by Nicole Helm
From him.
To end it. She had to end it. This was Liam’s pattern, and it wasn’t going to change. Working things out would only bring them right back here, and it was too much hurt. It was way too hard. She had to end things now with complete and utter certainty.
“I was wrong last night,” Liam said, his voice low and sure. Never in her entire life had Kayla heard someone admit being wrong with such a sincere certainty.
She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he stood there, eyes steady on hers, so . . . sturdy and certain. She looked away again.
“You were right, and the funny thing is, you’re not the first person to accuse me of my helping priorities being a little skewed.”
“So why should I think what I said actually mattered if no one’s ever gotten through to you?”
“Because you were the first person who really truly mattered to accuse me of it.”
Her arms began to shake even as she held herself tighter. She wanted to be strong enough to say it wasn’t enough. She wanted to be strong enough to know that ending it was the only possibility for them to both be happy.
But those words undid all of her certainty.
* * *
Kayla didn’t say anything. She kept standing there in the middle of her living room with her back to him. Holding herself, something like a tremor going through her body, but she made no other reaction to his words.
He didn’t know if he was getting anywhere, and that clawed at him, but his only choice here was to keep powering forward.
Maybe he couldn’t fix everything, but he still had to believe there were some things he could—and should—fix.
“It turns out when someone you love says something you don’t want to hear, it’s a lot harder to dismiss, and then my grandmother sort of reinforced what you said, and it’s really, really hard to deny the truth when two people are forcing you to look at it at the same time.”
She turned to face him, but nothing about the expression on her face was reassuring. Her eyebrows were drawn together, and her lips were pressed into a firm, disapproving line.
“I’m glad . . .” She cleared her throat and it killed him to see and hear that kind of pain in her. Pain he’d put there. “I think it’s great you think we’re right, because I happen to agree, but I don’t see how it changes anything.”
“How can it not change anything?” he demanded, trying to tamp down the frustration that was starting to weave in with all the hurt and fear. He knew he’d made a mistake, but only for a couple hours. She couldn’t honestly be ready to end this because he’d . . .
“Talk is cheap,” she said firmly, looking him in the eye. And tears swam there or he might have been felled completely by those words. “It’s easy to say that I’m right. But knowing I’m right doesn’t mean you won’t jump to help Aiden at the expense of yourself the next time your mom asks.”
“I told her,” Liam gritted out, holding on to his temper. “I told Mom I wouldn’t do this anymore. That I wasn’t going to break up with you, not even for pretend. I told her that she needed to let Aiden try and fix himself.”
“And she took that well?”
“Of course not.”
Kayla inhaled carefully, shaking her head and looking away from him. “I don’t want to be the thing that screws up your family. I don’t . . . It isn’t even all about Aiden. I mean, that’s a lot of it, but it’s not the only place you . . . I’d never want to be the thing you sacrifice yourself over, and I don’t think I can trust you on that.”
“I’m trying to realize there can be a balance, Kayla.” He wanted to move close, to touch her, to get through to her, but she held herself like she was fragile, and he hated that he’d put that there. “I like helping people. I like fixing things. I can’t change that about myself, but I think I can change how often I do those things without thinking about the consequences. I never wanted to lose you. If I’d thought for even a minute about how you’d feel about pretending to break things off, I never would have asked you to do it. I was blinded by . . .”
“Your need to fix things.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “I think you’re misunderstanding me, because I get it. I get you. I know you want to help, and I know it comes from a good place, but that doesn’t necessarily make you a very good bet in the whole significant-other department.” She swallowed, a few tears spilling over. “I love you, Liam. I do. But I can’t be the partner who says, yeah, it’s fine, go help everyone else.”
“Maybe I was looking for the partner who would tell me to stop,” he returned, each word feeling like a shard of glass was scraping against his throat.
She let out a little sob at that, the tears falling more freely even as she tried to wipe them away, and he couldn’t let that stand—not for boundaries or because she wanted him to. He crossed to her and pulled her into his arms.
She cried into his chest, and though she didn’t move her arms around him, she didn’t use them to push him away either. She leaned against him, and she cried, and he knew he had to keep moving forward, keep working—not to fix this but to make this.
“Remember when you told me your family treated you like decoration? I would never, Kayla. I couldn’t. I need you, and I think you need me.” He pulled her back so he could look her in the eye. “I know I’m not perfect. Sometimes you might have to remind me to step back, but what I’m saying is I’d listen. I’ll always listen, and we may disagree, but I will always listen to you. I don’t want to be apart. I don’t want to lose you. I love you, and I’m not perfect but damn if I’ll make the same mistake twice once I realize it. I’ll fix whatever I break.”
“I don’t need you to fix anything. Not my sink or me or you. Not us,” she said on a whisper, but it wasn’t a refusal, and she didn’t step away.
“Okay, so maybe we agree to make something. Together. And when you make something with someone sometimes you don’t agree on the direction, or maybe you have to go back and sand down some jagged edges, but you talk, and you decide together what the next step is.”
She didn’t say anything so he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the gift he’d brought, wrapped up in a paint-splattered cloth from his workshop. “I’ve been, uh, working on this the past few days, the very few moments we haven’t been together, and I went home this afternoon and finished it before I came over.” He held it out to her.
“What is it?” she asked skeptically.
He took her hand and placed the lump of cloth and wood into it. “Look.”
She swallowed, her eyes red and tears still rolling down her cheeks and off her chin. She unraveled the cloth until the item came into view.
Her eyes went a little wide as she held it out of the cloth. “It’s a lovespoon,” she whispered.
“So, I, um, took a few liberties with the symbols and—”
“There’s a bear.”
“Two bears. The smiling one and the, er, frowning one.”
She stared at the lovespoon with wide, unblinking eyes. “Like my figurines.”
“Well, yeah.”
She traced her hands over the outline of the spoon. He’d poured a lot of himself into the shape, into the carvings, into the meaning of it, and it meant more than he’d ever be able to articulate that she seemed to appreciate it.
“No one’s ever . . .” She shook her head, her voice cracking on the ever.
“Paid such close attention?”
She blinked up at him as if amazed by the fact he could finish that sentence, but of course he could. “I know, because it’s the same for me. No one, Kayla. I think I’ve been waiting for you, and I will never take that for granted.”
“I was really determined to break up with you, Liam,” she said, her voice squeaky and strained. Her mouth worked, her breath going in and out in little shaky bursts. “But how do you break up with the guy who gives you a lovespoon?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll make you a million more if it ups my chances of keeping you.”
She let out a little watery laugh. “I . . . I just want what’s best for both of us.”
“I do, too. I think we’re better together. Don’t you?”
This time she stepped toward him, sliding her arm around his neck and pulling him against her. “I do,” she whispered, holding him close and tight. “I really do.”
He wrapped his arms around her, held her tight, even with the spoon between them. “I never wanted to lose you, Kay.”
“I know,” she said, her words muffled in his shoulder. “And I hope you know I never needed to be more important than Aiden or your family. I just wanted to be as important.”
“You are. You absolutely are. And if you ever feel like you aren’t, you—”
“Say it. Not run away from it.” She tipped her head back and smiled at him. “Yeah, we are definitely better together.”
There was nothing truer in his life than the fact that Kayla Gallagher made it better, and he would do whatever it took to make sure that lasted a lifetime.
Epilogue
“How do we have so much stuff?” Kayla complained, making a circle in her brand-new living room surrounded by boxes.
“I’m pretty sure half this shit is Liam’s tools.”
“Damn it, Aiden, I told you not to swear in front of Zane,” Aiden’s girlfriend, Zoe, said, clapping her hands over her ten-year-old’s ears.
“You just said damn it,” Aiden replied, throwing his hands in the air.
Aiden had started dating Zoe a few months ago. No one was more surprised than Kayla that Zoe and her son had seemed to be the kind of calming influence Aiden had been in desperate need of.
And, even stranger, Mrs. Patrick had warmed up to Kayla considerably in those few months as well. She still tended to overstep and ask Liam for things that weren’t necessarily fair, but any time Liam was uncertain, he came to her and they talked.
Kayla had always trusted Liam, but she could admit now in retrospect she’d been careful in those first few months after they’d gotten back together. She’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Liam to overextend himself again.
He hadn’t. There’d been those few unfair requests from his mother, but he always came right to her. And it wasn’t like he was asking for her permission or approval, or like she was checking up on everything they did. It was a conversation. It was a partnership.
She’d come to the realization one night she’d been hanging out with Dinah helping with wedding plans that she was just . . . happy, and it was silly to undermine that with doubts.
And since then, everything had been a little easier, even the disagreements. Even spending time with his family. She wasn’t afraid anymore, and that made things with Aiden and Mrs. Patrick easier too.
“All right, my big strong men, now that we’ve unloaded everything, who wants to go get some dinner?” Mrs. Patrick asked, linking arms with Aiden and Zane.
“You guys go ahead. We’ll see you Sunday at Grandma’s,” Liam said.
Both Liam’s parents looked at him kind of funny, and Kayla couldn’t help but look at him a little funny herself. They’d been moving stuff from her place and his all day, and she was starving.
But Aiden and his crew, and Liam’s parents, filed out, leaving Kayla and Liam alone in their house.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad. They’d picked out a house closer to her job, and with a huge backyard that would eventually allow them to build Liam a workshop. It was a little rundown, but both she and Liam had already put in a lot of work.
“You and Dinah did a great job with all the painting,” Liam said, winding his way around the array of boxes, closer to her.
Kayla looked around. “We did, didn’t we.” She grinned at him. “You better have some food around here.”
“I do,” he replied. “I just wanted to get something out of the way first.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m all for christening the house with sex, but I am starving.”
He chuckled, pulling something out of his pocket. “I didn’t mean sex. Yet.”
“Then what did you . . .” She stopped abruptly as he pulled the little velvet box out of his pocket and placed it in the center of one of the boxes between them. “Oh.” She swallowed at the sudden lump in her throat. “That’s a ring box.”
“Yes.”
“You’re proposing.”
“Well, you know my grandmother is losing her shit over us living in sin, so I thought I’d make it official.”
“For your grandmother?” she replied, trying to scowl at him even though she knew he was joking.
“Yes. No other reason at all,” he replied deadpan, but then he softened. “I would have done it that night you took me back this spring, but I wanted a real ring. The perfect ring, and I needed to save up a little for that.”
“You didn’t go overboard, did you?”
“No, I said perfect, not overboard. Now, are you going to open it or what?”
She frowned but took the box with shaking hands. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was still a moment. A big one. She opened the box and then glared at Liam as she pulled the contents out. “This is my smiling bear, not a ring.”
He grinned. “Oh, is it?” He patted down his pockets. “Whoops. A little mix-up.” He pulled a silver band from his pocket, the small but—he was right—perfect diamond winking at the top. He moved through the maze of boxes until he was in front of her, and then he got down on one knee.
She’d done a very admirable job of not crying yet, but that about did it. Him on his knee, holding the ring out to her, looking up at her with all the love in the world on his face.
“Kayla Gallagher, I love you. I want to build a life with you—a marriage, a family. Will you marry me?” he asked, and all joking and feigned casualness were gone from his expression, from his voice. His throat worked and he held out that beautiful ring, this wonderful man who’d been waiting for her.
Just as she’d been waiting for him. “Yes,” she managed to squeak out. “I want all of those things with you.”
He slid the ring onto her finger and then was up on his feet, taking her mouth with his. The kiss was hard and a little desperate, as if he’d been nervous. She smoothed her hands over his beard, accepting that harshness with all the softness and love she had.
“You sure we need to eat before we do the christening?” he murmured against her mouth.
“Well . . . maybe eating can wait.” Before she even got the full sentence out of her mouth, he’d lifted her up and was carrying her through the maze of boxes to their bedroom—theirs—and to their future.
And now . . .
Read on for a preview of
MESS WITH ME
by
Nicole Helm
Available in September 2017 wherever books and ebooks are sold.
And in case you missed Dinah’s story,
a second preview follows of
SO WRONG IT MUST BE RIGHT
by Nicole Helm
Available from Lyrical
Chapter One
Sam Goodall knew an ambush was coming. He’d known it for approximately three days and had made himself exceedingly scarce. He appeared at the cabin that headquartered Mile High Adventures with just enough time to get ready before he guided his next excursion, and no time to have conversations with anyone.
He was a quick man, an agile man, and he’d spent the past five years putting nearly all his effort into being a silent partner in Mile High Adventures, taking on the riskiest and most challenging trips, and mostly staying out of the way. He could disappear easily and quickly and hoped his streak would continue until whatever was being planned for him fizzled out.
Five years ago his best friends, Brandon and Will Evans, had lured him from a fishing boat in Alaska back to his home state and their once-shared dream of this outdoor adventure company, but they hadn’t lured him back to the land of normal.
That land had been demolished a long time ago.
“Sam!”
Sam winced at the feminine lilt of Lilly Preston’s voice. He liked Lilly well enough, despite her ever-present Grunt Jar and chatter and questions, but this would be none of those things.
This was only the beginning of the ambush.
“On my way out,” he grumbled, barely pausing in his quick retreat out the back. His Jeep was parked in the front, and all he needed to do was turn the corner and disappear and he’d be safe for another day.
“I’m really not feeling up to chasing after you, Sam.”
He cursed under his breath. Though he had no qualms about running from a pregnant woman, he knew Lilly would have no qualms about following him, and if she did something stupid like trip and fall, Brandon would likely kill Sam where he stood.
Which actually might be better than whatever was waiting for him.
Still, he stopped. He slowly turned to face the bright pop of color that was Lilly, Mile High’s public relations specialist. She was excellent at her job, a good fit for Brandon, and, most of all, she usually let Sam keep to himself. He liked her.
He glowered down at her, arms crossed over his chest regardless of any like.
Lilly merely smiled serenely. “Have dinner with us.”
“No.”
She pursed her lips before responding through gritted teeth. “It wasn’t an invitation.”
“Still no.”
She grunted, and his scowl loosened. “I believe that means you owe a dollar to the Grunt Jar.”
Her hands curled into fists, her quicksilver-blue eyes flashing with temper. “Sam Goodall, you are the most frustrating part of this business, and this business includes Skeet, of all people.”
“Thank you,” he replied earnestly.
“You don’t even know who I wanted you to come to dinner with, or why.”
“Brandon and Will, so you three can ambush me with whatever you’ve been whispering and plotting all week.”
Her mouth dropped open and she blinked. “For someone who’s never here, you’re remarkably astute.”
“Goodbye, Lilly. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Or he’d avoid her tomorrow. Time would tell.