Olivia laughs. The deep one, and my lips twitch with it. I don’t understand her, but for some reason when she does laugh, I like it because it’s a confirmation I won at least one round.
She waves her hand in the air. “Get back in here.”
Reluctantly, I sit next to her. Relationships shouldn’t be this way—continual fights for dominance. I take the nail file and her hand then pause at the cold temperature of her skin. She’s freaking ice cubes. Crazy since the house is the desert at high noon.
I start filing and Olivia breaks the silence. “You don’t feel sorry for me because I’m dying, do you?”
An overwhelming chill causes my stomach to roil. “I do, but you make it easy to forget that you’re sick.” It’s the truth and I’m a horrible person. “Sorry for the witch comment.”
“Don’t apologize for that. Never for that. I like that you don’t treat me differently. You’ve done more good for my soul than you can know.” She breathes in deeply then releases the air at a slow pace. “Oz treats me differently.”
I nibble on my bottom lip. “How so?”
“The second tree on the left,” Olivia says. I should’ve known better than to expect a straight answer.
My hand freezes midfile. “What?”
“Where you’ll go today, there will be a large oak tree. The second tree from the left. Look there.”
“But I’m not going anywhere—”
She shushes me and Oz’s heavy boots clump against the hardwood floor of the hallway and then enter the kitchen. The skin on the back of my neck prickles with anticipation. I lift my eyes to the mirror on the wall and sure enough his are locked on me and Olivia.
His hair is damp and sticks up in various ways. It’s sexy as hell and my fingers flinch with the desire to run my hands through it again. Oz’s gaze switches to the mirror and the breath catches in my chest when his blue eyes meet mine. We hold it that way. One second. Two.
Olivia clears her throat and I focus crazily on her nail again.
The cupboard squeaks behind me and then closes. A few seconds later Oz drops into the seat on Olivia’s other side. “I would have gotten your coffee for you.”
“I’m perfectly fine getting it myself.”
I work hard to not look at either Oz or Olivia. She lied. Blatantly. She must have a reason for it, but I can’t fathom what. Lying doesn’t have a place for me. As I’ve mentioned to Oz, it creates integrity issues.
“I want you to take Emily swimming today,” Olivia says. “I have the doctor’s appointment in Louisville and it’s too hot for the two of you to stay around here.”
Um... “I don’t have a bathing suit.” I didn’t buy one in Nashville.
Olivia slips her hand from mine and appreciates my filing job. “Izzy told me there’s one in the bag of clothes she brought from Violet’s house. She hasn’t taken the bag back yet. I believe she left it in the hallway closet.”
My cheeks warm rapidly. That’s not a bathing suit. That’s tiny strips of cloth barely held together by dental floss.
Oz shifts back and folds his arms over his chest. The narrowed expression in Olivia’s direction tells me he’s as excited about this as I am. “Eli doesn’t want her off the property.” His eyes flicker to me. “Sorry.”
“I sort of figured something like that accompanied the whole escort thing.”
He smiles. I smile. I should eat breakfast so I can stop appearing and acting so stupid.
“I’m aware,” says Olivia. “I was referring to the pond. That’s on our property. It’s a half mile if you cut through the woods.”
A pond in the woods? Little tremors course through my bloodstream. “I don’t hike.” I don’t do woods.
Both Olivia and Oz stare at me as if I’m crazy then return to each other and pretend I’m not in the same room.
“Take her on your bike,” Olivia continues.
On his bike? Do either of them detect my internal scream, because I hear it. “Why can’t we use the truck?”
“Chevy needs it,” answers Oz. “His bike broke down last night and he has football conditioning.”
Oh. My biker cousin plays football. Like the real kind. Not the kind without pads in the yard that resembles sixteenth-century warfare.
“You’ll have fun,” says Olivia. “The pond has trees.”
Trees. Second tree on the left.
“What does that mean?” Oz double-takes Olivia and if it weren’t for our previous conversation I’d think she was crazy, too. Well, more crazy than usual.
“That we should go swimming,” I suggest.
A muscle in Oz’s jaw twitches and I’m curious why he’s unhappy. I thought after our bonding moment last night, we were friends. “Wear jeans over your swimsuit and some real fucking shoes.”
He gets up and stomps out of the room.
* * *
“What else?” Mom’s drinking tea in our kitchen during this morning’s video chat and she’s pumping me for information.
“Oz and I are going swimming today. For real, who doesn’t have central air in this century? I swear to God I’m going to melt.”
Mom lightly traces her throat. “Where are you going swimming?”
“A pond, I guess.”
Her eyebrows rise past her blond bangs. “But you hate the woods.”
“I didn’t say it was in the woods.” Olivia did. And so did Oz. But me? Never mentioned it.
She sets down her cup of tea. “I was assuming that. There’re lots of woods in Kentucky and...here comes your father! Jeff, come here and say hi to Emily. I have to go. I have a meeting...”
Mom flees from her chair faster than a traumatized hummingbird.
Dad settles into Mom’s seat and he watches the direction in which Mom left then eventually turns his attention to me. He’s in a white shirt and tie, which means he has hospital visits today. “Hey, Em.”
There’s a part of me that always relaxes when I see him. “Hi, Dad.”
“What did you say to freak your mom out?” Dad’s eyes contain a spark of amusement. He’s finding this whole digging into Mom’s past thing enjoyable for some reason.
“I told her I was going swimming at a pond.”
He nods as if he knows why this pond is a big deal. “That would make her unhappy.”
“I’m tired of being the only one in the dark,” I say.