Summerhouse 3)

For his wife, he didn’t read the rest of her email

s, didn’t thank her for making the arrangements, or for all she’d done to save the account. But then, it was the kind of thing Kathy always did for him. He no longer even noticed.

Chapter Five

Olivia awoke early and lay in bed listening to the silence of the house. She and Kit were going to be living just a few yards away, past the big Camden Hall, at the River House. She wondered what would have happened if they had stayed together after their summer in 1970.

Would they have retired to that house? Even to this town? Or would they have chosen somewhere they’d seen on Kit’s world travels? Would they have said something like, “I loved the island of Moorea. Why don’t we settle there?”

Yet again, she had questions she couldn’t answer. Kit said that places didn’t matter, that only people did. She knew he meant that they could live anywhere and they’d be happy as long as they were together. But she also knew how much family meant to him.

Last night she’d called her husband. He sounded tired and although he didn’t say so, she guessed that he hadn’t slept in a while. She’d tried to cheer him up with an amusing story of the rivalry between Ray and Elise, but she didn’t burden her new husband with the more serious aspects of it all. She left out Ray’s poor wife, Kathy, and what was coming for her, and Elise’s fear of the future. Nor did Olivia tell him about Kevin and Hildy saying they were staying in River House. Kit’s temper was fierce enough that he might send the sheriff.

No, she wasn’t going to put more on him than the US government was already doing.

However, when he said he would have someone look into Elise’s predicament, she was grateful.

Between Olivia’s silence and the secrecy that came with Kit’s job, they didn’t have much to talk about. After they said goodbye, she knew that after she went to bed, Kit would go back to work.

Olivia got up, dressed, and left the room. Elise’s door was shut and Olivia wondered if it was bolted from the inside. She tiptoed down the stairs, glanced at Ray’s closed door, then went outside. The morning was cool and the air smelled good.

It was a bit odd to be inside an area that was fully enclosed by a tall stone wall. Across the entranceway, she could see Pete’s Tower. It seemed to be empty, but he was sneaky enough to be hiding and watching.

When she remembered that he’d let her know he’d almost caught them so many years ago, she again started to blush. But she stopped herself. Yesterday had been such an extraordinary day! Sliding bare bottomed across the tree branch, scraping her skin on the stone wall, running through a forest naked. Who did those things at her age?

People who’d missed out in their youth, she thought. From the moment she’d walked into Trumbull Appliances so many years ago, it was as though her life had not been her own. Taking care of Alan’s son and trying to figure out how to revamp an old appliance store had taken all her time. And she’d had to look after Alan. He was one of those men who never remembered where he’d put things, who forgot where he was supposed to be when. Olivia had become a human calendar.

And Kevin was just like his father. He had to be checked for homework, reminded of what was due when. She’d tried leaving it up to him, but Kevin’s tears at not being allowed to go on a field trip because he’d forgotten to get the permission slip signed had broken her. In frustration, Olivia had given a huge discount on a major appliance to Kevin’s teacher in exchange for being told directly about her stepson’s assignments. The next year she did the same thing. She’d heard that at the end of each school term the teachers drew papers out of a bowl. All but one was blank and it had Kevin’s name on it. The winner got her stepson, a quiet, rather lazy little boy, and the appliance of their choice from the store.

Olivia never tried to find out if that was true or not.

She walked on the dew-damp grass, trying to stay out of sight of the tower in case Young Pete was up there.

What she’d overheard Kevin say yesterday had hurt more than she wanted to admit.

Parents often made jokes about how ungrateful children were, but Kevin’s statement that Olivia had always “loved money,” had even married for it, hurt deeply. And it was very unfair!

It had been Alan who’d come up with the idea of opening more appliance stores. Olivia had said that they couldn’t compete with the big national franchises. And besides, how could she work more than she did?

But Alan said he would run the new stores. He’d reminded her that it was his family who had started Trumbull Appliances. “It’s in my blood,” he said.

And of course Alan was backed up by his mother. She believed her only child could do anything.

Olivia had done the work to start the first of the new stores, telling herself that Alan would soon be helping. But just after the store opened, Alan said he’d hurt his back while unloading a truck full of Wolf ranges. He said that as soon as he got well, he’d go back to work. He never got well enough to help with the stores. But his mother did. Together, she and Olivia ran the business.

Six months after the grand opening of the first new store, Alan bought a place in the mountains that he said was for him and Olivia. But she only went there once.

She shook her head to clear it. Why had she put up with it all? she wondered. Why hadn’t she...? But the truth was that these questions only came from hindsight. She didn’t like what it said about her, but she’d had no idea that Alan and Kevin were so very unhappy.

While it was true that she and Alan had never had much of a sex life, she hadn’t minded. She’d never felt that raw passion for him that she’d had with Kit, so she didn’t hunger for it.

Maybe she had been too harsh with Kevin. She was always trying to teach him to...to... What? Be less like his father? To not always depend on others to get him out of messes?

Olivia couldn’t help giving a snort at that thought. Like his father, Kevin landed on his feet. He’d married Hildy, a woman who made all their decisions. When the two of them were nearly bankrupt, Olivia had bailed them out. Thanks to her, they’d not lost so much as a teacup. Today, they still had their huge house, two cars and a pickup, their twice-yearly vacations, the country club membership, et cetera.

She knew that now they were again racking up bills, but she had no more money. Did they think that next time they got in debt that Kit would save them? She dreaded when that showdown came. The anger on both sides would—

Olivia broke off her ugly thoughts because Elise was sitting on an old bench behind Camden Hall and smiling at her. She looked so young and so fragilely beautiful that Olivia stopped frowning and smiled back. “Hungover?” she asked as she sat down beside her.