Chapter Thirteen

"How much of it depends on the choices that we make?"

Olivia was fairly certain she was dreaming. It wasn't the fact that she was resting on a cold slab in her morgue. She did that regularly. However, she rarely wore a black silk evening gown while doing so, especially one with a slit all the way up to her hip. The silk glided over her body as she sat up and her hair fell over her bare shoulders. When she lifted a hand to touch her right cheek and felt no scars, she knew it was a dream.

She lowered herself carefully to the floor, her unclad feet touching something damp and sticky. Olivia couldn't see what it was. There was a spotlight on the metal slab but all the rest was darkness. The only way she knew it was blood was by the scent. Surprisingly, it didn't bother her. Hearing voices, now that bothered her.

"Oh, yeah, I sing but I have a strict policy. I only sing around deaf people." It was unnerving to hear her own voice coming from somewhere in the darkness. It was even more unnerving when Nathan's joined it.

"I'm sure you're better than you think." Olivia ventured toward the voices and away from the light. Then the spotlight snapped off, leaving her stumbling blindly in the dark. Inevitably she tripped and fell on something she immediately identified as stairs. She let out quiet stream of curses as she turned over on the stairs and stared up at nothing. She wanted to wake up. This was a bad dream.

A warm hand skimmed up her leg and she jerked upward, reaching out to feel for whoever had touched her. Although the sensation continued, she couldn't find the source. Warm lips kissed the inside of her knee and she shivered. "I'm sorry," Nathan's voice confessed from the shadows. "Oh, God, I am so sorry." The lights flashed on and suddenly she could see that she was sprawled across the staircase in the Wallace house. But she was also alone. Marni Wallace stared at her knowingly from above the fireplace. She knew Olivia's every secret. She knew how she felt about Nathan and she found it amusing. As if Olivia could ever compete with the far more beautiful Marni, even if she'd been alive.

Music drifted down the stairs as Olivia let her face fall into her hands. Marni was right but she didn't know how to make the feelings go away. She couldn't make them go away. Something of Nathan had become imbedded beneath her skin. She was… She was…

"I'm infected," she sang reluctantly, wishing more than ever that she could wake up and run, "by this attraction. I'm infected by this attraction." Olivia stood up and walked down the stairs. "And I don't think that I can be fixed. No, I don't think that I can be fixed." She fell against the front door, pressing her forehead against the glass. "Tell me why, oh why, is lo-ove such a bitch." Olivia saw Nathan's reflection in the glass and felt his fingers drift over her arm. A warm, slightly bashful smile turned up the corners of his mouth. She turned to confront him, only to find herself alone yet again. Marni was playing with her again. She was taunting her with what she couldn't have.

It wasn't even Olivia's fault. She hadn't wanted to feel anything for Nathan. He was the one at fault here. If he'd just treated her with hostility instead of gradually accepting her into his home and smiling in that ridiculously endearing way, none of this would have happened. "It's your stupid smile. Damn that stupid smile!" She glared pointedly up the stairs and sang, "Can you hear me, Nathan? Thanks for all the stress. Now I am frustrated, dreaming of your touches. That's what is expected when you are infected." She began to pace, wishing she would wake up and wishing that the embarrassing lyrics falling out of her mouth weren't true. Olivia thought of Shilo then and the chances of her throwing things out her window at the exact time that she was walking by.

Her decision to take a walk that day hadn't been huge but it had certainly changed her life. "How much of it's attraction? How much of it is fate? How much of it depends on the choices that I've made?" She looked imploringly at the picture of Marni, whose face was almost sympathetic now. "I can see his eyes but can I see the person beneath?" The picture smiled sadly, knowing all the answers but unable to share. "Are my emotions the culprit? Can I stop them or am I a slave?"

The light drained out of the room slowly until she was left standing in a small circle of light. When Nathan appeared beside her, Olivia couldn't work up the energy to be surprised. She felt numbed by the truth and there was still more to come. "Oh, I want to know your love, your love." He reached out to touch her face as she repeated the phrase. "Oh, I want to know your love, your love." As Nathan cradled her right cheek she felt a sudden jolt of pain. She pulled out of his grasp, staring at the red stain on his hand. Blood dripped down her throat and stained her dress. He caught her arm before she could run. She could only stare as the humanity seemed to drain out of Nathan's eyes. He touched her right cheek again, this time lifting something out of her skin. It was a piece of glass.

Olivia had never been so happy to wake up. She panted and blinked, disoriented by the vivid dream she hoped to forget as soon as possible. There had been far too much going on in her subconscious when she'd fallen asleep that night. Next time she'd just stay awake until the angst went away.

She began to look at her surroundings, wondering where the hell she was until the memories from the other night clicked into place. She remembered reading to Shilo and then waking up in Nathan's arms. After that she couldn't recall anything else. He must have put her in one of the guest rooms or something. Only a little light was peeping through the heavy curtains, which was pretty strange in itself. Sunny days were rare. She turned her attention from the sunlight to the canopy bed she currently inhabited. It was a warm, comfortable place to be but she needed to leave. A sleepover at Nathan's was not her idea of keeping a friendly distance. No matter what romantic ballads she sang in her dreams, she was not in love with him. She merely liked him. If Shilo caught her here in the morning Olivia would be roped into having breakfast with them and that would further blur the line between family friend and family member.

Olivia slipped out of the bed and realized she didn't have her boots. Nathan must have taken them off for her. It had been a nice thought but there wasn't enough light for her to go hunting for them. She could see the vague outline of a lamp on the stand beside the bed. She felt for the switch and eventually managed to turn it on.

The first thing she saw was Nathan. He was soundly asleep in a cushioned armchair, his glasses hooked into the pocket of his vest. Olivia stared at the relaxed lines of his face. He looked sweet. His hair was ruffled and his mouth was just a little open. She suspected he might snore when he was sleeping in a more horizontal position. She was struck by the need to know if she was right but not just about the snoring. She wanted to know if his hair was as soft as she thought or if his lips were as warm. She wanted to know how his hands would really feel on her body, not just dream about it. Olivia walked as quietly as she could toward him. She knew she would wake him in a moment and ask him why he was sleeping so near to her. And she would ask… Well, she would have to ask if he wanted to one day be closer to her when he slept. She began to reach out to touch him when the hair on the back of her neck rose up. She was being watched.

When Olivia lifted her eyes to the portrait on the wall, it felt like a slap to the face. Marni was watching. Marni was watching everywhere. Her perfect eyes in her perfect face stared out at the room, knowing that this was her domain. Olivia felt keenly then what Shilo had felt most of her life. She would never be enough for Nathan. She would forever be overshadowed by a ghost. If she wasn't Marni, she wasn't enough.

She turned abruptly away from Nathan and his dead wife's portrait, finding her boots at the foot of his bed. The room was fairly sparse with only wood floors, an old wardrobe and a cracked mirror on the wall. She supposed he didn't care much about his surroundings when he wasn't with Shilo or working. It was as she was tugging on her second boot that she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. The clip in her hair had slipped. A pattern of scars and one wicked green eye taunted her in the glass. Startled, she lost her balance and hit the floor hard, the heel of her boot making a particularly loud bang. It was more than enough to wake up a naturally paranoid father. She tugged on the boot and was out the door before Nathan could process what had just happened.

"Olivia?" She ran down the hall as quietly as she could, putting her weight on the balls of her feet to keep her boot heels from causing a ruckus. Once she made it to the stairs she started working with her hair, trying to wrestle it back into the style that protected her face so well. Soon it wouldn't matter so much. All she had to do was make it the rest of the way down the stairs, grab her coat and be out the door before Nathan could catch her.

It turned out she underestimated how fast he could move when he needed to. She'd only just gotten to the base of the stairs when he caught her arm and swung her against the railing. She felt momentarily relief, thinking of how close he'd been to seeing her face without covering. Then she began to panic, realizing how awkward this all was.

"Er, morning," she said weakly as she stared into his frustrated green eyes.

"Why were you running away?" he demanded angrily. She blanched.

"I was not running away. I was just hurrying in the opposite direction. It's late and I need to go." Olivia tried to get away but he had her penned in against the railing, his broader frame surrounding hers.

"It's early," he corrected, the anger in his eyes beginning to fade as understanding dawned. "You're afraid."

"A-afraid?" she sputtered.

"You're afraid, Olivia." She glared at him now, any embarrassment over being caught retreating abruptly vanishing.

"Oh, please, I face scarier things in the mirror. I'm not even slightly afraid of you." He laid his thumb over her lips and she went still. Olivia realized her hands were trembling so she shoved them in her pockets. A simple touch shouldn't affect her like this. He shouldn't affect her like this.

"You're not afraid of me. You're afraid of what you're feeling." Nathan ran his thumb along her bottom lip, studying the shape of her mouth. "So am I." Olivia couldn't speak. She didn't want him to take his hand away. This moment was fragile and if she said the wrong thing she could lose it. There were many things she could have said, all of them designed to push him away from her. She could have said something cruel about using an older man to make up for her failed relationship with her father. She could have been crude and claimed that if he'd wanted a quick fuck all he'd had to do was ask.

She could have been stupid and said she was falling in love with him.

Instead she chose to be silent, indicating what she wanted by tilting her chin upward. He moved his fingers over her unscarred cheek as he lowered his mouth to cover hers. It was so new it took her a moment to understand what she was feeling. His lips felt different against hers, smooth where the Graverobber's had been rough and clean where his had been painted. She parted her mouth, flicking her tongue against his lips to see what they might taste like.

His hands had dropped to her shoulders and his fingertips stroked her bare skin in small, leisurely circles. Olivia removed her hands from her pockets, too tempted not to touch. The kiss deepened and she learned an entirely new taste. The warm cavern of Nathan's mouth was bliss. She melted into his body and he gently cradled her against him. Olivia had not felt delicate in a long time nor had she felt wanted. Wanted as a friend and wanted as a mother, yes. But she'd never been really, truly wanted as a woman.

It was all so much slower than she was used to and the pace made her feel just as the Graverobber had said. Innocent. She was being gradually lowered into something tender and compelling. Olivia had been a lot of places but she'd never been where Nathan was prepared to take her. She pulled back for air, feeling more than a little stunned.

"That was different," she whispered hoarsely. He smiled and she spotted a brief flash of male vanity. It made her smile back. It always tickled her when he gave away the fact that he was a man beneath the fatherly concern. Of course, his kiss hadn't been fatherly. Not in the least.

"I should have done that at Christmas."

"Shilo might have exploded with joy," Olivia commented lightly, making him chuckle. The haze of warm fuzzy feelings began to clear enough for her to think again. "We should probably keep this recent development private for a little while. Just until we know where it's going. Shilo is very set on the idea of us as a couple and I don't want to get her hopes up if… Well, if we aren't…"

"I understand what you're saying," Nathan assured her. "And I agree. We should keep this quiet for the time being." His eyes went to her mouth and it was with visible reluctance that he loosened his grip. "I suppose you should be getting home."

"It's not home," she corrected. He lifted a brow at her vehemence.

"Oh?"

"No. It's just a place I go when there's nowhere else." Olivia cleared her throat, a little embarrassed by that confession. One kiss and she was already trying to show him her heart. She needed to get out of here. "I'll be around next Wednesday." She began to move down the stairs but then she turned around. "There was something I wanted to see about but I forgot." He opened his mouth, probably to ask what she meant, but he was cut off when she threw herself back into his arms. Nathan buckled momentarily under the weight of her. Still, she trusted him to hold her as she took another deep taste from his mouth and slid her fingers deep into his hair. It was as she had suspected. His hair was delightfully soft. Olivia released him and he stumbled a little, clearly in shock albeit a pleasant kind of shock. "Thanks for that. I'll see you next week." She hopped down the stairs, picked up her coat and cheerfully glided out the door.

Olivia had no idea where all this was heading. For all she knew her relationship with Nathan would crash and burn. However, in that instant, she was happier than she had been in a very long time.