by Laura Drewry
“She is pretty good lookin’, isn’t she?”
“Cha,” Finn sputtered, almost as if he’d been thinking the same thing and had been waiting for Liam to say it. “But you know I’m screwing with you, right? Good looking or not, marriage to anyone back then would’ve messed you up.”
Liam nodded absently as Finn straightened and leaned against his fork.
“So the divorce was your idea? I bet that was an interesting conversation.”
“Yeah, well, there wasn’t much to say,” Liam mumbled. “I just sort of sent her the paperwork.”
“Seriously?” Finn winced. “Wow—that was pretty dickish.”
“It gets worse.” He lifted another fork of shingles as he filled Finn in on the basic facts, then cleared his throat. “So I wasn’t lying when I said I was a dick to her. Never even spoke to her again until she showed up here yesterday.”
“Holy shiiiit. That’s—”
“I know.” Liam shook his head. “Jessie told me I need to grow a pair and apologize, but I haven’t quite gotten there yet.”
“You haven’t—” Finn was no angel, so for him to be that gobsmacked, it had to be bad. “You’ve had ten years, dude, what are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know.” He could have easily said something like he was waiting for the right moment, but there’d been plenty of right moments, especially in the last day. No, the truth was, he’d been waiting for a little courage to come find him, but as much as he hated to admit it, Jessie was right: It was past time he grew a pair and got on with it.
He and Finn didn’t talk much about anything after that, but when they did, it was all about the roof they were working on, the ones they still had to do, and how many trips it would take in the boat to get all the recyclable stuff over to Port Hardy—guy stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with right, wrong, or, God forbid, feelings.
It was probably just as well, because ever since that damn Cessna dumped Kate in their laps yesterday, Liam had been hit with a whole mash-up of feelings, most of which he hadn’t felt since the first time he’d seen her standing in that damn casino. Lust, fascination, curiosity, and something else he’d never been able to define. It was as if being with her had made him feel…alive…and along with “smitten,” that was something else he’d never say out loud, especially standing there with Finn, who’d no doubt fall off the roof laughing if Liam gave voice to either word.
With the entire roof stripped and prepped, they were securing the last of the felt underlay when Jessie’s voice came over the radio dangling from Finn’s belt.
“It’s a little late, but I’m heating up leftovers if you want some lunch.”
“Thank God,” Finn muttered. “Let’s go.”
Liam wasn’t in quite the same hurry as Finn. Sure, his stomach had matched Finn’s growl for growl, but it meant facing Kate again so soon after realizing what he had to do. It’d taken him ten years to get that far, so he was going to need a little more time to figure anything else out.
Maybe he’d just grab some food and eat outside.
It was only a couple of hundred meters from the Orange cabin to the lodge, so that didn’t give him much time to get his shit together, and what little he did manage to get was shot all to hell when he walked into the pub and saw Kate sitting there smiling at something Jessie said.
Finn jumped right into their conversation, but Liam kept his mouth shut until he could fill it with a forkful of leftover stew. Jessie didn’t even let them swallow before she started.
“The good news,” she said, “is that Kate’s friend is going to design the website for us. She’s done a couple other sites that needed reservations systems, so she’ll be good to go with this.”
“And the bad news?” Finn asked.
“Looks like we’ve got a weather system coming in the day after tomorrow. Probably just rain, but they’re not ruling out more snow, either, so we need those cabin roofs finished in case it does turn out to be snow and then we’re stuck.”
Finn and Liam blinked first at each other, then at Jessie.
“I know those roofs aren’t huge,” Liam said. “But this isn’t something we do every day. We’ll be lucky to get this one finished before dark; there’s no way we’re going to get all three done by tomorrow night.”
“I know. That’s why Kate and I are going to help, right, Kate?”
Kate nodded over a swallow. “Mm-hmm.”
“No.” It was out of Liam’s mouth before he could stop it, leaving everyone else at the table staring at him. “Finn and I’ll work on different cabins, split the job up and get it done faster.”
“Not gonna happen,” Jessie said. “The last time I let one of you O’Donnells do a roofing project alone, we had to call in the medevac.”
“What?” Kate choked, her eyes wide.
“Jimmy.” Jessie made the sign of the cross as she said his name, which was great, until she added an eye roll and shook her head. “Refused to let anyone up there with him, tripped over his own big Irish feet, and fell off; landed on a stack of shingles and ended up with a concussion, two broken ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. He laid there over half an hour before I found him.”
As their first-aid attendant, Jessie had sounded calm, cool, and completely under control when she’d called Liam to tell him what happened. The next day, when he talked to Finn, who’d taken some personal time to fly down, Liam got a slightly different version of how Jessie was doing.
As soon as the old man had been released from the hospital, Da and Finn had flown back to the Buoys, where Jessie was in no mood for any more of Da’s shit. She’d made sure he was good and comfortable in his bed, then headed straight into the bar, sat down, and sobbed until Finn threatened to call the medevac back for her, too.
“We’re not ever doing that again,” Jessie said, which was why, half an hour later, the four of them were all heading back toward the cabins.
“Jess and I’ll go start on Green,” Finn said, already heading for the far cabin. “When you and Kate finish getting Orange shingled, you can start ripping up White.”
Jessie hustled after Finn, but not before Liam caught a glimpse of the grin on her face. Yeah, this was real funny.
With the White cabin separating them, it was impossible for Liam to hear what his stupid brother was saying, but it made Jessie laugh hard, so it was obviously something at Liam’s expense.
After holding the ladder for Kate, he climbed up behind her, hauling a stack of shingles with him. They spent a few awkward minutes going over what needed to be done and how they were going to work together on it, but once that was settled, Liam couldn’t seem to force anything else from his tongue. Kate, on the other hand…
“You never told me you and your family were fishermen.” She waited until Liam had laid down a pyramid of shingles, starting at the center edge, then began laying the next ones flush against his, using her own nail gun to secure each shingle like he showed her. “I know we didn’t talk much about our families, but owning a fishing lodge is kind of cool; you’d think something interesting like that would have come up in conversation at some point.”
“Most people think fishing’s about as exciting as watching paint dry.”
“I’ve never been,” she said. “So I couldn’t agree or disagree on that.”
Liam stood straight up and stared at her. Surely to God she was kidding. “You’ve never been fishing?”
Her gaze flicked up at him briefly before she shook her head. “Uh-uh.”
“How do you live your whole life on the West Coast and never go fishing?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “One or two of Mom’s boyfriends used to fish, but they certainly never offered to take us with them. And as I grew up, I had other stuff to do, I guess. What’s so great about it?”
“What’s so—” Liam stopped, not entirely sure how to answer that. Truth was, even if he hadn’t turned into an inarticulate moron since she’d arrived, it was next to impossible to a
ccurately describe the fishing experience to someone who’d never wrapped her hands around a rod. “I’d have to take you out on the water to show you.”
Great—that hardly made things more awkward at all. The last thing either of them wanted was to be trapped on a boat together ten miles offshore. Giving himself a hard mental kick, Liam focused on the next line of shingles, staggering his pieces over the ones she’d just laid. Piece after piece, row after row they went, neither one saying much, but both listening to Finn and Jessie laughing and having a great old time over on their roof.
“What was it like growing up here? I assume you were homeschooled.”
“Nope. The old man took us by boat to Port Hardy every morning and picked us up every afternoon, until Ro could do it.”
“Every day? That must’ve made long days for all of you.”
“I guess, but he couldn’t school us himself, so…”
She didn’t need to know about the times Da had been too drunk to come back for them, leaving them to fend for themselves. More often than not, they’d found a boat at the dock that was unlocked, so at least they had shelter, and after the first time he’d left them there, hungry and scared, they were always sure to pack an extra-big lunch in case they needed to feed themselves dinner, too.
“How did it work when you wanted to play ball? It’s not like you could’ve ridden your bike to practice if your dad was busy.”
“When I was little, I stayed over at a friend’s place whenever we had practice or a game.” Liam shrugged. “Once I turned sixteen I could boat over myself, so that made everything easier.”
“Hmm,” she murmured. “Nothing about that sounds easy to me, but I guess when you want something badly enough, you do what you have to do, right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
There it was, the perfect moment to tell her why he’d left her in Vegas, but he didn’t. Instead, he just kept his head down and tried to keep his shingles in a straight line. It was tedious work, yet Kate never once complained.
He hauled another couple of stacks of shingles up the ladder and dropped them near the point. Without any hesitation, Kate pulled the utility knife out of her tool belt, opened both stacks, and went straight back to work while he set to cutting down the ones they needed.
“What do you do with the old ones?” she asked.
“There’s a place over in Hardy that recycles them into asphalt.” By the way she was nodding, he knew he had at least some of her attention, even if she didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Two words had never terrified him so much, and why? He’d apologized for plenty of things in his life, and yet this was the first time he remembered being scared.
“What for?” She didn’t glance up, but there was something in her voice that made him think she already knew the answer to that.
“Kate.”
He waited a second or two for her to stop and look at him, but when she did, he instantly wished she’d look away. Tiny bursts of amber lit up her hazel eyes, exposing the same raw trust that drew him to her that night at the roulette table. Only this time she blinked and the amber light dimmed.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. It wasn’t as loud as the first time, but it felt stronger, and she seemed to almost believe it the second time around. “I, uh…Shit.”
He took a couple of steps toward her, then stopped when her eyes widened.
“I’ve had ten years to figure out how to say this and I’m still going to screw it up.”
When she didn’t respond, he scrubbed his sleeve across his cheek, careful not to shoot himself with his nail gun, and sighed.
“What we did—getting married like that—was stupid, right?”
It took a second, but Kate finally lifted her right shoulder in a slow shrug. “Wasn’t one of the smartest things I’ve ever done, no.”
Relief began to seep through him; at least they agreed on that.
“Still,” he went on, “what I did, the way I treated you, leaving like that, was…well, it was—”
“Dickwad-ish?” she offered, reaching for another shingle. “Yup, it was.”
Heat burned up his neck and across his cheeks, but he forced the words out one more time. “I’m sorry.”
It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds that they stayed like that before Finn’s voice split the air, making them both jump.
“I hope the slowdown means the dickwad’s finally apologizing.”
Eyes closed, Liam dropped his head forward, wishing the nail gun could fire far enough to reach the little shit. He was almost ready to shoot it over there anyway, but the sound of Kate’s soft laugh stopped him.
“He’s workin’ on it,” she called back. “Give him a minute.”
The chuckle escaped Liam’s throat before he even looked at her. Head tipped a little to the side, her mouth curled slightly, and those eyes, blinking at him expectantly, made him laugh again, this time with a curse thrown Finn’s way.
“I really am sorry,” he said, letting the laugh die on his tongue. “Playing ball is who I am, it’s what I do, and I needed to give everything I had to that. Hell, I still do. So it didn’t matter what you or anyone else wanted; I couldn’t change who I was, no matter what. I still think I did the right thing focusing on my career, but I should’ve had the balls to talk to you before taking off. You deserved at least that.”
“At least.” She snorted, but instead of it being filled with animosity, as he expected, there was a quiet softness to it. “Thank you. I’ve waited a long time for you to say that, but I guess if we’re going to be honest with each other, then the truth is, you probably did me a favor.”
Liam’s ears perked up. “How’s that?”
“I didn’t actually realize it until last night when I was lying in bed.” She fired the nail gun into the next shingle, then straightened. “You, my friend, were my last big mistake. Before you, I’d been living my whole life jumping from one bad decision to another, and when I woke up that morning and realized you’d gone, I had no idea what I was going to do. I mean, I’d done some stupid things before that, and I’ve done a few since, but that—that was something else.”
“Wasn’t all your fault,” he said, offering her a small, wry grin. “I might have had something to do with the stupidity that time.”
“Yeah, but you had something to go back to after you left Vegas. I didn’t even have a job, remember?”
Yeah, he remembered. “What did you do?”
“I did what I had to.” She said it so matter-of-factly, but watching her blink fast like that, Liam knew it couldn’t have been easy. “Found a couple jobs, got my GED, then begged and pleaded my way into an entry-level position with the Foster Group. Worked during the day and took classes at night until I earned an arts degree in hotel management, which might just come in handy here.”
“You’ve been busy,” he said, knowing he sounded stupid. “That’s great, Kate. Really.”
“Thanks. And if you hadn’t gutted me the way you did, none of that would have happened.”
“Uh…” Liam laughed hesitantly. “You’re welcome?”
Something in Liam’s gut warmed. He might not have known everything about her back in Vegas, but he’d figured out pretty quickly that it wasn’t a lack of smarts that made her quit school; it was a lack of confidence. She seemed to have found some now, which she proved when she shot him a playful wink.
“And one day soon,” she said, “that degree you helped me get is going to be hanging on the wall in the Buoys office, and the only way you’re going to get out on one of my boats is if you pay me for it. And you, my dear ex-husband, are going to pay dearly.”
“Oh, really?” he choked. “That’s how it’s going to be?”
“Yup, that’s how it’s going to be.” She was still smiling, but there was a whole lot of her newfound confidence behind it. “So put your back into it, Sporto, because I want this place in tip-top shape when I take over.”
For a few seconds, Liam stood
there grinning at her, enjoying the way her cheeks pinked up like that when she smiled at him. That was exactly how she’d smiled at him in Vegas—a little teasing, a little shy, and a whole lot sexy.
It was impossible for him to look at anything else when she smiled like that. It was—
“Hey!” Finn bellowed. “We’re burning daylight here, so would you just kiss and make up already so you can get back to work?”
Fighting a laugh, Liam didn’t even turn to look at Finn; he kept his gaze fixed on Kate as he shook his head slowly and lifted his middle finger high in the air for both Finn and Jessie to see.
Chapter 4
In baseball, I was always in control of everything until I let the ball go.
—Curt Schilling
Kate had to give Liam credit. As far as apologies went, that one was pretty good, especially considering he was being heckled while he did it. The facts that his cheeks flamed and he managed to look her in the eye the whole time were points in his favor, too.
He really was sorry, anyone could see that, but it was still awkward being up on that roof with him all afternoon. Sure, they threw a little small talk around, but their past hung between them. They’d slept together, got married, and then separated, all within the five days.
Who did stuff like that?
She and Liam managed to finish the roof on Orange before it got too dark, and while he and the others cleaned up and carted wheelbarrow loads of the old shingles down to the boat, Kate took her turn in the kitchen.
Normally she would have happily let someone else do it, but, damn, she was tired. And cold. She guessed that’s what she got for spending so much time working indoors these last eight years; her body wasn’t used to the manual labor anymore.
Besides, coming indoors gave the rest of them a bit of time away from her. They were like a unit, those three, and, sure, they might argue and what all, but Kate had a pretty good sense already that the O’Donnells stuck together, and even though Jessie wasn’t an O’Donnell, you’d never know it by the way they treated her. She was their family.