by BETH KERY
His gaze narrowed on her, and Natalie realized she’d been correct in what she’d said. This was the source of the conflict she sensed in him.
“My mother told us when we were young that people might make snide comments about Dad being mixed up in fraud soon after the accident. She was right. Kids can be cruel. They overhear their parents saying stuff, and they might not understand the content, but they get the tone. My mom prepared us by explaining that the investigation at Langford had showed no wrongdoing. Until you asked me to look into matters officially, I had no way of proving what my mother told us, though. Now I can. I’ve seen the records.” He flashed a hard look before he took a sip of his tea. “Turns out that my mother was right all along. My father didn’t have a meltdown on that night because he thought he was going to be exposed as a crook.”
“Do you really think I’m disappointed because you didn’t discover some dirt on your father?” she asked incredulously.
His teeth flashed white in his tanned face, but he hardly looked amused. “It would have been a convenient story for you. Something to hang your hat on.”
“I told you I was interested in the truth, whatever that may be,” she countered. “I’m not your enemy, Liam. I’d like to think we’re on the same side.”
“It might seem like we’re on the same side until I uncover something that makes my father look worse than he already does. Did you ever think about that when you cooked up this little scheme?”
She sat rigid in her chair. His voice had been quiet, but she sensed his volatility.
“I didn’t do this to take your memories of your father away from you. If it’s true that you discover something about him that you don’t like in this process, I’m sorry. More sorry than you know. But if that were the case, it wouldn’t be me that changed the way you thought of your father. It would have been him, Liam. And you…because you were honest enough to look for the truth.”
His stare burned all the way down to her heart, but she didn’t back down.
“I hired you for several different reasons,” she continued in a hushed tone, “but the main one was that you search for the truth at all costs. That’s the conclusion I came to after I spoke with Mari and after I read all those articles about your undercover work that exposed all those corrupt cops.”
He abruptly collapsed back in his chair, the palpable tension in his muscles dissipating. He exhaled heavily.
“I hope you made a good decision,” he said.
“I did. Besides, has it ever occurred to you that the opposite might occur?”
His drawn brows told her he wasn’t following.
“You might uncover something that makes you understand your father better than ever before. You might gain an even clearer picture of Derry Kavanaugh. Perhaps you’ll be able to love your father more…not less.”
Something flashed in his eyes that she couldn’t interpret. For a few seconds, only the sounds of the waves hitting the beach and the birds twittering in the trees reached her ears.
“How long have you danced?” he asked abruptly, taking her by surprise.
“What?”
A lopsided grin tilted his mouth. “How long have you danced?” he repeated slowly. “It’s pretty obvious you’ve been doing it a long time. You’re very talented.” His gaze turned warm. “I had no idea accountants could be so…flexible.”
She blushed. Damn him. His was turning the focus of the conversation onto her to keep it off himself. He constantly made her feel like an awkward adolescent. And he did it without effort. She sipped her tea and glanced out at the lake, squinting behind her sunglasses.
“I told you no one was meant to see that. It’s not very kind of you to keep bringing it up,” she said coolly.
He looked genuinely confused by her statement. “I’m not being unkind, I’m just…fascinated.”
She turned to him, her lips parted. “Fascinated? By what?”
“By you. Does that surprise you?”
“Yes,” she said quickly.
He laughed after a second. She couldn’t imagine why he seemed so bewildered when she was the one who was utterly baffled.
“So…how long? Have you danced?” he clarified when she just continued to gape at him.
“I started ballet when I was eight years old,” she said.
“You’re good enough to do it professionally. Don’t you want to?” he asked matter-of-factly.
She was the one to laugh this time. “Forgive me for saying so, but I don’t think you’re much of an expert.” When he quirked his eyebrows at her, she laughed some more. “I like to dance for fun. I still take lessons. It’s a hobby, but I think it’d be a monumental mistake to quit my day job.”
His shrug seemed to say he’d let her have her way because he didn’t want to ruffle her feathers any more than he already had. Natalie decided that it was imperative to bring this conversation back to professional matters.
“Liam—” She paused when he tensed. His steady gaze unnerved her. “What…why are you looking at me like that?” she mumbled incredulously.
“It’s nice…the way you say my name. So, where were you going when I called you?” he asked. Natalie blinked. Had he really just said he liked the sound of her saying his name with so much heat, and then switched the topic as casually as if he was making a comment about the weather?
“I was on my way to my brother’s. I was going to make him dinner, if he was available.”
“Why don’t you let me make you dinner instead? I grill a mean steak and make a mediocre salad.”
“That’s not necessary—”
“I know it’s not necessary. I want to. Why are you so surprised by that?”
“It’ll take more than Liam Kavanaugh offering to cook a meal to surprise me,” she shot back in the midst of her rising confusion.
Her breath caught when he leaned forward and examined her through a narrowed gaze.
“You’re not being honest,” he murmured, his light tone belying his X-raying gaze. “You’re surprised that I want to have dinner with you. Why would you be surprised that a man would want to have dinner with a beautiful woman, Natalie?”
Chapter Three
He’d give anything to comprehend what was going on in that brain of hers. One second she was acting like a skittish colt and the next she was saying something deadpan in that low, sexy voice of hers, reminding him for all the world of a sophisticated Bacall baiting Bogie.
She was a puzzle, and the detective in him needed to figure her out.
Liam bit off a potent urge to ask her to take off her glasses. He knew she wore them to protect her sensitive eye, so he refrained. Barely. They’d sat there and talked for the past half hour and almost the entire time he’d been hungry to look into those soft, dark eyes… When he wasn’t admiring her elegant arms, or the slope of her shoulders, or her legs or her firm, full breasts.
He felt guilty about it, but he wasn’t really sorry that the cleaning lady had switched on that light the other night. He was greedy. If that light hadn’t gone on, he wouldn’t have been gifted with the vision of Natalie’s exquisite face and huge, startled eyes.
He wouldn’t have sacrificed that.
Why did he have this almost overwhelming need to touch her again, like he had the other night? She’d quivered in his arms like a shaking leaf, but she’d felt so soft.
She’d fit against him perfectly. He couldn’t quiet the desire to explore every nuance of that fit.
It was a mistake to ask her to dinner. He saw how tense she’d gone at his suggestion and he sank back in his chair.
“It’s just dinner, Natalie.”
“I know that,” she replied quickly.
He felt bad. Gone was the impenetrable woman with the quick tongue. She seemed flustered. He thought it would be prudent to give her some space to gather herself. He stood. “I’ll go and defrost some steaks and then take a quick shower. Are you going to be okay out here for a few minutes?”
“I…yes,
but—”
“Great, because I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll tell you the rest of what I found out over dinner.”
“There’s more?” she asked, sitting up straighter.
Bingo, Liam thought. He’d hit the right button. He wondered, though, when she spoke next.
“Don’t defrost the steaks,” she said suddenly. Liam was positive she was about to say it would be prudent for her to leave.
“I was just at the grocery store. I have steaks in the car. If we don’t eat them, they’ll go bad.”
He forced himself not to grin too widely as he asked her for her keys and went to retrieve the meat.
While Liam showered, Natalie wandered through the yard and climbed out onto the rocky breakwater that partially surrounded the small beach. The breakwater seemed ancient. Natalie wondered if it had been created by the cottage’s first owners. She stood on a slick slab of dark gray granite, breathing deeply of the fresh air.
“Don’t fall. Those rocks are sharp enough to do some damage,” Liam yelled from the terrace.
Natalie spun around. He stood on the terrace, his hair still damp from the shower, the wind causing his blue cotton shirt to billow around his torso. She hopped from one rock to another and rose up the incline to the terrace.
“The wind has really picked up,” she said as she sprang up the steps. She paused when she saw his expression. She smoothed several loose wisps of hair that had escaped her bun, suddenly self-conscious under his stare.
“Hmm,” Liam mused as he regarded her. “Guess I don’t have to warn you about falling on the rocks. Might as well tell a gazelle not to be clumsy.”
Embarrassment and pleasure flooded her in equal measure. She glanced away. “Why don’t you let me make the salad? I can do a few grades better than mediocre.”
“Sure, if you don’t think you’ll mind the smell.”
Actually, the odor from the floor stain was barely noticeable and Natalie said so when Liam led her into the house. Thanks to all the open windows and the wind coming off Lake Michigan the house smelled as fresh as a wild meadow.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise when she followed Liam into the kitchen. “You didn’t tell me you put in new cabinets. They look wonderful. And the floors…they’re gorgeous,” she said, peering into the empty dining room just off the kitchen.
“Thanks,” Liam said. “How’d you know the cabinets were new?”
“Oh…I looked at the cottage several years ago when I was shopping around for a place.”
He chuckled before he opened the new stainless steel refrigerator and started pulling out supplies for a salad. “You’re a lot smarter than me if you didn’t buy it.”
“Oh, no. Don’t say that. This house is amazing.”
“What made you decide not to buy it?” Liam asked as he straightened and shut the refrigerator with a thump. He deposited an armload of vegetables near the sink.
She shrugged and wandered over to where she’d spotted a knife block with a wooden cutting board turned on its side against the back of the countertop. “Oh, you know…it’s not a very practical place for a single woman and all. My brother didn’t think it was a great idea.”
“What did you think?” Natalie was highly aware of him watching her as he leaned against the counter. He now wore a different pair of cargo shorts and a loose blue T-shirt that brought out the color of his eyes and seemed to make his tan glow. He hadn’t put on any shoes. He was the picture of sexy summertime ease. She made a point of avoiding the appealing image of him as she withdrew the cutting board.
“I think this place is brilliant,” she said, smiling. “I used to sneak over here when I was little and wander around. No one lived here for over twenty years.”
“Maybe prospective buyers didn’t like the bats that were flying around in the attic,” Liam said dryly.
She made a face. “The real estate agent never showed me the bats.”
“That’s a shocker.”
She smiled and removed some juicy-looking tomatoes from a sack. “I never saw them as a kid, either. When I was nine years old, not even bats could have convinced me this place wasn’t enchanted. I’d sneak away when my mother took us to the beach and dozed off. There’s a path that runs from White Sands to here.”
“I know.”
She glanced up when she heard the huskiness of his voice.
“I took it the other night. That’s when I saw you dancing,” he said as their stares held.
She looked away. There it was again. He kept bringing up that moment he’d spied her dancing on the beach. It’d been a perfectly innocent occurrence. Natalie couldn’t imagine why it felt as if Liam was reminding her that he’d seen her naked every time he brought it up.
“Strainer?” Natalie asked briskly.
He turned and opened a cabinet, removing both a stainless steel strainer and a white salad bowl.
“Natalie.”
She glanced up as she reached for the items.
“I can close the shades if the room is too bright.”
She blushed. “Don’t bother. I’m fine. The tint of my glasses alters to the brightness of the light.” She turned on the water and began rinsing the vegetables, highly aware the whole time of Liam looking down at her. He’d said she fascinated him earlier. Was he, perhaps, one of those men she’d encountered infrequently over the years who confused pity for attraction? Given their circumstances, Liam might feel an even stronger tendency for misplaced pity.
Natalie wasn’t unrealistic. Men had been interested before. She wasn’t the worst catch on the planet. It wasn’t her facial scars that stood as a barrier to her having relationships with men. No, it was the way the scars had interfered with a normal social development that had done that. She’d been on the brink of adolescence during those excruciating months in the hospital. Girls at that age were highly concerned about their appearance. Compound that natural self-consciousness with a traumatic head injury, multiple broken bones and facial wounds that had made half her face look like ground beef before the surgeries—not to mention a mother, a lifeline, who had been ripped away from her during that critical period—and the makings of a socially awkward adult woman were all in the mix.
“I’ll go and throw the steaks on the grill,” Liam said a few seconds later. Was it her overactive imagination, or did he seem disappointed in her sudden fascination with clean vegetables?
She mechanically went about her task. Most of her brain was busy telling her foolish heart to slow. She shouldn’t have agreed to have dinner with him. This curiosity about his father and the Kavanaughs was tempting her to venture farther and farther into intimidating, unknown waters.
No, that wasn’t honest. It was her fascination with Liam that was risky.
Natalie had never slept with a man. She knew she was a bizarre anomaly in this day and age—a twenty-seven-year-old virgin. Liam, on the other hand, was the most confident, gorgeous man she’d ever imagined, let alone encountered. The idea of Liam and her engaging in any kind of sexual mating dance was just…ridiculous.
“We’re going to get rain,” Liam said as he entered the kitchen ten minutes later, carrying two grilled steaks.
Natalie nodded as she set the knife down on the cutting board. In fact the natural light in the kitchen had grown dimmer and the wind had started to howl across the dunes and the rocks, causing the window blinds to rattle. “We should go and shut your western windows.”
“Yeah, I guess we should,” Liam said as he set down the steaks on the counter. “You get the downstairs ones and I’ll get upstairs?”
They met back in the kitchen a few minutes later, the sound of the wind now a distant wail. Natalie was finishing setting the round oak table in a nook in the kitchen when he returned.
“Is this okay? I know you planned to eat outside, but—”
“No, this is great,” Liam enthused. He hadn’t seemed to notice the awkwardness that had settled on her when she realized how intimate the setting was—the ap
proaching storm, the cozy kitchen, just the two of them sitting down to a meal. He was so comfortable in his skin he didn’t know how to recognize self-consciousness in others, Natalie thought.
He placed the steaks on the table next to the salad and walked over to the refrigerator. “Is iced tea okay?”
“I already poured us two glasses. They’re chilling off.”
“Excellent,” Liam murmured with a satisfied grin as he brought the glasses over to the table.
“It looks like it’s possible you weren’t bragging when you said you made a mean steak,” she said as they sat down together. Liam took her plate and began to serve her. Rain began to spatter on the windows.
“I never brag. Only the absolute truth ever leaves these lips.” He’d said it so soberly, but his sudden grin was pure devilry.
“We’ll see.”
His eyebrows quirked in interest at her challenge, and Natalie thought she understood why. With another man, her reply would have sounded cool. For some reason with Liam, it had seemed like she was flirting.
She rolled her eyes and picked up her knife and fork.
The beef melted on her tongue. He’d cooked it to perfection. He was gentleman enough not to say anything out loud, but the look he gave her read loud and clear—I told you so.
They both started to talk at once.
“Why did you let your brother talk you out of buying this place?” he asked.
“What else were you going to tell me about—”
She broke off when his question penetrated her awareness. She smiled a little uncomfortably and took a bite of salad.
“Personal before professional,” Liam said before he stabbed his fork into the meat.
“I didn’t let Eric talk me out of moving here. I came to the conclusion this place was too much work for me.”
“Uh-huh,” Liam said doubtfully.
Thunder rumbled outside.
She paused and sat back in her chair. “Why do you say it like that? Do I seem like that much of a pushover?”
He took a swallow of his tea. “Not at all. I’ve just heard about your brother. He has a reputation for having…strong opinions,” Liam said with the air of someone who was choosing his words carefully.
