outside, listening to the sound of the sea and looking at the few stars she could see peppering the sky and, okay, feeling a little sad, until Jake came out.
“No luck?” Jake asked as they both unlocked their bikes from the rack and started walking them back toward Harper Hill.
“No. He seems like a really nice guy, but he said there’s no chance at all he’s my dad. Just like you suspected.”
Jake wasn’t enthusiastic about any of the names on her potential dad list, but he must have heard the disappointment in her voice. “I’m sorry.”
For some silly reason, she suddenly felt like crying. Instead, she shrugged. “At least it narrows the field a little.”
“True. One more down. And tonight was actually pretty fun.”
“Thanks for coming with me,” she said. “You’re the best BFF a girl could ever want.”
Jake looked as if he wanted to say something, but she tripped over a bump in the sidewalk and stumbled. He reached to steady her, and by the time she found her balance again, the moment was gone.
19
OLIVIA
She was so exhausted, she just wanted to put her head down on the kitchen table and take a nap before finishing her work with Harper Media.
Just a few hours. Was that too much to ask?
Olivia sighed. She didn’t have tons to do. She only had to power through for another hour or so. Then she could finally sleep.
Running the garden center during the busy springtime and juggling responsibilities she couldn’t hand off to others for her own business, plus managing Juliet’s care, was turning her narcoleptic. She found herself falling asleep at odd moments of the day—including at 9:00 p.m., when she ought to have at least a few more good hours in her.
She didn’t dare take any more caffeine or else she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, once she eventually found her way there. Using a trick she had stumbled onto in college, she stood up, set a timer on her phone for two minutes, and started doing jumping jacks to get her circulation flowing and wake up her brain.
She had just started up when the back door opened and Caitlin walked inside.
Her niece stopped and stared at Olivia, midjack, with her arms above her head.
“Obviously I’m interrupting something.”
Olivia lowered her arms. “No. I’m trying to stay awake so I can finish some work.”
“Okay.” Caitlin looked at her like she was a few cans shy of a six-pack.
Olivia sighed. Her niece’s attitude was really beginning to wear thin.
“How was your evening?” she asked, her voice determinedly cheerful. “Did you enjoy the youth group?”
“It was fine.” Caitlin walked across to the refrigerator and reached inside for a yogurt.
She grabbed one of the spendy French kind in the cute jar that Olivia had bought for her own breakfast the next day, but she decided not to quibble.
“Were a lot of your friends there?”
“A few.”
“And Jake Cragun went with you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“He seems like a nice kid,” Olivia said, undeterred by the monosyllables. “Are you two friends or are you a thing?”
“First of all, I don’t know what being a thing means. We’re friends. That’s all. Second of all, mind your own freaking business.”
Serves her right for trying to make conversation. “You’re right. It’s not my business. But you don’t have to snap at me. It was a simple question. That’s what humans do with each other. They interact. They ask questions. They show they care about each other’s lives.”
Caitlin scoffed. “Except you don’t care. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“You know that’s not true,” she said, fighting for calm. “Until a few months ago, everything was fine between us. I have no idea what I did to piss you off, but here’s another little communication tip. I can’t fix it if you won’t tell me.”
She thought Caitlin might finally break her silence and reveal just why she seemed so filled with resentment, but she turned away.
“Just because we’re related by blood doesn’t mean we have to be best friends.”
Olivia frowned as the words struck a chord deep in her memory. She remembered Natalie saying something very much like that to her after their dad died, when Olivia had tried to reach out to her sister.
She desperately had wanted to turn to Nat, the only one who might be able to truly understand the pain in her heart. Natalie had not been at all interested. She had addressed her own pain by spending more time with her friends, by staying out late, by drowning her