When They Weren't Looking: Wardham Book #3 (14 page)

“You don’t need to impress me.”

“I want to. I want you to know you can trust me.”

So much for hoping he’d magically know what she wanted. Time to be brave and ask for it. “Tell me something about yourself, then. Share something messy and ugly that you aren’t proud of.”

His eyes twinkled. “You mean other than having a one-night stand with someone who doesn’t like me?”

“I like you.” She couldn’t help but grin for a minute. But that wasn’t the whole story. How to convey that without sounding like a bitch? She eased onto a chair at the table and reached across to hold his hand. “I just don’t trust you yet. For my own reasons.”

“Yeah.” He squeezed her hand in his, his thumb lingering to rub against her knuckles. They sat there silently, staring at their connected hands, and when he spoke again, it was barely louder than a whisper. “I’m not a good son.”

To the people who weren’t involved in raising you?
But she didn’t voice the skeptical question. He was sharing something painful, and she appreciated it.

“I cause my mother a lot of pain, by fighting with my father. I know that, and I’m not doing a damn thing about it. That’s pretty imperfect, I’d say.”

“There are reasons?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s human.”

He barked a short laugh. “Humanity is not a valued condition in my family.”

“Well, that says more about your family than you.” She wiggled her fingers out from his, and patted his hand. “I’d like to hear more about this, but I have to get to work. Do you want to drop me off?” He nodded, and she dashed to her room to grab one of her three empire-waisted dance shirts. As she smoothed the no-longer loose top over her belly, she realized it was probably the last day of this baby being their little secret. She raised her voice. “Liam?”

His footsteps in the small hallway to her bedroom caused her pulse to race, and she rolled her eyes at herself.

He didn’t say anything, just leaned in the doorway. She turned around, and the look on his face said it all. Her pulse picked up yet again.
Work
. Right. She pointed to her belly. “I don’t think this is going to be a secret much longer.”

His lips curled, and so did her toes. “Yeah, you’ve really popped, eh?”

She nodded.

“So, you tell people.” He scanned her face. “You worried about that?”

She didn’t want to be, but… “I’m not looking forward to telling my ex.”

Liam’s brows tugged together, and he chewed on his lower lip. She knew he was thinking about the different options why she might be wary of that conversation, and she wanted to set his mind at ease, but the real reason sounded stupid to her own ears. It was hard to will oneself to knowingly sound stupid out loud.

After a moment, he shrugged, and reached his hand into the space between them. “Come on, I’ll take you to work.”

As she interlaced her fingers into his, his gaze dropped to the belly between them. “Pretty soon you’ll be able to feel the baby kick,” she offered.

His face lit up. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “That’s definitely an allowable exception to the no-touching rule.”

“I can’t wait.”

When they got to the front door and she had to let go of his hand to lock up, she realized that was a rule she’d have trouble enforcing on every level.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Liam dropped Evie off at the studio, then parked his SUV two blocks down the main drag and stepped into the real estate office he’d first visited at the beginning of the summer. It was time to put down some roots. Thirty minutes later, Willa Stephens was letting him into a large brick house that had been converted into multiple dwellings—more than once.

“Right now, it’s a duplex, but in a previous incarnation, it was four small apartments, and it wouldn’t take much work to restore it to that, if you wanted to maximize profit.” The realtor paused in the foyer and gestured at first the door on the right, then the left. “There are only tenants in one unit. We didn’t give them enough notice, but this side is vacant. And if you like what you see, we can come back tomorrow to check out the other side.”

Liam had helped his friends move in and out of enough rental units not to be shocked by the state of the empty unit. An abandoned couch, a bag of cat food and more than a few dust bunnies. It could be much worse. From the front room, a narrow hallway wound past a bedroom to a small back kitchen. The cabinets and plumbing were in good shape. The windows were not, but if he squinted, he could see the potential.

“Back here is the internal staircase to the second floor.” Willa nodded to a hidden nook that would be easy enough to drywall over.

“And if we split upstairs into its own unit, where would their entrance be?”

“There’s a deck out back, off the parking lot.”

He followed her to the backyard, which had been covered in gravel to provide parking for four cars. A solid looking deck soared above them. “Can we go in this way?”

“One way to find out.” She jogged to the door and tried the key, which worked.

Inside, he was in what had probably been a bedroom, but was big enough to be retrofitted as a kitchen. Or re-retrofitted, he supposed, peering closely at the wall. A dry wall patch at sink height made him think that the plumbing might already be in the right spots, and in the corner was an electrical socket appropriate for a stove. Yes, this place had potential.

“There are two other rooms like this, and a bathroom, on this level.”

He barely heard Willa’s rehearsed patter as he turned slowly in the space. “Okay. Let the tenants know I want to see the other side tomorrow.”

The last few years, Evie had had mixed feelings about September and the return to school. She’d really enjoyed having summers with the boys. But between an increased schedule at the studio and the craptastic feelings of a secret first trimester, there had barely been enough trips to the beach to justify the whining about being bored. Having to get everyone up and out of the house early was a small price to pay for five kid-free days in a row. Bring on autumn.

Ha, enjoy it while you can
.

So she would. Between her lunchtime class and her only private client for the afternoon, she had time to grab a tea, so off she ran to Bun. Where Carrie made no attempt to hide a double take at the visibility of her belly.

“I know, eh?” Evie rubbed the ever-growing home for her little bean. “I swear, it’s doubled in size over the course of the day.”

“Holy crap, Evie. There’s no hiding that thing.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t really that big, but given that only a handful of people knew she was pregnant before this morning, the news was sure to spread like wildfire. “I got a few lingering looks in my ten-thirty class. By the end of my one o’clock class, people were just saying congratulations.”

“Not the nightmare you expected?”

“I haven’t seen Dale yet.”

Carrie didn’t bother to suppress a snort. “Who cares what he says?”

“He’s the father of my children.” Evie looked down. “Well, some of them, anyway.” She sank onto one of the stools with a groan. “Shit, I really hate that.”

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“It’s still not how I saw my life working out.”

Carrie knew better than to argue, which Evie appreciated, so she changed the subject. “How’s everything going with Liam?”

“Good, actually.” Evie smiled. “He stopped by this morning to ask me if I minded finding out the gender at the ultrasound, if we can. He’s…very considerate.”

Her friend nodded. “Do you want your tea to stay, or do you need to get back?”

“I’ve got half an hour.” She watched as Carrie poured hot water over a tea bag in a china mug. “You know what he told me this morning? He doesn’t think his parents would know what his first word was. He’d have to ask a nanny. Isn’t that strange?”

“Is he rich?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s Ted’s nephew, for heaven’s sake.”

Carrie rolled her eyes. “Evie, how is it that you’re having this man’s baby and you haven’t demanded his last five tax returns? What about child support?”

“He just graduated from school! He worked for a bit between degrees, and I know he has some money that he’s going to reinvest in property here, but really…I don’t need anything from him for the first while. Once this kid has daycare and soccer registration to worry about, that’ll be a different story. But then he’ll be more settled.”

She hoped. God, she hated how much she wanted Liam to settle in Wardham. How much her heart would ache if he decided to head back to the city, and not just for her baby’s sake.

Carrie moved to the nook in the corner where she kept her laptop.

“What are you doing?”

“Googling him.”

“Carrie, no! You can’t do that.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure that I can.”

“Well, I don’t want you to.” Evie knew it was a futile argument. “Besides, he friended me on Facebook last month. He’s not hiding anything from me.”

Carrie made some non-committal noises as she first searched his name, then went to the social network site and clicked through Evie’s profile to see Liam’s picture. Evie couldn’t help but be fascinated as she watched Carrie click on Liam’s picture and drag it into another browser tab. The computer worked for a minute, then the screen was filled with a dozen Liams. And as Carrie scrolled down the page, Evie realized there were actually an endless stream of pictures of this man on the internet. Not a huge variety, many different shots of the same moments, but there was Liam, in the society pages of the National Post, and on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival. At the re-opening gala for the Royal Ontario Museum. Liam in a tuxedo. Liam with a beautiful brunette, then a different one, and another still.
Her
Liam.

“Holy shit.” She whispered the words as she pressed closer to the screen, crowding Carrie.

“Evie, is it possible that your baby daddy might be rich? And possibly famous?”

“But you Googled him. He’s not famous.” But he was something. Something that she had no clue about.

“Are we sure that’s his real name?” Carrie clicked on one of the photos and shrugged as she read the caption. “
Annabeth Scott and her date, Liam McIntosh
. Huh. Okay, that’s his real name.”

Evie backed up, shaking her head. “No. Close the window. Let’s pretend we didn’t do that. He’ll tell me what that’s all about when it matters.” Carrie raised her eyebrows. Yeah, that sounded like a terrible idea to Evie’s ears as well. “Damn it. Damn it! How do I ask him about this without sounding like a stalker?”

“You just finished telling me he’s considerate. Blame me. He’ll understand.”

“Damn damn damn.”

“On the other hand, you can probably feel better about asking him for child support now.”

Evie shot her friend a dirty look before turning back to her tea. This was not a good turn to the day.

Liam arrived at the studio at half past two, but he didn’t head inside. Through the plate glass window, he could see Evie coaching someone through exercises. There was a bench a few yards away, so he made himself comfortable and pulled out his phone to check if he’d gotten any emails back yet. A lot of puzzle pieces had to come together in order for him to put in a clean offer on the potential fourplex. Willa’s preferred home inspector was available to come to the viewing tomorrow, thankfully, which would be the only thing he’d hold out for. But the money? He’d walk away from the deal before he asked for help on that front. He needed to be able to do this on his own. Not having a job would make qualifying for a mortgage difficult, so he needed to liquidate what he had access to.

As he plotted and planned, a half hour passed. Evie’s client left the studio, and Liam stood to head inside when a shiny, dark blue Ford Explorer pulled up to the curb. They hadn’t yet been formally introduced, but Liam had seen Evie’s ex-husband around town enough to instantly recognize him. He climbed out at the same moment that Evie stepped onto the sidewalk. Liam stood there, waiting to see what would happen. Waiting to see what Evie would do when she saw him. When she saw Dale.
Awww, shit
. This wouldn’t be good.

Liam was torn between knowing he should let Evie fight her own battles—and win, because she deserved that—and wanting to get between his woman and an obvious threat.

Not that Dale posed any physical threat to his ex-wife. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and his body language clearly spelled out that his attack was going to be more pointed. More vicious. He was going to strike with words and history and feelings, and Liam would give anything to deflect all of that shit from Evie.

But as she glanced toward him, as much as it killed him, he slowed to a stop, and damned if her eyes didn’t soften. The desperate plea and silent thanks…why did she need to do this? Their baby wasn’t any of this asshole’s business.

“Damn, Evie, I thought it was a rumour.” Dale’s shoulders sagged and he tipped his head to one side. “You got yourself in a spot of trouble, eh?”

She bristled. “That’s not how I’d describe it.”