Until There Was You(6)
The Ramones began again—“I Wanna Be Sedated.” They weren’t the only ones.
Liam looked at his plate, sighed and pushed it away. His beer, on the other hand, was most welcome. He took a long pull, then looked at the ceiling. “Thanks, babe,” he said quietly. “You had some nerve, leaving me alone with a teenage girl.”
Maybe this hadn’t been the right move after all. Maybe he was screwing up Nicole beyond repair, and she’d end up tattooed and pregnant and on the back of some idiot’s motorcycle… Shit. Aside from the tatt, Emma had ended up just like that, and he’d been the idiot in question.
But Emma had turned out just fine—a successful lawyer, a good mother. But it was one thing to have a motorcycle-mechanic boyfriend who picked you up from your dorm and took you out for a drive along the coast, then back to his apartment for sex. It was another to marry him.
She’d tried. They both had. She’d tell him about the other people in her classes, he’d tell her about work, they’d acknowledge that their daughter was not only the most beautiful baby ever born, but also the smartest and sweetest. But as the years passed, their conversations grew shorter. They fought more. Spent less time together. Pretty typical story for two people who got married too young.
It was a bad, bad feeling, knowing the gap between you and your wife was spreading into a canyon, being helpless to breach it. He loved her; that never stopped. Hoped that things would turn around someday. Then came the call from that doctor, and though he knew it wasn’t exactly sane, Liam would’ve cheerfully killed Elliot Kramer, because with that phone call the doctor had taken away any chance Liam and Emma might’ve had at working things out. Eight months later, Emma was gone for good.
Liam stood up and started clearing the untouched dinner. Despite Nicole’s complaints, it felt good to be back in New England, back where there was real weather, away from the relentless perfection of San Diego. Away from the site of his marriage and those complicated memories. Bellsford was the first place he’d landed out of juvie, his great-uncle finally agreeing to let Liam come live with him. He liked this little town with its twisting alleys and odd little shops, the river on one side of town, Maine just across the bridge.
It’d been nice to see the Osterhagens today. Good people, those two. Funny how little that restaurant and the two of them had changed. Cordelia, too, didn’t look a day past sixteen—still looking a little like a chick fresh out of its shell, still staring at him as if he had two heads.
But being back in the kitchen where he’d worked in high school…it brought back a lot. The whole time he was there, he’d half expected to see Emma come in, same way she had back in high school. Back when she was on her way home from whatever after-school club she’d been running at the time. Her ponytail would swing, and she’d smile at him as he scraped plates and washed pans, and that smile would make Liam forget that he was some ass**le juvie who’d followed in his family’s footsteps toward a life of petty crime.
He’d only been back in Bellsford a week, but already the apartment felt safe, housed in a solid old factory building that had been converted to apartments five or ten years ago, according to the Realtor. Three bedrooms, two and a half baths, living room, kitchen, den. No memories of Emma walking through the door, which was both good and bad. In his closet hung Emma’s bathrobe… Sunday mornings had generally been their happiest times, when she didn’t work and he made pancakes and she looked so damn sweet in that pink puffy thing…?.
Well. Memories and all that.
“Things’ll be okay,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand across his face. He was astonishingly tired. Not that he’d done much today, aside from overseeing a shipment of equipment at the shop. Hopefully, a custom bike shop could bring in as much money here in New Hampshire as it did in Southern California. One thing that always surprised his in-laws—the blue-collar idiot their daughter married always made a decent living. Not as much as their daughter, but pretty good nonetheless.
Nicole’s door opened, and she stomped down the hall. “I have something to say,” she said, giving him the Slitty Eyes of Death. “You’re totally unfair, and if I run away, you shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Don’t make me put a computer chip in your ear,” Liam answered.
“It’s not funny! I hate you.”
“Well, I love you, even if you did ruin my life by turning into a teenager,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Did you study for your test?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He looked at his daughter—so much like Emma, way too pretty. Why weren’t there convent schools anymore? Or chastity belts? “Want some supper? I saved your plate.”
She rolled her eyes with all the melodrama a teenager could muster. “Fine. I may as well become a fat pig since I can’t ever go on a date.”
“That’s my girl,” he said and, grinning, got up to heat up her dinner.
CHAPTER THREE
SHILO, DON’T BE AFRAID. It’s just Al,” Posey said, trying to woo her dog from underneath the statue of Arpad the Archer, patron saint of Hungary, that currently graced the front yard of Irreplaceable Artifacts. “We love UPS! Don’t be scared.” Shilo whined, his tail wagging, but the truth was, the dog was a coward.
“I have a cookie,” Al said, kneeling down. Shilo whimpered and backed up, ramming his massive haunches against an old birdbath.