“That’s a long time,” he said, leaning back enough to realize that the armchair actually rocked—at which point he leaned forward. Lord help them all if he rocked back into something. The tower of National Geographic magazines behind him appeared almost threatening.
“Yes.” She tapped her fingers on the cushion next to her. “I can’t blame her for being upset with me, you know.”
“Oh?”
“There was nothing to be done to save him. He died in his sleep. They told me that it was peaceful and that he didn’t feel a thing, but by the same token I understand why she’s upset. He was a father to her. Really, he was her father.”
He asked the question Marie was leading to. “Where is her real father?”
“He died when she was small. Shot himself in the basement here. He did it while she and her brother were with me. We had gone to the grocery store and when we came home she went searching for him. Found him in the basement with a hole in his head. Doesn’t remember the specifics of it, thank God.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Whatever he expected to have happened to Heidi’s father, it wasn’t that. How his wife had been able to remain living without her half was something he couldn’t grasp. Her mate had died and in every case of mating he’d ever seen, from dragons to shifters, once one died they both did. The only explanation he had was that it must be different for humans.
She waved him off. “It’s been twenty two years. Seems like a lifetime ago. My father moved in to help me with the kids not long after that. He was really the only adult male figure in her life. Taught her how to drive and how to change a tire.”
“I’m sorry about your father.”
“It was his time,” she said softly.
She remained quiet for a short while, staring off into a pile of clutter. Liam watched her for a minute before looking down at his hands. He didn’t want to intrude upon whatever private thoughts she was having.
When she cleared her throat he looked up. Her brown eyes were focused on him and he waited for her to speak.
“Are you going to stay tonight?”
He hadn’t thought that far ahead but as it was right now, there was no leaving here. Not that he had planned to really leave anyway. He would’ve stayed close by, watching Heidi until he knew she was safe. Safe from the fae and anyone else who meant her harm.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” he said.
“Well, you’re welcome to. If you don’t want to share the bed with Heidi—I don’t know how far you two have taken your relationship—there is Randy’s room. He’s Heidi’s younger brother. He just turned twenty three. He’s away at college right now but he’ll be here tomorrow night. You can use it tonight if you want.”
He cleared his throat, trying to ease the awkwardness that rose in the room with Marie’s words. From what he’d witnessed thus far, he could say the women in Heidi’s family held little to nothing back.
“Thanks but I’ll just stay with Heidi. I’ll leave in the morning… if she wants me to.” He didn’t know why he said the last part and Heidi’s mother tilted her head as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
“Okay. The funeral’s tomorrow. You’re welcome to come if you want to,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m going to go up to bed. Make yourself at home, Liam.”
He nodded as he stood. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Turn off the lights when you come upstairs.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and peered at him through the throng of her belongings. “And Liam? Call me Marie.”
“All right, ma’am…er, Marie.”
She gave him a small smile before heading up the stairs, leaving him in the overcrowded living room trying to find a wall to stare at. He gave up searching a couple of minutes later, switched off the lights, and went upstairs.
He found Heidi where he had left her with a fat tabby cat sitting at the end of her bed. When the feline saw him, it hissed, and fled from the bed. He wasn’t surprised by the cat’s actions. Most animals, when they were face to face with a dragon, even in his human form, weren’t keen on getting close. He closed the door behind it as it darted from the room.
As quietly as he could, so as not to disturb her, he kicked off his boots and laid in the bed next to her still fully clothed. His hands under his head, he stared up for the longest time watching the shadows as they danced across the ceiling. He was just dozing off when he felt her roll over, her arm draping over his stomach. When she woke up she may still be mad at him, but for now while she slept, she still needed him. Smiling to himself, he slept.
The chirping birds woke Heidi the next morning. For a minute she laid there, unsure of how she had gotten in her own bed until it all came back to her. The sleeping dragon beside her confirmed it.
He’s really gone.
Taking a deep breath, memories of the dream she had flooded back. She had seen her grandfather. She had been in his room, getting his pills together for him but he had been sitting on the side of his bed. The sunlight lit up his face when he smiled at her and she couldn’t help but smile back at him.
“Heidi.”
“I’m here.”
“I love you, my child.”
“Of course you do.”
“Don’t cry for me. I’m happy.”
“Why would I cry, Grandpa? You’re here. You’re where you’re supposed to be.”
He had shaken his head before looking back at her. “I’m not here. And, as much as it pains me, I can’t be with you anymore.”
It was at that moment that she realized he was gone. She cried, “You can’t leave me.”
“I have to. It’s my time.”
“Take me with you!”
Again he had shaken his head. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. You’re young, child. You have so much of your life in front of you. Don’t cry for me. Go out and live your life. Truly live and remember that I’ll always be with you. I’ll always love you, my child. My heart.”
She had fallen to her knees in front of him, grasping his legs which had stopped working years before. “Don’t leave me!”
“Hush now. It’s too late. I love you.” He disappeared with her still clinging to him.
As much as she thought the dream would disturb her, it didn’t. If anything it comforted her to think that her grandfather was in a better place. A place where he could walk again. A place where he didn’t feel the constant pain he had suffered any longer.
With that thought in her mind, she rose from the bed and left Liam sleeping there. She took a shower, relaxing under the hot spray before wrapping herself in a towel and walking back into her bedroom.
When she entered the room she saw Liam sitting on the side of the bed, his arms stretched above his head.
“How are you this morning?” he asked her, his hands dropping to his lap and his blue eyes searching her face as if looking for signs she’d been crying again. As puffy as her eyes still were, she hadn’t shed a tear since she had fallen asleep crying in his arms the night before.
“I’m okay,” she said before realizing it wasn’t the complete truth and clarified, “I’m going to be okay.”
He nodded. “I’m glad. You worried me last night.”
“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to cry all over you and I certainly didn’t want to worry you.”
“What? Don’t be sorry.” He stood up and faced her, his size blocking out most of the sun that was streaming in from the window behind him. It glowed around his silhouette.
“You didn’t need to see all that,” she said, glancing down at her toes. As angry as she had been before, she wasn’t anymore. There were too many other important things going on in her life to continue to be upset with him.
He had been wrong about a lot of things, but what did it truly matter? So he thought she belonged to him, but didn’t dragons feel as if they owned everything? At least that’s what the legends said when she’d read them. They
protected their hoards. Perhaps the stories had some sort of truth to them.
It actually made sense. If Roarke had given her to him, why wouldn’t he believe that he owned her? He didn’t, of course. No one did. But at least she could understand where his confusion came from. It didn’t excuse the risqué sketches of her either, but that was something she could deal with at a different time and on a different day.
“I’m happy to be of any help I can be,” he said, his voice soft.
“You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.”
His hands came up on either side of her face and for a brief second she thought he was going to kiss her. He did, but not in the manner she had thought. His lips touched her forehead for a drawn out moment and her eyes fluttered closed.
“Your mother’s awake,” he said against her skin.
“Hmm?”
He released her face and when she opened her eyes he was taking a step away from her. “Your mother’s awake.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can hear her moving around.”
“Oh.” She knew he had good hearing, but hadn’t realized how good it was. All the crap in the house did an excellent job of soundproofing the place. She hadn’t heard anything.
Once she thought about the condition of the house she realized he had seen it. “I’m sorry about the mess,” she said as a way of an excuse.
He brushed her off. “It’s fine.”
“It’s really not.”
“No, but it’s not your problem.”
She tilted her head. “I live here. It is my problem.”
He shook his head. “For whatever reasons your mother has for keeping all this stuff and keeping the house in this condition—I can only assume it’s her doing it based on your room—it has nothing to do with you. How she copes and how you cope are two different things. If it makes her feel better keeping everything then that’s her problem. It’s not yours. You can leave whenever you want if you don’t want to be around it.”
It wasn’t quite as easy as he made it sound, but for the first time she realized that it wasn’t her problem. She didn’t have to deal with it if she didn’t want to. She could leave. Of course that would require her finding a job and earning income, but she wasn’t stuck here indefinitely. Her grandfather was gone, and as such, her reason for staying was gone. She was free to leave whenever she was ready.
“Do you mind if I take a shower?” he asked. “I don’t know what time your grandfather’s funeral is, but your mother said last night that it’s today.”
“You’re going?”
“Yes,” he said, then hesitated. “If that’s all right with you.”
She nodded, glad he had asked for her opinion instead of just taking it upon himself to do whatever he wanted. “Of course it’s okay with me. I want you there.”
“I’ll have to buy a suit.”
“Go take a shower and we’ll run to Walmart.” There were few shops around town, but the local Walmart had everything he would need. Honestly she didn’t know where to find a nice suit but for her family’s church, slacks and a dress shirt would do just fine.
He groaned at the mention of Walmart and left her standing in her room, staring after him as he disappeared into the hallway.
Heidi found a black dress at the back of her closet and pulled it on. It fell to just above her knees, but judging from the amount of sunlight and the fact that they were at a lower altitude now that they were out of the mountains, it would be warm enough for April. Just to be sure she pulled on a light sweater. She would’ve worn stockings if she owned any, but since she didn’t, her legs were bare when she pulled on a pair of black heels. They were higher than she would’ve worn normally, but they were her only pair of dress shoes so she went with it.
The shower was still running when she went downstairs to find her mother making coffee in the kitchen. She was standing in front of the coffee pot, pouring herself a cup, when Heidi walked in.
“Good morning,” Marie said without turning around.
“Morning, mom.” Heidi hesitated for a minute, trying to find the right words. “I’m sorry about last night. How I reacted. The things I said…”
Her mother shrugged, turning around and holding the steaming mug in her hands. When she faced her daughter, she smiled. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Heidi felt the instant relief that came with knowing she hadn’t irreparably damaged their already fragile relationship. A slow smile spread across her lips as she nodded.
“Yes. Yes, I’d like that.”
11
“Walmart helps to remind me why I choose to live in a cave,” Liam grumbled as they came out of the store, plastic shopping bags in hand.
Heidi laughed. “Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad.”
“If I saw one more butt crack I was going to lose my breakfast. I wouldn’t want to do that to your mother. She makes delicious eggs.”
They had eaten at the kitchen table since the dining room table was covered with so much stuff that it was impossible to clear even one spot. The kitchen table wasn’t much better, but Heidi was careful and she stacked things just right, so she was able to make three places for them.
The thing about her mother is that she wasn’t dirty. She just had so much stuff and nowhere to put it. Granted she didn’t need the majority of it, but she chose to keep it for whatever reason. There were rarely dirty dishes in the sink and Heidi or her mother would mop the part of the floor they were able to see. No trash piled up inside the house, Heidi made sure to take care of that if her mother didn’t get to it first.
Breakfast had gone smoothly with Marie quizzing Liam on his upbringing. Heidi hadn’t realized he had been raised by his uncle in Maine and when she heard he had left behind his parents as well as two brothers in Ireland, she couldn’t help but be saddened by it. Of course he loved his uncle, she could tell by the way he talked about him, but she couldn’t imagine not being raised by her mother or not having her brother around when she was growing up. It sounded like a lonely existence.
He told them his family would come to visit him on the rare occasion and he still tried to make a trip back to Ireland once every few years, but otherwise they didn’t have much communication. They led different lives.
Things got a bit sticky when Marie had asked Liam what he did for a living. Heidi had guessed—correctly—that Liam didn’t work. The majority of his money, he explained, he received as an inheritance. He had invested it and had been living off the income ever since. Marie didn’t like the fact that he was unemployed, which she made perfectly clear when she told him just that, but she was happy that he wasn’t leeching off the government and was able to support himself.
When Heidi came to his defense, reminding her mother that she didn’t work either, her mother had brushed her off. It was different because she had been taking care of her grandfather, she told her. Now that he was gone, she would be able to go back to school and make something of herself. It was something that Heidi had toyed with while her grandfather was still alive, but now that she would have the time to do what she had always wanted, she didn’t know what it was that she wanted to do. It was something else she had to think about.
After breakfast Liam and Heidi had made a run to Walmart to pick him up a change of clothes. He had looked handsome as hell when he tried on the black slacks and burgundy dress shirt. She had nodded in agreement when he said that the outfit would do. He had also purchased a nice pair of shoes as well as some other little things he needed since everything he owned was back in his cave.
For a Friday morning, Walmart had been relatively crowded. Liam had spent the majority of the time scanning the crowd, making Heidi aware of the fact that he was perhaps slightly agoraphobic. She doubted he got out very much and certainly almost never to areas with a lot of people.
It made her wonder how he managed to make the trips to Ireland. Surely the amount of people in an airport would make him nuts, but then she remembered since he
could fly, he probably never used the airport. Had probably never been on an airplane, even. Sick at the thought of flying across a vast ocean with nothing under her but water, she knew it was unlikely she’d ever take that trip with him.
As soon as the thought passed her mind, she kicked it out. She’d never go to Ireland with him. She’d never meet his parents. The only reason he had met her mother was because they had fought and her grandfather had died. But if he asked her… again, she shook the thought from her head. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.
When had her lust turned to like? She had always liked him, but the more time she spent with him, the more she didn’t want to be away from him. Her feelings for him were growing fast, faster than she could ever have imagined, and that scared her to death. Every time he smiled at her, his full lips stretching to show just a hint of his white teeth, her heart quickened and she couldn’t help but smile back at him.
She’d be in trouble if she didn’t watch herself because as soon as he left, she’d be devastated. She didn’t know how long he planned to stay, but she didn’t want him to go. She liked having him in her house, loved that he didn’t judge her or her mother on the condition of it, and felt stronger having him close by.
When they climbed into his truck, her heels making it a more difficult task than it normally was, he caught her hand and gave it a squeeze. She met his eyes and caught his smile. Again her heart sped up and she smiled back at him.
Yup, I’m in trouble.
They drove in relative silence and he held her hand for the entire ride. He only let go to change gears but then he’d be right back, gripping her fingers gently, his thumb running over the back of her knuckles.
When they pulled up to her mother’s townhouse, she saw her brother’s car in the parking lot. She had wondered how long it would be until he showed up. She was unlocking the door to open it when Liam grasped her hand again and stopped her.
Up In Flames (Netherworld Series Book 2) Page 14
