Infinite Possibilities (18 page)

“Go wide,” Liam says. “We might be one place and move to another.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

I am on my feet in an instant, closing the short distance between him and me. “Tomorrow?”

His hands come down on my shoulders, warm and solid. “Yes. I told you to trust your instincts and now I’m asking you to trust mine.”

“I’ll give you two a moment,” Dr. Murphy says. “I need to call my office anyway.”

Liam glances over my shoulder. “Any of the rooms on this floor are at your disposal.”

She clears her throat. “If you want to give birth here, you need to be back by May 1.” 

I hear the door shut, confirming her exit, and ask, “Where?”

“Taiwan. I have contacts there that can protect us and I’ve already lined up medical care and a place for us to stay.” 

Taiwan.
It’s a long way from Texas. “What about paperwork?”

“I’ve arranged everything. We’ll have what we need by morning. We need to do this.”

This is the ultimate test, the confirmation I trust him completely, and I reach deep, doing what I’ve always done to survive, and what Liam claims I’ve done well. I listen to my instincts and they say I belong with this man. 

I inhale and nod. “Yes. Okay.” 

***

The trust I’ve given Liam seems to deepen our bond further and every nervous moment I have, he seems to anticipate with a touch, a look. A moment no one else could have with me. Moments I had never thought I’d share with anyone, ever.  

Bedtime comes and I climb into bed. Liam brings my purse and sets it next to me. I frown and he lays a small leather case on the bed. My pulse leaps even before he unsnaps it and shows me what’s inside. “It’s a Smith & Wesson .38. Compact and easy to fit in your purse.” He presses it into my hand. “Comfortable?”

I close my eyes, swallowing the knot in my throat. “As comfortable as needing this is going to get.” I check it, confirm it’s loaded, and close it back in the case. “Thank you.” I stick it in the black Chanel purse and it fits perfectly. 

Liam sets my bag on the nightstand, and climbs into bed with me. “I want to feel your skin,” he murmurs, stripping away my gown and his boxers, and wrapping me in his strong arms, my back to his front. But this moment isn’t about sex and passion, of which we have plenty for one another. It’s about hope, and fear, and the kind of loss neither of us want to feel again. 

“Safety first,” he reminds me, stroking my hair in that soothing way he does. “Answers second. I’ve got you, baby. I promise. I’ve got you and I’ve got us.”

My lashes lower, letting the scent of him, familiar and warm like his arms, ease the tension in my body. He’s right. Safety first, but I can’t escape this horrible feeling gnawing at my gut. Like once I leave, I’ll never come back. I’ll never come back. Unable to fully sleep, I drift in and out of that thought. Once I leave...

Suffocating from the smoke pouring into my room, I shove open the window and suck in fresh air but I’m not sure I want to breathe. My mother...she’ s stopped screaming. I don’t know what that means. What does it mean
?

“Mom! Mom, answer me!”
 

“Jump, Lara!” my brother shouts. “Jump now.”
 

“Not without you and Mom and Dad!” I shout back at him, angry at something, everything. Afraid of the orange flames licking a path through my door, ready to consume it as they had the hallway
.  

“You see the flames, damn it,” he answers. “I can’t get to you. I’m going out another window. I’ll meet you outside.
”

The flames move closer and I perch on the edge of the window. He didn’t say anything about Mom and Dad. “Mom’s okay? Did Dad get to her? Did he get her out?”

“Goddamnit, Lara. How many times do I have to tell you to jump out of the fucking window! I’m running out of time. Get out so I can get out.”

The flames jump to my bed and I scream. I barely remember perching on the window sill but I’m grateful for my sweats and tennis shoes as I wobble and have to catch myself. It’s dark and I can’t see below but I know the roof slants and there’s a tree just below my bedroom. Heat sears my back and I yelp, climbing out onto the roof and squatting, clinging to the window’s ledge to keep from sliding into the darkness. Praying the fire trucks will come before I jump. Why aren’t they coming? Why aren’t they here?
 

Flames flash through the center of the window and I let go of it, sliding into a near tumble. Somehow, I right myself flat on my stomach to watch flames eating away at my curtains
.

“Please get them out, Chad. Please. All of you get out.”

Looking over my shoulder, I scoot farther down the slant and my feet catch on the gutter, and it almost gives. Cautiously, I inch around and manage to get to a squat. It’s dark, so very dark, and I try to gauge how close the tree limb is. At least I can’t see how high it is. I hate how high it is
. 

I reach for the limb when a blast from behind me shakes my bones and I’m thrown from the roof
.  

Gasping, I sit and the sound of screeching tears through my ears. Alarm. Fire alarm. Smoke bites viciously at my nostrils. Oh God. Oh God. No. I start to shake all over. This can’t be happening. I blink Liam into view, standing over me, shouting something at me. I don’t know what. I just know the house is on fire. The house
is on fire
.

Chapter Thirteen

Liam curses and throws the covers off of our naked bodies, wrapping an arm around my neck and pulling me to him, his mouth finding my ear while the alarm remains brutally loud. “Get dressed, and remember, I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you and I’ve got us.” He lets go of me and he’s out of the bed, buck naked and headed for the hallway.

He’s got us.
Brave and heroic words that he believes, but so did my brother in his own way. So did my father. My heart lodged in my throat, I scramble off the bed, and my adrenaline is pumping but I am remarkably calm. I will not crumble. I will not be defeated. And I will not jump out the window alone again.

I dart for the closet and tug on gray sweats and a t-shirt, and it’s impossible to escape the memory of doing the exact same thing six years ago. I’m just shoving my feet into tennis shoes when Liam appears in the closet doorway, already dressed in the same black sweatsuit he’d worn on Saturday.

“I smell the smoke but I see no fire.” He has to practically shout to be heard over the alarm. “I called 911 and Tellar. It’s an old house. It could be electrical.”

I all but flinch at exactly what had been said about my old family home. He exits the closet and I follow, ready to get out of here. I know exactly how fast flames appear and consume a home. Liam pauses by the bed and grabs my purse, sliding the strap cross body over my head and I know it’s for the gun. He doesn’t believe this is electrical or a coincidence any more than I do. The picture is pretty clear. Us hunkering down inside had forced someone to act, perhaps trying to kill us where we sleep, or since we see no flames as of yet, drive us out into the open. 

Holding onto my hand, he leads the way out into the hallway, and my stomach forms knots as we start down the stairs. I think of Alex’s dagger collection we’re leaving behind. Liam’s piece of his past.

My teeth chatter with the intensity of the screams of the alarms and a stunning realization washes over me. The alarms in my Texas home had not gone off. Not one, and we’d had several.

“Liam!” 

Tellar’s shout comes a moment before he appears on the bottom level staircase, and we follow him back down. “There’s smoke on the lower right exterior of the house but no flames,” he reports over his shoulder, pausing to face us as we hit the garage, and I shiver at the cold blast of November winter wind gushing in through the open doors as he adds, “The gates to the house are open, too, for the emergency crews, and Derek has security clearing the building next door to be safe.”

“Good. I don’t want this exploding on us and leaping over there.” Liam curses and runs a hand over the dark dusting of stubble on his jaw. “I have to go back for the travel documents.” 

Anxiety shoots through me. “What? No. That’s insanity. You can’t go back inside the house. You can’t.” He cups my face. “I’m getting you out of here before I can’t.” He eyes Tellar, his jaw set in steel like his tone. “
Do not
let her out of your sight.” He lifts me by the arms and pretty much hands me to Tellar. 

“No, Liam.” I jerk forward and Tellar shackles my waist. “No. Don’t do this, Liam! Don’t go in the house again!” But he’s already running back toward the door.  

“What’s happening? Where’s Liam?”

At the sound of Derek’s voice, I grab for the distraction and kick Tellar. He grunts. “Damn it. Stop it, Amy.” 

“He’s in the house, Derek,” I explain, squirming against Tellar, trying to see Derek and make my case to him. “Do you hear me? He’s in the house. You’re not on his payroll. You don’t have to listen to Liam and let him get himself killed.”

“That’s low, Amy,” Tellar snaps and then says to Derek, “Liam’s fine. He went back in to grab some paperwork.”

“He’s not fine,” I insist, twisting in his arms. Finally I manage to free myself enough to face him. “Let me go, Tellar.”

“There are no flames, Amy. He’s fine and I’m not letting you run back into the house.” 

“If there are no flames and he’s fine, why is that a problem?” I challenge. 

A fire truck roars loudly into the driveway behind us and pain splinters through my head. I lean into Tellar, pressing my face into his shirt and for a moment, I’m back on the roof of my old house, reaching for that tree limb and being blasted off the edge. 

Tellar starts dragging me out of the garage, snapping me back to the present. I’d assumed the blast at my house had been from the fire, but...I dig in my heels and yank hard on Tellar’s arm. “I think there was a bomb in my house in Texas. What if there’s one now? Get him out of the house. Get Liam out now!”

“Fuck,” Tellar growls and now I’m shoved at Derek. “Get her away from the house.”

Tellar runs toward the building and that’s when the world spins and all my vows to stay calm evaporate, leaving me with nothing but panic. My mother’s screams play in my head, shredding parts of my mind and soul with every repetition. I can hear Chad yelling for me to jump. He never thought he’d make it. I should have helped him. I should have stayed and now Liam is going to die. Everyone I love dies. And God, what if Tellar dies now, too?

I start pushing and shoving against Derek, fighting to get to Liam and Tellar. I screwed up. I did this all wrong. A sob rips from my throat, and sounds are coming from my throat I don’t recognize as being from me but they are.

Derek curses. “Woman, you’re going to hurt yourself and I can’t let that happen.” He bends at the waist and hikes me over his shoulder. I yelp with the insanity of the moment, and he starts to run. 

Blood rushes to my face, tears pouring over my forehead and I suck in so much cold air that I start to cough and choke. Firemen are everywhere. People are everywhere. I can’t breathe or think until finally, Derek slides me to my feet and when I think I’ll yell at him, the minute I see the concern in his eyes, I sob and melt against him. “I can’t lose him. I can’t.”

He holds me to him, hugging me. “You’re not going to lose him. I promise.”

I push back and glare at him. “Like my brother promised he was coming out of the house? Like that, Derek?”

“Amy--”

“Because he didn’t come out.” My voice quakes with anger and heartache. “He. Didn’t. Come. Out. None of them came out.”

Suddenly I’m pulled around and Liam wraps me in his strong arms. Relief washes over me. I can finally breathe again. “Oh, thank God.”

The warmth of his palms frames my face. “I’m okay. We’re okay.” 

“It’s not okay. It’s not. I told you to stop saying that. Just because you say it does not make it so, Liam. You think it does. You think you can will it, whatever “it” is, at the moment to happen, and make it so. You think--” He scoops me up and starts walking. “Stop picking me up. Stop acting macho before it gets you killed.”

“She’s pregnant,” he tells a fireman, ignoring me. “I need her checked out.”

“I don’t need--” I begin.

“You do,” Liam insists, rotating around so that I can see the EMS truck and a man in uniform. “She needs to be checked, but give us a minute, will you?” 

The man moves aside and Liam climbs into the truck, setting me on the bed and joining me. I slide my hand to his leg. “You shouldn’t have gone back in. You shouldn’t--”

He leans in and kisses me, the touch of his mouth on mine sending a wave of warmth through me and I cup his face, holding his cheeks. “Don’t do that to me again,” I whisper on a breath. “It was like having my heart ripped from my chest.”

“I wouldn’t scare you or hurt you on purpose.” He curls my hand in his. “Talk to me about the bomb.”

“I remember being on the roof of my house. I was trying to get to the tree to jump and the house exploded.”