Liam's Secret

by Jadyn Chase

  He got a shovel and mixed a barrowload of cement. He got a new post and positioned it in the hole. He nailed it into place and poured cement around it to hold it steady. Then he secured it with diagonal cross-pieces so it wouldn’t move.

  I lost track of him after that. He moved all around the house hammering and sawing and doing God knows what. I got absorbed in my shingle-making until he came back around to where I stood.

  “It’s lunchtime. Let’s take a break for a few minutes.”

  I laid aside the froe. “I’ll make you a sandwich.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” he fired back. “I didn’t come here to eat your food.”

  “What are you going to eat, then?” I asked.

  He withdrew a brown paper bag from the cab of the truck. “I brought my own. You take care of yourself and your father.” He sat down on the step and took out a sandwich. He commenced eating like this was the most natural thing in the world.

  I hurried past him into the house. I couldn’t understand him to save my life. He did all this for us—for me. I never doubted he did all this work for my sake. He didn’t do it for Daddy or out of some misguided sense of charity. He went way above the call of duty. He wouldn’t do that if….

  I went into the kitchen and made lunch for Daddy. I took it to him in his room and fed him before I made a sandwich for myself.

  I hesitated to go back outside. Should I keep away from Liam? Should I erect a wall between myself and him so he wouldn’t….?

  So he wouldn’t what? What did I think he would do—hit on me? Isn’t that what I wanted? Dean told me to get close to Liam, to seduce him so Liam would do what I wanted when the time came to lure Liam into the Lynches’ trap.

  Why did I balk at letting Liam hit on me, then? This whole situation played right into Dean’s hands. It unfolded exactly the way Dean said it would. He told me Liam would become obsessed with me the way Liam always did when he met a girl he wanted. Dean said Liam would pursue me with single-minded intent until he got what he wanted. He did it a hundred times before and he would do it again. All I had to do was dangle myself in front of his eyes and lead him around by the nose.

  I still couldn’t bring myself to believe that Liam did all this work and went to all this trouble to get into my pants. He didn’t have to. He might not know I was as interested in getting him as he was in getting me, but he still didn’t have to do this.

  So why did he? He did it because he was a nice guy. I saw his expression change when he first realized how bad the house was. Most guys after a girl would scream and run the other way when they saw something like that. Most guys would try to get me away from the house so they could get their prize without getting tangled up in a situation like this.

  Liam didn’t run away. He didn’t try to draw me away, either. He looked at the house and Daddy and me and everything, and he understood.

  I picked up my sandwich and walked out onto the porch. He glanced over his shoulder. When he saw me, he went back to eating. He settled into this with that casual good grace so characteristic of him. He made this house his business, and now he was getting comfortable for the long haul. That told me more than I needed to know about him.

  I sat down next to him on the step. He scanned the woods around the cabin. “This is a real nice spot.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a little out of the way for my taste. I never lived anywhere as rural as this before. We only moved here for the rent.”

  “You said that. So how long do you see yourself living here?”

  I looked away. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I supposed I might as well. Hiding from the truth didn’t accomplish much. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll be living here as long as Daddy’s alive. I couldn’t afford anything else unless I got a job, and I can’t do that when I have to take care of him every day. Even if he…..even if he died, I couldn’t hold a job living here. I don’t have a car. I would need to move closer to town, but I haven’t really thought about that. What’s the point as long as Daddy is alive?”

  He nodded at no one in particular. “I see what you mean.”

  I whipped around to confront him. “Look, Liam. I really appreciate all you’re doing and everything. I just don’t want you to think….”

  “Will you stop saying that?” he cut in. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you about how much you appreciate it. I’m doing this for me, not for you. I’m doing this so I can sleep at night and look myself in the eye when I wake up in the morning.”

  He made a soft snorting noise under his breath and crumpled his paper bag into a tight ball. Then he picked up an apple and took a loud bite out of it.

  I had to smile at the side of his face. He would say something like that to take the onus off me for receiving his help. He knew exactly what he was doing and what he was saying. He knew just the right words to make me accept his help without shaming me for it.

  Maybe I shouldn’t help Dean. How could I turn Liam over to the Lynches after he did all this for me? I should stand up to Dean. I should tell him I wouldn’t sell Liam down the river for a handful of silver.

  I couldn’t do that, though, could I? Liam was a stranger to me. He was nothing to me compared to my own responsibilities. I got myself into this. Now I had to follow through. Associating with the Lynches came with a price tag. I knew that going in. Now I had to pay that price.

  So Liam Kelly turned out to be a lot nicer than I expected. Dean filled my head full of all kinds of horror stories about Liam and his Clan. He told me Liam was a womanizing redneck and Clan Kelly killed dozens, if not hundreds of Lynches in Clan wars all over the Appalachians.

  All that might be true. It didn’t matter to me. It made my position easier to think of Liam and his people as the bad guys in all this, but that was all delusion. The more time I spent around Dean and his putrid Clan, the more I understood the truth.

  The Lynches were killers. They were liars and manipulators, not to mention criminals out for blood. They would destroy not only Liam but me and Daddy, too, to get what they wanted.

  I knew that now with absolute clarity, but I still couldn’t get out of my predicament. I had to fulfill my side of the bargain or Dean would kill me and Daddy both. He said as much to my face, and I had no reason to doubt him. If he didn’t, if I managed somehow to give Dean the slip, the rest of his foul kin would come after me in his place.

  I would hand over Liam. I had to. Looking at him there on the porch made me care about him even more, now that I knew for certain I would go through with this. I felt sad for him, but what did that mean in the end? It meant diddly squat. That’s what it meant.

  I made my choice, and I chose Daddy and me over a man I never met before two days ago. In the overall scheme of things, it was an easy choice to make and I would keep on making it until I came to the end of this sick affair.

  Liam took one last juicy bite of his apple and sent the core winging into the bushes. “Lunch is over. Back to work.” He heaved to his feet. “You finished all the splitting. Now it’s time to shave.”

  He took what looked like a sawhorse out of his truck and set it up on the grass. He attached one of my shingles under a clamp and sat down on it. He grasped the two handles of a drawknife and pulled it toward him over the crisp wood. A thin fragrant curl shaved off it and fluttered to the ground at his feet.

  “When you finish shaving one side, flip it over and do the other.” He demonstrated while I watched. “Don’t worry about making it perfect. As long as one edge is thinner than the other, it will still do the job. Don’t shave off too much, either. Got it?”

  I nodded and he stood up. He observed while I tried shaving a shingle. This turned out to be a lot harder than splitting them with the froe, but Liam didn’t seem to care. He nodded at my first pathetic efforts. “That’s it.”

  He walked away and approached the post. He tested it with his hammer. Then he reattached it to the eaves. I cast fleeting glances up at him while I labored over my shingles.
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  After he secured the post, he climbed onto the porch and paced back and forth for a while. He flexed his knees until he found a few spongy places where the boards creaked. He then crawled under the house, and I heard him tapping around some more.

  For the rest of the afternoon, he went back and forth between his lumber pile and the dark recesses under the house. I didn’t see what he did down there. I could only imagine all the rot and wear he removed and repaired.

  I finished shaving the shingles when he emerged from under the porch. Dirt and cobwebs clung to his hair and arms. Dust covered his pants and smudged the sweat on his forehead.

  He jerked his chin at the shingles. “You’re finished. That’s good. You can hand them up to me on the roof.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You’re going up there? You’re suicidal.”

  He cracked a wicked grin. “I’ve been called worse. I think it will be all right now that I replaced that post.”

  “How do you know the concrete is set?” I pointed out.

  “I’ll be all right. Just hand up shingles and when I say. Can you deal with that?”

  I snorted. “Of course. What do you take me for?”

  His eyes sparkled down at me, but he said nothing. He got a ladder out of the truck and leaned it against the roof. He shimmied up and crawled out of sight. In a few seconds, he started pitching old shingles down. “All right. Hand ‘em up.”

  I stacked five shingles on my arm and carried them up the ladder. I gave them to Liam. I stayed on the ladder and watched him hammer them into place. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s actually not that bad at all. The shingles have seen better days, but that’s to be expected in a place this old. The timbers underneath are all good, though. It’s a good roof. Old Man Walsh did a good job. With regular maintenance, this place should last a long time.”

  “How do you explain the inside being in such bad shape, then?” I asked.

  He raised his head and eyed me under his bangs hanging over his brows. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the inside. You won’t let me in.”

  I blushed, but something stopped me from looking the other way. He hovered above me so I had to look up to make eye contact with him. His eyes exposed something in my heart I never knew was there.

  I wanted him to come into the house—not because I wanted him to see what bad condition it was in. I wanted him in there as a guest. I wanted him to make himself as at home inside the house as he made himself outside it. I wanted him to eat in there and relax and talk to me the way he did on the porch.

  He smiled again. “I’ll need another stack of those shingles now. I used all those ones up.”

  I scurried down the ladder. I carried another pile of shingles up to him, but I didn’t linger this time. I went up and down the ladder taking him shingles and nails when he needed them, but I didn’t try to talk to him again.

  What was I doing letting myself think of him like that? Nothing could happen between us—not like that, at least. I couldn’t let myself feel anything around him. Liam Kelly was a lamb for the slaughter—nothing more. I would sacrifice him to the Lynches for the greater good. Then I would go on with my business and forget all about him. I couldn’t think of him as a person eating in my house or anything else.

  I couldn’t escape the sinking suspicion, though, that I’d already crossed that line. I talked to him. Of everyone in the wide world, he alone knew my situation. He might not know all the legal intricacies, but he knew more than anyone else. He knew and he didn’t run away.

  I never realized until today how much I needed this. I needed one person in the world I could talk to about my situation. I needed someone I could explain it to who wouldn’t flinch and block their ears.

  I never let myself make friends in school. No one ever found out I spent my adolescence taking care of two ailing parents. Only Barb knew how bad it really got and she ran away so she didn’t have to share the burden. When she left, I was alone and I stayed alone for years—until now.

  5

  Liam

  I pulled my truck into the driveway. From twenty yards away, the cabin already looked a hundred times better. The roof sat straight on its new support post. The new shingles stood out against the old ones on the roof, but they would soon wear to the same dark color. Even the porch looked sturdier and more level.

  I hopped out of the cab when Amy emerged from inside. She guided her father into his usual seat and placed the oxygen tank behind his chair. She arranged the tubing and tucked a blanket around his knees.

  I strode up the steps. “Good morning.” I held out my hand to the oldster. “Good morning, Mr. McMasters. It’s good to see you outdoors today.”

  He blinked but he didn’t move. He stared at my navel. Amy’s cheeks colored. “Sorry. He’s not as responsive as he used to be.”

  “Nothing to apologize for.” I bent down and grasped the old man’s hand. I shook it myself and replaced it in his lap before I turned to Amy. “Are you ready to get started?”

  “Sure,” she replied. “What are we doing today?”

  “You’ll need to let me inside to do what we need to do. Are you sure you can handle that?”

  I measured her reaction. She flushed even deeper and her long eyelashes dipped. “I think I can handle it.”

  “Good. The first thing we have to do is to get rid of this damned screen.” I took hold of it and wrenched. The last crippled screws broke loose, and the only hinge holding it in place snapped.

  I pitched the screen off the porch and marched back to the truck. I reached into the bed and hefted out a small, square woodstove. I grappled it to my chest and struggled back to the house. I staggered up the steps under its weight and through the open door.

  The interior of the house appeared as old and poorly maintained as the outside. One sheet of plywood on the living room ceiling drooped at the corner. A joining wall between the kitchen and the living room showed a section of paneling boards missing. The bare joists revealed the back sides of the paneling on the other side. Most of the wallpaper either peeled off the paneling or rotted in place.

  I took it all in with a fleeting glance and headed for the living room. I eased the stove down against the strain in my back, but I got it there without dropping it, thank God.

  When I stretched back, I discovered Amy standing behind me. She stared at the stove and blinked. “Did you…. did you bring that…. for us?”

  “My Pop sent it over,” I lied. “He had it lying around in the barn for the last fifteen years. He wasn’t using it, so he figured you better have it. It’s all sound enough inside, and I brought some new fire bricks for it. That stove will keep you warm this winter. I can guarantee you that.”

  She gaped down at it. A curious stillness came over her. “You shouldn’t have done this. It’s too much.”

  “Nonsense,” I returned. “What did you think—that you were just going to shuffle around here in your slippers and bathrobe all winter? Now come on. We have to put up the flue and everything, and then I need to get started on that floor in the hall. Now that I’m inside, I can see a few other jobs to do, not to mention fixing the bathroom sink.”

  I barged around her, went outside, and got two sections of flue pipe out of the truck. When I went back in, I found her standing on the same spot. I eyed her on the side. “Amy? Are you all right?”

  She shook her hair back. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  She hurried away, but anybody could see she wasn’t fine. Maybe I went a little over the top with the stove. Anyway, it was here now and I damn sure wasn’t going to lug the thing all the way back up Smokey Ridge.

  I didn’t see Amy again for a while. I didn’t know what she was doing and I didn’t really care. I got busy on the stove. I measured out the flue and laid a large sheet of slate on the floor in front of the old fireplace. As I suspected, when Pop heard about Amy and her father, he went into a dither getting together everything they would need. He made me wrap up the slate in a furniture bl
anket so it wouldn’t break on the trip down here.

  I caulked it into place and situated the stove in a nice position. I set up the flue going out the back of the stove, through the fireplace, and up the chimney. Once I secured it, I boarded up the fireplace and covered it with brick.

  I stood back and dusted off my hands. The living room looked so much better with that stove taking pride of place between the slumped couches and fraying armchairs. The room started to look like someplace people might like to spend a winter’s evening around the stove.

  Next, I hammered the ceiling board into place. I couldn’t do much for the wallpaper, but Amy could replace that on her own without any help from me.

  I attended a thousand little details around the place. I examined the wall separating the kitchen from the living room. Most of it was gone, anyway, and the wall did nothing for the house. I tapped a few panel boards out of the way. Yes, this house really needed to open up there.

  I removed what was left of the wall. I made the living room and kitchen into a single room. It really needed an island between them, but that was a little beyond the scope of this project. Maybe…..

  No, I couldn’t let myself think about maybe. This wasn’t my house. I was just passing through, just like Amy. She and her father could live here through the winter—or however long the old man lasted—without a kitchen island.

  I went to the bathroom and did some quick triage. Other than the water being turned off, I didn’t see much wrong with it. It hadn’t been used in years from the look of things.

  I tapped at the pipes. They remained sound until they disappeared behind the wall. I went out into the hall and dropped my legs down the hole. I landed with my waist at floor level when Amy came out of a room in front of me.

  For a fraction of a second, she halted there in front of me. She looked down on me with a dark expression haunting her face. A few stray wisps of golden hair drifted across her face, and her bottomless green eyes examined me with hunger.