Liam's Gold

by Jody Wallace

  “Kristiana, is this behavior productive?” Liam’s voice was even and calm. “This isn’t you. This is the, ah, malt liquor talking.”

  The other woman, halfway up the walk, bit her lip nervously. “Kris, give me the car keys and I’ll take you home.”

  “Shut up, Deana.” That was Kristiana. “I’m not drunk.”

  Now who needed therapy? To exacerbate matters, Sal trotted to the side window of the bedroom, from which she could see the porch. She rapped on the glass.

  Kristiana and Liam turned towards her. She captured Kristiana’s furious gaze and deliberately dropped the bedspread just far enough to flash her breasts like a floozy in New Orleans. She grinned at the woman’s outraged expression.

  Behind her, Liam covered his mouth with his hand.

  “You fat, geeky bitch!” Kristiana yelled.

  Sal wiggled her fingers in a wave.

  Kristiana snatched Sal’s sweater off the rocking chair and tried to rip it in two. The veins in her neck popped out. Apparently angora didn’t tear easy.

  She looked apoplectic. Maybe Sal shouldn’t have taunted her.

  Liam reached for Kristiana’s shoulders. “This really, really isn’t you, Kris.”

  She shrugged him off and shook her handful of wool at Sal. “You should have heard him talk about you, how he charmed you into fixing his computer. He knew the whole time you were in love with him.”

  Liam didn’t correct her. Sal dropped the curtain and continued to listen, hugging herself. Was it a surprise he’d known about her crush? Kind of. And it hurt. It hurt that he’d used her weakness to get her into bed. They’d shared three years of nonsexual companionship, and they’d joked about Liam’s propensity for short-term relationships on many occasions.

  “I’m not husband material,” he’d tell her, and she’d agree. He wasn’t even “book a cruise” material. Not only did his job entail lots of unexpected travel, but he never stayed with anyone long enough for the departure date to arrive.

  All of Sal’s misgivings about sleeping with Liam washed over her. If this screwed everything up, she’d never forgive herself. Never forgive him. He’d known her feelings were involved and seduced her anyway. Did he think she’d settle for friends with benefits? Screwing him in between girlfriends? She should have refused him.

  Well, she should have accepted the steak dinner but refused everything else.

  “He used to make fun of you, Sal,” Kristiana barked, spite dripping from her words. “He asked me to convince you to get counseling so you’d quit mooning over him.”

  “That’s a lie,” Liam stated flatly.

  Sal wasn’t sure she believed it, either, but the fact he’d known about her crush had a ring of truth as loud as a bugle. The truth was more uncomfortable than the sandals she had on.

  She heard a crash, a curse, and Kristiana whined, “You said no woman with her horrible taste in shoes would ever interest a man like you.”

  That had a ring of truth, as well. Sal shifted her weight back and forth, the high-heeled footwear Liam had chosen for her pinching her toes. These shoes weren’t her. Sleeping with Liam when she knew how he was with women—also not her.

  Liam cleared his throat. “It’s time for you to leave, Kris. Go home and sleep it off.”

  Sal couldn’t help it. She had to watch. She parted the curtains. The couple on the porch was beyond noticing her.

  The woman in the yard backed towards the vehicle. “Come on, Kris. Please.”

  Kristiana swung at Liam’s face. She hit like a girl, and he easily caught her arm. “I’m glad I told that man about you tonight!” she yelled. “I told him everything about you. Your home address, your place of employment, your credit card numbers, your clothing size. You’re such a bastard, Liam Connell. You deserve to become the victim of identity theft.”

  “How the hell do you know my credit card numbers?” The ice in Liam’s voice could have frozen a great lake, but not Kristiana’s ire.

  The angry woman jerked her arm free. “I have an excellent memory. He even wanted to know where you get your contact lenses and whether or not you dye your hair. If you have a lot of shoes. If your skin peels easily.”

  Sal glanced down at her palm, a few shreds of Liam’s skin on it. Credit card numbers and social, sure, but why would some guy ask about Liam’s shoes and skin? A light bulb popped into her head, but she couldn’t get it switched on. What was it? Why did it sound familiar?

  “Do you know what you’ve done? You had no right!” Liam secured Kristiana’s shoulders and marched her down the porch stairs. “I can’t believe you’d violate my privacy because of an emotion as petty as jealousy.”

  “It’s not jealousy. Jealous of Sal? She’s easy, and you got horny. What I am is…is disappointed, Liam. Disappointed in you.”

  Easy? Sal’s jaw dropped open. She wasn’t easy!

  No, she refused to get upset. Kristiana was speaking from a place of pain, her voice more shrill and earsplitting as she ranted. Porch lights popped on up and down the street. Gram was a restless sleeper—was she standing on her porch, witnessing this?

  “Don’t be so shocked. Sal’s my friend.” Liam gestured for Kristiana’s companion to approach. “You always told me that the better a man and woman know each other, the better they can be together. I’ve known Sal for years.”

  Kristiana swayed on her feet. “I only told you that so you’d confide in me. Get to know me, not Sal. You’re too closed off. It’s unnatural.”

  “Not with Sal, I’m not. I can trust her. Unlike you, I see.”

  Was that true or was he trying to shoo Kristiana off his property with some well-placed criticism? Sal couldn’t get over the fact he’d known about her feelings for years. How awkward. How humiliating. How…infuriating.

  “You and that bitch can go to hell. You don’t deserve my trust.”

  “If you don’t leave now, I’ll call the police and get a restraining order.” Liam crossed his arms and glared.

  Kristiana’s face blanched and she burst into helpless tears. “Oh, my God, I’m…I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” She groped for his neck, but he handed her off to her mortified friend. The other woman led Kristiana to the car and drove her away.

  Sal let the curtain swing shut. She felt no sympathy—for Liam or Kristiana. Mostly she felt confused and annoyed.

  Then again, maybe she should feel something for Kristiana. Would that be her, Sal, in a month or two? Deserted, distressed and resolved to wreak vengeance on the charmer who’d broken her heart?

  “It was not meaningless sex,” Liam assured Sal, but she’d wound herself into such a tight coil of resentment, he couldn’t get through.

  She’d heard everything Kristiana had screeched and had believed parts of it…unfortunately for Liam, the true parts. He’d have to deal with the mysterious man who’d approached Kristiana soon, but right now, the furious woman in his living room took precedence.

  “All these years, you knew I had feelings for you. When you asked me out, you knew I’d say yes.” She spat the words out as if they tasted like rotten meat.

  “I hoped you’d say yes.”

  “I wish I’d punched you in the nose!” She crossed her arms over a baggy sweatshirt—his sweatshirt—that swallowed her. Her Blahniks protected her feet from the broken glass all over the floor. “What were you going to do next month when you got tired of me? Did you think I’d be so hung up on you I’d have kept fixing your damn computer for free?”

  “Next month was the furthest thing from my mind.” The ceiling fan whirred quietly above them, ruffling her hair. His skin itched all over and he could see more flakes on his legs. He still wore his flannel robe and no shoes, which left him feeling extremely vulnerable. His skin was in worse shape than he’d thought.

  He didn’t know what to say, honest or otherwise, that would explain the situation and salvage their friendship. He’d be gone in two weeks. He wished he could convince himself this didn’t matter, but it did.<
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  Sal mattered.

  Had seducing her been about his disguise? About saying goodbye? Whatever it was, it was selfish and thoughtless. He couldn’t disappear without bedding her, without knowing her flesh as intimately as he knew her mind.

  She’d been his personal reward for success, the apple at the top of the tree. And she deserved better.

  “You look like you have gas. What’s going through your mind?” she asked.

  That you’d be the perfect camouflage. That I could have my bonnach and eat it too. “I don’t know. I thought you’d be pleased.”

  Sal flapped her arms in frustration. His sweatshirt slid up her white thighs. “Pleased by what? That my friend Liam would toy with my feelings?”

  “I was not—am not—making light of your feelings.” He’d convinced himself she wouldn’t be harmed because he wanted to believe it. He prided himself on his tribe loyalty, his ethics, his ability to outmaneuver the gaidache. His arrogance had driven him to abuse Sal’s affection and trust. He should have run, should have hidden, when Pete told him Robair was headed to Stevens Point.

  Why hadn’t he run? Why hadn’t he been able to do the sensible thing, the right thing?

  “I care about you, Sal.”

  “You knew there’d be no way to end this without hurting me. What did I do to deserve the Liam Connell Special? I thought we were friends.”

  What had she done? Befriended him. Laughed with him. Griped at him and praised him and argued with him and fed him and all the things friends do.

  “We are friends,” he insisted. “This is different.”

  “Sure it is.” Sal edged toward the door and he blocked her.

  He couldn’t let her go yet. “You’re right. I’m a selfish bastard.”

  His cock had never made his decisions for him before. Shame twisted his innards like hair in a drain. The ends did not justify these means.

  “I didn’t use those particular words, but since you mention it, you’re a selfish bastard. What changed, Liam? You ignored me as a female for years. Apparently you went so far as to mock me with your girlfriends. I can handle that, but what I can’t handle is the fact you knew this would kill me. You took advantage of me, and I don’t even know why.”

  She was right. How did she know? Because she did know—him.

  With little conviction, he said, “We’re consenting adults. No one has to get hurt.” But they both would, in the end, and he knew it.

  “That’s lame. And assholic.”

  Some leprechauns who chose deuchainn fell in love with humans and remained in humanspace instead of returning to the Realm. They gave up their families, their magic, their heritage, their mission, their political aspirations. Meachainn. Soft. His uncle Badger was in a rest home in Florida. Liam had gone to visit him, but the old man hadn’t recognized Liam as a relative or a leprechaun. He’d had a photograph of a white-haired human woman on his bedside table, her face a soft roadmap of wrinkles. Had he loved her so much he’d stayed on purpose?

  Had he felt anything like this?

  Liam just shook his head. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Lucky for us both I can explain.” Sal stooped, picked up her bra from the floor, and wadded it in her fist. When she straightened, her face was hard. “You can’t go a month without screwing somebody.”

  Her words slapped across his face like a physical blow. When she shoved past him, he made no move to stop her. “Sal, I’m sorry. I didn’t think this through.” No, he’d pretended that if he was all action, no talk, it would be just sex and nobody would suffer.

  “Think this through. We’re over. Our friendship, our relationship, whatever you want to call it. You can pay somebody to fix your virus-riddled, porny computer, and when I tell Gram what a total wad you are, you can consider your food source dried up as well.”

  “Let’s talk about this tomorrow, after we cool off. What happened between us—I didn’t expect it. I didn’t expect it to be so overwhelming.” He wanted to take her in his arms and stroke the fire out of her, stroke the fire back into her. His one taste of her wasn’t enough. Two weeks might not be enough. And from the startling rush he’d experienced at the grand finale of their lovemaking, he sensed his tenure in humanspace was at an end two weeks early.

  Who would have guessed sex with a Finder would create magic?

  He wanted to ignore it, but there was a replete tingle inside himself where he stored his power. It knocked gently on his mind like the swaying of wheat in the wind. He had enough to return home now—if he wanted. If he wanted, he could complete his deuchainn, prove himself to the searsanachs, help save his people, see to it Robair and those like him were punished and never set foot in humanspace again.

  Instead, he held out a pleading hand to Sal, palm open. “You can’t just turn your back on this. I want to work it out.”

  “Watch me. The Frump Queen is outta here.” She slammed the door when she left, rattling the pictures on the walls.

  Chapter Eight

  After deserting Liam in his glass-covered living room, Sal gathered the contents of her purse from his lawn, no easy task in the pitch dark dressed in a sweatshirt and high-heeled sandals that kept jabbing into the dirt. Shivering, she cursed her stupid shoes, a stupid gift from a stupid man. He’d always fantasized about her wearing the shoes, her big butt! He’d probably fantasized about how far his control over her lovesick willpower would extend.Once home, she threw her possessions across the kitchen counter in disgust, bits of grass and leaves still clinging to them. The answering machine light blinked red in the dark room, but she ignored it. Probably Liam, begging her to save him from the horrors of an empty bed.

  How could she have been so dumb? He was a man slut. To be fair, he was more of a serial monogamist, but he always had somebody, while she rarely had anybody.

  And she’d never had anybody like Liam.

  Her traitorous body yearned for his touch. Her heart begged her to let him heal her with smooth words and smoother kisses. What if he’d seen her in a new light for no reason other than her time had come? Was it so hard to believe they could build a lasting relationship on a friendship that had already endured three years?

  It could be different for them, her soul whispered to her. He’s different.

  Body, heart and soul were fallible. They’d gotten her into this mess. She would take advice now only from her brain.

  Her grandmother’s house was silent and empty, not unusual for a Friday night. In fact, Sal was thankful Gram was out carousing or playing Bunco instead of lingering over a decaf coffee, eager to hear all the juicy details of Sal’s date. She and Gram shared nearly everything, including Sal’s middle name. Her attraction to Liam had been a long-standing source of amusement for them both. It had helped to giggle about it, make light of it, so it didn’t turn into an obsession.

  Gram’s insistence that Liam kept heart-secrets he’d one day reveal to Sal had been less amusing.

  “You mark my words, Sal gal,” Gram would say. “The boy thinks he’s clever, thinks he’s hiding it, but these old eyes can see right through him. I’d tell him myself, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s your secret to find.”

  Of course, her grandmother also believed she’d met a leprechaun fifty years ago whose magical powers had enabled her to get pregnant. She swore leprechauns lived among humans and all Sal had to do was recognize one to wish her dreams into reality.

  Like her dream of a passionate, fairy-tale romance with Liam Connell, perhaps? If a leprechaun had caused that dream to materialize, well, the little green bastard needed to go to remedial wish-granting school.

  Liam Connell was not her dream. To be more exact, he was no longer her dream. She’d always thought he was special. From the moment they’d met, she’d sensed something unusual about him. But he had no deep secret that awaited her and only her. The only thing he concealed from the world was a heart of stone.

  Sal would follow her head and do the smart thing. And she wouldn’t cry. I
t had only been sex, for heaven’s sake. She’d had sex before. Tomorrow they could pretend it never happened.

  An hour later, Sal was still crying. And Gram still wasn’t home.

  After he donned a pair of hand-stitched sheepskin slippers with rubber soles and swept up the glass in the living room, Liam placed an emergency call to Pete Malinowski’s pager. He had little doubt Robair was behind the man who’d questioned Kristiana. Perhaps he’d even been the man who questioned her. Pete would know what the gaidache was doing.

  He was going to have to run. Flee like a gutless bleideir. He packed everything he couldn’t bear to leave behind. Photos, papers, books, the fat little Buddha Sal had given him last Christmas. In a file with his lawyer, he’d left documents that bequeathed everything he owned to Sal in the event of his disappearance. His house, his car, his bank accounts, which weren’t abundant but weren’t laughable, either. Since his computer was somewhat functional, he initiated the hard drive wipe.

  Computers he would not miss.

  Sal he’d miss like a left leg. Could he run, tonight, without seeing her once more?

  In the file he had a letter, too, a letter Gram, as a bona fide Finder, would understand, even if Sal didn’t. It seemed inadequate now. An inadequate goodbye to someone he realized meant more to him than…than what?

  He was in the act of running like a frightened rabbit, so she didn’t mean more than his mission, did she?

  He wasn’t his uncle Badger. After his tribe had been devastated by an anishag incursion, he’d sworn to gain that key position on the searsanach council. His presence in humanspace was the result of years of preparation and study. His success, as the sole Anich party member who’d qualified to take deuchainn—a fishy detail he’d also have to deal with on his return—would restore balance to the legislative process. The result would be a council forced to do its job without bribes and help thousands of leprechauns live safely in a Realm that was hostile to the weak. Partisanship and power lust had no place in the crucial charge of guarding their people. He was only a sìth ring away from success and a short drive from that sìth ring. The magic, finally replete, fizzed inside him.