Page 47 of Paper Horses

I heard the kitchen sink and looked over my shoulder to see her filling a glass of water. My smile came easily. “Look at that. You’re a natural at drinking tap water,” I teased as she took a sip.

Lowering the glass, she grimaced at me.

“Cooking and drinking from the tap. I wonder what other things you’ll be doing by the time you leave here, Olivia Icinda.”

“Probably enough to tarnish my reputation,” she said, turning my thoughts to what I wanted her to do. Dirty images I wiped away quickly.

I needed to stop letting her in, stop letting those thoughts in. Her words didn’t help, and I pulled a seat out for her before I walked around the island to avoid being close to her again. Space was what I needed. For her to return to New York so I could return to my life and forget about her.

I stopped as I was about to grab a beer. Forget about her? I’d done a shitty job at it for fifteen years, so I didn’t think I’d be any better at it now. Especially after having her so close again. My hand tightened around the bottle as I walked back to the table.

The rain poured in thick streams down the windows, and I could see it pooling on the deck. Rain that forecasters suggested would persist for the next two days. Not letting up until the next night. With as heavy as it was already coming down, there was no way we could avoid flooding. Valley Knoll was situated in a valley. When we had storms this bad, the rain would stream down the mountains, looking for a place to go. The ranch stood below the mountains, so we wouldn’t see the extremes that the town and the roads that sat at the lowest points would see. Two storms had hit like this since I’d moved here, and both had left a mess of cleanup, but thankfully the town founders had settled the town above the base of the valley, leaving it nestled in the hills so most water drained through it.

“Nasty storm,” Olivia said. Her eyes were on me when I turned my attention back to her.

“It is.” Thunder boomed, and she winced, rubbing her cheek with her shoulder to cover the reaction.

“Still afraid of thunderstorms?” I asked with a grin.

“No.” She took a bite of her soup, dropping the spoon and spitting the soup out. Her tongue popped out, and she grabbed her water, taking several gulps as I tried to stifle my laugh.

“Might want to let that cool off,” I said with a chuckle. Narrowed eyes locked with mine as she lowered her glass. I picked up a napkin and leaned forward, wiping the soup from her chin. “That’s a look.” I had meant it to be teasing, but the gesture was too tender, so the words came out more gentle, hesitant, even regretful.

I snatched my hand back, hating that these moments kept happening. Untethered and uninvited, they snuck past my defenses. I pushed my seat back, went to the freezer, and pulled out a few ice cubes. When I dropped them into her soup and then mine, she questioned me with enlarged eyes.

“It’ll cool it down,” I explained, wondering if she’d always been like this and I’d just taken it upon myself to be her teacher. The memory of her wandering confused around campus the day I met her with a map her younger brother had drawn for her slinked into my mind. Bewildered and unsure. Two things that had made the start of our relationship so exciting, and I saw now that I had indeed taken on the challenge of opening her eyes and let life breathe into her.

“Oh.” She stirred the soup, her eyes trailing the ice cubes as they melted.

“So, room service brings you food every day?” I asked, blowing on a spoonful.

“Well, not always.” Her focus remained on the soup. “Sometimes I’ll have our secretary place an order for me from the Italian restaurant around the corner from the building. They make this gnocchi dish that reminds me of my mother…” Her words drifted, her eyes jumping to mine. The mask had slipped, and I wanted to yank it from her and destroy it.

“I remember you telling me about your mother’s cooking,” I said, trying to keep her from closing down on me.

“Yeah. Do you always go to the diner to eat? It seems like a long trip to do often.”

Watching the mask fall back into place was fascinating. So quick and almost unnoticeable. It kept others out, yet I wondered if anyone really knew her well enough to see that it did. To anyone else, she was making conversation, not redirecting, not shutting down words that would reveal something about her.

“Do you always have your secretary do what ordinary people do for themselves?”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I don’t. I usually cook something here, but I wanted to see you squirm. Now, why do you make your secretary order your food, and isn’t that demeaning?”

She sucked her cheeks in, and fury sparked in her eyes. At least it was emotion and not that blank façade that kept an enforced distance.

“It’s not demeaning. We pay her a very good salary with a ton of perks. My brother gave her a raise when he took over and even added profit sharing to her retirement plan.”

“I didn’t say you don’t pay her well. I was pointing out that she’s not your servant. She has a job to do, and I doubt ordering food for you is in her job description. Besides, all you need to do is go online and place the order or pick up the damn phone.”

And now we were back to the heated angst that constantly simmered between us. Maybe I was a masochist because I kept working her up and, in turn, irritating myself.

She stood, the chair scooting behind her just as lightning split the sky. Jumping, she grabbed the back of the chair and stared out the window. Thunderstorms had always spooked her, and it looked like that hadn’t changed, no matter how she denied it.

“Sit, Olivia.”

“I’ll eat in the other room,” she said, reaching for her bowl.