“Could you hurry?” came the response. “I’ve got a plane to catch.”
Brandon! Olivia’s heart jumped into her throat as she scrambled around her desk.
When she reached the reception area, she saw him standing just inside the door with an exasperated-looking man wearing what appeared to be an expensive suit.
“What...what are you doing here?” she asked, glancing between them.
“I couldn’t do it,” Brandon said. “I couldn’t leave without you.”
Was she hearing him right? He seemed in earnest.... “But your...your operation!”
“It can wait.”
“Not if he wants to ski next season, it can’t,” the man he’d brought with him cut in. “But he can still make it if he’s on the next plane.”
“When does it leave?” she asked.
“In three hours.”
“I’ll only go if you go with me,” Brandon said. “Do I have any hope of talking you into that?”
“I—” Her mind whirled as she thought of her apartment, her business.
“Come here, honey,” Brandon said, reaching for her.
He didn’t have to ask twice. She walked right into his arms and pressed her body against his, so grateful to see him, to touch him, her chest ached at the prospect of letting go.
He’d come back. For her.
“I think what we feel deserves a chance,” he explained, his voice low in her ear. “I don’t want to walk away from it.”
“I’d like to be there for the operation.” She wanted nothing more than to watch over him, keep him safe. “But I have clients to take care of and rent to pay—”
The other man made a show of tapping his watch. “Maybe you could join him in a week or two.”
“Olivia, meet Scott Jones, my agent,” Brandon said. “You don’t have to listen to anything he says. Personally I’m finding that quite liberating.”
Now she understood why this other person was so upset. Brandon was risking his career by coming here. She grinned at Brandon’s tongue-in-cheek comment but spoke to Scott. “Won’t the operation be over by then?”
“You could make it for the recovery,” Scott said. “That’s the most important part, anyway.”
Not to her. She wanted to be there to support Brandon through the whole thing. She wanted to go with him now.
She could refer her clients to another planner she knew in River City. That wasn’t the tough part. The tough part was paying her rent without that income....
“He’s right,” Brandon said. “I’m being selfish. I’ve just missed you so much. If it’s too hard, you can come later.”
She considered the money in her savings account. She’d put that away to get her through difficult times, had promised herself she wouldn’t touch it except in an emergency.
Was she willing to spend it on love?
Everyone she knew would probably tell her she was being foolish, reckless. If Brandon recovered, he’d return to his career. But when she was with Kyle, and even long before that, she’d been so responsible, methodical, cautious—and that hadn’t saved her from heartbreak. If Brandon could risk his career for her, she supposed she could risk her career for him.
“I’ll throw some clothes in a bag. The rest I can handle via the internet,” she said and smiled happily as his arms tightened around her and he buried his face in her neck.
“I’ll make you glad you did,” he promised.
EPILOGUE
Present Time
“SO WHAT HAPPENED?” Lorianna leaned forward, her hair now dry and her coffee long cold. “What was wrong with Brandon’s leg? I mean, I’ve seen footage of the accident. I knew his injuries took him out of the sport. But why didn’t his leg heal? What did the doctor find?”
Olivia tightened her ponytail, then turned her mug of tea in a slow circle. She was thinking about how lucky she was to have found Brandon.
Maybe letting go of her resentment over what Noelle had done wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility. Noelle had behaved badly and often behaved badly still, but she was so caught up in fulfilling her own needs that she seemed almost incapable of considering the needs of those around her. She definitely didn’t understand that the way she approached life would never bring her the satisfaction she craved. Look where she was. Not only had she lost Kyle, she’d tried to get together with several other men since, none of whom were interested in more than a quick fling. She was working as a day clerk at a gift shop, moonlighting as a waitress at Sexy Sadie’s and living at home. She didn’t even have any good friends. The type of people she associated with came and went.
Weren’t the natural consequences of her actions punishment enough? Why did Olivia feel Noelle had to be remorseful in order to obtain forgiveness?
Maybe she was using Noelle’s behavior as an excuse, Olivia realized. It was easier to move on without someone like that in her life. But they were sisters. And what kind of debt did she owe her parents? They weren’t perfect, but they’d always done their best.
“Olivia? You still with me?” Lorianna prompted.
Olivia looked up. “Oh, sorry. You asked...”
“What was wrong with Brandon’s leg.”
“It was a bone infection,” she said. “Dr. Shapiro wasn’t sure how the doctors here missed that, considering it was so extensive. He had to scrape away the infected area and drain a couple of abscesses. But, thanks to his efforts, followed by some heavy antibiotic therapy, Brandon recovered completely. He has no pain now.”
Lines appeared on her friend’s forehead. “So it wasn’t his injury that took him out of skiing?”
“Not really. He could’ve come back for one or two more seasons. He considered it.”
“Why didn’t he?”
A sense of warmth, of well-being, passed through her. “He wanted something different by then.”
Lorianna’s lips curved upward for probably the first time since she’d arrived in Whiskey Creek.
