Twenty-One

Willow waved to Raine and her mother as they pulled away from the hospital circle drive and Liam pulled in. On her lap, she held the half dozen yellow roses.

She had so much to tell him, to share with him, to ask him.

She considered whatever it was he began to tell the three of them in the hospital room before he'd decided against it.

She didn’t mind the puddles or the rain or Ernest’s tail wind. The scent of the island woke her senses and appreciation for family and friends.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” the nurse asked as Liam pulled up.

Willow sighed and grinned a toothless smile. She shook her head and said, “I have everything I need.”

“Someone call for a taxi?” Liam jogged around the car to get the door for her.

There was nothing the matter with her legs or her left arm for that matter, but she complied. Anything to get out of there. When her legs were clear, he shut the door, and she waved to the nurse.

Collapsing against the headrest, she sighed as he pulled away from the circle drive. “It feels like I’ve been in there for days.”

“Or not even a full one.” He reached over and took her good hand. “I’m glad you’re well enough to leave.” Then, he did a double take. “You are well enough to leave, right? You didn’t pull a Zoe or anything, did you?”

“Nope. Narcotics are out of my system.” Fortunately and unfortunately. “They gave me this nice little tape to cover my six stitches, and I can’t even feel my bump.” The last one may have been a stretch, but he’d beat himself up enough already.

“Good.” He squeezed her fingers before letting go.

The taking of her hand was amazing and the letting go disturbing.

“I have something I need to tell you,” he said. “So much has happened.”

“Did they find who cut the beam?”

“No, not that, but Matt is looking.”

She nodded. “Good.” She realized it was in the same platonic tone he’d used. “Matt is good.” Now, she could kick herself. “I have something to tell you too.”

A lonely dry spot appeared in the parking lot ahead. “I need ice cream. Can we pull over to Joe’s?”

Jerking his head toward her, he gave her a look that said he didn’t believe the narcotics were out of her system but pulled over anyway. “You eat ice cream?”

“Every five years,” she said. “Religiously.”

“I’m not sure if they’re open.” He craned his head toward the front door.

“You have something on your nose.” She used her good arm to balance on the seat between them, leaned in, and laid her mouth on his.

His lips didn’t move. It wasn’t what she’d imagined as a first kiss, but that was not what this was about for her. And, since her eyes never closed, she noted that his didn’t close either.

She smiled around their joined lips. She couldn’t help it. He looked like someone just dumped Luciana Bezan’s dowry over a cliff. She pulled back an inch or two and studied his eyes at close range. “I’m sorry, but I’ve had a lot happen this weekend, and I need you to know that I’m in love with you.”

No response.

“I’m not sure exactly how you feel in this regard.” Why did she sound like this was a job interview? “And, I’m not trying to say I want sex. I’ve only ever done that with Jacob.” She waited for the stab of guilt at the mention of his name and smiled bigger when it didn’t come.

Still no response from the object of her dedication.

“I only sleep with forever.” She was talking much too fast, but she couldn’t help it and just went with it. “And in this day and age, I don’t want to give you the impression—”

He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. The long fingers from both of his hands cupped her cheeks, then traveled around to the back of her neck and laced through her hair. Pulling her into him, his lips opened and explored. Lips and tongue. It was like a mixture of fireworks and of coming home.

Her eyes rolled in the back of her head, and she closed her lids. She forgot the pain, forgot her arm, her head, her anything else. As she let herself go in the safety of his lips and all that was Liam, a hand wrapped carefully around her head and gently pulled her closer into him.

His mouth was warm and gentle, needy and sexy.

Setting his forehead on hers, he pulled his lips away. She opened her eyes, but he kept his closed as he spoke.

“I don’t know what to say.” His head rotated back and forth against her forehead.

“Tell me I’m not crazy.”

His eyes opened to hers. Gold specks she’d never noticed before danced in the dark brown. She felt no fear, no nerves. He was her safety net, and no matter what he felt, she loved him.

Parting their foreheads, the tiniest of smiles lightened his face. A thumb brushed back and forth across her cheek, then landed over her bottom lip. “When I reached you. When you were lying there under the roof.” He paused to take a deep breath and turned his gaze to hers. “I kept running two thoughts through my head.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her stitches and behind her ear. “That you are my Willow and my life.”

It was hard to mention the idea of leaving the parking spot in front of the ice cream shop they never entered. Willow could have sat there for days, facing him with her leg cocked on the seat and the good side of her face resting on the headrest. The sound of his voice covered her in peace and the expressions on his face in joy.

“I need to make an extra stop before we go home,” she said.

He inhaled deeply, then sighed. “I have—” he started to say, then reached across his face and scratched his cheek. “It can wait.”

She wasn’t sure if his sigh was from the idea of making an extra stop or from what he needed to tell her, but intuition said not to ask.

“I want to stop by Miriam’s. Even after all he did, Chief Roberts was her husband. I feel like I should check on her.”

“You could call?” he said as a question.

Knowing you could say almost anything with a smile on your face, she grinned at him and shook her head. “This is one of those times, I believe, it is important to show up.”

As he drove toward Miriam Roberts’ apartment building, she glanced down at their joined hands. So much right in the midst of the wrong.

He approached the four-way stop that would have been completely under water a few hours earlier. A pickup came from the left fast enough that he let go of her hand and draped his arm in front of her.

The pickup went through without even pausing.

“He might simply be distracted,” she said.

“You see?” Liam exclaimed. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Keep your calm like that. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt.” Taking her hand again, he gently accelerated.

“What if he had an emergency? What if he lost his job?”

“Statistically speaking, he’s a jerk who’s not paying attention.”

“Maybe,” she said and laughed at statistically speaking. She was in love with a high school physics teacher. “Probably.” She turned to gauge his expression. “A wise person once told me you can tell a lot about a person by the way they drive.”

“Does that person happen to have gray hair, grow herbs on her front porch, and have goats that graze on the roof during the day?”

“Blonde gray, but yes. She might indeed.”

Much of the water had displaced. Yet, he still turned down the roads islanders knew would be safer. He glanced over to her. “What does a jerk who blows off a stop sign and nearly runs you over say about a person?”

“I understand that odds say he is a jerk, but since there is nothing I can do about it either way, I choose to give the person the benefit of the doubt. As for your driving—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there now.”

“You didn’t get angry. Frustrated maybe, and I love it when you say, ‘whoa, whoa, whoa,’ by the way. You didn’t yell or shake your fist at him.”

“I called him an ass in my head.”

“But kept it to yourself. Says all the more about you, and all of it good.”

“Okay, but now I feel driving pressure.”

“Thank you for agreeing to this,” she said, bringing the subject back full circle.

“You’re welcome, but I don’t feel right about it. Are you sure?”

“I am,” she crooned but noted the throbbing in her head began to take over. “Just this stop, then I’ll be ready for an afternoon of rest.”

Miriam Roberts. The new widow of former Chief Roberts. She hadn’t married a good man like Jacob or like Liam, only had an affair with one.

“You’re doing this, because, regardless of what Chief Roberts had been like, you know what it’s like to become a widow.”

“How did he die?” she asked.

He paused and took a deep breath as if he was deciding whether to tell her. “Knifing.”

Prison knifing. That made sense.

“What are you going to say to her?”

“I have no idea. It just seems like the right thing to do.”

“Like giving a pass to an ass who cuts you off at a four-way stop?”

“Something like that, yes.” The throbbing became stronger. She had an hour yet before her next dose of ibuprofen. “Then, I probably should get home and rest.”

“Paula and I will take care of Luciana’s. Chloe comes back in two days. The egg has been easy. We can do this. You and me.”

She stared into the brown and saw that the gold specks were still there, even in this light. “You and me,” she repeated, and noted the blanket of peace it brought.

“Did you say anything to Chloe about the attempt on your life?”

“Attempt on my life?” That seemed like a stretch. Was it? “I told her there was an accident.”

He drew circles around the back of her hand as he turned into Miriam’s lot and parked. Turning off the car, he shifted into park and looked down at their joined hands. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s important as well.” He shifted in his seat. “Not as important as this.” He lifted their joined hands and squeezed her fingers. “But, it’s important for me to share it with you, and I can’t seem to find a good time to tell you.”

She’d never heard that many words come from him all at once before.

“We think your brother may have found treasure.”

She leaned forward in the seat. Her body and mind woke, and she may have yelled the subsequent flood of single word questions. “What? How? When? How?” Her mind told her that wasn’t possible, which sounded condescending, even if in mind only.

With his free hand, he took his phone from his shirt pocket. “The what is that I found exactly two hundred sixty-three pictures of Miriam and of treasure that were on the So Right photo site. The how is the password you gave me. It worked. The when is a mixture of—”

“Seth was a semi-pro photographer,” she interrupted. “He would never use such a low-quality developer as So Right.”

“I tried the better ones when you were doing your yoga thing on the beach that day—”

“Pilates.”

“Yes. That. And, I spotted the obnoxiously bright sign behind you and decided it couldn’t hurt to try. Maybe he thought no one would ever look there. At first, I spotted only the ones of Miriam. I was so shocked I slammed the laptop shut. It would have been wrong for me to look through the rest without you.”

He paused and grinned.

“Or, maybe Sam and Aiden came in the room, and I didn’t want them to see. I knew you’d understand. I did drive right over to you.” His eyes clamped shut. “And, I found you. I’ll never erase the image of you lying on the patio.” The muscles in his jaw flexed and released.

“I’m here. It’s just a bump and scratch. Wow. Can you forward me the pics? Have you told anyone else?”