Beers, Hens, and Irishmen (Warbler's Point Series) (12 page)

             
He looked down at the steering wheel and removed her hand. “You know what, I’ll just drive you back, you clearly don’t want to be out with me.” He was putting the car in reverse when her hand stopped his over the gear shift. He felt a bolt of electricity fly up his arm as he looked into her eyes, her hopeful eyes.

             
“Please don’t.”

             
“I don’t know what you want Fiona. I want to hang out with you, get to know you better but clearly you don’t. You are too ashamed to be seen with me.”

             
He went to reverse when her hand turned his head to look at her. Her hand was so soft on his jaw that was lined with stubble he almost made the mistake of lifting her on his lap and taking from her what he so desperately needed.

             
“I’m not ashamed Booker, not at all. It’s just…my family is always in my business and for once I just want to do things on my own…you know? Without pesky older brothers sticking their noses where they don’t belong.”

             
Booker could relate of people always being in his business, that was how the press was and people who wanted him just because of his fame. It was like the media was his family, constantly nagging him for updates on his sex life and trying to catch him in incomparable positions.

             
He shook his head in agreement and proceeded forward. “I promise you your family won’t see you. I have one of the private cabins in the back and mine is one of the most secluded ones so there is no chance your family will see us unless they are snooping around in the dark.”

             
“I wouldn’t put it past them.”

             
He smiled at her. “Just trust me you are going to have a great night.”

                                                                                    ***

              Liam sat on Fiona’s couch stewing over the events of one of the crappiest days of his life. He never thought he would find himself shacking up on his baby sister’s couch while his wife spread lies about him and his ex-girlfriend around town. He barely had even seen Sophie since she moved back so why Neala had the notion that he was cheating on her with Sophie was beyond him. He tried calling Neala quite a few times throughout the day but she wouldn’t answer her phone. He went back to their house only to find the locks changed and some suitcases with his clothes in them with a note saying he should start looking for another place to live, which didn’t make sense to him since she was the one who wanted to get out Warblers Point. He genuinely started to consider the idea that his soon to be ex-wife had gone completely bat-shit crazy.

             
He took a sip of whiskey from his glass. The hard liquor usually sent a burning feeling down his throat to the pit of his stomach but tonight he couldn’t feel anything. He was completely numb. After the manager and some workers at the general store broke him and Finn up he went straight to the pub. He knew he was out of line attacking Finn when he was most likely just trying to help Sophie but he was always jealous of the connection Finn and Sophie had.

             
When he was dating Sophie, Finn was the one she went to when they were having problems or if she needed advice. Liam hated that and he always thought Finn was one of the reasons why him and Sophie never made it, Liam always thought Finn was getting in the way. Seeing Finn and Sophie together again in the general store just brought back all those empty feelings. He knew he shouldn’t have reacted the way he did, especially since it looked bad on his part but he couldn’t help himself. He was too damn jealous.

             
Topping off his glass with more whiskey he thought about what the hell he was going to do with his life. His crazy psycho wife wouldn’t talk to him, lord knew she was going to take his daughter away and possibly the pub. Life as he knew it was falling apart for him.

             
He stared at his phone wishing it to ring so he could talk to Neala, at least for a couple of minutes so he could understand where she was coming from. He wanted nothing more than to solve the problems they were having. He knew things between them were tense, but he didn’t think they were so tense that they needed to get a divorce or that his wife needed to lose her mind and start dreaming up reasons why he was such an asshole.

             
Now that he thought about it, he was an asshole. Poor Sophie. The last thing she needed in a small town where she was trying to establish herself was for people to think she was the town harlot. This was his entire fault. When Sophie came back to town, he should have never have said anything to her. He should have just ignored her but he couldn’t. They had so much history how could he just let her move back to their hometown and not reach out to her? Even if they were just friends.

             
He stared at his phone and took the last swig of his drink. He picked it up and dialed Sophie’s number. He should at least see how she was doing after everything that happened this morning. He got a brief description from the store manager of what went down and how Sophie did get hurt in the process. The thought of Sophie being hurt, being dragged into this mess, made his fist want to go through a wall.

             
He listened to her phone ring while he begged for her to pick up. He needed to talk to her, desperately.

             
“Hello?” she asked in a hoarse voice. Liam looked at the time, it was eleven at night. Damn it. Of course she was asleep.

             
“Hey Soph, its Liam. I’m sorry I called so late.”

             
She didn’t answer him at first he thought she might have hung up. “Uh Soph, are you there?”

             
He heard her clear her throat. “Yea, I’m here. Liam I don’t think it’s a good idea that you are calling me right now.”

             
Panic zipped through his chest. Did she have someone there with her right now? Not that he had any right to be mad or jealous especially since he was married and trying to find out what was happening between him and his wife but all that didn’t stop him from wanting to march over to her place and rip whatever man she had in her bed out and beat him until he was out of her house.

             
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were with someone.”

             
“I’m not.” Liam felt the tension slowly release from his body from learning that Sophie was by herself. “It’s just with what happened today, I don’t think you should give Neala any more ammo, not that she has any.”

             
“I don’t care about that right now. I just want to make sure you’re ok. I want to know what happened today.”

             
“I would rather not re-visit today’s events.”

             
“Please Soph, I need to know. Neala changed the locks on me today and kicked me out. She is having divorce lawyers talk about our assets right now. I need to know what she said to you.”

             
Liam spent the next twenty minutes listening to Sophie tell him about how Neala attacked her in the dairy aisle, how Neala pushed her repeatedly into a shelf and then how Sophie had to go to the urgent care in town to get stitches from where a metal shelf cut her forehead. Liam’s stomach was tied up in knots as he listened to her. Sophie was one of the sweetest, kindest girls he had ever met. She would never do anything to hurt anybody and the fact that she was pushed around by Neala, hurt by her for no reason, made him physically ill.

             
“Damn it Sophie. I’m so sorry. I’m so damn sorry. You shouldn’t be a part of this. I don’t even know how it got to this point. We didn’t do anything.”

             
“I don’t know either Liam but us talking right now sure as hell isn’t going to help our case.”

             
“I don’t think anything can save this situation right now. I just want to know where she got the idea that we’ve been having an affair.”

             
There was silence on the phone and then she spoke up. “Don’t be so naïve Liam.”

             
Naïve? He wasn’t being naïve. “What do you mean?”

             
“Come on Liam, anytime we have been around each other since I’ve been back there has been an unspoken tension between us, to an outsider it might seem like something sexual might be going on but we both knows it has to deal with the fact that I left for college and never returned. We never talked about how things ended between us, we never got closure. I can see how Neala might misinterpret that tension.”

             
Liam remembered the day that Sophie told him she was leaving and that it was best they didn’t see each other anymore. It was as if she reached into his chest, ripped out his heart and used it as her own punching bag. He didn’t hear from her after she left. The only reason he knew what was happening in her life was because she stayed in contact with Finn. Finn was the one who broke the news about her getting married which was also one of the crappiest days of his life. He got black out drunk that night.

             
He brought his focus back to the present and thought about the encounters he had with Sophie while she was back in town. It was tense between the two of them, she was right. They had unsolved business, unsolved business that led to the demise of his marriage.

                                                                                    ***

              Fiona was happy to see that her parents gave Booker the most secluded cabin at the bed and breakfast. He was right, no one was going to see them at all unless they actually came up to his place.

             
She got out of the car and was headed to the front door when he stopped her by pulling her hand in a different direction.

             
“Where are we going?”

             
“Can’t a guy just surprise a girl without an interrogation?”

             
She chuckled. “Sorry, lead me away.”

             
Booker gave her another one of those melt your panties off smiles and led her to the back of the cabin. It was extremely dark so she found herself gathering up closer to Booker, being someone who was always afraid of the dark, she didn’t want to feel like she was alone. That was the excuse she told herself as she strapped herself to Booker’s muscular arm. She was surprised to find that his arm was so strong and surrounded by a nice amount of muscle that she knew would do wonders in the bedroom…

             
Her thoughts were stripped away when they turned the corner of the cabin. Sitting behind it were two chairs, what seemed like a projector, a little space heater and camping light. There was a thermos and some kind of tin sitting on a table next to the projector, and what seemed like a computer. Fiona was extremely confused as to what he had planned.

             
He brought her over to one of the chairs, had her sit down and then placed a blanket over her lap and turned on the space heater. He was so cute fiddling around with everything making sure she was comfortable. She had never been treated like this in her life. He made her feel so important, this was not good. She couldn’t get herself attached to him like this, not so quickly.

             
He handed her a steaming cup of hot chocolate and busted open the tin that was sitting on the table which held an assortment of cookies. Oh God, her heart was slowly melting into a puddle.

             
“Alright, can I get you anything else? Are you warm enough? I wish we could have done this inside but there wasn’t enough room in my cabin…”

             
She stopped him. “Booker, this is perfect. I’m warm and I have everything I need. I know I shouldn’t ask but what are we doing here?”

             
“Well, last time we hung out you told me about how your dream is to travel the world. Well, I have been quite a few places and I thought I would share them with you.”

             
That was when he turned the projector on and it projected its picture up against the white wall of the cabin, making it a perfect screen for his pictures. The first slide said “A Quick Trip Around the World for Fiona.” The idea almost made her cry but she held herself together. She didn’t need to embarrass herself in front of him.

             
“This is so sweet of you Booker. I can’t believe you did this.”

             
“Wait until the end, you might not be singing the same song after you see my vacation slides.” He said with a chuckle.

             
She didn’t care if they were his vacation slides or random pictures from the internet, just the mere thought made her insides tingle…she was in trouble.

                                                                                    ***

              Booker knew it was lame showing some of the very few pictures he was able to take while on different locations with his movies but he knew if anyone would appreciate them, Fiona would. The look on her face when she saw the first slide would be forever engrained in his head. She was so sweet and pure, it was so refreshing to finally be near someone who appreciated the little things and was not after him for his money or connections. She just simply wanted to be around him because he intrigued her.