Off the Hook (7 page)

They followed the sound of an Elvis song, playing from what turned out to be Kate’s phone, and found her up on a chair in the far guest room, taking down curtains. For about half a second, Liam was almost thankful she’d changed out of her spandex, until he realized she looked even better in those jeans. They weren’t tight like the ones he remembered from Vegas. No, sir. These were…better.

Much better.

And going by the way Finn’s eyes widened, he noticed how good she looked, too. Fighting back a growl, Liam cuffed his brother across the back of his head, then cleared his throat from where they stood in the doorway.

“Uh, Kate?”

She turned on the chair, and her gaze flicked straight past Liam to Finn. While he knew it shouldn’t bother him, Liam would be lying if he said it didn’t.

“This is Finn. Finn, Kate.”

Finn shoved past Liam, knocking him almost into the doorframe, and headed straight at Kate, hand extended as she climbed off the chair.

“Kate. Good to meet you.” He tipped his head a little closer to her, then cast a quick glance back at Liam, who hadn’t budged from the doorway. “I’d like to say I’ve heard a lot about you, but I’d be lying.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” Kate’s initial look of surprise smoothed into a halting smile as she shook his hand. “I guess I have a bit of an advantage, because at least I knew he had brothers.”

“Nice. Well, trust me on this, you were smart to get out of that marriage as quick as you did, because you can do a hell of a lot better than him.”

Joke or not, normally Liam would have taken Finn down for saying something like that—put him in a headlock and wrestled an “uncle” out of him—but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Hell, he could barely manage to blink.

“Uh, thank you, I think,” Kate said, sounding a little uncertain. “And while I’d be happy to take credit for it, I should probably confess that the divorce wasn’t exactly my idea.”

“Yeah, I know, he told me he was a dick.”

“Did he, now?” Still grinning, she tipped her face toward Liam, causing every signal in his brain to misfire.

“Yeah,” Finn started. “But—”

“Shut up, Finn.” Clearing his throat again—what was up with that anyway?—Liam finally managed to move into the room. “We were wondering if, uh, if you know anything about building websites. We need to put one together for the lodge, and none of us have a clue.”

“Sorry.” She looked down at Finn’s hand, still wrapped around hers until Liam reached over and slapped his brother’s away. “Can’t help you there, but I know someone who does it as a side job; I could get some information from her.”

“That’d be great.”

Without looking at Liam, Finn elbowed him sharply, tipped his chin toward Kate, and said, “Thank you.”

“Right. Thank you.” Liam grabbed the back of Finn’s jacket and jerked. “Come on, we’ve got roofing to do.”

He shouldn’t care that Finn kept smiling at Kate, and he shouldn’t care that she kept smiling back, but he did, so the sooner they got out of there, the better.

Stumbling backward, Finn tripped after Liam, chuckling the whole way. “We’ll talk later, Kate. Maybe compare notes on what a dickwad this guy is.”

“Looking forward to it.”

The last thing Liam heard as he dragged his stupid brother out of the room was the sound of Kate laughing. Now that Finn had seen and talked to her, albeit briefly, he’d no doubt have something to say, but he held his tongue until they were both up on the roof of the Orange cabin.

“She’s way too good looking for someone like you.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, come on,” Finn laughed. “You might’ve wanted to think twice before bailing so fast on someone who looked
like that.
I mean, hell, bro, it’s not like that ugly mug of yours has been bringing them in hard and fast lately.”

“Screw off.”

“Am I wrong?” Still chuckling, Finn slid his pitchfork under the first strip of shingles. “I mean, yeah, obviously marriage is a bad idea at the best of times, and it sounds like yours was flat-out batshit crazy, but still.”

“You don’t know anything about it.” Liam had yet to do anything other than lean on his pitchfork and stare down at his boot.

“Did she look like that when you married her?”

“Pretty much.” Truth was, Kate had been a pretty girl, but now…well, shit…now she was all woman, and “pretty” didn’t even come close to describing her. Her milk-chocolate-colored hair hung over her shoulders, a little longer than it had back then, her hazel eyes were a little more golden, and her shape…

It was all Liam could do not to groan. He remembered her curves well enough, but he didn’t remember her seeming as comfortable in them as she did now. It was almost as if she hadn’t quite fit them ten years ago, but she sure as hell did now.

And even after all this time, she smelled like sunshine. He’d noticed it yesterday when she walked by him on the path and slapped him on the shoulder, and then again, up in that guest room, her scent lingered.

“Hey!” Finn’s bark jerked him back, blowing away the remaining images of Kate as Finn waved his pitchfork in front of Liam’s face. “You gonna stand there holding down the shingles all day or are you gonna help?”

Liam didn’t move for another couple of seconds, just continued staring at the back of Finn’s head before huffing out a sigh and getting down to work. For a long time, the surrounding silence was disrupted only by the scraping of the shingles and the ocean lapping the edge of the cove, which gave Liam plenty of time and room to think.

But why did he have to use up all that good thinking time on Kate? There were other things he should be thinking about, like his career, like how much work they had to do if they had any hope of opening for the first of June, and then there was the constant nagging worry that, even if they did manage to get open, they didn’t have a single reservation yet.

And still, thoughts of Kate pushed everything else into the back corner of his brain, until he finally gave up and let her take over completely. The second he did, it was as if a dam broke in his head, and for some stupid reason, the relief of that pressure made him chuckle quietly.

“She
is
pretty good lookin’, isn’t she?”

“Cha,” Finn sputtered, almost as if he’d been thinking the same thing and had been waiting for Liam to say it. “But you know I’m screwing with you, right? Good looking or not, marriage to anyone back then would’ve messed you up.”

Liam nodded absently as Finn straightened and leaned against his fork.

“So the divorce was your idea? I bet that was an interesting conversation.”

“Yeah, well, there wasn’t much to say,” Liam mumbled. “I just sort of sent her the paperwork.”

“Seriously?” Finn winced. “Wow—that
was
pretty dickish.”

“It gets worse.” He lifted another fork of shingles as he filled Finn in on the basic facts, then cleared his throat. “So I wasn’t lying when I said I was a dick to her. Never even spoke to her again until she showed up here yesterday.”

“Holy shiiiit. That’s—”

“I know.” Liam shook his head. “Jessie told me I need to grow a pair and apologize, but I haven’t quite gotten there yet.”

“You haven’t—” Finn was no angel, so for him to be that gobsmacked, it had to be bad. “You’ve had ten years, dude, what are you waiting for?”

“I don’t know.” He could have easily said something like he was waiting for the right moment, but there’d been plenty of right moments, especially in the last day. No, the truth was, he’d been waiting for a little courage to come find him, but as much as he hated to admit it, Jessie was right: It was past time he grew a pair and got on with it.

He and Finn didn’t talk much about anything after that, but when they did, it was all about the roof they were working on, the ones they still had to do, and how many trips it would take in the boat to get all the recyclable stuff over to Port Hardy—guy stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with right, wrong, or, God forbid, feelings.

It was probably just as well, because ever since that damn Cessna dumped Kate in their laps yesterday, Liam had been hit with a whole mash-up of feelings, most of which he hadn’t felt since the first time he’d seen her standing in that damn casino. Lust, fascination, curiosity, and something else he’d never been able to define. It was as if being with her had made him feel…alive…and along with “smitten,” that was something else he’d never say out loud, especially standing there with Finn, who’d no doubt fall off the roof laughing if Liam gave voice to either word.

With the entire roof stripped and prepped, they were securing the last of the felt underlay when Jessie’s voice came over the radio dangling from Finn’s belt.

“It’s a little late, but I’m heating up leftovers if you want some lunch.”

“Thank God,” Finn muttered. “Let’s go.”

Liam wasn’t in quite the same hurry as Finn. Sure, his stomach had matched Finn’s growl for growl, but it meant facing Kate again so soon after realizing what he had to do. It’d taken him ten years to get that far, so he was going to need a little more time to figure anything else out.

Maybe he’d just grab some food and eat outside.

It was only a couple of hundred meters from the Orange cabin to the lodge, so that didn’t give him much time to get his shit together, and what little he did manage to get was shot all to hell when he walked into the pub and saw Kate sitting there smiling at something Jessie said.

Finn jumped right into their conversation, but Liam kept his mouth shut until he could fill it with a forkful of leftover stew. Jessie didn’t even let them swallow before she started.

“The good news,” she said, “is that Kate’s friend is going to design the website for us. She’s done a couple other sites that needed reservations systems, so she’ll be good to go with this.”

“And the bad news?” Finn asked.

“Looks like we’ve got a weather system coming in the day after tomorrow. Probably just rain, but they’re not ruling out more snow, either, so we need those cabin roofs finished in case it does turn out to be snow and then we’re stuck.”

Finn and Liam blinked first at each other, then at Jessie.

“I know those roofs aren’t huge,” Liam said. “But this isn’t something we do every day. We’ll be lucky to get this one finished before dark; there’s no way we’re going to get all three done by tomorrow night.”

“I know. That’s why Kate and I are going to help, right, Kate?”

Kate nodded over a swallow. “Mm-hmm.”

“No.” It was out of Liam’s mouth before he could stop it, leaving everyone else at the table staring at him. “Finn and I’ll work on different cabins, split the job up and get it done faster.”

“Not gonna happen,” Jessie said. “The last time I let one of you O’Donnells do a roofing project alone, we had to call in the medevac.”

“What?” Kate choked, her eyes wide.

“Jimmy.” Jessie made the sign of the cross as she said his name, which was great, until she added an eye roll and shook her head. “Refused to let anyone up there with him, tripped over his own big Irish feet, and fell off; landed on a stack of shingles and ended up with a concussion, two broken ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. He laid there over half an hour before I found him.”

As their first-aid attendant, Jessie had sounded calm, cool, and completely under control when she’d called Liam to tell him what happened. The next day, when he talked to Finn, who’d taken some personal time to fly down, Liam got a slightly different version of how Jessie was doing.

As soon as the old man had been released from the hospital, Da and Finn had flown back to the Buoys, where Jessie was in no mood for any more of Da’s shit. She’d made sure he was good and comfortable in his bed, then headed straight into the bar, sat down, and sobbed until Finn threatened to call the medevac back for her, too.

“We’re not
ever
doing that again,” Jessie said, which was why, half an hour later, the four of them were all heading back toward the cabins.

“Jess and I’ll go start on Green,” Finn said, already heading for the far cabin. “When you and Kate finish getting Orange shingled, you can start ripping up White.”

Jessie hustled after Finn, but not before Liam caught a glimpse of the grin on her face. Yeah, this was real funny.

With the White cabin separating them, it was impossible for Liam to hear what his stupid brother was saying, but it made Jessie laugh hard, so it was obviously something at Liam’s expense.

After holding the ladder for Kate, he climbed up behind her, hauling a stack of shingles with him. They spent a few awkward minutes going over what needed to be done and how they were going to work together on it, but once that was settled, Liam couldn’t seem to force anything else from his tongue. Kate, on the other hand…

“You never told me you and your family were fishermen.” She waited until Liam had laid down a pyramid of shingles, starting at the center edge, then began laying the next ones flush against his, using her own nail gun to secure each shingle like he showed her. “I know we didn’t talk much about our families, but owning a fishing lodge is kind of cool; you’d think something interesting like that would have come up in conversation at some point.”

“Most people think fishing’s about as exciting as watching paint dry.”

“I’ve never been,” she said. “So I couldn’t agree or disagree on that.”

Liam stood straight up and stared at her. Surely to God she was kidding. “You’ve never been fishing?”

Her gaze flicked up at him briefly before she shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

“How do you live your whole life on the West Coast and never go fishing?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “One or two of Mom’s boyfriends used to fish, but they certainly never offered to take us with them. And as I grew up, I had other stuff to do, I guess. What’s so great about it?”

“What’s so—” Liam stopped, not entirely sure how to answer that. Truth was, even if he hadn’t turned into an inarticulate moron since she’d arrived, it was next to impossible to accurately describe the fishing experience to someone who’d never wrapped her hands around a rod. “I’d have to take you out on the water to show you.”