Summer at Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs Page B

love like that…it was impossible. It was frightening. “Why would anyone want that?”
    “It’s what living is about. It’s the reason you go through life. Not because you’re compatible or you look good together or your mothers attended Mary-mount at the same time.”
    Clearly, these two had studied and discussed Rand Whitney’s résumé.
    “I still feel like crap,” she said, knowing somehow that they were right.
    “Of course you do,” her father said. “And you’re entitled to feel that way for a day or two. But don’t mistake that feeling for grief over lost love. You can’t lose what you never had in the first place.” He swirled his glass, the ice clinking against the crystal.
    Olivia rested her chin in her hand. “Thanks for being so great, Dad.”
    “He’s the mother you never had.” Earl made no secret of his dislike for Pamela Lightsey Bellamy, who still used her married name, years after the divorce.
    “Hey,” Philip warned.
    “Well, it’s true,” Earl said.
    Olivia drank the rest of her Campari and gave the ice to a thirsty-looking African violet. “So now what?”
    “Now we have coq au vin for dinner, and you’ll probably have more vin than coq, but that’s okay,” Earl said.
    “Mom is going to hate this,” she said. “She had high hopes for Rand. I can just hear her now—‘What did you do to run him off?’”
    “Pamela has always been such a lovely woman,” said Earl. “Are you sure you’re an only child? Maybe she ate the others when they were young.”
    Olivia grinned over the rim of the highball glass. “She would never do that. Mom has too much fun messing with people’s heads. I bet she’d like to have ten of me if she could.”
    It had taken Olivia’s entire adolescence to finally lose the weight that had made her such a target for bullies, and gain the approval of her mother. Ironically but not surprisingly, all it had taken was the loss of forty or sixty pounds, depending on how much she was lying to herself. Once the slender, chic Olivia emerged from her cocoon of obesity, Pamela had a whole new set of ambitions for her only daughter. It never occurred to Pamela to wonder why Olivia had only found success in losing weight when she left home for college.

    “I wish there were ten of you,” Earl said loyally, clinking his glass to hers. “You’re adorable, and it never would have worked out with Rand Whitney anyway.”
    “Still, it would have been fun if she was married to a Whitney,” her father mused.
    “Bullshit. She’d be so busy with charity fund-raisers and gallery openings, we’d never see her. Plus, she’d be an alcoholic in a few years, and where’s the fun in that?”
    “I don’t believe you guys,” said Olivia. “If you were so convinced I’d be miserable with Rand, why didn’t you tell me months ago?”
    “Would you have listened?” Her father cocked an eyebrow.
    “Are you kidding? He’s Rand Whitney. He looks like Brad Pitt.”
    “Which should have been your first warning sign,” Earl pointed out. “Never trust a man who gets collagen injections.”
    “He doesn’t—” Olivia cut herself off. “It was just the one time, for that Vanity Fair feature.” The magazine had made her even more crazy about him, emphasizing his blond good looks, his effortless charm, his insistence that being a Whitney didn’t define him, his assurance that he worked for a living just like everyone else. Well, like everyone else, except for that handy trust fund.
    In the article, Olivia had been reduced to a single line: “Rand Whitney is protective of his privacy. When asked about romance, he says only, ‘I’ve met someone special. She’s wonderful, and that’s all I can tell you.’”
    There was only one problem. A dozen other women also thought the statement was about them. When the article came out, Olivia and Rand had laughed about it, and she had been touched by the pride that lit his face. He had his insecurities like everyone