Full Circle (3 page)

Her blossoming hopes deflated.

She was pretty sure her mouth was open, but before she embarrassed herself, Laura came in for the save. “Liam, Elisa, I believe you met today?”

He looked up and smiled. Right at her. “Hey there.”

Hey there.
How many times had he greeted her with that phrase and a big smile, every time she entered his and Brett’s dorm room? How many times had she waved in response and then headed straight for Brett, leaving Liam in the friend zone so she could giggle and kiss a man who’d ended up being the devil himself?

She glanced at Laura, who squeezed her hand and went back to making dinner. Elisa was on her own, the most familiar kitchen in the world suddenly uncharted.

“Everything okay?” Justin asked her from across the room while he filled several glasses with ice.

“Fine.” She clenched her fingers into tight fists, fearing if she let her hands free, they would make their way to her brother’s neck and start squeezing.

This was all his fault. Hiring Liam, inviting him to dinner…was he trying to kill her? Thank goodness he didn’t know about their history. The only thing that stopped her from strangling her brother was the knowledge that Liam’s presence wasn’t part of some ignorant matchmaking trick. Justin knew better than to do something that wrong.

She pictured the SUV in the driveway, and it registered as the same one Liam had driven to work that day. If she had figured that out before she’d come inside, she would have jumped back into her car and headed for the nearest fast-food joint.

“Have a seat, El.” Laura pulled a casserole out of the oven and set it on the stovetop to cool. “Hope you don’t mind that we invited Liam to dinner too. He won’t have furniture until tomorrow and his dishes are still packed.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” she lied, taking a few steps toward the table. “How’s the little one?”

“Kicking away. He loves turkey casserole and he can smell it coming.”

She shook her head. “Woman, you are crazy. Three boys? I’d be out of my mind.”

“Justin, don’t you say a word,” Laura chastised her husband, who had opened his mouth to undoubtedly respond that Elisa
was
out of her mind. He believed she should have long ago gotten over her aversion to marriage and kids, and that was something they would probably never stop arguing about.

Either Liam was still looking at her, or else he had decided to look again. Both options made her nervous.

“Couldn’t very well take that job in Nashville with three boys on hand, right?” he said.

Finally, Elisa made eye contact with him. It was no surprise that he remembered their brief discussion about her future. He always had shown too much concern for her. At nineteen, that attention had driven her into his arms and changed everything.

Since she couldn’t avoid him, she might as well make an effort to be friendly. His support could go a long way in getting Justin to leave her alone about moving and she needed someone on her side of that debate.

She smiled. She owed him some kindness for being such a witch to him earlier in the day when he hadn’t done anything wrong.

But I did.

How could she have ever thought he didn’t need to know something so important? She’d believed she could ignore the truth, and now the universe was laughing in her face.

She chose a seat across the table from him. “That’s right. Thank you, Liam.”

Justin snorted. “She’d move to Nashville even if someone paid her a million dollars
not
to—”

“Daddy!” His eight- and five-year-old boys, Kevin and Jack, barreled into the kitchen and tackled him.

He ruffled their matching russet haircuts and untangled his legs from their grasp. “Hey, guys. Sit down, dinner’s ready. Wash your hands first.”

They obeyed. Liam wore a sentimental grin while he watched her nephews bound around the kitchen.

He wanted to have kids. His desire for fatherhood was all over his face.

Elisa no longer needed to wonder why Liam had chosen the small clinic in Windy Flats over the prestigious downtown Dallas location where, according to his paperwork, he had last worked. He wanted to start a family, and in this town, a man with his good looks and career success would have no problem finding a woman more than willing to bear his children.

A shiver traveled down her spine, and once again, she shoved the memory from her head.

Two months and you’ll be back on schedule.
Like it never happened.

For politeness’ sake, she scooped some casserole onto her plate and picked up her fork, but she couldn’t stomach a single bite. She heard vague bits of conversation as Justin and Laura welcomed Liam to Windy Flats and discussed work at the clinic. At some point the kids begged to be released from the table to continue playing in the backyard, and the slamming of the door behind them jolted Elisa back to reality.

“…ready to give up the bachelor life for good, huh?” Justin was saying. “I don’t know, man. It might put the clinic in the red if I have to tell the ladies you’re hitched someday. Why don’t you play the field a bit longer?”

Liam chuckled, but he leveled his gaze on Elisa, his eyes tinged with bitterness only she could see. “I’ve been around that block enough times,” he said.

She glowered. How dare he imply that
she
used
him
?

“Sounds like both of these guys were hellions when they were younger.” Laura reached for the casserole spoon while she glared at Justin for bringing up the topic. Elisa wanted to hug her again. “But they did grow up and realize that spreading their, uh,
love
as much as possible wasn’t the most important thing in the world. Right?”

“Not important, but fun,” Justin cracked, and Laura gave him a playful smack on the arm.

Elisa’s gut wrenched. She laid her fork across her plate. “Sex is overrated.”

Around the table, witty banter and clanging silverware fell silent. An unmistakable wave of pity washed over her.

She did not want their pity.

Even worse, she could feel Liam’s gaze on her, could almost hear the questions and criticism rolling through his mind. Why was he doing this to her? Why did he care? It had been so long. Too long. None of it mattered anymore. Yet somehow, even having been reacquainted with him for only a day, she knew if she poured her heart out to him, he would listen. He always did.

That was the last thing she could ever do. If she considered him anything more than a coworker, it would be the biggest mistake of her life. At least, the second biggest.

With the three of them staring at her, she got up from the table and left the house.

The sun had set, and her breath wheezed in her ears as she moved through the blackness, her footsteps hitting the pavement faster and faster, not stopping until she was locked inside her car. With the gas pedal pinned between her toes and the floorboard, she made it back to her place in less than five minutes.

She slammed and locked her front door then dashed up the stairs and into the bathroom. Furiously, she wiped forbidden tears from her eyes and filled her bathtub, letting the rushing water drown out the image of the two lines on the pregnancy test, the sound of the baby’s heartbeat, Brett’s taunting laughter…and worst of all, the sympathetic voice of the doctor saying it was over as Elisa came out of her anesthesia-induced fog, nothing left in her abdomen but a bunch of stitches.

If only she hadn’t been so afraid to contact Liam. If only she hadn’t assumed she had four months left to make that phone call. Her life wouldn’t have fallen to pieces. She wouldn’t be sitting here, nine years later, still playing catch-up.

The slamming of the window pierced the night air and destroyed any doubt that a robe-clad Elisa had spotted him. His shoes momentarily planted in the wilting grass, Liam watched as she yanked the curtains closed and wiped out his ability to see her.

He regained his ability to function and hurried across the yard to knock on her door. He had to explain what he was doing there—
now
—or he’d find himself back in the fast lane before he’d collected his first paycheck. Of all the women in Windy Flats he could have picked to star in his impromptu peep show, Elisa was the worst possible choice. As his boss, Justin would fire him immediately. As Elisa’s big brother, Justin would knock out a few of his teeth even sooner.

The door remained closed despite his repeated knocks.

“Go away, stalker boy!” answered her muffled voice. As he’d suspected, she was on the other side. Probably squinting out the peephole and watching him squirm.

He thumped his forehead on the door. “Elisa, open up. I know this sounds cheesy, but I can explain. Please let me apologize.”

Silence.

He looked to the sky for help and raised his hand to knock again then heard the door click. Elisa stood in front of him, wearing the fuzzy pink bathrobe he’d seen—by accident—in the upstairs window.

The effect hit him like a stray baseball to the side of his head. The color made her look feminine and a thousand times more delicate than the shapeless, tomboyish clothes he’d previously seen her wearing. Just like that afternoon in the office when he’d caught her eye for a moment, he was reminded of the girl she used to be and the way she had once looked at him.

Only
once. One passionate night, before she’d run off and eloped with Brett despite the way that guy treated her. That thought alone turned Liam off, never mind what he’d seen a few minutes ago.

And what he was looking at now.

“You can apologize from right there.” Elisa spoke to him through the screen door, her arms folded over her chest.

He backed up and stood in the middle of her front porch so she could see all of him, as though the absence of binoculars and girlie magazines would convince her that he wasn’t a peeping Tom.

“I’m really sorry. Justin and Laura told me where you live, and I came by to see how you’re doing because you seemed so upset when you left. When I got out of the car, you were…just there in the window. I couldn’t help but see you. I was only here for a sec—”

“If Justin and Laura wanted to know how I was doing, why didn’t one of them come over?”

“Justin said he’s the last person you would ever talk to about it, and Laura was having some back pain.”

Her stern expression crumbled. “Back pain?” she asked, her tone laced with fear. “Is she all right?”

Liam searched for the right words, not that he had a clue what those would be. He couldn’t claim any experience with pregnancy or its aches and pains. “I think so. She was resting and said she’d call you in the morning.”

A late-evening jogger passed by. Elisa stared out at the street then seemed to realize the whole neighborhood would hear their conversation if they continued it that way.

“Wait here. Let me get dressed.”

She shut the door and he leaned against the rickety porch railing, flooded with relief that she might let him in. He had come to see why she’d bolted from dinner, but more importantly, to follow up on what she had told him earlier. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that the baby he’d spent much of his youth fretting over hadn’t been born.

He wouldn’t have brought it up so casually if he’d known such a thing. And how would he? Elisa left school when she found out she was pregnant. Liam had never heard from her again. All these years, he had assumed she, Brett and the kid were living as one big, dysfunctional family.

A couple of minutes passed, and he inspected the house to distract himself from the possibility that she may not come back. The exterior was painted white with the exception of the front door, garage door, and surrounding trim which all boasted the same dark green color. The paint was peeling and the grass dying in the sweltering summer heat. The whole place reminded him of something out of the seventies and didn’t exactly scream pride of ownership. His mental list of questions about Elisa’s life grew even longer.

At last, she fumbled with the locks again and then opened the door, this time wearing shorts and a University of Texas longhorn T-shirt. That must be where she attended school now. But why? She had transferred out after that first year to go who-knows-where with Brett, but she should have graduated from her new place around the same time Liam did—six years ago.

He had no idea where she’d gone or what had happened in the near-decade since their friendship came to an abrupt end. A tugging in his gut urged him to find out, and to do it without liking her too much. On top of the fact that she was his boss’s sister and his coworker, he had traveled that road with her before—and seen its dead-end.

“Welcome to my humble abode.” Elisa opened the door wider and gestured for him to enter.

“Thank you.” He nodded. More stilted conversation.

Liam stepped onto the hardwood floor. The interior of the house matched the outside, old and in need of repairs. A fresh coat of paint would benefit every wall, and the floor needed refinishing. With a few tools, he could do some serious updating in here. But the condition of the house didn’t disturb him as much as the absence of Elisa’s belongings.

There wasn’t the stash of sentimental knick-knacks he’d known women to display, or any photos of family and friends on the wall—just a few pieces of furniture in the living room, and around the corner, a vintage kitchen table surrounded by four green vinyl chairs. The stuff looked way too old to be hers.

“Do you own this place?” he couldn’t help asking.

She strolled into the living room, never meeting his eyes. “No. This is temporary.”

Temporary.
It seemed to be the way she liked things—she had also said she would leave the clinic before long. He fought the urge to ask her why she was determined to leave a town he already knew he was going to enjoy. Dinner conversation had revealed Justin asked her that question often enough, so Liam kept his expression neutral. He’d have a better chance of getting her to talk if she thought he couldn’t care less.

“The house belongs to my parents,” she explained. “They lived here years ago, and when they moved up to a nicer home, they kept this one and rented it out. They’re letting me use it for free until I finish school.”