This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars #5)(97)

Daphne Gets Lost





Lilly leaned back into the chaise and listened to the tinkling of the wind chimes hanging from the redbud tree that grew next to the patio. She loved wind chimes, but Craig had hated them and wouldn't let her hang them in her garden. She closed her eyes, glad the guests at the B&B seldom visited this quiet spot just behind the house.

She'd finally stopped asking herself how long she was staying here. When it was time to leave, she'd know. And today had been such fun. When she'd slid into home plate, Kevin had almost seemed proud of her, and at the picnic he hadn't deliberately avoided her the way Liam had.

"Hiding out from your adoring public?"

Her eyes snapped open, and her heart skipped a beat as the man she thought about far too much came out the back door of the B&B. His hair was shaggy, his clothes the same rumpled khaki shorts and navy pocket T-shirt he'd worn earlier at the picnic. Like her, he hadn't yet cleaned up from the softball game.

She gazed into those dark eyes that saw too much. "I'm recuperating from this afternoon."

He sank into the cushions on the redwood chair next to her. "You're a pretty good softball player for a girl."

"And you're a pretty good softball player for a sissy artist."

He yawned. "Who are you calling a sissy?"

She stopped herself from smiling. She did too much of that when they were together, and it encouraged him. Every morning she told herself she'd stay in her room until he left, but she'd go downstairs anyway. She still couldn't believe what she'd done with him. It was as if she'd been under a spell, as if that glass-enclosed studio had been part of another world. But she was back in Kansas now.

She was also mildly irritated by how much he'd enjoyed himself without her. If he hadn't been laughing with Molly, he'd been flirting with Phoebe Calebow or teasing one of the children. He was a gruff, intimidating man, and the fact that they hadn't been frightened of him somehow annoyed her.

"Go get cleaned up," he said. "I'll do the same, then take you out to dinner."

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry."

He gave a weary sigh and rested his head against the back of the chair. "You're hell-bent on throwing this away, aren't you? You're not going to give us a fighting chance."

She eased her legs over the side of the chaise and sat straighten "Liam, what happened between us was an aberration. I've been alone too much lately, and I gave in to a foolish impulse."

"Just time and circumstances, is that it?"

"Yes."

"It could have happened with anyone?"

She wanted to agree, but she couldn't. "No, not with anyone. You can be attractive when you put your mind to it."

"So can a lot of men. You know there's something between us, but you don't have the guts to see what it is."

"I don't need to. I know exactly why I'm attracted to you. It's an old habit."

"What do you mean by that?"

She twisted her rings. "I mean that I've been there and done that. The alpha male. The stallion who rules the herd. The take-charge prince who makes all Cinderella's troubles go away. Men like you are my fatal weakness. But I'm not a penniless teenager anymore who needs someone to take care of her."

"Thank God. I don't like teenagers. And I'm too self-centered to take care of anyone."

"You're deliberately minimizing what I'm trying to tell you."

"That's because you're boring me."

She wouldn't let his rudeness distract her, especially since she knew it was calculated to do just that. "Liam, I'm too old and too smart to make the same mistake again. Yes, I'm attracted to you. I'm instinctively drawn to aggressive men, even though it's their nature to run roughshod over the women who care about them."

"And here I thought this conversation couldn't become any more infantile."

"You're doing it right now. You don't want to talk about this, so you're belittling me to try to get me to shut up."

"Too bad it's not working."

"I thought I'd finally gotten smart, but obviously I haven't, or I wouldn't be letting you do this." She rose from the chaise. "Listen to me, Liam. I made the mistake of falling in love with a controlling man once in my life, and I'll never do it again. I loved my husband. But, God—sometimes I hated him more."

She hugged herself, astonished that she'd revealed something to him she could barely admit to herself.

"He probably deserved it. He sounds like a son of a bitch."

"He was just like you!"

"I seriously doubt that."

"You don't think so?" She jabbed her hand toward the redbud tree. "He wouldn't let me have wind chimes! I love wind chimes, but he hated them, so I wasn't permitted to hang them in my own garden."

"Good judgment on his part. The things are a nuisance."

Her stomach clenched. "Letting myself fall in love with you would be like falling in love with Craig all over again."

"I really resent that."

"A month after he died, I hung a set of wind chimes outside my bedroom window."