by Linda Seed
“Well, shit,” he said. His room was dark except for the desk light that illuminated his screen. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep drink of his beer.
Was it possible that Howard wasn’t the name she’d grown up with? He didn’t think she was ever married—if she was, she’d sure as hell never mentioned it—but it was possible. Or maybe Aria Howard was a stage name, like actors sometimes used.
“All right,” he said to himself, thinking it over. “All right.”
He searched online until he found a website that offered background checks for the bargain rate of $26.95. He fished his wallet out of his back pocket, found a credit card, and entered the information.
Now, he just had to wait.
Chapter Seventeen
The rain stopped the next day, and after waiting a respectable amount of time to let the barn roof dry in the sun, Liam went out to Aria’s studio space with his ladder and his toolbox to fix what he’d intentionally broken.
It was a little after ten a.m. when Liam knocked on the frame of the open barn door and peered into the cavernous space.
“Anybody home?” he called out.
She emerged from the shadows with an apron tied around her waist, a pair of latex gloves on, and her hair up in a ponytail away from her face. “Hey. I was just doing some work on the khana.”
“The what?” He squinted at her.
“The khana. It’s the lattice frame that the walls are made out of. I was just finishing it.”
He came into the barn to where she’d been working, and saw what she meant.
He’d seen her making the equivalent of long two-by-fours out of trash, and now they’d been used to build a kind of lattice framework for the walls of the yurt. Plastic water bottles and used grocery bags, beer bottles and the odd individual item—a toothbrush here, a Barbie doll there—made up what basically looked like an octagonal, six-foot-high fence.
Before, he’d looked at the project as some kind of unexplainable oddity—some crazy thing beyond his understanding—but now, seeing the thing begin to take shape, he started to become interested.
“Huh. But … how are you going to move it once it’s done? It’s going to be pretty big.”
They talked for a while about how the yurt would be disassembled and then reassembled on site.
He found himself absorbed in the project, partly because construction was something he could understand, and also because it reminded him of the model airplanes and cars he used to build when he was a kid. The problem of a project, the questions of how to accomplish a specific goal, had felt soothing to him, occupying his brain in a way that pushed out all of the day-to-day concerns and anxieties that otherwise would have plagued him.
He could see that this was much the same thing for her. If she really was troubled about something—and he’d have bet his family’s entire net worth that she was—then throwing herself into building a yurt, or whatever else she might be working on at any given time, would be a welcome release.
But he hadn’t come here to talk about a yurt. He hadn’t come here to fix a skylight, either. He’d come here to talk to her, so he figured he’d better focus on that before she caught on and kicked him out—which could happen at any moment.
“It was nice having you to the house for dinner,” he said, figuring that was a safe gambit to begin a conversation. “My mom liked you.”
“I liked her, too,” Aria said.
“I know it gets a little crazy, with so many people and the kids and everything …”
“No,” she said. “It was nice.”
Now that Liam was here with her in the private, quiet space of the barn, she expected him to make a move on her. And she probably wouldn’t have resisted him if he had. Instead, he simply talked to her—about her work, and his family, and his day on the ranch.
It was comfortable, without the usual tension she felt when she was around him.
She was starting to regret the fact that they were standing in an old barn instead of sitting somewhere quiet with beverages and maybe a fireplace to keep them cozy and protected from the afternoon chill, when he clapped his hands once to mark the end of something—or the beginning of something.
“Well, I guess I’d better get to that skylight,” he said.
“Yeah, okay. Thank you. It’s weird that it started leaking again.”
He was walking away from her, and she was observing how cute his butt was in a pair of faded jeans, when he turned a little and said over his shoulder, “Not so weird.”
“Huh? Why not?”
He gave her that grin that made her knees weak. “Because I got up on the roof and screwed with it to make it leak.”
She was so stunned by the revelation that she stared at him, stammering. “But … but why?”
“To give me an excuse to come out here and talk to you.” Then he winked at her—God, that wink—picked up his ladder and his tools, and went to work.
Later that night, when Aria was settled in the guesthouse, wearing her pajamas and drinking a glass of wine, she spent some time thinking about whether it was cute or creepy that Liam had sabotaged the skylight so he could spend time with her.
Yes, she’d spilled a bottle of water to make him think there was a leak. But he’d gone a step further and had actually created one.
When she considered what her gut said about it, she settled firmly on cute.
She’d never had anybody sabotage a skylight for her before. It was an interesting first.
She was thinking about how adorable it was, and about how adorable he was, and about how much she’d liked his family, and about how pleasant it had been just listening to him talk today, when she realized what was happening.
It was like she’d gone wading in knee-high water, and now the water was gradually rising and she was drifting out further and further, until eventually she would be in over her head without a raft or even a life jacket.
Damn it.
She wanted Liam—God, did she want him—but she didn’t want the eventual pain and heartbreak that would come from allowing herself to really have him.
Aria raked her hands through her hair, sat back on the sofa, and decided to lose herself in a mindless TV show, or maybe a book.
Anything but thoughts of Liam Delaney.
It didn’t take long for Liam to get the results of the background check he’d ordered on Aria.
He opened his e-mail, and there it was: a message with the subject line, YOUR BACKGROUND CHECK IS READY. He took a breath, steadied himself to push back the feeling that he was meddling in something that wasn’t his to meddle in, and clicked on the link.
He had wondered if the $26.95 would turn out to be a waste—if he’d end up with nothing but the prior address of some other Aria Howard. But the report was surprisingly thorough. He learned a lot for his money.
He found Aria’s address in Portland, which he was sure Gen already had. Before that, she’d lived on 35th Street in the Outer Sunset district of San Francisco, and before that, in an apartment complex in Oakland. She’d had two parking tickets: one for rolling through a four-way stop, and one for driving fifteen miles per hour above the speed limit.
She’d worked at an art supply store, a restaurant, and a convenience store, and she’d attended an extension course through UC Berkeley a few years before.
But there wasn’t any information earlier than that—and he quickly saw why.
Aria Howard had legally changed her name five years before. Her real name—or, at least, the name that had been hers before then—was Lindsay Clifford.
He took a moment to digest that. What had made her change her name? Was it simply a professional decision? Had she changed it because she thought Aria Howard sounded better for a woman in the performing arts?
He had some hope that Googling the name Lindsay Clifford might produce something useful. It wasn’t the most unusual name he’d ever heard, but it was better than something like Jane Brown—a name that would certainly send
him down dozens of false avenues before he found the one he was looking for, if he ever did.
But Lindsay Clifford had some potential. How many of them could there be?
There were a lot, it turned out, but by adding some of the other information he knew, such as her connection to the Bay Area and to art, the pool was narrowed down quite a bit.
Liam sat back against the headboard of his bed, his computer on his lap. He felt a little weird about what he was doing, but, hell, it wasn’t like he had some dark motive. She’d sparked his curiosity, that was all. She’d made him want to know.
He started sorting through the hits for Lindsay Clifford artist Oakland. There wasn’t much—she’d been young when she’d changed her name, and he figured public records relating to anything that happened while she was a minor probably had a certain amount of privacy protection.
He did find something that caught his eye, though.
It was a PDF of a newspaper article, dated fourteen years earlier. The article was about an art contest held by the Westerley Camp, one of those residential programs for troubled teenagers that operated under the theory that long hikes and Spartan accommodations could convince a kid to stop smoking pot and telling his mom and dad to fuck off.
The article included a photo of the winner: a chubby fourteen-year-old girl with dark hair and angry eyes. He zoomed in on the girl’s face and found himself looking at a young Aria Howard.
Chapter Eighteen
Liam considered what he knew about Aria: She didn’t talk about her family or her background. She’d had a difficult childhood—difficult enough to have attended a camp for troubled teens. And she’d changed her name as a young adult, not as a result of marriage, but apparently in an attempt to forge a new identity separate from the person she’d always been.
He could look into it further, maybe call Colin and get the name of a private investigator. Colin had to know at least one—he must have employed them from time to time back when he was practicing law for a large firm.
But that was too intrusive. Liam wondered whether he’d crossed a line by doing what he’d already done. Going further with it seemed like it would be counterproductive. When she found out about it—which she would, because he would eventually tell her—she’d be less likely to trust him than ever.
He shut his laptop, sat back, and closed his eyes to think about it.
Maybe what he already knew was enough. Maybe now that he had some idea what she was hiding from, it would allow him to at least start a conversation and see if he could encourage her to open up.
It seemed worth a try.
Why did he even care this much about Aria’s history? If she wanted to keep secrets, then who was he to stop her from doing it? Who was he to say that starting over and burying the past was wrong?
But wanting to know was like an itch that was going to nag at him until he managed to scratch it.
How could he get her to talk to him?
When you wanted to get to know a woman, the usual thing to do was to ask her out. But judging by the way she’d been acting toward him, she would say no. He and Aria had taken things out of order—they’d had sex before they’d done the usual process of gradually getting used to each other—so the standard procedures didn’t apply.
Aria had placed Liam neatly into a cubbyhole marked CASUAL SEX, when he wanted to be in the one marked POSSIBLE RELATIONSHIP. How could he get from one cubbyhole to the other?
Liam’s brother Colin knew more about dating—and, in fact, more about most things—than Liam did. He knew that if he called Colin for advice, he’d never hear the end of it. His brother would hold it over his head that Liam had acknowledged his superiority, which would mean that the family’s upcoming Christmas dinner was likely to result in Liam wanting to pour a punchbowl full of eggnog over the man’s head.
Still, he decided that might be worth the risk.
Liam called Colin the following day during a break from work, when it would have been late afternoon in Montana. Even though Colin was a part-time rancher now—he spent the rest of his time managing the family’s finances—he still sounded like he was wearing a thousand-dollar suit. Which he might have been.
“You’re calling me for help. With a woman.” Colin stated the facts in front of him as though he were trying to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. “I don’t think this has ever happened before.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Liam said. “Are you going to give me a ration of shit about it, or can we just get to it?”
“How about first I give you a ration of shit about it, and then we get to it?” Colin suggested.
“Ah, hell. I knew this was a mistake. I’m hanging up,” Liam said.
“No, no. Wait. I’ll help. Just … give me a minute to adjust.”
Liam filled him in on the basics. He didn’t tell Colin any of the private things he’d discovered about Aria’s past—only that she’d been alternating hot and cold toward him and that she didn’t seem to want to talk about herself. Given the fact that they’d jumped past the preliminaries and had gone straight to bed, how could he back things up now and spend some time getting to know her as a person, the way he should have done in the first place?
“You don’t want to be used for your body. That’s sweet. Really,” Colin said, falling into the pattern of brotherly teasing they’d perfected while growing up.
“Well, hell, I like being used for my body on occasion,” Liam said. “But she’s got me … curious.”
“Curious,” Colin repeated.
“Well … yeah.”
“Have you thought about asking her out? You know, on a date? Where everybody’s dressed?”
“Yes, I have, smartass. But she’s gonna say no.”
He’d expected Colin to argue with him on that point, but he didn’t. Instead, he was quiet for a moment while he considered the question.
“Well … you could take an interest in her art.”
Liam protested, “It’s a yurt. Made out of trash.”
“It sounds like she’s still got a lot of work to do on it, right?”
“Yeah,” Liam admitted.
“Ask her if she needs some help.”
“Help?” He said it as though the word itself were an unfamiliar concept to him.
“Sure. Go over there and see if she needs anything. See if you can … hell, I don’t know. Find more trash for her. Or glue something.”
Liam was skeptical. “It’s art. What the hell do I know about art?”
“It’s a trash yurt,” Colin pointed out. “She’s not painting the Sistine Chapel. And anyway, even Michelangelo had assistants.”
“He did?” Liam asked.
“I have no idea,” Colin admitted. “But it sounds right. He must have.”
“Huh,” Liam said.
A day or two later, Aria was out in the barn working on the exterior of her yurt.
She didn’t often question her own choices when it came to her art. Generally, once she decided on a particular project, she just went with it, throwing herself into the work until it was finished.
But when she considered how much work this damned yurt was going to be, she had to wonder if she’d lost her mind.
The basic frame was done, but there was still the roof with its glass panel and its multiple layers, the inner and outer wall coverings, and the floor … not to mention that there had to be some kind of door.
She was beginning to think that she’d still be gluing pieces of trash while presidential administrations rose and fell, climate changed, fashion trends came and went, and several more versions of the iPhone were introduced.
There was something soothing about the process of building the structure, the hours of systematic work that allowed her mind to wander wherever it would. And yet her back hurt, her shoulders were stiff, and she thought she might be starting to develop carpal tunnel syndrome from the repetitive process of brushing glue onto things.
She was just standing to stretch, pressing her hands to
the small of her back, when she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Back trouble?” Liam was standing in the doorway of the barn, sunlight streaming in around his silhouette. Now that the rain had passed, the weather had turned crisp and clear.
She straightened up self-consciously. “Not trouble, exactly. I’m just a little stiff.”
It was a perfect opportunity to make some kind of pass. She halfway expected him to offer her a massage. Instead, he said something she didn’t expect.
“Need some help?”
“I … you mean with the yurt?” She thought she must have misunderstood his offer.
“Sure. I’ve got a little time, I could”—he gestured vaguely toward her construction area—“just do whatever needs doing.”
When she didn’t say anything for a moment, he backpedaled a little.
“I mean, I know it’s your art. You’ve gotta be particular about how it’s done, so … if I shouldn’t have offered …”
“No! It’s not that. It’s a nice offer.”
“Even Michelangelo had assistants,” Liam said. “I mean, I guess he must have.”
“He did,” she agreed. “All right, thanks. Come over here, and I’ll show you what needs to be done.”
The sudden introduction of help was a godsend. She showed Liam how to glue pieces of refuse together to create the outer covering of the yurt, and he got to work. This part of the project was going to be a long and painstaking one, perhaps taking up the bulk of the time Aria would spend on the piece. Having someone to help her with it would cut the time investment considerably.
“Reminds me of putting together model cars when I was a kid,” Liam told her as he chose pieces, applied glue, and then stuck the pieces to plastic trash bags to create the outer skin of the yurt. “Or maybe those paper-mache projects they have you do in school.”
He talked about his brothers and the things they’d all built—the tree house when Liam was eight; the science experiments; the endless Popsicle stick structures and clubhouses made of cardboard boxes; the bike Ryan had put together from parts.
