“I thought you’d forgotten us,” Caleb said as he pressed a wet kiss to her cheek.
“No way, José. I’ve just been busy.”
“That’s what Daddy said, too,” Danny said. “I don’t like it when you’re too busy for us.”
Zoe bit her lip and gave them both an extra squeeze. She was such an idiot for absenting herself from their lives. She made a silent vow to never do it again. She’d missed out on three months of growth and development—Caleb was taller, Danny had lost two teeth and Rachel had clearly discovered her mother’s makeup bag in the time since Zoe had last seen them. All things she would have known if she hadn’t been so stubborn and stupid.
“I promise it won’t happen again,” she said as she straightened. “Okay?”
“Deal,” Caleb said.
“Double deal,” Danny added.
She had to shake both their hands, trying to remember all the ins and outs of their special handshake, then Rachel wanted in on the act. Liam was still watching her when she glanced across at him.
“Someone’s popular,” he said.
“Zoe’s always been great with them,” Jane said. “Can I get you a drink, Zoe? Wine, a beer?”
Zoe noted that Liam was drinking a beer. He looked very comfortable in her brother’s kitchen.
Like hanging out with her family was an everyday occurrence.
She shook her head.
“No, thanks.”
She was rattled, no denying it. She hadn’t expected to see Liam until tomorrow. She certainly hadn’t expected to see him here, deep in her territory. Every time she looked at him she remembered how they’d fallen onto his bed yesterday afternoon, the way they’d savored each other. And the way it had all soured so quickly once he insisted on knowing the truth.
She turned away from him, unable to deal with her own conflicting thoughts and feelings.
“What can I do to help?” she asked her sister-in-law.
Ten minutes later she was up to her elbows in salad ingredients. As she transferred shredded lettuce to a bowl, she glanced out through the French doors to the patio, where Tom and Liam were talking around the barbecue. Liam had his back to her and she eyed his shoulders, hugged by a snug black T-shirt. Had he and Tom decided to renew their friendship after all these years?
Was that what this was all about? Was she going to have to get used to finding Liam at family gatherings?
The thought made her stomach twist. She needed less contact with Liam, not more.
“I was so pleased when Tom told me Liam had called,” Jane confided as she added sliced tomatoes to the salad. “Tom has always felt so guilty about the way things ended between them.”
Zoe concentrated on dicing an onion very finely.
“It’s such a coincidence that you and Liam ran into each other at your tattoo parlor,” Jane said.
“What are the odds, do you think?”
Jane shook her head, clearly amazed by the apparently chance meeting. Zoe shot Liam’s back another look. So he hadn’t told Tom about the painting, then? How noble of him.
“Yeah. I was pretty surprised,” Zoe said, mostly because Jane would expect some kind of response.
“I bet,” Jane said. Then she laughed a little self-consciously. “I can understand why you had a crush on him when you were a kid, Zoe. He’s a whole hunk of man, isn’t he? I bet he has to beat women off with a stick.”
“Nothing’s going on between us,” Zoe said quickly. “He offered me a job, that’s all. For old times’ sake.”
Jane’s blue eyes widened and a smile curved her mouth. Zoe bit her lip. She might as well have had T-shirts made. Why on earth had she leaped to defend herself against an insinuation her sister-in-law hadn’t even made?
“Well. The job sounds really interesting,” Jane said. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
You know how much I love your art.”
Jane was the one who had suggested Zoe create some pieces for Tom’s office when he was promoted last year. They’d even tried to pay her for them, something Zoe had resisted fiercely.
“Meat’s ready,” Tom called from outside.
“Okay. Won’t be a second,” Jane said.
They worked together to finish the salad, and within a couple of minutes they were all settling around the patio table. Zoe wound up sharing a bench seat with Liam. She wasn’t quite sure how it happened and she was acutely aware of his body heat, the press of his thigh alongside hers, the brush of his big bicep against her arm as he reached for the salad or passed the tray of burgers and sausages along.
“Liam says he’ll cut me a good deal if I want to invest in a custom chopper,” Tom said as they all dug into their food.
Jane’s knife and fork stilled over her food as she gave her husband a dry look.
“Invest? As in, one day we’ll see a return on our money?”
Tom had the good grace to look a little sheepish.
“Each bike is individually handcrafted,” he said.
Liam laughed.
“Good luck selling that one,” Zoe said to her brother.
“Why do I suddenly feel like the heavy here?” Jane asked.
“Don’t. Everyone at this table knows that a custom chopper is a big-boy’s toy and that Tom has better uses for his money,” Zoe said.
Liam nudged her with his elbow.
“Easy there, champ. That’s my livelihood you’re talking about. Yours, too, now that I come to think about it.”
She propped her elbow on the table and turned to look him full in the eye.
“So you think Tom should buy one of your bikes instead of, say, taking the kids on a trip to Disneyland?” she asked.
Caleb and Danny sat up straight, eyes bugging out of their heads.
“Disneyland?!” they said in unison.
Jane groaned and Tom rolled his eyes.
“Thank you, Aunty Zoe,” he said.
“I was talking hypothetically,” Zoe told her nephews. “You know, just using it as an example.”
Caleb waved his fork at her excitedly.
“I don’t care if you was being pathetic. When are we going to Disneyland?”
It took a full five minutes for the children to understand that a trip to Disneyland was not in the foreseeable future. Liam laughed to himself throughout and Zoe threw him more than one irritated glance.
He looked so damned at home amongst her brother’s family. She could see no hint of unease between him and Tom, despite their years of estrangement. Yet she felt on tenterhooks, her nerves on edge.
Her unease ratcheted up another notch when Tom and Liam fell to reminiscing after their meal.
She listened to stories from school and memories from their shared domestic life for as long as she could stand it before excusing herself to play with the children.
For a full twenty minutes she immersed herself in the game of tag her nephews had invented, teaming up with Rachel to ensure the little girl had a fair chance. Periodically she glanced to where Liam lounged with Tom and Jane, the three of them talking and laughing. Every time Liam’s low, deep laugh sounded, something in her chest tightened.
She resented the way he made her feel. Weak, helpless, out of control. Fifteen again, basically.
Totally at the mercy of her hormones and emotions.
But she wasn’t a girl anymore; she was a woman. And she was in control of herself. Absolutely she was.
Which was why she was hiding in the yard, playing tag with the children.
The moment she acknowledged what she was doing, she left the children to their game and crossed to the patio. She refused to let Liam send her into a spin. This was her family, her brother. If anyone should be feeling the outsider, it should be Liam.
He was pushing back his chair as she approached. “Great catching up again, Tom. Thanks for all your help,” Liam said as he stood.
A wash of relief hit her—he was going. Thank God. Maybe now she could enjoy her visit with her nephews and n
iece minus complications or aggravations.
Tom’s gaze slid to Zoe then back to Liam again as the two men shook hands.
“It was good to see you. Don’t be a stranger,” Tom said.
Zoe frowned as Liam turned to thank Jane for her hospitality. There had been something in her brother’s eyes just now. He’d looked…uneasy. Almost guilty. She studied Tom’s face but he kept his attention fixed on Liam. She shrugged and decided she must have imagined the small moment.
The kids insisted on giving Liam a big send-off, complete with waves from the front porch. Zoe hung back beside Jane as Tom walked Liam out to where his black SUV was parked in the street.
The two men stood talking quietly for a few minutes more. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but her brother gestured toward Liam’s car, then turned to look at Zoe briefly. Again she saw a flash of guilt on his face. He said something but Liam shook his head and talked intently for a few minutes. Finally they shook hands and Liam got in his car and drove off.
“What’s going on?” Zoe asked when Tom rejoined her and Jane.
“What? Nothing,” Tom said.
Zoe narrowed her eyes. Before she could probe further, Jane looped her arm through Zoe’s.
“Why don’t you stay for dinner, as well?” Jane said. “The kids have been working through their favorite movies again lately. I think Finding Nemo is tonight’s offering.”
Zoe thought about an evening on the couch with her brother’s children. Jane would pop corn, and her brother would con his wife into giving him a foot massage. If Zoe was lucky, she’d wind up with Rachel asleep in her arms like the last time they’d watched a movie together.
“Sure. That sounds nice,” she said.
“Good stuff. Meanwhile, we can have another coffee and you can tell me about this bike of Liam’s you’re going to paint,” Tom said.
“Just don’t go getting any ideas,” Jane admonished as she headed to the kitchen to put the kettle on. “There’s no way I’m wallowing around corners in the family wagon while you cruise around on a custom motorbike.”
“I’m not stupid. I know you’re far too insecure about how hot I’d look riding a big custom chopper to let me buy one,” Tom said, deadpan.
Zoe left them to their sparring and headed for the bathroom. She’d washed her hands and was on her way to the kitchen when she glanced into the study and stopped in her tracks.
When she’d painted the pieces for Tom’s office, she’d gotten a little carried away and come up with too many canvases. Tom had hung the superfluous three paintings in his home study, assuring her he was thrilled to have enough to go round.
But the walls of his study were blank today, utterly bare. Her paintings were gone.
She was surprised at the stab of hurt she felt. Obviously her brother had not liked them as much as he’d assured her he did. How long had he left them on the walls before he took them down? A month? A week?
She returned to the kitchen feeling more than a little subdued. Jane shot her a searching look and Zoe forced a smile. Jane sighed.
“You saw the study, didn’t you?” she asked.
“It’s fine. I understand. They were very bright, and probably really overwhelming in a small room,” Zoe said quickly.
Tom looked up from where he was spooning coffee into a French press. He and Jane exchange a loaded glance. Tom put the packet of coffee down.
“Okay. Good. I wasn’t very comfortable not telling you, but I knew you’d kick up a stink if we did and I wanted you to have the opportunity,” he said.
Zoe stared at her brother.
“Could you repeat that in English?” she asked.
“Liam wanted to show your work to a friend of his who has an art gallery. I gave him the paintings from my office and the ones from the study here at home. That’s why he was here today, to collect your art,” Tom said.
Zoe blinked a few times, unable to quite believe what she was hearing.
“Liam is showing my stuff to his friend. And you were keeping it a secret from me?” she asked, her voice high with outrage.
Jane stepped forward and slid an arm around Zoe’s shoulders. “I knew you’d be angry, but I was overruled.”
“Arrogant, overbearing, pigheaded son of a bitch,” Zoe said.
She was already turning on her heel, heading for the door before the last words were out of her mouth.
“I think that was for Liam, not you,” she heard Jane explaining to her brother.
“Hell, yes, it is,” Zoe said over her shoulder. “Where does he get off, trying to rearrange my life behind my back? I’m not a kid anymore. When is he going to get that through his thick skull?”
The front door slammed behind her as she strode toward her car.
Unbelievable. Liam Masters had apparently mistaken her for the kind of woman who liked having her life ordered for her. He was about to get a rude awakening—in the shape of her size-eight biker boot up his butt.
Deep inside, humiliation burned. She’d bared her soul to him yesterday and the first thing he’d done was take steps to give poor little Zoe a helping hand.
She didn’t need anything from him. She didn’t need anything from anyone. The sooner he got that straight, the better.
LIAM GOT THE CALL from Tom when he was ten minutes from his house. He figured he had a twenty-minute start on Zoe, so when he got home he went ahead with his original plan and carried the seven canvases into his dining room. He’d already decided that the bare floor and white walls were the perfect foil for Zoe’s work, the next best thing to his own gallery. He worked quickly and steadily to position seven picture hooks around the room. He was sliding the last canvas into place when he heard the screech of tires in his driveway.
Only Zoe could keep up a head of steam through a half-hour drive. Right on cue she thumped on his front door.
“I want my paintings back,” she said when he opened the door. She pushed past him into the house. “And I quit. I don’t want anything to do with you and your bloody overbearing do-gooderism. I am not your freaking charity project, Liam Masters.”
She stood with her hands on her hips, shoulders proud.
“Zoe,” he said.
She made a low, growling noise.
“Don’t even bother. I don’t give a shit what patronizing, reasonable, generous explanation you have all worked out. This is my life you’re rearranging to suit yourself. It’s my life and my art.
Who the hell do you think you are, sneaking behind my back to show it to some gallery owner?”
“Would you have let me if I told you what I wanted to do?”
“No. No way. I don’t need your charity,” she said.
“It’s not charity to help out a friend.”
“A friend,” she said scathingly. “Is that what we are now? Friends?”
“It’s what I’m trying to be, although you make it pretty damn hard.”
Zoe was suddenly in his face, her fists thumping into his chest, the weight of her attack sending him staggering back a step.
“I don’t want you to try to do or be anything for me. Just leave me alone.”
He grabbed her fists. She was strong, despite her slim build, and he had to exert himself to hold her still.
“Calm down,” he said.
She twisted her arms, trying to escape. He hauled her so close they were breathing into each other’s faces. He could see the anger in her eyes, but he could also see the pride and, beneath that, the fear.
Suddenly he understood.
“It’s not because I feel sorry for you, Zoe,” he said quietly.
She froze, then she gave one last, hard yank on her wrists and he let her go. She stepped away from him and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Why, then? Why are you so gosh-darned fired up to help poor old Zoe?”
“I like you.”
She stared at him. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. Do I need a better reason? I’ve got a million, but none of them a
re as good. I owe your parents. I hurt you in the past. I think you’re bloody talented.”
Zoe stared at him. Her hands were shaking when she raised them to push her hair away from her face.
“Damn you, Liam.”
She turned her back on him and walked into his living room. He followed, stopping within arm’s reach.
“Why do you always make it so hard?” she asked, her back still to him.
“What’s so hard about me liking you?”
She looked at him over her shoulder.
“Because it’s dangerous. And you know it. It takes us both to a place we don’t want to go.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, because it was true.
Silence stretched between them. Zoe broke it by taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
Then she scrubbed her face with her hands and turned to face him.
“Where are my paintings?” she asked.
For a moment he hesitated, weighing the merits of trying once again to talk her around. She held his eye, her gaze steely. He shrugged and led her to the dining room without saying another word.
Her eyes widened as she saw how he had hung her work, how the empty room and white walls allowed her art to speak for itself.
“They look good, don’t they?” he said. “Kind of like they would if they were hanging in a gallery.”
She shot him an unreadable look. Slowly she did a circuit of the room, her whole body radiating tension.
“Who is this gallery person, anyway?” she finally asked.
He knew exactly how much it had cost her to ask the question.
“Her name’s Jacinta Hartman. She has a gallery in Toorak.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? There’s no way some rich bitch from Toorak is going to be interested in my stuff.”
“I think she will be. I think you have no idea how good your stuff is.”
“And you’re an art expert now, are you?”
“I’ve seen enough over the years to know that people will eat up your work up with a spoon,” he said.
Zoe made a rude noise.
“Don’t believe me? Jacinta will be here in an hour,” he said. “Hang around and hear what she says for yourself.”
Zoe shifted her weight. He could see her brain ticking over, could feel her uncertainty warring with her desire to believe.
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