Chapter 5 #2
“Oh, Jonah, hang on—” I turn to catch him before he takes off, but then someone steps on my foot and I gasp, pain exploding in my baby toe.
Cursing, I hop on one leg, then bend at the waist to try to catch my breath, the pain making me dizzy. A strong hand cups my elbow to support me.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” The voice is deep but smooth, sort of like a country-song-crooning cowboy’s. Or what I imagine that might sound like. Also? It’s familiar. Very familiar.
I look up and right into Liam’s green eyes. “Oh… hi,” I say, still standing on one leg.
“This is not what I meant when I said I hoped to run into you around town,” Liam says with a smile. The dimples are dimpling, but then his grin drops as he glances at my foot. “What’s the damage? On a scale of one being barely a bruise to ten being I’m going to have to carry you out of here?”
“No real damage. I’m okay.” I gingerly set my foot back on the ground.
My toe throbs angrily, but a moment later goes numb—a bad sign for the likely swelling toe, but good news for the pain level.
I’m embarrassed by all my hopping about, but also take a moment to imagine Liam lifting me into his clearly very strong arms .
“You sure?” He scans my face with those impossibly green eyes, which I now see are flecked with gold. I nod, attempting to smile through another wave of baby-toe pain. So much agony for such a tiny appendage. Just then Amelia appears, her expression concerned.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Why were you all bent over?”
“It’s nothing. Someone stepped on my foot,” I reply, though I don’t mention who. It’s crowded in here, and Liam surely didn’t mean to crush my baby toe. No need to make him feel worse than he obviously already does. “I’m fine.”
“That’s a relief. Thought you might need this.
” Amelia releases my arm, holding out a small bag covered in Christmas trees, eyebrows raised.
She glances over at Liam. “My sister may be older, but she is definitely not wiser, at least when it comes to bad turkey sandwiches. There was quite a lot of”—she sets a hand to her stomach and blows out her cheeks—“last night.”
Liam cringes, then laughs lightly as he turns my way. “Oh no… the sandwich didn’t love you back?”
I give Amelia a look that says Stop talking NOW. She shrugs but gets the message. “Love the sweater, Liam. I saw Mary has a similar one—so sweet. Everhart’s?” she asks.
“Thanks, Mila. And of course.” He’s wearing a crazy Christmas sweater, red and green patchwork, with a gift on its front, wrapped in a large gold organza bow that actually ties up.
Perhaps odd for a memorial service, unless you live in Christmas-obsessed Harmony Hills.
Through the haze of pain I wonder who Mary is, and how she and Liam are connected, with their “sweet” matching Christmas sweaters.
“Oh, there’s Becks,” Amelia says, eyes only for her fiancée now. She doesn’t even look at me when she asks, “You good?”
“I’m good. I’ll come find you and Beckett later.” Amelia nods, then is gone, swallowed up into the crowd.
“So you’re Mila’s sister, the famous Libby Munro?” Recognition dawns on his face. “I didn’t put it together when you introduced yourself as Elizabeth.”
“Definitely not ‘famous,’ and I haven’t gone by Libby in years, but—” I’m so distracted by his adorable dimples (a matching set!) that I don’t notice what’s beside me, getting closer to my hand, the one still holding Jonah’s abandoned Rudolph cookie.
“Mary Piggins, enough ,” Liam’s voice goes down another octave, the tone sterner.
Mary Piggins? I quickly glance around. But before I can figure out who “Mary Piggins” is, the cookie is tugged out of my hand.
I look down, confused, before promptly screaming when I see a potbellied pig—caramel and black fur, a black nose at the end of a whiteish-pink snout, and a sort of reverse mohawk of sand-coloured fur at the crown of her head.
She’s as tall as a large dog and as wide and round as a rain barrel.
Mary’s still got the cookie in her mouth as she darts off into the crowd.
A half-dozen people have turned our way with my scream, and, mortified, I say, “Oh, it’s nothing! I’m so sorry. Everything’s fine.”
But is it… fine? There’s a pig loose in the funeral home. I glance around for Mr. Covington, the home’s director, but can’t see him anywhere.
“Libby… Elizabeth, hey, so sorry about all this. She’s still learning her manners.
Uh, I’ll just grab Mary… where the heck did she get to?
” He glances around the room, sighing in obvious frustration.
Then he turns his attention back my way and gives my elbow a little squeeze.
“You sure you’re okay? Mary isn’t exactly light on her hooves. ”
“Of course. Yep, don’t worry about me.” I wave away the concern, blushing fiercely under his intense gaze. Only now realizing it wasn’t Liam who stepped on my toe, but the cookie-stealing, Christmas-sweater-wearing potbellied pig. “You go get your… pig.”
“Huh. I guess she is mine now,” he says, placing his hands on his hips.
He lets out a long breath, which turns into another sigh, like he isn’t at all sure what to do next.
Then he smiles at me again, his dimples settling in deeper ( hot damn ).
“I’ll be right back. With another cookie for you. You’re always hungry, right?”
“Right.” I nod, dazed from our interaction and forgetting for a moment all about my throbbing baby toe, and the fact there’s a pig stealing sugar cookies from guests at a memorial service decorated for the holidays.