Before Sunrise (17 page)

Liam Flanagan hobbled up the flagstone steps
and came through the open doorway. Mac jumped at him and he caught
her awkwardly, pulling her up. Phil stepped back. The desire for
murder on Liam’s face stilled his breathing. He could see it
clearly in his eyes.

“
Phil, what is it?” Kennedy
marched out of the kitchen.

Initially, Phil blocked her view of the
door. But she stepped to the side and locked eyes with her
long-dead husband.

Liam stared at his wife, and what Phil
thought to be a forced smile crossed his lips.

Kennedy sucked in a deep,
pained breath, then exhaled, gasping loudly. She clutched her chest
and stumbled back against the dining room chair. She couldn’t
speak. Her mouth gaped open. Kennedy shook her head
no
over and over. Liam
lowered his daughter to the carpet. When he moved toward Kennedy,
she gasped again. It appeared she was having one of her attacks.
Phil remembered those panic attacks, when she couldn’t breathe or
speak. It used to scare the shit out of him and her family the
first year after Liam’s death. The doctors had insisted on
anti-anxiety drugs, which only made her depression deepen. It took
him another year to bring her back. Now his wife looked as if she
were on the verge of another mental collapse and he was powerless
to do anything.

“
Surprised to see me,
babe?”

Kennedy looked over to Vasquez, who’d
stepped into the foyer just behind Liam. She blinked twice at him,
as though Liam and Phil were not even in the room with them. Then
her eyes rolled into her head and she fainted. She dropped away so
suddenly, every man made a move to catch her. Phil rushed to reach
his wife. Before he could bring her into his arms, he felt strong
hands yank him away. It turned out to be Vasquez, of all people.
Liam got to Kennedy first. To his horror, Phil found himself forced
back from his wife, in his own home.

Her lapse of consciousness was brief, no
more than a blink. She gazed up at Liam in dazed wonder. Tears
erupted from her in gut-wrenching spasms. Phil couldn’t gauge
whether she was happy or suffering acute trauma.

“
Let me go,” he demanded of
Vasquez.

“
I suggest you chill. I’m
only going to say it once.”

“
Li-Liam?” she choked out
between her sobs.

“
Yes, Kay. It’s
me.”

Kennedy threw her arms around his neck. She
held on to him for dear life. Liam, on his knees, held her to him,
and the wave of relief they shared consumed them both physically.
Phil could swear they both shook through it. She cried, rejoicing
so loudly that Phil felt the sounds shred his heart. Frightened and
confused by the drama, Mackenzie began to cry. Phil couldn’t get to
his wife, but he went for his daughter. He lifted her up into his
arms and turned her away from the scene. However, he could see them
clearly.

Liam and Kennedy kissed.

Their exchange was deeper and more intense
than any kiss he’d ever shared with Kennedy. She held on to both
sides of his face to prolong their union.

“
Kennedy,” said Phil.
“Kennedy!”

She stopped kissing Flanagan. Phil doubted
it was because he’d called her name.

“
I can’t believe it. They
told me you were dead.” Kennedy said this to Liam, looking deeply
into his eyes.

“
I’m not, Kay. I would never
leave you.”

She ran her hand up and down the side of his
face.

“
KENNEDY,” Phil
shouted.

Suddenly, Kennedy came to. For a long
moment, it seemed she couldn’t focus. In utter shock, Kennedy
looked at Phil, whose face had twisted into a mask of hurt and
anger, and then at her frightened child, held in his arms. The pain
in her heart became pure torment, pure horror.

“
Nooo. Oh God, what have I
done? Oh no.”

Kennedy got to her feet. Liam struggled with
his bad leg, trying to pull her down so he could hold her. She
stepped away from him. From both men. She shook her head. “Sweet
Jesus, what have I done?” she moaned.

“
I want you to explain it to
me,” Liam said, able to stand. “You married him?” He jabbed his
cane toward Phil. “Why? How? After everything you promised me, what
we meant to each other, you married
him
?”

Kennedy bit her bottom lip.
She put her hands to both temples, and pressed there. She tried to
stop the noise, stop the hurt.
Just make
it stop
. She felt the room spinning around
her. “Liam, I’m so sorry.”

“
Sorry
? Help me understand, Kay. Was I that easy to
replace?”

The words broke Kennedy. She did the only
thing she could. She backed away.

“
I think you should go,”
Phil said to him, reaching out for Kennedy as she hurried up the
stairs.

Liam flipped his cane so he held it overhand
and jabbed it between him and Phil.

“
You make one fucking move
toward my wife and I will put you down.”

Chapter Eight

Phil’s eyes remained trained on the end of
Liam’s cane.

Does he think it shoots
bullets
? Liam didn’t mind the nervousness
he saw on Phil’s face. That was to be expected. What Liam found
confusing had been the vibe of guilt in his eyes. Phil didn’t look
too surprised to see him. He looked like a kid caught with his hand
in the cookie jar. Or had Liam projected his suspicions again,
seeing what he wanted to see?

Mackenzie stared at him from her perch in
the crook of Phil’s arm. Almost all the color had drained from her
face. Not a sound escaped her lips, but Liam could see the way her
white-knuckled fist dug into Phil’s shoulder. He saw his own hand
trembling as it gripped the cane, and realized he was threatening a
man with his child between them. Immediately, he drew the weapon
back. The action changed nothing. He still wanted to swing it like
a bat and crush Phil’s skull. Liam felt that desire specific and
certain, travel up his arm, moving ever closer to his heart. He
clenched his teeth. He had to get those urges under control.

“
Mac, why don’t you show me
this fish I keep hearing about? Is it upstairs?” Vasquez approached
Mackenzie, who’d begun to shiver. As though outside his body, above
the action, Liam’s tactical brain registered the movements. He’d
seen Vasquez do this hundreds of times, extract a civilian while he
or Eric or Alebretti or Gomez trained a SIG Sauer straight at the
combatant’s chest. This time, unlike all the other times, the
notion made his heart pound in his chest.

A few whispered words and
Vasquez eventually coaxed Mackenzie to lift her head from her
stepfather’s shoulder. He smiled. She smiled back, at him only. She
then reached for her Uncle Tony. Phil released
his
daughter into Vasquez’s arms.
Liam nodded, his face twitching. Phil had chosen wisely.

Vasquez stepped over to Liam. “Look at her,
man. Look at her.”

Liam tore his gaze from Phil to stare again
at a daughter who had her mother’s nose and dimples. Mackenzie
locked eyes with him, but had started to suck her thumb.

“
She’s yours, man. That’s
undisputed.”

Liam nodded.

“
This is your homecoming,
man. Remember.”

He nodded again, this time with
understanding. Vasquez was telling him not to fuck it up. Liam
touched Mackenzie’s face and tried to apologize with his smile.

Vasquez shot Phil a warning look. “I’ll take
her to her room while you three work this out.” He turned for the
stairs to which Kennedy had fled.

Phil had enough backbone to
wink at Mackenzie. The little girl blinked and sucked harder on her
thumb. Her visible fear shook Liam to his core.
Christ
,
I
lost my cool
.
Shouldn’t have
. Liam decided in that
moment to follow his friend’s advice. He would find his lady and
talk to her rationally.

“
Where do you think you’re
going?” Phil stammered, side-stepping to block Liam’s approach.
Liam, disbelieving, lifted his gaze to meet that of his challenger.
Phil swallowed. “She’s upset, Flanagan. I think we should both give
her a minute.”

“
Fuck you,” Liam
snapped.

“
Seriously? You come in here
and yell at her and make your daughter cry?” Phil glared at him as
much as he dared. “Kennedy deserves much more respect than that.
Like I said, let her catch her breath. The reunion can wait until
my wife is prepared to deal with it.”

“
You’d like that, wouldn’t
you? For me to back off, so you can slip in? And she’s not your
fucking wife.”

“
I only meant—”

“
Got to give it to you.
Don’t know how you pulled her in, but you did. You’ve been sniffing
at her heels from the moment you laid eyes on her.” Liam’s jaw
tensed, though he wasn’t going to lose it again in front of this
man. Wavering on the edge of control, he let his chest rise and
fall. The idea that Phil Freeman had not only seduced his wife, but
played the role of husband, father, and lover while he’d only
dreamed of those things for the past five years incensed him. Worse
still was the unrepentant smugness in Phil’s eyes. No matter how
bad it would be between him and Kennedy, he’d see Freeman dead
before he let this slug of a man have her.
Dead
.

“
She and I fell in love.”
Phil crossed his arms and tossed his chin upward in
triumph.

“
So they tell me.” Liam gave
a soft snort. His fingers curled around the handle of his cane and
tightened until every joint began to burn with tension. He wondered
how far the stick would reach if he shoved it up Phil’s ass. “Don’t
bullshit me. You preyed on her vulnerabilities and moved into my
life to replace me.”

“
Actually, I was here when
you weren’t. Look, I’m sorry man. Not sure where you been for the
past five years and I’m sure it’s been hard on you. But our love
has nothing to do with me stealing your life. And if you were to
take a long look, a hard look at the home we’ve built, you’d find
that this is my life you walked in on, not yours.”

Liam smirked. He made a show of taking that
look around. He felt Kennedy everywhere. He could see how she tried
to begin again. He knew Phil the rat bastard had made it all so
convenient and easy. Most of all, he understood how he’d failed
her, failed them both.

“
Not for long.” Liam
returned his gaze to Phil. “You saw her.” Liam arched his brow and
smirked. “You saw the look on her face when I walked in. You don’t
fool me. You’ve had a good ol’ time at let’s pretend. I’m the
reality. You hear that? You think I’ll just step? You know me
better than that. If my daughter wasn’t upstairs this would be a
non-issue.”

“
I won’t discuss this with
you. I want you out of my house. I—”

Liam aimed the point of his cane dead center
at Phil’s chest. He poked him once and Phil stumbled a step back.
When he got no more reaction than that, he poked again and Phil
fell back further. “Step the fuck aside before I break your fucking
neck.”

“
No!”

“
Then you are a stupid
motherfucker, you—”

“
Liam!” Vasquez
reappeared.

Liam kept his eyes trained on Freeman’s smug
face. Without moving his feet, he leaned forward, closing the
distance between them to less than an inch.

“
Your little girl wants to
see you,” Vasquez said quietly. “Go talk to her.”

Liam didn’t move. Not a muscle.

“
Bro, go talk to your little
girl. First room on the left.”

“
Yeah, I’ll do that,” said
Liam, and thrust himself away.

Phil released a tightly held breath. With
clenched fists, he turned and watched Liam go. When Liam passed his
best friend, he saw Vasquez’s true intent.

“
Kennedy’s room is at the
end of the hall, brother.”

Liam swallowed and nodded.

He felt his anger drain away as he took each
stair toward his daughter’s room. Facing Kennedy he could handle.
He knew it would be hard to work through the disappointment and
feelings of rejection he carried over her remarrying. But facing
his child, whom he’d just scared to the point of tears, was
something no training camp could have prepared him for. What if he
said the wrong thing? What if he’d caused her trauma, and she
wanted nothing to do with him?

He stood in the hallway, his heart filled
with what-if’s. The door opened suddenly. Mackenzie looked up at
him. She seemed smaller, more fragile than he’d expected. How had
she known he stood outside her door?

“
Hi.” Liam heard his own
voice as though it were far off, elsewhere.

“
Hi.” She extended her
hand.

Liam took her hand and allowed her to lead
him into a little girl’s paradise. Mackenzie let go of his hand
walked over to the fish bowl. “This is my fish. I named him
Fishie.”

Liam followed her to the nightstand. A
spotted white goldfish circled the gentle waves of a small fishbowl
with a bed of blue crystals at the bottom. “You named him
Fishie?”

“
Yes,” Mackenzie said
proudly.

“
Well, I think that’s a good
name, Mac. Really good.”

“
Are you mad at
me?”