CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The next few days were a blur of keeping the inn running while taking care of all the final festival details during the day--and making love with Liam into the late hours of the night.
Christie was equal parts exhilarated and exhausted. Plenty of people had seen her with Liam at the town hall looking at records, or picking up last-second produce at the market for the inn, or grabbing coffee. She'd seen people's confused glances, the way they were obviously trying to tell themselves there couldn't possibly be anything going on between Christie and Liam. And then he would put his hand on the small of her back, or lean in to kiss her forehead, and the nothing going on illusion would shatter.
"You do it on purpose," she said to him after he'd stroked her hair as they waited in line for coffee at the Moose Cafe.
"What's that?" His tone was full of innocence as they walked down the sidewalk, but she saw the wicked truth in his dark eyes.
"You touch me. Kiss me."
"Those are two of my favorite things. I can't help myself." He backed up his words with a light stroke of his thumb across her lower lip, and then his mouth on hers, right in the middle of Main Street.
"You like shocking them all, don't you?"
He pulled back at that. "It's not about shocking them. I'm proud of you. Proud to be with you."
"I know you are," she said, trying to stop herself from adding, "At least for now," and failing. When his mouth tightened, she regretted the words as much as she'd thought she would. "You were clear from the start about what you can give. About how long you're planning to stay in town. It's just sometimes," she said, barely above a whisper, "I find myself wanting more."
She knew how important honesty was to him, but she'd just told a lie. Straight to his face. Because she didn't want more sometimes.
She wanted more all the time.
She knew she had his respect. She knew he appreciated her. That she made him laugh when few others could. And all of that was great, amazing even.
But she wanted his love.
She'd hoped she could go into this relationship knowing the score, understanding what was possible and what wasn't, and come out on the other side having had a taste of something sweet and lovely. But Liam had known better right from the start, hadn't he? He'd predicted her broken heart. And then he'd kissed her...and those predictions hadn't seemed to matter as long as he was close.
They got into his car, where the air was tense as he drove, filled with her longing and his reticence. He hadn't told her where they were going, just that he had a surprise for her. She assumed it had something to do with the festival. They were driving through the heavily forested part of Route 10 when the trees suddenly cleared and he pulled into a narrow gravel driveway.
"Where are we?"
"My property."
She shifted in her seat in surprise. "I didn't know you own land on the lake."
"I bought it a few years ago."
She should have guessed, knowing how much he loved Summer Lake, that he'd always planned on coming back here one day. For all the problems he had with his family, how could he resist? And despite the earlier awkwardness, hope moved through her that maybe, just maybe, he'd make that full-time move sooner rather than later. If he stayed in town, and they continued to date, it wasn't completely impossible that he could fall in love with her one day, was it?
Knowing her heart was running away with her brain again--in a tremendously foolish direction, no less--she was just on the verge of vowing not to let it happen when she saw the most unexpected thing in the world in front of them.
"You have a plane?"
The first hint of a smile came back to his lips. "A floatplane."
She swallowed hard, felt the air begin to press and squeeze out of her lungs. "Your plane takes off and lands on the water?" Her stomach started cramping at nothing more than the thought of it. This was far worse than even her worst fear. At least normal planes landed on solid ground. She had a vision of the float tips digging in, the plane somersaulting--
"Now that the ice on the lake has melted, I was able to have it delivered." Liam's hand was gentle on her chin as he turned her face to his. "Come up in it with me, Christie. I want to take you flying."
"I--" Her mouth was dry, so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of it. She closed her eyes, whispered, "I can't."
"Sweetheart. Look at me." She made herself open her eyes, tried not to see the plane in front of them, floating there at the end of his dock, taunting her. "You are strong. Determined. Something like getting into a floatplane shouldn't break someone as full of resolve as you."
"It will."
"It won't. I know it won't."
"How can you know that?"
"Do you trust me?" he asked her.
Of course she did. More than she should. With everything, including her heart. Still, she could barely get the word out. "Yes."
"We'll just climb in," he said in a gentle voice. "Get used to the feel of the seat, the belts, the way the world looks from a front-row seat."
"You make it sound so easy."
"It will be."
And then he leaned over and kissed her, softly at first, but the passion that burned between them was never far from the surface. Like magic, her nerves, her fears, all started to melt away as their tongues danced. She reached for him, threaded her hands into his dark hair, and then she was on his lap and lost to everything but how much she wanted him.
Before she realized it, he'd opened the car door and she was standing on the sand in his arms. He took her hand in his.
"How am I supposed to think straight after a kiss like that?"
"You're not."
"You tricked me."
He didn't look the least bit guilty as he maneuvered them across the sand and toward the dock. "I did." And then, just that fast, he had her sitting in the passenger seat of the small plane. "See? It's not scary at all."
Even though she didn't want to believe him, he was right. The console had a lot of buttons and switches and gauges, but she supposed it wasn't all that different from sitting in his expensive car.
And yet, she still didn't think she could go up in it.
"All day long," he said in that deep voice that always melted her insides, "I can hardly wait to make love with you each night. Do you know why?"
Oh God. No one had ever spoken to her like this. She couldn't get her mouth to form the word why, but Liam didn't let that stop him.
"Because I've never seen anything as beautiful in all my life as you are when you let go in my arms. And ever since we met, I've seen how much you love learning new things. How you love adventure. Even fighting for the festival with you has been fun." His gaze was full of more emotion than she'd ever thought to see. "Maybe it's just me being selfish. But I want to see the wonder in your eyes when you see the lake from the clouds for the first time."
If this wasn't love, she wasn't sure she knew what love was. She took a deep breath. And said, "Go."
He didn't wait another second, didn't give her time to change her mind. He fired up the engine, and they started to glide across the water. She let out a little squeak as he pulled back on the yoke and they climbed into the sky.
Just as her lungs were shutting down again, he reminded her, "One breath at a time. Just one, Christie. Just give me one."
She could do that, couldn't she? Just one breath. And then another when she was done with that first one. She wanted to pinch her eyes shut, wanted to pretend she was anywhere but in an airplane--but the dark blue of the water, the light blue of the sky, the faint wisps of clouds, the dark greens of the forest, were all starting to make their way into her brain. Snippets of beauty came at her like a flashing video screen, one after the other, so magnificent that she could still hardly breathe.
And that was when it hit her: She was up in the clouds in a tiny plane...and she wasn't dying.
Instead, she was more alive than she'd ever been before.
"Thank you."
She hadn't realized she was crying until she said the two little words. Trying to take it all in--the magnificence of the lake and mountains and sky--her words were blurry with her tears of joy. "It's even more incredible than I imagined." Turning to face him, she saw that he was looking at her with such tenderness, such wonder, her heart actually skipped a beat. "No one has ever cared this much about me," she told him as they flew through the sky. "No one has ever made me face my fears like you just did."
She was stunned that he understood her so well, that he knew she'd not only survive the flight, but would also relish it completely.
No one had ever had so much faith in her. She'd trusted him with her embarrassing secret--that she was too much of a wimp to get on a plane--and instead of turning it against her, instead of finding her weak, he'd found a way to help her get through it. His tactic might have been unorthodox--no one had ever kissed her fears into submission before--but it had worked.
She wanted so badly to do the same for him, wanted him to know that she had faith in him too--and that he could trust her with his pain. Trust her to help him work through it...and finally let go of it.
"Are you scared now?" he asked.
She took a breath. "Yes."
He frowned, clearly not expecting that to be her answer. "You are?"
"I am." She smiled at him. "But it's a good kind of scared. I'm scared that I've wasted too much time. I'm scared that there are too many beautiful things out there for me to fit into one lifetime." She gathered up all of her courage to say one more thing. "And I'm scared about what I'm feeling for you."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Christie held her breath during the landing, but it was just as smooth as the takeoff. She was spoiled by having Liam as her personal pilot, because she trusted him in a way she'd never trusted anyone else.
Now, as he helped her out of the plane, his hands on either side of her waist, she tried to read his reaction to her confession. But too soon, they had to move away from each other to secure his plane to the dock.
Once that was done, he said, "Mrs. Higgins packed a hamper of food for us. It's in the trunk."
Her heart thumped inside her chest while they went to get it and then spread a blanket over the sand and sat down. But neither of them reached for the food.
"Thank you for flying with me." His voice resonated with the same emotion she'd seen in his eyes during the flight.
She had to reach over and take his hand in both of hers. Because after the gift he'd just given her--after the wonder he'd just shown her--she couldn't live with her earlier lie that she wanted more only sometimes.
"I never expected you to come into my life," she said softly. "All those years I knew Wesley and he told me about his amazing older brother, I never realized just what you would mean to me one day." A thousand times more frightened than she had ever been of flying, Christie had to force herself to look Liam in the eye. "I've fallen for you. All the way." She sucked in a shaky breath. "I know you warned me not to, but you made it impossible to keep my heart to myself."
"Christie."
She squeezed his hand. "No. Please. I didn't just say all of that because I thought it would get you to say it back to me. I just--" She brought his hand to her lips, pressed a kiss to it. "You've become my best friend, Liam. And I need to tell my best friend that I've fallen in love."
*
Women had claimed to love Liam many times, but never like this. No one had ever bared her true soul to him. No one had ever put her heart in his palm and given him the chance to crush it so easily. So completely.
And he'd never thought his heart could feel so full, never knew just one word--love--could be so beautiful or mean so much.
Unbidden, a flash came of what it would be like to have Christie by his side from this moment forward. As his wife, in his arms every night. As his business partner, running lakefront inns across the Northeast together. As the mother of their children. She'd be warm and loving and a fierce protector--and proponent--for all of them.
He brushed away the tears that fell down her cheek. No one had ever meant as much to him as this beautiful woman sitting beside him. And he hated hurting her. Hated it with every fiber of his being.
"All my life," he said in a voice made raw with the deep emotions only Christie had ever been able to draw from him, "I've looked at things I wanted from every angle, and only when it made sense would I go out and get them. But the way I've wanted you has never made sense. Not when you'd been in a relationship with my brother. Not when you wouldn't tell me why he left or where he was. Not with you working for me. Not when I know you're looking for something I can't give you. But in the end, all that has ever mattered is how much I want to be with you."
"And you've got me."
"No, sweetheart. You're so much more, so much bigger than any one man could possibly hold on to."
"How can you call me sweetheart in one breath and tell me not to love you in the next? You want to love me, don't you, Liam?"
More than anything I've ever wanted in my life.
But he still couldn't say the words.
And when she said, "I taught you how to make the inn's beds. Maybe I could teach you how to love me too," his heart actually twisted inside his chest at the hope he heard.
At the hope he would give anything to share.
He kissed her then, had to kiss her because she was so sweet and so honest in every single moment. Even the ones where she could be hurt the most. Especially those.
If he couldn't give her the love she deserved, he owed her an explanation at least, promises and secrets be damned. "When I was fourteen years old, I found my mother in bed with someone. Not my father."
Christie didn't gasp. She didn't exclaim. She simply held his hands over her heart.
"I should have been in physics class, but I'd forgotten my football helmet and had aced the quiz the day before, so the teacher let me skip out for a few minutes."
He'd never said these words aloud to anyone. All these years, he'd thought it was because he had to keep his mother's secret. But now, he finally realized that the reason for his silence went far deeper.
A part of him had hoped that if he never said the words aloud, somehow his silence could help erase the past.
"She probably thought there wouldn't be anyone home for hours. I didn't find them actually having sex, but she was wearing her robe and telling him what they had just done was a mistake. That they couldn't tell anyone what had happened. That she hadn't been thinking straight. She told him to put his clothes on and leave. That was when she walked into the hall and saw me."
He'd never forget the look on his mother's face. She'd been crying; he could see that, and he could see the self-hatred, the guilt already ravaging her face at what she'd just done. As soon as she spotted Liam, all of that had been replaced by fear.
"She stood in the hallway, her hand over her mouth, her face white. That was when he walked out and saw me too. He was an architect my father worked with sometimes. It was pretty much a joke in town that he'd screw anything in a skirt. He still lives a couple of towns over. He's married now. Has kids of his own." Liam had to clear his throat. "She told him to go. To get the hell out, and then she came to me, begging me, pleading with me not to tell my father what I'd seen."
"How could she?" Christie was clearly shocked.
He'd asked himself this question a million times. "My father loved her so much. She was everything to him. I don't know how she could have cheated on him."
"No, I'm not asking about her relationship with your father." Christie's voice broke. "I want to know how any mother could possibly ask her child to do something like that. To keep such a horrible secret."
"She had no other choice."
"She damn well did!"
It was instinct to pull her onto his lap, to put his arms around her, to try and soothe her by stroking a hand down her back.
Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears--tears for him. "Has she ever tried to talk to
you about it?"
"No." The one word came out sharp. Hard.
When she reached up to touch his face, her hand was blessedly soft and cool. "Have you ever told anyone before now?"
He shook his head. "But after my accident, everyone had to know that something bad had happened in our family." Even after all these years, it was far too easy to be right back there, standing in the kitchen while his mom wept tears of pure terror that his father would learn of her betrayal. "I couldn't listen to her begging anymore. Couldn't stand to look at her and see that fear. So I grabbed the car keys to get the hell out of there. I didn't have my license yet, but I shouldn't have been driving anyway. I think I hit the tree on purpose, as though somehow I could punish her by crashing her car. Instead, the car got fixed and I ended up with this scar on my face." He moved Christie's fingers over it, made her trace the slightly jagged skin under his cheekbone. "You've never said anything to me about it."
"I never see it." She gently, lovingly stroked his face. She pressed a kiss to his lips, then said, "And I wouldn't want to love someone again either, if that had been me. If I had been through what you've been through all these years." She leaned closer, pressed another kiss to his scar. "Are you ever going to talk to her about it?"
"No."
"Never?"
"Christie." He heard the warning in his voice, knew it had no place in a scene where she'd just told him so sweetly that she loved him. But none of that could stop him from saying, "Promise me you won't say a word about it. Not to her. Not to anyone."
She stared at him, time stretching out between them on the beach, the sun moving down behind the tops of the tall trees.
Her whispered, "I promise," floated away from them and out across the lake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
That night, the moment Christie opened the door to Lakeside Stitch and Knit, Sarah surprised her with a huge hug. "You look so tanned and gorgeous," she told Sarah when they pulled apart. "And happy."
Her friend's grin could have lit up the yarn shop all by itself. "I am. So, so, so happy." Sarah leaned in close to whisper, "You've got to tell me--is Liam as good a kisser as it looks like he'd be?"