Chapter Five

LIAM KNEW he should be making plans. Either finding his own office space and staff or setting up meetings with other firms that would be interested in hiring him. He definitely needed to get in touch with old clients and give them his spin on the situation. He should be attending to business.

Instead, he got his car back from the shop and started driving again. North again, and then west. Again.

How many times had he made this trip over the years? All the way to the Welcome to North Falls sign, then loop around and drive home, because the sign was a lie and he wasn’t “welcome” in North Falls, not by a long shot.

But this time he drove straight past the sign. Down the south hill and over the bridge, and he pulled over for a moment to look down at the park where he and—where all of them used to hang out before they were old enough to have friends with driver’s licenses who could take them out to the lake. Wading in the mud by the riverside, dodging goose shit to find places to lie in the grass and gaze up at the sky. Talking without looking at each other and later, finally, touching, just hands or feet or other safe parts, still without looking at each other.

Some real Mayberry shit. Except a couple years later, they’d started coming back to the park after dark. All their friends were at the lake, but this thing between them wasn’t for public consumption, not yet. Instead, they’d come to the park and found the shadows and they’d touched each other everywhere, hungry and confident. They’d gasped into each other’s mouths, strained into each other as if trying to meld their entire bodies together. Ben’s face, pale and perfect in the moonlight, his eyes, so deep and trusting—

Yeah, trusting. You asshole. Don’t even think about him. You don’t deserve to.

Liam put the car back into gear and continued into town. The familiar stores, the bank, the church, the post office. How the hell did he manage to have memories of Ben from every single building? Sure, it was just the post office steps they’d spent time on, that summer after seventh grade when they’d all been into skateboarding and the three of them had spent endless hours trying to grind their ways down the metal handrail.

That had ended when Seth broke his collarbone and his and Liam’s parents outlawed any sort of stunting. Ben still could have practiced—he’d been living with Uncle Calvin by then, and Calvin, while generally loving, departed from contemporary parenting wisdom in many ways. He’d been almost gleefully willing to let Ben learn by trying things and making mistakes. But it wouldn’t have been any fun for Ben to skateboard alone.

And there it was again. Liam was thinking about Ben. Seth too, but Ben, mostly.

He made it through town and up the north hill, turned left, and drove to the end of the dead-end street. A cul-de-sac, his mother had always called it, but Liam really wasn’t sure it qualified. Regardless of the precise designation, it had been a quiet street, except for when the big yellow house at the end of it hosted one of its frequent parties.

He pulled up on the shoulder and looked at the house. Did the same people own it, the ones who’d bought it from his parents? They’d been the new medical team, two doctors to take over the clinic and the town GP practice.

Almost twenty years ago now—his parents had stayed in town until he finished high school, then headed off to semiretirement in South Carolina. During college he’d gone to visit them occasionally, always dragging Ben and usually Seth along with him, but for most breaks he’d returned to North Falls and stayed with Ben at Uncle Calvin’s, two of them crammed into Ben’s old single bed.

Yeah, Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben.

Was there an inch of this town not drenched in memories of Ben?

Maybe for some people, but not for Liam.

He did a quick U-turn and headed back into town.

See them as buildings, he told himself. Be an architect. Analyze the structure.

But there was nothing architecturally significant about the buildings, nothing interesting, even. His career had been dedicated to clean, modern design that made a statement. There was none of that here in North Falls.

He should go back to the city. That was where he belonged.

But he pulled over, as he’d known he would, outside the small-engine-repair shop. A two-story building with rented apartments on the second floor and a glass-fronted shop on the first. Lawn mowers and chainsaws and log-splitters on display in the front window, the inside of the building too dark to be visible from outdoors.

Liam sat for a moment and wrestled with his better judgment. Nothing he’d done so far was irreversible. Nobody had seen him; he had plausible deniability. His ignition had betrayed him the other day, but he had no such excuse now.

He got out of the car anyway. It felt as if he wasn’t really making any decisions, just being swept along in a current of… fate? No, nothing so purposeful. Momentum, maybe. He’d set something in motion, and it was inclined to stay in motion. Shit, was that momentum, or inertia? Momentum had a better sound to it, but maybe inertia was more accurate, and somehow more fitting considering that he was in North Falls.

And what “something” was he thinking of, anyway, that he’d set in motion?

He pushed the door open, heard the bell chime, and smelled the familiar motor oil, the scent that had been carried home on Calvin’s clothes to perfume the little house where he and his nephew had lived. And not much else seemed to have changed either. The same displays of parts and tools, the same battered leather stools, and the same grizzled head poking up from behind the counter. Maybe a little less hair and a few more wrinkles, but the eyes were just as sharp. Just as perceptive.

And they showed absolutely no surprise.

“Liam.” Calvin gave him a cordial nod of greeting. “You got a haircut.”

Liam felt numb but fought to sound coherent. “I’ve had quite a few, I guess. But, yeah, my hair is shorter now. In general.” There, now that they had that taken care of, he could go back to the city and get on with his life.

“I heard you have a nice car.”

It wasn’t like Liam’s family had ever been short of money, but they’d been a bit less—a bit less ostentatious?—a bit less interested in high-performance vehicles. “It’s not a Ferrari or anything.”

“Still, German engineering. I fought in Germany during the war, you know.”

Liam frowned. It was the first he’d heard of any military service, and he really wasn’t sure the years matched up. “What war?”

“Vietnam.”

“I—wasn’t aware there was a lot of fighting in Germany during the Vietnam War.”

“Sure. Bar fights never really go out of style.”

Liam sighed. What the hell was he doing in North Falls? “Were you even in Germany during the Vietnam War, or did you make that up just for the joke?”

“I was there. I did the standard backpack-around-Europe thing when I was a kid. Saw some pretty nice cars.”

Okay, they were back to—well, no, talking about cars hadn’t really been the point of the conversation. But it wasn’t as if Liam had any idea what the point of the conversation had been. Maybe it was time he got a little more direct. “It’s good to see you. You look well.”

“Thanks. You too. Where are you staying while you’re here?”

Staying? Oh, no. No, that wasn’t what Liam was doing. Not at all.

But then Calvin said, “This isn’t the best place for a real talk. I know, it’s not Grand Central Station, but I do have customers coming in and out. We should have a few drinks tonight and get caught up.”

And suddenly it sounded like the best possible way to spend an evening. Was it warm enough for a fire in Calvin’s fire pit? Probably, if they wore jackets. He and Calvin could sit back there with a bottle of scotch and a couple glasses, staring into the flames, talking when the mood struck them. Maybe Liam would even share the situation at work; Calvin had no patience with mindless authority and lots of respect for people who did their jobs well and without drama, so he’d be outraged on Liam’s behalf. That would be nice.

“I guess I could stay. But I don’t know where. There’s still no hotel, I assume?”

“Connie and Dale Ingram have a bed-and-breakfast. I’ve never stayed there, obviously, but they’re good people. They’d do a good job.”

Liam recognized the names, but—a B&B? Possibly his worst nightmare. And he was less than three hours from the city. He could just hang out with Uncle Calvin for a couple hours and drive home afterward.

Drunk.

Shit.

“Do you have their number?”

“Nope. I don’t have much patience with those newfangled devices.”

“Telephones?”

“Blabber-boxes, if you ask me.”

“I’ve talked on the phone with you lots of times. Not lately, but there isn’t much ‘newfangled’ about—” Liam caught himself. He wasn’t going to be dragged into another one of Calvin’s nonsensical conversations, at least not until he had a glass of scotch in his hand. “Okay. How can I get in touch with them?”

“Just drive over. River Road, west of Main Street. It’s a purple house.”

“Purple?”

Calvin shrugged. “It’s a nice purple. Almost blue.”

“And they’re legitimately running a B&B. You’re not sending me over to some stranger’s house to embarrass myself with weird questions about wanting to sleep in their spare bedroom.”

“Damn. That would have been excellent—why didn’t you suggest it before I sent you to the right place?”

It should have been reassuring, but Uncle Calvin was absolutely devious enough to pull that sort of double-cross, especially if he resented Liam for what had happened with Ben. Which surely he did. “Is there a sign or anything? Something that will tell me I’m in the right place?”

“When you see a purple house, you’ll know you’ve arrived.”

“And we can have a drink later? Maybe a fire at your place?”

“Are you coming on to me, Liam? I’m flattered, but….”

Liam was suddenly tired of games. “I’m only staying over because of you. Because I like the idea of talking to you. So if that’s not going to happen, there’s no point in going through all the rest of it, and I’d appreciate it if you could just tell me that now and save me the trouble of—” He stopped. Calvin was Ben’s uncle, his only real family. If Calvin wanted to make Liam jump through some pointless hoops, Liam needed to just shut up and take it. “Sorry. Okay. I’ll go see the Ingrams. And if you have some time later—”

“Come for dinner. Six o’clock.”

Liam tried to find the trap. “Yeah?”

“You haven’t turned vegan or gone gluten-free or anything?”

“No….”

“Good. I’ll grill some steaks. Bring a nice red wine.”

“Anything else? To go with the steaks?”

“What, are you all city-fancy now? You can’t just have a steak and be glad of it?”

“You’ll make garlic potatoes,” Liam said. He was beginning to remember who he was dealing with. “And something green. You honestly won’t worry about it other than that—could be spinach or asparagus or beans or lime Jell-O as long as it’s green. And I’m not complaining about that. But you tend to want something sweet as well. Should I pick up dessert somewhere?”

“I prefer homemade.”

“Do you like apples?” Liam forced himself away from a Good Will Hunting reference he didn’t think he could pull off. “Because I’m not currently at my home, so if you want anything fancier than apples—”

“Are you saying you have homemade apples? Apples you made in your home, in New York City? Yes, please. Bring me some of those. And the wine. Probably two bottles. At least.”

Liam should have engaged more. But how? He could have explained that his apples wouldn’t be homegrown, which Calvin clearly knew. What a waste of breath. Why the hell had he thought it would be good to spend more time with this maddening, juvenile pain in the ass?

“Bring some scotch too,” Calvin said, and Liam immediately found himself thinking much more favorably about his plans for the evening. “And something warm to wear, so we can sit by the fire. Well, you probably don’t have anything like that with you. But I have some of Ben’s other castoffs stored away somewhere. I can dig them up for you.”

Liam let himself take the hit. Had Ben cast him off? Technically, yes. In the eyes of a doting—well, no, doting wasn’t the right word—in the eyes of an affectionate uncle, had Ben been the one to end their relationship? Yes.

And Liam would accept that. He’d let himself be painted as the victim rather than the villain. Here, in North Falls, he’d let that happen. Nowhere but here.

So he didn’t argue with Calvin’s “castoffs” comment. What Liam had done to make Ben cast him off? Well, it was nothing he and Uncle Calvin needed to discuss.

“Six o’clock,” he confirmed, then left. The B&B, the liquor store, and maybe a bakery or something. He could hit the little department store next to the bank and get a pair of sweatpants to sleep in, maybe some clean underwear.

Hell, he had lots of time. He could drive over to Monticello and do his shopping there, or even find a motel to stay in. B&Bs were unnatural and wrong.

But he found himself reluctant to leave North Falls. It wasn’t logical, but he felt like he’d set something—he had no idea what—in motion, and he needed to stick around until it was resolved. Somehow. He’d stumbled into Brigadoon, and if he left now, he’d never be able to find it again.

Yeah, that was some excellent decision making. Very wise of him to not be back in the city putting his life in order; totally logical that he was hanging around in North Falls instead, preparing himself for dinner with Ben’s uncle. Ben’s uncle.

Maybe it was nothing to do with Ben. Maybe… maybe Liam’s subconscious was helping him out. New York was a big city, but the architecture world was pretty small. Word of Liam’s departure would be circulating by now, creating a stir. Enterprising firms would be recognizing the possibilities.

In a couple days, Liam would be able to make some calls and be greeted with “We were hoping you’d think of us” with no need for awkward explanations.

He was playing hard to get, building up anticipation and demand—something like that. Yeah, it made sense. He was wise to be staying in North Falls for a couple days.

No, wait. For one day. Not a couple. One day in North Falls. Then back to the city where he belonged.