Wild Zone (Rough Riders Hockey 4)

Olivia crossed her arms, leaned against the kitchen doorjamb and rested her head there. She was tired. She wasn’t sleeping well at night and she’d been planning food and a cake for Lily’s party during the day in between helping her mother vet caterers to take over the smaller jobs so Olivia could focus on the two bigger ones.

Lily’s party wasn’t a problem. Eden was extremely easy to please. She liked clean eating and basic ingredients with lots of flavor. Right up Olivia’s alley. The cake Olivia could do in her sleep, even if Lily wanted some bizarre winged dragon creature. And the kitchen in Beckett’s parent’s Arlington home were they were holding the party had been sent directly from the heavens above. Olivia could throw a wedding reception for five hundred people out of that kitchen.

But the charity banquet was hanging a lot heavier in the back of her mind. She didn’t want to tell her mother and Quinn that, but she’d made sure they’d secured Charlotte’s sous chefs for the day before and her entire staff for the night of. The only problem she could see running into would be bizarre menu requests, ingredients she couldn’t get or that would be out of season and ridiculously expensive. She didn’t want to do anything to eat into her mother’s budget.

As Quinn called a few last items out to their mother, Olivia rested her eyes. She’d figure the banquet out soon enough. She was scheduled to meet the client at the end of the week, before Lily’s—

“Olivia.”

She startled awake. “Oui, quoi? Quoi?” And found Quinn glaring at her from the dining room. Olivia exhaled and rubbed her face with both hands. “Shit.”

She’d just fallen asleep on her feet. Not exactly new. She’d done that numerous tim

es over the years working double shifts, but it wasn’t how she wanted to spend her time off.

Olivia scraped her hands into her hair, pulled the messy mass back and wound the band she’d been wearing on her wrist around the ponytail. “You haven’t sent mom to the store so you could yell at me since that Christmas when I borrowed the car and dented the bumper. I’m doing exactly what you wanted me to do, and I’m doing it well. So why are you mad at me now?”

Quinn gripped the back of a dining chair, propped her other hand on her hip and settled that look on Olivia. The judgmental one. Olivia thought she’d gotten over the irritation that brought, but evidently it still raked a few fingers across a blackboard somewhere in her psyche.

“You slept with Tate Donovan,” Quinn said with absolute authority and censure. “That’s what you did.”

The fact that she knew hit Olivia sideways. “How the hell—?”

“Not only did you sleep with him the first night you were in town, but then you dumped the poor guy. Now the immediate future of our business hinges on the referrals of his buddies and the buddies of his buddies. So I sent mom out because I didn’t want to talk about this in front of her. You’re welcome.”

Hurt from the past came rushing to the surface. All the animosity between them they’d failed to get past sizzled. And Olivia was reminded that real love caused bone deep pain.

“I didn’t thank you. And I won’t thank you. First, because you’re acting like a bitch. Second, because you didn’t do it for me. You did it for mom. Everything you do is for mom. It’s like I don’t exist. As soon as dad got sick I ceased to exist for both of you. Nothing I wanted or needed mattered anymore.”

Olivia pushed off the doorjamb and took a step toward Quinn. “If you ever want to know why I don’t come home more often, record just one conversation with me and play it back. That judgmental tone of yours gets old really fast, Quinn, and you’ve already used up your quota of my patience. So if you want this stupid birthday party and this goddamned banquet to go off perfectly, don’t fuckin’ push your luck.”

Instead of backing off, she matched Olivia’s step forward. “You hurt him. You hurt him like you hurt everyone who cares about you. You and your cavalier European attitude. Why can’t you ever just leave that behind when you come home?”

“Everyone else who cares about me? If you’re talking about you and mom, try looking in the mirror, Quinn, that’s where you’ll find the person you really care about. People who care about someone stand up and do the right thing even when it’s hard. They say what needs to be said even if someone else doesn’t want to hear it because they know the alternative will hurt so much more. People who care about you don’t take the coward’s way out, and don’t steal the most precious thing in your life.”

“We. Didn’t. Steal. Him,” she said with barely controlled impatience. “Cancer took him.”

“But you took his last months from me. You and Mom stole all that time I could have spent with him. You stole my chance to say goodbye. To tell him how much I loved him one more time. To support him through the illness. Through the therapy—”

She choked on a sob. It took her so by surprise, she shut down. She held her breath and tightened her muscles and clenched her hands to hold the ripping sorrow and the fiery rage inside.

Quinn said nothing. She stood completely still, staring at the floor.

This was a ten-year-old tear in the fabric of their family that no one and nothing could repair. This kept Olivia living on the other side of the country, feeling like half of her was missing because her family was somewhere else, yet knowing she couldn’t live with them.

A never ending spiral that left Olivia feeling incomplete.

She did everything she could to make her visits home brief and enjoyable, but inevitably, every second or third visit things between either her and Quinn or her and her mother blew up.

In a more controlled voice, Olivia told Quinn, “Tate and I both knew what we were doing. I don’t know why you think what you do, but I assure you, he’s not hurting over our one night.”

Quinn crossed her arms and sniffled back tears. “And I assure you, I don’t need dozens of men in my background to recognize the feel of an erection pressed against my ass when a man pulls me close from behind. Or the signs of affection when he whispers “I’ve missed you” at my ear and kisses my neck. Or the look of pain in a man’s eyes when he realizes he’s just like all the rest. Because that’s what happened, Olivia, all because he thought I was you.”

Quinn yelled the last words in anger.

Olivia’s mouth dropped open. Her heart skipped two full beats, then hammered hard and fell straight to the pit of her stomach. “When? Where?”

“Today. At the warehouse.” She dropped her arms and drew herself up. “So I may not take as many risks as you, but this is why. Because I have mom to think about.” She stabbed her finger at the floor. “Now, you’re going to go find him, talk to him and do whatever you have to do to make sure he doesn’t badmouth our family into bankruptcy or fire us from his job.”