by York, Zoe
“Is it easier when you just think of me as the Boy Wonder?”
She grimaced. “Who told you? Oh, shit. Kyle?”
“A while ago. And Ian. They threatened me.”
“Wow. I would have—”
“Flown off the handle?” Her eyebrows shot up, two pink spots popping on her cheeks, but she visibly relaxed when she saw his grin.
“You aren’t mad about the nickname?”
“No.”
She wrinkled her brow. Damn cute. “I don’t get it. You don’t like the nickname, but you aren’t pissed at me?”
“Nope. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awful name. And it speaks to an issue between us, where you think I’m too young for this and won’t even give me a chance to prove that wrong. But what would getting mad accomplish?”
“Oh.” Her lips flushed and softened, and damnit, if she bit her lower lip, he’d be across the room and kissing her before she could squeak a protest. Kids be damned. He waited a beat, but she stood like that, frozen. Crying shame, he really did want to kiss her, but it could wait.
“The only part that I truly mind is that I didn’t hear it from you. I can laugh at myself, Evie.” He crossed his arms and winked. “Maybe I’ll give you a nickname of your own.”
She shifted her weight to one hip, trailing her free leg around in front, crossing her ankles. She didn’t sway with the motion, almost as if her limbs were independent of her core. It was hypnotic. “Like what?”
“I was thinking…Mrs. Robinson.”
She jerked upright, tipping herself to the side in the process. As she stumbled back to lean on the counter, he swore he heard a growl of displeasure quietly aimed in his direction.
He was teasing. His lips quirked as he tried to contain a laugh. Tried. Failed.
She joined him. “Mrs. Robinson, huh?”
Heat flashed in his gaze for a second before he stifled the reaction, but she recognized it. The chemistry between them was undeniable. If she was someone else, she’d make a joke about teaching him a thing or two. Or step right into the role, and play the seductress. Pretend they’d need to meet at a hotel to avoid her husband.
The stab of guilt through her gut ended that train of thought abruptly. Ugh. She hadn’t been married to Dale for over a year, and he still had a hold of her.
Yeah, she wasn’t that person. Not even in jest.
As if he sensed her discomfort, Liam nodded toward the closed door, ending the conversation. “Bring your salad, join us. Lecture me on nutrition and how my body is a temple.”
Good lord, what a temple. She blushed, and when Liam paused for a second before opening the door, she realized he probably caught the gist of her thoughts. The conversation was only over for now.
He took his seat at the table again, and after she’d composed herself, she grabbed her bowl and joined them.
“Why don’t you like pineapple on your pizza?” Max asked Liam between bites. He was eating his pizza in pinched off pieces, tossing them into his mouth from ever-increasing distances. Evie quietly reached out and touched his hand, reminding him not to play with food.
“I don’t know. I like it by itself.” Liam grinned. “Why don’t you like pepperoni on your pizza?”
“Because it’s not healthy.” Max fixed Liam with a solemn stare. “Garbage in, garbage out.”
Liam let out a hoot, then kept chuckling as he looked across the table at Evie. “That’s true, I suppose.”
“I like pepperoni. Treats are okay,” Connor protested.
Evie nodded. “Sure they are. We just need to choose what treats are important to us, and which can be cut out.” She narrowed her gaze at Liam, and then swept it to include the boys. “Pizza isn’t made healthy by topping it with fruit and veggies, right?”
Max gasped. “Wait, you mean this is just as bad as that?” He leaned over to Liam and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Can I have your pepperoni?”
Now it was Evie’s turn to laugh. “Go ahead. I’ll outlive you all. Mmm, salad.”
After dinner, Connor schooled Liam and Max in something on the Wii while Evie snuck away to her room to update her website, such as it was. She needed to hire someone to revamp it, because she didn’t have the skill or time, but she also didn’t have the money. It had been on the agenda for the fall, but now… She thunked her head back against the headboard, practiced a few deep breaths, and took another stab at adding a sub-page to the exercises section.
“Frustrated?”
She glanced up and blushed. Liam filled the frame of her bedroom door, his thumbs notched into his standard-issue brown leather belt. The man had better accessories than she did, and looked pulled together even after a day working in the fields.
“You don’t look like a farmer, you know that?”
He shrugged. “I’m not.”
“You seem to be enjoying it.”
“I am, for sure. But it’s just temporary.” He raised one hand, and she wondered what her face must have looked like just then, because he was obviously warning her not to freak out. She needed to work on her poker face. “I’m still planning on moving into town. But this feels right for now.”
“At least you’re working off all that pizza,” she teased.
“True story. Now, stop changing the subject. What’s got you all riled up in here?”
“My website. I can only work on it at night, when I have the least patience.”
“No time during the day?”
“No internet at the studio.”
“Ahhh.” He gestured to her laptop. “Can I?”
“Sure, knock yourself out.” She climbed off the bed and passed it over. “I’ll get the boys moving toward brushing their teeth, etcetera.”
It was forty-five minutes before they were settled in their room. When she came out, she expected to find Liam still on her computer, but her laptop sat on the kitchen table and he was finishing up the dishes.
“You don’t have to do those.”
“I don’t mind.”
“If you want to take a look at my website, I can dry—”
“All done.”
“What?” She spun around, shocked. There on the screen was the exact page she wanted, looking even better than she imagined, and it was findable on a drop-down menu. “How did you know that was what I was trying to do?”
“You had the content doc file open, and I guessed at the design from the other tab in your browser.”
“Sneaky. Thank you, it’s perfect!”
“It was nothing. If you need anything else done, just let me know, okay?”
She smiled. “You have no idea how dangerous an offer that is.”
He stopped behind her, his hand resting on her shoulder. “I’ve made worse and survived.”
She ignored that and closed her laptop. “What can I do to thank you?” He chuckled, and she groaned. “What friend-level something can I do—That’s not better, is it?”
From the silent shaking as the laughter rolled from one end of his body to the other, she gathered the answer was no.
“Come on.” He pulled her to a stand and wrapped his arms around her for a minute before sliding his hand down her back, stopping at a reasonable but still tingle-inducing spot mid-spine. “Let’s sit on the couch for a minute.”
“I need to get to bed soon,” she muttered, but sitting seemed like a fair request from someone who’d been nothing but helpful all evening.
“Sunshine, you can sit for a minute.”
“Don’t call me that.” She plunked herself on the couch.
“Why not?”
“Because…” Because a nickname like that meant something. It meant she was his, and there was no way that could be true. Even if he thought it was, at some point he’d wake up and realize he’d stumbled into a life he didn’t want. A complicated life with an aging wife and an unexpected kid. Two step-kids and a tiny house in a sleepy town, far from the city and all the opportunities it would provide. And she’d end up with a second ex-h
usband, and this time, it wouldn’t be her that did the leaving. “Because I don’t like it.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You want to tell me what happened to you? What someone else did to you that means you can’t trust me?”
Wow. She’d shifted the conversation away from light and fluffy by being a bit sulky, but he’d just pushed it into the deep-end.
“Nope.” She moved to push herself off the couch, but he reached out and snagged her bare foot with one hand, and pressed down on her thigh with the other. She protested for a second, but as his thumb started to move on the ball of her foot, she gave in. How could she not? Liam’s hands on her…that was heaven.
A dangerous, stupid, delicious kind of heaven. That she should be strong enough to resist, but oh, oh, oh—her eyes rolled back in her head as he stroked a firm line down her arch—she was weak, and she didn’t care.
“Tell me. Give me something. Help me understand why I can rub your feet, but I can’t continue stroking my way up your leg.”
Sadness twisted around the contentment that had begun to unfurl in her chest. “Because I can see how it will end, and it’s not pretty.”
He grinned, slow and wicked. “I can assure you, I’ve been where these legs end, and it’s very pretty.”
His words had the intended effect of distracting her. How could she not be distracted, when her body practically bloomed every time he looked at her for more than a second? “That’s not what I meant.”
He watched her for a while, a careful, assessing gaze. No argument, no judgment. Just observation, and the occasional heated spark that he tamped down. What did she look like to him? Could he see the true nature of her personality, and not care yet? No amount of chemistry would make a difference if he stopped liking her after a time.
Evie licked her lips, and Liam could practically see the wheels turning in her head. His first instinct was to soothe her ruffled feathers, try and make everything okay, but he sensed she was finally going to open up, and he suppressed his desire to make everything better. He had to own up to the fact that he didn’t know her well enough to do that properly yet.
“The thing is…I’m brittle. Hard and untrusting, and far too cynical to make anything easy and fun.”
“Who says I want easy and fun?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Why are you here in Wardham?”
“Because you’re having my baby.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was true, and it rolled effortlessly off his tongue.
“No, that’s why you’re staying. Why did you come in the first place?”
For something different. Something easy and fun.
“I think we both know that the reality of parenthood and small-town living is going to wear off after a while, and you’ll tire of this.”
That wasn’t even a little bit true. But how could he tell her, a woman he’d already casually proposed to for all the wrong reasons, a woman who had his number—or at least, the number of the guy he used to be—that every time she was bitchy and short with him, it just made him love her a little bit more? Because she was a mama bear, backed into a corner, and she wasn’t going down without a fight. How to tell her that he was pretty sure she was the best thing that had ever happened to him?
It was time to join her in the corner, in a big way, so she’d never doubt his commitment. And while he had no doubt she could do it all on her own, she didn’t need to. But words weren’t going to do it. He needed to bide his time, and wait for the opportunity to show her how much she could trust him. Until then… “I don’t accept the premise, not exactly, but you’re in the driver’s seat. What do you want me to do?”
“Back off. Just a bit. We need some boundaries.”
He didn’t need her to explain why. Even now, in the midst of a tense conversation, sparks arced between them. He had a semi-hard cock, and every time he stroked his thumb up her instep, she flexed her hips. He had no doubt that she was wet and ready for him, and at some point, they’d succumb to their desire and move on from pseudo-innocent touches and the occasional kissing and do more of what they did in Toronto. Maybe try some new positions, to work around a growing belly.
Jesus. Pregnant women had never done anything for him in the past, but the thought of Evie swelling with the proof of his seed growing inside her…yeah, maybe they needed some boundaries. Just until she trusted him.
“No touching.” To make her point, she slid away from him and stood up. “No kissing. No more lingering after the boys are in bed.”
“They don’t know yet…when are we going to talk about baby stuff?”
“They’ll know soon enough, and we can talk around appointments.”
“Dinners can continue?”
She nodded. “I want the boys to be comfortable with you, so your visits when the baby arrives aren’t yet another change in their lives.”
He could live with that.
“It’s really important to me that we have a positive co-parenting relationship for this baby.” She pressed her hands to her belly. “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure that would be easy for me if things between us got more complicated.”
She might mean to warn him off, but he could read between the lines. If they had a relationship that ended, she’d be jealous. That pleased him to no end. And he felt the same way. So he’d just need to make sure they didn’t start anything until they were sure it wasn’t going to end.
He was pretty much already there.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There were only so many maxi-dresses a girl could wear before it became obvious she had something to hide. The summer had slipped by in an easy enough routine of Wednesday night dinners and ginger tea-controlled nausea. Telling her mother had been surprisingly anti-climactic. Claire had asked a few pointed questions about Liam’s planned involvement, then offered the unsolicited advice that perhaps they pretend they had dated for a while. Like Evie was going to tell anyone anything about her relationship, or lack thereof, with Liam. Through gritted teeth, she assured Claire that no details would be shared with anyone, present company included, and that was the end of that. Claire hadn’t suggested she and the boys move back to the farm, which Evie appreciated. It felt like a tacit acknowledgment that Evie could handle this change in her life plan.
The next step was telling the boys. Connor had heard her retching in the bathroom a few times, and his sideways glances seemed far too knowing for a nine-year-old. She needed to ask Kyle what would have been covered in his health classes the previous year. At any rate, he was worried about his mom, and she needed to reassure him and his little brother that she was fine.
And then…their father.
She shuddered at the thought of that awkward conversation as she shouldered her way into the ironically named Bun In The Oven, Carrie’s bakery/coffee shop, her arms laden down with two bags of duplicate household items she was lending to Karen.
Yesterday, Karen’s family had hosted a barbeque as a send-off. Tomorrow, her friend would drive up the highway to Toronto, where she was going to spend the next year studying to be a librarian. Today, it was coffee and confession time.
From behind the espresso machine, Carrie lifted a hand in greeting. Karen sat on a stool at the small bar.
Evie smiled at the familiar scene. “I brought you some things from the items wanted list you posted on Facebook.” She dumped the bags at Karen’s feet. “It was an excellent opportunity to empty out my cupboards. Can opener, spatulas, wooden spoons, a saucepan, a Bodum coffee press, pillow cases, a new shower curtain. And a couple of romance novels.”
Karen preferred to read fantasy and young adult novels, but Evie thought her friend might enjoy the comfort of a few strong heroes while she was living a few hours away from her own knight in shining armour.
“You don’t mind parting with all of that?”
“None of it has been used since I moved into the house. Except the books, but my mom gives me a stea
dy stream of those.”
“Well, thanks!”
“No problem. Hey, listen…” Evie took a deep breath and gestured for Carrie to make her a cup of tea. “I need to tell you a secret I’ve been keeping.”
Carrie grinned, and Karen looked between them. “What is it?”
“You remember the guy in Toronto?”
“Uh huh.”
“This is going to freak you out, but it was Liam.”
“Ted’s nephew? How did that happen?”
“Total coincidence. We talked about Wardham that night, but we, uhm, didn’t get into details.” Evie blushed.
“So, what, are you dating now? I’ve seen him around town a fair bit. Did you know he’d be moving here?”
“Not exactly. To both questions.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know how sex can have unintended side effects?” She winced. That was not the right language, at all. “The thing is…I missed my period in June. So I took a test.”
Karen snapped to attention. “You’re…pregnant?” She slowly lowered her mug to the counter and started counting on her fingers. “Like, three months pregnant?”
Evie’s heart pounded as she nodded a confirmation. Carrie offered a supportive smile, which Karen caught.
“And you, little miss barista, you knew?”
Carrie shrugged. “Wasn’t my secret to share.”
“She guessed. Other than Liam, my mom and my sister…you’re the first person I’ve told.” God, where had her saliva disappeared to? The Sahara had nothing on her mouth right now.
“Holy crap. And Liam’s the father? Holy. Crap.” Karen stared at her, mouth still slightly agape. “Well. One thing’s for sure, that kid is going to be freakin’ gorgeous.”
Evie wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “What?”
“You. Him. The resulting DNA mix is going to be pure gold. Except, maybe not literally gold. He’s so dark…” Karen shivered and Carrie groaned in agreement.
“Hey!” Evie knew both her friends were happily involved with their own groan and shiver worthy men, but the flare of possessiveness inside her still voiced itself as if she had no control.
