Page 29 of Waking Olivia

It's surprisinghow quickly the town becomes rural once you move away from campus. It reminds me of where my grandmother lived, the endless roads with nothing but farmland and forest on either side. He pulls onto a bumpy gravel road littered with potholes that send me bouncing toward the ceiling of his truck, and in the distance I see a small house and a substantial barn.

"This is where you grew up?" I ask.

“Yes, I suppose you have some smart-ass comment about it?"

I did, but now that he's called me on it I'm inclined to keep it to myself. "No," I say huffily. "I was going to say it looks nice."

“Right." He jumps out of the truck, leaving me to follow.

The house seems substantially larger on the inside, like some kind of "Alice in Wonderland" trick of perception. There's a big living room with a kitchen on the right, bedrooms to the left.

His mom comes out of the kitchen. "You must be Olivia," she says. “I’m Dorothy.” She hugs me with so much enthusiasm I feel certain Will has kept a number of details about me to himself. She tells us it’s a while until dinner and suggests we go out for a quick horseback ride, which he greets with a look of disgust.

I huff in exasperation. "Am I really that awful, Will?" I demand. "You're acting like she just asked you to give me both kidneys."

“It’s the night before a meet. You might get sore.”

“I spent the whole summer riding horses. I’ll be fine.”

"Okay, Olivia," he says with just a touch of acid to his voice. "Would you care to go horseback riding?"

I walk out the front door without bothering to reply.

"Do you even know how to saddle a horse?" he asks, coming out behind me.

"Are you seriously asking me this question? Did you think I was just going to jump on bareback and take off?"

“Right, how silly of me, when you have such a reputation for restraint and good judgment."

I march toward the stables, trying to ignore him. The smell hits me first. It is, without a doubt, an unpleasant smell, hay and manure and grass baked in sunshine, the faint smell of leather beneath it. But the memories it brings back are good ones. I spent summers as a girl cleaning out the stables down the road from my grandmother's house. I got to ride in the afternoons when I was done, worth far more to me than the crappy pay I got for doing it.

He puts me on Trixie, who looks so docile I’m not sure she’ll even wake up long enough to be ridden.

"Don't even think about going faster than a trot," he warns.

I roll my eyes. "I doubt this horse isableto trot,” I retort.

I can tell he’s assessing my seat, and the only sign of approval I get is his eventual decision to ride ahead.

I’d like to ignore the fact that he looks good riding a horse, really good, but cannot. He wears the hell out of a pair of jeans on his worst day, and even 20 feet behind him I can see the definition of his arms. I have a sudden desire to sneak up behind him and press my nose just to the nape of his neck, just below where his hair is shaved close. A small shiver brushes over my arms at the thought.

I don’t want him.

I don’t.

I don’t want his bossiness and his bad temper and the way his upper lip curls when he’s mad at me. Half the time I’d just as soon kick him in the balls as fuck him. I need to focus on the part of me that wants to watch him writhe in pain because right now, at this precise moment, the other part is winning easily.

We getto the crest of the hill and a lake comes into view. "Wow," I breathe. "It's amazing. I just assumed it was all woods down here."

"My dad built it for my brother and me."

I cast a suspicious glance at him. It’s not a pond. It's a lake the size of a football field. "Hebuiltit? How the hell do you build a lake?"

Will shrugs. "Engineering background and a lot of persistence, I guess."

"Did you guys swim in it?"

"Pretty much all year long. It’s built over a hot spring, so it stays warm for the most part.”

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