If I Can't Let Go (If You Come Back To Me #2) (8 page)

He grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it, smiling when he saw her mouth open in surprise at his brimming enthusiasm.

“Come on, detective,” he urged, tugging on her hand.

Operation kiss and distract, Liam thought amusedly as he led her through the parking lot. He would sneak beneath her defenses when she least expected it, then distract her before she had a chance to protest.

Before Natalie knew it, she wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that he planned on kissing her every opportunity he got.

A little over an hour and a half later, they walked down on Ontario Avenue, deep in discussion.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Natalie said. “Neither your father or Langford, Inc., seemed to have any connection to DuBois Enterprises or Alerveret Corporation. Maybe it was just a red herring, your father’s interest in that news program.”

“It might have been,” Liam said thoughtfully as they turned down Main Street.

“You don’t really think so, though, do you?” Natalie asked, examining his profile. This morning there was a slight scruff of whiskers on his jaw. His hair was a windblown chaos of burnished waves. He looked a little intimidating—disreputable, even—so his occasional bouts of unselfconscious warmth toward her struck Natalie as all the more potent. One second she’d been admiring the image of him with his long legs straddling the sleek machine. Next he’d dismounted and kissed her.

She suspected her heart had just finally resumed its normal pace about five minutes ago, thanks to that kiss. She still hadn’t decided how she was supposed to respond to this new, playful, yet strangely determined Liam.

“I don’t know,” Liam replied, drawing Natalie out of her thoughts. “Nothing else seemed to be penetrating his misery on that night.”

“Liam, what are you doing?”

He glanced back at her, obviously caught off guard by her sharp question, his hand still outstretched to open the door of the Captain and Crew restaurant.

“I said I’d take you out to lunch,” he reminded her.

“It’s not really necessary,” Natalie said quickly. She checked her watch. “I probably should go home and change and get into work, after taking the morning off.”

Liam turned and faced her. She couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but she sensed him studying her.

“Why do you let them do it?” he asked softly.

“What do you mean?”

He gave a subtle sideways nod in the direction of two men who were walking toward the restaurant entrance. The men’s conversation broke off and they observed Liam and Natalie with interest before they disappeared into the Captain and Crew.

“People. Strangers. You let their curiosity, or their rudeness, or whatever the hell the case may be, dictate your actions,” Liam said.

For a few seconds, she just stared up at him. He’d said it so evenly that it took a moment for his meaning—and her embarrassment—to soak into her consciousness. Her cheeks flamed.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.

“I think I do. You avoid crowded places. You don’t like to have people look at you, so you steer clear of places like Jake’s or the Captain and Crew. I wish you wouldn’t let it get to you, Natalie.”

“You have no right to judge me,” she bit out. “You’re the
last
person on earth who has the right to judge me.”

She spun around, intent on departure. She gasped when Liam reached out, quick as a snake at the strike, and grasped her hand, halting her.

“I’m sorry,” he said rapidly when she opened her mouth to tell him off. She paused when she saw the look of genuine regret on his face. “I really am. You’re right. It has to be something you’re comfortable with—not something I wish for.”

Tears burned her eyelids.
Something I wish for.
She was
so confused, she couldn’t manage to get out the question scalding the back of her tongue.

Why should he care one way or another how I feel in a public place?

He stepped closer. Her emotional turmoil only mounted when he cradled her jaw, his fingers caressing her cheek softly. She hadn’t known him that long, but already she’d grown accustomed to this particular tender, prizing gesture. He used his other hand to remove her glasses and then he leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers.

“I just wish you could see yourself like I see you. You’re beautiful, and not despite this.” Her lungs ached in her chest, but she still couldn’t draw breath as he gently traced her scar. He pressed a kiss at the corner of her eyelid, like a period at the end of a poignant sentence. “Because of it, Natalie. In part, at least. It’s one of the many things that make you unique…and yes, beautiful.”

A depthless font of uncertainty welled up in her chest at that moment. Several teardrops spilled from her eyes, spattering on Liam’s skin.

“Let me go,” she said, her throat too tight for anything but a whispered plea.

His fingers loosened reluctantly around her glasses when she tugged on them. Slipping them on, she turned and hurried down the street.

Natalie wasn’t necessarily surprised when she saw Liam standing at her door later that evening, but she was extremely glad. She knew she’d behaved like a child earlier. She’d been regretting her insecurities so much that it’d been hard for her to concentrate at work, and she’d left early.

“Hi,” she greeted Liam as she opened the screen door.

“I came to beg forgiveness, but I realize it might be a challenge for you,” he told her wryly, his mouth quirked in a small
half grin. “Do you think if I gave you a license to call me a tactless idiot as many times as you wanted all evening and made you dinner to boot, you could eventually get there?”

“You don’t have to make me dinner.” She studied her welcome mat like it held the mysteries of the universe. She shifted on her bare feet. “I’m the one who should say I was sorry. I overreacted.”

A heavy silence followed her apology. Surely it would be a mistake to allow herself to spend time with him…to allow herself to fall for him. She couldn’t begin to count the number of reasons why it would never work, the least of which was his vast experience with dating compared to her novice status. She would just end up making a fool of herself and getting hurt. Then, there was the fact that his association with her was causing major waves with his mother. He’d probably end up resenting her for creating so much drama in his personal life—

Liam gently pushed a stray curl off her forehead, interrupting her flow of catastrophic thinking. Since he stood a step below her on the stoop, her eyes were level with his mouth. His thumb skimmed over her cheek, and then across her lower lip.

“So what about dinner at my place? It’d be a great evening for a swim, too,” he murmured distractedly, his gaze following the trail of his fingertip.

Natalie just stared for a few seconds, temporarily overwhelmed by his sudden nearness and stroking finger. He must have misunderstood the reason for her hesitation, because he added quickly, “I had a conversation with Jack Andreason earlier.”

“The bartender?” Natalie asked breathlessly.

“Yeah. I’ll tell you about it. Is it okay if I step into the AC while you get your suit? It’s sweltering out here.”

“Oh, of course. Please, come in,” Natalie said quickly,
mortified to realize she’d left him standing outside the entire time.

“If you have a pair of swim shoes or rubber flip-flops or something, bring those, too,” Liam called as she started down the hallway a moment later. “I haven’t gotten around to having any sand poured at the beach, and it’s rocky.”

It wasn’t until she’d hurriedly packed a canvas beach bag that Natalie realized how easily he’d smooth-talked her into accompanying him.

She was already regretting the decision by the time she followed Liam out to the driveway, her feet faltering when she saw his motorcycle. She recalled how she’d said she was disappointed because he hadn’t driven it last night and mentally damned her bravado.

“Is this the first time you’ve been on a bike?” Liam asked her as he stored her bag and handed her a helmet. Natalie suspected from his overly casual tone he’d noticed her apprehension.

He mounted the bike, all sinuous long limbs and effortless male grace. The motorcycle roared to life. “No worries. You’ll be safe with me.” His flashing grin faded as he examined her. “I promise, Natalie.”

Natalie seriously doubted about her safety when it came to Liam Kavanaugh, but she took the plunge anyway and got on the leather seat behind him, feeling every bit as awkward and foolish as Liam appeared comfortable and confident.

He turned his head so that she could see his profile.

“The only thing you’ve got to do is hold on. Tighter,” he added when she looped her arms around his waist in an uncertain gesture.

He exited her driveway at a tame pace, but when he turned down Travertine Road, the bike took off like a rocket. Natalie felt her heart plummet to the vicinity of her navel, and she hung on to Liam for dear life.

I
t took a few seconds for the full experience of being on the motorcycle to penetrate her consciousness. When she pried open her eyes after a moment, she saw the houses and trees along Travertine zooming by in a colorful, blurred landscape. The machine felt alive beneath her, as if they were riding some wild animal while it gave off a mixture of a growl and a vibrating purr.

By the time they passed the old, handcrafted mailbox at the cottage, Natalie had abandoned herself to the experience. Her upper body pressed flush against Liam’s back. Her cheek rested between his shoulder blades. She inhaled his scent—a subtle, fresh, spicy smell mixing with the clean fragrance of his laundered shirt. His body felt hard and supple in her encircling arms.

She was genuinely disappointed when Liam planted his feet on the gravel drive and the steel beast went silent.

Natalie clambered off the seat, removed the helmet and
idly began to smooth back her hair. She noticed Liam’s quizzical look.

“What?” she asked as she readjusted a pin. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“You’re the one who’s smiling, Natalie.” She paused when she heard the gruff intimacy of his voice. It struck her in a flash he was right. She’d been grinning like an idiot. What’s more, her cheeks were hot. She brushed her fingertips across them in wonder.

She’d completely lost herself in the experience.

Feeling a little bewildered by her reaction, she busied herself with claiming her canvas bag.

“You liked it,” Liam said as he dismounted. He whipped off his glasses. “You liked it a lot.”

Natalie gave him a severe glance for the smug satisfaction in his voice. When she saw the sparkle in his blue eyes, though, she couldn’t help but join him in laughter.

Both of them were hot and sticky after the ride, so they agreed to swim first. Natalie exited the downstairs bathroom feeling self-conscious, wearing nothing but her bathing suit and a pair of flip-flops. Why hadn’t she thought to bring a cover-up or towel?

She breathed a sigh of relief when she entered the empty kitchen and saw a large blue beach towel placed conspicuously on the kitchen table. Liam had obviously left it there for her. When she walked onto the terrace she saw him already down at the beach, the waves breaking around his calves. He turned and looked back at the sound of the screen door closing. He waved before he walked a few more feet into the water and pushed off the shore, shooting into the lake like a human projectile.

Her eyes remained fixed on him as she walked along the stone path between swaying prairie grass, cattails and sunflowers. His muscular, tanned back flexed and shone next
to the shimmering water. She placed her towel on a rock and carefully set her glasses upon it.

If this had been the first time she’d been with Liam, she would have jumped to the conclusion that he’d gone ahead of her because he was hot and craved a refreshing swim.

Now she knew different.

He’d given her space deliberately. He’d known she’d be self-conscious if he stood over her while she removed her glasses and dropped her towel. She’d underestimated him by assuming he was too self-confident to understand another person’s insecurities.

She had a strong suspicion she’d underestimated Liam in a number of ways.

It embarrassed her that he’d seen her vulnerability. Her gratitude toward him was stronger, though. At least Natalie
thought
it was gratitude. She didn’t know what else to call the ache in her chest she felt when she recognized his subtle acknowledgment of her feelings.

She waded in cautiously. She was hot from the summer sun and humidity, but as usual, Lake Michigan was frigid at first contact.

Liam turned a few feet away from the craggy breakwater and headed back toward shore. It was clear he came from a family of swimmers. He sliced through the water with an even, powerful stroke, making it look as easy as a hot knife carving through butter. In reality, Natalie knew from experience that swimming in the choppy water took a special skill, one she’d never fully mastered.

He surfaced a few feet away from her and knelt in the water.

“Still cold for August, huh?”

Natalie nodded, keeping Liam in the periphery of her vision as she stared at the gray water. If she stared too
intently into the brilliant sunshine, her weak eyelid would involuntarily close. She didn’t want Liam to notice that.

“You’re such a good swimmer,” she murmured.

“Thanks.”

He stood abruptly, causing the water to splash loudly around him. He stepped closer to her, casting Natalie in his tall shadow. She exhaled in relief and glanced up at him. She realized he’d blocked the sun on purpose—to protect her. For a second or two, she waited for the dread and embarrassment to come, the feelings that usually resulted after being exposed.

They never did.

His gaze was so uncommonly soft; his blue eyes were so warm. She recalled what he’d said this afternoon in front of the Captain and Crew about her scar:
It’s one of the many things that make you unique…and yes, beautiful.

She returned his smile.

“I remember watching you swim at the beach when I was a girl,” she said.

“Yeah?” he asked gruffly. He stepped closer and removed a strand of loose hair from her cheek with cool, damp fingertips.

She nodded as he tried to tuck the errant strand behind her ear. Her face was less than a foot away from his chest. His nipples were a dark copper color. They were erect from the cold water.

“I remember one summer you wore a pair of trunks that were the same color as the ones you’re wearing right now—turquoise blue,” she said in a rush. She felt his hand still in her hair. She kept her gaze fixed on his wet, muscular chest.

She was finally granted the ability to inhale when he resumed smoothing her hair. He stepped back, although he was careful to keep her cast in his shadow.

“I wish I could remember you,” he said.

“No you don’t. I mean…I’m glad you don’t,” she said with a laugh. “My mother usually wanted my hair short during the summers, because it was easier. It grows so fast, and it took her so long to brush out the snarls after a day at the beach. She just didn’t have the time. She worked too hard. When I was ten or eleven, I looked like an adolescent boy—skinny arms and legs. It was one of the reasons I liked the beach—at least in my bikini, people knew I was a girl.”

He chuckled. “I’ll bet you were adorable. I can’t picture you with short hair, though.” His eyes flickered down over her shoulders and chest. “I definitely can’t imagine you being mistaken for a boy.”

Her cheeks heated from a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment.

“Were you shy? As a little girl?” Liam asked, his voice a low rumble.

“Yes,” she said quietly as she watched her hands dance in the rippling water. “My mother used to say I was coming out of my shell, though. I’d become really involved in ballet classes and started doing recitals. Performing took me out of myself a little bit.”

“You’d been at a ballet recital on the night of the accident.”

She glanced up sharply. She’d been surprised by his statement, but Liam looked even more stunned at his own words.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He glanced toward the beach, a strange expression on his face. “I have no idea where that came from. It just hit me all of a sudden. I must have read it in a newspaper, or heard it on the news back when I was a kid. When you mentioned the recitals, it just sort of sprung up out of nowhere from my memory.”

Her surprise at his abrupt statement about the crash vanished in the face of his obvious discomfort.

“There’s no need to apologize,” she said, her voice even. “It probably was in the papers. My mother and I had been
at a recital over in South Haven. We were driving home that night.”

“You and your mother were close, weren’t you?” he asked after a moment.

“Yes. Very close.”

His gaze remained fixed on the beach. She saw his muscular throat convulse and she stepped toward him.

“It’s okay to ask about her, Liam.”

He glanced down at her sharply.

“I’m curious about you and your father, as well.” She hesitated before she plunged ahead. Glimpsing his uncertainty had given her courage, for some reason. “I would have been curious even if it wasn’t for the crash. I would have been, because of you.”

For a few taut seconds, she couldn’t read his expression. Then he muttered something under his breath she couldn’t quite catch and his arms closed around her. She shivered at the contact of his cool, wet skin against hers. He must have felt it, because he pushed her tighter against him, surrounding her with his body, until his heat penetrated into her. He bent his neck and pressed the side of his head against hers.

Natalie suppressed a whimper of rising emotion as her arms wrapped around his waist. Being so suddenly enfolded in his embrace like that had affected her in a way she hadn’t expected. It was a hug of compassion, an acknowledgment of their shared suffering.

As the seconds passed, however, and she became hyperaware of Liam’s near-naked body pressed intimately against her own, Natalie admitted the embrace meant more than compassion. Much more. Desire twined with all those other emotional threads: brilliant, golden and undeniable. His chin moved. He spoke in a low, gruff voice, his warm breath in her ear causing ripples of pleasure to course down her spine.

“This is a hell of a thing, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” No sound came out of her throat, but the right side of her mouth was pressed against the dense muscles of his chest. She knew he’d sensed her answer, just as she somehow knew he’d been referring to their strange association with one another, their past…the attraction between them that seemed to building to some kind of crescendo.

He trailed his large hand down her spine, and she shivered.

“Are you cold?” he murmured, his palm coming to rest just above her buttocks.

“Not…not really,” she replied with breathless honesty.

He stepped back. The setting sun shone so brightly around his outline it was like he was a haloed hero from a dream in her dazzled eyes. It fit somehow, that description. Distantly, she realized her cheeks were wet with tears, but…she experienced no embarrassment under Liam’s stare.

She felt strangely light-headed at the realization, liberated, her soul seemingly swelling upward, like a weight had just been lifted off her that she’d never known existed until now.

“Are you going to swim?” he asked her soberly.

She shook her head. She’d already plunged way deeper into these emotional waters than she’d ever intended.

“Let’s go inside then,” he said.

He took her hand and led her toward the beach.

He was happy that Natalie joined him on the terrace when he went out to grill their supper. Something had happened out there as they stood in the frigid waters of Lake Michigan. Some kind of barrier had melted away. The change in Natalie’s manner toward him was subtle, but at the same time…

Miraculous.

Liam felt as if he had somehow gained the privilege of watching a flower bloom before his very eyes. Slowly,
maybe…and tentatively, as if she was testing out the environment. But there could be no doubt of it.

Natalie trusted him enough to open up her inner world.

It humbled him a little, that realization.

He closed the lid of the smoking grill and listened as Natalie described the volunteer work she did for the Family Center—the treatment and family support facility for survivors of substance abuse that Mari Kavanaugh had opened last year. Apparently, Natalie volunteered a good chunk of her time in order to do the Center’s books, plus she took on the responsibility of making sure the Center’s licenses and operating guidelines were up to date and within required code.

“You make me feel like a shirker for just hammering a nail now and then,” Liam said.

“You had that beautiful sign made.
Choose hope,
” she said softly, repeating the quote Liam had requested for the sign he’d commissioned for the Family Center last year.

He couldn’t have stopped himself for anything. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to her wistful smile. His heart felt like it skipped a beat when he felt her smile widen beneath his lips before she kissed him back; it drummed into double-time when she laced her fingers through his hair.

A sudden blast of smoke in his face was the only thing that stopped him from tossing down the spatula and sacrificing the salmon to the flames.

He’d rather have Natalie for dinner.

“So I guess we’ll both be going to the Labor Day fundraiser Mari and Colleen have been planning this Sunday. Why don’t we go together?” Liam asked after he’d coughed the smoke out of his lungs and hurriedly removed the salmon fillets from the grill before they turned to carbon. He turned off the gas and picked up the plate of steaming fish.

It took him a moment to realize she hadn’t responded
immediately. He glanced at her. She wore a strange expression on her face—hesitant, pleased…wary?

“Okay, that’d be nice,” she said, and the flicker of anxiety he’d felt for a second upon seeing her uncertainty vanished. He grinned in satisfaction. There could be no doubt about it this time.

He’d just officially asked Natalie Reyes out and she’d said yes.

The terrace was cast in the pinkish-gold hues of sunset as they ate. After supper, they pushed back their plates and talked almost nonstop until the crimson orb of the sun sank slowly into the dark blue waters of the lake.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he said quickly at one point when he glanced up and noticed how set and pale Natalie’s face had become as he described having his cover blown last year when he’d been investigating some corrupt cops. “I knew Tresedi wouldn’t kill me without the consent of Maguire— Maguire ruled the pack—and the chances were pretty good my partner would find me before Maguire ever gave the order.”

“The chances were
pretty good,
” Natalie repeated, her voice flat with incredulity and anxiety.

“Mike Estes has never failed me before, and he didn’t in this case,” Liam repeated, referring to his former partner.