Chapter 9
The evening was endless, yet at the same time, no time at all had passed. Snowflakes swirled outside Liam’s large glass door, blanketing the ground in pristine white. Against the deep black of the night, the snowflakes shimmered like scattered glitter, though where the light came from, Sophie couldn’t say. It was a strange kind of magic, the way winter turned the world both quiet and luminous.
Inside, warmth cocooned her, the crackling fire in the hearth filled the space with a soft glow. It must have been hours since she found herself unexpectedly stranded here, but the initial awkwardness had quickly faded. After all, she and Liam had known each other forever. Once they’d talked a little and settled in, any lingering tension melted away like a snowflake on a warm palm.
Having finished their spaghetti—Liam was right, his delicious homemade sauce was indeed even better than before—they moved to the living room. Sophie sat on the plush carpet beside the warm hearthstone, her fingers curled around the glass of brandy she held, while Liam lounged comfortably on the sofa.
The fire crackled, sending flickering shadows dancing across the room as Sophie stretched out her legs, warmth seeping into her skin. A light haze of spirits softened the sharp edges of her thoughts, leaving her pleasantly buzzed, loose-limbed, and more than comfortable. It felt like old times, when she and Liam could talk for hours without effort, the weight of the years between them momentarily forgotten.
Her gaze drifted lazily over the room, tracing the familiar contours of his space—rugged, worn, lived-in. Then, her eyes landed on something across the room. A painting, half-hidden in the dim light, hung on the far wall. Something about it tugged at her, sent a pulse of curiosity through her chest.
She pushed up from the floor, steadying herself against the arm of the couch before crossing the room. As she stepped closer, the details sharpened. The subject was a woman—nude, her body half-turned, a cascade of dark hair spilling over her milky white shoulders. The brushstrokes were tender, reverent, the kind that spoke of familiarity. Of affection. Whoever she was, Liam had loved her deeply.
Sophie exhaled slowly, a peculiar tightness forming in her throat. She traced the delicate curve of the woman’s spine with her eyes, her stomach tightening further as recognition tickled at the edges of her mind. Then?—
Her breath caught.
A birthmark. Small, distinct. Nestled at the base of the woman’s back.
“Shit, Liam!” Sophie looked closely at the figure. She nearly spit out her brandy. She turned around with her mouth open. Liam hadn’t moved he was still lounging slumped down on the sofa. “When did you paint this?” Sophie swayed slightly, the room tilting for just a moment as realization settled in. Her heart stumbled. “Why?”
His lips parted like he might answer why, but he didn’t. He didn’t have to. In the low, flickering firelight, she saw it—the same thing she’d seen in the painting.
Love.
Undiminished.
Unwavering.
Waiting.
“About eight years ago,” he said into his glass before taking a sip.
She admired the painted contours again, this time with a drop of scrutiny. “You made me thinner than I was.”
“No, I didn’t,” he shot back. “That’s how you looked. Right down to that freckle on your bum.”
Sophie grinned. The young woman in the painting looked carefree, and beautiful, sexy.
These days, her panties look more like a bedsheet and her hair a bird’s nest.
She didn’t know what to say to such a testimony of affection. She returned to the sofa and sat down.
“It’s really beautiful, Liam.”
“Thanks. Obviously, I never thought you would see it.”
“Obviously.” A lingering silence hung in the air until Liam spoke up. “I was there you know…” he turned his head and met her eyes.
“Where?
“Your wedding.” He looked back to the fire.
“What? You were? But I didn’t see you.”
“I know.” He took the last swallow of his wine.
She thought back to that day. It was difficult to think of it as a happy day anymore but it had been. But it hadn’t been perfect because Liam wasn’t there. Sophie spoke in a smaller voice now. “I thought… I thought you hated me, for moving on.”
It broke his heart to know she felt that way. “Hated you? I could never hate you.” He gave a helpless long sigh. “What else were you supposed to do? We broke up. I couldn’t very well expect you to stay single.”
“But you didn’t answer my invitation.”
“Soph, I could never hate you. When I got your wedding invitation, I was…” He was angry, but not with her. Never with her. He’d never stopped loving her and was arrogant enough to assume they would find their way back to each other. “Well, anyway, I was there. And you were the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen. Jesus was I jealous of?—”
Sophie held up her palm ordering him to stop. “Please, don’t say his name. It will spoil the evening.”
Liam cocked a small grin and forgetting his glass was finished, lifted it to his lips. When it came up empty he frowned and lowered his glass to his lap. “Would you have called off the wedding if I’d spoken up?”
She had wondered if he would ask that question. She’d also wondered what it would feel like to know he had never really stopped loving her. Now she knew. Sophie took a thoughtful minute—not to consider her answer, but to let the small flame in her heart swell. The flame of love and friendship she had always carried. The one that had never truly gone out.
“Knowing what I know now, of course. Life is easier when you’ve got a crystal ball. But back then?” She turned eyes to meet his and shook her head a little. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“Sorry, it wasn’t a fair question. I shouldn’t have asked. But you know, I wish I had said something.”
“Don’t say that.” She reached across and laid her hand on his arm and gave a comforting squeeze. “Let’s not go there. If I didn’t know what he was then there’s no way you’d know.”
He laid a hand over hers. “I can’t say how truly sorry I am.”
“I know.” They grew quiet and shared a long look. The only sound in the room was the crackling fire. Sophie was the first to look away. If she stared into his eyes any longer she might do something stupid like kiss him. She took her hand back and shot him a playful glance. “You’re a real buzz kill, you know that?”
He shot a dazzling smile back. “A buzz kill is it? I’ll remind you that the first time you ever drank was with me.”
“The first time I did anything was with you. Or Emma. Or Keefe—or all three of you.” Once again, Sophie stared at the flames dancing inside the fireplace, letting memories from so many years rush through her mind. Wonderful memories. She smiled to herself, then looked back at Liam. “We have a lot of really wonderful memories, don’t we?”
“Yes, yes, we do…” He looked down, then looked up again, meeting her eyes with a charming smile that only Liam could give. It hadn’t changed since the day they met thirty five years ago.
Sophie considered. Was getting back together with Liam really that bad an idea? Then again, now that she really thought about it, he’d never actually said he wanted to get back together. That was just her assuming. Maybe all he wanted was to rekindle their friendship? In that case, pffft she was free to just relax with her old friend. Either way, it wasn’t a question to ask herself now.
Sophie giggled as a memory came flooding back. “Remember, I stole that bottle of poitín from my aunt’s cabinet.”
“And then we got drunk under our tree.”
“And we both got sick and fell asleep.”
“We didn’t wake until Keefe and Emma found us.”
They laughed together.
“You know, I always thought that her and Keefe would end up together,” Liam said on the back of a chuckle.
Sophie shook her head. “No, he loves her like he loves me and vice versa—although, she has proposed marriage to him a couple times after eating his food.”
Liam chuckled again. Emma and Sophie both had always loved their food. He sometimes wondered if that was what had inspired Keefe to become a chef. “Keefe never married?”
“No. He came close once, but it didn’t work out. She was a bitch anyway, so I was happy to see the back of her.”
“So, what you mean is, Keefe ended it with her because his sister didn’t approve.”
Maybe. So what? Other than her brother’s, whose opinion mattered more about the person he was in a relationship with?
Then again, she hadn’t broken up with her ex when Keefe had suggested it. It was the day after she announced her engagement. Keefe had waited until they closed up their parents pub for the night. He’d sat her down at the bar, poured her a drink, and then flatly said that he didn’t think Bobby was good enough for her. When she asked who was good enough he’d said Liam.
Now that she thought about it, she wondered if she’d just been stubborn. Keefe had never thought it was a good idea for Liam and Sophie to break up. But there was no use going down that road. “Kinda. You know us—we tell each other everything. Trust me, she wasn’t the one for him.”
“Will anyone be good enough for him?”
Sophie let out a laugh at his sarcastic question. “Are you suggesting that I’m too protective?”
“Possessive, more like. I thought maybe you would have grown out of that by now but I see nothing’s changed,” he said with a big smirk.
Sophie cocked a smile. “Yeah well, when the right one comes along, I’m sure I’ll be more than welcoming. But until that one does come along…” She slashed her hand across her throat.
“Off with her head. We’ll see…” Liam’s tone was light, teasing. He saw his chance. For once, she was relaxed, speaking freely, and he wasn’t about to let the moment slip away. “So, uh, you never called me back.”
“What do you mean?” she said casually.
She knew damn well what he meant, and he knew it. And he knew that she knew that he knew. She may not want to get into the nitty gritty tonight, but she was going to—whether she liked it or not. He shifted his body to face hers and leaned back against the arm of the sofa. “At Christmas, I left you a message. You never called me back.”
Sophie looked away then back again. There was no getting around his question. She took a sip of her drink and nodded as she swallowed. “I’m sorry,” she sighed.“The truth is,” she held her hand up in front of her as of holding onto something. “I heard it when you called. I held the phone in my hand, trying to decide whether to answer. Then it was too late, and you left that message… I couldn’t bring myself to call back. I didn’t know what to say.” There she told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
“You might have said Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah, that would have been good, wouldn’t it?” she smiled a little in jest. “I’m really sorry I didn’t answer.”
“I know you are.”
“I almost called you a few times, but I chickened out and then got so busy with the pub that I hardly had time to think about anything else.”
Excuses, excuses. “If you nearly called me so many times, why have you been avoiding me?”
Sophie was about to protest but there was no point. He knew her too well. “Because it’s you. Liam, you and I we were kids when we said and did all those things. I’m not that same girl anymore.”
His wine glass was still empty, and he desperately wanted a refill.
“Perhaps not. I’m not the same as I was either.”
Sure, he was. He still had the kindest eyes of anyone.
“More brandy? Or something else?”
“Just a splash. I don’t want to get too drunk.”
“Yes, it’s a bit soon in our—reconnection shall we call it?—for Her Royal Highness to make an appearance,” he said with a wink and a grin.
“God is there anything you don’t remember?”
He didn’t say anything. All he did was smile at her with a twinkle in his eye. No, there was nothing he didn’t remember and nothing he didn’t adore about Sophie.
Sophie laughed and stood then followed him back to the kitchen counter and watched him pour her a “splash” of brandy. When he handed her glass back, their fingers touched for the second time that evening. It was hardly a brush, a whisper, but she hesitated. Not because she felt a spark or a shiver. It was warm, familiar, and comfortable.
“Do I make you uneasy now?” he asked.
“No, you don’t. Not at all.” Not even a little.
He returned to the sofa and made himself comfortable leaving Sophie at the counter. As he sat down, he said, “Will you answer one question, please? For old times sake?”
She leaned back against the counter, resting her elbows. “All right. Shoot.”
“Why him but not me?”
“What do you mean?” And there it was. She wondered when he would bring this up.
“Come on, Soph…”
“Fine. Yes, I know. Why did I go on a date with... I don’t remember his name.”
Liam remained quiet waiting for an answer. He didn’t give a damn what the loser’s name was.
And he was kept waiting for the longest thirty seconds of his life.
“Because it’s you . Liam, you and I… we…” she couldn’t get her feelings to come out in words. “What if we were to get back together and then you find out that I’ve changed and you don’t actually want to have anything to do with me? Don’t you see? Every good and beautiful memory I have of you, of us, would be ruined. Instead of being my first boyfriend and one of my best friends you would suddenly be the guy I used to know who met me again and rejected me.”
“Soph, I couldn’t ever feel that way about you.”
“You say that now but I’ve changed. You think we’ll go out and pick up where we left off and you’ll have your old Sophie back. But?—”
“Be fair now. Have I put any expectations on you?”
“Well, no.”
“Have I pointed out that you’ve probably gained a few pounds?”
“Watch what you say Liam,” she warned.
“Or that you’re a right nasty bitch when you want to be?”
“I was always that way.”
“True, but these days you seem to go from zero to bitch in six seconds.”
“Believe me that’s progress.”
“All I’m saying is that I know you’re not the girl you were before. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still in there or that I won’t lo—like the new bits.”
Like always he was impossible. “You’re impossible.”
“Right well you answered my question,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t see why. I only found you out on a date with a man you hardly know when you won’t say say much as boo to one of your closest friends.”
Sophie looked down at her feet that were swimming in his navy blue socks and sighed. She really hadn’t given Liam’s feelings any consideration, and he didn’t deserve that. “It’s over, anyway.”
“I don’t need to know. Your business is your business.” Now he was pouting.
Sophie came around the sofa and sat beside him. “What if we got back together, and you decided you don’t like me anymore?”
“But that?—”
“Don’t say it wouldn’t happen because it does.”
“Is that what happened with…”
“Yeah.” She took a small sip of her drink and swallowed hard as it burned the back of her throat. “He adored me, worshipped the ground I walked on—until we learned that I’m barren. After that, he despised me. Did everything he could to hurt me.” Liam’s expression turned very sad, and he reached for her hand that rested on the cushion between them, covering it with his own. “Not like that. He never hit me or anything but,” she paused for a long moment as memories flashed through her mind. “That’s all he didn’t do. The affairs, the endless fights and humiliation… anyway.” She sighed and shook her head. “If things didn’t work out between you and me, then every good memory we ever made together would be tainted. Don’t you see that?” She turned her hand over and squeezed his. “I don’t have one single bad memory of you and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Keefe had warned Liam that her marriage had ended badly. It broke his heart to hear her say out loud that it had been such a ruin. If he believed walking away was best for her, he would do it—leave her alone for good if needed. But something told him that wasn’t what was best for Sophie—or for him. “Does that mean we can’t be friends anymore?”
She glared at him from behind her glass, a look that said she’d figured him out. He figured as much. But she had been avoiding him, which meant she hadn’t made up her mind. “I don’t know what it means.” She exhaled with a smile and stretched her arms out in front of her. “Tonight, I’ve felt more myself than I have in a long time, and I know that’s because I’m with you. Just…”
This conversation was heading in a direction she wasn’t ready to go and he knew that. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we not push it? Let’s just be friends, hang out, and see where it goes? No pressure. If anything, we could at least be friends again.”
“I never stopped being your friend.”
“No, but I sort of stopped being yours, didn’t I?” He’d already admitted to being at her wedding and leaving. Dredging up the past would help nothing. Nothing she said could make him feel more guilty than he already did for allowing his jealousy to come between them. “I’m more sorry than I can say.”
“Don’t be. I probably would have done the same thing if the roles had been reversed.”
“Really?” That cheered him up a little too much.
She nodded. Yes, the odds of anyone being good enough for Liam in Sophie’s eyes were pretty small.
Her instincts had been correct. He didn’t just want to be friends. And even though she couldn’t promise anything, he wanted his friend back, no matter what. Her heart cracked open a little more. And this time, she didn’t try to hold it together. She wiped a happy tear from her eye. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too, Soph.”
Once again, silence filled the room, albeit a comfortable silence with the crackling fire.
“So, do you have any other paintings here? You know, other than the one of me naked?”
Liam nodded slowly with a smile. “Yes. In the back is a room for my work.”
Sophie straightened up and pointed. “This way?”
Liam nodded, but didn’t follow her right away. He wanted to savor this quiet moment. Sophie was back in his life and where their relationship went he didn’t know, but one thing was for sure: he wasn’t letting her go again.
And now she was here, in his house, wearing his clothes, drinking and talking just like old times.
Liam couldn’t think of a day he’d felt better than he did right now in this very moment.
From way in the back of the house, Sophie’s gasp of delight was heard. “These are amazing!” she cried while circling the room, admiring each picture on the wall. Then she stopped in front of one. “Oh, my god. No way.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he stepped inside the room.
Sophie admired the painting that hung before her—a breathtaking view of Derrynane Beach, where the ruins of the old abbey stood watch from their perch on the hillside. She remembered the day she’d bought it clearly. It had been yet another wretched day with her ex-husband, the kind that left her feeling hollow and worn. But then she had seen this canvas brushed with memories, not of sorrow, but of pure joy.
The painting captured everything she had loved about those long-ago days with Liam and her family. The sweep of white sand, soft as silk beneath her feet. The dark, jagged rocks rising from the shoreline like ancient sentinels. Even the swimming hole, where sunlight dappled the water in shifting gold and sapphire, was there. It was more than paint on a canvas—it was a portal to a time when she had been truly happy.
“I have this one! Well, had it—back in Massachusetts. I remember I was out shopping one afternoon. Bobby and I had a huge fight, and I broke most of our plates. So, we needed more. Anyway, I went to the store, and I saw this picture and was mesmerized. I just had to have it. So, I went home with this and no plates—which, of course, pissed him off more, but when I threatened to have a go at his grandmother’s precious china, he backed off. Liam, I had no idea you painted this!”
Liam smiled. He’d been thinking of her and their summer days when he’d painted it. “That’s part of a collection I sold to a distributor in America.” Blushing a little, he cupped his hand over the back of his neck.
“I always knew you had it in you. These are all amazing,” she said turning in a full circle for another gaze. Then she looked at him standing there, a man who created some of the most stunning scenes she’d ever seen, humble with his hands in his pockets and she wanted to hug him. Show him how proud she really was. But she didn’t. Something inside held her back.“Well, it’s late. I should go to sleep now.” She passed by him leaving the room and returned to the living room.
“Of course, you take my bed.”
“I can’t do that. I’ll be perfectly fine here on the couch.”
“No, you’ll take my bed. I’ll sleep out here.”
Sophie nodded. Liam had always been a gentleman. “Okay. Goodnight.”
“I think there’s a fresh toothbrush in the bathroom. I know you hate going to bed without flossing your teeth and brushing. Help yourself.”
After brushing her teeth, Sophie went to his bedroom and pulled back the blue flannel covers and got in.
It wasn’t long before she got out after tossing and turning. Nothing about this sleeping arrangement felt right and there was only one thing for it. She went to the living room where Liam was, alone. “Are you awake?” she whispered from the doorway.
Liam sat up on his elbow. She was in the next room in his bed without him.
Of course, he was awake.
“Soph? What is it?”
“Well,” she stammered a little then looked into his concerned eyes. “I won’t sleep a wink knowing you’re out here.”
“Love, I told you, I don’t mind at all. Honest.” He lied through his teeth.
“No, I mean, would you like to come sleep—in your bed—with me? I don’t mind sharing.”
Liam sat up and turned his face to her and nodded slowly. His heart skipped a beat. And another. “Yes, I would.”
“Okay.” That was easier to say than she’d expected. She motioned her head for him to follow her back to his room. “Which side do you sleep on?”
The top. No, he couldn’t say that, no matter how badly he wanted to. “The middle.” Which was exactly where he’d been sleeping for far too long. The nights weren’t so lonely when one slept in the middle.
She grunted a small laugh. “Me too. Why don’t you take the right and I’ll take the left?”
The two climbed under the covers on their respective sides and once both were comfortable, Liam turned out the bedside lamp.
Sophie laid on her back looking at the ceiling in the dim light filtered through the curtains and relaxed into the soft mattress. This was nice. You know, once she chilled out. He was her oldest friend after all. They had shared a bed hundreds of times. Granted, usually when they did they had sex but there was no reason two friends couldn’t simply sleep beside each other for a night. She turned her head toward Liam and found him on his side facing her, his eyes closed. “Good night, Liam,” she whispered.
Resisting the urge to reach for her, Liam opened his eyes and softly smiled. How many times had he laid beside her in the dark? How many times had he envisioned a moment just like this? Only not quite like this. If he had his way, she would be in his arms but this was a good beginning. “Goodnight, Sophie.”