When she opened her eyes, Kit was standing there, a garden hoe over his shoulder. As always, he had on next to nothing.
But she didn’t feel lust for his beautiful body. What she felt was anger. All of this was his fault. Her life with Alan was because Kit had left her alone and pregnant. She had come back in time with the idea of having a life with Christopher Montgomery. But she wasn’t pregnant, so there was no need to have to spend her life with him. She was utterly and totally free!
She knew that what she was feeling, all her anger and frustration, was on her face.
When Kit first saw her standing there, he smiled, but one look at her glower and he put on what Olivia called his “diplomat face.” It was a mask he hid behind so no one would know what he was thinking—but Olivia did. Today the mask covered his extreme disapproval.
“Let me know when my Olivia is back.” It was the voice he’d someday use with trumped-up dignitaries who he wanted to put in their place.
Olivia broke. Like a glass vial full of some nasty, smoky, green poison, she snapped.
She didn’t say a word, just ran at him with all her force.
Surprised, Kit tossed the hoe to the side and caught her just as her head hit his torso.
He grunted as she nearly knocked the breath out of him.
“It’s all your fault!” Yelling, she began hitting him with her fists on his bare chest. “You did it all! You left me when I was carrying your baby. You—”
He grabbed her shoulders to hold her out to look at her. “Are you—?”
She swung her right arm with all her might and hit him in the jaw. When she saw blood on his lip, she was pleased. She’d certainly shed enough blood for him! “This morning I found out that I’m not, but I was back in 1970. And I was alone! You saw me at the theater in New York, but you said nothing. I had to go away to Florida to have our baby. Estelle raised her. When our daughter finally met us, it was horrible.”
Olivia stepped back from him and put her hands over her face. “She hated us. Our daughter had a good life—Estelle and Henry were good to her—but she couldn’t bear the sight of us. Of you and me. She didn’t know she was adopted until late, and she didn’t understand why we had given her up. Why we didn’t want her.”
Olivia began to cry. “I told you I loved you but you left. I thought you were scared. You told no one where you were going, not even your father.”
She looked up at Kit and saw that his face was white under his tan and his lip was bloody. “Oh, go away. How can you understand what I’m going through? You’re just...” Her mouth hardened. “You’re just a worthless boy.”
Kit’s jaw muscle was working, but he gave no other sign that he was reacting to her words. “As you wish,” he said, then gave a bit of a bow. He put his shoulders back in that way that meant he wasn’t going to talk about the subject anymore, then he started walking away from her.
Olivia picked up a round rock from the ground. It looked like one of the stones the children had collected from the creek. Unlike when she was with Elise, her throwing arm was in good shape. She pulled back like a pitcher and let go. The rock hit him hard on his perfectly toned rear end. “I hope Gaddafi finds out who you are and shoots you.” She turned away toward the house.
Kit caught her before she had gone two feet. He grabbed her shoulders, put his nose to hers, and glared. “What do you know?”
She twisted out of his grip. “I tell you I was pregnant and gave our child up for adoption and that means nothing to you? But the mention of a Middle East dictator gets your attention? Go to hell!” She started back to the house.
Kit stepped in front of her. “Cut out the melodrama and tell me what you know and who told you.”
She moved around him.
“Olivia!”
Halting, she looked at him. “Don’t use your diplomat voice on me! I’m not some third world despot who will be overthrown next week. This—” She motioned to his all-over tan. “This is to make you look more Arabic. The military, specifically some guy you said was wider than he was tall—you
called him a cartoon bear—is going to pick you up in just over two weeks. They’ll give you twenty minutes to pack and leave. And you do it! To hell with us and your family. You only cared about Muammar Gaddafi.”
When Kit opened his mouth to speak, Olivia knew what he was going to say. He was going to tell her that she was saying the name wrong. Always the perfectionist! She leaned toward him, her face red with anger. “Don’t you dare say it!”
But he had no idea what she meant. “Actually, his name is—”
She put her hands over her ears and screamed so loud the peacock screeched and the children came running.
“Go!” Kit ordered them, and the kids and the bird obeyed. When they were alone again, he looked back at Olivia. “You must tell me what this is about. Do I talk in my sleep? Is that how you know about...about my mission?”
Her arms were stiff at her side, her hands in fists. “No! You tell me when we finally get married—over forty years from now. But by that time I’m so beaten down by life that I would marry Gaddafi if it meant escaping my stepson and his wife.”
Kit’s face was losing the hard, unbending look that he would perfect as he aged. “Did you agree to marry me now because you thought you were expecting our child?”