His first instinct was anger. He had that room hidden for a reason. Liam didn’t like sharing his artwork. He never showed anyone, not even his own family, what he did. It was private. It was his.
He ripped the tapestry from the wall. A lot of good it did for him. Two long strides brought him into the room and face to face with Heidi. Her eyes were wide, her face red.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded. He hadn’t raised his voice, but she reacted as if he had.
She took a step back, her bottom pressing against the wood of the desk. Frowning at him, her surprise melted into fury. She held up the sketch she had been looking at, her knuckles white. It was the one he’d done of her while she had been sleeping earlier that afternoon. He had drawn her exactly as she had looked lying in the bed—her hair fanned out on his pillow, her ass bare, and her pussy exposed and swollen.
“What is this?” she yelled at him.
Her anger wasn’t what he had anticipated. He didn’t know what he would have expected her reaction to be if she ever saw the drawings, but rage wasn’t it. He was the one who was supposed to be upset, not her. Her reaction was what he had always feared at the thought of showing his work to someone. The fact that she was reacting this way only proved that he had been right. No one should see it.
He ignored her question. “I don’t want you back here.”
“You don’t want me back here?” She slammed the notebook closed and dropped it with a loud thud on top of the desk. “Maybe I don’t want to be drawn while I’m sleeping. Did that thought ever cross your mind?”
“You came back here. You invaded my privacy—”
“I invaded your privacy?” she asked, taking a step toward him, “What about my privacy? You didn’t think about that, did you?”
He didn’t answer her. It was his home and he could do what he wanted to in it. He couldn’t understand why she was so upset by the sketches, but that fact was irrelevant to the situation. She had gone where he didn’t want her to go. She had invaded his space, an area he didn’t share with anyone.
“I can’t stay here with you,” she said, stepping around him to go back into the living room. “I’m leaving.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and she spun around to face him.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“I can touch you if I want to touch you. You belong to me.”
Her hand flew up before he could catch it. Her palm connected with his face and pain radiated through his cheek. Smoke billowed out of his nose as he glared at her. She took a step back, her eyes wild.
“How dare you! You don’t own me, you son-of-a-bitch. No one owns me,” she screamed.
He couldn’t believe she struck him. He couldn’t believe how enraged she had become. It took everything he had to stay where he was when she walked out of the room. His first instinct had been to strike her back, but he could never do that. Would never do something like that. But she would also never hit him again. His fists clenched at his sides, he watched her leave the room.
His mind was racing and he knew he wasn’t thinking clearly, but as he forced himself to calm down he couldn’t help but wonder if she was right. He did own her, technically. But keeping her here against her will, could he really do that to her? Maybe he shouldn’t have sketched her. It was obviously something she didn’t like, but he hadn’t been able to resist himself. She was beautiful and he wanted to be able to remember the moment exactly.
When he calmed down enough to leave the room, he found her in the living room. She had pulled on a pair of jeans and the boots he had gotten for her. His shirt—the one she had been wearing—was thrown on the back of the couch and she was pulling the waffle-knit long sleeved shirt he had gotten for her over her head.
“I’m going home,” she said, not turning to face him. “I’m not staying here a second longer.”
“What are you going to do? Walk home?” He didn’t want to see her leave, but he knew he couldn’t stop her. Or rather, he wouldn’t.
She looked at him over her shoulder, her hair whipping around as she moved. “If that’s what I have to do, then yes.”
“You’re overreacting.”
Heidi snorted. “I don’t think so.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Save it, Liam.” She sighed and looked at her feet, her back to him still. “Thanks for everything. I’ll be sure to pay you back the first chance I get.”
And with that, she was gone.
10
At first Heidi thought he wouldn’t let her leave, but that wasn’t the case. He had stood there and watched her go, doing nothing to stop her.
The anger she felt made her tromp through the woods a bit easier, but after it started to fade, the cold seeped in. She had no jacket and the wind was blowing strong, seeping in between the threads of the shirt and her jeans. Before long she was shivering, but she kept on. Going back wasn’t an option.
Being cold was just one of her many problems. The sun was setting and she had no idea if she was even heading in the right direction. She thought she was, but how could she really be sure? She had no idea where Liam’s cave was in relation to Maggie’s father’s cabin. And it wasn’t as if there was anyone around to whom she could ask for directions.
The thought of running into someone had her more scared of being stuck out there alone than anything else. The fae had found her before, what was to stop them from finding her again? She didn’t want to end up tied back to that awful stake and the next time there would be no Liam there to save her.
But she couldn’t force herself to turn around. She couldn’t go back there, not when he thought he owned her, for crying out loud. Just the thought of his sheer ignorance made the rage flame inside her again.
She walked for another mile before she stopped. The sky was near black and it looked as if she wasn’t getting any further than that for the night. The thought of sleeping in the woods with no protection and no shelter made her worry, but she was determined.
“You’re going to get yourself killed if you stay out here.”
The Irish accent made her spin on her heel. Liam was a few yards behind her, stepping off a fallen log. She was torn between being happy to see him and angry that he had come after her.
“How long have you been following me?”
“Since you left,” he said, coming up to her. “You can’t stay out here. You’ll freeze to death before morning.”
“I’m not going back there with you.” It was out of the question.
“I’m not asking you to.” He ran his hand through his long black hair and looked around them, his eyes scanning the woods. “I’ll take you home.”
“You will?” She was in a state of disbelief. With all the talk of ownership, the last thing she expected him to do was to take her home. “You’ll take me back to Maggie’s cabin?”
“No, I didn’t say that. If you’re leaving, you need to leave. You don’t need to hang around New Freedom, not with the fae planning their attack on the town.”
“Then you’ll take me to Cantor?”
“Yes,” he said, deflated. “I’ll drive you.”
Drive? With all of the flying and walking around he did, she didn’t even know he knew how to drive. She had certainly never seen a vehicle anywhere.
“Okay.” When he turned, she followed him.
They walked for a little while, the increasing darkness making it more and more difficult for her to navigate where she was going. The moon was little help, especially through the thickness of the pine trees. Every little noise she heard made her jump, which only slowed them that much more.
Just when she was about to ask him how much farther they were going, she saw the truck. It was an old model Ford, the body painted a dark blue. It was almost hidden in the underbrush. If she were on her own, she would have walked right by it.
“Get in,” he said, pulling open the driver side door. The light that came on in the cab when he opened the door did little to help her see wh
ere she was going.
She walked around the front, her hand on the hood to guide her and to keep her from stumbling over anything unseen. When she reached the passenger side, he reached over and unlocked the door and she climbed in.
The first thing she noticed was that it was clean and in good repair. Her own two-door Mazda 626 was falling apart. She couldn’t even open the driver side door anymore. To drive it she had to crawl in through the passenger side and scoot over. Her rearview mirror had fallen off months ago and, while superglue had worked for a little while, it had fallen off again a week later.
He turned over the engine and slowly they made their way out of the woods. They reached New Freedom a little while later and from there she told him where to go. He didn’t ask her questions but he did listen to her directions. She doubted he had ever heard of Cantor since it wasn’t much larger than New Freedom. They rarely had tourists and even then they were only passing through, usually on their way to Canada or Mount Katahdin.
Liam ran the heat in the truck and gradually Heidi began to thaw out. He had been right. If she had tried to sleep in the woods, she probably would’ve frozen to death at some point during the night. With nowhere to go and no jacket to keep her warm, she would’ve been dead before the sun came up.
She supposed he had saved her life again. Annoyed, she turned to look out the window.
They had been driving for well over an hour when they reached the town limits. He turned where she told him to and soon enough they were in front of her mother’s townhouse.
As soon as he parked the truck, she knew something was wrong.
“What is it?” he asked, instantly alert.
“My uncle Bruce is here with his wife.” She pointed to them. They were standing outside the door, her own mother standing in the doorway accepting what looked like a casserole dish. The outside light showed her face to be red and splotchy like she’d been crying.
Her uncle never came by. Her father’s brother hadn’t spoken to her mother in years so the fact that they were now not only there, but handing her a casserole dish was nigh unbelievable. Something was wrong.
Grandpa.
She didn’t know what made her think of him, but she tore out of the truck and bolted to the door.
Her Uncle Bruce and Aunt Gwen turned, startled by her sudden appearance, but she ignored them.
“Heidi!” her mom exclaimed, thrusting the casserole dish into Gwen’s hands and rushing toward her daughter, her arms open.
She didn’t run into them. She came to a dead stop.
“What happened? Is Grandpa okay?”
The tears that welled in her mother’s eyes told her everything she needed to know. She could feel herself deflating, could feel herself unravelling like fine threads snapping one at a time.
“I’m so sorry, honey. He passed away in his sleep the night after you left—”
“How could you! How could you let this happen to him!” she screamed, taking a step toward her mother. “I was only gone for a couple of days. How could you?”
He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone. He can’t be gone. The screaming turned into body racking sobs and she covered her face. She would’ve fallen to her knees if two big arms hadn’t encircled her, holding her up. Burying her face against a hard chest, she gripped the flannel that covered him. And she lost it.
When Liam felt Heidi’s knees buckle from under her, he swept her up into his arms. Still she cried, soaking his shirt.
Looking toward her mother behind her, her own face streaked with tears partially due to her daughter’s reaction, he asked, “Is there somewhere I can take her?”
The older woman nodded. She looked remarkably like her daughter, only thirty years older. “Her bedroom is the door straight ahead at the top of the stairs.”
He nodded toward her and stepped in between the two gawking individuals. The man was short and round while his wife was tall and rail thin. As soon as he was inside the house, he heard the woman whispering to her husband. Apparently she had never seen a man as tall or broad as him before. But as soon as he was actually inside the house, all thoughts of the woman fell out of his mind.
Heidi’s mother was a hoarder.
Piles and piles of stuff—from stuffed animals to stacks of newspapers—were everywhere. There was no floor to be seen except for the narrow trail that led further into the house into what he imagined had once been the living room. Deeper into the room he could see where there were totes stacked to the ceiling.
Luckily he didn’t have to go looking for the stairs. They were immediately to his right and they looked as if they had recently been cleared. Stuff—what it was he could no longer tell—was pushed against the railing to make a path wide enough for probably a stretcher and emergency crew.
From everything he’d witnessed, her grandfather’s death had come as a shock to her. He couldn’t fault her if she was angry with herself for not being there when he died. Grief was something he understood. When his uncle died a few years before it had taken him almost a month to come out of his cave. He had stayed in his dragon form, blowing fire at the rock wall and carving out caverns with his claws and spiked tail, trying to find some release for the pent up anger and grief.
He hadn’t broken down. He hadn’t cried as she was doing now, but the pain had still been there. It was still there a little bit in the deepest part of his heart. He doubted he’d ever truly fill that void, but it was something he learned to live with. Eventually she would do the same, but that would only come with time.
Losing a relative, as hard as it was, was nothing compared to losing a mate. She would survive this, unlike if she had a mate who had died. They would be planning her funeral as well if that were the case, even if she still managed to breathe life for a few days after.
Just the thought of Heidi having a mate was enough to twist his gut. He wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on it any longer.
He made his way to the top of the stairs and pushed open the first door he saw. Her room was nothing like the rest of the house. It was immaculate. A double bed sat in the middle of the room, the blankets pulled tight across the mattress. A long dresser sat against the wall holding nothing but a single candle and a photograph of her with an older gentleman whom he could only guess was her grandfather. The two were smiling at each other at what appeared to be a holiday dinner.
He kicked the door shut and climbed onto the bed with her still in his arms. Sitting in the darkness of her bedroom, he stroked her hair as she sobbed. He didn’t speak, he just held her as he stared off into her room. A bookshelf sat against the far wall with the books neatly placed and not a speck of dust in sight. A small desk sat in the corner holding a laptop and a small lamp. He just stared at her things while waiting for her to come out of her grief-stricken state.
Slowly her sobs eased and her breathing changed. When he realized she had fallen asleep, still clinging to his shirt, he placed her gently on the bed next to him. He removed the mud-caked boots she wore and covered her with a blanket that had been folded at the end of her bed.
He sat next to her sleeping form until he heard someone rummaging around downstairs. Knowing he couldn’t stay there with her all night without talking to someone, he left the room and followed the sounds.
Liam found her mother in the living room. She was sitting on a cleared spot on the sofa, watching television, her face dry but her eyes red.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she saw him. “Let me clear you a place.”
She got up and went over to an armchair. Picking up the large pile of what smelled to be clean clothes, she shifted them to the top of a large yellow tote next to several full bags of kitty litter. He took in a deep breath of air, something he’d been afraid to do since he walked inside, but when he did he smelled the feline somewhere within the walls of the small townhouse.
When she sat back down on the couch, he sat carefully as to not disrupt anything around him out of fear that if he knocked one thing over it would hav
e a domino effect and they would be buried without any hope of escaping.
“Thank you,” he said, settling back.
“You’re not from around here.”
“No ma’am.”
“Where are you from? Scotland?”
“Ireland, ma’am.”
She nodded, her short hair moving with her in sync. “Did Heidi meet you on her vacation with Maggie? Where did she go? New Freedom?”
“Yes, ma’am. We met there.”
“Where is Maggie? Did she have car trouble? Is that why you brought Heidi home?”
“No, ma’am. Maggie is still in New Freedom. I brought Heidi home because she wanted to come home. She was ready to leave.” That was the easiest truth he ever told.
“Oh,” she said, nodding again. “That doesn’t surprise me. Heidi doesn’t get out much. I’m glad she went for the time she did. I’m Marie, by the way. I’m Heidi’s mother.”
“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am. My name is Liam. Liam McIntyre.”
“Are the two of you just friends or are you dating my daughter?” The question caught Liam off-guard. He hadn’t expected Heidi’s mother to be so blunt, but he found he enjoyed that about her. He didn’t have to guess what she was thinking. It was something her daughter had inherited.
“I…I suppose we are dating,” he said. He didn’t know if it was true, but as soon as he said it he wished it were.
Marie pulled her legs up onto the couch next to her and adjusted her sweatshirt. “I’m glad.”
Again, it wasn’t what he had expected to hear. “You are?”
“Yes,” she said, sighing. “Heidi hasn’t gotten out much since her grandfather got sick. She’s barely been gone for more than a few hours at a time and usually then she’s spending time with Maggie, Lila, or the rest of her friends. I don’t think she’s had a boyfriend since… since high school. Yes, that was the last time. Boy, time has flown. That’s been eight years ago.”
Liam couldn’t help the happiness he felt knowing she hadn’t been with anyone in so long. He was torn between that and feeling sad for her that she had spent the better part of her youth trapped inside a cluttered house taking care of her ailing grandfather. They weren’t so different, she and him.
Up In Flames (Netherworld Series Book 2) Page 13
