When They Weren't Looking: Wardham Book #3

by York, Zoe

“I’m helping Ted on the farm. Renovating this property I bought. Spending time with…”

  “Yes, what is this young woman’s name?” Liam didn’t answer, and his mother sighed. “Is she from Wardham?”

  “She is.” He deliberately only answered the second question. He wouldn’t be surprised if his father already knew all about Evie. It would be just like him to hire a private investigator to keep tabs on Liam. If he hadn’t already, he definitely would after this call, but he wasn’t making it easy for the old man.

  “Well, if you’re happy…” She trailed off, like there was still significant doubt in her mind that was possible in what she would surely think of as a godforsaken little backwater.

  “I am.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t just find out, Mother. It’s taken some time to make this call.”

  “I probably owe you some sort of apology for that?”

  “We’re past apologies.”

  She laughed softly, a sad sound. “So like your father.”

  Liam closed his eyes. That was a direct hit. “I have to go.”

  “I understand. Please keep me up-to-date. I do check my email, you know.”

  After hanging up, Liam picked up the ultrasound picture. The soft paper curled in his hand. They should sell hard plastic sleeves to protect the delicate images from freaked-out first time parents, Liam thought, then laughed. Hell, they should sell the same thing for newborns. Holy fuck. He was going to have a baby. Soon. Evie would know what to do, but when she was tired? He’d watched some YouTube videos, a series of soothing strategies that ironically all started with s. But those dads were there. All the time. Not across town in a half-renovated house. And he couldn’t bring the baby here, anyway. Evie wanted to breastfeed. She’d stressed how important it was that visits work around that.

  Hands shaking, Liam set the ultrasound image down. Damn. They were still stuck in that co-parenting nonsense that wasn’t nonsense, but it wasn’t right for them. Nineteen weeks to go.

  Time to get serious. On multiple tracks. His unit was almost ready to move into. He’d call the moving company and arrange for his belongings to be delivered. He’d set up a home here, even if he knew in his heart it was a sham apartment he had no intention of living in for very long. He had his eyes on a tiny cottage a few blocks away.

  With that vision warming his heart, he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the ultrasound image, careful to cut Evie’s name out of the shot at the top. Before he could second guess the charitable gesture, he sent in attached to a brief email to his mother. Meet your granddaughter. She’ll be accepting visitors in March.

  When Evie arrived at work the Thursday before Thanksgiving, there was an Essex Telecom van sitting at the curb. As she unlocked, a man climbed out carrying a toolbox.

  “You work at the Pilates studio?” he asked.

  “Yes, it’s my business. Is there a problem with the phone line?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m here to upgrade your service.”

  “I didn’t order anything?”

  He handed over a work order sheet. “Internet installation.”

  “I really didn’t…” Liam. She sighed. “Can you hang on a second?”

  She left the confused man outside and called her apparent benefactor. He picked up on the first ring. “Evie!”

  “Don’t ‘Evie’ me, you know why I’m calling.”

  “I really don’t, sunshine, but it’s nice to hear your voice.”

  “Did you order internet for my studio?”

  “Oh, that. I thought the install was next week, I was going to tell you…”

  “Liam! I can’t afford that.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “You can’t gift my business anything, it’s…”

  He laughed. “Did you send the man away? I bet that’s going to cost double to get him to come back.”

  “No, he’s waiting outside.”

  “Let him in. This is a little thing I can do for you.”

  “The dishes is a little thing.”

  “I’ll do those, too.” He sighed. “Think about it as something for the baby. In case you need to look up something for her while at work.”

  That was a stretch. She glanced out the window. It would be nice… “Fine. But I owe you one. Many, actually.”

  “I love the sound of that.”

  The installation took an hour, and afterward she called and invited him to Thanksgiving at her mom’s. She told him he could bring Ted, but she stressed that she wanted him to come.

  Liam slid the bottles of wine and the jar of spiced pumpkin seeds into his backpack, next to the book of Thanksgiving Mad Libs for the boys. He should be nervous, but instead a quiet optimism filled his being. She wanted him there, as part of her family.

  Claire was bustling around the kitchen when he arrived, thirty seconds after his uncle. She pointed to the living room, where he could hear the boys arguing over the rules to something. He left Ted and the wine with their hostess, and headed in the direction of his woman.

  They were crowded around the coffee table, working on a puzzle. Evie was rubbing Max’s back, maybe keeping him focused on the task, or soothing him after whatever altercation Liam had just missed. Connor was examining the loose pieces with a fierce focus.

  Underneath Liam’s foot, the floor creaked, and Evie glanced up. Her lips curled and her eyes crinkled as a smile spread across her face, and he thought his heart might just explode.

  Dude, you’ve turned into a sap was warring with dude, look at her. Sexy, caring, sweet.

  “Liam!” Max abandoned the puzzle and jumped up. “Want to see my new alert bracelet?”

  “Heck ya.”

  “It’s orange!” Max shook his wrist back and forth rapidly in front of Liam’s face.

  “What happened to the camo one?”

  “Grandma didn’t like it, so she got me this one for Thanksgiving. It matches my winter coat, so it’s cool.”

  “Awesome. Now you’ve got two.”

  “Three. Remember? That ugly metal one, too?” The seven-year-old looked askance at the idea that Liam had dropped such an important detail from his memory.

  “But you haven’t worn it since you got the other one…is it still in rotation?”

  “Only for e-merg-en-cies.” Max used his hands in the air to help drag out the word.

  “Ah. Hey, how’s the puzzle going?”

  “Puzzles are stup—”

  “Max!” Evie frowned, and Liam had to fight to keep a neutral expression on his face.

  “Oh, right. Bad word. I mean, puzzles are not my kind of thing.”

  “I like puzzles, but you know what I like even more?”

  “What?”

  “Mad Libs.” Liam pulled the book out of his bag and before long Connor had joined them on the couch. Once they got settled and Connor had taken over filling in the words, he left them to their silly giggles and moved over to help Evie with the puzzle.

  She watched him place up a few pieces, then reached out and tapped his hand. “Come on.” She led him up the stairs to a bedroom. “That was nice, with the boys.”

  “I didn’t do it to be nice. I saw it and thought it would be fun.” He pressed the door shut. “Also fun, by the way, is being alone with you in a room with a bed.”

  She laughed, and pulled him in for a hug.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “You, too.” She found his hand and pressed it to the side of her belly, where a hard, pointy ball was wriggling around. “Your daughter wanted to say hi.”

  He tugged up Evie’s shirt, keeping his eyes on hers to make sure she was okay with the contact, and slowly smoothed his hand over the growing bump. She softened against him, and he was hard-pressed not to keep touching, higher and lower, until she melted.

  “Evie…” he muttered her name, his face pressed into her hair, and as she shifted, her thigh found contact with his hard-on.

&
nbsp; “Oh!”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

  She tipped her head up to look at him, lips parted, eyes hooded, and he knew he could kiss her. Maybe even do more, but their family was downstairs and until she asked for it, he wasn’t going to press his luck.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she whispered. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for, Evie. We’re getting there, don’t you think?”

  She nodded, and he brushed his mouth against hers as he gave their baby one last pat.

  “Come on. I can’t wait to discover what combination of seeds and beans you’ve convinced your mother to serve instead of stuffing and gravy.”

  “Hey!” She playfully shoved him out the door. “I’ll have you know, we’re having seeds, beans, stuffing and gravy. It’s a veritable feast!”

  “Can’t wait.”

  While Evie and Max did his pre-meal blood sugar check and insulin shot, Liam helped Claire carry dishes to the table. And it was a feast, with a large turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, wild rice with cashews, apricots and cranberries, green beans, stuffing, squash and gravy. Even though none of them overindulged, they all felt decidedly nappy afterward. Evie cuddled with the boys for a bit on the couch, watching football and making up answers to their questions about the rules, but when Liam joined them, with answers that sounded real, she took her leave.

  “I’m going to go help my mom with the last of the dishes, okay?” she asked Liam. He waved her off, and resumed his explanation of a fair catch kick to Connor.

  In the kitchen, she put the last slice of pumpkin pie into a small container, stuck it in the fridge, then picked up a dish towel and started drying the plates. At the sink, her mother was humming quietly.

  “You really don’t mind not having a dishwasher?” Evie shook her head. “I can’t wait until I have one again.”

  Claire smiled. “There were some lean years when you girls were young, years during which we didn’t run the furnace very often, and the hot dishwater was something I looked forward to at the end of the day.”

  “Mom?” Evie couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She’d always thought of her parents’ farm as very successful.

  “Mmm?”

  “Mom. You just told me you couldn’t afford heating oil when I was little.”

  “So?”

  “So…. I’m not sure. That feels significant.”

  “I haven’t thought about it in a long time.” Claire paused and looked at Evie. “I guess I’m grateful for that period of struggle. I give thanks for it.”

  “Are you trying to teach me something through this story?” Evie opened the cupboard to her right and placed the stack of dried plates in their spot.

  “I think I’m losing my touch in my old age.”

  “Hardly. Are you trying to give me hope that things will get easier, or reprimand me for wearing some sort of hair shirt?”

  Claire chuckled. “Probably the latter, but I wouldn’t use the word reprimand. Struggling is one thing, sweetheart. Refusing opportunity is another.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Of course not.”

  Evie thumped her tea towel on the counter and glowered at her mother. “Don’t interrupt me like I’m a mindless teenager!”

  “You weren’t mindless then, and you aren’t now. But you’ve got a good thing in there, Evie. What’s stopping you?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that, not right away, and as they tidied up, the thoughts that came to her weren’t ones she could share with her mother.

  Liam helped her carry a bag of leftovers to the car, and while the boys buckled up, she turned and pressed her hand against his chest. It was cold, but he wasn’t wearing a coat, and through his dress shirt, she could feel the flex of his muscles.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Sleep tight tonight, sunshine.” He pressed a quick kiss to her temple and opened her door for her.

  But once the boys were asleep, and after she’d spent a few hours reading and online, she gave up on rest and reached for her phone. It only took three false starts before she completely dialed his number.

  He picked up right away, but his voice was thick with sleep. “Evie, is everything okay?”

  “Yes. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Yeah?” She could hear rustling as he sat up in bed. “That all?”

  “Is that okay?”

  “Absolutely.” The affirmation rolled over her, low, warm and sexy, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry, but all of a sudden she was overwhelmed with feelings.

  “Today was nice.” It was an inane conversation starter at one in the morning, but she didn’t actually have anything to say. She just wanted…

  “Mmm-hmm.” He waited for her to say something else, but that was all she had. She was an idiot. After a long silence, he cleared his throat. “Hey, do you…do you want me to come over for a bit? I could be gone before the boys wake up.”

  Yes! “No, not tonight.”

  “Maybe sometime soon?”

  Hell, yes. “I think so, yeah.”

  “Okay, we can work with that. Are you having trouble sleeping?”

  For so many reasons. “Uh-huh.”

  “Tuck into bed, I’ll tell you a bedtime story.” And from across town, his voice seeped under her skin and wrapped itself around her heart. His words themselves were dry. He told her about an engineering project he worked on with a mildly entertaining group of co-workers, but it was just what she needed, and she slowly unwound. When she yawned, he promised he didn’t take offense, and told her to close her eyes and count sheep.

  “I will. Thanks for this.”

  “Sunshine, I wish you’d call me more often.” As it so often did, his voice held an edge to it, one sharpened by something that felt suspiciously like love held at bay. “And Evie…”

  She didn’t know if she wanted him to finish that sentence. Yes, you do. It was time to stop lying to herself.

  “The next time you call me in the middle of the night, your voice full of longing and ache…I’m not going to ask if you want me to come over. I’ll just come over. Because I hate this, being away from you. Knowing there’s a side of your bed that could have my name on it, if you’d stop worrying about what anyone would think. The next time you call me in the middle of the night, I’m not going to worry about your rules, because I know that deep down, you think they suck too.”

  “I’m getting there. I miss you.” It was ridiculous to realize that now, on a day when they’d spent hours together.

  “I miss you, too. How about I bring muffins over for the boys tomorrow and have a brief visit after school?”

  He meant it in the nicest of ways, but his constant giving and her not being able to reciprocate in the way he deserved…it wasn’t fair. She needed to get her act together.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  He thought they’d turned a corner at Thanksgiving, but the next two weeks went by with no more late night phone calls and very little flirting. They had another midwife’s appointment, and held hands on the drive there and back, talked a bit about names, but nothing more than a chaste kiss passed between them. Well, not nothing. He was pretty sure the currents were live and arcing with overloaded x-rated thoughts on both sides. Evie kept blushing when she thought he couldn’t see her. After dinner with the boys one night, he was helping Connor with his science homework, and he noticed Evie’s reflection in the large mirror on the wall beside the table. She was standing in the archway between the living room and the small hallway to the two bedrooms, watching them, want all over her face. He almost excused himself, ready to push her into her bedroom and kiss her senseless, when Max needed help reaching his toothpaste and the moment was gone.

  But Evie wasn’t wasting his time, or her own. She was thinking, trying to get her head clear, and he liked wherever her thoughts were heading. And in the interim, they were doin
g things together, without limit or restraint. Not the clothing-optional things he really wanted to do, but regular almost-coupley things. Good in a different way things. The weekend before Halloween, she asked him to provide his geeky expertise in helping her build a clone trooper costume for Max, and after he spent the morning painting the downstairs unit, now fully separated from his own apartment, he headed to her place, armed with his iPad and two Star Wars reference books. He had five others, but he didn’t need her to know that until they were living together.

  She answered the door in a cut-off pair of jean shorts and a plaid shirt over a tank top. He allowed himself an internal groan as his cock came to life. Damn, why did she have to be so hot all the time?

  “Hey!” She was out of breath, which he stupidly also found sexy, even though it probably meant she was working too hard. “You’ve arrived just in time to save the storm trooper from my destructive fingers.”

  “Storm trooper or clone trooper?” He lifted the reference books and grinned. “It’s an important distinction.”

  “Oh, crap! I don’t know. I’ll call Max and find out.”

  “He’s not here?”

  “No, they’re at Dale’s for the night.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Did I not tell you this was just going to be the two of us?”

  Just the two of us. Blood pulsed south at those magic words. “You failed to mention that. Good thing I like you.” He winked, slid past her, put his stuff on the table, and took off his jacket. Then he took his time rolling up his cuffs, enjoying the way Evie watched with hunger as he revealed his forearms.

  Why wouldn’t she just kiss him?

  Because she doesn’t think she should. Something was still holding her back. He nodded for her to lead the way, and followed her to the boys’ bedroom, where she had white cardboard, duct tape, markers and a glue gun set out. He passed her his cell phone and she called Dale’s house. Max confirmed it was in fact a clone trooper that he wanted to be, and Liam set about cutting and curving and shaping cardboard pieces until they had a helmet and a breastplate to wear over white sweats Evie had already sourced.

  She clapped and cheered when he finished, which made him feel like Superman, and he didn’t even blink when she offered him one of her protein bowls for dinner.