Wickedly Dangerous (Baba Yaga, #1)(86)
Apparently even when she didn’t want to see him, the handsome sheriff was so strongly rooted in her spirit it was as though some invisible cord tied them together. Given free rein by her mindless driving, her treacherous subconscious had led her straight to him. She was going to have to have a little chat with it, as soon as she had more time.
For now, she coasted to a stop by the pair of weathered stone posts that marked the entrance to the nameless graveyard, flipped down the BMW’s kickstand, and parked her motorcycle next to the car. Under the gloomy late-afternoon sky, Liam’s figure stood alone in front of a tiny granite headstone, head bowed, a ragged bouquet of yellow-white daisies and pink and purple wildflowers crushed and forgotten in his large hands.
Baba hesitated for a moment, not sure if she would be intruding, but eventually she trudged past leaning moss-covered stones and a scattering of better tended, more modern monuments in the shape of angels, crosses, and in one case, a towering black marble obelisk, until she arrived at Liam’s side.
There she stood, gazing mutely at the simple tombstone, carved with the name Hannah Marie McClellan, and dates for a birth and death that fell far too close together. Underneath the dates, there was a single word: Beloved.
Hannah hadn’t even lived to see her fourth month. Baba closed her eyes in sympathetic pain and silent respect. When she reopened them, it was to see Liam gazing at her stoically, one eyebrow raised in unspoken question. The wind blew his too-long hair into his eyes. He ignored it, untouched for now by mere human annoyances.
“Hi,” Baba said, her voice soft, as seemed fitting for their surroundings. Despite the sadness all around them, there was also a kind of restful beauty in the quiet, out-of-the-way place. A single crow cawed as it flew overhead on its way to somewhere cheerier.
“Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?” He looked at the road and back at her. “For that matter, how did you find me? More magic?”
She shrugged, the leather jacket she wore making a low rasping noise as it slid across her shoulders. “Magic of the heart, maybe. Nothing I did on purpose.” An ironic smile tweaked at the edges of her lips. “To be honest, it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to you when I wound up here.”
The eyebrow lifted even higher, but he didn’t say anything. They stood there for another few minutes in companionable silence, looking down on the place that marked all that remained of his daughter except bittersweet memory.
“It’s a nice cemetery,” Baba offered, finally. “Calm. Peaceful.”
“Yeah.” Liam bent and put the slightly mangled flowers down on top of his daughter’s stone. “Melissa and I had our first big argument about this place. She wanted Hannah laid to rest in town, where she could stop by and see her every day on her way to work. But my whole family is buried out here; going back to the days when this area was first settled by a bunch of people with more hope than sense.”
He gave a wry smile, as if to include himself in their ranks. “After that, it seemed like we argued about everything: Whether or not to give away Hannah’s clothes and toys, or turn the nursery into some other kind of room. Whether or not to try and have another baby right away. Or ever.
“And then she began drinking and doing whatever drugs she could get her hands on, so long as they numbed the pain. By the time she started in on the indiscriminate sexual encounters, I’d given up fighting.” His hazel eyes were shadowed by guilt and remembered anguish. “So maybe part of this new thing is my fault; her just trying to get back at me for giving up on her.”
“Sounds more like she gave up on herself,” Baba said practically. “I suspect you kept trying long after most men would have given up and written her off entirely.”
She was rewarded with a wan half smile. “Maybe,” he said. “But it still wasn’t enough.” He gazed down at the pitifully small grave. “I never cried, you know.”
Baba looked up, startled. “What?”
“The night Hannah died. All those long weeks and months afterward. Even the day we buried her.” His hands clenched at his sides. “I never cried. I was trying so hard to be strong for Melissa, for the people who depended on me, I never cried for my own child. What kind of father does that make me?” His voice cracked at the end, although his expression never changed, as bleak and empty as when she’d first walked over to stand by his side.
Baba finally gave in and pushed the hair out of his face, but the wind promptly blew it back. She kissed him lightly on the lips instead.
“The kind of father who locks his heart up in a shell and does his job, I guess,” she said softly, one arm winding around his waist of its own volition.
Liam snorted. “Gee, remind you of anyone else you know?”
Well, there was that. “Yeah, just a little,” Baba said. “We’re a pathetic pair, aren’t we?”
He picked up his head and gazed at her steadily, locking his eyes on hers until she was forced to stare back. “Are we?” he asked, in a voice that tried to make it sound as though the question were more casual than it was. “A pair, I mean.”
Baba’s heart jumped, giving its own automatic answer, but all she said was, “I don’t know. Sometimes it seems like the entire universe is designed to keep us apart. I don’t know if we can work past all of that.”
She remembered their passionate encounter, when for a few golden moments, everything had seemed possible. Even now, she wanted him with a longing that shook her to the soles of her boots. But there was no way they could resolve anything until the current situation was dealt with.