When They Weren't Looking: Wardham Book #3 (6 page)

He paused before responding. “What made you change your mind? Never mind, don’t answer that. I’ll take it.”

“I live on Elm, it’s the smallest—”

“I know where you live, Evie.”

She wanted to think that was creepy, but his warm, low words filled her with an annoying amount of pleasure.
Focus, Calhoun
. This was not the time to want more of the boy wonder.

“I’ll be there at eight. Now, shall we find someone for you to introduce me to?”

CHAPTER FIVE

Liam left the party shortly after they spoke. Evie didn’t have the same luxury, but as her mother organized a third round of food to be set out around dinner time, she finally begged off. Laney ran interference, and walked her to her car.

“You okay?”

“Just tired.”

They stopped at the end of the tree-lined lane and took in the summer evening. A dozen cars remained, but the air was still and quiet around them. Laney took a deep breath, and launched into a staccato, stream-of-consciousness reach-out. “Because if you need anything, anything at all, you know I’m here for you. If you need money, or help at the studio, I mean, I can’t do that after this week, but Kyle looks good in a pair of shorts, and while I want him to come home with me, and we close on the new house soon, we could still manage if you want—”

“I’m pregnant.”

Laney snapped her lips shut and held them there, questions obviously bouncing around on her tongue, but she was putting her best non-judgmental face forward and waiting.

“It’s a long story, and I wanted to wait until after your party—”

“It’s technically over, so spill.” Laney squeezed her sister’s hand. “Are you okay?”

Evie nodded. “It’s early still. Happened six weeks ago. Might not take, you never know.”

“But you want to keep it?” Laney knew Evie had always wanted a large family.

She nodded. “Is that stupid? I’m just getting back on my feet…”

“Not stupid. Difficult, maybe, but you’ll make it work. When are you due?”

Evie filled her in on all the details. All but one.

“And the father?”

She took a deep breath. “Funny story…” She glanced over at Ted’s farm. “That guy? The one in the bar in Toronto. Turns out, his uncle lives across the road.”

Laney lost her typical cool and shrieked.

Evie grabbed her sister and dragged her the last few steps to her station wagon.

“Nobody can hear us, settle down.” Laney laughed. “ So does he know?”

“Of course he knows!” She took a deep breath. “No way could I hide it from him. I acted like a total idiot when he showed up at my studio, actually, and that tipped him off. I guess it wasn’t a big leap to the source of my panic.”

“Wow. He was a cool cucumber today, then.” Laney hesitated. “Is he going to be involved?”

Evie shrugged. “He says he wants to be.”

“I gotta ask—did you use protection?”

“Of course we did. We actually stopped and bought the condoms on the way to his condo.” She winced. “I guess this is what they mean when they say they’re only ninety-nine percent effective.”

“You’ll want to get tested, both of you, for infections. Just in case. Your midwife will probably give you the same counsel. And Evie—your chance of getting pre-eclampsia again is higher with a new partner.” Laney reached out and pulled her into a sisterly hug, complete with a reassuring back rub. “Nothing you can do about that, of course.”

On that last point, Evie disagreed with her medically trained sister, but it wasn’t worth the debate.

“You’ll tell me if Pipsqueak hurts you, right? I’ll send Kyle home or we can sic Ian on him. He’s cute, but he’s no Nixon.”

Evie secretly preferred Liam’s more refined features to the handsome farm boy look of Laney’s fiancé and his brother, and she knew from first-hand experience that under his tailored clothes was a body tightly corded with muscle. He could probably hold his own. But if he was a jerk, she’d happily let the Nixon brothers deal with him.

“I’ve been calling him the Boy Wonder, not Pipsqueak,” she muttered, and Laney joined her in a rueful chuckle. “You know, I don’t even know exactly how old he is.” Evie groaned. “This is all kinds of embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry about that. Seriously.”

“I can just imagine what Dale’s going to say.” Something darker than embarrassment unfurled in her chest, a hot, pulsing shame she thought she’d banished permanently with the divorce.

Laney narrowed her gaze. “He doesn’t get to say anything.”

“It might not stop him.” Evie’s voice cracked, and she rubbed her neck. “So…I’m hoping I can keep this a secret for a while still. Until we know that everything is progressing well, and…” She touched her stomach. “Well, until it’s obvious, I guess.”

“You going to tell Mom?”

“Yes. Not this week, though. Soon.”

“She’ll be supportive.” Laney grinned. “This might get her off my back about babies for a while.”

Evie smacked her sister’s arm lightly before opening her car door. “Whatever I can do to help you out, sis.”

With a laughing wave, Laney hopped off the road and Evie headed home.

Smallest house on the block wasn’t an understatement.

Evie’s tiny cottage sat back from the street, dwarfed not just by the two-story homes on either side, but also the looming maple trees rising majestically from her backyard. The street was a mishmash of brick and siding houses, some renovated, others not. None quite as neat and tidy as the cottage, freshly painted white with a bright blue door.

Liam pulled into the long drive, ignoring the nervous flutter in his chest. Maybe he should have brought flowers. Or chocolate. Definitely should have brought a ring.

But given that Evie was still a stranger, he couldn’t pick jewelry for her. They’d go together. Not as romantic as getting down on one knee, but given the circumstances…

“Hey, you coming in?” Evie called out as she strolled toward his SUV on a path from the backyard. She was still wearing the green dress, but she’d ditched the pretty sandals and her bare feet grabbed his attention for a moment. High arches, delicate bone structure. Feet. What was wrong with him? Then they disappeared as she stepped alongside the vehicle. “Having second thoughts?”

Was that even an option? “No.” He steeled himself against all the reasons to feel nervous and unsure and pushed the door open. “You have a nice house.”

She offered a polite smile that told him she didn’t believe the compliment. “I have a house. That’s more than I could say six months ago and I’m proud of that fact.”

“Evie…” But she was gone with a twist of her slight body, bounding ahead of him like a gazelle. Shouldn’t she be full of fatigue right now? The books had promised fatigue. That would be something he could work with. She’d say yes because of a weakened state and a fear of being alone. But the gazelle didn’t look weak, or afraid. She was fearless and swift, and far too proud to accept a proposal sprung from a thoroughly unromantic sense of responsibility.

This was a terrible idea, and he was doing it anyway. Because he’d hate himself if he didn’t.

Inside, the small living room was empty. A collection of running shoes and flip flops overflowed a black rubber mat next to the entrance. They were all much smaller than his size twelves, and he was reminded again of the different worlds from which he and Evie were coming at this situation.

Her kids were all over the comfortable space—an Xbox sat next to the TV, games piled next to it. A sports bag lay open beside the couch, baseball bats and a glove sticking out. A black hoodie was tossed over the arm of the oversized armchair in the corner.

Liam took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. For all that his life was going to change, he was ready for it. This wasn’t the ideal circumstance, maybe, but building a family was the next step for a lot of his friends and colleagues, so why not him? But Evie and the boys…this wasn’t their next step. Their lives in this warm little cottage were about to be tossed upside down. He squared his shoulders and followed the sound of clinking dishes and splashing water to the kitchen.

“Evie.” She was doing the dishes in a way he’d always imagined mothers would when they were pissed off. He’d never seen his own mother do any dishes, not even at the cottage; that’s what housekeeping staff and, if necessary, dishwashers were for. “Hey. Are you mad at me?”

She paused, then finished rinsing the plate in her hand before turning to face him. Her hands were dripping wet, and he looked around for a tea towel. One was draped over the handle on the oven, so he snagged it and stepped close enough to take her wet hands in his, patting them dry with the towel.

Her hands, like the rest of her, were small, but stayed just shy of being delicate. Long, tapered fingers with blunt fingernails, free from polish. Soft, translucent skin, firm and tight. Strong, capable hands.

“I can do it myself,” she whispered, pulling away. The loss of her touch was a cold whisper of sadness, and he almost reached for her again.

“Maybe I wanted to do it for you.” His voice caught on a gruff note mid-sentence, and he cleared his throat before continuing. It wasn’t just his sense of responsibility speaking. “I’m going to want to do a lot for you, Evie. It’s just who I am.”

She laughed, and again he noticed that she used false humour to hide. “We’ll see how that goes.”

There was a lot of history weighing down her doubtful words. They needed to back up, get to know each other. But there wasn’t really time for that.

“Can we sit down?” She nodded and brushed past him, her hip glancing against his thigh. Goddamn, he wanted her to stop running away from him. Frustration stirred in his gut. He followed her to the couch, where she was sitting stiffly, knees front. He opted for a more inviting pose, casually canting his upper body sidewise against the couch cushions as he folded one leg up onto the couch seat between them. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

She took a deep breath. “This is going to come out the wrong way, I’m sure, but…how old are you?”

He grinned. “How old you think I am?”

“Liam—” Her brows knitted together, her voice plaintive. It was hard to leave her on the hook, waiting for an answer. Hard, but not impossible.

“Are you worried that you’ve robbed the cradle in a big way? Made me into a man before my time?”

“Something like that? Jeez, you just graduated.” She pressed her lips together. “You’re being really good about all of this, but if you aren’t ready—”

“I’m almost twenty-nine.”

“Oh, thank god.” Relief visibly washed over her, but then she squinted at him suspiciously. Damn, she was good. “How close to twenty-nine?”

“Ten more months.” He offered a sheepish smile that he hoped drifted toward cute. “Okay, I’m twenty-eight. I went back to school, but I’m no kid.”

“We’re still not in the same…generation.” She chose the word carefully and he looked at her anew. She was gorgeous. Hands down, the most beautiful woman he’d ever been with. Was she worried about their age difference?

“That doesn’t matter.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” She offered a small, sad smile that told him they meant the same words in two different ways.

He tried again. “I mean, your age, my age…they weren’t an issue when we…” Trailing off seemed like a better option than naming what they’d done. Not for him, but for Evie, who’d stiffened next to him.

“I don’t have one-night stands, you should know that.”

“Okay. Okay if you did, too, as long as you were safe.”

She gave him a curious look, one that he couldn’t figure out. Not judgment, but maybe disbelief. Their night together had been fantastically uninhibited—he had trouble reconciling that Evie with the one giving him the wary side-eye right now. A part of him wanted to crow that he wasn’t just another notch in her belt, but a bigger part clamped down hard on the celebration. It was likely that he
was
a notch. The first one. He pushed that thought away, and turned the conversation back to the most important topic at hand.

“Tell me whatever you think I need to know about…” He swallowed hard. “Our baby.”

Over the next thirty minutes, Liam probed and prodded until she relaxed, and they managed to get some important pieces of information out in the open. Evie wanted him to get some testing done—not a problem—and reiterated that she wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret until the end of the summer. Liam was secretly pleased when Evie appeared startled that he’d read up on pregnancy as much as he had.

“You really aren’t freaked out about this, are you?” She’d turned now, mirroring his posture, and the last rays of the summer sun were slanting in the window behind her. She literally glowed, and in that moment, he knew he had to take a chance.

He reached between them and laced his fingers into hers. “I’m only worried about how much this is going to impact your life. Maybe that’s naïve of me, I don’t know, but over this week, I’ve never once been freaked out about
you
having my baby. Having a baby, yes, that…threw me for a loop. But I’m willing to do whatever is needed to make this work, because…”