Sandra blinked a few times as she shook her head and offered me a smile. “It’s okay. Really. He passed a few years ago. I don’t know where these came from.” She motioned toward her face. “It’s silly, really.”
Feeling like a jerk, I reached out and grabbed her hand. Then I cradled it between both of mine. “You can cry. That’s okay. Don’t ever feel bad about loving someone.”
She paused as her gaze lingered on mine. Then her smile reemerged as a tear slid down her cheek. “Thank you.” Her voice was a whisper. “Most times, I feel like my story is a burden on others.”
I nodded. I understood. I had been that guy in the past—the one who didn’t want to get dragged into someone else’s drama—or life—or issues—or feelings. The list went on. That was also why I didn’t give any of my feelings to anyone else, I guessed. Because I refused to take theirs, so I couldn’t ask them to take mine. I mean, besides getting upset over a loss on the field, I kept things under lock and key.
But there was something about sitting in this room, with the soft sound of needles clacking together and women talking about their lives, that had me completely out of my normal. No one was going to trash-talk me about knitting or jump all over my mistake like a hyped-up coach. These ladies were here for support and to learn something new. It all felt so accepting and kind. I guessed that was why it was easy to be there for Sandra when she cried. To realize that it wasn’t all about what I’d done and maybe she’d been through some things. It felt strange and good at the same time. Was this what I’d been missing?
Not wanting to get too deep in front of a woman I’d just met, the urge to make her smile came over me. So I leaned in and said, “Did he die from trying to knit? ’Cause I think the same thing might happen to me.”
Sandra’s eyes widened as she stared at me. Just when I feared I’d crossed a line, she burst out laughing. “He used to say that knitting might kill him.”
Grateful that she understood my humor, I gave her a wide smile. Our laughter drew the attention of others around us, and suddenly, I was in the middle of all of these women as they told me the stories of their husbands and how they’d met. I laughed as I sat back and listened.
It felt good to be a part of them. These women were real and down to earth.
“What about your girlfriend?” asked Nan, who had met her husband while making school lunches. He’d come to repair one of their ovens and warmed her heart. They’d married four months later.
I couldn’t help but look for Heather. For some reason, I thought of her when I thought of a girlfriend. I was certainly closer to her than I had been to any woman I dated. And our kiss spoke of a simmering attraction that could burn through the ages if ignited.
Heather sat in the outskirts of the group with two needles in her hands. She wasn’t making an effort toward the quilt square half-finished on one needle. Instead, she had her head tipped toward us, waiting for my response.
“No girlfriend for me,” I finally told Nan, who was waiting for a response.
“I knew it. That’s great news,” she said as she set her needles down in her lap and bent down to grab her purse off the floor.
“It is?”
She nodded. “’Cause I have a granddaughter who would be perfect for you.”
I chuckled as I held up my hand. “Actually, I’m not really looking.”
Heather furrowed her brow. I met her gaze and offered her a small smile. Truth was, I really wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. A date, sure, but nothing serious—it felt odd to admit it, but it was the truth.
“Well, that’s too bad. She’d be perfect for you.” Nan slipped her phone back into her purse.
“Perfect?” I repeated as I kept my gaze on Heather, even though she’d dropped her focus back to knitting. She pushed me in every way, and as much as I hated walking into a book con or a knitting circle, I liked going with her. “I think I already found perfect,” I whispered to no one in particular.
Thankfully, Heather didn’t hear me. Instead, she left me to study her from a distance.
I wasn’t sure if it was all of these stories of long-standing love or these new clothes, but there was something different about me. Something different about the way Heather looked to me.
Call me crazy, but I wanted to explore that different.
Heather was right. I’d dated the same woman, or a variation of that woman, for years. I didn’t want that anymore. I felt like I’d woken up into a different world where what had been great before now looked like a cheap imitation of the real thing. These women, they had the real thing with their husbands—they had a life with them.
With a desire that startled even me, I wanted to get to know Heather. The real Heather.
And I wanted that right now.
Setting my needles aside, I walked over and squatted in front of Heather, grabbing both sides of her chair and trapping her in place. Speaking low, because everyone but Myrtle thought we were brother and sister, I said, “I think I get it.”
“Get what?” She tipped her head to that angle that meant she didn’t believe I’d gotten anything. “Knitting?”
I shook my head. “No. If those needles were mine, I’d bury them in the backyard.”
She snorted a laugh.
I didn’t want to pour out my heart to her. The thoughts I had were new and untested. If I laid them bare, they could shrivel up, so I pressed forward. “You’ve been putting me in situations that make me look at myself in a different way.”
She pressed her lips and nodded. It was like she knew there was something coming that she wasn’t going to like. Maybe she wouldn’t.
“I think it’s time I returned the favor.”
She scooted her butt back in the chair. “What are you going to do?”
I chuckled, enjoying the small bubble around our conversation, like the two of us were alone in this great big room of knitters. “I want to take you somewhere you’ve never been before.”
She gulped. “Where?” The word eked out of her.
“You’ll just have to trust me.” I stood up, brushing my hand along the side of her legs as I did so. She squirmed, and I turned away so she wouldn’t see my self-satisfied smile.
Settling in next to Sandra, I listened as she showed me how to cast on, but all I could think about was having Heather on my turf and all to myself.
Chapter Eleven
Heather
Tuesday
“Is this really necessary?” I touched the goggles covering my eyes and making it impossible to see anything around me. I gingerly put one foot in front of the other, but nothing about this felt right. The car ride over had been a blank screen, as Liam had insisted I put on the goggles before I left the house. He’d said something about tit for tat. He’d done it for me, so I had to do it for him.
Which wasn’t exactly apples to apples. I was a licensed psychologist. If I put my clients in danger, I could lose my livelihood. I wasn’t so sure Liam had the same kind of stakes. As far as I was concerned, this was the ultimate trust exercise.
Liam had my hand tucked into the crook of his arm and walked slowly, leading me along with care. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of this pace last Friday night when he’d barged into my office, but something had happened to him at that knitting group. He was taking life slower. It would be refreshing if I didn’t currently feel like a hostage.
“Who was the woman you knitted with last night?” I asked, trying to get some clue as to where we were. Had those women influenced my current status, or had Liam created this situation on his own?
Our footsteps echoed off concrete all around. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was leading me into a dark alley to do away with me once and for all. I’d seen murder mystery episodes. People took their anger out on therapists.
“Sandra. She was cool.”
“Yeah?” I prodded, hoping he’d tell me more. He’d been full of funny stories on the ride home last night, but nothing about this Sandra woman.
His hand tightened over mine as he pulled me closer to him. “Step over,” he said, his whisper tickling my ear and sending jolts of electricity down my body. “Yeah—she reminded me of Penny in some ways.”
I hesitated, startled by the hesitance he had in his voice. “What ways?” Pulling information from him was akin to knitting. Both were tedious and slow. I could barely hold back my inner therapist, who wanted to crack his head open and poke around.
“In mom-ish ways. She has a couple kids, and she’s raising them alone. Knitting night is her one night to herself. That takes a pretty tough woman.”
It was strange, listening to him talk about women like this. There was no blonde or brunette. There was no mention of body shape. He held a reverence for them that caused shivers to rush down my spine. It was hard not to fall for him when he spoke like this. In an effort to keep my emotions hidden, I nodded along until suddenly the ground beneath my feet softened and I stumbled forward. I reached out, desperate to grab on to someone or something.
“Whoa—don’t fall.” Liam grabbed my flailing hand and helped steady me.
“How much farther?” I whispered. I needed to take these blasted goggles off.
“Almost there.” He had a note of excitement in his voice, one in harmony with a reserved tone. I racked my brain trying to think of an outdoor cathedral in the area, but nothing came to mind. Maybe we weren’t in a church. After all, I was on grass. So … a park? A cemetery. I shivered. That would be way out of my comfort zone. I didn’t do cemeteries, and I dreaded funerals. I had this thing with death—we didn’t like each other.
He pulled me to a stop and then turned my body so I was lined up with whatever he wanted to show me. I reveled in the feeling of his long fingers wrapped around my upper arms. It brought warmth to every part of my body. This was when Liam was sexy. It wasn’t when he was flirting with me or telling me the things that he thought I wanted to hear. No. It was in these little moments, the moments when he wasn’t trying to impress me, that I found myself diving headfirst into the feelings that I’d tried to keep at bay.
I just hoped he didn’t realize the effect these actions had on me.
“Okay. Close your eyes. I’m going to take the goggles off.”
I reached for the strap. “It might be less painful if I do it.” When he’d been trying to get them on me, he’d managed to pull and tug on curls right and left. I’d cringed my way through the process and finally had to help him out.
“Probably,” he agreed good-naturedly. “But I’m going to help, because you can’t see what you’re doing.”
“Har har.” I touched the strap in the back, looking for a way to get my finger between it and my wild hair. The curl cream did wonders, and I used it every day now. But my hair still had a mind of its own.
Liam’s hands brushed both my cheeks, which I was certain turned them all sorts of splotchy. I could tell they colored up by the rush of heat to my face. Oh well, it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it before.
His fingers danced over my ears, sending happy-floaty bubbles down my neck and making me bite my lip. I just hoped he took that reaction as me preparing for the tugging on my hair that I knew was coming, and not the reaction to his touch on my skin.
A moment later, I was able to pull the strap off and hold it out—my eyes closed as promised. My hand bumped into Liam’s chest, and I squeaked. “Sorry.”
He closed his hand over mine before taking the mask. “Are you ready?”
“Why do I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and you’re about to push me over?” I pressed a hand to my stomach, telling the butterflies to settle down.
He laughed. “Don’t tempt me.”
I growled.
“Okay. Open.”
I blinked my eyes open, the sunlight making it difficult for them to adjust. When they did, I furrowed my brow. “The football field?”
He slid his hand down my arm and grabbed my fingers, pulling me along as he spoke. “Not just any field. This is the home of the Lions. Birthplace to Liam McKnight, the Wolves’ first-string quarterback, and Jaxson Jagger, his semi-famous best friend.”
I tipped my head back and laughed. “You’re awful.”
He grinned, and I saw something in his eyes that I’d never seen there before. It was almost like my laughter had sparked something inside him, and it blew me away. I couldn’t look at it, because the feelings it stirred in me were too strong to ignore. So I glanced around the field as we walked the perimeter.
“Why am I here?” I asked, knowing there was more to this field trip than bragging.
“Because this isn’t somewhere you would ever take yourself.”
“True.” I conceded. Near the home-team bench was a basket with wheels, full of footballs. “You’re not going to put me through drills, are you?”
“No, but I am going to teach you how to catch a football.” He strode over to the basket, pulling me with him.
“Oooh, that is so not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
I glanced down at my chest, thinking of the one time I’d tried to play football with the boys in 6th grade. I’d just started wearing a bra and … well, it hadn’t been a good experience. But I knew the kind of innuendos that admission would elicit in Liam, so I decided to keep that to myself. “I’m not good at sports.”
He grimaced. “And I don’t read or knit, but I now have three stocking hats made by generous women in my knitting circle and an autographed copy of Winnie’s book on my nightstand.”
I stopped to stare at him. His words caught me off guard. That was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. I’d seen him accept the hats at knitting, but I hadn’t known he’d bought Winnie’s book. “You do?”
“I do. First edition, signed. I’m banking on it for my retirement fund.” He reached into the basket and grabbed a ball.
I could have kissed him right then and there, except he looked determined to throw the ball in my direction. Those feelings were quickly replaced with nerves so strong that I feared I was going to lose my lunch. “Let’s, uh, ease into this a little?”
He chuckled. “I’m not going to send a spiral at you from midfield, okay? I teach kids camps all the time; I got you. Er—I got this. I meant to say I got this. Teaching you, I mean.”
The fact that he was stumbling over his words was adorable. Especially out here on his turf where he was king.
He held the ball between his hands with the pointy ends going into his palms. Ha. Pointy ends? I didn’t even know the anatomy of a ball. This was going to be humiliating. I started to stretch, even though I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t the coordinated one in the family.
Anxiety built up inside of me as I blew at the strand of hair that kept tickling my nose. Why did I care so much how I looked in front of Liam?
I knew the real reason, but I decided to focus on the more realistic and less exposing reason. I was going to convince myself that it was because I wanted him to think well of me, to respect me—as a therapist. Over the last few days, I’d let my best go and barely hung in there. My professionalism was pretty much a joke, considering I’d kissed my client—and liked it. I’d created this persona of perfection around me, yet the more time I got to spend with Liam, the more I was beginning to realize that I was a joke. Inside and out. I just didn’t want Liam to discover that as well.
He didn’t look as torn up inside as I felt. Instead, he was walking backwards, beckoning me with his eyes to follow. Despite my insecurities, I trailed after him as if he’d hypnotized me. For a moment, I thought of the women at the romance con who’d flowed to him as if they were ocean waves and he was the seashore. This was different from that. I wasn’t chasing the celebrity version of Liam, hoping to get a piece of him for my social media post. I was following the Liam that only I got to see. The one whose face told exactly what was on his mind and in his heart. He was easy to read and easy to be around. Celebrity Liam wore me out, but this guy energized me.
“Did you ever go to my games?” he asked as he tossed the ball up into the air.
I thought back to those days. How could I say yes without hinting at the fact that I went to see him? “Yes. I had friends.”
“Really?” he joked.
I rolled my eyes. “I had good friends. We did homework together. We went for ice cream and talked about boys and crushes. I had the typical high school experience. Including going to football games and seeing the great Jaxson Jagger and his semi-famous friend play.”
He scowled at my teasing, but it quickly morphed to a smile. “Back then, it was all about playing for the future.” He dug his toe into the grass as if getting ready to sprint down the field. “There was constant pressure to get a scholarship, get a contract, get an offer from a league team.”
He pushed off and jogged a few steps before circling back, taking my hand, and placing the ball into it. Then he took a stand behind me, pulling me toward his chest, and raised my arm up.
I figured this was something he did with the kids in his camp—help them perfect their form. But he was standing quite close to me, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate the feeling of his solid chest on my back.
Bad Heather. Don’t think those things, Heather.
“How is it different now?” I asked, needing something else to focus on than Liam’s proximity to me.
“There’s still pressure, but it’s about playing every game to the best of my ability. It’s competing with myself as much as the other team. It’s pushing to get the next play, to see if I have what it takes to face the challenge. I love it.” He pulled our arms back and pitched them forward; I released the ball too late, which caused the thing to nosedive straight into the ground. “I love football,” Liam said as he let go of me and ran over to grab the ball. “But you stink at it.”
I let out a forced laugh, to which he smiled and locked gazes with me. And then his cocky mask, the one he put on for others, slipped, and I saw the real Liam. The one that made my heart pound. In these moments, he was so honest, so raw and open, that I completely forgot who I was and what I was doing here.
His Romance Coach (A McKnight Family Romance Book 5) Page 9
