What The Heart Finds (12 page)

“Isn't that the
ideal situation?” Eric asked, his own voice betraying him,
sounding more hopeless than excited at the idea.

“You know...”
Liam said, knowing he should probably just keep his mouth shut. She
was just a crazy woman who had good hunches. There was absolutely no
empirical evidence that the woman was psychic. “It's been two
years,” he started cryptically. At Eric's raised brow, he went
on. “Anna was here one day a few years back. When you guys were
still dating. And I was... well... I was giving her a piece of my
mind...”

“You what?”
Eric exploded, anger flooding his system suddenly. “You should
have just stayed the hell out of it Liam. It had nothing to do with
you.”

Liam rolled his eyes,
somehow making the gesture seem less juvenile and almost snobbish.
“You were in love with her. She was jerking you around...”

“She wasn't jerking
me around,” Eric clarified, not knowing why he still felt the
need to defend her. “She just wasn't sure what she wanted. And
that ended up being Sam, not me.”

“Yeah well if you'd
let me speak,” Liam said, throwing back his drink. “I was
lecturing her and Maude stormed in and told me to leave her alone.
That Anna wasn't the one meant for you.”

“Obviously,”
Eric said, shaking his head. Where could this possibly be leading?

“And that I needed
to back off because in two years it would all make sense.”

“What would all
make sense?”

Liam shrugged a shoulder.
“Why Anna wasn't the right one.”

“You're saying Lena
is?” he asked, smiling slightly, the whiskey taking the edge
off of his frustration.

“I'm not saying
anything,” Liam said, leaning back in his chair. “I'm
just repeating something Maude told me.”

Eric looked over at his
younger brother for a moment. Barely a year between them, but Liam
always wearing his maturity like a badge of honor. Always logical.
Always sensible. “You don't believe that Maude can see
anything,” he said.

“No,” Liam
said, pouring them each another round. “But it is an
interesting coincidence don't you think?”

“I dunno,”
Eric grumbled. As long as he remembered, Maude had always been five
steps ahead of everyone else.

Once, when he was about
nine, out in the woods shooting arrows at trees... Maude had come
running through a clearing, yelling at him to get to town and tell
the sheriff she had found the missing Johnson boy. When he had gotten
into town and burst into the office, the sheriff had just sat down
with the frantic parents about to take down a report.

Then there had been the
time when she congratulated the Millers on the street two months
before they realized they were expecting their first child after four
years of infertility.

Every year there were a
half dozen or more new stories about Maude knowing something,
predicting something that had yet to happen. Or meddling in
relationships, forcing two people toward each other when she knew
they were going to end up together one day.

Maybe she did have some
kind of sight. But that didn't necessarily mean she was always right.
That she was right this time. That she was right about Lena.

“What is it about
her?” Liam asked, genuinely curious even though his tone came
off a little incredulous as if he couldn't fathom what the draw was.

Eric looked at Liam,
wondering when was the last time he had seen him with a woman. Or
with a woman for more than one night. Years? Had he ever actually
dated anyone seriously?

“Hell if I know,”
Eric said, shaking his head. “She's just so...”

“Uptight,”
Liam supplied and Eric laughed.

“Yeah, she's
definitely that,” he conceded. “But I think it's just a
guard.”

“Guard against
what?”

“Me,” Eric
smiled. “And you. And everyone else she meets.”

“Damaged isn't
usually your type,” Liam reasoned.

“Who says she's
damaged?”

“People who put up
walls to keep people from getting close always have some kind of
damage.”

“Speaking from
personal experience?” Eric asked, his lips turned up slightly.

“Yes,” Liam
said seriously. The silence that fell afterward felt heavy and
strange.

“Maybe it's just
the challenge,” Eric suggested after a minute.

“Because you're
used to flashing a smile and making all the panties in town drop?”
Liam asked, his tone amused.

“I guess. It's a
possibility. I mean... Anna was kind of the same way.” At
Liam's raised eyebrow, he held up a hand to stop his retort. “Not
in the guarded, damaged kind of way. But she was a challenge. She
flip-flopped between wanting to keep me at arm's length and wanting
me with her. She was unpredictable.”

“And how is Lena
unpredictable?”

“She's clever. And
sarcastic. Just when you think you got the better or her or got on
her good side, she is saying something smart and snarky and throwing
a wrench in the works.”

“Speaking of
wrenches,” Liam broke in. “ever think about what is going
to happen when you fix her car and she has to go back to her life?”

“Yeah,” Eric
shrugged. “I mean... no big deal. I just want to be able to
have some fun while she is around. But she keeps pushing me away.”

“Maybe it's a big
deal to her,” Liam suggested. “She doesn't exactly seem
like the casual sex type.” Liam looked over at his brother for
a moment, the dark smudges under his eyes that suggested a lack of
sleep, the scruff on his cheeks. “So... you're telling me all
you want from her is a trip around the sheets.”

“Yeah,” Eric
said, not meeting his eye. “What else would I want? Someone to
chain myself down to?”

“Someone to come
home to,” Liam said casually, the idea rather lost on him. He
went home to his books. And woke up to his books. He had lived a
thousand lives. Fallen in love with hundreds of women. Then folded
them all back up and moved on.

“Who are you?”
Eric asked, his eyebrows drawn together. Liam had never been the
sentimental type. Always bookish. Always pragmatic. Sarcastically
intellectual. Wise and clever. But never sensitive.

Liam laughed, rubbing his
chin and pouring them each another glass. “I dunno. Blame the
whiskey. But maybe you're getting tired of all the skirt chasing.”

“The skirt chasing
has been fun,” Eric defended without much conviction.

“Yeah, man, but
you've been doing it since you were fourteen. I think the better part
of twenty years has been a pretty long run. Everything gets old
eventually.”

“You obviously have
not spent enough time around women,” Eric said, smiling
devilishly.

“I'm obviously not
saying you're going to give up women. But maybe that you would like
to settle down and get to know one in particular for longer than a
night or a weekend.”

“Come on. I'm not
that bad...”

Liam got up, walking
behind the counter and grabbing a tray of leftover cookies. “Look.
I know that what happened with Anna really cut...”

“Oh, please,”
Eric said, attempting a smile. “I got over that just fine.”

“If by 'got over'
you mean you fell into bed with every woman you came across who was
willing... then yeah.”

“I was always...”

“No,” Liam
interrupted, picking apart a cookie and not eating it. They really
were pretty awful. He should probably look into getting store-bought
ones. “Before Anna you were a... connoisseur of women. You
flirted with all of them but spent some time charming a fair few a
year. After Anna, you just... man you kinda became a player. It was
all that awful wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of thing. You screwed
anyone who crossed your path. You went out of town and screwed around
with all kinds of strange.”

“Did you really
just use the term 'strange'? What are we, teenagers?” Eric
asked, uncomfortable, trying to steer the conversation in a different
direction.

“Regardless...
that's what you did. And that's why the town went from casually
warning their daughters away from you to downright loathing you. I
mean I thought it was just a phase. Something you needed to get out
of your system. Palate cleansing or whatever you want to call it. But
it's been two years.”

“I know how long
it's been. So what. What do you want me to do here? Date Lena? Get
into a relationship with someone who is going to go back to the city
in a week or so? Do the long distance thing?” he asked,
laughing a bit, the whiskey making him warm and silly.

Liam leaned against his
chair, rocking it back onto two legs. “No. I guess not.”

“So what's so wrong
with trying to get a little fling in before she leaves?”

“It's not a
problem...”

“Exactly.”

Liam looked up at the
ceiling for a moment, shaking his head. “Why do you come here?
You never take my advice.”

“For the whiskey,”
Eric teased, filling their glasses again. At the rate he was going,
he was going to have to crash on the uncomfortable love seat Liam had
wedged between the science fiction and romance sections. “I
dunno... she's different, man. And she wants me.” Liam groaned,
looking uncomfortable. Eric chuckled. “Oh she does. She doesn't
want to want me, but she does. I mean... she bought me.”

“That was pity,”
Liam pointed out.

“Yeah,” Eric
agreed. “But the dollar bid. The not too subtle f-you of it
all. She could have turned around, not paid me any attention like all
the other women.”

“All the other
women wouldn't look at you because you had slept with them, their
sisters, mothers, aunts, and best friends,” Liam smirked.

“I took her to the
stream we used to mess around at as kids.”

“You took
big-city-expensive-slacks-ridiculous-high-heeled-girl to the stream?”

“Yeah,” Eric
said, his head feeling like it was swimming. “She kicked off
her shoes and played around in the water. Then she climbed out and
climbed on top of me.”

“Alright,”
Liam laughed, holding up a hand. “I don't need to hear the
details.”

“Not much to tell.
A deer interrupted,” he said, taking in Liam's amused
expression and feeling himself start to laugh.

“You got
cock-blocked by a deer?” Liam asked, dangerously close to
laughing. Something he very rarely did.

“Yup. And tonight I
got cock-blocked by Aiden.”

Liam's brow furrowed.
“How did that happen?”

“I climbed up the
trellis at the inn...”

“Seriously? You
scaled a building for the woman?”

“Tapped on her
window and all that shit. It was romantic. We were messing around...”

“On the balcony?”

“Yeah, on the
balcony. Stop being such a prude,” Eric smiled. “And she
was so close to letting me in her room. And damn Aiden decided to
take the opportunity to get into his truck.”

Liam watched Eric pour
another glass, not envying the shape he was going to be in the
morning. They weren't kids anymore and Eric had never been a heavy
drinker. “Ever consider that maybe she's just horny?” he
asked, watching Eric's face twist into disbelief. “No
seriously. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with you. She seems
like the workaholic type. Maybe she just hasn't gotten any in a
while. So then there you are and her defenses are down. She doesn't
actually want you, but her body doesn't seem to understand that...”

Eric felt insecurity well
up, foreign and uncomfortable. It wasn't a feeling he was familiar
with. He was always attractive, always charming enough to know he had
the ability to get most women to be interested in him. And not having
a type himself, he had enjoyed a wide range of women. Thin, curvy,
heavy. All different ages and races. He never had to actually try to
work hard at getting a woman to want to take him to bed.

But that was exactly what
was happening with Lena. He had to work at it. And that fact made him
start to feel a little less like himself. A little less confident. A
little less skilled.

“Alright I take it
back,” Liam said, watching a range of emotions play their way
across Eric's face. “Let's face it... the chances of that are
probably not that high. I mean, she could be horny. But she also
probably wants you.”

“So then what's the
problem?” Eric asked, not expecting an answer.

Liam waved a hand around
the room. “Have you ever read a book?” he asked, his tone
back to its usual condescension.

“And what would the
books tell me?” he asked, for once hoping for a real answer.

“I mean... women
want Gatsby staring at the green light. And Westley coming back and
saving Buttercup from marriage to the wrong man. And Colonel
Brandon's patient, stalwart waiting...”

“Alright,”
Eric broke in, laughing. “I get it. I need to put more effort
in. Showing up and feeling her up just isn't going to cut it.”