Page 108 of Cabin Fever

EPILOGUE

Olivia

"WHY HADN'T I EVER SEENthis place before? It's cute in a rustic sort of way," I said of the Fire Mountainside Brewery.

Carter slid in the booth across from me and shrugged.

"What aren't you telling me?"

It had been six months since President William Higgins was arrested at my parents' home. The trial ended last month, and he was sentenced to twenty years in prison. A lot of reporters found Carter's farm and swarmed Fire Lake during the trial.

Funny enough, Tyler and Carter grew close from the influx of the paparazzi. Carter was concerned that the reporters would try to sneak onto his property, and Tyler suggested his brother, Jake, who had moved to Chicago to work in home security, help him.

They set up a special invisible fence around the property, with the approval of Rosemary Fitzwilliam. Anytime someone came on the property unannounced, it triggered an alarm, which sounded like a pack of wolves were on the loose. The wolves thing was my idea.

It worked and Carter hadn't said a bad word about Tyler since.

"It's where I used to come when my dad was alive to pick up women for a one-night stand," Carter said with a frown. "It sounds so bad when I say it out loud."

I shook my head. "Not bad but a little sad. Just think, if I hadn't broken into your cabin all those months ago and started eating your beans, you'd still be like poor Tyler over there using those sad lines on women."

He turned his head to see where I was pointing. Tyler was by a table of ladies trying to chat them up. The blonde with long hair was rolling her eyes, the brunette and redhead were laughing, and the blonde with shoulder length hair was completely ignoring him for whatever was happening on her phone.

Carter chuckled. "He told me about that. He has some theory that he'll find the woman of his dreams if she comes up with a worse pickup line on him. I told him to stop. It wasn't worth all the slaps he's gotten over the years. But he insists."

I tilted my head, assessing Tyler's style. I understood where he was coming from, but I thought his approach was just wrong.

"Does he think the woman would respond with an equally bad pickup line?"

It reminded me of when Derrick used a pickup line on me when we first met. I frowned realizing how I thought it was cute that he was using the old line.

I'm thankful I'll never see him again. Derrick was fired after the night of my parent's party six months ago. He dumped Kiki when he realized there was no way he could take over Love Foods. Kiki, of course, blamed me and Bea for "ruining her life" as she put it.

I should be mad at her for her total hypocrisy, selfishness, and obvious lack of empathy but the dummy made my dream come true: she decided to disown us. Kiki never wants to see me or Bea again, which is totally fine with us.

Carter picked up the beer menu left on the table and gazed at it. I couldn't help but notice since we walked in here, he hadn't once looked me in the eye.

"Sort of. I think he believes it will set off a chain reaction where there's some kind of cheesy pickup line contest. I don't know the details, you'll have to ask him. Oh look, here he comes now. Walking. He's walking over here."

Something was off about this whole night. This was my first week at Tuft's University. I had to complete various science courses that I never took at Georgetown. So, I'm spending a year completing the prerequisites before applying in the spring to the doctorate program. I'm thankful I can take those courses online, so I don't have to move away until next year.

But with the course work and still working with Tyler at the veterinary, I didn't have much time to help on the farm. Thankfully, Emily comes by almost every day. The woman loved farming almost as much as Carter. I noticed she hasn't many friends, so I asked her out when Bea visits, but she has yet to say yes.

Carter said he wanted to take me on a celebration dinner since I completed my first week of classes. But after that, he started to act weird like something was bothering him and he didn't want to tell me. I hope it wasn't more FBI questioning. It was hard enough going back and forth to DC all summer for the trial. When the president got locked up last month, we hoped everything was over.

But maybe it wasn't . . .

"Hey, Carter. Olivia. Funny running into you two here."

"It is strange we should both be here at the same time," Carter said like he had to force the words to come out.

"Carter picked this place, and I'd never been here, so here we are. Do you come here often?"

Tyler's lip flapped as he forced air out making a farting sound. "Oh yeah, like all the time."

My eyes flicked over to the table of ladies he tried to pick up. The women were pointing and laughing at him. Did Tyler realize that what he was doing made him a joke?

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