Chapter 39 Liam
LIAM
“Mom! Liam has a knot on the back of his head!”
I glared at Jeff as I walked through the front door of the main house.
“You shithead. What are you trying to do?”
The wolfish grin splitting his lips was one I recognized all too well. “Just a little payback for that time in tenth grade when I broke my leg.”
“That was years ago.”
“Yes, and Mom doted on me for weeks. She wouldn’t leave me alone. Now it’s your turn. Congratulations!”
“Don’t you think I’ve dealt with enough of her doting to last me a lifetime?”
“Not if she finds out you were the one who ate the last of her bread,” he teased.
I was about to beat the shit out of him when my mother came running down the hall, covered in flour. “What happened? Let me see.”
She grabbed my head and jerked it forward, nearly ripping out my hair in the process.
“Ma, I’m fine.”
“He is not. He nearly got trampled by the horses.”
“And I’m just hearing about this?” Mom said, jerking my head back upright so she could look at me.
“It happened less than an hour ago,” I started, but Jeff finished.
“That’s when he spooked the horses and nearly got his head bashed in.”
My head was jerked back down for her to inspect. Christ, at this rate, I was going to have whiplash.
“You should have come here straightaway. I would have taken you to the doctor.”
“And that’s why I didn’t come.”
Jeff sighed heavily. “I tried to talk some sense into him, but you know Liam. He always does whatever he wants.”
He grabbed an apple off the basket in the back hall, rubbing it against his shirt with a grin before taking a bite. I was about to smack the wide grin off his face when my mom jerked my head upright again.
“Do you think you could stop doing that?” I grumbled. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m shocked at you, Liam,” Jeff pretended to be astonished. “She’s your mother. Imagine how worried she must be.”
“No thanks to you,” Mom scolded him. “Don’t think you’re off the hook, Jeffrey Michael. If you were over there, you should have forced him to come home.”
“Well, I—”
“Imagine if he had a brain bleed. He might never wake up, and then it would all be your fault.”
“But I—”
“Honestly, your brother is injured, and you’re more worried about getting him in trouble.”
“He just said he was fine!”
“I’ll decide who’s fine and who’s not! Until then, I expect you to treat your brother with the kindness he deserves.”
I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as she chastised him like a little kid.
“And you.”
Well, shit. That didn’t last long.
“If I ever hear about you getting hurt and not getting help again, I will take you over my knee and make sure you remember that you are an important part of this family, and we’ve already had too many close calls this year.”
With that, she turned and stalked back down the hall, her anger still lingering in the air.
“She middle-named me,” Jeff muttered. “She hasn’t done that for a few years now. What do you think that means?”
“At least she didn’t threaten you with physical violence after getting injured.”
I snatched an apple out of the basket and headed down the hall toward the kitchen. I wasn’t ready for her wrath again, but something smelled good, and I had hardly eaten at all today.
“What’s on the stove?”
“Beef stew. Not that you deserve any of it.”
“Ma, I didn’t mean to worry you.” Taking the opportunity to get her on my good side, I spun her around and pulled her in for a hug, hoping that would calm her nerves. “I promise, if I wasn’t feeling good, I would have told you.”
I knew she didn’t believe a word I said, but she relented, pushing me back a step.
“Alright, get on with you. I have to finish this up before it burns to the bottom of the pot.”
I kissed her on the cheek, earning massive brownie points for the rest of the week at least. But when I spun around, my father’s pointed look said we needed to talk.
And I knew exactly what he was going to say before the words left his mouth.
“Want me to throw myself down the stairs so he has to take me to the hospital?” Jeff whispered.
“Wouldn’t matter. He’s been waiting to have the talk for weeks now. I think Ma was the only one holding him back.”
“It could be worse.”
Slowly, I quirked an eyebrow at my brother. “Yeah? How’s that?”
“Well…” He thought about it for a moment. “He might have invited Bailey’s mom over.”
He was right. That would have been worse. “If you don’t see me in an hour, throw yourself down the stairs.”
“You got it.” He clapped me hard on the back, sending me to my doom.
I had heard the lecture from pretty much everyone already. Pop was the only one who kept his mouth shut, but that was all about to change. I should have known he wouldn’t stay out of this.
Shoving open the screen door, I found him waiting at the end of the porch, sitting in his usual chair.
“Pop,” I said, taking my seat beside him.
At first, he didn’t say anything, which wasn’t unusual these days. After the ranch had to be converted to a staycation destination, his mood had plummeted and pretty much never recovered.
I had hoped the change would be easier on him. He was still young, not even sixty yet, but when the ranch changed, all the fight I normally found in my pop twisted him into the remnants of an old man who had given up the will to go on.
I hated seeing him this way—how he let life defeat him.
“Got any plans?”
“In general or for my life?” I asked, already on edge.
“About Bailey.”
So, he was going to come right out and say it.
“Pop, Bailey is no longer part of my life.”
“She could be.”
“No, she really can’t. She made it very clear that she didn’t want anything to do with me. I hurt her, and she can’t forgive me for that.”
“Son—”
“Pop, I’m not doing this. You and every other person in this family have already tried to convince me to win her back. I tried that and failed miserably. What more would you have me do?”
“Stop being a shit and get off your ass,” he snapped. “Son, you and that girl were meant to be together since you were running around in diapers. Love like that doesn’t come around very often.”
“You have it with Ma.”
He grunted, but otherwise didn’t comment. And that’s when I saw it, that far-off look in his eyes. The want and need for something he didn’t have.
Like he had settled.
“When you have a good thing, you know it.” He nodded toward the house. “I got lucky with your mother. She’s a good woman, and she puts up with a lot to be with me. Any other woman would have tossed me out on my ass years ago.”
“Pop—”
“I can’t stand to see you wasting your life away without her. I know you said she can’t forgive you, and maybe she even believes it, but are you really willing to walk away and not keep trying? Do you really want to know what it’ll be like if she’s not with you for the rest of your life?”
“I can’t just make her change her mind.”
“And why the hell not?”
“Because Bailey Bennett is a stubborn woman, and she won’t let anyone change her mind,” I snapped. “I hurt her, and she won’t forgive me for that. Trust me, I knew this when I made my choice.”
“It’s been six weeks. You’ve been moping around here, working yourself to the bone just so you can forget about her. Enough is enough. You’ve given her space. Now remind her what it’s like when you’re around.”
“Yeah, I’ll just start stalking her,” I laughed.
“If you have to,” he said with all seriousness. “Trust me when I tell you that when you step into her life again, she won’t be able to shut you out. She’ll fight you every step of the way, but there is only one way this ends, and that’s with you putting a ring on her finger.”
He shoved to his feet and walked away, but before he stomped off into the yard, he turned back to me. “If you don’t fuck it up.”