“You’re thinking,” Liam said softly. “I can practically see the wheels turning behind your eyes.”
“I’m just wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
“Of course you should come to see me.” He reached out and took one of her hands with both of his. “Especially if there’s something bothering you.”
A knock at the door sounded and the older woman poked her head into the room. “Would your guest like some tea, Father?”
Covertly, Liam shook his head at Tina, but she ignored him. It had been a long walk. “That would be great, thank you.”
When the woman was gone again, Liam sighed. “Mrs. Hannigan makes the world’s worst tea, poor woman.”
“Sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said on a sigh. “I’m almost used to it now anyway. But it may kill you.”
“I’m tough,” Tina assured him.
“Not tough enough to hide whatever’s bothering you. So spill it.”
She did. Right or wrong, she’d made the choice to come to Liam, so she would see it through. She started at the beginning and hit only the high points. How she’d decided to become a mother and how the only man she wanted to father her child was Brian and how she was now starting to worry about it all because Brian was so determined to stay away from her and “…so,” she said, winding the story up, “Brian had Connor try to get rid of me, and then refused to tell me why he wants me out of town so badly. I know something’s up, I just don’t know what.”
Liam laughed.
Throughout her story, he’d watched her eyes and she’d noticed first, understanding, and then the amused sparkle in his concerned blue gaze. But outright laughter seemed a little harsh.
“Hello?” she said, reaching out to slug his upper arm. “I came here for comfort, you know. And some answers.”
“I know, I know,” Liam said, still laughing as he rubbed his arm and then stood up to greet Mrs. Hannigan as she reentered the study. He took the tray from her and set it down on the coffee table. Once the woman was gone again, Liam poured a murky brown liquid into one of the tall glasses filled with ice. Giving it a wary look, he passed it to Tina. “Drink that, if you’re feeling brave, and I’ll explain.”
She did and at the first sip, she shuddered and felt a caffeine reaction punch through her like a bunched fist. The woman must have brewed the tea for days. It was almost thick enough to chew.
“I did warn you,” Liam said, obviously watching her reaction.
“Right.” She set the glass onto the tray, then turned to face her ex-brother-in-law again. “Start talking, Liam.”
He did. And when he was finished, she just stared at him for a long minute.
“You bet your brothers that they couldn’t abstain from sex for three months.”
“Yep.” He grinned again and leaned back into the faded floral couch.
“You’re a priest.”
He held up one finger. “I’m also a Reilly. And I know my brothers. They’ll never make it.”
“And you’re enjoying this.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said with relish and rubbed his palms together. “And,” he said, “with you back in town, the odds just went even higher in my favor.”
“How do you figure?”
Liam smirked at her. “Please. You and Brian are meant to be together.”
“We’re divorced, remember?” Tina cringed inwardly at the word. She still didn’t like it. Still hadn’t accepted it, even five years after the event.
She’d dated over the past five years, but Brian had always been there. In her heart. In her mind. He was the shadow she couldn’t quite lose. The memory she couldn’t quite forget. He was the love of her life. Or, at least, he had been.
Liam waved one hand at her, waving away her objections. “I blessed your marriage,” he said. “And the marriages I bless don’t dissolve.”
“Nice in theory,” she said.
He shook his head, sat up and leaned in toward her. “Tina, you guys are both Catholic. You know as well as I do that Catholic marriages are forever.”
“Until the state of South Carolina says they’re not,” she reminded him.
“My boss has a lot more clout than the governor,”
he said, with a smile.
“I guess so,” she admitted, but shook her head again.
“Look,” Liam told her, giving one of her hands a squeeze. “Brian’s a man on the edge already. It wouldn’t take much for you to push him over.”
“So my priest is suggesting I seduce a man who isn’t my husband?”
He winked at her. “According to the church, you’re still married. Besides, this is a poor parish. We need that new roof.”
In spite of everything, Tina laughed. “You Reillys are really something.”
“We thank you.”
“I don’t think Brian will,” she mused, reaching for her iced tea, before remembering and drawing her hand back empty.
Liam scooted around on the couch, dropped one arm across Tina’s shoulders and gave her a brief hug. “That’s where you’re wrong, Tina. Brian made a big mistake letting you go. Maybe it’s time you showed him how big a mistake it was.”
She leaned into the solid comfort of Liam’s embrace and thought about everything he’d said. As she did, she smiled. The only reason Brian would be trying so hard to get rid of her, is if he didn’t trust himself around her. Which told Tina that seducing Brian Reilly just got a lot easier.
Now all she had to do, was convince herself that she really was doing the right thing.
No problem.
By the time Brian got home from the base, he was worn out. He’d done everything he could to run himself ragged so that he’d sleep tonight, without the taunting dreams he’d been experiencing the past few nights.
Ever since Tina came back to town, he’d hardly dared close his eyes. The minute he did, she was there. Surrounding him in living breathing color. He could feel her, hear her, smell her. She filled his mind and tortured him in his sleep.
For three nights running, he’d awakened in the middle of the night, with his only recourse an icecold shower.
Not the way he wanted to spend the next two and a half weeks.
So until she left, he’d just work himself into the ground so exhaustion would take care of shutting down his too-busy mind. Today, after taking his jet up for some qualifying runs, he’d hit the weight room, then talked three of the guys into doing a fivemile run. The summer heat had pounded at them and the humidity was enough to make a grown man weep.
But as he pulled into the driveway that night, even exhaustion couldn’t completely stamp out the instantaneous reaction his body went into at Tina’s nearness.
The house was lit up like a fistful of birthday candles. Every light in the living room was on and a wide slice of lamplight spilled from the kitchen windows onto the flower-lined driveway. Music, something soft and entreating, drifted through the partially opened window overlooking the drive. It all looked warm and friendly, but he knew that inside that house was the biggest danger of all.
Brian walked along the driveway and