Now You See Her Page 0,67
salt in the sugar bowl and ruinin’ her morning coffee. And another time she hollered at me—and let me tell you, nobody could holler like my mother—just because I told her I’d like to throw my baby brother under the wheels of a bus. Not because I did it, mind you, just because I said I’d like to. How’s that for a miserable excuse for a human being? I tell you, I’m scarred for life.”
“You’re minimizing what I did,” Marcy said.
“And you’re blowin’ it all out of proportion. For God’s sake, Marcy. How do you get out of bed in the mornin’ with the weight of all that guilt on your shoulders?”
It’s not easy, Marcy thought. “I expected too much from her.”
“So what? Big deal. You expected too much. What about your son? Do you expect too much from him, too?”
The mention of her son caught Marcy off guard, as it always did. Devon had a way of taking up every inch of space in her brain, crowding her brother out. “Darren is different.” Marcy pictured her son’s cherubic little face as it passed through awkward adolescence on its way to handsome young man. “He was always smiling, always happy when he was little. He never gave me any trouble.” I neglected him terribly, she realized. “Devon took all my energy.” She frowned. “What is it they say about the squeaky wheel?”
“Haven’t a clue. But I do know that what’s done is done. The past is over and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it. So what’s the point of beatin’ yourself up about something you can’t change? Unless, of course, that is the point.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, maybe you like wallowin’ in all that guilt because it allows you to stay stuck in the past, prevents you from movin’ forward. Maybe that’s what you want.”
Marcy felt a twinge of outrage poking at her side. “You think I want to be miserable?”
“Don’t know,” he said again, his voice deliberately provocative. “Do you?”
“I just want things to be normal,” Marcy said, burying her face in her hands. That was all she’d ever wanted. “Maybe if I’d—”
“No,” Liam said, suddenly pulling to the side of the road and shutting off the car’s engine. “No more maybes.” He kissed her before she could say another word.
The kiss was passionate and grew even more urgent as it progressed. Marcy felt strong hands at her waist, on her cheeks, in her hair. So different from the way Vic had kissed her just last night, she found herself thinking.
What’s happening? she wondered, feeling dizzy and out of breath as she pulled away from Liam’s embrace.
Liam apologized immediately.
“Why did you do that?”
“I’ve been wanting to kiss you since the first minute I laid eyes on you.”
“You have? Why?”
Liam looked as confused as she felt. “God, Marcy. Do you really have to ask?”
Marcy’s head was spinning. She stared at the empty field by the side of the road in order to steady it. “Where are we?” she asked, realizing she had absolutely no idea where they were.
“Just outside the city limits. I’m really sorry,” he said again.
“No, it’s my fault.”
Liam smiled. “Not everything is your fault, Marcy.” Then, tenderly, “Things will work out in the end, you’ll see.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then it’s not the end.”
Marcy laughed through her tears. “How’d you get to be so smart?” She reached out to touch his hand, then thought better of it. As comforting as his arms were, as thrilling as his embrace was, Marcy realized they weren’t the arms she wanted around her. She pictured Vic standing outside the door of the Doyle Cork Inn, his wounded eyes following Liam’s car down the busy street. Would he be waiting for her when she got back?
As if he sensed what she was thinking, Liam took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and restarted the car’s engine, waiting for a break in the traffic before pulling back onto the main road. Within minutes, they were mired in traffic, the sound of jackhammers pounding against the sides of their heads.
“Damn construction,” Liam muttered.
“There’s certainly enough of it going on.”
“My father used to work in construction,” he said, obviously straining for conversation as they crawled toward Western Road. “He was killed twelve years ago when a building he was working on collapsed. Never knew what hit him, as they say.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“The company claimed it was his own damn fault. He should have been wearin’ a helmet, that sort of thing.