by Piper Rayne
I get out of the car and pull out the bags. He said he was leaving today. I hope that’s still the case, because the things I have planned for my exorcism of Savannah Bailey, her brother would either try to join or call bullshit. All depends on his mood.
His music is loud and banging when I walk through the door, which means he’s in the shower or getting ready. This annoying ritual of his drives me to the barn most afternoons. Since he has the power to make his own hours as a bush pilot, he tends to only take later flights so he can sleep in. Lucky me. It should give me time to stash the bags somewhere though.
“Liam!” Denver yells, and his feet are barreling down the stairs like an elephant. No cat burglar future for him.
I open the pantry and toss in the bags. The crash of glass tells me I’m less one candle. Great.
“What’s up?” I slam the door as Denver stops, staring at me quizzically.
He points at the pantry door. “Do you have a chick there?”
“No.” I step away from the door, but not far enough away that I can’t block him if he goes to take a look.
“You look guilty.”
His hair is damp from a shower, and he’s shirtless, the various tattoos I’ve given him are on display.
“I’m not guilty. Is that completely healed?”
He looks down at his shoulder and runs his hand over the ink. “It’s still peeling a bit, but it’s close.”
I nod, happy to see there’s no redness around the ink. “You heading out?”
Now that he’s sufficiently distracted from the pantry, I fill up my water bottle from the fridge.
Denver slides up on the counter. “Let’s get back to your guilty look.”
I smile with my back to him. He’s quicker this time, which means he’s not wrapped up in his own life. How can he be? He doesn’t do shit except party. The guy could be making bank with his outdoor skills, but he sits on his ass most days.
“I’m not guilty.”
“Blonde, brunette, or redhead?” His eyes light up at the word redhead.
“There isn’t a girl in the pantry.” I lean against the counter, sipping my water.
“Here I thought you got your shit together and were finally gonna get some ass.”
“I’m not sure I understand your line of thinking.”
He jumps off the counter. “Because we’re out of sync. Before, you’d have known exactly what I meant, but I’m a lone wolf now. You and Rome have deserted me. At least he’s getting laid on the regular. You…” He points at me, walking toward the stairs, thank goodness. “I don’t get your new vow of celibacy.”
“When do you leave?”
He circles around at the bottom of the stairs. “In about five minutes. I just have to grab a shirt. We’re setting up camp tonight. Then I get to watch dumbass executives try to get themselves out of the wilderness with a piece of flint and a machete.” He twirls his finger in the air.
I laugh, relieved that I distracted him from talking about me.
“A hundred dollars says the ‘boss’ tries to slip me some cash to get them out sooner.”
“I thought you liked doing the excursions?”
“I like doing them for people who love the outdoors. People who look at a moose with awe. People who want to hike to the highest mountain just for the view and the satisfaction of making it. Not these self-entitled shitheads who give up trying to start a fire with two sticks because it hurts their hands.”
“Maybe you need to start your own company. No shitheads allowed.”
He points at me, stepping on the first stair. “You have a point, but no way would I run a company. That’s a sure-fire way to screw up my life.”
“How so?” My forehead wrinkles.
“Everyone knows the boss has no fun.” He snaps his fingers. “That reminds me. Do you know if Savannah called the exterminator for Grandma Dori’s place?”
“Why would I know?”
“Juno’s going crazy having the old bat at her place. I heard you and Savannah kissed and made up.”
I shrug. “I apologized and we agreed to be civil until her house is done.”
He steps back down and heads halfway back to me. “Thanks, Liam. We all feel shitty about the talk because we want you to be happy, but you two are so opposite. It could never work.”
“Opposites attract?”
“Not when neither of them wants to change.” He raises his eyebrows.
“Go get ready, Denver.”
He nods, fully aware it’s a topic I’m not up for discussing. I’ll honor the Bailey brother wishes. Until I can prove them wrong.
“Miss me.” He winks.
“Counting the days until you return,” I holler up the stairs after him. “Not,” I whisper.
Five minutes later, Denver leaves with a duffle bag swung over his shoulder, three bottles of water, two apples, and my battery pack for his phone. I grab the bags out of the pantry and set up my night with Savannah.
Seventeen
Savannah
The house is dark when I return home from work. Liam must’ve had somewhere to go. He told he was going to start his “find the old Savannah Bailey” experiment tonight, and I assumed he meant immediately after work.
Ever since we made that bet last night, I’ve contemplated how a man like Liam whole-heartedly believes he can pull out my old self. I’m not even sure I’d recognize her if he did. He’d tried the strong-arming me with digs and passive-aggressive comments until we ended up causing a scene at Brooklyn’s reception. I can’t imagine what he has in store for me now.
I open the front door and realize I was wrong. The house isn’t dark. Candles are glowing on every surface, which I couldn’t see because the blinds were shut. Some big, some small, but there are enough that I think Liam’s taking his mission in a different direction. Does he think romancing me is going to drive out my type-A personality?
Putting my purse on the table by the door and dropping my keys next to his, I slip off my heels. Damn, that feels so good. I stretch my toes and circle my ankles, and that’s when a smorgasbord of smells hits my nose, leaving it begging for mercy. Cinnamon, sage, vanilla all mix to form an overpowering scent. Walking by a candle, I spot Orange Blossom embossed on a pretty label. What the hell is he doing?
Liam walks downstairs in a loose-fitting pair of lounge pants and a snug T-shirt. “You’re home,” he says as though he’s been waiting all day.
I take inventory. No flowers. No smell of dinner in the oven—but I’m not sure I could smell it over the array of candles burning. He’s not dressed up, and his hair isn’t gelled like he does before going out for the night.
“Are we having a seance or are we masking the smell of burned popcorn?”
He laughs. “Look at the magic of scent. Your funny self is already returning.” I admire the way the lounge pants hug his ass as he walks over to the kitchen counter, picks up a bag, and hands it to me. “Go upstairs and put these on.”
“Please?”
“Please.” He smiles warmly.
I peek inside the bag, thinking there will be some sort of skimpy lingerie inside, but all I see is gray. “So this is step one?”
He grins. “It is.”
“If you’re going to put me in the middle of a circle of people and chant, hoping to pull my soul out of my body, I have to say now, I’m not cool with it.”
He laughs again. I’m glad he finds this funny.
“Liam, what is going on?”
“You’ll see.”
My nose tickles, and I bend over in a sneeze.
“Bless you,” he whispers, leaning forward. “Now go.”
I jolt for a moment, because having him so close is doing crazy things to my heartbeat.
After I walk up the stairs, I hear the flick of a lighter before I shut my bedroom door. There’s no possible way he has anything else down there with a wick to light.
I unzip my pencil skirt and slide it down my legs, unbutton my blouse and look down
at my bra. Oh, how I’d love to take the damn thing off, but no way can I be around Liam without a bra on. When I open the bag, I take out the items and place them on the bed. There lay pants and a shirt like Liam’s except they’re four sizes smaller.
“Holy moly,” I say as I pull the lounge pants over my legs. Damn, they’re so comfy. The shirt would be so much better sans bra, but it still feels like a T-shirt I’ve cherished for years. Looking at the bag, I realize that he must have driven to Anchorage to shop at a yoga store.
Then everything clicks. We’re going to do yoga. Fear freezes me in place for a moment. Yoga? I’m the least flexible person on the planet. I didn’t even know Liam was into yoga.
Paranoia runs through my body and I pick up my phone to google yoga poses. Downward dog—which I know of but have never tried. Cat pose—looks easy enough. I scroll past the woman who looks like a pretzel. I try to move my leg up and hold it straight, standing on one leg, but I teeter to the side. Shit. I can’t hold this position for more than one millisecond. I’m going to look like a complete idiot.
“Savannah?” Liam knocks on my door.
“Just a second.” The sudden awareness that he’s right on the other side of the door causes me to lose what little balance I had and my arm twists around my leg. Before I can recover, I lose my footing and fall.
“Sav? You okay?” He knocks again, more frantically this time.
“Yep, sure am.”
He’s silent for a moment. Probably ready to call me on my bullshit, but we’re playing nice now. “Hurry up. I don’t want us both to be homeless if a fire breaks out.”
I chuckle. “Yep. I’ll be right out.”
I wait to hear his footsteps head back toward the stairs. I put my clothes from today in the dry cleaner bag and head downstairs.
Standing at the top of the stairs, I realize Liam has lit incense, and now there’s a new mix of scents in the air. I inhale and stop breathing for a moment.
Liam’s pushed back the couch and coffee table and placed pillows and blankets in a circle. I might as well tell him where my insurance card is, because if he expects me to do yoga on blankets, I’m going to break my neck.
“Come into the circle.” He waves me in as if he’s the knowledgeable instructor granting me permission.
“What’s going on?”
“Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“Just stay with me.” He grabs my phone out of my hand, puts it on silent, and places it on the kitchen table.
“Whoa. You never said I couldn’t have my phone.”
“You can’t have your phone.” He winks.
“Not sure I would’ve signed up then.”
He ignores my comment, coming back into the pillow circle. “Sit down.”
I sit.
He sits across from me. “Cross your legs.”
I do as he says.
“Put your hands on top of your thighs like this.” He displays a classic meditation pose people use in movies.
I release a breath. Thank goodness, no yoga. “We’re meditating?”
He picks up his phone, scrolling through. “What did you think we were doing?”
“Um… meditating. Yeah.”
He smiles brightly as though he’s trying to show me this plan isn’t bad. “This app has great reviews, so we’re going to go with it. Usually I’d say screw reviews, but I’m a novice here.”
I hide the smile that wants to break out. He did all this work for me? I can’t remember the last time someone put so much thought into something for me.
“So you’ve never meditated before?” I ask politely, because the influx of every scent imaginable says he’s new and bought anything and everything that said it would be good to clear your mind. But I’m not going to complain. It’s a nice gesture.
“Nope. We’re newbies together. Okay. Are you ready?”
I nod.
He presses his screen, and a woman’s sweet voice instructs us to breathe. I peek my eye open to see Liam’s eyes are closed and his back is straight. She talks about anxiety as if we need a definition of it—telling us the repercussions, how it manifests, what causes it. Hello? If you want me to forget about my anxiety, shouldn’t we not talk about it the entire time we’re meditating? It’s more like she’s selling a product than helping me.
“Okay, maybe that’s not the right one for us.” He clicks off, and silence echoes throughout the house. I laugh and he looks at me, smiling as though he enjoys it. “Let’s try this one.”
A new woman’s soothing voice instructs us to breathe once again. She talks about the pressures of life and how people rarely take the time for themselves. Giving us the Cliff’s Notes version of how great meditation is for people.
I bust out laughing, and Liam opens his eyes.
“Shit. I should’ve tested these.”
“Fast forward and see if it starts after the sales pitch.”
He nods, and his thumb slides across the screen. The woman is giving instructions on how to meditate, telling us how to still our body and be aware of our breath.
“Okay, now we start,” he says.
I bite my lip to stop my laugh and close my eyes, trying to take this seriously. He put a lot of time and effort into this.
The sounds of birds behind her, along with a wave slowly cresting on the shoreline every few seconds, fill the room. My mind is still on Liam’s ass in those lounge pants, then it travels to how I’m here for a week alone while Denver is away. Then I think about the charity event we need to nail down some specifics for. How the workers’ union wants more money and better benefits. Grandma Dori telling me she wants to lower her hours. The contractor saying he has to wait two weeks for the matching tile to arrive.
Liam hasn’t made a sound or moved a muscle. Of course he can sit quietly with his own thoughts and push away his worries. If anything, the quietness of the room is making me less relaxed and more anxious.
“Relax,” Liam says as though he can feel my nervous energy.
“I’m trying,” I bite back.
“Try harder,” he whispers.
“I can’t erase my calendar from my mind.”
He chuckles but stops, and I peek an eye open. He’s staring back at me.
“Your eyes aren’t closed,” I whisper.
“We’re doing this for you. I’m being nice by doing it too,” he whispers back.
Oh yeah. I forgot about that. “I’m not sure I’m a meditation kind of person.”
“Well, we’re going to do it for seven days. So you need to just sit there for fifteen minutes each time. It’s not going to come with immediate results, Sav.”
I shut my eyes tightly and listen to the woman.
Silence falls around us as she stops talking. All the worries and fears and to-dos pop up in my mind like file folders stacking on top of one another. I keep my back straight. If anyone walked in right now and they didn’t throw up from the smell, they’d think I was a master of meditation. But I’m far from relaxed as our session draws to a close and the woman tells us it’s like exercise and we must do this on a daily basis to reap the results. Great.
My eyes open before Liam’s, and I use the moment to soak him in. The calmness over his body compared to the chaos inked on his skin. His lap looks so inviting, I wish I could crawl into it and have him kiss my forehead and tell me all will be well one day. How I’m navigating my path the best I can, given the circumstances. That one day in the future, I’ll have a man who loves me for me, even though I might make more money than him and my hours are crazy, and I like things just so and I put capitals T and A in Type-A personality. There’s a man out there who thinks I’m worth the sacrifice.
His eyes open and I stand, picking up the pillows to put the room back to normal.
“Getting right to it, huh?” He follows suit, helping me tidy up. “We could have done another one.”
“No need to do squats and bicep curls all in one day.”
He laughs, gra
bbing the pillows from me.
“Mind if I blow out some candles?” I ask.
His smile vanishes. “Go ahead.”
He helps me. It seems like a waste for only a half hour of our time. Though technically we only meditated for fifteen minutes. I notice Liam’s shoulders are hunched and he’s quiet.
“Hey, Liam?” I say before heading toward the stairs to go back up to my room and work.
He peers up from sliding the couch back into place. His smile has dimmed slightly, like a disappointed kid who showed his parents a drawing and they asked what it is.
“Thank you.”
He nods, his lips tipping back up into his amazing smile. “Any time.”
Eighteen
Liam
We’re in the middle of week one of this experiment, and we’ve meditated every night. Three nights of hearing her light breathing across from me. Three nights of watching her breasts squeeze into that tight T-shirt. Three nights of having her help me put everything away before she heads back upstairs. I have no idea if she’s enjoying it or is just in it to see what’s in the barn. It’ll be a let-down if it comes to that because I’m really hoping she gets something out of all this and isn’t using it as a means to an end.
I approach the security desk at Bailey Timber, and Carrie eyes me and slides over my name tag. “They’re expecting you in the conference room. Fourth floor.”
“Thanks.”
I pin on my badge and head to the elevator. The doors ding open on the fourth floor, and Phoenix stands there with a half-eaten burrito in her hand. A microwave burrito I’m thinking she got down at the 7-Eleven.
“Hey, Liam,” she says, turning on her heels to head toward the conference room. It’s the giant room in the middle of all the offices on the north side of the building. I would’ve found it without Phoenix’s stellar handholding.