Chapter Seven
Oonagh
The kitchen was filled with party paraphernalia. Mum appeared to have ordered half of a party catalogue. Banners, balloons, napkins with mine and Niall’s names on them, party treats in small glass jars with quirky messages on them… What the hell had she ordered?
I closed the latest box I was hunting through as Niall came through the door.
“Have you seen all this?” I demanded.
He opened the lid of the box closest to him, his eyebrows raising when he was met with the party accessories from hell. “Are you getting married?” he asked, lifting one of the jars with sweets in it out to examine.
“You’re the one with the date,” I pointed out, winking at him.
His brow wrinkled and he replaced the jar in the box and closed it over. “I took a walk through the village this morning. Everything seems to have changed. Liam’s old house is a coffee shop now. It sounds strange, but I envisaged him living in the same house he always had.”
To cover my turbulent emotions, I filled the kettle, the noise of the water pouring stopping Niall from talking. We were all adults now, living our own lives with our own homes, so why had I imagined Liam there as well? Where did he live?
I barely slept last night, his words replaying over and over again in my head. He’d walked away from me, and yet, for the first time in ten years, I felt like the monster who’d broken his heart instead of the other way around.
Maybe you should have checked your facts before you decided to accuse an innocent man...
I’d known Liam since we were five years old. He became my brother’s best friend in the world when we were twelve. He was the villain in my love story, but he’d never been a liar. Until that day he disappeared, he’d been the best person I knew.
“Earth to Oonagh, come in, Oonagh.” I blinked when Niall waved his hand in front of my eyes.
“Sorry, what?” I asked, trailing fingers through my hair, exhaustion sinking into my bones.
“I asked if you were bringing anyone to the party. You know, a date.”
The kettle whistled in the background, saving me from having to reply.
“We’re worried about you, sis. I know something happened the year I was travelling. Mum never told anyone the full details, but I know she disappeared because you were in hospital. Did you?” He cleared his voice and glanced out the window before returning his gaze to me. “Did you try to take your own life?”
My eyebrows shot up. If he’d slapped me across the face, I would have been less shocked .
“No! Seriously, what?” Unconsciously, I sank into a stool at the end of the counter. “I was hit by a drunk driver when I was walking back home from the library. The darkness came after the accident, not before.”
Niall’s fingers crept around mine, his other arm engulfing me. “I always thought…”
Taking a deep breath, I made the decision to break my silence. Niall was my twin. Our lives only diverged when we went to different universities. “I was pregnant, and the accident made me lose the baby. Mum was the only one who knew, and I asked her not to tell anyone.”
His arm tightened around me as he hauled me into his heat. Tears streamed down my face as the memories from so long ago erupted in my head.
“I didn’t even know I was pregnant until the doctors told me I’d lost it. My life was a mess with nothing making sense. Mum stayed with me to put me back together again.”
Another pair of arms appeared around me, Mum arriving at the right moment as she always did.
“What was I supposed to say to you and your dad?” She took over the story. “A mother keeps her child’s confidence.”
Surrounded by my family, I finally realised my mistake from all those years ago. I’d hidden from my problems, ran from them, and ultimately never dealt with the trauma that came with the loss of Liam from my life and our child. The doctor in me now realised that there is always a risk of pregnancy, but the scared girl had been terrified of his reaction. It was easier to walk away and never look back .
“Is this why you never came home?” Niall asked, his words mumbled by my hair.
One shoulder shrugged. “I just ran and kept running.” How could you explain to your brother that the man he trusted most in the world was the same one who devastated you?
I’ve spent years in love with a memory to find it was nothing more than the stupid dream of a boy…
In a few days I turned thirty and suddenly the need to change my life consumed me. I’d spent ten years believing everything I found with Liam was based on a lie, but his anger had been real. The shock and then the emotion that flared in his eyes said more than a thousand words could.
That afternoon, I helped Mum make her famous cupcakes, consuming more frosting than I piped onto them. I missed this level of normality since I worked with a team in high-level stress situations. For years I’d craved the mindless oblivion of losing myself in surgery.
“We’ve run out of icing sugar,” Mum stated, hunting through her baking cupboard.
“I’ll run down to Mr. Wilson’s shop,” I replied, grabbing my purse and a bag. It reminded me of all the times I’d walked there in my childhood for the items she forgot. Since it was only a five-minute walk, I left her car in the driveway.
Everything felt the same and different at the same time. The lane down to the village from our house still had the wild honeysuckle growing that was alive with the constant hum of busy bumblebees. The brambles that would yield blackberries in autumn grew through the hedgerow. Stopping for a moment, I closed my eyes and inhaled the sweet scent of the flora, nature’s chorus surrounding me while the sun beat down on my face.
This was home and I’d finally found my way back.
The thought shook me to my core. This place had been my foundation and I’d hidden from it, cutting off an essential part of me. The landscape of the village had changed with some modern amenities scattered among the quintessential cottages where people lived from generation to generation.
The new coffee shop that Niall spoke of was in the distance. My feet took me there without any conscious thought or decision. ‘Memories’ sat where Liam’s old cottage once dwelt. Inside the walls were decorated with old black and white photographs of the village. I wandered in because one of the images drew me like a bee to the honeysuckle flowers in the lane. It was a photograph of one of the bonfires we lit on the beach every summer. All the local children sat around, laughing and toasting marshmallows. In the centre of the picture were Liam and me, our heads together as we chatted, oblivious to everyone else around us.
That one picture summarised our entire friendship. We never needed anyone else when we had each other.
“Can I help you?” A waitress approached me. “Table for one?”
“Sorry,” I said with an apologetic smile. “I haven’t been home in a while and these pictures just called to me.”
“The owners picked each one specifically to represent the different aspects of the village. I love this one, especially this couple here. They’re lost in their own world.” She pointed to me and Liam .
“They seem to be,” I replied. “I’ll bring my mum for tea and we can appreciate the photographs together.”
She smiled and waved at me as she returned to the other customers.
They’re lost in their own world…
She was right, we always were, whether it was playing in rockpools or exploring each other’s bodies.
The wind whipped around me, clearing away all the debris that clung to me. For the first time in too long, I started to feel like myself again. The fresh tang of the sea air coated my tongue and infused my soul.
There was activity around the old lighthouse that drew my attention. Vans and men meandered around in yellow vests as I approached to be nosy. The old building near the main road had scaffolding surrounding it. A figure caught my attention. He was stripped to the waist and wielded a large mallet-type instrument, smashing into the concrete covering they put on a well that had been there years before. It was only when someone called him and he stood up, I realised it was Liam.
I thought he was a man that last summer we had together. Holy moly, I was wrong. The vision in front of me now was a man. My eyes hungrily devoured the deltoids and biceps of his shoulders and arms, the bulging pectoral muscles on his chest, and on down to the taut six-pack on his abdomen. Liam obviously worked out or worked hard. He even possessed that V at his hips that made a woman’s mouth water, displayed because his jeans were riding low on his hips .
As if feeling me watching him, he slowly turned to face me. His jaw tightened and his head lowered slightly in the way it used to when he was angry. He snapped at one of the workmen, whose head spun in my direction.
He scuttled over to me. “Sorry, but this is a building site. No members of the public are allowed. Anyone onsite needs to wear regulation safety equipment.”
“He isn’t wearing any,” I pointed out, nodding at Liam’s retreating figure. Muscles spanned his back, the sweat from hard work making them shine under the midday sun. He now possessed the physique you expected to find on portraits or sculptures of Greek gods.
“Mr. Doherty owns the company. He can do what he wants because I’m not arguing with him,” the man said sheepishly, an apologetic grin on his face.
It sounded stupid and petty since I’d told him to go away yesterday, but I felt vulnerable and sad that Liam had snubbed me. Yesterday in the garden, I’d been very aware of his body beside mine, the occasional times his arm touched me. Now, I felt cold and alone.
What company did he own, and what were they doing with the old lighthouse? It was where we played during the wet summer days and where we first made love. Why did he want it?
A huge house stood where once there was a single tree and a small mound Liam and I used to watch stars from on a clear night. It was new because it wasn’t there ten years ago, but the structure and design made it look like it had stood there for the past hundred years .
Wild roses covered the front walls in fragrant blooms and apple trees were interspaced on the front lawn, their flowers bright in the sunshine. The garden was filled with flowers that made it a home instead of a house, various pots filled with herbs along the side of the massive garage.
Mr. Wilson’s shop still contained the jars of sweets along the back wall. I used to spend hours deciding what I wanted from those jars, then selecting the same one I always did. There were new assistants in the store, but Mr. Wilson wandered out from his office to greet me. This was the central hub of the village, a place where all the gossip was spread.
“Awk, there she is, little Oonagh all grown up.” He grabbed me in a bear hug.
“Hello, Mr. Wilson. How are you?”
“The very best. What can I do for you on a fine day like this?”
“Mum is baking her cupcakes and ran out of icing sugar.”
He smiled fondly, wandering off among his shelves. “She always did make the very best fairy cakes.”
He refused to call them by their modern name, regressing to what my grandmother always called them. She used to make them with white icing and small silver balls that would break your teeth.
The assistant at the cash desk was one of the sisters who used to live in the cottage beside Liam. “Hey, Niamh.” I put the icing sugar Mr. Wilson handed me on the desk.
She glared at me, then gave me a false smile when Mr. Wilson scowled at her. “Back for another summer?” she asked in a tone that suggested I didn’t belong here .
“Mum likes to follow tradition since my great grandfather built that house for his family to live in.” It always grated on me that the locals viewed us as ‘blow-ins’ because we didn’t spend fifty-two weeks a year here. “Isn’t that new coffee shop where your house used to be?”
Her shoulders tensed. “There was a fire a few years ago that destroyed most of that row. The only thing they could do was tear them down and rebuild.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I muttered. Every one of those four words were a lie. I hated Niamh and her sisters, they had always been malicious, nasty witches who were only missing hooked noses and broomsticks.
She shrugged, her lips pursing. “Seen Liam since you’ve been back?”
There was something about her tone that put me on edge. That smile that medical professionals developed curved my lips. It was devoid of emotion but designed to make people feel at ease. “He was at the barbeque yesterday. He always arrived at our house as soon as we arrived.”
“Those Doherty boys always did have airs and graces about themselves.” Her tone contained a toxic acidity that was corrosive.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself. They were smart guys who just needed someone to give them a chance.”
Her face contorted in an ugly mask. “We were practically family and they never gave us a chance.”
A shiver of trepidation trickled up my spine. “Niamh, I’ve been friends with Liam and his brothers most of my life. I have no intention of letting you bad mouth them to me again. You did it once when I was young and stupid, I won’t let it happen again.”
My purchases were shoved in my floral pattern shopping bag with enough force to dent the cardboard box, and I handed her cash.
Being back here was shedding light on all the ghosts that had haunted me. I turned to leave and walked face-first into a rock-hard chest. Hands gripped my upper arms to stop me from falling on my ass.
“We’ll grab a quarter of rhubarb rock and a quarter of chocolate limes,” Liam said, his hands holding me like bands of steel.
Niamh scurried off and I tried to extract myself, but he held me in place, only releasing me to fling a lazy arm around my shoulders and lead me out of the store when he finished his transaction.
“Seriously?” I hissed when we were outside. “You storm off yesterday, ignore me today, and now you think you can manhandle me?”
Anger twisted and pulsed in my core like a rattlesnake ready to attack.
“Yeah.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “I was pissed, and in fairness, you were being a bitch yesterday.”
My mouth dropped open at his insult, my arms slowly coming to fold in front of me. He was right, I had been a bitch, but that didn’t mean I ever intended to admit it.
“What are you doing here, Liam?”
“Callum told me I was being a dick and to come and apologise.” He shrugged and stared off into the ocean. “Here.” He handed me a white paper bag. Inside were the rhubarb rock sweets that had been my favourite as a child. It was the closest that Liam would ever come to apologising.
“What if I’d wanted the chocolate limes?” I pouted, raising an eyebrow in question.
His bark of laughter washed over me. “Tough, you can swap one if you want, but the rest belong to me.”
Waves of familiarity crashed into me and I was transported back in time to when we used to have this conversation.
I grabbed his bag off him, helping myself to one of the hard lime sweets with a chocolate centre. In retaliation, Liam took my bag and did the same. The only bag of sweets that was missing was Niall’s, who could never decide what his favourite was.
“What’s happening at the old lighthouse?” I queried, nodding in the direction of all the activity.
“A new art gallery. Callum’s business has the contract for the work.”
“The guy who threw me out said you own the business.” My head tilted to the side and I watched his reaction.
Liam always was hard to read; he’d learnt from an early age to school his expressions so no one knew what was happening behind those eyes. No one except me.
He rolled his eyes at me before a grin formed. “I’m the architect overseeing the designs. Callum is the brawn who brings my creations to life. All six of us own a part of the company because we all bring something to the business. Happy, Miss Nosy?”
“Delighted,” I responded dryly. There was no reason why I should be proud of him because everything he’d achieved was by his own hand, but I was. He’d done what he always said he would. Liam had dragged him and his brothers out of poverty and neglect and created something that every one of them was a part of.
“Your old house is gone,” I said, shuffling restlessly, sucking on my sour candy to find the sweet centre.
“Some things are better destroyed and left in the past,” he replied. “You can’t build a future when the foundations are shallow and weak.”
His words struck a chord inside me. Was he implying that I was shallow and weak? A sad smile crossed my lips. “Sometimes life never turns out how you planned it.” His gaze speared into me with an intensity that demanded more than I was prepared to give. “You think you have your life planned at the age of five and life comes along and changes it in a heartbeat.”
His heat burned into my back as he stood behind me to watch the ocean. My body swayed toward him, drawn by the same magnetism that always existed between us.
“Once upon a time I believed in faerytales and happy endings, but they don’t exist for people like me. Reality crashes into your life and destroys everything you once loved.”
Tingles spread across my back at his words. A huge part of me wanted to dispute what he said, but the girl terrified of being hurt whimpered and hid.
“Niall texted this morning. He said he needed help with putting up the decorations later. Apparently, your mum bought enough to cover the entire village.”
“Ugh!! What is it about Mum and birthday parties? ”
“It’s probably because you avoided all the recent ones she arranged. She has ten years’ worth of decorations to hang from the trees.” There was no recrimination in his tone, just an honest observation.
Suddenly, standing here, I could find no justification to have stayed away. Liam hadn’t grown horns overnight to become the devil. We were only twenty at the time, and the intensity of our relationship would never have lasted. Maybe he did both of us a favour and walked away before we both got in too deep.
“I’ll see you later then,” I said, waving as I wandered off toward home.
“No worries, I’ll bring Callum and his work van with the ladders attached to start hanging all those decorations.”
I deliberately spun around so he could see me rolling my eyes at him. Liam’s responding grin made my stomach lurch and my heart stumble over its beat. Ten years was not enough time to get over that man and the dimples that appeared when he grinned.
Niall sat flicking through the local newspaper in the kitchen with Aoife typing on her phone beside him.
“Liam said he and Callum would be over later to help you with the decorations,” I told him, setting my bag of rhubarb rock on the table.
He pounced on the bag and snatched one of the sweets. “I haven’t seen rhubarb rock since we were kids!” he exclaimed, sucking the red and yellow sphere.
My brow wrinkled in confusion.
“What are they?” Aoife wrinkled her nose in disgust. “They don’t look very healthy. ”
It wasn’t my place to judge who my brother chose to bring into his life, but if she disrespected me one more time, my temper would fray.
“We used to buy them at Mr. Wilson’s store,” Niall began to reminisce. “Oonagh always got these, Liam got the chocolate limes, and my favourite changed every week.” He smiled as he visualised the memories of the past.
“Was Liam the tall guy riding the motorbike?” Aoife asked and returned to typing on her phone.
“Yeah, he’s a complete adrenaline junkie. Every September, he goes to somewhere different in the world to try the craziest activity he can find that takes him to the very edge.”
Aoife arched an eyebrow. “Why September?”
Niall shrugged and returned to his paper. “His life fell to pieces one September years ago that resulted in his siblings being taken into care. He bombed out of university for a year as he tried to juggle Cal’s rehabilitation and convince the authorities that he could take care of the younger ones. Mrs. Munroe eventually stepped in to swing the balance.”
So many questions sprung to mind since I’d avoided any conversation about Liam for years. What happened to Callum and why were his brothers taken away? When did this happen?
Aoife popped one of my sweets into her mouth without asking could she have one, screwing her face up before spitting it out into a napkin. “They’re horrible! How can you eat them?”
“You have to suck through the sour to get to the sweet, just like people,” I deadpanned .
Her eyes narrowed on me for a brief moment. “He would suit Tracy in the office. You should set him up on a blind date with her.”
Cold fury ignited inside me at her suggestion. Liam wasn’t a prize bull to be traded at the local cattle market.
Niall’s laughter interrupted my inner rant. “I doubt Liam would agree to that, Aoife. He avoids relationships and commitment like the plague. There isn’t a woman alive who can tame him. There never was.”
“There’s a female out there capable of taming every man,” Aoife snipped in reply.
Niall merely chuckled. “The only woman he ever listened to was Oonagh, and that’s only because she was practically his sister.”
The full weight of Aoife’s stare descended on me, evaluating my presence. My face neutralised into my professional persona. “I’ve never met a man and woman who can just be friends in my life,” she commented.
“Liam was like having another brother,” I replied. “We used to ride our bikes and go fishing in the local river. Dad even built us all a treehouse that we played board games in.”
“Maybe it’s like when you put puppies together from a young age, they don’t know who their litter mates really are?” Aoife returned to her phone, while Niall and I shared a pointed look.
I was currently unsure if we should feel complimented or insulted. Although, her previous point was fair. Liam had been my best friend and I had sex with him more times than I could remember. We’d definitely crossed the friend zone barrier and decimated it .
“You should be careful how you treat the local wildlife,” I muttered. “Sometimes we bite.” It was childish but I grabbed my bag of sweets on the way out the door. As I wandered toward the staircase, I released a fake howl and heard Niall chuckling in reply.
***