Loving the Storm

by Linda Seed

  “Oh. No.” Julia’s pretty face showed a hint of discomfort, a little line forming between her brows. “That’s … problematic.”

  “Because Drew is with Liam’s ex,” Aria supplied.

  Julia looked relieved that Aria already knew the basics.

  “Liam’s been really big about it. I mean, really big. But that doesn’t mean he wants to pass the turkey to his ex while she makes mooney eyes at his cousin.” Julia rolled her eyes to indicate the sheer awfulness of that potential scenario.

  “Does he still have feelings for her?” As she said it, Aria realized that was what she really wanted to know. This conversation wasn’t about family gossip, or holiday dinner table awkwardness, or even making small talk with Liam’s family. It was about this one central question.

  “Yes.”

  Julia said it so simply and unequivocally that Aria felt her heart stutter. It wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear, but there it was. “Oh.”

  “He’s not in love with her anymore,” Julia said. “I really believe that. But he cares about her. Enough that he was willing to walk away so she could be happy.” Julia had a glass of wine in her hand, and she turned the stem between her fingers, looking down into the glass, as she considered what she was trying to say. “Liam has a tendency to seem like kind of a jerk when you first meet him. You know? That’s how he seemed to me, anyway. But the way he handled the thing with Drew and Megan … It made me rethink things. It made me rethink him.”

  Competing feelings warred within Aria: jealousy about whatever emotions Liam might still harbor for Megan versus admiration for him because he’d put aside his own heartbreak for the benefit of the woman he’d loved.

  She wasn’t entirely comfortable with either of those feelings, because both of them meant she was in this deeper than she wanted to be.

  She told herself she didn’t care whether Liam had feelings for his ex, whether he was more noble than she’d realized, or whether she herself was his one best hope for finally repairing his heart.

  None of that mattered because they weren’t in a relationship. They were just having fun. That was all this was. That was all this would ever be.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Liam came downstairs feeling surprisingly nervous. What did he have to be nervous about? It was just dinner with his family, for God’s sake. He’d had dinner with his family thousands of times. And sometimes he even brought a woman. It wasn’t unprecedented.

  But it had never been Christmas dinner with this woman, and that made it different.

  He spotted her right away amid the various family members who were standing around the living room holding drinks and making conversation. She was sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace, listening intently to Julia.

  The fact that he’d been a raging asshole to Julia when they’d first met crossed his mind. What was she saying about him? Was she telling Aria how Liam had actually punched Colin in the face over his relationship with Julia? Was she telling Aria to run like hell?

  Things had been pretty good between Liam and Julia for some time now, but who was to say she didn’t still hold a grudge?

  But then Julia looked up and saw him as he came down the stairs, and their eyes met. The way she smiled at him—the way the smile was real and warm and reached her eyes—told him he needn’t have worried.

  Then Julia said something to Aria, and she looked up at him, too, and what he saw in her face was much less reassuring.

  What he saw there wasn’t love or even friendship. It wasn’t amusement or interest or annoyance.

  What he saw was fear.

  He knew that if he were smart, he would take that as a warning and begin distancing himself now, before it was too late. He could go with the lie that things were just casual between them, and back away before one or both of them got badly hurt.

  But he didn’t want to do any of that. All he wanted to do was go to her, hold her in his arms, protect and reassure her.

  He came the rest of the way down the stairs and crossed the room to where they were sitting. He put his hand on Aria’s shoulder and squeezed lightly to send her the message that he was here and everything was okay.

  “You get anything to drink yet?” he asked her.

  “Uh … not yet.”

  “Sit tight, I’ll get you a glass of wine.” The shoulder squeeze again, his way of wordlessly communicating that she was safe with him, that he wouldn’t let any harm come to her.

  “Don’t let her run off,” he said to Julia, only partly kidding.

  In the kitchen, his mother and Breanna were bustling around pulling food from the oven, chopping things, stirring other things, and arranging things on platters while Gen fed her son, a blanket discreetly draped from her shoulder down over the baby’s head.

  The place smelled like roast turkey, fresh rolls, and about seven kinds of pie.

  “Well, there you are, boy.” Sandra straightened up from where she’d been bent over checking the temperature of the bird. She closed the oven, put her hands on her hips, and scowled at him.

  Sandra was wearing her usual bunny slippers and football jersey, and her graying hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail. Her face, weathered by years of hard work, was free of makeup.

  “You been looking for me?” he asked, picking up a carrot stick from a cutting board and popping it into his mouth.

  “If I’m looking for you, I damned well know where to find you,” Sandra declared. “But that girl of yours has been here for a while, and a gentleman wouldn’t make her wait.”

  “I’m a gentleman,” Liam said, wounded.

  “My dog thinks she’s an antelope. Doesn’t make it true,” Colin said from a far corner of the kitchen, where he was opening a bottle of wine.

  “Yeah? My ass thinks it’s your face, and—”

  “You boys get the hell out of my kitchen. Both of you,” Sandra said, making a shooing gesture with both hands.

  Liam grabbed two wineglasses from a cabinet, snagged the bottle of chardonnay Colin had just opened, and headed toward the door. On his way out, he paused and said, “Mom?”

  She grunted in response, poking a fork into a casserole that was still steaming.

  “Could you maybe … I don’t know … maybe not say the your girl thing in front of Aria?”

  “Why the hell not? She’s your girl, isn’t she? And if she’s not, why the hell did you invite her for Christmas dinner?”

  He hesitated. “The thing is … we don’t really have all of that worked out yet.”

  She turned her full attention to him, her fists back on her hips where they so often resided. “Well, she might not have it all worked out yet, but I know my son, and by God, she’s your girl.”

  He’d never been able to get anything past his mother—she read him as clearly as if he came with a booklet of instructions. He could try explaining everything to her, but he knew he didn’t have to.

  “Just … please?”

  Her face softened a little, and she nodded. Then she lowered her voice so the others couldn’t hear. “Well, now. You think she’s the one, don’t you?”

  He thought to deny it, but again, there was no putting anything past Sandra.

  “She might be.”

  Her face went hard again, then she turned him around with her hands on his shoulders and gave him a shove toward the door. “Then don’t leave her waiting, son.”

  He thought he heard her voice break with emotion, but he didn’t turn around.

  The dinner went all right, from Liam’s perspective. Everyone gathered around the big, rough-hewn farm table and ate enough food to nourish a small country. Breanna talked about her house; Colin and Julia talked about the Delaney ranch property in Montana, where they lived; Ryan and Gen took turns holding the baby while the other one ate; Breanna’s boys talked about everything they’d gotten under the tree that morning; and Sandra talked about the food—whether everyone liked it, whether anyone needed more of it, and who was going to help her
clean up after the making of it.

  Aria didn’t talk about much, which worried him. He supposed it might have been normal, since she didn’t know everyone very well, and it was never easy being a guest amid such a large and tight-knit family. But he worried it was more than that. He worried there was something on her mind, and that whatever it was didn’t bode well for him.

  He kept refilling her wineglass in the hope that a little alcohol might relax her and drain some of the obvious tension she was feeling. But she wasn’t drinking enough for that strategy to be effective.

  He eyed her nervously, and he asked after her welfare. Did she have enough turkey? Did she want another roll? Was she feeling a draft where she was sitting?

  His solicitous behavior began to attract the attention of his brothers, which wasn’t a positive development, as his brothers tended toward teasing the crap out of him, especially in front of women.

  “I guess Aria knows how to get another roll if she wants it, Liam,” Ryan said, a forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to his mouth. “But if you’re having trouble with it yourself, I can put one on your plate for you.”

  “If you’re having trouble finding your ass, I can stick my foot up it for you,” Liam replied conversationally.

  “This is why I love my family,” Colin told Aria. “The high level of discourse.”

  “There any more of them potatoes?” Orin wanted to know.

  “Uncle Liam? Could you really kick Uncle Ryan’s ass?” Michael asked.

  “We don’t use that kind of language at the table,” Breanna told her son.

  “But Uncle Liam did,” Lucas pointed out helpfully.

  “You bet your … butt I could,” Liam told Michael as though Breanna hadn’t spoken. “But it would be unkind. His kid needs a dad who has all his teeth.”

  “Well, someday your kids are going to want a dad who’s not a dick,” Ryan told Liam. “But we can’t all get what we want.”

  “Boys! By God, you’d think I raised you in a damned barn.” Sandra paused. “Come to think of it, I guess I did.”

  “Except me,” Colin observed. “That’s probably why I’m the only one who doesn’t embarrass you in front of company.”

  “You’re also the only damned one who can’t rope a calf,” Orin said.

  “Fortunately, there wasn’t much call for calf roping in law school,” Colin pointed out.

  To Liam, it had all the elements of a satisfying family experience: good food, sibling togetherness, and the harmless banter he’d always enjoyed with his brothers. But the tension was coming off Aria in waves.

  “You okay?” he asked her in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.

  “I’m fine.” She kept her gaze on her plate.

  Liam had the sense he was fucking things up. He just wished to hell he knew how.

  With every word Liam’s family spoke, Aria could feel herself getting in deeper.

  This—all of this—was exactly what she’d always wanted. The brothers playfully teasing each other, the kids chiming in and being lovingly scolded, Sandra and Orin trying to keep some kind of control over their happy but unruly brood.

  This was what she’d wanted and never had, and likely never would have.

  The noise and warmth and activity of a house where people felt at home, felt loved, and felt as though they belonged—how many times had she prayed for just such a thing?

  It was hard enough sitting here among the things that she’d always missed. But then Ryan had mentioned Liam’s children.

  It had been a joke, a careless tease. But Aria couldn’t help thinking of those children who would one day play in this house, sit around this dinner table. What would they look like? Would they have Liam’s eyes, his lanky build, his gruff exterior and his kind, loving heart?

  The thought of those imaginary children—those sweet, Liam-like children with their warm bodies and their messy hair smelling of baby shampoo—filled her with such longing that she almost swooned with it.

  And then Ryan handed the baby to Liam.

  Watching him cradle the boy’s tiny body, the way he smiled at the infant with such warmth and love, made Aria see his future in that moment. She wanted to be in that future with everything she was, everything she had.

  When it came to family—when it came to love—Aria had never gotten what she wanted. Not once in her life. Not even one time. Not ever.

  Wanting something with this level of intensity, this bone-deep need, would kill her when it didn’t happen. And that was the way she thought of it: when it didn’t happen, not if.

  She felt a heavy sickness in her gut, and her eyes started to fill with tears. She wiped them away, silently staring at her plate.

  “Aria, girl, you all right?” Sandra barked at her.

  She blinked hard to clear her vision.

  “I just … I’m not …” The words wouldn’t come. “Excuse me.”

  She got up from her seat at the table, thinking to tuck herself away in the private safety of the bathroom until she could compose herself. Instead, she left the kitchen, snatched up her jacket and her purse, and headed out the front door.

  The cold smacked her skin hard as she went down the porch steps, and she hunched her shoulders up around her ears for warmth. She barely got down the steps and onto the path before she heard the front door open and Liam calling after her.

  “Aria? Where are you going? What the hell?”

  He didn’t sound angry, just puzzled and hurt.

  “I have to go.” She didn’t look at him, just focused on her shoes as the cold of the evening bit her skin.

  “Why? Did somebody say something to you? Was it my brothers? Look, they’re assholes, but they don’t mean anything by it.”

  She shook her head, still looking at the cold ground in front of her. “No. It’s not … Your family is great.”

  “Then what?” He’d come all the way down the stairs and had reached her now. He was standing so close she could feel the warmth of his body from inches away. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she resisted the urge to shake it off.

  “I don’t belong here.” She murmured the words, and at first, she wasn’t sure he’d heard her.

  But then his hand tightened on her arm, and she knew he had.

  “You do. You do belong here.” He swallowed audibly. “Aria, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, she raised her eyes and met his. What she saw there—the tenderness and hurt—scared her.

  “You do belong here.” He started to say something, then stopped. Then his expression hardened. “I know I’m not supposed to say this. I know you don’t want to hear it. But goddamn it, I love you, and I’m not going to stop. Come in the house, Aria. This is where you should be. Here. With me.”

  She knew he didn’t just mean now, tonight, for Christmas dinner. He meant forever. And she knew the truth about that: Nobody did forever. They said they would sometimes, but they never stuck.

  Never.

  “Liam. Let me go.”

  He held her arm for just a moment longer, his grip meant to reassure rather than intimidate. Then he let go and let his arm fall to his side.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I just can’t.”

  She turned and rushed down the path that led to the guesthouse.

  Chapter Thirty

  Liam didn’t feel much like celebrating the holiday when he went back inside. But he had it in mind to act like everything was normal, to avoid having to answer too many questions from his family.

  He knew that wasn’t going to work as soon as he sat back down at the table.

  “What happened? Where did she go? Is everything all right?” Gen asked, her face full of concern.

  “How the hell should I know?” Liam pushed back his chair, stood up, and stalked over to the refrigerator to get a beer.

  “Well, for God’s sake, what did she say? Why’d she tear out of here like her damned hair was on fire?” Sandra said.

  Liam, now standing a few feet from the
dinner table with the beer in his hand, shrugged. “She’s gone, that’s all I know.” He kept his voice and his posture casual, but inside, he felt like his stomach was being gnawed by some kind of angry animal.

  “Liam? What do you mean, she’s gone?” Julia asked.

  Liam took a long swig from his beer. “You know something? I really don’t fuckin’ want to talk about it.”

  “Uncle Liam said the F word,” Michael pointed out. “He’s not allowed to do that at the dinner table, is he?”

  Nobody answered.

  Liam took his beer upstairs to his room and closed the door.

  He didn’t want to talk to anyone, or come back downstairs, or finish eating his dinner. All he wanted to do was lie on his bed, drink his beer, and feel sorry for himself.

  He was not going to cry, because he was a man, for fuck’s sake, and men held it together better than that. What he was going to do was drink. But he couldn’t do much of that without leaving his room, since he hadn’t thought to bring more than the one beer with him.

  One nice thing about siblings was that they knew what you needed, and more often than not, they came through with it for you.

  Ryan had a bottle of bourbon and two stubby glasses in his hand when he came knocking on the door, and that made it damned near impossible to turn him away.

  He was sitting on Liam’s desk chair pouring the bourbon when Colin came in without knocking, and without an invitation.

  Breanna was no more than a couple of minutes behind him.

  “I only brought two glasses,” Ryan observed, passing one of the glasses to Liam, who was sitting on his bed with his back against the headboard.

  “I’m on it,” Colin said. He slipped out the door and came back a few minutes later with two more glasses.

  Ryan poured, and everyone sat wherever they could find a spot: Breanna on the foot of the bed, Colin perched on the edge of Liam’s desk.

  “So, what do you need?” Colin asked, taking a sip of the bourbon. “You need us to trash-talk her, tell you she’s not worth the effort?”

  “No.” Liam shook his head. His eyes felt hot and gritty with the effort not to cry in front of his siblings. He tossed back the one finger of bourbon that was in his glass, then held the glass out to Ryan for a refill.