Читать книгу The Runaway Bride - Patricia Johns - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

IKE REFUSED ALL the breakfast options Liam had offered him the next morning. Liam was starting to get better at buying foods Ike would eat. So far, the kid was a fan of macaroni and cheese, toast, yogurt and scrambled eggs—but only if the eggs were room temperature and the perfect fluffiness.

He’d also been known to eat a banana, but only if it was just a smidge shy of being ripe. Five minutes past Ike’s liking, and he’d calmly walk to the couch and dump the banana onto it—his version of the garbage, it seemed. A lot of things ended up on the couch—apple slices, toast that was cut diagonally, grapes that were too soft, grapes that were too hard, the half of a cookie that got soggy in his hand... He was a picky kid.

When Liam finally brought Ike across the street to Lucille’s, Ike looked up at the older woman with big, unblinking eyes and whispered “Hungry...” in a tone so plaintive anyone would think he was kept in a cage in the basement, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The twin-size mattress on the floor in Liam’s bedroom was supposed to be for Ike, but the tables had turned somehow, and now Ike slept in Liam’s bed and Liam got the mattress on the floor.

Lucille shot Liam a curious look.

“I feed him!” Liam said defensively. “At least, I try to. I made him breakfast this morning. He just wouldn’t eat it.”

Most of it had ended up on the couch cushion. Liam rolled his eyes. They were being played by a two-year-old, but there didn’t seem to be any way around it.

“What would you like to eat, sweetheart?” Lucille asked. “Auntie will make it.”

They’d been calling her “auntie” from the start—a term of endearment for the woman taking care of him. Liam had never guessed how accurate that name really was. Apparently, Lucille had, though.

Liam glanced around the kitchen.

“Where’s Bernie?” he asked. He’d been thinking about her more than he should, but she was also one of them, and he didn’t trust that family.

“She’s having a late start,” Lucille said with a shrug. “She’s been through a lot. I’m just waiting for the tears to start.”

Liam nodded. He knew better than most what Bernie was going through.

“Well, be good for Auntie,” Liam said to Ike. “I’ll see you tonight, kiddo.”

Ike looked back at him wordlessly, and Liam headed for the door. He had Bernie’s car to evaluate, another couple of vehicles coming in for scheduled maintenance and while his part-time employee, Chip, would be coming in later in the afternoon to help him out, he wanted to get a good start on things before then.

Liam drove the eight minutes to the shop and parked in his usual spot. Life had gotten more interesting—more layered—since Ike’s arrival. Now, as he unlocked the office door and flicked on the lights, his mind was on the boy. He was wondering what he could get the kid to eat in the mornings. But now that Bernie was on the scene, he had even more to distract him from his work, and that frustrated him. He wasn’t supposed to be noticing her glossy dark hair or the way her eyes glittered when she was amused.

Liam let himself into the garage and ambled over to the Rolls-Royce. Pretty or not, Morgan or not, he had to fix her car. The white paint was dusty from the long drive from New York, but there was no muting the beauty of a well-maintained classic car. This was a Phantom V, and between 1959 and the late sixties, there had only been about five hundred made. He pulled open the front door and peered into the dim interior. Tan lambskin leather and burl wood veneer—true to the original design.

And Bernie had just hopped into this vehicle and driven off. He could only dream of taking a beauty like this for a spin, yet there were people for whom bombing around in a Rolls-Royce was nothing at all.

He opened the hood, and over the next few hours, he started evaluating the severity of the engine trouble. Troubleshooting engine problems was part “ear” and part mechanical knowledge. He started the car, listening to the grind in the motor, then turned it off and came back around to the engine. He could be lost in time while he tinkered, finding the problem. He liked engines—they were fixable. So many other things in life weren’t. Marriages, for example. People weren’t as easy to decipher.

Looking back on it now, he wished he’d been more flexible about their plans for children, but he had a feeling that their issues ran deeper than how to have a child—it was how they related to each other. The infertility had been taking a toll on Leanne. She’d been getting more withdrawn, and every time one of their friends or family members got pregnant, it seemed to stab her just a little bit deeper.

“Why not me?” she’d asked, tears glistening in her eyes. “Why won’t you let me have this?”

And that had felt like a direct attack on his manhood, too. For her to get pregnant, it wouldn’t be by him, and that bothered him a little. Maybe it wasn’t entirely fair, since an adopted child wouldn’t be his biologically, either, but it still rankled him that she needed that genetic link, no matter how he felt about it. For him, the priority had been to give a loving home to a child who might otherwise have been lost in the foster system. They’d never been able to find a solution that they were both happy with.

A man’s virility was a large part of his identity, too, and he’d had to come to terms with the fact that he’d never be a biological dad, so watching her grieve her lack of a baby hurt him, too. Deep down he knew it was a little different for Leanne, and looking back on it, he wished he’d considered using some donor sperm, given her what she wanted.

There was a tap on the garage door window, and he looked around the hood to see Bernie’s face in the glass. His heart sped up a little at the sight of her, and he glanced up at the clock. It was almost eleven. Had that much time really passed?

He went over to the side door and pushed it open. She stood in the yard, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail that made her look younger, somehow. She wore a summer dress that was long and flowing with a busy pattern of pinks, reds and oranges. It was the perfect contrast to her big dark eyes. He had to swallow before he could say anything.

“Hi,” he said. “Come on in.”

She smiled and slipped past him into the shop, her perfume lingering in the air. How did women do that—make walking through a door somehow more than that. She crossed the garage and stood looking at her car, hands folded.

“So you’ve started,” she said.

“Yep. I’ve figured out what the problem is, but I’ll need to order parts. We don’t carry Rolls-Royce parts in Runt River.”

“Hmm.” She nodded. “How long will it take?”

“To get the parts—a week, maybe ten days,” he said. “Then I’ll have to work on it, which will take a few more days.”

“Hmm.”

She wasn’t giving much away, and he waited to see if she’d say anything more. She didn’t.

“I’ve drawn up an estimate for parts and labor as it stands now,” he went on. “Then you can decide if you want me to continue or not.”

He grabbed a paper from the workbench and handed it to her. She scanned it, then shrugged. “That looks fine to me. I honestly don’t know much about cars, but if I get back to New York and find out you took advantage of me—”

“I’m not that kind of guy,” he said. “I’ll give you fair prices and honest work.”

She met his eyes for a moment, then smiled wanly. “I believe you.” She adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “Truth is, I’m kind of relieved to be stuck here for a little while. I’m not ready to go back.”

“Yeah?” He eyed her cautiously. Would she still feel that way when they were waiting for late parts? These things happened in his business. The last thing he needed was a car in pieces and his client raging mad that she couldn’t leave town fast enough once the novelty had worn off. He headed over to the sink and turned on the water to wash his hands. She was silent for a moment while he lathered up, scrubbing around his nails with a brush.

“There are two sides to every story,” she said, turning toward him. “I heard one side for my entire life, and meeting my aunt is giving me a glimpse at the other side. This is an opportunity I never realized I wanted before.”

He turned off the water and reached for a towel. It was a strangely sensitive comment, and her expression made her look almost ordinary—if that was the right word for it. For a moment, she was no longer the wealthy heiress. She could have been any woman born and raised on these plains.

When he turned back, Bernadette was looking at his shop more closely, her gaze moving over the tools hanging on the walls, then across the floor and up the opposite wall.

“You said you’re the only garage in Runt River, right?” she said.

“That’s right.”

She nodded slowly. “Did you ever consider moving to a larger area?”

“You sound like Leanne.” He smiled wanly. “She wanted to move somewhere bigger. I didn’t.”

“Why not?” she asked, her gaze on him.

Liam shook his head. “She was really having a hard time with not being able to have a baby,” he confessed. “And I think she wanted to move in order to get away from all her friends who were pregnant and growing their families. I was too practical for that. Like you said, it’s a local monopoly. I couldn’t have done better somewhere bigger.”

“That seems logical.” Her expression softened. “You seem to have a solid business sense.”

He could hear the compliment in those words. He didn’t know Bernie, obviously, but she struck him as a rather straightforward kind of person.

“Thanks,” Liam said. “Call me old-fashioned, but in my books, a man provides. And I might not have been able to give her a baby the old-fashioned way, but I could provide a decent income. I was just sticking to my strengths.”

He’d also been stubbornly holding out on the one thing that would have soothed his wife’s grief.

Why was he talking so openly with this woman? It had started the night before when she’d helped him with Ike, and it seemed like that hadn’t turned off. He’d probably regret this later.

She glanced at her watch. “I’m hungry.”

He could use a bite, too.

“Want to go get some lunch?” Ordinarily he wouldn’t have dreamed of asking her to a meal, but she was different inside this garage, somehow. More accessible.

“Sure,” she said. “My treat.”

Liam laughed softly. “Bernie, that’s not how it works around here. I’m taking you to lunch. After what you’ve been through, I think you could use it.”

She eyed him for a moment, then shrugged weakly. “Thanks.”

She might be the heiress in New York, and she might bomb around in a Rolls-Royce without much thought, but here in Runt River she was a client, and he was a man. Men provided, and sometimes that was all a guy had left. Simple as that.

* * *

BERNADETTE STOLE A glance at Liam walking down the sidewalk next to her. He wore cowboy boots that clunked against the pavement, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt—the same casual dress he’d sported the day before, too. She estimated him to be late thirties, so about ten years older than she was, but there was something about him that felt oddly reassuring, and it wasn’t just the fact that he’d been friendly when she needed it. Maybe it was the slow way he had of looking around himself, as if he had all the time in the world.

The road was webbed with cracks, and trees grew large and stretched leafy limbs between buildings. Her first impression of this town had been that it was so empty it was almost eerie, but now that she was walking down the road toward Main Street, the quiet was soothing. No traffic, honking or sirens. She hadn’t been given the bird once by a passing cabbie since she’d arrived.

She’d been serious about wanting to stay in Runt River for the time being, and she certainly had a good excuse. If her car were fixed, she’d feel obliged to head out—it was something in her nature that didn’t stand still very easily. She liked to be moving forward, achieving something. If it weren’t for her vehicle being in the shop, she wouldn’t feel comfortable staying here without some actual business. She was looking for privacy to lick her wounds and think through her next step, not somewhere she’d draw constant notice, and Runt River wasn’t the anonymous bastion she’d hoped it would be—she stood out here.

A truck rumbled past them, and the driver gave her a curious once-over. Liam waved absently. That wasn’t the first time she’d been scrutinized since arriving. This town was small enough that a single newcomer could cause a whole lot of double takes. That was nothing like New York. She’d been able to drive a classic Rolls through the city in full bridal regalia and not draw a second look.

“Does anyone know you’re here yet?” Liam asked.

“I told my dad where I was,” she said. “And warned him to give me space.”

“They’d probably be worried sick, otherwise,” he conceded.

“It’s damage control.” She pulled her dark hair out of her eyes. “They need a family story to stand behind for the media, and they’re afraid I’ll leak the secret.”

“Which is?” he asked with a small smile.

“That Calvin is a cheating louse.” She shot him a smile. “That makes him less electable, you see. And they have plans for him.”

“Even after he cheated on you?”

“It isn’t personal,” she quipped, quoting a line she’d heard a hundred times from her father. “It’s politics.”

“Hmm.” He put a hand on the small of her back and nudged her. “Let’s cross here.”

His touch was firm and warm, and she found the gesture oddly comforting. Calvin hadn’t been the demonstrative type in private. When they went out into public, he’d hold her hand, brush her hair out of her eyes, smile down into her eyes—and the photographers got some great shots. But once they were alone, he was distant and wanted his space. “I’m used up,” he’d say. “I just need to unwind.” So Liam’s casual gesture felt more intimate to her than he’d probably intended, especially since no one was watching.

They crossed the road just as they came to Main Street and stepped up onto the first sidewalk she’d seen in this town.

“You say it isn’t personal, it’s just politics. Well, it can be very personal for the people who get tilled under,” Liam said once they were on the other side.

“You know, this is the first time I can identify with that,” she admitted. “But my family expects me to have ‘broader vision,’ as my dad puts it.” She used air quotes. “I might be humiliated, heartbroken, angry, unfairly treated, but I’m supposed to think about what’s best for the family.”

“Namely, your father,” he clarified.

Yes, he was the patriarch, and he called the shots. He held the majority of the family assets. Even her cousin Vince had to make nice to Uncle Milhouse to keep any kind of financial backing. Vince was a placeholder for the family’s political ambition, but Calvin was the future, and his image could not, under any circumstances, be tarnished.

“So what do you want?” Liam asked.

She smiled warily. “Does it matter?”

“Maybe not to your father, but it does to me. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?”

She hadn’t actually thought about that. She was a practical woman, and she’d followed her father’s lead. She had a degree in economics and marketing from Harvard, and her father was grooming her to take over their massive fortune. That meant learning the family business—how to keep all the balls in the air—and maintaining a respectable image. Nothing too flashy or undignified. If journalists probed into her past during an election year, which they would if her husband was running for president, they’d need to come up empty. Bernadette was far from free.

And yet, the silver lining to this whole ugly mess was the discovery of a little boy she’d never known existed—Ike. Funny to be bonding with her cousin’s illegitimate son, but she was glad that she’d had the chance to meet him. Now that she knew him, she’d make sure that he didn’t want for anything. He’d need family support, and she felt some responsibility in that respect. Now that she knew about this tiny Morgan’s existence, she couldn’t just turn her back on him.

They approached a small restaurant. The faded sign read Uncle Henry’s Restaurant, and Liam angled his head toward it, then led the way to the front door. He held it open for her, and the smell of sausage and eggs wafted out to greet her. She was hungrier than she’d thought, because her stomach gurgled in response.

The restaurant had a few patrons—mostly men past fifty wearing baseball caps. One waitress was taking an order, her pad of paper perched above a pregnant belly. Liam led the way to a table by the window, and he pulled out her chair for her before sitting in the other.

“You never did answer my question,” he said as they got settled. “What do you want out of this mess?”

Bernie leaned her elbows onto the table and considered for a moment. How much could she say without sounding unbearably rich? “My aunt Ellen Morgan runs a charity just outside the city for single moms in crisis. They provide medical care, groceries, baby supplies... They even have a residence where the girls can stay if they get kicked out of their homes. It’s called Mercy House, and she’s been passionate about it for years. If I could step away from the spotlight and do anything, I’d like to do something like that—an organization that makes a difference.”

Liam looked mildly surprised, and she shot him a rueful smile. Truth was, she didn’t just admire Mercy House—she was a sponsor. But being more personally involved had always appealed to her.