Chapter 24 Bailey #2
I let her guide me down the hall to my room, but I knew sleep wouldn’t come. I was so stupid, and tonight just proved that.
“Seriously, get some sleep.”
I nodded and slumped in bed, but as the hours passed, I went over every minute I spent with him over that one imperfect week, wondering what I could have said or done to make it all turn out differently.
How had I not seen this coming?
How was it possible that he made love to me like that, and then turned around and threw me away?
Was it even making love? Was that just the way he was with all his women?
No, that couldn’t be it. I’d never seen him act like that in all of the last ten years. He didn’t sit with women in his lap and he definitely didn’t allow them to nibble on his ear.
And not once had he ever shown interest in Ellie May.
I sat up, going through it all in my mind again.
The way he looked at me, how he watched me and looked out for me whenever he thought something was wrong. He hadn’t been mad at me when I threw that knife at him. No, he smiled and laughed it off. But something changed in the hospital.
He was fine the night before, so what happened that he suddenly was mad at me? Had someone said something to him? Did he think I did something and that’s why he was acting this way?
Or maybe it was Archer. That had been a week ago. Was it possible that there was gossip going around town about him taking us home?
I was out of my bed and throwing on my pajama pants and a t-shirt before I could think better of it.
There had to be a reason he was doing this, and I was going to find out.
I slid my feet into the closest thing I could find, which just happened to be slippers, and then I was out the door with Cheyenne chasing after me, begging me not to drive out there.
But I had to.
As I unlocked my car door, I saw Mrs. Abernathy sitting on her front porch with a mug of what I hoped was coffee, but ignored her and all pleasantries.
My phone rang beside me, but I ignored it until finally, I couldn’t anymore. “Cheyenne, I’m doing this.”
“This is a really bad idea.”
“It’s not. He’s upset about something. I think he thinks something happened with Archer. That’s the only thing that makes sense. That was about the time that he got so pissy with me.”
“Bailes, listen to me. You do not want to go out there. Whatever he says, it won’t make you feel better.”
“Unless I can convince him to talk to me,” I argued.
“And do you really think that will work? Can you honestly tell me that you are one hundred percent certain that you’re right about this?”
“Yes!” I snapped. “I know Liam. He wouldn’t do this to me.”
“But he did, Bailes. You saw it with your own eyes. He was there with Ellie May, and as much as you don’t want to believe that he would do this to you, he did.”
“But there’s a reason behind it! I know there is, and I’m not walking away until I’m sure there’s no going back for us.”
“Bailes—”
I hung up before she could say anything else. My phone buzzed incessantly the entire way to his house as the morning light crept over the horizon. I was almost there. I would figure out what was really going on, and we could move on with life.
Whatever he thought happened, I just had to convince him that it wasn’t real.
I skidded to a stop in front of his house and practically leapt out of the car, running to his front door and banging on it as hard as I could. I didn’t stop until it opened a few minutes later.
Sucking in a ragged breath, my eyes trailed over Liam’s mostly naked body. God, he really did look amazing. My fingers itched to reach out and touch him, to remind myself what it felt like to be in his arms.
But I had some explaining to do first.
“Hey,” I said, my words breathless and exhausted.
He rested his good arm against the doorframe, blocking my entrance as his foot held the door where he wanted it.
“It’s early. What are you doing here?”
There was no warmth in his tone, but I was about to fix all that.
“It occurred to me that you were angry with me at the hospital. And I couldn’t figure out why, not when I was there to help you.
But then I realized that was around the same time I went out drinking with Cheyenne and we got in a bar fight. ”
I paused to see if he would say anything, but he just stared at me with blank eyes.
“I’m sure it got around town that Archer—you remember Archer from high school?”
“I know him,” he growled.
“Right…well, he took Cheyenne and me home that night after bailing us out of jail.”
He didn’t seem at all surprised by that, but then again, word traveled fast in a small town.
“Anyway, I thought maybe you heard something that made you think something happened with Archer. I don’t know what you heard—”
“That was after I told you to leave the hospital,” he interrupted.
I thought back, and sure enough, he was right.
“But then…” I shook my head, still not understanding any of it.
“I thought for sure that’s what you were mad about.
I mean, it doesn’t make sense. You’re not acting like yourself.
You don’t hurt people intentionally. You’ve always looked out for me. And when you asked me over here—”
“Liam?” a feminine voice called out from inside. “Can you take me home? I have to get home and clean up before I open the shop, and I’m pretty sure it would be too distracting if I smelled like you all day.”
My mouth went dry as Ellie May’s mussed hair appeared behind his broad shoulders. I didn’t get a great look at her, but it was enough to see her wearing one of his shirts.
Only his shirt.
As her head popped up, a look of shock crossed her face before she scurried out of view.
As for Liam, he didn’t look at all embarrassed. “Yeah, give me a minute to put some clothes on.”
She was here. In his house. In his bed. He hadn’t just been kissing her at the bar. He actually fucking slept with her.
And I was the fool who stayed up all night wondering what the hell I had done to make him mad.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to talk about it or fix it. He just wanted it to be over. And he did a bang-up job of ending whatever we had.
“Um…sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“It’s fine. Didn’t get much sleep last night anyway,” he grunted.
My cheeks flamed at the implication, but when I opened my mouth to say something—anything, no words came out.
Tears pricked my eyes for the first time since this whole thing started. I was going to break down, but I couldn’t do that in front of him.
I stumbled back a step, desperate to get out of there, but as the world tilted around me, I found it impossible to get my feet to work properly.
Did he really care so little about me that he could just move on without a single word? And with just a random woman in town?
Why? Why her?
“Bailey—”
As he stepped out onto the porch, I stiffened. The reality of the situation crashed down upon me, and I finally saw Liam for what he really was.
Everything I loved about him so much had all been a lie. And it all started with that dance. Nothing had been real, and I only had myself to blame for refusing to see the truth.
But him…
He’d slept with another woman, and that was something I could never forgive.