Chapter 29 Liam
LIAM
Ma slammed the cabinet door, bypassing me without so much as a glance. It had been this way for the past week.
Whenever I walked into a room, she walked out.
If I spoke to her, she gave me one-word answers.
When I came for dinner, she handed me a container of leftovers and said I knew how to use a microwave.
“Are you ever going to talk to me again?”
“Humpf,” she muttered, shoving past me again to grab the oven mitts.
“Ma—”
“Don’t bother,” Pop said as he walked into the room and pulled out his chair. “That anger extends to me for some reason.”
“What did you do?” I asked, taking my usual spot.
“Not sure, but you landed me in it.”
“He didn’t land you in anything,” Ma said as she placed the casserole in the center of the table.
“Then why am I getting yelled at for something he did?”
“Because you’re a man, and all men think with the wrong head.”
She shoved the spatula into the casserole and snatched my plate with a little too much gusto. “If you would stop thinking about sex all the time, and start thinking about your future, you would still have that lovely girl right now.”
“Ma—”
“I don’t care what excuse you give. Nothing you could say would possibly explain what was going through your head.”
She plopped the dish down, sending casserole flying onto my clothes. Sighing, I grabbed a napkin and wiped off the remnants.
“And you,” she said, stabbing the spatula at Pop, “why didn’t you teach him better?”
“I didn’t teach him at all.”
“That’s precisely my point,” she snapped. “Our boys are supposed to be getting married. One of them never speaks to us, this one just dumped the best thing he had, and the other one lives in some kind of dreamland!”
“Something smells good!” Jeff shouted from the back door. “Just in time,” he grinned as he walked around the corner. “Hmm, I love it when you make your famous casserole.”
Ma grabbed the towel and slapped his hand away before he could snatch his plate. “Wash your hands. And don’t you even think about bringing a woman home unless you can prove that you can behave properly with her!”
“What did I do?” Jeff asked, shooting me a nasty look.
“You would not believe the rumors going around town.” Ma took her seat, huffing and puffing as she shifted her food around her plate. “To think that one of my boys could have such horrible things being said about him…I did not raise any of you to behave in such an ungentlemanly way.”
“He did it,” Jeff grumbled. “I don’t see why I’m getting yelled at.”
“Because you learn everything from him,” she argued.
Stabbing her fork into her casserole, she pointed it at him. “And if you think that for even one moment I will tolerate that kind of behavior—Ugh, I should have taken you to church more often. You know, that Catholic church beats you when you misbehave.”
“I’m not really into spanking,” Jeff jeered.
“I should have had all girls. There’s so much less to worry about.”
Pop laughed. “Yeah, nothing to worry you aside from teenage pregnancy.”
“Yes, but with girls, they can only get pregnant once at a time. Our boys could be out sewing their wild oats and knocking up girls left and right.”
“I’m not knocking up girls,” I snapped. “I broke up with her. Let it go!”
“Yes, and for what? Because her mother got a little overzealous and started planning the wedding? You couldn’t have handled that?”
“What if I didn’t want to marry her?”
“Then who were you planning on marrying? Certainly not Ellie May. That girl would leave you broke in a year.”
Clearly, there was no way to win this argument. I was going to be harassed for the rest of time about my terrible decision-making abilities.
And there was nothing I could do to change her opinion of me.
“You know, maybe Liam had a better reason for breaking up with her,” Jeff said, raising his eyebrows expectantly at me.
“Nope, just didn’t feel like getting married,” I said happily, kicking him under the table.
“Really? There was no other reason? Nothing at all that you’d like to share?” he urged.
“Not a damn thing.”
“Not even, say, an unwanted someone doing something that could potentially be a problem in the near future?”
“What is he talking about?” Ma asked.
“Hell if I know.”
“Jeff, what are you talking about?” she asked, switching gears.
“Me? I have nothing to say. I just thought maybe there would be a better reason that Liam broke things off with her. Maybe bad driving or sweaty armpits. You know, something that might be a better excuse than her mother planning a wedding. Say, a threat.”
“Don’t be silly,” Ma sighed. “No one breaks up with someone else because of bad driving.”
Pop huffed out a laugh. “If they did, your mother and I would have divorced a long time ago.”
“I am not a bad driver,” she scolded.
“Nope, she is not. She’s perfectly wonderful at being a backseat driver. She knows when I need to press the brake, if I’m going over the speed limit, and when I might miss a turn.”
“I’m only being cautious.”
“And yet, she got in three accidents last year,” Pop chuckled.
“They were not accidents,” Ma snapped.
“What exactly would you call it when you hit another vehicle?”
“I didn’t hit him. I slid into him when the tires hit a patch of ice. That’s not the same thing.”
As they argued, I narrowed my eyes at Jeff, letting him know in no uncertain terms that I would kick his ass if he didn’t drop the subject.
“Why are you yelling at me, woman? Your son is the one who dropped a perfectly decent girl?” Pop yelled.
And…we were back to me.
“That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”
“I never am,” Pop muttered.
I quickly shoved the rest of the food in my mouth, only interested in getting back to my place for the night. Just as I was shoving back from the table, Ma started in again.
“And where do you think you’re going, young man?”
“I thought I was going to rinse my plate, but clearly, I was mistaken about that.”
“I think you should start making your own dinner.”
Jeff chuckled, but immediately schooled his features when Ma shot him a nasty glare.
“If you really don’t need a woman, then you should get used to living the bachelor lifestyle. After all, you won’t have your mother around forever to do everything for you.”
“That’s not—”
“And you can stop bringing your clothes up here for me to wash. I believe you have a washer and dryer in your house.”
“It’s broken,” I argued.
“Then you can either get it fixed, buy a new one, or learn to use a wash basin and line dry your clothes,” Ma snapped.
She took a deep breath, then a serene smile crossed her face. Just like that, it was over.
“Well, dinner was delicious, but these dishes won’t do themselves.”
Knowing I was being put in my place, I headed over to the sink. “I’ll dry.”
“Why do you get to dry?” Jeff muttered.
“Because I only have one working hand, and I can’t get my cast wet.”
“Ooh, I’m Liam and I have a broken wrist,” Jeff mocked. “Look at me. I can’t do the dishes.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m dating women whose hearts I can break.”
I snarled at him, but never got the opportunity to take out my anger on him.
“Enough!” Ma snapped. “Both of you, out of my house, and don’t you dare step foot in here again until you can behave like two grown men.”
We both stared at her in shock.
“We were just joking around,” Jeff muttered.
I wisely kept my mouth shut, pressing a kiss to Ma’s cheek as I walked out. It wasn’t the best family dinner ever, but at least she was speaking to me again.
The screen door opened and Ma shouted, “And the next girl you bring home better be for good!”
I faintly heard someone calling me a jerk as the thick strawberry milkshake collided with my face and dribbled down the inside of my shirt.
Sighing, I yanked the door open to the sheriff’s office, already regretting coming into town.
The moment I walked inside, Bea snickered at me from behind the front desk. “Rough day?”
“You could say that.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the rumors floating around town, would it?”
“That depends. What have you heard?” I asked, taking the paper towels from her outstretched hand. “Thanks.”
“Oh, the usual. You’re a scoundrel. You slept with Bailey and then broke things off the next day.”
I was in the middle of wiping the shake from my face when I paused, wondering just how much of my life had been shared around town.
“Something about taking the lovely Ellie May home with you and then dropping her off the next morning, wearing practically nothing. Oh, and then there’s my favorite,” she beamed.
“I’m dying to know,” I said drolly.
“Well, apparently, you’re getting married.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one.”
“To a woman from out of town,” she said, surprising the hell out of me.
“Really?”
She nodded vigorously, her eyes shining with mirth. “She’s young—just out of college, and she’s got buckets of money that you’re going to use to save the ranch and bring it back to its former glory.”
I snorted at that. “Well, it’s nice to know not all the rumors are true.”
She eyed me speculatively. “And just which of the rumors are false?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Bea?”
“I would. Don’t leave an old lady waiting on pins and needles. After all, I did share my paper towels with you. Those are coveted by many.”
“Yeah? Are there a lot of guys who walk in here with milkshake thrown all over them?”
“You’d be surprised. Maverick is waiting for you,” she said, jerking her head to the back.
“Thanks for the insight, Bea. Always a pleasure.”
Tossing the used paper towel into the trash, I headed back to Mav’s office, stopping in the bathroom first to wash up.
There was nothing I could do about the milkshake on my shirt, but I grabbed some wet towels and wiped my skin as best I could, removing the worst of it. I’d just have to be sticky the rest of the day. As for my beard…
“Christ, this smells horrible,” I muttered as I stared at my pink-stained beard in the mirror.