But he was curious, Dani could see that. And Garrett wasn’t a secret. So why not explain? And remember the cautionary tale she needed when she was sitting across from someone who could be carrying around the same tendencies...
“Garrett and I were engaged,” she said.
Liam’s eyebrows arched at that. “Oh. I was thinking that he might be some kind of stalker or something—some guy who’s been trying to get you to go out with him. That maybe you used your grandmother as an excuse not to and that’s why he thought he might have a shot now that she’s gone.”
Dani raised her own eyebrows at him. “You’ve done a lot of thinking about it in the last couple of hours.”
Liam broke into a grin. “Just because I wasn’t sure if you needed some kind of protection from him, you know...if he was a stalker,” he claimed.
Dani didn’t buy that for a minute. Garrett was imposing but he wasn’t threatening, and he’d taken the brush-off of his invitation to dinner without a problem. But it was flattering that Liam was curious about the other man so she didn’t call him on it.
“Garrett is a Denver police detective and he isn’t stalking me. The breakup wasn’t fun, but tonight was the first time I’ve seen him since.”
“How long ago did you end it?”
“How do you know it was me who ended it?”
“I could tell. Plus he didn’t seem stupid enough to let you go.”
Dani tried to like his response less than she did.
“So how long ago did you end it?” he repeated.
“Three months ago.”
“Three months ago... Not long before your grandmother died. I thought it was a lot for you to deal with losing your grandmother and still dig in here with the twins right after that. But, on top of it, you were fresh out of a breakup, too? That makes it even worse.”
Dani acknowledged that with a nod. “There’s been a lot of big stuff in a short amount of time, yeah.”
“His being a cop explains a couple of things he said, though—what he was doing at the mall, seeing the accident report...” Liam observed.
She thought that Garrett being a cop explained most things about him. “His being a cop is also why it’s especially good that you didn’t react to his spitefulness. For Garrett, his position gives him a sense of power that can go a little wonky. He considers the slightest thing people say or do to be disrespecting his authority. And it’s not beyond him to escalate situations and then charge someone with assaulting an officer if the other person reacts badly. He’s bragged about doing that, laughed about how he has the upper hand if someone doesn’t take what he’s dishing out.”
“And he was dishing it out because he assumed we were dating or something and he was jealous. He probably would have enjoyed a reason to arrest me,” Liam said with some humor. “Did your grandmother not approve of him? Is that why she was an issue?”
“We were together quite a while—over three years—so Gramma kind of followed the same route I did with Garrett. It was all good at the start and then it evolved into not so good.”
“And she ended up chasing him with one of those big kitchen knives at the restaurant?” Liam joked.
Dani laughed. “Is that wishful thinking? No, Gramma never did anything like that. In fact I don’t think she ever knew she was one of our issues. I hope she didn’t.”
“So how was she an issue?”
Dani finished her Italian ice and set her empty bowl next to his on the fire pit, trying not to notice as Liam propped an ankle on top of the opposite knee and brought a stockinged foot to her attention again.
A really big stockinged foot that really did make this feel more intimate than she wished it did.
Still, she tried to focus only on their conversation about her relationship with Garrett.
“Being a cop is a stressful job,” she said. “Garrett is good at it and, like I said, he likes the power, but the day after day of it changed him over time. Not that he wasn’t a pretty serious person from the start, because he was. But it got to where he wasn’t ever not super serious. And along with that, what he saw on the job made him... I don’t want to say paranoid, but he really kind of was. At least about me—”
“About you?” Liam asked, sounding as if he didn’t know what she meant.
“At first it was only small things, so I just kind of adapted to it to humor him because it seemed to make him feel better.”
“Were you thinking he was like your dad somehow?” Liam asked.
“Some. I mean my dad’s PTSD came from what he’d seen and experienced, and yeah, I think Garrett’s stuff comes from what he’s seen and experienced, too. Only my mom had to deal with the aftermath. With Garrett I thought I could prevent some of his anxiety before it got any worse if I just did what he asked. Small things—like if I called to check in with him or let him know I’d made it home safely. I just saw it as making him comfortable by doing things that weren’t a big deal to me. But it sort of fed the beast rather than kept the problems from getting worse.”
“He did get worse?”
“He did. Especially after we got engaged. He started wanting to know my every move every day. He said he investigated people who went missing and those cases turned out best when he had a clear picture of where that person was before disappearing, but that too often no one who knew them knew what they’d had planned.”
“So you gave him your schedule every day.”
“In detail. It was kind of a pain, but I did it. All the while telling him I could take care of myself, hoping he’d see that, relax, not need it so much. But that didn’t happen. Then he started telling me that I couldn’t do things—”
“Such as?”
“Meet a friend somewhere he said was a seedy part of town. Or that I couldn’t close the restaurant on Griff’s nights off so my grandmother could go home early.”
“And that made your grandmother an issue?”
“My grandmother, the restaurant, the fact that we ran a business that was open late in the evening and could be robbed... By the end he was saying that the only time he could feel like I was completely safe was when I was with him.” She sighed with the memory of it all before she went on.
“And when it came to Gramma it was even more than his concerns for safety,” she admitted. “He doesn’t have any family and he really didn’t understand that it can involve demands on your time—especially as people age. The last year or so that we were together he just...” She shrugged. “He got madder and madder that my grandmother needed my help. He said it was unreasonable.”
“He thought you should tell the woman who raised you to take a flying leap when she got old enough to need the roles reversed?”
“He just didn’t get it,” she said.
“And how did Grady and Evie get to know him?” Liam asked.
“He was our ‘protection detail,’” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s what he’d say if he had time off when I was with them, if I was taking them somewhere. So he went to museums with us. The zoo. But it wasn’t good for the kids.”
“Why?”
“Garrett was definitely in the seen-and-not-heard camp when it came to kids, so if they didn’t sit like little statues or if they made noise when he was with us, he thought they were ‘totally out of control’—his words.”
“When they were just doing normal kid stuff?”
Dani was glad that he was coming to understand what normal kid behavior was. “Yes!” she said with some praise in her tone. “And when they argued—”
“Which they do a lot,” Liam said with a small laugh.
“Because they’re siblings and siblings fight—”
“Oh, yeah—my brothers and I had some knockdown, drag-out battles. And there were plenty of tussles with Kinsey, too,” he said.
“But again, Garrett was an only child and he did
n’t understand that it was normal. So when they argued it was a big deal to him. He said I didn’t have any idea how many delinquents he had to arrest because they thought they could run wild. And if I didn’t have a firmer hand I was creating two more.”
“I guess that could come from some job anxiety spilling over. But Grady and Evie are not delinquents in the making.”
And Liam was clearly feeling a little defensive over them—something else she was pleased to see.
“No, they aren’t,” she assured. “And a few times he stepped in when it wasn’t his place to, scared them and we had to have it out about that.”
“Doesn’t sound like he would have made much of a dad either,” Liam observed.
“That was another thing I started to see,” she admitted. “We did not agree on how to raise kids and when it came up over Evie and Grady it was an eye-opener.”
“And why they don’t like him much.”
“They couldn’t be comfortable around him, that’s for sure. Not that he put any effort into making them comfortable, because he didn’t.”
Liam smiled crookedly. “You couldn’t teach him how to do better, the way you’re trying to teach me?”
Dani laughed. “He wasn’t open to suggestions.” And Liam was—he really did get kudos from her for that. Yes, the military stiffness seemed to come more naturally to him, but he was trying to mend his ways, to learn how to better handle the kids, relate to them.
“So what was the final straw?” Liam asked.
“Oh, it was more like everything just came to a head. I was trying so hard to appease him and that was wearing on me. Then we had a big fight about Gramma because she had a cold and I wanted to stop by and see her after he and I had dinner to check on her—”
“He didn’t want to?”
“No. He said I was babying her and somehow that evolved into a talk about how, yes, if the day came when she couldn’t live alone, I would want her to live with us, and that set him off royally! Then the day after that he went to the zoo with the kids and I for the second...or maybe it was the third time so he should have known how it went...but he lost it over them running from exhibit to exhibit and yelling to each other when they got excited about things they saw. That led to another fight later that night about raising kids and... I just knew,” she said with finality and some sad resignation. “I gave back the ring.”
“How did he take it?”
“Not well,” she understated.
“How’d you take it?” he asked, studying her face.
“I’m kind of ashamed to say that it was more of a relief to me than anything. By then the tension in the relationship was so bad that I was more on edge with him than in love with him. When I returned the ring I felt like I’d set myself free.”
“And seeing him again tonight? Did that change anything?”
Dani shook her head slowly. “I hated the way he acted tonight. To you, to the kids. I was glad all over again that I’m not involved with him anymore. I did care for him. I wouldn’t have been with him as long as I was or accepted his proposal if I hadn’t. But he kind of wore that out. He wore me out. And when he did I realized that I couldn’t be happy with a personality like that. I need things a lot more easygoing, mellow, flexible.”
“I can see that,” he said kindly.
For a moment he let it all lay, as if giving her a chance to put it behind her again.
Then the expression on his handsome face turned mischievous and his smile had a wicked hint to it as he said, “So you’re into flexible, huh?”
The innuendo made her laugh and really did lighten things up.
“And you’re into order and regimentation,” she accused, to remind both of them.
His smile grew. “Not all the time,” he contended. “Especially since meeting you, flexibility is my middle name.”
Dani laughed again. “Oh, that’s you all right, Mr. Flexibility.”
“Haven’t I been?” he said, challenging her to deny it.
“You are working on it,” was all she allowed him.
“Don’t burn me because of yesterday,” he defended himself. “Yesterday was a bad day—I think I should get a pass on that. Everybody’s entitled to one of those now and then.”
“Okay, you’re right,” she conceded because he had had good reason to withdraw yesterday and he had also rebounded from it with no lingering effects.
“And you said yourself that I did good today,” he persisted.
“You did,” she agreed.
There was a slight pause as more of that devilish smile appeared. “You know,” he said, “the kids get rewarded for that...”
“I brought you Italian ice. You didn’t like it.”
“I didn’t, no,” he said, his voice deeper. “But I did so well today I really think I should have a second choice.”
Something in the air around them was suddenly electric and there was a look in those gorgeous blue eyes of his that was warm and lazy and so sexy it made the surface of her skin nearly quiver.
She shouldn’t be encouraging this, but she’d wanted him to kiss her again since the minute his lips had left hers the night before. Now that she had the chance for it, she couldn’t deny herself.
So she said, “Okay. What else would you like as a reward?”
That oh-so-divinely-wicked smile became an oh-so-divinely-wicked grin. His gaze dropped to her lips. And just when she thought he was going to kiss her, he said, “Another bowl of that soup,” and made her laugh instead.
Enjoying his own joke, he grinned even wider.
But somehow not even humor blunted the electricity that was firing between them and he kissed her.
He reached one big hand to the back of her neck to bring their mouths together in a kiss that seemed like it should have been playful in that moment. But instead it was instantly infused with something that said finally or at last, as if they’d both just been waiting for this since the previous night’s kiss.
Which had been very nice. But this one was far more.
His arms wrapped around her so he could pull her completely to him. His lips parted and when she followed that lead, his tongue made its way to hers.
The kiss was playful but with a lot of heat and spice that caused mouths to open even wider and carried Dani away into a make-out session that was all the more heavenly with the fire burning beside them.
She turned into putty in those arms that were holding her against the solid wall of his chest. She could feel the contained strength of biceps that cradled her while the things he did with his mouth, with his tongue, drove her to distraction.
One of her own arms had gone around him at some point when she wasn’t even thinking about it but her other was caught between them, her hand in a loose fist. A loose fist she realized that she could open to press her palm to his chest.
But it was his hand on her chest that she really wanted and, even as their kissing gained intensity, that thought shook her a little.
Making out with him was one thing. But wanting it to go to the next step? Considering how to get there?
That was going too far, she told herself.
So rather than pressing her palm to his chest to enjoy the feel of it and to give him a hint, she used it to gently push him away as her tongue retreated from his and the kiss became only a nice kiss again.
Another push separated their mouths and Liam took a deep breath, sighing it out before he opened his eyes to look down into hers once more.
“Now that was a reward,” he said, his voice deeper still.
“I thought you wanted soup?” she challenged.
He smiled. “Your soup is amazing,” he said rapturously. “But not quite as amazing as you are.”
His arms eased reluctantly from around her and he sat back. Then he said, “I’m thinking that gaining flexibility is sh
ooting the hell out of my self-discipline.”
He used an index finger to move her hair away from her shoulder and she sensed if she didn’t do something he was going to kiss her again. And if he did she knew she’d let him. But since she wasn’t sure where things might go from there, she decided she’d better avoid it.
So she stood, turned off the fire pit, gathered their bowls and the monitor and went inside.
A few minutes passed before Liam came in, too, closing and locking the sliding doors behind him.
“Tomorrow,” he said, much like he had every other night, “you’re making me go to the Butterfly Pavilion?”
Dani laughed at him. “There are spiders and tarantulas and all kinds of bugs, if that makes it seem more manly to you.”
“I don’t know how a place called the Butterfly Pavilion can be manly, but if you say so... And you’re okay with my plan to have breakfast with Declan every morning?”
“Absolutely,” she said as she put the rinsed bowls into the dishwasher. “I think it’s a great idea. It’ll give you the chance to spend time with him and I think that can only help.”
“I hope you’re right. I’ll be home not long after the kids have breakfast. Evie even agreed to try boot camp workout tomorrow,” he added, sounding proud of himself for accomplishing the agreement.
“Grady has been bragging about how he can do a push-up and she can’t.”
Liam laughed. “You should see his push-up.”
“Oh, he showed me. Mostly his rear end goes into the air and nothing else really goes anywhere.”
“Yep. He’s really good at it,” Liam added drolly.
And that brought the evening to its conclusion, but they both just stood there for a moment longer.
A moment during which Dani was just willing him to come closer and kiss her again even though she told herself to cut it out.
Then she summoned a force of will, pulled her shoulders back and said, “It’s late.”
Liam nodded but he didn’t say anything. He just kept looking at her as if he couldn’t get his fill.
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