Until There Was You(4)
“I have to run,” Posey said, grabbing her jacket from the hook by the door. “Mom, see you soon. Um, Liam…nice to see you again.”
Liam nodded, barely looking at her.
“Posey, wait,” Stacia said. “Let me get you some brisket. I don’t like you eating that garbage you buy from the store. I saw those pizzas in your freezer. You shouldn’t be eating that, even if you do want to fatten up a little. Liam, the girl just cannot gain an ounce! I wish I had that problem!”
Posey closed her eyes. “Bye, Mom.”
She pushed open the back door into the blessed silence of a Thursday night in Bellsford, New Hampshire. It was cold outside, the wind coming off the Piscataqua River. March hadn’t released its hold on New England, that was for sure. Posey shivered as she walked down the alley behind the restaurant to the street. Skirts in March…not practical. She hoisted herself into the truck, adjusted her skirt and started the engine, which took a moment to catch before coughing to life. As she drove down the street, Posey slowed in front of what had once been Kirby’s Auto Repair. There was a sign in the window. Coming Soon: Granite State Custom Motorcycles, Liam Murphy, Proprietor.
Time for that emergency Almond Joy in her glove compartment. Posey ripped off the wrapper and practically inhaled the candy bar.
Poor Emma. Posey was truly sorry about that, and felt a tug of sympathy for the daughter, poor kid. And for Liam, too. It couldn’t be easy being a single parent to a teenage girl who’d lost her mother at such an impressionable age. Not that he’d be single for long. Probably had a girlfriend already, maybe more than one, because who could resist a widower with a kid?
Liam Murphy, back in town. To stay. On the one hand, she had to admit that it was thrilling, in the same way that cliff diving might be thrilling…thrilling and often fatal.
“Try not to be an idiot this time around,” she said aloud. With that, she whacked the dashboard of her truck so the iPod would play, then selected Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show” to jump-start a better mood.
The thing was, once upon a time, Posey had fallen for Liam Declan Murphy, and fallen hard. She’d loved him with all the fervor a teenage girl could love a boy, would’ve gone to the ends of the world for him. But without so much as a backward glance, he broke her heart in one stunning blow.
And he still had no idea.
CHAPTER TWO
LIAM MURPHY CLOSED the door behind him and locked the door. Then he unlocked it. Then he relocked it, just to make sure the dead bolt was solidly in place. It was. At least, he thought it was. He unlocked it, then sort of slammed the dead bolt back. Maybe that was too hard, though, maybe he’d thrown something off, so he unlocked it again, then relocked it once more. Just to be sure that being sure was really sure.
He sighed, shook his head in self-disgust. Pretty soon, this…this obsessing…it had to end.
“Nicole? I’m home,” he called. There was no answer, which didn’t mean that his daughter wasn’t home. It could just mean she was in a Mood—and, yeah, the capital letter was definitely needed. Ah. The thumping of a bass guitar began. His daughter was home indeed, and had recently “discovered” the Ramones. At least her taste in music was improving. If Liam had had to listen to one of those prepubescent boys for another hour, he thought he might have to shove a screwdriver in his eardrums.
He went into the kitchen, turned on the water, counting to fifty-five as he soaped up. When Emma was dying—there was no reason to sugarcoat it, to say When Emma was sick or When Emma was in the hospital—when Emma was dying, the doctor had told him that thirty seconds almost always killed the germs, but forty-five would do it for sure. And so forty-five it was…until six months ago. Since then, Liam had started to worry about little things more and more. Case in point: hand washing. What if he counted too fast? What if there were a few really strong germs that could hang on for forty-five seconds? So, fifty-five it was. Nicole, watching him in this little ritual, had already told him he had OCD due to PTSD brought on by Emma’s death, which was close. In truth, it was his own brush with death that seemed to trigger the OCD—the lock-checking, the germ phobia. It tended to be worse in times of stress, and as the single father of a teenage girl, Liam was pretty much stressed as long as he was awake. But since Nicole didn’t know about his…brush…he let her think it was grief. Seemed safer that way.
Drying his hands on a paper towel (who knew what lurked on the dish towel?), he walked down the hall to greet his daughter.
“Hi, honey,” he said, knocking before he opened the door.
“Hi, Dad!” she said, sitting up on her bed. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She smiled, and Liam’s heart did that thing where it seemed to pull in a nearly painful way, same as it had the instant he’d first seen her, slimy and squalling, fifteen and a half years ago.
“How’s my girl?” he asked.
“Not horrible,” was her answer. “Want me to help with dinner?” And Liam felt such a rush of love and gratitude that his chest ached.
“Sure,” he said.
When Liam found out that his girlfriend was pregnant, he’d been surprised…and surprisingly thrilled. Emma wasn’t, which was understandable. She’d been a senior in college, already accepted at UCLA Law, and a baby was most definitely not on her list of things to do at that moment. Breaking up with him…that might’ve been on her list. But she’d said yes when he suggested marriage, especially after he promised he’d do the brunt of the childcare so she could continue with her plans for school.