The Mountain Between Us (4 page)

“Hey, Olivia,” he said.

“Hey, D. J.”

“You're looking happy about something,” he said, following her into the bar. The three couples from Texas were still at their table near the front window, laughing about something. Bob had showed up and sat at the bar, talking to Reggie. Everything was the same as any other afternoon in the Dirty Sally, but for Olivia everything was different.

She turned to face D. J. “Thanks for suggesting me to Danielle and Janelle to paint their mural,” she said.

“They gave you the job, then?”

“Yeah, I'm going to do some drawings and get back to them. I figure Lucas can help me with the local history stuff.”

“He told me he did a bunch of research for a project in school.”

“His teacher's idea to keep him out of trouble. He's so damn smart.” Pride for her kid mingled with her own sudden happiness and she didn't even try to hold back a smile.

“He is that. I'm glad you're going to paint the mural. You deserve to have more people see your talent.”

“I can't believe you even noticed.” For the first time in a long time she let herself meet his gaze. “It's not like I was always painting or anything.”

“No, but you couldn't sit still for five minutes without doodling some little drawing, and you always put your own artistic touch on things, like that shirt you're wearing. I'll bet you painted that.”

“Yeah.” She smoothed the shirt again, once more uncomfortable with the intensity of his gaze. She set the olives on the bar. “Well, thanks anyway for recommending me.”

“You're welcome. I just came from the county offices. I got a job driving a snowplow.”

“What do you know about driving a snowplow?” Until he'd moved to Connecticut, D. J. had spent most of his life in Texas and Oklahoma, where they never got enough snow to plow.

“I drove heavy equipment in Iraq. A snowplow is just another big machine.”

Snowplowing jobs were some of the best paying in the county, or so the guys who propped up the bar said. The work involved early hours and long treks into the mountains to clear high passes. At least one plow driver was pushed over the side each year by avalanches. Most survived the trip, but a monument up on Black Mountain Pass testified to all those who hadn't made it.

She pushed such macabre thoughts aside. “Bob says the snow is late this year, so you might not have any work.”

“I'll find ways to keep myself busy.”

She couldn't look at him anymore. He made her feel too weak-kneed and uncertain. “Yeah, well, thanks again. I better get to work.”

“I'll see you around.” He turned and strode out of the bar, a big man with broad shoulders and a cocky attitude that alternately drove her crazy and melted her heart.

Only after the door closed behind him did she wonder why he'd stopped by the bar this afternoon. He hadn't stayed to drink. Could it be he'd stopped to see her—to tell her about his new job, maybe, or to try again to persuade her to end the hostilities between them? Just because she'd been civil to him, she didn't hope he thought that meant they could be friends. She wasn't ready—would never be ready—to be that close to him again.

She retreated behind the bar and put the jar of olives on the shelf. “Thanks for holding down the fort, Reggie.” The stocky, bearded lawyer looked more like a biker than an attorney, but she couldn't picture some dark-suited legal brain fitting in in this town that had made a virtue of informality.

“No problem. If I ever decide to give up the law, I can start a second career as a bartender.”

“If you do, I'll have to start drinking somewhere else,” Bob said. “Having to look at you every day would spoil the taste of the beer.”

“I imagine you wouldn't be the only one to complain,” Reg said. “Olivia here is a sight better looking than I am, I'll agree.”

“Where have you been anyway?” Bob asked. “Reg doesn't have any idea how to put a decent head on a draft beer.”

“I had to run next door for a jar of olives.”

“Olives!” Bob's expression grew more sour than usual. “Fruit and vegetables don't belong in liquor.”

“Now, Bob. Some people like to feel they're getting a little more sustenance with their drinks,” Reggie said.

“That's what the pretzels and popcorn and beer nuts are for.”

“Janelle and Danielle have asked me to paint a mural on the back wall of the café.” Reggie and Bob weren't her first choice for confidants, but she couldn't keep the news to herself anymore.

“A mural?” Bob asked. “What of?”

“They want something depicting the history of Eureka.”

“That's a great idea,” Reggie said. “Congratulations.”

“I'd like to see that,” Bob said. “Give me something to look at over my eggs beside last year's feed calendar.”

Olivia waited, but neither of them said anything about it being odd for the girls to hire her or acted surprised that she'd been the one to get the job.

“Guess this means you're staying in town after all,” Reggie said.

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

“Say, maybe you can help me with my new project,” Bob said.

His words brought her back down toward earth. Even though she hadn't been in town that long, she'd heard enough about Bob's “projects” to make her wary. “What's that?”

“Janelle and Danielle said I could start a pool at the Last Dollar for folks to guess when the first snow will fall in Eureka. But I need somebody to make up a chart with all the dates and names. Maybe you could do that for me.”

“Uh-huh. How much are you paying?”

“I'm not paying anything.” Bob assumed a look of martyred superiority. “This is a civic project to benefit the town. I thought maybe you'd do it out of a sense of community.”

Olivia opened her mouth to tell him she didn't have a sense of community, that she wasn't really part of the town, she was only passing through. But that wasn't exactly true anymore, was it? The people in Eureka were involving her in their lives whether she wanted them to or not. Just last week one of Lucas's teachers had asked her to volunteer at some harvest festival thing the school was having. And today Janelle and Danielle had asked her to paint the mural. People treated her as if she belonged here.

Her stomach fluttered at the thought. Olivia Theriot, citizen of a hick town like Eureka, Colorado? Six months ago, if anyone had suggested such a thing, she'd have laughed them out of the room.

How scary was it that now she actually—sort of—liked the idea?

 

“I'm fine.” Jameso sat up and clutched the side of his head, which had hit the ground hard when he fainted.

“You're not fine. You passed out.” Maggie pried his hand away from his face and frowned at the golf-ball-sized knot rising above his temple. “Your head must have hit a rock.”

“I'm fine,” he said again more forcefully. “It was just the shock, that's all. You shouldn't spring a thing like that on a guy all of a sudden.”

“What was I supposed to do?” She sat back on her heels. “Suggest a game of twenty questions? Guess what I've got cooking in the oven?”

He stared at her belly, the lines on his forehead forming a deep V. “Are you really pregnant?”

“No, I made it up to scare you. Yes, I'm pregnant. Three pregnancy tests all came up positive.”

“When's it due?” He still wasn't smiling, and she wasn't sure she liked the way he said “it,” as if he was referring to an alien or something.

She stood and stared down on him, at the crooked part in his hair and the cowlick at the crown. Would her baby have a cowlick like that? “I won't know for sure until I see a doctor. I have an appointment in Montrose next week. But I'm guessing around the first of June.”

“Wow.”

“Is that all you can say? Wow?”

“What do you want me to say?”

That he was happy. Thrilled, even. That he loved her. Instead, he couldn't even look her in the eye.

“You could come up with something better than ‘wow.' ” She turned away, arms folded across her chest. She'd so hoped he wouldn't disappoint her this way; though obviously, she'd been delusional. He was a man, and men disappointed her. At least all the ones she'd been involved with so far. Why should Jameso be different?

“Now you're angry.” He got his feet under him and stood. “You're not giving me enough time to absorb the information.”

“Take me home,” she said.

“This is a big shock,” he said. “I never thought.”

“Did you think I was too old to get pregnant?” She was eight years older than Jameso, something that had worried her from the beginning, though he and Barb had both told her it didn't make any difference. But maybe it had. Maybe he liked her being older because he'd thought it made her safe from complications like this.

“I never thought about it one way or another.” He put his hand on her shoulder, the touch almost tentative. “When we made love, the last thing on my mind was babies.”

She hadn't been thinking about babies then either. Jameso Clark, naked, did not bring to mind images of cuddly infants in diapers. She fought to ignore the rush of heat at those memories. “You'd better think about it now,” she said. “It's happening.”

He bent and kissed her cheek, the softness of his goatee brushing her face. “I just need a little more time to think.”

To think about what? Was he going to ride off on that motorcycle and never come back—the way her father had run away after she was born? Jameso had been Jake's best friend in Eureka. She'd heard enough stories to see how much the two men had in common. Maybe an aversion to parenthood was another thing they shared.

She cradled her stomach and closed her eyes. She hadn't planned on being a single mother, but she could do it if she had to.

“What's wrong?” Jameso asked, his face growing pale again. “Are you in pain?”

Only in my heart,
she thought. “Take me home,” she said again.

“Maybe you shouldn't be alone. Do you want me to call someone?”

She noticed he wasn't offering to stay with her himself. She met his worried gaze with a freezing look. “No, you don't need to call anyone. I'm pregnant. I'm not ill. And I'll take care of this baby just fine. By myself.”

Without waiting for him to answer, she stalked ahead of him toward his truck. She didn't need him. She'd done fine without her father. Without Carter, her first husband. She'd do fine with this baby. Barb was right. She had a lot of friends. She had a whole town that would help her.

C
HAPTER THREE

L
ucille sat at the old-fashioned dressing table and tried not to notice the lines feathering out from the corners of her eyes and along the sides of her mouth as she put the finishing touches on her makeup. Those lines hadn't been there the last time she'd been on a date. Then again, she was pretty sure Reagan was president the last time she had a date, and all her dresses and tops had big shoulder pads.

Gerald obviously didn't mind a few lines. After all, he looked older than she was and he'd asked her out. She picked up a pair of earrings and held them up to her cheek. She'd borrowed them from Olivia's room, thinking the long beaded dangles matched her outfit, but now she wondered if the long strands of beads emphasized the length of her face—or worse, that they looked too young. As if she was trying too hard.

“What are you doing?”

The mirror reflected Olivia, who was leaning in the doorway, frowning. The girl frowned too much. All right, she was a grown woman, but she'd always be a girl to her mother. “I have a date,” Lucille said. “I was trying to decide if these earrings look ridiculous.”

“Those are my earrings.”

Lucille laid them aside and reached for her usual pearl drops. “Yes, and I think they look much better on you.”

“Who are you going out with?” Olivia moved into the room and stood at Lucille's shoulder.

“His name is Gerald Pershing. He's visiting here in town.”

“I know who you're talking about. He's been in the Dirty Sally. He drinks scotch. Dewar's with water, no ice.”

Lucille shouldn't have been surprised; everyone made it into the town's only bar eventually. Even teetotalers ventured in to eat burgers or grilled cheese sandwiches on Tuesday nights when the Last Dollar was closed.

“What did you think of him?” She kept her voice light, but held her breath as she waited for the answer, watching Olivia's face in the mirror.

Olivia wrinkled her nose. “He's too slick and charming. And those teeth have got to be caps.”

“There's nothing wrong with a man who cares about his appearance.”

“I guess not. But I don't trust him.” She looked her mother up and down. “I don't remember you going out with anyone since I've been here.”

“I haven't dated anyone in years.” She swiveled on the vanity stool to face her daughter. “Any advice?”

“Don't sleep with him on the first date, but if you do, make him wear a condom. You probably don't have to worry about getting pregnant at your age, but you don't want to catch some nasty disease.”

Lucille suspected Olivia was trying to shock her mother. The young woman had certainly dated her share of men in the five months she'd been in town. Maybe she'd slept with a few of them. Though, come to think of it, she hadn't gone out with anyone since D. J. had arrived in Eureka. “I'll remember that,” she said drily.

“Where's Lucas?” Olivia asked.

“Up in his room, reading, I think. Where have you been?” Lucille couldn't help noticing that Olivia's truck—D. J.'s truck—hadn't been parked in its usual place outside the Dirty Sally when she passed on her way home.

“Out.”

Just like that, the wall was up—the one Olivia had always been good at putting between herself and her mother. Lucille knew better than to fight her. She turned back to the mirror and tugged at a stubborn curl over her left eye. “There's frozen lasagna if you want to fix that for your and Lucas's dinner. Don't wait up for me. I might be late.” The smugness she felt in saying these last words was probably immature and unbecoming, but it felt good nonetheless. How many times over the years had Olivia said those words, leaving her mother home to worry and wonder?

Not that Lucille expected her daughter to worry, or even wonder. She doubted Olivia cared much about her mother's social life.

“If you need anything, call me.”

The words, the ones she herself had spoken countless times—almost always to Olivia's back as she walked out the door—startled her. She studied her daughter's reflection in the mirror for any sign of sarcasm but saw none. She swiveled the stool around again and stood. “I'll be fine,” she said. “Gerald's a nice man.”

“They all seem nice at first.”

She recognized the cynicism, too—one part her own despair after her marriage to Olivia's father, Mitch, crashed down around her and one part the result of Olivia's own tumultuous relationships with the men in her life. “When you're young, it can feel that way,” she said. “Getting older makes you a little more forgiving.”

Olivia straightened, arms uncrossed. “Forgiveness is overrated.”

She left the doorway, her footsteps making a faint, shuffling sound as she retreated down the hallway to the stairs. If Lucille had thought Olivia would listen, she'd have told her forgiveness hurt less than holding a grudge. But she knew sometimes holding a grudge was all that held you up. After Mitch left, the anger was all that kept her going sometimes—the desire to prove to him how much she didn't need him. It had been years before she realized he hadn't been watching, that he'd stopped caring long before she did.

Whatever D. J. had done, he'd hurt Olivia badly. Lucille liked the serious young man, and Lucas practically worshiped him, though Olivia could scarcely stand to look at him. But when she did, Lucille recognized the longing there. Her love hadn't yet burned out. Lucille remembered the words D. J. had said when they'd met—the night Lucas was trapped in the French Mistress Mine. How he'd loved Olivia the first time he saw her.

It was a foolish, romantic notion—that love could bloom from just one glance, like a spark setting a forest fire. But it was an idea Lucille wanted to believe in, for Olivia's sake and for her own. She was tired of being cynical and scoffing. After so many years alone, she wanted to believe in the possibility of love.

 

Olivia watched the red convertible pull away, her mom in the passenger seat, laughing at something the silver-haired man behind the wheel had said. Honestly, a convertible! Could this Gerald character be any more of a cliché?

“Where's Grandma going?” Lucas joined her at the window, watching the retreating car. He'd shot up over the summer, until he was almost as tall as she was. Soon he'd overtake and pass her. His father had been tall. Still was, she guessed. She hadn't laid eyes on him in eleven years and didn't care to, but if he'd died, someone would probably have notified her.

“She's going on a date,” she said.

“A date?” Lucas's eyes widened behind the round glasses.

She turned and headed for the kitchen. Lucas followed. “Who's she going on a date with?”

“A guy named Gerald Pershing. He's visiting in town.”

“Does he know she's the mayor?”

“I imagine he does.”

“It seems funny to think of Grandma dating.”

“Because she's the mayor?”

“Because she's Grandma.” He tilted his head to the side, thinking. He reminded her of an owl, eyes magnified behind the glasses, tufts of blond hair sticking up like feathers. Except he looked less babyish these days, more evidence of the man who'd one day be breaking through. She wanted to shake him and tell him to stop. She'd barely gotten the hang of being a mother to a little boy; she hadn't the slightest idea how to cope with someone older.

“I guess Grandma is kind of pretty,” he said.

Lucille wasn't classically pretty; she was too tall and raw-boned for that. But she had a striking quality and an elegance she'd grown into. The face that had looked back at Olivia in the dressing table mirror this evening had indeed been beautiful.

“Yes, I guess she is,” Olivia said. She took the lasagna from the freezer and flipped the package over to read the directions.

“We should eat the fish I caught,” Lucas said.

“Your grandmother can cook the fish tomorrow. Tonight we're having lasagna.”

“D. J. told me how to cook it. He said to stuff it with lemon and butter and wrap it in foil and bake it.”

When they'd been together, D. J. had done most of the cooking. He was much better at it than she was. “That sounds good,” she said. “I'll let your grandmother know.”

She set the oven for 400 degrees and slid the block of frozen pasta from the package.

“D. J. is going to teach me how to tie flies. You use real bird feathers and stuff.”

D. J. again. Lucas would talk about nothing else if she didn't change the subject. “Janelle and Danielle are hiring me to paint a mural on the back wall of the Last Dollar,” she said.

“That's cool.” Lucas helped himself to a banana from the basket on the counter. She started to tell him he'd spoil his supper but bit back the words. One banana wasn't going to dull his appetite; he ate everything in sight these days.

“You're not surprised they asked me instead of some professional artist?” she asked.

“You're as good as any professional.”

He thought that? Really? She couldn't hold back a grin. “I'll need you to help me decide what to draw. I don't know much about the history of Eureka.”

“You should put in the Native Americans who first settled here—the Uncompahgre. And the gold miners.” He made a face. “ 'Course, Miss Wynock is going to want her family in there somewhere.”

“Miss Wynock?” Olivia couldn't place the name. Not a patron of the Dirty Sally, then.

“The librarian. Her family supposedly founded the town. It was all in the play I was supposed to be in at the Hard Rock Days festival.”

Of course—that Miss Wynock. How could Olivia forget? The woman had been a tyrant about that damn play, and she'd practically busted a blood vessel when Lucas had failed to show up to play his part in the Founders' Day Pageant. He hadn't made the play because he'd been trapped in the French Mistress Mine up on Mount Garnet. Olivia had been too worried about his absence to pay much attention to the play.

Right now she couldn't imagine anything more boring than a bunch of historical people painted on a wall. She wanted something bright and interesting—something that captured the wild, beautiful nature of this corner of the world. “If I'm painting this mural, I guess I get to say who's in it and who isn't,” Olivia said. “Well . . . and Danielle and Janelle, since they're paying for it.”

“Then they probably don't want Miss Wynock's grandfather in their mural,” Lucas said. “I don't think they like her much.”

“They don't?”

Lucas tossed the banana peel in the trash and looked around the room, she suspected for something else to eat. “Nobody much does,” he said. “She's kind of a grouchy old lady, though she does know a lot about history. She helped me find books about Native Americans and stuff.”

“So she likes you.”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

Olivia was intrigued by the idea of a friendship between the grouchy librarian and her son, whom she'd always thought of as socially awkward. Not that Lucas wasn't a sweet boy, but he was so damned smart he put people off, spouting knowledge about everything under the sun. And he wasn't afraid to challenge adults if he thought they were wrong. No one liked their errors pointed out to them this way, especially by a kid.

“Do you like her?” Olivia asked.

“She's not so bad, really. Just kind of bossy. And I think she's lonely.”

Olivia's chest tightened—in sympathy? Or maybe empathy? She'd had her share of lonely nights, but who hadn't? She knew a lot more people who were alone than together—her mother, Bob, and most of the other regulars at the Dirty Sally, to name a few.

Even D. J., she guessed. Though if he was alone, it was by his own choice. She'd never asked him to run off to Iraq. He could have stayed with her if he'd really wanted.

Better to be alone than with someone she couldn't depend on.

“You could put Jake Murphy on your mural,” Lucas said.

She forced her thoughts away from D. J. “Who's Jake Murphy?”

“He's Maggie Stevens's father. He owned the French Mistress Mine and lived in that cabin up on Mount Garnet. I guess he was kind of a hermit.”

“Why would I want to put a hermit on the mural?” she asked.

“He won the Hard Rock Mining competition three times, and I guess he did a lot of other stuff.”

“And he was a hermit.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, he lived way up on the mountain by himself. I guess a lot of the pioneers did that kind of thing—came here to get away from the city and people and stuff.”

So much for Bob's boasting about the sense of community in Eureka. The real driving force behind the town was independence—all those miners who staked their claims on mountaintops and dug for gold. They weren't banding together for a common dream. They were each out to get their own.

They were all loners. And probably lonely, though maybe that was beside the point. She had a theme for her mural. She'd do a tribute to independence—all those singletons who didn't need anybody else to succeed.

 

Eureka's only steak restaurant closed after Labor Day and the owners returned to Arizona for the winter. So Gerald drove Lucille to Montrose, to a new French bistro off the square. They were one of only two couples in the place on Friday night, which, Lucille reflected, probably had more to do with the economy than the quality of the food. She was sure of this when she saw the prices on the menu. She might have suspected a man from Eureka of trying to impress her, but Gerald probably ate at fancy restaurants every week back home in Texas. He was clearly a man who enjoyed the finer things in life.