by Rosanna Leo
“Honey, whatever trouble you’re selling, I’m buying,” said Beck.
“Dream on,” Liam responded, getting a little annoyed by the man’s transparent interest. “You don’t have enough money for this kind of trouble.”
Liam marched her into the bar before Beck could make another play. He should have guessed that guy would try it on with her. He did with every other woman. Well, Kate deserved better than to be pawed over by a guy who needed a secretary to keep his girlfriends organized and away from each other.
He looked to her as he led her to the bar, curious about her reaction to Beck. She seemed to be hiding a grin. “Your friends are nice.”
“Oh, yeah. Real nice.” He rolled his eyes. “They even sing in the church choir. Come on. What’s your poison, gorgeous?”
“Gorgeous?” She laughed.
“You could try to look flattered.”
Still grinning, she scratched her head, a schoolgirl unsure of how to take a compliment. “Right. Beer’s fine.”
“A girl after my own heart.” He looked for Franky, but his buddy was probably stuck in the back room. In his absence, he ordered two Stellas from the bartender in charge, then led her to a quiet booth in back. She slid into one side of the booth.
He thought about sitting opposite her. He really did. But there was something about the way the bar lights hit the auburn strands in her hair that made him want to sit next to her. So he did, much to her surprise.
“What?” He tried to act as if it was no big deal. “The music’s loud. We won’t hear each other talk.”
She seemed to accept his excuse and smiled.
Liam realized seeing her smile felt good. Better than he’d expected. It made him strangely protective as well, especially when he remembered her epilepsy. “Are you okay with the flashing lights in here, you know, with your condition?”
“Yeah. Strobe lights don’t bother me. I take medication. Drinking alcohol is more of a trigger but I just won’t get carried away.” She took a ladylike sip and looked around the bar, her head bobbing to the music in the background. The usual band was in the house, knocking off an acoustic cover of “Welcome to the Jungle.”
They didn’t talk for a couple of minutes, but Liam caught her staring at him once or twice. Hell, she caught him doing the same thing. They both blushed like kids each time it happened.
He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him blush. Had he ever?
They laughed it off, and he asked her about her singing career. Pretty soon, they were talking comfortably, and somehow ended up on the topic of dating experiences gone wrong. He had to admit it pleased him to hear she was single. Before long, they were clinking bottles like old friends and teasing each other with good-natured pokes and jostles.
An hour later, she changed the subject. “So, aren’t we supposed to be hitting rock bottom? I don’t think it’s meant to be this much fun.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, dropping back to reality. “I guess I’m avoiding it.”
“So what does that mean to you? What’s your rock bottom? Calling off your lawyer?”
Shit. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that yet. All of a sudden, he didn’t want to focus on his own issues. “We’ll get to that. Tell me about your father first.”
Her smile ran from her face. “Do I have to?”
Liam looked her straight in the eye. “Rock bottom, remember? I’ll share mine if you share yours, group leader.” She still seemed hesitant so he prompted her. “Your dad gambles?”
She let out a long sigh. “Yeah. The only times I’ve seen him the past few years were when he showed up to ask for money.”
“So he’s not in your life at all?”
“I don’t think he ever was, not even when I lived under his roof. He’s obsessed. If he were here, he’d bet on which of us would finish our beers first. He’s sick and has no desire to get better.”
“You told me your friend’s husband gambles too.”
“That’s how Lisa and I met, at New Horizons. She was one of my first attendees. Donny is almost as bad as my dad. Neither of them will have a happy ending.”
“Thus, your protest.” He took a swig of beer, careful not to turn this into a blame game.
“Look,” she said, puffing out her cheeks. “I’m sorry I hassled you at your grand opening, but you have to understand where I’m coming from. A compulsive gambler is like a drug addict. They can’t stop. They don’t know how. So it’s up to those of us left behind to try to make sense of it all.
“My dad doesn’t want to change. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with him. He thinks the rest of the world is askew. I can’t change him, or the past, but maybe I can affect some small change in the world where he lives.” She stared at him, her brow furrowed with worry. “You seem like a decent person, Liam, but I won’t sit here and lie to you. I won’t pretend I like your line of work, because I don’t. I can’t. I’ve been hurt by it too many times.”
And here he wondered if she might sleep with him? He probably had a better chance with Beck outside. “And yet you give your dad more money so he never hits rock bottom?”
Her lip trembled in a way that made him want to put his arm around her. And, though he hated to admit it, it also made his pants feel tight. “I know, and that’s why I’m a fraud,” she said. “I shouldn’t be leading those meetings. My friends would be so disappointed if they knew the truth.”
He put down his beer and reached for her hand, wanting to make her feel better. Damn, her skin was soft. Surely it was no different than another woman’s, but for some reason it felt like velvet in his hands. “Last I checked, you weren’t nominated for a sainthood, so don’t worry if the halo doesn’t fit. Maybe you should stop worrying about helping your friends, and concentrate on helping yourself.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do, Kate. You’ve always known. Stop giving your father money. He has to hit his lowest point before he can get better.”
“The problem is, I’m afraid his rock bottom will only come with him at a cemetery. He should have hit his lowest point years ago.”
He brushed a hand against her cheek. “Why do you say that?”
She looked at him, her eyes now brimming with tears. “My mother died because of him. If he didn’t hit rock bottom over that, he won’t change just because I cut him off.”
He caught one of her tears as it trailed her cheek. “How did she die?”
“She killed herself.”
Fuck. Maybe the beer had rendered him overly sympathetic, but out of nowhere waves of sorrow began to wash over Liam, making him feel as if he were drowning in a vast ocean. “Oh, Jesus, Kate. I’m so sorry.” He gathered her into his arms and held her. She didn’t fight back and laid her head against his chest. It felt right there. He ran a hand over her soft hair, gathering her ponytail into his hand and fingering the silky mane.
“It happened ten years ago, but it feels like last week. She’d put up with my dad’s gambling since I was a kid, had begged him to stop until she was hoarse. When I was at college, he lost everything, cleared out my mom’s accounts, threw it all away. She’d begged so many bank managers for leniency, had borrowed so much money from family members and friends. The shame was just too much. She took a bunch of painkillers one night, and left a note saying she wanted it all to go away.”
Kate’s shoulders trembled in his arms. “And you know what he said to me when he found out? He said, ‘Katie-bug, I can’t believe she’d do such a thing after all the good years I gave her.’”
Liam said nothing. What could you say to that?
“I still feel sick when I think about it. Right after he said it, I must have spent the next hour crouched over the toilet. I puked my guts up every night for a week afterward. And my dad just kept on betting. He didn’t even come to the funeral. It made my skin
crawl, to see him so diseased.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I just couldn’t look him in the face anymore. My mom supported him their whole married life. She dug him out of every hole. And when he’d finally broken her, he still didn’t snap out of it. I don’t want my friend Lisa to end up the same way.”
“I’m sure she won’t. She has you.”
“My mom had me, too.” She let out a bitter laugh and swallowed back a huge gulp of beer. “What good am I? Lisa says she admires me, but she has no idea I still enable my dad.”
He grasped her by the shoulders. “Then justify Lisa’s faith in you. Right here. Right now.”
She blinked away a few more tears. She reached inside her handbag and produced a bank card and a small pair of craft scissors. “This card is how I leave him money. Will you cut up the card for me?”
“No. But I’ll hold it while you cut it up.”
She gazed at him, unsure. Liam offered her an encouraging grin and held the card out for her.
“Go on, Kate.”
With a nod, she positioned the scissors and cut straight through the plastic. Half of the card dropped on the table with an anticlimactic tap. Liam picked it up and she did it again to both halves.
She looked up at him as she put the scissors back in her bag, pale, but clearly relieved. Like the weight of the world, or at least a good sized chunk of it, had been taken of her shoulders.
“I’m proud of you.”
“I’ve been carrying those damn scissors around for months, trying to get up the courage.” She let out a quiet but shaky laugh. “I don’t think I could have done it without your help.”
His chest swelled with pride at that. He couldn’t have felt better if he’d discovered fire. “This calls for another beer.”
She smiled. “I’d like that. But you’d better make mine a cranberry juice. I’ve had enough excitement for one evening.”
As he motioned for the waitress, his gaze still locked on Kate, he was determined to give her a lot more excitement. Just not the card-cutting kind.
Kate stood in the ladies’ bathroom at Franky’s while Liam took care of their order. As much as possible, she cleaned up her mascara smudges with a wet tissue. She still had the chopped-up bits of bank card in her jeans pocket. Before she lost her nerve, she walked into one of the stalls, dug them out and dropped the plastic chunks into the toilet, flushing for good measure.
No way she could fish them out in a moment of weakness now.
Only she didn’t feel weak anymore. She felt like freaking Wonder Woman. Liam Doyle had helped her surmount her greatest fear. That had to go in the dictionary under the definition of ironic. In cutting up her card, her plastic crutch, she felt as if her last connection to her dad had been severed, and the ever-present ball of tension in her shoulders seemed to have rolled away.
As sad as it sounded, she needed to eliminate that bond. Their relationship was toxic, and until he accepted help there was nothing she could do for him. It was time to start taking her own advice.
She reapplied a bit of lip gloss and pinched her cheeks to give them some color. It seemed important to look good for Liam now. It was bad enough he looked as edible as a country-western sex god with his muscles, jeans and boots. She didn’t need to look like a pasty, snotty kid next to him. Grinning at her reflection in the mirror for encouragement, she left the restroom.
The shouts in the bar area caught her attention before she even got back to their booth. The band had stopped playing and everyone’s attention had gathered around two men. She craned her neck to look.
Liam had another man pressed up against the bar.
“Oh, my God.” She raced forward, pushing past a couple of bikers.
“What did you say to me?” Liam’s face was inches away from the other man’s.
“You heard me. Call off your boy Perreira. You’re fucking stalking me and my family. It’s bad enough I can’t go anywhere in my own house without hearing your name. Now I have to get threats from your legal team? Fuck you, Doyle. I don’t care if you can afford the best lawyer in town. You. Don’t. Get. Michelle.”
So this was Andy. She wanted to dislike him on Liam’s behalf, but she supposed she could see why he had a hold on Bridget. He was handsome, although lankier than Liam. She had to admit there was something about him that set her on edge. Perhaps it was the self-entitled air that surrounded him like a halo of smoke around a Vegas gambler.
Sure, she could understand why he’d resent Liam, but shouldn’t he also be somewhat appreciative? Liam had taken care of his family for three years. You’d think the man could muster up a little humility.
On the other hand, she hadn’t been harassed by lawyers for who-knows how long.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” said Liam. “You said yourself, Michelle loves me, not you. She’d be happier with me, you piece of shit. You abandoned her.”
Andy pushed Liam back. “Get the fuck off me, Doyle. I made my mistakes. I owned up to them. Bridget forgave me.”
“Well, I didn’t. And Bridget doesn’t know which way is up. Don’t play good daddy with me. I know you’re scum.”
“You’re pissed because Michelle’s my kid, not yours. And now the great Liam Doyle wants to get one of his prized possessions back.”
“She’s not a possession.” He curled his fist in the other man’s shirt.
“Could have fooled me, the way you’re after her. You got a special trophy case for her to live in?”
Kate sidled up to him and put a hand on his back. She felt his muscles tense, ready to lunge. “Liam, don’t rise to it.”
His eyes stayed locked on Andy. “He doesn’t deserve her.”
“I know. Come on. Let’s go sit down.”
Kate gently pried Liam off Andy. The crowd dispersed and the band resumed playing.
Andy straightened his collar and sneered. “Call off Perreira. And if I ever catch you trying to contact my wife or kid again, I’ll have you arrested.” He grunted. “You know, all this attention to another man’s daughter makes me think you might be a pervert. Some sort of sicko who gets off on children.”
Before she could stop him, Liam turned and let his fist fly. The resounding crack was one Kate would never forget. Andy fell back against the bar, cradling a bleeding nose.
“I’ll sue your fucking ass,” he shouted in a nasal voice. “I’ve got witnesses!”
A few of the men drew near, Beck and Nolan and a big man from behind the bar she assumed to be Franky. Beck ambled forward and put a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, friend,” he said. “It’s pretty dark in here. Hard to see.”
“Yeah,” echoed Nolan. “Hell, I’ve had so many beers tonight, I’m not even sure where I am.”
Franky helped Andy to his feet, but not out of kindness. “Get the fuck out of my bar, dipshit. I don’t like people who upset my regulars.” He wiped a glass with a tea towel, but his gesture indicated he’d rather wipe the floor with Andy.
Andy let out a laugh laced with spite and glared at Liam. “Guess you own this place too, huh?” Muttering to himself, he staggered out of the bar.
Kate ushered Liam back to their table. He still resembled a serpent waiting to strike, his shoulders and arms tight, and muscles coiled.
He turned to her as they sat down. “You don’t believe that garbage he was spewing, do you? Please tell me you don’t believe it.”
The crack in his voice moved her more than she’d expected. “Of course not. He’s angry and just wanted to hurt you. How did he even find you?”
He shook his head, staring at the table. “Bridget must have told him I come here. When I spotted him, I lost it.” He looked at her, his brows pulled together, his mouth tight. “I lost it, Kate. They’ve made it clear I’m not part of the family. Michelle’s not mine, but it’s so har
d to see her saddled with that asshole. What do I do?”
She placed her hand on his leg. She longed to stroke his thigh, but she kept her hand still. What would Liam want with a nutty protester who’d been trying to shut him down a week ago? They were just nursing old wounds and trying to find a little bit of support in each other.
“You let them go, Liam. Just like I had to let my father go. Right here. Right now. For three years, you did right by that little girl, but for your own peace of mind, you need to say ‘goodbye.’ Call off your lawyer.”
“She won’t remember me.”
“But you’ll remember, and you’ll know you always acted in her best interests.”
“It doesn’t feel that way. I feel like I need to protect her from him. Do more for her.”
“A wise man once told me I needed to take care of myself, too.” She squeezed his leg, unable to resist the pull any longer. He covered her hand with his. “Take care of yourself. Give yourself what you need now.”
Liam gazed at her, his eyes bright. His expression, full of surprise and sudden heat, made her squirm in her seat. He leaned in and his masculine scent flooded her nostrils. He smelled so good, looked so good, and she wanted him more than she wanted anything else.
When he spoke, his voice low and his mouth near her ear, he shattered what was left of her resistance. “I need you, Kate. Fuck, I need you right now.”
“Oh…”
She barely got the exclamation out before he pulled her to him. God help her, she let herself be wrapped up in his arms and indulged in a moment she knew would inspire future, copious bouts of self-pleasure.
He pulled her against his wall of a chest, and she let out a squeak. His lips smashed against hers and she struggled to catch her breath under his unexpected but welcomed invasion. Their lips parted and his tongue slipped between hers, soft and strong all in one tasty package. She opened to him, panting, wanting more, wanting his touch all over her body.
She wanted him to kiss and lick and tease her. She craved the feel of his silky tongue on her neck, on her breasts and sliding between her swollen pussy lips. She wanted Liam Doyle to swallow her whole, ride her on a wave of orgasmic delight, and then do it all over again.