by Linda Seed
“It really did.” Gen was due in about a month, and she fondly rubbed her large, round middle. “But that doesn’t mean he’s a genius at installing skylights. I’m pretty sure this was his first one.”
Aria looked up and considered how high the barn’s roof was. “You sure it’s okay for him to go up there? It’s a really high roof. I don’t want to be the cause of him falling on his head and leaving your baby fatherless.”
“Now that you mention it, he almost fell on his head when he put the thing in,” Gen remarked.
“Really? Jeez.”
“He got distracted because he was trying to look at my ass,” Gen said.
“Well, he’s already seen it,” Aria answered. “So that’s one less danger to think about.”
Chapter Two
By the time Liam got back to the house for lunch, he was cold, soaked, and grumpy as hell. Ryan was already there, settled in at the big kitchen table across from his wife. Ryan and Liam’s mother bustled around the table with a pot of food in her hands, fussing over Gen.
“Now, you eat,” Sandra said as she spooned hot, steaming stew into Gen’s bowl. “That baby needs nourishment, and so do you. Hmph. A woman can’t be expected to grow a human being eating nothing but those salads you like so much.”
Sandra moved on to Ryan. “I’ve got beans and cornbread for you. Though I don’t know how you expect me to keep making all these special vegetarian meals just for one person. My God. Nobody would think you live on a damned cattle ranch.”
“I don’t expect you to make special meals,” Ryan said. “I’ve told you that. I can cook. I can—”
“Now, you can stop right there, boy,” Sandra scolded him. “You know as well as I do that you’re not going to cook a hot lunch after you’ve been doing hard work since dawn. And I won’t have you going without. Not in this house.”
Nobody considered it odd that Sandra was complaining about doing something she actually wanted to do and wouldn’t have stopped doing even with a gun to her head. They were all pretty much used to it.
“Liam, don’t you sit on down yet,” she told him as he came into the room. “Go and see what’s keeping your father.”
Liam went into the living room to look for his dad. Orin wasn’t out there, but Liam found him upstairs in his office, frowning over a stack of papers in front of him on his desk.
“Mom wanted me to call you for lunch,” Liam said.
Orin looked up, distracted. He scratched his nearly bald head and looked mournfully at the papers. “Tell her I’ll be down directly.”
“Everything okay?” Liam asked.
“Oh … I suppose it is. But I’ve got these papers from your sister’s Realtor, and I can’t make heads or tails of ‘em.”
Liam blinked a few times in surprise. “Breanna’s got a Realtor? What for?”
“Well, so she can buy a house, son. What else do people have Realtors for?”
Liam rubbed his face with one hand. “Wait. Back up. Breanna’s moving?” His sister had been living in the Delaney house with her two boys since her husband, a Marine officer, had been killed in combat when their youngest was just two years old. When had she decided to leave? And why? And how had he missed it?
“Well, she’s been talking about it awhile now. You mean to tell me you didn’t notice?”
He hadn’t noticed, but he was too embarrassed to admit it.
“So, what are the papers?” he asked instead.
“It’s a draft of an offer she wants to make on a place in town.” Orin looked as though he were suffering from a bout of constipation. Which, at his age, he might have been. “She wanted me to look it over, but …” He shoved the papers away. “I don’t have much of a head for this kind of thing.”
“Well, why isn’t Colin doing it?” Colin, Liam’s other brother, was the main steward of the family’s substantial fortune. He was a lawyer, and he specialized in real estate. Liam couldn’t fathom why his father was being given this task instead of the one Delaney who’d made his career out of that sort of thing.
“Colin’s not here, son. Or maybe you didn’t notice that, either.”
Colin had been living on the family’s other ranch property out in Montana for the past few years. Liam scowled at his father. “That doesn’t mean—”
“What in the world are you two doing up there?” Sandra bellowed up the stairs. “I think I told you lunch was ready. Or do you expect me to walk up there and feed it to you?”
Orin raised his eyebrows. “I guess we’d best get down there.”
As soon as he got downstairs, Liam started in on Breanna, who was just settling in at the table next to Gen.
“Since when are you moving?” He sat down across from his father and began spooning stew into his bowl.
“Where have you been?” Breanna said. “I’ve been looking for a place for months.”
“Well, nobody said anything to me about it.”
“Sorry to have kept you out of the loop.” The sorry part might have been sarcasm. “I thought maybe when I discussed it right out in the open on several occasions while you were in the room, you might have caught wind of it. But I can see I should have put something in writing for you.” She arched one eyebrow at him.
“Huh. I guess I might have been a little distracted lately,” Liam said sheepishly.
“You think?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He buttered a slice of bread and focused on her. “Why do you want to move in the first place? This is home. You got a problem with us?”
“She doesn’t have to have a problem with anybody to want her own place,” Ryan put in.
“Yeah, but if she wants her own place, she could have one built here on the property,” Liam said, as though Breanna herself were not sitting just two chairs away. “If that was good enough for you and Gen, why isn’t it good enough for her?”
“I’m right here,” Breanna said, reaching around behind Gen to smack Liam lightly on the back of the head. “I can hear you.”
“Now, you all settle down,” Sandra said as she finally took her own seat at the table. “If a grown woman wants a place of her own, why, there’s no reason she shouldn’t have it. She’s talking about moving across town, not to the moon.”
To Liam’s mind, Breanna’s boys, Michael and Lucas, belonged here on the ranch, with the family. They didn’t have a father anymore, but they did have a grandfather and a couple of uncles right here who could fill the gap, at least a little. If Breanna moved into town, what would her sons have in terms of male influence?
“Speaking of me moving, did you get a chance to look over that offer?” Breanna asked Orin.
Orin looked uncomfortable, and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Well, I tried to, but I can’t say real estate is my strong point.”
“You need to talk to Colin,” Ryan said.
“I don’t want to talk to Colin,” Breanna said.
“Why not?” Gen asked.
Breanna dropped her fork onto her plate and gestured emphatically with both hands. “Because he’ll tell me not to buy the house! He’ll say it’s priced too high, or it’s in the wrong location, or … or it needs too much work.”
“Does it need too much work?” Gen wanted to know.
“Yes!” Breanna’s shoulders fell. “But I love it anyway. And I don’t want to be talked out of it.”
“On the topic of DIY,” Gen said, turning to Ryan, “can I get you to look at the skylight in the old barn?”
“I’ve seen the skylight in the old barn,” Ryan said. “I installed it.”
“I know you did,” Gen said in a soothing voice as she patted Ryan’s hand. “And you did a great job. But there’s a little problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“The kind where water pours in through the roof when it rains.”
“Since when?” Ryan asked.
“Since today. I went out there to see how Aria’s doing, and she was using a bucket to catch the rainwater.”
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“Who the hell’s Aria?” Liam demanded.
“She’s the new artist.” Gen leaned across Breanna to see him better. “And I’ve talked about her several times, right in front of you.”
Liam ignored the last part, where Gen had basically pointed out to him that he was a dumbass. He didn’t think there was much in it for him to argue the point.
“You’ve got a girl artist out there?” he said.
“A woman, actually,” Gen said.
Sandra stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth and gave Gen a look that meant she was up to something. “Liam can go on out there and look at that skylight.”
“But Ryan—” Liam started to say.
“Ryan’s got a lot on his plate,” Sandra said, without giving any indication of what that might be. “You can do it, boy. Help out your sister-in-law.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Gen said hopefully. “Please?” She batted her eyelashes at him and grinned.
“Well, hell,” Liam said.
Liam had other things to do besides looking at a damned skylight, especially when Ryan was the one who’d put it in. If a man didn’t do something right the first time, he ought to be the one to fix the thing when it stopped working right.
But Sandra had gotten the idea that Liam was the one who should do it, and when Sandra got an idea, any effort to change her mind was a waste of time. Liam’s mother was a stronger force of nature than the storm that was causing the skylight to leak in the first place.
He could have argued with his mother for the hell of it, but he’d known he was going to lose.
That was how he ended up standing in the barn after lunch, looking up at the roof and listening to the sound of rain dripping into a plastic bucket.
“Well, shit,” he muttered, looking at the leak.
There in the barn, off to the side to keep them out of the water, lay some long, rod-shaped things he couldn’t identify. At first he didn’t know what the hell they were, but then, peering at them more closely, he saw that they were made of used cigarettes and sporks. Where did a person even get that many sporks?
“It doesn’t much look like anything yet. I’ve really just started on it.” A woman’s voice came out of nowhere, and he jumped a little. He covered that up the best he could, because what man wanted to look anything but composed in front of a beautiful woman?
And she was beautiful, though maybe not in an obvious way. Maybe not in the way most people would recognize.
The first thing he noticed as she came into the barn was the body, in skinny jeans and a clingy T-shirt under her rain jacket. The body, with its lush curves, almost struck him speechless.
The second thing he noticed were the eyes. Pale gray, like the clouds on a rainy day.
Add to that the thick, dark hair and lips so plush they were begging to be kissed, and Liam temporarily forgot what he was doing in the barn in the first place. Hell, he might have even forgotten his name.
He didn’t realize he was staring at her until she said, “Are you here to fix the skylight?”
“Uh … yeah. I am,” he said, recovering himself. “What are those things, anyway?” He gestured at the spork constructions.
She waved him over to a worktable set up against one wall of the barn, where she had more cigarette butts, more sporks, tubs of some kind of glue, and in the middle of all that, a sketchbook.
She flipped open the sketchbook and pointed at a page covered in drawings. “This,” she said simply.
Liam peered at the drawings, trying to make sense of them. “Looks like some kind of tent … or maybe an igloo.”
“It’s a yurt,” she said.
“A yurt.”
“It’s a kind of rudimentary dwelling that—”
“I know what a yurt is,” he told her. “What I don’t know is why you’re building one out of sporks.”
“It’s not just sporks,” she said. “And it’s not just a yurt. It’s art.”
He guessed that was a matter of opinion, and his opinion was that it didn’t look much like art to him.
“Gen said you were some kind of artist,” he said, because that seemed safe enough.
“Aria Howard,” she said, holding out her hand.
He took it, only then realizing that his social skills were so lacking that he hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself. “Liam Delaney.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Liam.” She smiled at him with those sensual lips of hers. Then she tightened her grip on his hand just a little before letting go.
Looking back, he’d probably say he knew even then that he was screwed.
Chapter Three
Liam felt confident that he could safely get up on the roof and fix the skylight, even with his leg still giving him trouble. But he sure as shit wasn’t going to do it on a rainy day. Hell, he wouldn’t have tried that even if he were one hundred percent able-bodied.
Given the weather, there was nothing of any practical value he could do in the barn today. But he didn’t seem to want to leave yet, either.
“So, why a spork yurt?” he asked. He tried to sound like he was interested and not mocking her project. Though he was mocking it, just a little, in his head.
“It’s not just sporks,” she said again.
“I can see that. It’s cigarette butts, too.”
“That, and other trash I’ve scavenged from the local beaches.”
“You’ve found that many sporks on the beach?” he asked.
“You’re fixating on the sporks,” she pointed out. “But it’s all kinds of beach trash. Water bottles, plastic bags, broken flip-flops, sand toys. The piece is about what we do to our environment, but it’s also about consumerism. Consumption. The things we use and throw away.”
He looked at the beginnings of the yurt with a skeptical grimace. “There’s a reason we throw that stuff away.” He picked up a broken red plastic sand shovel from her worktable, turned it over in his hands, then put it back down. “What are you going to do with the thing when it’s done?”
“I’m going to live in it,” she said simply.
“You’re gonna live in it,” he repeated, as though he hadn’t understood her. And he was pretty sure he hadn’t.
“Well, temporarily. But, yes. I’m going to live in it, inside an art gallery, as a performance piece. For a period of time to be negotiated later, when I find a gallery that wants to show it.”
Liam raised his eyebrows and assessed her. “What the hell for?”
“Expression,” she said.
“Expression.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Well, all right. Though I can’t say what the hell it is you’re trying to express.”
“That’s up to the viewer,” Aria said. “My job is to create the art. It’s your job to decide what to think about it.”
“You didn’t tell me your brother-in-law was so … attractive,” Aria told Gen later that afternoon at Gen’s gallery. The rain was still coming down outside, and Aria was finished working for the day. She’d come downtown to check out the shops, and she’d stopped to say hello when she saw that Gen was alone in the gallery.
“Both of my brothers-in-law are attractive,” Gen said. “It’s a thing with the Delaney men, apparently.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except Orin. Though I suppose he might have been good-looking too, back in the day.”
Aria was sipping coffee she’d poured from a machine Gen kept in the back room of the gallery. Gen, who’d given up caffeine for the duration of her pregnancy, was making do with herbal tea.
“So, is Liam going to come back to fix the skylight?” Gen asked.
“He said he would.”
Gen wiggled her eyebrows at Aria. “Do you want me to fix you up with him?”
“What? I … no.”
“You’re single, right?” Gen asked. “And it’s got to be kind of lonely in that guesthouse.” She looked at Aria meaningfully.
It was lonely. As she sat there, she pondered
it. Did she want Gen to fix her up with Liam? She didn’t want a relationship—she didn’t do relationships—but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun, did it? She hadn’t had fun with a man in a long time. A very long time.
“What are you thinking?” Gen prodded her.
“I’m just … considering my options,” Aria said.
“I’m not trying to be pushy, really.” Gen fidgeted a little with her teacup. “But it would be good for him to go out with someone. He needs to have a little fun.”
The gallery was brightly lit, with gleaming, pale wood floors and white walls splashed with vibrantly colored art. In contrast to the riot of colors, Gen was dressed in a slim black dress that hugged her huge belly. Probably due to the rain, the foot traffic from the street was next to none. The sound of the rain on the sidewalk and the roof was pleasant and comforting inside the warm gallery.
“I probably shouldn’t be saying anything,” Gen went on. “It’s not my business. But … Liam’s been hurt a couple of times. He’s been burned pretty badly, and it’s been hard for him to get back out there. He’s a good guy, so I’d really like to see him bounce back a little …” She blew a stray red curl off of her forehead. “Don’t mind me. It’s the estrogen. I want to mother everyone.”
Aria thought of how Liam had favored his right leg earlier in the barn. If he was suffering from emotional wounds as well as physical ones, that was an indication she definitely shouldn’t go there. She had enough issues of her own without dealing with someone else’s.
“Liam didn’t strike me as the emotionally vulnerable type,” Aria told Gen after a while. “He seemed … I don’t know. More like the classic cocky bad boy.”
“Yeah,” Gen said. “He’s got that act down.”
They all had parts they played, didn’t they? Everyone had a persona they presented to the world, whether it was real or not.
“So. Should I talk to him?” Gen asked.
“Oh … no. No.”
“Well, let me know if you change your mind,” Gen said.
Liam absolutely did not want to get involved with the artist in the barn. Hell, no. Not a goddamned chance.
But getting involved was one thing. Sex was another.
