Before Sunrise (28 page)

“
Fucking irony. All these
years I gave Kay shit over Phil’s feelings for her. She said they
were just friends. I said bullshit.”

“
Yeah, well….”

“
And she gave me shit over
Alex. Said she didn’t trust her, was jealous when Alex would call
or show up at functions and want to talk about something Kennedy
couldn’t be privy to. I told Kay it was in her head. You believe
that shit? The mistakes I made man, that we both made—”

“
Marriage. Fuck, it’s like
that, I suppose.”

“
Not mine, bro. Kay is the
real thing. Pure. I fucked this is up with my girl every way
conceivable. Leaving her pregnant and young to go off to a war.
Bringing her into a world where she only had me, isolating her
because I—Ineeded her so badly and I just never believed she could
need me as much. Don’t think my head isn’t too screwed up to know
it,” he sighed. “I’ll meet with Alex and see if I can get in front
of the senator and convince him I’m no use to them. Get her to back
off.”

“
You need to do that soon,
brother. There is another thing to consider.”

“
Like?”

“
Your wife. Making that
official. I got wind of Phil’s temperament. You don’t want him
delaying this further.” Vasquez looked over at the women in the
kitchen.

Liam followed his friend’s gaze. Kennedy
laughed, and touched Angelina’s stomach several times. Liam studied
her closely. He wondered how her body had changed when she carried
their daughter. He only saw glimpses of her tummy forming before he
left. He imagined she’d been even more beautiful. She glanced up
and saw him watching. She dropped her eyes away first, shyly. He
needed to get her alone.

“
Can you do me a
favor?”

“
Anything.”

“
Separate the dynamic duo.
Get your wife out the door. I want to be alone with Kay,” he said,
his gaze never leaving Kennedy. Vasquez looked between his friend
and the object of his desire.

“
Yeah, I can understand
that. Now how am I supposed to extract Harper?”

“
True. I’ll set Kennedy
loose on her.”

Vasquez nodded. He rose and called Angelina
over. He made a big show of looking at his watch. Angelina caught
on quick. She went upstairs for the twins. Liam found his cane from
the side of the table and used it to balance to his feet. He walked
into the kitchen to corner his wife before everyone returned
downstairs.

Kennedy’s smile was infectious. He hated
smiling, but with her he couldn’t help himself. “Are you hungry? I
can warm up some meatloaf to go with this macaroni.”

“
No. Tell Harper you need
her to leave.”

Kennedy blinked, looked behind him, then
back into his eyes. He stared at her.

“
Um, okay. I’ll talk to
her,” she said about to step around him but he delayed her
again.

“
How do you feel about
coming back to the Marriott with me?”

“
What?” Kennedy gave a
nervous smile.

“
To be alone. To
talk.”

“
Liam.”

“
We can bring Mackenzie. I
got a suite. She can take the bedroom, you can take the sofa bed
and I can take the floor. Or not.”

“
No, we can stay here and
talk,” Kennedy said softly, averting her eyes.

“
No we can’t, Kay. This is
his house. He’s right about that. I want you to come to the
Marriott with me.”

Why did she keep lowering her gaze? He hated
that. She normally met his stare dead-on. She was keeping something
from him, stalling him out. She said she had made her choice. She
said that she would be his again. What the fuck could be her issue?
Liam felt anger swell up in him. The kind that made him want to
shout and shout until his chest was less tight and he could breathe
again. But he didn’t want to scare her. Fuck, he was already
scaring himself.

“
If I go with you in front
of the media and everyone it will send the wrong
message.”

“
Wrong message? To
who?”

She lifted her gaze. “To Phil. I owe him an
explanation, don’t you think?”

“
No. Fuck him.”

“
Liam. Stop it. You know me.
I would never purposely hurt anyone.”

“
Kennedy, the man isn’t
stupid. He knows I’m here.”

“
I can’t. I’m sorry,” she
said, then walked out.

Liam clenched his fist. He hit the wall with
it so hard, the plaster chipped. Drawing away bruised knuckles he
looked down at the scrapes, confused. He didn’t feel anything. No
pain. It had happened several times in the desert. When torture was
part of breakfast and definitely on the menu for dinner. At times
he felt nothing. As if he wasn’t in the room. He walked over to the
sink, a little shaken. He ran cold water over his hand and counted
down his anger. He was fine. He hadn’t hit the wall that hard. Of
course it didn’t hurt, he reasoned. Sucking in a deep breath, he
calmed himself. He had everything under control. Though in the
past, his word was law, it was obvious now he couldn’t push her.
She was different. He’d have to go at her pace. No matter how
infuriatingly slow it was for him.

***

January 1995

“
I want to understand how
far this—this—how far this thing between you and Kennedy has gone?”
Andrew Washington asked.

Liam looked up into the angry eyes of Kay’s
mother. She paced back and forth behind her husband’s chair. She
reminded Liam of a caged lioness, one you knew not to get to close
to, or risk a torn throat and disembowelment. He’d never had anyone
look at him with so much hate. Not since his stepfather. He guessed
he deserved it after what Gail Washington had caught him and
Kennedy in the act of doing. Thank God it hadn’t gotten too far out
of hand before she walked in on them in the boathouse. But her
mother’s scream and Kay’s tears had him wrecked. He would never
forget seeing Kennedy struck in front of him. He almost rushed Gail
when she knocked her daughter to the floor. Thankfully, Andrew
Washington walked in on the scene. He found his daughter topless
and him with his pants undone. There was little Liam could have
done to repair the situation.

“
I, um, I have a lot of
respect for Kay-Kennedy, sir.”

“
Respect!” Kennedy’s mother
shouted, her lips curled in anger. “Is that why you two have been
carrying on in our boathouse behind our backs? That’s
respect?”

“
Gail, we don’t know how
far this has gone. I agree it looks bad but…Kennedy is a good girl,
she would never—”

“
Andrew, are you insane? We
caught them with your daughter’s top off!”

Liam tuned them both out. His gaze drifted
to the door. He’d never really ventured into the Washington house,
only to help carry Harper in and put her to bed. Kennedy was
upstairs somewhere alone. He wished he could talk to her, comfort
her. She was so shaken when her mother dragged her out of the
boathouse, while her father marched Liam into his study. Since
their discovery she’d been locked away from him. He had to face the
inquisition alone. He’d take all the heat if it meant she wouldn’t
incur her mother’s wrath again. Silently he fumed over it. If Mrs.
Washington raised her hand to Kennedy once more in front of him, he
wasn’t sure what he’d do.

Things were out of control and it was his
fault. Their hookups were a bad idea the moment they removed Sierra
from of the equation and he started meeting at her parents’
house.

Harper had played the little lookout for
them when they’d sneak off to the boathouse during one of Kennedy’s
baby-sitting assignments. Problem was that Harper would show up at
the most inconvenient of times to sit up with Liam. Her crush was
cute. It really pissed Kennedy off, until he pointed out how
blessed she was to have her little sister. Kennedy actually said
that was why she loved him, because he was such a softy. Earlier,
he’d bribed Harper with McDonald’s, a forbidden treat in the
Washington household. Kennedy’s parents were gone to one of their
social events at their private club. It was supposed to go on until
well after midnight. Harper had made two trips out to the boathouse
to check on them. They just cuddled and watched the TV and waited
until they thought Harper would fall asleep. Nothing heavy. But as
usual, their hormones, or Kay’s, for that moment, got the most of
them. Harper had been caught in the backyard when her mother
arrived home early. It didn’t take Gail Washington long to extract
where her oldest daughter was. And the rest was history.

“
How old are you?” Gail
asked, narrowing her eyes on him.

The question he dreaded.

“
Son, I think you better
answer her.”

“
Let me see some ID. Now!”
Gail demanded.

Liam sighed. He fished out his wallet. When
he handed the card over, Kay’s mother snatched it from him. She
paled. She looked stricken. “Andrew, we might need to call the
police.”

“
Nothing happened,” he
lied.

The understanding he saw in Kay’s father’s
face drained when his wife handed him back the ID and he was able
to check Liam’s birthdate. He looked up with anger and disgust.
“Call the police, Gail. Now! You better start telling me the truth,
son. How far has this thing with you and my daughter gone?”

Liam and Kennedy were lucky. The age of
consent in Connecticut was sixteen; at seventeen, the courts said
she would be old enough to marry with parental permission. But they
were unlucky in the fact that she was forbidden to see him again.
He had never been so desperate and lost as he was the day the
police led him off the Washington property in handcuffs. Kennedy’s
father showed up at the station and disputed his wife’s claim that
Kennedy had been raped. Kennedy had been insistent, both to him and
to the detectives, that she was a willing participant. He also
dropped the trespassing charges. His kindness was conditioned on
the promise that Liam never see Kennedy again.

Liam agreed. He lied.

He could never erase the image of a crying
Kay, upstairs, sitting on her window sill, as she watched him being
taken away. Even Heath and Sierra warned him against trying to see
her again. He couldn’t stop. Neither could Kay, though according to
Sierra, her attempts to call him were blocked. He went weeks
without seeing her. Then things got worse. His cousin’s Heath’s pad
got raided by the police and he and the drugs were carted off.
Everything fell apart. He missed the arrest warrants because of his
job, but the close call spooked Liam enough to think his
association with Heath might do him in. He had to make a change. A
drastic, serious change and he had to do it quick. He took the two
thousand dollars he’d saved and set out on a plan that would change
his and Kennedy’s lives forever.

***

It all seemed like a lifetime ago. Kennedy
wasn’t the young, impressionable girl he once loved. She was a
woman. Her own woman. He wanted to know her now, fall in love with
her all over again. He looked forward to it. But this time it
couldn’t be done all his way. This time he’d have to follow her
lead, trust her as she did him when she dropped out of school and
ran away from her family.

He said his goodbyes to the Vasquezes.
Harper had been another story. She wanted assurances that Liam
wouldn’t leave or be asked to leave by
‘he-who-would-remain-nameless.’ Liam had to laugh at her
protectiveness. And eventually, she too left.

“
Do you want some beer?”
Kennedy asked, after locking the door.

Liam decided to try another approach. “Yeah,
a beer would be nice.”

Kennedy seemed relieved that he accepted. As
he sat in the living room and waited for her, suddenly the pain
returned to his hand. He winced, having forgotten how he hurt it in
the first place. He tried to concentrate on the when and where but
nothing came. The fugue state was acceptable before, but blackouts
now scared the shit out of him.

“
What happened to your hand,
Liam?” Kennedy stopped, shocked. Liam, caught, looked up at
her.

“
When did that
happen?”

“
Ah, I hit it in the
kitchen. It’s cool.”

“
On what? It looks like, let
me see….”

“
Hey, calm down, mama bear.
Give me that beer.” He took the bottle from her and put it on his
swollen red and purple knuckles. “I slammed it against the counter.
I’m a little clumsy with my cane.”

She stared at him, trying to gauge the truth
in his words. He smirked. “But it hurts like hell. Will you make it
feel better?”

“
Let me get some
ice.”

“
No, just come here. Hold
it. That will help.”

Kennedy sat next to him. She set her beer
down and took his hand into hers. Her delicate fingers over the
roughened skin was all the balm he needed.

“
So tell me about yourself
now, Kay. You didn’t finish law school?”

Kennedy smiled fondly. “No, I didn’t. But I
didn’t give up on law. I’m a legal assistant now for some very
prominent attorneys. They work me harder than any lawyer at the
firm,” she said, inspecting the bruises. “Liam, this looks bad.
Maybe we should get you to the doctor. How did you do this
again?”

“
Legal assistant? Do you
like it?” Liam pressed.

“
Huh?” Kennedy looked
up.