Full Circle (2 page)

Ah, she wanted to play
that
game. As though he were a player who had left her. As though she hadn’t blatantly chosen someone else, and a miserable excuse for a man, at that.

“That’s interesting, but I’m here for the animals, not the women.”

Her gaze flicked to his left hand. She wasn’t going to ask, because she was doing a great job pretending this was the first day she’d ever laid eyes on him, but he didn’t mind her indifference. The last several years had brought nothing but bad news, and he intended to seek a long-term relationship without bringing any of that negativity with him. This town was his new home, his new start.

Running into Elisa wouldn’t change that.

She came out from behind the desk. “Well, some women make unnecessary appointments and waste everyone’s time. Justin finds it pretty annoying and I’m sure you will too, but it’s just something you’ll have to deal with. The more you flirt, the more money the clinic makes.”

At last, she offered a smile—a small one, but enough to let him know she was joking. He was thankful for that. A reputation as the town gigolo wouldn’t do him any favors when it came to dating, and he wanted something more meaningful than a fling.

“And what about you?” he asked. “Do the male residents line up to have you treat their pets?”

“Nope. I won’t be here soon. I have plans.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re leaving your clients?”

Elisa fell silent. Possibly he had pushed for too much information from a woman he hadn’t seen in years, but words used to come easily between them. A bit of awkwardness, he could understand. Her treating him like a complete stranger, though, was odd.

“I’m not a doctor,” she finally answered. “I’m helping out my brother. I decided this isn’t the business for me, so I’m finishing school right now and—” She stopped then clapped her hands. “But who wants to hear about that? Finish your paperwork and then I’ll show you around. Justin should be here soon.”

She avoided his eyes and talked business while she bustled around her desk. She’d mentioned something about school…and that she’d lost interest in her dream of becoming a vet. His mood soured. He could guess what had thrown her off track.

Hoping for the whole story, Liam feigned casual interest. “What are you studying?”

She handed him a pen and directed him to the row of blue chairs that lined one wall of the waiting room. “Public relations.”

Swallowing his disbelief, he scrawled his personal data across the top of the first form and waited for her to continue. She’d always talked about being involved in people’s lives, immersed in hands-on experience. Why in the world would she choose something so…corporate?

His ears met silence. She wasn’t going to give him an inch.

He pressed on. “That sounds interesting. Where would you like to work?”

“I’ve gotten some interest from a software company in Nashville.” Elisa’s face twisted, and she snatched the forms from his hands. “You can finish this paperwork later. Let me show you around this place so we can both get to work.”

Tossing the clipboard onto her desk as she passed, she stalked into the back of the clinic. Liam followed her, not keen to cause problems during his first hour on the job. “Did I say something wrong?”

She stopped inside a doorway. “I don’t want to talk about my plans. I want us to…just work today, okay?”

In other words,
let’s pretend we never knew each other.
Apparently, it was the theme of the day. If he’d entertained any hope that over the years she might have come to value him more than she used to, he could go ahead and forget it. His role in her life remained that of sidekick—nice guy, reliable pal.

Oh well. He had spent enough time picking up the pieces each time her arrogant ex broke her heart. If she still went for that type of guy, it wasn’t Liam’s business or problem.

Elisa’s gaze dropped when he met her eyes, as if she knew what he was thinking. She quickly turned and headed toward a chocolate Labrador cowering in the corner of a steel cage.

She talked sweetly to the pup in an attempt to coax it to its food bowl. “This is the kennel area,” she explained. “And this is Hershey. He’s friendly most of the time, but he gets very sad when his owners go on vacation.”

She stepped back, and Liam bent inside the cage door to stroke the top of the dog’s head. Hershey offered him an affable lick. At least he had started off on the right foot—paw?—with someone in the place. He could feel Elisa staring at his back, and for a moment he thought she might slam the gate on him.

He needn’t have worried. By the time he stood back up and locked the cage, she was in an exam room, calling out instructions from behind the wall that separated them.

“Everything you could possibly need to treat an animal can be found in one of these rooms. If there’s something you don’t find, just—oh!”

He rounded the corner and crashed right into his new colleague. Her startled cry was cut short when her mouth jammed into his shoulder, and he instinctively grabbed both of her arms to stop her from falling.

She broke free of his grasp but didn’t back away. She lifted her hand to her bottom lip, her body close enough to make contact with his if either of them moved.

Carefully, so he wouldn’t touch anything else and start a fight, he put a finger to her chin and examined the injury. “It’s swollen, but I don’t see any blood.”

Their eyes met, and a troubled look passed through hers.

“Elisa…after work, we should—”

“No.” She shook her head, her voice quietly insistent. But before she turned away, he caught a glimpse of something soft in those brown depths. Had she actually missed him?

He slipped on his lab coat to force his mind back to the task at hand. He had a job to do.

But if he had to work with Elisa to earn it, they needed to face the past. He didn’t like the choices she’d made, nor did he particularly want all the details, but it was her life and he had to respect that. He couldn’t deal with this god-awful stilted conversation every day.

He followed her back to the reception area. Her gaze fell on him again, void of any trace of the longing he had seen seconds earlier.

“Do you have questions about the job?”

“I have questions about you. How’s the baby? Not much of a baby anymore, I guess.”

Her face paled. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out except a shaky breath. Just when he was about to ask if she was all right, she spoke.

“I…thought you knew. I miscarried.”

Chapter Two

His child. She’d lost
his
child. Elisa had failed to mention that part, and several hours later, her stomach urged her to stop the car and go hang her head over a toilet.

Lost in her fears, she went on autopilot and almost crashed into the unexpected vehicle occupying her brother’s driveway. Cursing, she backed up, parked on the street and looked out the window at Justin’s spacious, modern home. The exterior was constructed in warm shades of brown brick, surrounded by a lush green lawn and professional landscaping. After a few years in her new career, she hoped to be in a place just like it.

But for once, her new career wasn’t the first thing on her mind. Her current job had caused her enough problems.

Nothing could have prepared her for Liam’s questioning about the baby. Thankfully, his first appointment had walked in the door right after she’d told him about her loss. At the end of the day, she had finished her work and snuck out of the office while he was with a patient. He’d never had time to react.

She needed to keep it that way.

“Laura!” She entered the house and let the screen door slam behind her. “Lau-ra! Are you here? I need to—”

“What’s wrong?” Laura Haley rushed into the foyer, wiping her hands on an apron.

“Oh, hey. I’m sorry.” Elisa hugged her as best as she could, what with Laura’s bulging tummy getting in the way. Since Justin’s wedding when Elisa was in high school, his wife had been her closest friend—and a welcome haven from her brother’s constant lecturing. “There’s no emergency. Didn’t mean to make you run.”

She laughed. “I don’t know that I’d call it running. Hobbling, maybe. So what’s going on? You sounded terrified.”

“I was wondering if you can tell me anything about Li—I mean, Dr. Barton. He and Justin sounded pretty chummy at the office. Do you know what he’s doing here? Or if he’s leaving soon?”

Laura lifted an eyebrow. “Well, he’s here for the job, of course. You’re right that he and Justin hit it off right away, which is great because Justin’s been so stressed. As far as I know, assuming everything works out with the clinic, Liam wants to settle down here.”

Settle down. As in, stay forever.

The funeral march droned in Elisa’s ears.
She
wasn’t staying forever, which was a plus, but she would have to work with him until she moved. How could she avoid discussing the past for all those hours, every day?

Laura pressed her palms together, her mouth a hundred-watt grin. “You think he’s cute.”

Oh brother. A sinkhole could swallow her up any time now.

Liam was the last man on earth she wanted to see in town, much less in her place of employment, but leave it to Laura to get the impression that she was attracted to him. The woman knew her too well.

“He is not cute.”

“Come on, El, you can admit that he’s hot. For heaven’s sake, I think he is, and I’m married with kids.”

She squirmed, but her friend had a point. “Fine. He’s good looking. I guess.”

Laura nodded, her smile fading. “Still don’t feel like dating?”

If only.
Elisa wished her problem with Liam was the problem she had with every other man—disinterest. Not, say, the catastrophe her life would become with him in it.

“I know him,” she said, cursing the wobble in her voice. She should be stronger than this by now. “Liam and I went to school together.”

Laura’s eyes widened. “School? Does he—” She craned her neck to make sure no one else was within hearing distance then lowered her voice anyway. “Does he know about all that?”

“He was Brett’s roommate.”

It sounded crazy even as she said it. Her ex-boyfriend’s roommate? It was true, but hardly honest. Liam had more to do with her child than anyone knew. More than she herself had known until it was too late.

“We lost touch years ago,” Elisa continued. “He asked about the baby today. He thought I’d had her.”

“Oh, honey. Did you tell him…?”

She shook her head. “Not how far along I was. Just that I had a miscarriage. He doesn’t need to know the rest.”

Laura nodded. “I understand.”

“Please don’t tell Justin about this. He’ll throw a fit if he hears Liam had anything to do with Brett, and I don’t want this to interfere with Liam’s job.”

“Don’t worry. It’s between you and me. You can always talk to me in confidence, you know.”

“I know.” Elisa hugged her again. Maybe one day she could tell her the
whole
truth. If anyone would understand, it would be Laura. But Elisa couldn’t overcome her shame long enough to discuss it, even with her best friend.

“Wow, I’m starving and something smells good.” She headed for the kitchen. Behind her, Laura said something, but Elisa didn’t stop. She had already spent too much time thinking about Liam for one day. In fact, she hadn’t been able to keep her mind on anything else since he had touched her at the clinic.

Their collision in the hallway was an accident—a brief one, at that—but he’d been close enough to unearth her buried memories of his heady scent, the feel of his skin. And she’d never forgotten the ocean-blue irises of his eyes, or his hair that matched the color of sand.

How easily her imagination turned that analogy into a cheesy mental picture of Liam on the beach, tanned skin glistening in the sun as he smiled down at her and pressed her bikini-clad back against the shore. Oh yeah. Fantasies were made of guys who looked like him.

But so were nightmares.

Her mind formed a darker picture of Liam’s friend at the university—his roommate. Tall, handsome and capable of melting a teenage heart with one flash of his grin, Brett had been a delicious piece of eye candy. And like all things sweet, too much of him could be dangerous to a girl’s health. For Elisa, he’d been toxic.

The typical cheerleader-and-football-star couple, Brett had been as womanizing and narcissistic as the jock stereotype, and Elisa had done nothing to downplay the ditzy part of her role.

Confidence, that’s what she’d believed it was. They had been full of themselves, thought they were practically porn stars. She thought they were in love. Brett, on the other hand…well, he was an eighteen-year-old. A college kid unprepared for the consequences of doing whatever the hell he wanted, usually under the influence of some kind of alcohol.

Just like her.

When she got pregnant near the end of that first year, she assumed they would deal with it, start their family a little early. But Brett never had any interest in sharing a future. He only dated her because they had so much fun—

Elisa choked on the thought. It hadn’t been fun at all. Acrobatic, maybe. Dumb, definitely. But not fun. The end result of those adolescent episodes made her head hurt so badly, she grabbed a doorjamb for support.

Laura, one step behind, put a hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”

“Yes.
Promise
,” she added, when Laura gave her the doubtful-mom look.

Elisa shook her head, diffusing the memory. There had to be some way to get out of the terrifying conversation Liam wanted to have, the one where he would ask for answers she refused to give.

Come to think of it, they wouldn’t have a lot of opportunities to talk. Patients would keep them busy during the workday. She had either classes or homework most evenings, and who knew what made up his life? He hadn’t worn a ring at work, but maybe he’d accidentally left it on the bathroom counter that morning. He could be happily involved with a partner, a pet or an intense, time-consuming hobby.

Or he
could
be right there at her brother’s kitchen table. Alone. No wedding ring or hint of anything else that would take up his time so she’d never have to face him.