Chapter 41 Liam
LIAM
The morning light eased over the horizon, waking me gently from my fitful sleep.
My neck ached from the awkward position of sleeping upright and my legs were sore from the scrunched confines of the truck. But it was worth it to be here when she walked out the door in the morning.
She was early today, a good ten minutes ahead of schedule. Getting out, I hurried over to her, walking in stride beside her as she ignored me.
“Why so early this morning?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Not possible.”
“You did just fine the first six weeks after you—”
Cutting herself off, she walked faster down the sidewalk.
“After I broke your heart? After I confessed everything that happened and begged you to forgive me?”
She scoffed at that. “Like I ever would. I’m surprised you even thought you had a second chance.”
“It sure felt like I did when you were dancing in my arms.”
“A moment of weakness,” she mused.
The early morning light struck the blonde locks of her hair, shimmering gold in her long hair. “You look beautiful this morning.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“It’s not flattery if it’s true.”
“Liam, I’m going to work. I don’t have time to discuss something that we both know will never happen.”
“Then I won’t discuss it with you,” I said, walking in silence beside her.
I faced forward, even though all I wanted was to stare at her beautiful face. She wanted normalcy. Well, I could give her that.
Almost.
We made it an entire block before she snapped, stopping and glowering at me. “What are you doing?”
“Walking.”
“Yes, but why are you walking beside me?”
“Because I love you, and I want to be with you.”
She snorted out an unladylike laugh at that. “Excuse me, you love me?”
“You know I do.”
“And is this supposed to prove something to me?” she snapped. “You’re going to make me see how much you love me by following me around town like a lost puppy?”
“If I have to, but mostly, I just want to spend time with you.”
“Well, you can forget it. I’m not talking to you.”
“Then I’ll walk in silence with you.”
I started out ahead of her, keeping my pace slow until she caught up, which she did only moments later.
“What if I don’t want you to walk with me? Did you ever think about that?”
“It’s a free country. Technically, I’m just walking down the sidewalk.”
“Yes, but you told me you were purposely following me!”
“It’s not really following if I’m beside you. If I was following you, I would be behind you.”
She gaped at me, then turned in a huff and stormed off down the street. Chuckling, I caught up, taking my spot beside her, but we weren’t two shops down the street when the door to The Daily Grind opened and Maverick walked out, tipping his hat to us.
“Sheriff, you need to stop this right now!” she yelled, charging forward.
“Good morning to you. And what do I need to stop?”
“Him!” she pointed viciously at me. “He’s following me!”
“I’m walking down the street,” I corrected.
Mav quirked an eyebrow at me, as if to say, Is this really what you’re going with?
“He told me that he’s going to follow me around just to be with me,” Bailey argued. “Sheriff, you have to stop him. Arrest him or something!”
Mav again looked to me. “Any arguments?”
“I’m walking in the same direction as her. There’s no law against that.”
“He’s right,” Mav grinned. “Not much I can do about him walking down the sidewalk.”
“But he’s stalking me!”
My grin dropped as Maverick crossed his arms over his chest, finding this new twist very interesting.
“Is that right? Well, stalking is a very serious crime. It can lead to all sorts of things. Dangerous things.”
“That’s right!” Bailey snapped.
“Maybe even love.”
Bailey flinched back at that. “No, he’s following me around when I don’t want him to. You’ve got to do something. Throw him in jail!”
“Now, that might be considered a waste of the city’s time and resources. I’m gonna have to think on that one.”
“Are you refusing to protect one of your citizens?”
Maverick let out a low whistle. “Now, that’s quite the accusation. I would never want to be seen as putting aside public concerns.”
“Then arrest him and throw the key away,” she scowled.
Maverick thought about it, then sighed and pulled out his cuffs. He didn’t even back down when I glared at him. “Sorry, but not sure what else I can do.”
His words were right, but the humor dancing his eyes said it all. He was enjoying every second of this. And Bailey, damn, she looked pleased. I was going to have to knock that smile off her face.
“Thank you, Sheriff. I’ll be on my way.”
She shot me a smug grin, then started to weave her way around us, but I stuck out my foot and sent her flying right into the sheriff’s body, shoving him back a step as he did his best to keep them both upright.
“Sorry, Maverick—”
“Assault!” I cried out. “I saw it. She attacked you.”
Bailey’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped in horror. “I did not—”
“I saw it with my own eyes. She attacked you, Sheriff.”
“I did not!”
“Well, you did hit me rather hard,” Mav said, playing it up as he rubbed his arm.
“I didn’t even run into that side of your body,” she argued.
He quickly switched sides, rubbing the other arm. “Well, my body twisted in such a way that I…pulled an arm muscle.”
Bailey’s head whipped to meet my gaze. If I thought she hated me before, right now, she was plotting where to dump my body.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you both in,” Mav sighed, grabbing Bailey by the arm.
But she jerked out of his grasp and pulled back, launching her fist at his face before I could shout for her to stop. It was a direct hit. His head whipped to the side as she made contact, and I was pretty sure I saw spit go flying.
As for Bailey, she just smirked at him. “If you’re going to arrest me, at least have a good reason for it.”
Shaking out his jaw, Mav turned to me with a growl. “You know, you try to help a friend—”
“Hey, I didn’t tell her to hit you.”
“Serves you right,” Bailey argued. “All I wanted was for him to leave me alone.”
“All you wanted was for me to throw him in jail because he likes you.”
“Loves her,” I corrected.
“It doesn’t matter if he likes me—”
“Loves you.”
“He can’t just follow me wherever I go!”
“It’s a free country,” I reminded her.
Her eyes darted to mine, fury blazed in their depths. That fire was so much better than the sadness I had heard about for weeks.
“Now, I perfectly understand that you want him to leave you alone, but I can’t go around throwing people in jail because of a lover’s spat.”
“We’re not lovers,” she snarled.
“Oh, please, you two have been dancing around each other since the fourth grade!”
“Third,” we both said at the same time.
“See? You even think alike. Now, how about we remove the cuffs and we all go on our way?” Mav said, trying to calm down the situation.
I was quite pleased with the way this was going.
That is, until I looked at Bailey and saw the need for revenge glimmering in her eyes.
Ten minutes later, the cell door slammed on both of us. She sat with a satisfied smirk on the bench at the far wall, while I was cuffed to the bars.
Chuckling, I rested my elbow against the bar. “I don’t know what you’re grinning at. I just got you locked in a cell with me for the rest of the day.”
The foundation of my new house was poured and it was time to start building the house I planned on spending the rest of my life in with Bailey.
But in order to get Bailey to live here, I first had to win her back, which would take considerable effort. Especially after the jail disaster, in which she ignored me until Wyatt bailed her out an hour later. My plans to spend the entire day with her in the cell had been dashed.
But I had a plan for today that wouldn’t fail. I was ninety percent certain of that.
“Hey, where are you going?” Michael shouted as he unloaded lumber from the back of his truck.
I turned, walking backward. “To town. Time to take the truck in for repairs.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “You’ve already taken every truck in. That’s not gonna win her back.”
“Trust me on this. I’ve got a plan.”
“Yeah? And how do you plan on paying for all these repairs?” Michael asked, motioning to all the wood. “You have a house to pay for.”
“I’ve got some money set aside.”
“Great, so you’re gonna go broke on repairs to a truck that doesn’t need to be repaired, all so you can hope to win Bailey back.”
“Something like that,” I grinned.
Turning on my heel, I got in my truck and roared down the drive. I already called Wyatt and put my truck on the schedule for today and requested Bailey. He couldn’t exactly turn me down. I was a paying client.
In all my years of watching Bailey, I had never been so direct in my attempts at garnering her attention.
I had always hung back and preferred to let her come to me.
But the time for being silent was over. If I was going to get Bailey back, I had to be one hundred percent clear that I wasn’t giving in.
Bailey spotted me as soon as I pulled into the garage, and when she stormed over to Wyatt, I knew she was giving him an earful about how she wasn’t going to work on my truck. Based on the rage growing in her features, Wyatt wasn’t giving in.
“Thank you, Wyatt,” I muttered, parking in front of the bay doors.
The moment my feet hit the pavement, Bailey was on me.
And not in the way I wanted.
“Why are you doing this?” she seethed. “There’s nothing wrong with your truck.”
“There actually is. See, when I’m driving, I’ve been hearing a scraping sound, almost like the muffler is dragging on the road. But as you can see, the muffler is clearly intact.”
Her eyes drifted curiously to the back of the truck, but she wasn’t convinced yet.
“If you want, we can take it for a drive.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she spat, snatching the keys out of my hand.
Wyatt strolled over to me as Bailey took the truck into the garage. “Are you sure about this?”
“About her? Absolutely.”
“Bailey doesn’t like being manipulated.”
The barb hit hard. “I’m well aware of that.”
“Are you?” The accusation hit me directly in the chest. “You’ve screwed with her enough. I don’t like being put in the middle of your games. She’s a good worker and she doesn’t deserve for this thing to bleed into her work life.”
“I wouldn’t need to do anything like this if your brother hadn’t fucked with my life,” I snapped. “If you want someone to blame, look to your own family.”
His jaw clenched hard as we continued the standoff for a good thirty seconds. “Don’t fuck with her.”
As he stormed off, my short-lived victory gave me the confidence to stroll into the garage and watch her work from a distance. She spent a good hour going over every inch of the truck, looking for anything that could be causing the noises I was describing.
But when she yielded no results, she came over to me. “There’s nothing wrong. You’re hearing things.”
“Okay,” I gave in. “Then I’ll be back in tomorrow when I hear it, and we can do this again.”
I reached for the keys, but she yanked her hand back, rolling her eyes at me. “Fine. We’ll go for a drive, but I’m only giving you five minutes. Nothing more.”
“I’ll take it.”
Her lips pursed, she stormed back to the truck and pulled it out of the bay, stalling only long enough for me to get in before she took off.
“You look beautiful today.”
She ignored me, paying attention only to the sounds of the truck.
“I started building a house.”
Again, she ignored me.
“I decided to build it out by the falls. I figured it would be a nice view for mornings. A couple of rockers on the front porch would be perfect for sitting with a cup of coffee in the morning, don’t you think?”
She took a turn rather hard and hit the gas.
“Though it’s gonna need a woman’s touch.”
“Why don’t you ask Ellie May? I’m sure she’d be willing to decorate it for you,” she sniped.
“I don’t want Ellie May’s opinion. There’s only one woman I could ever want, and she’s sitting right beside me.”
She showed no sign that my words affected her, other than her eyelashes fluttering slightly faster than before.
“Someday, you’ll forgive me, Bailey.”
“You’re awfully certain about that,” she scoffed.
“I am. Because there’s only one way that our story ends, and that’s with the two of us together.
We were meant to be together, and I know I broke your trust, but I only did it because I was scared out of my mind that Austin would hurt you, and I was willing to risk our future to make sure you were safe. ”
“Well, that’s the difference between us, Liam. I would have talked to you. I never would have presumed to think I knew better.”
“He would have killed you,” I said softly. “That was one risk I could never take. And I know you don’t think it was worth it, but I refuse to live in a world where I let you down so badly.”
She pulled back into the garage and shifted into park, then her eyes focused on mine. “You already did.”
Getting out, she slammed the door and marched back into the garage.
Wyatt strolled up to the passenger window. “I take it you didn’t find the noise.”
“Not even close,” I muttered. “But I’m not giving up.”
He sighed heavily. “Guess that means I’ll be seeing you again tomorrow.”
“And every day after that until she forgives me.”