LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t worry,” Olivia said to alleviate her mother’s fears. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

      “It isn’t that I don’t think Josh is a nice guy. When I met him at your company picnic, I thought he was a great guy. A very sweet, polite boy who seemed to focus too much on work. But, Liv, you have to start thinking about yourself and you have to stay in the real world. Remember what happened to me?”

      Olivia bit back a sigh. “Yes, Mama.”

      “After your father died I waited ten years for Greg Ruppert to marry me, but he never did. And two weeks after I came to my senses and broke up with him I found the right man. I’ve not only been happy as a clam since then, I’ve found peace, and joy, and a purpose in life.”

      “I know,” Olivia said softly, realizing it was true.

      “And I honestly believe your right man is just around the corner,” Olivia’s mother continued. “I can feel it. I can feel it in my heart and soul in the way only a mother can feel these things. I just know you’re about to find your real Prince Charming.”

      At that, Olivia smiled. Her mother relied on instincts and what she called lessons from history to make some fairly accurate predictions. If Karen Brady Franklin said she believed with her mother’s heart and soul that Olivia was about to meet her Prince Charming, then Olivia also believed it was true. She felt a surge of regret that Josh Anderson wasn’t the man of her dreams, but put that feeling down as old habit. She had wanted him to be the man of her dreams for so long, it was hard not to think of him in that context, and she supposed that was really what her mother was worried about. She was afraid that Olivia wouldn’t be able to break the ties. And if she didn’t she would miss out on her real destiny.

      Looking at the big picture of her life, and the four wasted years, Olivia had to agree that was probably true. Even if her Prince Charming was around the corner, if she didn’t get away from Josh Anderson, Olivia would never see him.

      “Thanks, Mama,” Olivia said. “I’ll call before I leave.”

      “Okay, Liv. I love you.”

      “I love you, too, Mama.”

      Olivia hung up the phone with the satisfied, warm feeling she always got after talking with her mother. Though Karen Brady Franklin was definitely opinionated and didn’t hesitate to give voice to her ideas or render her predictions, she had never been a pushy mother. She listened with warm-cookie sympathy to Olivia’s troubles in grade school. She taught Olivia to stand up for herself in middle school. And in high school she taught her to like herself exactly the way she was and to choose the career Olivia wanted, not the one offered by the expert of the moment.

      She guided, she didn’t dictate. She listened. She led by example. She let Olivia make her own mistakes and then helped her pick up the pieces with a lesson learned. In Olivia’s eyes she was the perfect mother. And she was also the reason Olivia wanted to have kids herself. She wanted to give the benefit of the same experience to her own child. Both Olivia and Karen knew that if Karen hadn’t waited around for Greg Ruppert, she would have had more children upon whom to lavish love, but because she had waited Olivia didn’t have a sibling. Olivia lost out, Karen lost out. One more reason to heed the advice of a woman who had suffered losses waiting for a man who didn’t want her.

      “So, did you talk to your mother?” Josh asked as Olivia stepped into his spotlessly clean red-and-white kitchen.

      “Yeah. You were right. She had been a little worried, but I explained the situation to her and she won’t be expecting me or a phone call for a few days.”

      “Always good to keep your mother informed,” Josh said. “I ordered pizza. It should be here any minute.”

      She smiled. He smiled. For Olivia things began to fall comfortably into place. As long as she remembered her mother’s life, her mother’s warnings, she would get out of this with both her dignity and her sanity.

      As they ate, Olivia began to detail her duties, most of which Josh had once performed himself but had forgotten, given that he hadn’t had much contact with them in at least two years. She rattled off a list so long, Josh began to get nervous. But when she described her system of filing documents in her computer and also the hard copies in the cabinets that lined the wall beside her cubicle, Josh felt light-headed. This time he couldn’t blame the feeling on being unreasonably attracted to Olivia. This time the feeling was overwhelm.

      He didn’t realize how much work she did and wondered if he wasn’t going to have to replace her with two people.

      “Wow,” he said, leaning back on his chair and tossing his paper napkin to the table. “I’m never going to learn all this stuff in a weekend.”

      “Sure you will,” Olivia said confidently. “In fact, while I was on the phone with my mother I realized we could make this a lot easier if we just do the training in the office tomorrow. That way I can show you the filing cabinets, show you what’s in the drawers, show you the color-coding system for the different grocery stores, show you the document system in the computer.”

      Josh heaved a heavy sigh. “Okay, makes sense.”

      “Yeah,” Olivia said, then she yawned. “It does.”

      “I’m sorry. You’re tired,” Josh said, rising from his chair. “I’m not a very good host. I hardly ever have people over…especially overnight,” he said, recognizing he was tripping over his tongue to make sure she knew he didn’t have women over often. Actually, he didn’t have women over at all. First, he worked too much. Second, if he was going to sleep with someone he usually preferred her turf. He didn’t like people invading his sanctuary, yet he had invited Olivia without hesitation or consideration. And he wasn’t uncomfortable with her being here.

      Puzzled by that notion, Josh led Olivia upstairs. He carried her small suitcase and she brought her overnight bag. He tossed her luggage onto the bed, and then immediately pivoted and left the room, telling Olivia he was going for clean sheets.

      He really was going for clean bedclothes, but the truth was he was confused by how intimately he felt about a woman he hardly knew. He wasn’t so blind or so foolish as to dismiss four years of working together for eight hours a day as meaningless, but they’d rarely held personal conversations. He hadn’t told her his deepest, darkest secrets. She hadn’t told him hers. Yet, he felt comfortable letting her into his house. Even reminding himself that he should be more wary if only because of their age difference, he still wasn’t getting qualms of conscience or darts of fear.

      Josh liked Olivia a lot more than he realized, but more than that, all this ease had to mean that he trusted her. Pushing himself to the limit on the issue, as he stretched to the top shelf for new—he wasn’t letting her sleep on old—sheets, he realized he would trust her with his life.

      That took away some of the incredulity and replaced it with simple curiosity. The only other person he trusted like this was his uncle, Hilton Martin. He didn’t even trust Gina this way.

      When he entered the room, Olivia had already stripped the bed of the old linens. The sheets and pillowcases were wadded in a ball on the floor. The blankets and floral comforter lay on the cherry-wood cedar chest at the foot of the bed. She stood with her back to him, staring out the window, waiting for him, and Josh felt a hundred strange sensations. The one that seemed to clamor for more attention than all the rest was an intense desire to kiss her.

      Just the thought of kissing her made his lips tingle. All his blood surged to his chest and his heart beat wildly.

      He cleared his throat. “Here are the sheets.”

      She turned with a smile. “Thanks, you can go. I’ll get this.”

      “You sure?” He knew the polite thing to do would be to help her, but red lights and warning signals were flashing in his brain. The polite thing might be to help, but the smart thing would be to run.

      Her smile grew. “Of course I’m sure. I’ve made the bed a hundred times.”

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