“Not this,” she said. “Here isn’t the time or the place.”
Outside her office, a metal sliding door clanged into place as the bank closed up for the day. Creed snapped off his computer and shoved a bunch of papers into his desk drawer. The big overhead lights went out.
Swinging his attention back to her, Liam said, “Then let’s go somewhere else. Let me drive you home.”
“I have my own car out back,” she said, shying away from him as if he’d suggested they commit gross indecencies on the brick-paved sidewalk outside and invite the whole community to watch. “And a few loose ends of business to tie up here.”
More determined than ever to get to the bottom of whatever was causing her to act so strangely, he got to his feet. “Okay. If not today, then when?”
“…Soon….”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. What’s your phone number?”
“Never mind,” she said. “Just leave a message here and I’ll get back to you.”
Like a swimmer diving into the open jaws of a great white shark she would! “Have it your way.”
Backing out of her office, he hot-footed it past the security guard and out through the main doors to where he’d left his car. Nosing it out into the traffic, he found another spot across the street, under a cedar tree where the creeping shadows of dusk camouflaged his black Porsche at the same time that it offered him an unobstructed view of the small, well-lit area behind the shopping mall marked Authorized Employee Parking Only.
If she’d been telling the truth, there was no way he’d miss seeing her when she left.
And if she thought she’d shaken him off that easily, she was sadly mistaken!
Twenty minutes later, his patience was rewarded. He saw her clearly as she braked her late-model Taurus to a stop under the street lamp, then made a right turn toward the acre-lot view homes dotted along the waterfront.
Giving her a hundred yard head start, he pulled out after her.
She was still shaking when she got home. Shaking and almost sick to the stomach from being stuffed too tightly into the suit which had been a full size too large when she’d bought it a month ago. With a sigh of relief, she stepped out of the skirt and stroked the convex curve of her abdomen.
There was no getting away from the obvious: it was maternity wear from here on. She had a couple of outfits already hanging in the closet and if she’d worn one that day, she wouldn’t be fretting now about how she was going to break the news of her condition to Liam. He’d already have figured it out for himself.
Liam…! The shock of seeing him washed over her afresh. When he’d first walked into her office, her immediate thought had been that she was hallucinating, the result of too many fruitless hours spent pining for him. Or else, it was some other man bearing a faint resemblance to him.
Heaven knew, she’d made the same mistake a hundred times or more since leaving Bell Island. The set of a pair of wide shoulders ahead of her in a lineup, the tilt of a dark head, even a stranger’s slight limp had been enough to quicken her pulse before she realized her mistake.
But although any number of well-dressed businessmen might have found legitimate reason to request an appointment with her, there was only one who could lay claim to those candid, blue-green eyes and that sudden, devastating smile. Only one who could move her so profoundly with words she’d never thought to hear him speak.
I couldn’t stay away…I’ve been thinking about you….
Blinking away another rush of tears, she let Bounder out to the back garden through the French doors in her bedroom, then put on a velour robe and eased her feet into plush slippers.
You’ve never been anything but honest with me. I don’t believe you could lie to me if your life depended on it….
If he only knew! The appalling fact was, she’d done nothing but lie to him, ever since the last day they’d been together on the island. Worse, she’d continued to perpetrate the greatest lie of all, even though he’d given her every opportunity to correct it.
Well, no more! She would have to come clean, not because he’d said he’d been thinking of her—that hardly amounted to a declaration of undying love, after all, particularly not from a man with Liam’s aversion to commitment—but because she had no right to keep the truth from him. Why had she ever thought she had? The baby kicking inside her carried his genes, as well as hers.
But she could not have told him that afternoon, not with half the eyes in the bank tuned in to the handsome visitor leaning across her desk. Not unprepared, with the words coming out all wrong. A woman couldn’t just spit out “I’m having your baby,” to the man she loved, especially when he wasn’t in love with her.
Outside, the dreary November night closed in, bringing with it the rain which had held off all day. On her way to let Bounder in through the laundry room, she stopped in the kitchen and tossed a frozen lasagna in the oven. She was eating for two now, and whether or not she had any appetite for food was immaterial. She had her baby’s health to consider—which brought her to the problem she’d been avoiding since Liam had shown up in her office that afternoon.
Sooner rather than later, she was going to have to decide how to break to him the fact that she’d been anything but honest with him. But the day’s tensions had taken their toll. Lured by the blazing fire in the hearth and the soft down-filled cushions on her living room couch, she set aside her problems in favor of following doctor’s orders and putting her feet up for a while. She’d waited this long to admit the truth to Liam, after all. What difference was another hour going to make?
She must have been more exhausted than she’d realized because not until the persistent ringing of a bell penetrated her dreams did she realize she’d fallen asleep. Disoriented, she staggered to her feet. The oven, she thought fuzzily, and was halfway down the hall to the kitchen before she realized the sound was actually coming from the front door.
Although she wasn’t expecting anyone, Bounder was thrashing his tail back and forth, a sure sign that whoever was out there was someone he knew. Probably her next door neighbor, Iva Chapman, another widow, well into her seventies, who’d taken Jane under her wing when Derek died. She was also the only person in whom Jane had confided the news of her pregnancy, and had taken to popping over every few days to check up on her.
But the figure on the doorstep bearing a bouquet of pink roses and a bottle of wine was too tall, too broad, too masculine, to pass for a harmless little old lady with nothing but neighborly concern on her mind. He was too unmistakably Liam McGuire, and clearly not about to leave until he’d received the answers he’d come looking for.
“I know you weren’t expecting me, but this can’t wait,” he announced, shoving into the house past an ecstatic Bounder, and filling her little foyer with his overwhelming presence.
Floored by his sudden appearance for the second time in as many hours, she gasped, “How did you find out where I live?”
“I followed you home. You’re an easy mark, Janie. You didn’t once check in your rearview mirror, or you’d have seen me tailing you.”
“But why? We decided you’d call me at work and—”
“You decided, sweetheart, not I.” Thrusting the flowers at her, he held Bounder off with one hand and hefted the bottle out of danger with his other. “At least I don’t come empty-handed. Stick those in some water while I open the excellent wine I came across at that little mall where you work, then we’ll talk.”
“Talk?” she echoed, backing down the hall to the kitchen.
“That’s right.” He followed, tossing his suit jacket over a chair as he passed by the living room, and loosening the knot in his tie. And if that wasn’t hint enough that he wasn’t about to tolerate any more delaying tactics, his next words were. “It’s show time, Janie. At first, I was prepared to humor you and put things off until tomorrow, but I’ve never been long on patience, a fact you’re only too well acquainted with, and I’m afraid this can’t wait.”
“What can
’t wait?” Flustered, she busied herself finding a vase and trimming the ends of the rose stems before plunging them into water. Had he guessed she was pregnant, was that it? Was he going to blast her to kingdom come for deceiving him and depriving him of his right to the truth?
“Us,” he said. “You and me.”
“You and me?”
“Quit repeating everything I say, Janie,” he said roughly, “and show me where you keep your corkscrew. Suddenly, I need a drink.”
“In the drawer on top of the wine cabinet. Thank you for the flowers, by the way. They’re lovely.” And at any other time, she’d have been over the moon to accept them. But these definitely came with a price, though not the one she was expecting to pay.
“It might have taken me a while to figure out what I want,” Liam said, uncorking the wine and taking down two stemmed glasses from the rack above the cabinet, “but now that I have, give it to me straight. What’s it going to take to get rid of the competition?”
“Competition?”
“This other man. And don’t bother telling me you’re in love with him because you as good as said the same thing to me not three months ago, and you’re not the type to change your mind that quickly.”
Mutely, she stared at the rose in her hand. Had she heard him correctly? Was he saying that he…that he cared about her? The way she cared about him?
“Don’t leave me hanging, Janie. Am I going to have to challenge him to a duel at dawn, or what?”
Slowly, she turned to meet his forthright gaze. “There isn’t any other man, Liam,” she said. “There never was. There was only ever you.”
His jaw dropped. He set down the wine so abruptly that some splashed out and ran down the neck of the bottle. “I’ve never pretended to understand the working of the female mind,” he said slowly, “but this beats everything! You’ve always been so straight with me, Janie. Why now…?”
“When I ran into you in town that day, you were so…on top of everything.” She drew an unsteady breath. “You could hardly wait to get on that plane, back to the life and the work you love so much, while I…I was barely making it through each day, I missed you so badly. But when you asked if I’d met someone new, rather than admit my life had never been so empty, I lied. And I continued the lie when you showed up at the bank today.”
“Why, for crying out loud?”
“Because I didn’t want you feeling sorry for me.”
“Sorry for you?” In three strides, he’d crossed the room and taken her in his arms. “Cripes, Janie, I’m trying to tell you I’m in love with you!” he said, almost smothering her in kisses. “How many ways do I have to spell it before you understand? I want you in my life.”
“You want adventure and excitement, Liam. You’ve told me so a dozen times. And I’m the least adventurous or exciting woman you know.”
“And it’s taken me this long to realize I had it all wrong. It took you to make me realize I was hanging everything on a job that could—that almost did—end in the blink of an eye. And why? For the pleasure of coming back to an empty apartment and friends who suddenly didn’t want to know me when it seemed I might wind up with only one leg.”
He smiled down at her and tipped up her chin so that she had no choice but to meet his candid gaze. “Then I met you, darlin’, and although I fought you every step of the way, you taught me to face the truth and not be afraid.”
“Don’t make me out to be some sort of saint,” she cried, slipping out of his hold and spinning away from him. “I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes, too.”
“Because you fibbed about having met someone else?” Sliding his arms around her from behind, he pulled her back to lean against him and splayed his fingers possessively over her ribs. “Oh, Janie, you’re the only woman I know who’d see that as some great, unforgivable sin!”
Oh, God! she thought in terror. Any second now and he’ll feel the baby! I can’t let him find out that way!
Desperation gave her strength. Wrestling free of his hold again, she stumbled around the work island in the middle of the kitchen, safely beyond his reach. “Listen to me!” she wept, the tears she’d tried to stem scalding her face. “I’ve told you terrible lies.”
“What are you talking about, Janie?” The teasing laughter died in his voice and left it somber with sudden doubt. “What have you done that’s so dreadful?”
“I’ve kept the truth from you. A very important truth.”
“Which is?”
“I’m…pregnant.”
If she’d picked up a knife and stabbed him, he couldn’t have looked more shocked. Eventually, he said, “Are you saying there is another man, after all? Good God, Jane, what kind of game are you playing here?”
“It’s no game,” she said in a low, ashamed voice, “and there’s no other man. I’m carrying your baby, Liam.”
“Like hell you are! I asked you, that last day on the island and you told me flat out that—”
“I lied.”
“Again?” His laugh was vitriolic. “And what flimsy reason prompted that particular deception?”
“I didn’t want you to feel trapped. I didn’t want you staying with me out of obligation.”
“Don’t you think that should have been my decision to make?”
“Yes,” she said, unable to look him in the eye. “But at the time, I didn’t know anything for sure. I was hoping I’d find I’d told you the truth.”
“And when you realized you hadn’t?” The edge in his words was sharp as steel and just as cold.
“You’d made no attempt to get in touch with me. I never expected to hear from you or see you again. So I decided I’d have the baby on my own.”
“When you knew how I felt about a child being abandoned by a parent? When I’d told you I was willing to take responsibility, if there was a baby on the way? Why, you…you devious little witch!” He thumped his fist on the wine cabinet and sent the stemware rattling like wind chimes.
“I’d have told you eventually. I know that now.”
“Oh? When? Not this afternoon, when I gave you every opportunity. Not the day I bought you lunch, when you also had opportunity. And not tomorrow when you promised we’d get together and talk, because I’m willing to bet that was just another attempt to put me off, wasn’t it? So when, honey? When the kid needed money to go to college? When he wound up in juvenile detention because he’d never had a father figure to lead him in the right direction and his mother never told him anything but lies? Or were you simply planning on dumping him on my doorstep with a note, when he became too much of a problem for you to handle alone?”
She lifted haunted eyes to his. “You know better than to ask me that, Liam.”
“I don’t know you at all,” he said coldly. “I only know what you choose to show me and that, I’m beginning to see, is only the tip of the iceberg. Jeez!” Furious, he swung away and slammed his fist on the counter this time, hard enough to send Bounder slinking off to his bed in the laundry room. “To think you just stood there and let me spill my guts like a damned fool! I should have followed my first instinct and given you a wide berth. I knew you were nothing but trouble, the day I met you.”
“If it means anything at all,” she whispered, her heart contracting painfully at the scornful disgust lacing his words, “I was telling you the absolute truth when I said my feelings for you had changed. I love you, Liam. I’ve loved you for a very long time.”
He remained with his back to her, silent except for the breath hissing sharply in his lungs. And because she had nothing to lose, she did the only thing which might possibly have persuaded him to forgive her. She went to stand beside him and took his hand and placed it on the swell of her abdomen, so well concealed beneath the full velour robe.
“This is your child,” she said. “Feel him kicking? He’s a living human being whom we created together. Can’t we try to mend what’s broken between us, for his sake?”
For the longest time, he didn’t reply. B
ut nor did he immediately remove his hand, and that gave her a little hope. A sigh shuddered over him and he seemed to be waging a silent war within himself.
At last, he pulled away and said grimly, “I can’t give you an answer to that, Jane, because right now my mind’s spinning. I have to get out of here, be by myself, and sort a few things out. I need time to regroup, and I can’t do it here, with you dogging my every step and hanging on my every word. I’m too afraid I might say something I’ll regret in the morning.”
“I understand,” she said, clinging to her control by a very fine thread. “Probably neither of us should be making any decisions tonight.”
At the front door, he paused and looked at her. For a second, the thought crossed her mind that if she were to kiss him, he might relent and if he truly was in love with her, the hard edges of his anger would melt away. But the chasm of resentment and mistrust between them was wider than the ocean and too deep for her to dare try to cross.
Mutely, she held open the door and watched him walk away from her. Again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE walked the floor all that night, waiting; praying that he’d come back. When morning blew in, gloomy with rain, and still no word from him, Jane begged off work, so weary from lack of sleep and so heartsick at the mess she’d made of things that she couldn’t face her colleagues at the bank.
Shortly before ten, the doorbell rang. Heart pounding with revived hope, she rushed to the bathroom to brush her hair before she answered. It was Iva Chapman, her next door neighbor. “I saw your car was still here, dear,” she said, “and I know you’re usually gone by nine on workdays, so I thought I’d better stop by, to make sure you’re not ill.”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Chapman,” she said, knowing her red, puffy eyes belied her words. “Just taking a day off to catch up on some badly needed sleep.”
Iva regarded her knowingly. “I”ll bring you some soup for lunch,” she declared. “There’s nothing like my home-made chicken noodle to make a body feel better and it’s important for the baby that you keep your spirits up. Try classical music, dear. I’ve heard that helps, too.”
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