Wild Zone (Rough Riders Hockey 4)

Turning toward the windows Olivia wandered across the room, and looked out on the gardens. She’d never been here before. Never had these feelings. Since her family had so totally shattered her trust, she’d never opened her heart to anyone.

But here she was. Unable to think about leaving Tate in a few days with no idea when she’d see him again. If ever. And while the thought of never seeing him again was unfathomably painful, continuing to see him was equally as inconceivable. Aside from the impossibility of solving the problems of distance and time to see each other, it forced her to look at the future. It made her ask hard questions, foreign questions, like what Tate wanted out of this. What she wanted out of this. If they tried to do something long distance for the year she was in school, then what? Would he expect her to move home? Did she want that? Was there even an option? He couldn’t live in Europe, could he? Did they even have the same level of hockey in Europe? Did it operate the same? Would he even want to do that? And did she want him to do that?

“Liv?” His soft voice pulled her from the vortex. She turned and found him sitting on the edge of the bed, ready to stand. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“I can hear it in your voice.” He pushed to his feet and the sheet fell. Even in the shadows, the man took her breath. He came to her, slid his hands over her shoulders and wrapped her in his arms. “Have a bad dream?”

“No.” She buried her face against his chest, swamped with emotion. God, she didn’t want to let this go. “I’m…scared.”

He pulled away, combed his hands through her hair and cupped her face. His dark eyes held hers in the light drifting off the city. “Of what?”

“This. Us. You. Me.”

“Whoa, slow down.” He slid his hands down her arms and took her hands, backing toward the bed. He sat and pulled her into his lap sideways. Pressing all his hard muscle and warm skin against her. He circled her waist and cupped her cheek. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I just…You brought up leaving, and I’ve been so busy with jobs, and my mind’s been caught up with my family, that I didn’t think abut it. And now, I don’t know, I feel like it snuck up

on me. It’s all I can think about and I don’t know—”

She broke off, unable to put her fears into words. Or afraid to. And all this fear was unreasonable. Even she knew that. Yet she couldn’t stem the urge to both run from him and seek safety in his arms.

“Don’t know what?” he nudged.

What she felt like she needed to say wasn’t something she should be talking to him about. Not when she was so unsure. She needed a friend to talk to. But she only had Quinn and her sister didn’t understand Olivia’s life and wouldn’t understand her fears. She also wouldn’t be impartial.

“I’m not good at this,” she admitted. “And I don’t want to say the wrong thing and hurt you or screw things up.”

“Knowing you’re upset and not knowing why, hurts me. Not being able to help you hurts me. Talk to me, baby.”

God, she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t get it out. “Let’s go back to sleep. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“Liv,” he said his voice soft and patient, “if there’s one thing I learned from my marriage it’s that pretending problems don’t exist only creates bigger problems, it doesn’t make them go away.”

Her gut knotted. Her chest squeezed. “I’ve never felt like this. I’ve never even imagined feeling like this.”

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Like what?”

“This,” she said frustrated she wasn’t sure how to define it. “This thing between us. I never look beyond right now. After my dad died, I put one foot in front of the other and just lived life as it happened. No plans, no commitments, no ties.”

“No risk,” he murmured. “No heartache. I get it.”

“The first time I really looked into the future was when I got my scholarship. I’ve sort of always been saving for it, hoping some day I’d find a way to go to school. So when I found out I’d gotten the scholarship, I already had most of the fifteen percent they require from me in the bank. But not all of it. And I knew I had to have it all by next week or the scholarship would go to someone else and I’d be right back where I started.”

She paused to take a breath. Her mind was spinning. Words were spilling. She wasn’t even sure if she was making sense. “So even then, I put the future out of my head and just picked up as much work as I could everyday. It’s what I know how to do, just put my head down and keep going. It was just the other day, when my latest paycheck was been deposited that I saw my savings account tip over the total I needed. That’s when I knew, one-hundred percent, that school was real. The first time I knew I was really going to see that dream come true.”

He squeezed her. “Congratulations, baby.”

She huffed a laugh, but she didn’t feel happy, she felt just plain scared. “Now all this is happening with you, and I leave soon, and I can see that I’m not going to be able to just put one foot in front of the other anymore. I’ve always been able to walk away and return to everyday life without any problem. But I already know I’m not going to be able to do that now. And that creates all kinds of problems that force me to think about the future. And I’m not good at it. I just… It terrifies me.” She covered her face. “I feel like I’m going to fucking hyperventilate.”

“There’s something at stake in life now.” He said, his voice calm and quiet. “It’s easy to float through life when you don’t have much to lose. But the more you want something, the scarier it is to reach for it, because you risk losing it.”

She dropped her hands. “Maybe if it was just one thing at a time, it wouldn’t feel so overwhelming. But now there’s school and you…”

“Is it me?” he asked. “Or do things with your mother and sister have you wound up?”

When she looked into his eyes now, she didn’t just see the physical man anymore. She saw beyond his handsome features. She saw Tate, heart and soul. She saw Tate’s essence. And she didn’t want to let go.