by J. S. Scott
“For us, it was scary sometimes, and I can only imagine what it was like for Noah. When my mom died, he was all we had. And he really wasn’t old enough to take on five kids under the age of eighteen. He grew up way too early. But we were used to pitching in to help. My mom worked a lot. We lived on a pretty tight income, so we had all tried to bring in some money to help her. It was the same once she died.”
Liam frowned. “You didn’t have any family who could help?”
“None of us really knew our father. He died when we were all pretty young. My mom was an only child. Her parents died when she was nineteen. She talked about a few people, but they never came to see us in California.”
“That’s rough,” Liam said hoarsely.
“It wasn’t all bad,” I explained. “All of us learned to be independent, and we took care of each other.”
Liam was inhaling his food. I was guessing he hadn’t eaten much that day.
When he paused for water, he asked, “Are you ever going to tell me about your life there, and why you left?”
I nearly choked on my lo mein. It wasn’t like I hadn’t expected that question, but not in the middle of rice and kung pao. I took a drink of water before I answered. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t brought that up before.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want to know, Brooke. I guess I just wanted to give you time to trust me.”
I surveyed his gorgeous face, and the earnest look in his eyes. My heart melted. “Oh, Liam. It isn’t that I don’t trust you. I’m just not sure where to start.”
He shrugged. “Anywhere you want. But finish eating first.”
I started eating again, pausing when my stomach was full.
Glancing over at Liam’s plate, I noticed he’d completely demolished his food.
“There’s more,” I offered.
He held up a hand. “I’m done.”
We quickly made short work of cleaning up, and then went to sit down in the living room. I’d poured myself a glass of Merlot, and Liam had gotten himself a soda.
We’d made ourselves comfortable on the couch before I spoke. “I’m not a waitress anymore. At least, I wasn’t always one in California.”
I’d decided that my career was a good place to begin my explanation.
“I wouldn’t have guessed that,” he replied. “You’re pretty damn good at it.”
“My references were real. I was a waitress from the time I could legally work until I completed my degree. I’m a financial analyst. I was working in a small branch of a national bank in Citrus Beach before I came here.”
“I should have known you had a financial job, since you strangely love numbers.” He paused before inquiring, “Is this about a guy? A stalker?”
I could see that Liam was ready to kill the fictional weirdo in my life as I smiled at him. “No. It wasn’t like that.”
He looked relieved. “Thank fuck.”
I wasn’t sure the truth was any better. “I’d been working at the bank for a year. I loved my job. Then one morning, the bank got robbed.”
I saw Liam visibly tense, but I kept talking. “I was in a back office, but I heard the shots. When I went to see what had happened, all of my friends and coworkers were dead. The bastard had shot the two tellers and the assistant manager.” My heart was racing from reliving that horrible day, but I couldn’t stop. “I should have been dead, too. But the police pulled into the parking lot while he was filling a paper bag with money from the drawers. He had to escape through the back.”
Liam reached for my hand and pulled me against his chest, his arms wrapping around my waist to hold me.
“You don’t have to talk about it, Brooke. You don’t,” he said hoarsely.
I shook my head. “I do. I want to.”
“You’re crying,” he argued.
“It’s okay. Sometimes it’s okay to cry.” I’d figured that out soon after I’d moved to Amesport. I’d needed to mourn in private, and the small coastal town had given me that opportunity. I was seeing a local counselor who had kept my secrets safe, and I’d slowly worked my way through the fear, anger, guilt, and despair.
“Then finish,” he agreed.
“He saw me, Liam. But he saw the police, too. So I guess he decided he was going to take his chances by leaving a witness in order to avoid getting arrested.” I paused to take a shaky breath. “All of my coworkers died for a sum total of twelve hundred dollars.”
Once I’d gotten the whole story out, I hugged Liam and sobbed.
CHAPTER 11
BROOKE
I wasn’t sure how long I’d unloaded my sorrow onto Liam’s shoulder, but it felt good to cry. I hadn’t really bawled over my friends for months. Even though I’d sorted my way through their pointless deaths, I wasn’t quite healed from the trauma of what had happened at the bank that day.
“Jesus, baby! I’m so damn sorry,” Liam said with his mouth against my hair.
I nodded and pulled back so I could see his face. “They were my friends.”
He kissed my forehead. “I know.” He paused before he asked, “Did they catch him?”
“They did. He was already known to law enforcement, so it wasn’t all that difficult for them to find him. I testified as the lone witness, and the video had been running. He was easily visible on the tapes, and the police had all kinds of supporting evidence. He’ll never get out of prison.”
“That had to have been a rough time for you,” he said as he rocked my body gently. “You couldn’t get over it because you had to testify.”
“After the trial, it was a media circus,” I told him. “Reporters wanted my story as the sole survivor. And I wasn’t ready to talk. I hadn’t mourned my friends. I hadn’t made sense out of everything. I felt like I was walking around in a trance, Liam, and I had every reporter from every major network outside my door. They were even hounding my family. I had to get away.”
“I take it they stopped,” Liam said flatly.
“They finally gave up and went on to the next, more current story. We figured they would eventually. But Noah and Evan were worried, so they swore me to silence on who I was and what had happened. Both of them just wanted to give me some time.”
He stroked my hair. “I’m glad they did.”
“Even though I had to lie?”
“I don’t give a shit if you had to lie to every person in Amesport. It was about your safety and your sanity, Brooke. Nothing is more important than that.”
My heart warmed at his words, and then it squeezed hard in my chest. Liam was so damn strong, but he still hurt for me. I could feel it.
“Amesport gave me an escape,” I shared. “So did you. I’ll always be grateful for that. I healed here. Maybe I’m not completely together, but I’m over the hard part, I think. And the reporters have been uninterested for the last month or two. The coast is clear at home.”
His face was grim. “Are you sure you’re over it?”
“I have nightmares occasionally, but I refuse to let a criminal change the way I live my life. I can’t see boogeymen where there are none. My friends wouldn’t have wanted that. They aren’t going to live their lives, so I feel like, in some way, I need to do it for them.”
“Do you want to go back to your job?” he asked in an unhappy voice.
I shook my head. “Not the bank. I can’t go back there. But I’d like to get back to my profession.”
I’d always known I could never return to the same bank. The sight of my friends, the blood, and the terror I’d felt that day would haunt me. But I missed working as a financial analyst.
“I should have known you were a financial wizard,” he rumbled. “God knows you proved it by working on my messed-up books and taxes.”
“That’s not exactly my specialty,” I said, wiping the tears off my face. “I just happen to like math and numbers.”
“Yeah. There’s something completely wrong about that,” he answered.
I shot him a weak smile. Liam might be
an amazing businessman, but he wasn’t into the details. “I love running numbers. Math is so concrete. It either adds up . . . or it doesn’t. I’m not good with uncertainty,” I explained.
“I know why you didn’t tell me. But I can’t help but wish I would have known. I could have helped you. I could have been somebody you could talk to,” Liam said in a disgruntled voice.
“Friends?” I teased.
“If that’s what you wanted. I would have been whatever the hell you wanted me to be if it would have helped you get through the hard times.”
My eyes welled up again, but I blinked back the tears. Liam tugged at my heart with his willingness to be supportive. “We didn’t really know each other,” I reminded him. “And I’m not sure I would have been ready to talk about it.”
“I don’t know how to make this better,” he confessed, and then ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“You don’t have to make it better,” I argued. My brothers had tried to make it better, too, and became discouraged when they couldn’t. I was guessing it was a guy thing. “It’s not possible. I just appreciate that you’re here for me now.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Brooke. I’ll be here for you whenever you need me.”
I sighed as I lay back against him. He reached out for my hand, and I gave it to him, resting my hand in his. “Life isn’t always what we wish it could be,” I commented, emotionally exhausted from telling Liam what had happened. It still wasn’t easy to talk about without experiencing flashbacks.
“I know,” he agreed. “But it’s what we make of the shit that gets thrown at us that matters.”
I sat up and reached for the glass of wine I’d left on the side table. I took a few swallows and then leaned back against Liam again.
Liam knew all about life challenges. He’d had plenty of his own. But I loved his attitude.
I took another sip of my Merlot.
“Better go easy on that,” he warned. “It usually makes you lose your panties.”
I laughed and set the glass back on the table. “Only once,” I told him. “And I wanted to lose all of my clothes and yours. But I wasn’t drunk that night. I just knew what I wanted.”
“Did you?” he asked huskily.
“Liam, I’d been lusting after you for close to a year. Of course I knew.”
Maybe wine did loosen me up a little, but I hadn’t gotten drunk since college.
“What did you want?”
“I wanted you.”
“You got me,” he stated drily. “But I definitely wasn’t in my best form.”
“Do you see me complaining?” I joked. “Felt pretty amazing to me.”
“Smartass,” he said in an amused tone.
“It was an incredible night for me, Liam,” I said in a more serious tone. Maybe he thought he’d gone too fast, but I never wanted him to regret what had happened. I knew I didn’t.
“For me, too,” he confessed. “I just wish my dick hadn’t been stronger than my brain. I wanted more than to just get laid.”
“What did you want?”
“I wanted this.” He squeezed my hand. “I wanted us.”
I understood. My need for Liam went a whole lot deeper than just the physical, although my body was aching for him.
“So you’re okay not having sex?” I asked curiously.
“Hell, no,” he complained. “I’m not okay, and I’ve had blue balls for the last week. But I should be used to that. I’ve wanted you from the day you walked into the restaurant. And it’s only gotten worse over time.”
I felt a rush of heat between my thighs as Liam readjusted himself on the couch.
I knew he was feeling the same razor-sharp desire that I was experiencing.
I was ready for Liam to fuck me.
“I’ll live,” he mumbled.
I sat up and turned around to look at him. “What if I said I was ready?” I asked breathlessly.
He slowly shook his head with a look of regret. “I’d say it’s been a difficult night for you. When you’re really ready, I’ll be here.”
I’m ready! I’m so damn ready!
My body was screaming at him to fuck me, but my heart tripped when I saw the pensive look on his face. “Then I guess I’ll live, too.”
He put a hand to the back of my neck and pulled me close to him. “Kiss me,” he demanded.
Liam didn’t have to ask twice. I wrapped my arms around his neck and met his lips boldly, kissing him with all the pent-up emotions that were lurking inside me.
He pushed my sweater up and stroked the bare skin of my back as he devoured my mouth.
I might have started it, but Liam finished it spectacularly. By the time he let me go, I was panting.
“You can’t kiss me like that and expect me not to respond.” Sweet baby Jesus! What woman could stop herself from wanting a guy who kissed like he wanted to absorb her damn soul?
He was like a drug that I couldn’t quit.
“I want you to respond,” he rasped. “But it makes it hell because you do.”
He pulled me down on top of him and wrapped his arms around my body.
“Thank you,” I whispered near his ear.
The one thing I’d needed after sharing so much with him was to feel secure. He gave me that, and more.
“For what?” he asked.
“For being you,” I answered. There was no other way to tell him how much it meant to me that I could trust him enough to share my sorrow.
“You’re welcome. But I suck most of the time,” he drawled.
I snickered at his reply. Liam downplayed every sweet thing I said about him, so I wasn’t exactly surprised.
He made fun of himself, but he knew exactly who he was, a trait I found fascinating.
In addition to being the hottest male I knew, he was also one of the most thoughtful, even though he liked to pretend he wasn’t.
“I’m surprised no woman has ever seen through your bullshit before,” I said, wondering once again how Liam was still single.
He was everything a woman could ever want in a man.
“I was waiting for you,” he said almost immediately.
I had no witty comments to make. Liam Sullivan had just completely stolen my heart.
CHAPTER 12
LIAM
“What in the fuck do you mean . . . she’s gone?”
I knew I was probably yelling at my only sister, but she should have never delivered the news that Brooke had left for California in the dining room of Sullivan’s.
Luckily, Tessa had just closed up, so we were alone.
I’d arrived from my meeting in Boston just in time to do cleanup so Tessa could head for home.
It had been a long drive. Maybe I should have spent the night in the city. But I’d been eager to get home to Brooke. It had been a few days since she’d spilled her guts about what had happened to her, and she seemed okay, but I wasn’t all that comfortable leaving her alone for the day. Unfortunately, I’d had a meeting with my suppliers that I hadn’t been able to cancel, and I had another personal reason for wanting to be in the city.
Tessa stopped loading dishes and turned to face me. “She said that she’d be back. She just needed a couple of days to deal with some things on the West Coast. Honestly, she did look a little shaken up.”
“What things?” I asked suspiciously. Brooke had been nowhere near packed yesterday, and I’d planned to work out the details of her staying with me tonight or tomorrow.
Hell, I had everything planned, so damn certain she was going to be willing to stay.
And now, she was gone.
“I don’t know,” Tessa explained. “She didn’t give me much information except that she’d be back. She’s not gone forever, Liam.”
“She didn’t say anything else?” Christ! I wanted Tessa to tell me something more. It made no sense for Brooke to leave.
My sister shook her head regretfully. “Her shift was over and Evan was here to pick her up. She left th
e keys for your SUV in your office. She didn’t say much. She looked a little . . . overwhelmed.”
Evan? “I’ll kill the bastard,” I growled. “Why in the hell was he here? What does he have to do with Brooke leaving?”
“I should have asked more questions,” Tessa said. “But I had customers. She just asked me to tell you she’d be back.”
“That’s not all that comforting right now,” I answered abruptly. “But it’s not your fault, Tessa.”
My sister was just the messenger. If Brooke was gone, I had no doubt that Evan Sinclair had something to do with her absence. But why in the hell had he wanted her to go? Why would he push her? When we’d had dinner with him and Miranda, they’d both seemed eager to convince her to stay and take a job locally.
Tessa moved forward and put a comforting hand on my arm. “Maybe it’s not my fault, but I’m still sorry. I didn’t know it was a big deal for her to leave for a few days.”
I ran a hand through my hair and tried to take a deep breath. “It isn’t really a big deal, but there’s something more happening here.”
“Why do you think that?”
I quickly explained what had happened to Brooke, and why she was here. I told my sister about our agreement to date and get to know each other. It wasn’t like Tessa didn’t already know how I felt about Brooke. We’d been all over town during the last nine or ten days together.
Tessa nodded as I finished. “You’re crazy about her,” she stated. “But that goes both ways. She cares about you, too.”
“But she never planned on leaving, Tessa. I know she didn’t. We had plans for the next few days.”
“Maybe something happened in California. She has a lot of family there, Liam.”
Was one of her family members sick? I supposed it was a possibility. “Did she look upset?” I asked.
Tessa frowned, her eyebrows drawing together as she considered the question. “Not upset exactly,” she mused. “She acted more shocked than upset. Like she was going through the motions like a zombie. I don’t think her head was quite right. She was pretty vague, like she didn’t quite understand why she was leaving herself.”
“I can bet that Evan knows why,” I said angrily. “No doubt he convinced her to go. What time did she leave?”
