(Chapter 14. Malibu. 1 p.m. November 21.)

As Olivia helped Steve from the jeep to his wheelchair, he asked her, "Why do you always look at your wrist? You don't wear a watch."

She pushed him to the house and up the ramp Mark had ordered installed. "Force of habit," she explained. "I guess I misplaced it when I was moving in. It had a great deal of sentimental value, so I've found it hard to replace."

"I'm sorry you lost it," Steve sympathized. "Was it a gift from someone special?"

"Family heirloom," she told him.

"Oh. I know it hurts to be without that. There are things I got from my parents that I couldn't bear to part with."

Olivia laughed and said, "Why, Steve, you're sentimental."

He laughed with her and agreed; "I guess so, about some things."

She opened the door and pushed the wheelchair just to the threshold. "Wheels or the walker, Steve?"

He tipped his head back and looked at her upside down. "How do you do that?"

"What?"

"It's like you read my mind sometimes. I was just thinking how badly I wanted to walk into the house, not ride in. Like it would be some kind of triumph for me. How did you know to stop and ask?"

Olivia shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know, Steve. I guess I just think about how I would feel." Then she gave him a quick kiss on his forehead and said, "I'm glad I did, though. If it were important to you, I wouldn't want to deprive you of the moment."

Steve was so dumbfounded by the kiss that he didn't realize she was waiting for him to speak again.

"Steve?"

"Mmmm?"

"You want the walker?"

"Oh...Yeah, but stick close. I'm bushed and I don't know how far I'll get on my own."

"Ok." She put the walker in front of him and locked the brakes on the wheelchair.

"Help me up this time?"

She gripped his arm and put an arm around his shoulders. He held on to her arm with one hand and pushed up with the other. She held on to him until he had a grip on the walker and steadied himself.

"Here goes nothing," he gave a strained, determined smile, and crossed the threshold to his home for the first time in over three months.

Olivia followed him closely, and he made good progress. He was headed toward the kitchen because she had said she would make dinner for everyone. Suddenly his knees started to shake and he knew he was in trouble. "Liv?!"

She was right there, with the wheelchair. He felt her hand on his back as she reached to steady him, and with her help, he sank gratefully into the chair.

"Thanks, Liv."

"Not a problem. Where to?"

"I was figuring the kitchen. Maybe I could help you with dinner."

"You cook?" she asked in surprise.

"Well, some, but not as much as my dad. Why so surprised?"

"I just am. I don't know why."

Steve laughed at her. "Remember, Jesse and I run a restaurant together. You keep saying I barely know you. Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do either."

"I can't argue with that," she agreed. "Lets go see what we're having for dinner, then maybe we can talk for a while." She wheeled Steve to the kitchen, but found it tight to maneuver the wheel chair. She pushed him to the table instead and snooped around a bit for ingredients for the evening's dinner.

"What'll it be, handsome?" she called. "It looks like I can go steaks, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, or country cookin' comfort food, with what's in the cupboards and the fridge."

The word 'handsome' caused something to tighten in Steve's chest as he remembered his horrible scars again. He hoped she didn't hear it in his voice as he called back, "If Italian means spaghetti, it sounds good to me."

She came over to the table and sat down. "Spaghetti is a good choice. It'll make quite a feast with no leftovers, and you won't still be feeling stuffed tomorrow when you sit down to that turkey."

"Do we have sauce and everything?"

"Yep. Everything we need." She narrowed her eyes and asked, "Are you ok?"

Steve sighed. He stared at the ceiling for several seconds and finally told her, "I won't lie to you, Olivia. Something is bothering me, but I don't want to talk about it. It's nothing you did, and there's nothing you can do about it. I want you to leave it alone, ok?"

She reached across the table and patted his hand, "Ok." Then she looked him in the eye and said, "For now."

In an effort to lighten the mood, Steve changed the subject. "So, I'm dating a nouveau riche, beautiful surgeon who likes to tinker with cars, design fashions for handicapped people, and cook, is that about the size of it?"

Olivia flashed him a purely evil grin and said, "Gee, Steve, I don't know. Who is she?"

Steve laughed back at her and said, "You, of course."

"I thought you said she was beautiful," she said sarcastically. "Besides, who said we're dating? I don't recall having a single date with you. In fact, as I recall, you went to great lengths to get out of our one and only date."

Steve groaned in mock agony. "You are not going to make this easy, are you?"

"Never in a million years," Olivia said with a giggle.

Steve sighed. "I hate it when women play hard-to-get."

"Well, Steve, if it was easy, someone else would have already had it."

Steve took hold of the hand that she had left resting on his. He closed his other hand around it, too, and brought it to his lips for a soft kiss. Olivia wasn't clowning any more. Her mischievous grin had been replaced with a gentle smile. Finally, Steve looked into her eyes and spoke from the heart.

"I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, Olivia Regis, and, I have told you before, I know enough about you to know that I want to know more. I don't want to be just friends, and I don't want to always be playing word games with you. Ordinarily I wouldn't be so forward, but you're forcing me." He looked down at her small hand enclosed in his two large ones, and noticed for the first time that it was freckled like the rest of her. For some reason the new knowledge made him smile.

He cleared his throat and continued. "Every time I'm with you, I feel warm and comfortable. When something is wrong, you make it right just by being there. Your touch, your scent, your voice, they never fail to set my world back on course. I want a relationship with you, I want it to be mutually exclusive, and I want it to eventually get serious. I pushed you once before, and you ran from me. I won't make that mistake again, but I won't settle for being just friends either."

He paused for a moment, kissed her hand again, and let it go. He looked at the ceiling again, took a deep breath, swallowed, and looked back into her eyes. Olivia's smile was gone, and Steve had the feeling he was playing a very high-stakes game of poker. He decided to bet it all. "If you can't give me what I ask, we have to stay away from each other. My feelings for you are too strong to have a casual relationship. When I look at you, I see my future. If you don't want to be a part of that, go now. I'll be ok until my dad gets here."

Olivia never said a word. She stood up, walked past Steve, through the house and out the front door.

Steve buried his head in his arms and cried.





Olivia barely made it to her jeep before her quickly weakening knees gave out on her altogether. As she collapsed in the driver's seat, she began rooting around for napkins, paper towels, or anything she could use to dry her eyes and blow her nose. Opening the glove compartment, she found a small travel pack of tissues. She slapped a hand to her forehead and said, "Duh!" The one mild expletive brought on a profound tirade of confused self-talk.

"Jeeze, Liv!" she said, tearing at her hair. "His dad told you he was serious. Said he wears his heart on his sleeve. No flippin' kidding! What in Heaven's name were you expecting? You're a fool, Olivia. A stupid, thoughtless fool! You never should have messed around with him. You were being totally unfair. He says he sees his future in you. It's probably somewhere in the psych ward. What on God's good green earth are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to get the heck out of here," she answered herself in a matter- of-fact tone, and started patting her pockets, looking for her keys. "That's it. I'm just going away. I'll let the lawyer handle getting me out of the contract, and I'll go off to Cedars Sinai or Washington State or Chicago. Maybe Miami. Geriatric orthopedics has always been an interest of mine. I can take care of a bunch of osteoporotic little old ladies. Where the *hell* are my keys?"

Finally, she located the keys. "Dallas is nice, too," she muttered as she jammed the key in the ignition and turned it.

For the first time twenty years, the only time since she had assembled it, the jeep's engine failed to turn over.

"DAMMIT!" she screamed, climbing out of the jeep.

She continued to holler, "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" as she kicked the jeep. The third kick landed wrong and she hurt her foot. She grabbed her foot, certain that it was broken, and managed to hop twice, still cursing, before she lost her balance and landed gracelessly in a heap in the driveway.

She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, hid her face, and sat there rocking and sobbing for several minutes until she calmed down and a new train of thought finally took hold.

"He's too good for you, Liv. You're a total nut job. He doesn't deserve a lunatic. He should have a nice, stable, normal, sane girl. You're crazy Olivia, and now you've hurt him. You don't deserve him, you worthless nut. You should never have gotten involved with him. You should never get involved again. You always mess it up. No man deserves someone as screwed up as you." She fell on to her side and started to sob even harder than before.

Finally, the sobbing subsided. Then a ray of sunlight broke through the storm clouds in her heart and a smile spread across her red, tearstained face. "That's not true," she thought. "You're not nuts. You've had some hard times, yeah, and sometimes the past still drags you down. But you're not crazy."

She stood up carefully and tested her foot. "Not broken, but it's going to be sore for a while." She smiled. "He's a good man, and he's strong. He's so strong. He's been through so much; he's a survivor, a fighter. Look at the way you met and what happened the next morning. After all that, he still hung in there. He's tough enough to handle you and all your baggage, and he wants to make you happy."

She pulled the keys out of the ignition and hobbled toward the house. "You deserve to be happy, Olivia. Just the other day you decided this was going to be a good beginning with a happy ending. Let him be part of the story."

She limped up onto the porch. "It's easy for you to be sad and lonely because that's all you've known for years. Don't take the easy way out this time. Fight for your happiness. Tell him the truth, and if he can't handle it, help him."

She paused at the door, uncertain for a moment. "For pity's sake, Olivia, you love him, and he loves you. Find your backbone, woman, this is worth fighting for. He's already on your side. Don't sabotage yourself."

Doubt sneaked in again, "Can you undo the damage you've already done? He's going to wonder why you haven't told him the truth already. What if your walking out just now caused him to change his mind?"

She tried the door. It was locked. She found Mark's house key still on her key chain and slipped it into the lock. She took a steadying breath. "There is nothing broken that can't be fixed," she told herself. "This time love will be enough."

She turned the key and heard the lock click open. She opened the door and slipped inside. Favoring her injured foot, she slowly made her way to the dining room table where she had left Steve. As she drew closer, she heard his muffled sobs and paused a moment, wondering if she should go to him. It was apparent that he didn't know she was there. He was talking to himself. She didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she wasn't sure how to break in.

"...and I really thought she was the one. She's already seen the job at it's worst. She knew what it was like. She saw me in my worst moments, and she stayed right there with me through it all. Why did she have to leave now?"

Olivia seized the opportunity. She rushed to his side and put an arm around his shoulders. "I was scared for a bit," she said. "I had to go find my courage." She smiled, and said, "The jeep made me look for it by refusing to start. That's some kind of timing, huh? It's the first time in twenty years. I guess I'm staying around for a while, if you'll have me."

Steve turned to her, buried his face in the curve of her neck and sobbed, "Yes, oh, my God, yes."

They clung together, weeping for long minutes until the storm blew over. Then Olivia pulled away gently and said, "There's a lot you need to know. I won't hold you to what you said about the future until you've heard everything about the past. There isn't time to tell you the whole story now, and we won't get a chance to talk privately until after the holiday; but for now, I'm all yours for as long as we can be happy together. If you change your mind later, we'll deal with it then, ok?"

Steve smiled and nodded. "Nothing you could possibly tell me would change my mind or my heart."

Olivia smiled back sadly and said, "I hope you're right."