Liam reached out to her slowly. She’d always seemed so strong to him. Not now, though. Right now, she was fragile as glass. “I’m sorry. So sorry, Karin. For Bud. And for you.”
She flinched when he touched her cheek. But then, with a shuddery little sigh, she sagged against him. “I hate that he died. I hate that he didn’t have time to... I don’t know. Get to know his kids? Figure things out? Find a little happiness, a life that really worked for him.”
“Yeah.” He pressed his cheek to her hair and wished he had something helpful to say. “People shouldn’t be allowed to die until they’re at least eighty and they’ve worked through all their crap and made peace with their loved ones.”
She tipped her head up and looked at him, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “Exactly. There oughta be a law.”
On the table, her phone lit up and vibrated.
She pulled free of Liam’s hold and grabbed it. “Hey, Dad.” Liam heard Otto’s voice faintly on the other end. “He’s probably just hungry. I’ll be right there.” She hung up. “Gotta go.”
Liam wasn’t ready for her to leave yet. She needed time, after the tough things she’d said to him. Time for him to hold her and kiss her some more, time for him to ease her fears, to reassure her that things with Ben really were going to be all right. He wished he could just go over to the main house with her, help her with the baby, sleep in the same bed with her.
But already she was pulling her shell of self-reliance back around her. She’d learned all the wrong lessons from her troubled marriage and her husband’s sudden death.
Liam considered himself an upbeat guy. He looked on the bright side as much as possible.
But when it came to Karin, sometimes he wondered if he would ever really break through.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Karin sat in the comfy chair in Riley’s room with her feet up on the fat ottoman and Riley at her breast. She rubbed his velvety cheek with a finger and whispered, “I love you, Riley George. I love you so much...”
She let her head fall back against the cushion and closed her eyes.
Raw. She felt raw and too open, after the things she’d told Liam tonight. It had seemed best, to explain it all, give him the whole truth about poor Bud. He needed to understand why she wasn’t willing to give in and give the two of them a real shot.
Why getting serious with him was out of the question.
Liam was such a good guy and surprisingly persistent.
But she needed to keep a realistic perspective on their situation. No way was she letting herself get in too deep with him. He kept saying he wasn’t ever leaving, that he wanted to be with her and her family. She was sure he meant it.
But just because he meant it now didn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind someday.
She simply couldn’t take that risk. Giving herself to him and then losing him, having him look at her the way Bud used to, like he wondered how he’d got himself into this mess—well, that could break her. And she couldn’t afford to be broken. She had a family to think about.
After tonight, she was definitely reevaluating her brilliant plan to climb into bed with him again.
Uh-uh. He would be far too easy to fall in love with. Having a secret sexual relationship with him was just begging for trouble.
No. The sex thing couldn’t happen. She needed to make it clear to him she’d changed her mind about that.
* * *
Liam got up early Monday morning and drove to Portland for some meetings at the office there. He didn’t get back to the Cove until seven that night.
After a shower and some takeout he’d picked up from his favorite Italian place in town, he called Karin. She didn’t pick up. He debated just heading over there, saying hi to Otto and the kids and getting her promise that she would be over as soon as she got everyone settled for the night.
But their thing was a secret thing. He wasn’t supposed to do anything that might clue the family in to what was going on between them.
So he left a message. “I miss you. Come over as soon as you get the kids to bed?”
And then he went to his home office and dealt with email and messages, feeling antsy, distracted and so damn eager to have her with him again.
Finally, at a quarter after nine, the doorbell rang. He raced to the front hall and yanked the door wide, planning to sweep her up in his arms and kiss her hard and long.
The tortured look on her face stopped him cold. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I never should have suggested that you and I get something going again.”
He gaped at her. “Wait. No. What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you and me. Liam, you know it’s a bad idea.”
“I don’t know any such thing.”
“Well, you should know. Because it is a bad idea.” She wore a sweater over jeans and a knit shirt. But it was cold out, with a brisk wind. She was shivering, her arms wrapped around her middle, her hair wilder than ever, the wind catching it and blowing the dark curls along her cheek, across her forehead.
“You’re freezing.” He stepped back and gestured toward the main room. “Just come in. I’ll turn on the fire, fix you some of that tea you like. We’ll talk this out.”
“No.”
“Karin—”
“I really can’t. I don’t know what I was thinking when I suggested we should start in with each other again.”
“Look. You’re freaking out. It’s okay. We can talk about it—just talk, that’s all.”
“No, Liam. Talking won’t change anything.”
“You’re shivering.” He reached for her.
She stepped back before he could touch her. “No. Really. I just wanted to tell you, to let you know where we are on this. We need to focus on Riley, not end up in bed together. Having sex again, you and me, it’s not a smart idea and it’s not going to happen.”
Five minutes ago, he couldn’t wait to see her face. Now he just wanted to put his fist through a wall. He had a thousand reasons why she was all wrong about this. He wanted to start spouting them, frantically, one after the other, until he’d changed her mind.
But where was that gonna go? Nowhere. He could tell by the tilt of her head and the set of her mouth that she wasn’t going to give him an inch.
So be it. If she didn’t want to be with him, screw it. He was done with this noise.
“Well, okay then,” he said. “I can take Riley for a few hours Wednesday and Friday, in the morning, same as last week.”
“Liam, please don’t be—”
“You’ve made your point, okay? No need to pound it into the ground.”
He watched her throat move as she swallowed. A dark curl caught on her lip. She swiped it away. “All right.”
“Wednesday. Nine in the morning. I can do eight, if that’s better.”
“No. Nine is great. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. He’s my kid. Good night, Karin.” He shut the door.
Chapter Nine
Karin went home hating herself a little, and yet certain she’d done the best thing for her, for Liam, for Riley. And for Ben and Coco, too. None of them needed Karin and Liam to get into something together and then have it all go to hell. For kids, especially, consistency mattered. Romantic drama between the adults they counted on could scar them for life.
Tuesday morning, Otto went over to the cottage first thing, as usual. When he came back, he didn’t say a word about what was or wasn’t going on with her and Liam. But he had that look. Like Karin had kicked a puppy or something.
She felt like such a complete jerk.
And it only got worse.
Early that afternoon, she was sitting in the little breakroom at the Boatworks eating a tuna sandwich with Riley snoozing in his carrier on the chair beside her. He made a
small sound in his sleep, sort of a cross between a sigh and a gurgle. She glanced down at him.
And she realized that he looked just like Liam—a baby Liam with fat cheeks and no hair. Riley was going to break a lot of hearts, no doubt about it.
Something happened in her chest, like a pinch and a burn. She ached. For Liam. She wanted...
To talk to Liam. To tell him that their baby looked just like him. She wanted to whisper with him, to laugh with him. She wanted to sit next to him in front of the fire.
She wanted so many things, none of which she was ever going to get. Loving a man entailed risk. And after Bud, she was definitely risk averse.
Plus, Liam was sick and tired of her crap. She didn’t blame him, she truly didn’t. He probably wouldn’t want anything to do with her now, not even if she begged him on hands and knees.
And her dad was still giving her dirty looks.
That night, once all three kids were in bed, she went and stood by her dad’s recliner and demanded, “Did Liam say something to you about me?”
He muted the TV and then pointed the remote at her. “Liam didn’t say a word to me about you. Not one word.”
“Then why do you keep looking at me like you’re pissed off at me?”
“Because something’s bothering Liam and something is way off with you. My guess is, you two are having problems. And I know Liam well enough now to be reasonably certain he’d do just about anything for you. And that means he’s not the one at fault.”
“First of all, we aren’t together, Liam and me. How can we have problems?”
“That’s a question you need to answer for yourself.”
“And second, you’re my dad. You’re supposed to be on my side, and yet you jump right to blaming me.”
He grunted. “It’s not blame, not really. It’s more that I’m frustrated with you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, Kary. Really.”
“I’ll bet you’re not frustrated with Liam, now are you?”
Her dad heaved a weary sigh. “I’m so proud of you, Kary. I always have been, and even more so in the last few years. It was awful, what happened with Bud. But you’ve never been one to whine about how rough you have it. You work hard at the Boatworks. You’re an amazing mother and you’ve created a good life for the kids and for yourself, too.”
“Thanks,” she said flatly.
“It’s only the truth.”
“And I know you, Dad. I know what you’re doing here. Just hit me with the rest of it.”
“All right.” He swiped a scarred hand back through his thinning hair and leveled his faded blue eyes on her. “Truthfully, Kary, when you know you’ve messed up and you don’t want to admit it, you’re a brat, pure and simple.” He pointed the remote at the TV and the sound came back on.
She just stood there, glaring at the side of his head, waiting for him at least to glance her way again. He didn’t. “I take it I’m dismissed?”
“I love you, Kary,” he muttered, still not looking at her. “I love you and you need to work things out with Liam and that’s all I have to say on the subject.” He stared at the rerun of Two and a Half Men as though he hadn’t already seen it ten times before.
Karin fumed. She longed to go full-out drama queen on him right then. But what good would that do—except to prove him right?
Head high and mouth shut, she whirled for her room, where she closed the door, sat on the bed and called Naomi. “My dad’s pissed at me and I really can’t blame him,” she confessed.
“Hold on,” said her lifelong friend. “I need quiet for this.” A minute later, Karin heard a door shut on Naomi’s end. “There. Silence. Such a rare and beautiful thing.”
“Naomi, I messed everything up.”
“Let me guess. This is about your hot baby daddy, right?”
“Don’t call him that. He’s so much more than that—and I hate that you know me so well.”
“No, you don’t, you love it. What happened?”
“Riley looks just like him.”
“Kary. Kids do have a tendency to look like their parents.”
Whipping a tissue out of the box on the night table, Karin swiped at her suddenly leaking eyes. “My dad called me a brat and I think he might be right.”
“Oh, baby. Pretend that I’m hugging you and tell me everything.”
That took several minutes and three more tissues.
“So then,” said Naomi. “You want to be with Liam, but you’re afraid to be with Liam.”
“Yeah. Completely. On both counts. I want another chance but I still don’t want to rush anything. I still want it to be just between him and me, at least for a while, because I have no idea what I’m doing and what if it all goes to hell? That wouldn’t be good for anyone, especially my children—oh, and what does it matter what I want, anyway? I’ve screwed everything up with him six ways to Sunday. He’d be crazy to give me another chance. I don’t even like me very much right now.”
“Well, I love you.”
Karin fell back across the bed and sniffled at the ceiling. “I love you, too. You’re the best, Naomi.”
“And what are you going to do now?”
“Try again, anyway?” Karin answered with a little moan.
“That’s the way you do it—except minus the question mark. You need to be owning that stuff.”
“I’m going to try again, anyway. Period.”
“Yeah! Go get him, tiger.”
* * *
Easier said than done.
Wednesday, she put on her best jeans and a red sweater and took ten whole minutes fiddling with her hair and putting on blusher, lip gloss and mascara before she took Riley to Liam’s for the morning.
The extra effort got her nowhere.
Liam hardly even looked at her. “Hey, RG.” He reached for Riley.
She handed him over, along with an insulated pack full of bottles of frozen pumped milk.
“Great,” he said, and hooked the bag over his big shoulder.
She’d planned to ask him for another chance, she really had. But her throat locked up and the words wouldn’t come.
“Noon?” he asked, stroking Riley’s back, his blue gaze locked on his son.
“Uh, yeah. Noon is good.”
“All right then.” And he stepped back and shut the door.
It was the same at noon. She rang the bell and Liam answered with Riley all ready to go. He passed her the baby, confirmed the time she would be dropping him off on Friday—and shut the door.
That night, Prim called. Naomi had told her everything and Prim wanted to know how she was doing. Karin explained her complete failure to get Liam to so much as look directly at her. “Let alone give me a chance to try to reach out.”
Prim gave her a pep talk and she hung up sure she would do better on Friday.
Didn’t happen. The baby handoff was faster, if possible, than it had been on Wednesday. She found herself standing alone on the step, minus the baby, staring at his shut door. At noon, he passed her Riley—and closed the door. Again.
Her dad got home at two that day to hang the outdoor lights on the porch, the back deck and down the outside stair railings, front and back. An hour later, Karin was straightening up the great room when she glanced out the slider and saw her dad and Liam hanging the lights together.
At four, when the kids got home from school, the men were over at the cottage putting up outdoor lights there, too. She knew because Coco and Ben had stopped over there before showing up at the main house to beg Karin to be allowed to go help.
“We already asked Grandpa and Liam,” pleaded Coco.
“It’s okay with them if it’s okay with you,” said Ben.
Karin gave her permission. The two ran out the slider and didn’t come back.
By quarter
of six, she had dinner all ready. The outside lights looked great. Karin turned on the tree lights and the star in the crèche and the lights on the mantel, too. She bundled Riley up and took him with her to see how the work was going.
They’d finished hanging the lights on the cottage, too. The big, multicolored bulbs lined the eaves, the railings and the stairs, so cheery and festive, pushing back the cold, foggy night. Feeling unsure and way too nervous, she mounted the steps to the deck.
They were all there, inside, in the living area, decorating a tree that stood near the wide picture window. For a long, bittersweet moment, she hung back in the shadows, cradling her baby close, just watching. They already had the lights on. Liam stood on a ladder holding a big, lighted star. He slipped it over the top branch, took a moment to prop it up nice and straight and climbed back down. The kids and her dad were busy hanging ornaments. Nobody had spotted her out there in the darkness, not with every light on inside.
Really, she didn’t want to interrupt them. They seemed to be having such a great time. Dinner could wait.
She started to turn—and then stopped herself.
Even if Liam had decided she wasn’t worth the trouble relationship-wise, they still had a baby to raise. He got along with her family and he really didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
Sneaking around out in the dark, avoiding him, was no way to behave.
Riley made a tender little cooing sound in her ear as she marched to the slider and knocked on it.
“It’s Mommy!” Coco’s gleeful cry was clear even through the glass. She hung the ornament in her hand and ran to shove the slider wide. “Come in! We are decorating Liam’s tree.”
“I see that. It’s looking good.” She cast an admiring glance at the tree—and her gaze collided with Liam’s. Collided and held.
She pasted on a smile. “Just wanted to see if anyone was hungry?”
The Right Reason to Marry Page 12
