Until There Was You

Bad enough that his daughter wasn’t four years old anymore, a time Liam always thought of as kinda perfect…old enough to walk and feed herself and go to the bathroom alone, young enough to still worship him. Alas, the time machine was out of service, and Nicole was home with a hot-water bottle clutched to her abdomen and a box of tissues next to her on the couch.

“Make sure you get the right kind,” his princess now ordered. “Don’t come back here with Stayfree when I specifically asked for Kotex, Dad. There’s, like, a huge difference, and I’m already miserable enough, okay?”

“No, no, we don’t want you more miserable,” Liam said. “I have the first three things, but I can’t find the…” He lowered his voice and glanced around. No one else in the aisle… “The Midol. Maybe they just don’t carry it. Maybe something else will work?” Like a horse tranquilizer?

“No, Dad! It’s there! Okay? Please just find it! Jeesh!”

“Honey, I’ve been looking for ten— Hello? Nicole?”

Great. She’d hung up.

Two and a half more years, and his angel would be off to college. Hard to imagine he’d miss her, sometimes. But the thought caused his chest to tighten abruptly. Super. Wouldn’t that be dignified, a heart attack in the tampon aisle, paramedics swarming, the police being dispatched to his apartment to tell Nicole the bad news, her face crumpling. His baby, an orphan, left to the Tates, who would do their best to erase her memories of him—

Liam’s heart revved in panic, and sweat broke out on his forehead. “Settle down, settle down,” he muttered.

“Got your period?” a voice asked, and Liam jumped, guilty as a shoplifter. Cordelia Osterhagen for the second time in a day. He took an unsteady breath, then looked over at her. She was still in her baseball uniform— Guten Tag T-shirt, baseball pants and cleats. There was a ketchup stain on her left breast, and the sight of her was oddly reassuring.

“You following me?” he asked.

“Yep. And everyone knows you like to browse the tampon aisle.”

He glanced in her basket. Tapioca pudding, at least four pints of Ben & Jerry’s, whipped cream, a block of cheddar, a Pepperidge Farm coconut cake, two frozen pizzas and a carton of Egg…Blisters? No, Egg Beaters. “Watching our cholesterol?”

Her eyes narrowed. “The Egg Beaters are for my dog. Who bites on command, by the way. What can’t you find?”

He looked back at the wall of…stuff. “Midol. Extra Strength. For that special time when you feel like ripping out your father’s throat and drinking his blood.”

Posey grinned. “Wrong aisle, pal,” she said. “It’s in with the Motrin and cold and flu stuff.”

Ah. Why not put the period medicine twelve rows away from the other period stuff? Clearly a woman was in charge of this store. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” She started off.

“Hey, is it my imagination, or is your mother trying to fix me up with your cousin?” he asked, not quite wanting her to go.

Her face turned pink, but she just shrugged and pursed those gorgeous lips of hers. “No clue.”

“Think she likes me?”

“Of course she does, Liam. It’s the law, isn’t it? Women must fall at your feet.”

He grinned. “You don’t seem to do that. Not when you’re sober, anyway.”

Her blush deepened. “Don’t worry, biker boy,” she said coolly. “You’re not my type.”

“No? You sure about that?” He raised an eyebrow and grinned, and her face went from bright pink to Harley-Davidson’s Fire Engine Red.

“Very.” She pushed her cart past him. “But you know, if you’re looking for love, there’s always the mirror.”

She was mad. “Hey, Cordelia. Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Whatever. Hope your daughter feels better. Bring her something chocolate.”

She didn’t look back, and Liam had to admit, it wasn’t his usual effect on women. Even women who hated him softened if he gave them a little dose of charm. Sounded cocky, but it was true. Hadn’t Maya Chu just been flirting with him at Rosebud’s? Liam had been fielding passes since he was fourteen years old. Marriage had slowed that down from a river to a stream, but now that he was a widower, women had been swarming like a cloud of mosquitoes. One woman, someone from the PTA, had slipped her phone number into his pocket at Emma’s wake, and six months later he’d been averaging four or five phone calls a day from a horde of concerned single women (and three married chicks as well) who wanted to let him know they were available if he wanted to talk, have dinner or get laid.

So even if Cordelia Osterhagen blushed when he was around, she was certainly one of the more subtle females he’d come across. The cousin, Greta or whoever, feeding him by hand…that was more what he was used to.

He went to the medicine aisle and found Nicole’s Midol, said a quick prayer that it would work, and swung by the chocolate aisle, adding a mega-size bar of Lindt milk chocolate. Couldn’t hurt.

At the checkout, there was Cordelia again. She didn’t look over at him.

“So, you have a salvage yard,” he said, holding the first box of girl stuff under the scanner.

“Yup.”

“You think you might have something Nicole would like for her room?”

She glanced over. “What did you have in mind?”

Liam shrugged. “I don’t know. Her room back home… Well, Emma had painted it with clouds and all, and Nic was saying the other day how bare it looks here. I didn’t really have anything in mind. Not really good at that stuff.”

“What does she like?”

Excellent question. Aside from Cookie Monster, he had no idea anymore. At Christmas, he’d bought her a Hello Kitty calendar, which earned him a lecture on how she wasn’t a baby anymore. Last week, she’d come home from the store with a pair of pajamas imprinted with Hello Kitty. “I don’t know. I just thought something a little different. Never mind. It’s fine.”

“I’ll look around,” Cordelia said. “I might have something.”

“Thanks.”

They finished scanning about the same time. Apparently, they were parked near each other, too; Liam’s dark blue Honda next to a battered red pickup.

As he approached, a pony-size black-and-white head appeared in the window of Cordelia’s truck. The dog, the biggest he’d ever seen, yawned then sniffed the air, maybe sensing his Egg Beaters were close by.

“That’s some dog,” Liam said.

“Shilo. He’s a Great Dane.”

“Can I pet him?”

“Do you mind if he rips your arm off?”

Liam blinked. “He bites?”

She smiled, just a little flash. “No. Go ahead.”

The only dog Liam had ever owned was way back when they still lived in Pennsylvania, when Liam was about five—a pit bull his father had trained to attack and which spent its life chained to a stake in the front yard. His dad had called the dog Idiot. Liam had been bitten twice by the dog, but it had still been his job to feed him, tiptoeing up to the dog, who’d always growled, even though supper was approaching.

A little warily, Liam held up his hand for the Great Dane to sniff. Shilo licked his hand once, then closed his eyes, and Liam smiled, then smoothed his hand over the dog’s warm, bony head. Clearly not in the same class as Idiot, though probably five times as big. The thing took up almost the entire front seat of the truck.

“He must outweigh you by forty pounds,” he commented. “How’d you train him?”

“I don’t know. The usual way, I guess.”

Maybe Nicole would like a dog. “Where’d you get him?”

“The pound. See you around, Liam.” With that, Cordelia got into the truck and floored it, tires screeching a little, as if she couldn’t wait to be away from him.

Not his usual effect at all. But fifteen minutes later, when Nicole had snatched the chocolate from him and kissed his cheek, telling him he was the best, Liam couldn’t help feeling grateful to that scratchy little Cordelia Osterhagen.

CHAPTER NINE

“OH!” KATE GRUNTED as she sat down behind her desk. “My side is killing me. I’m ovulating, I think. That sucker must be huge.”

“Must we discuss?” Jon asked.

“Man up, weenie boy,” Kate said.

“You man up, Venus Williams,” Jon replied. “I’m a g*y home-ec teacher. I never have to man up. I never will man up. As God is my witness, I’ll never man up again.”

Posey had finished a quote on taking down a barn in Chelmsford and dropped by the school to pick up Brianna for their afternoon together. Knowing both Kate and Jon had a late lunch, she’d crashed and was now happily eating half of Jon’s chicken salad sandwich (with grapes and walnuts on a croissant, plus oatmeal cookies for dessert). They ate in Kate’s office, just off the locker rooms, despite Jon’s complaints of the faint smell of sweat.

Kate leaned back in her chair, her head touching the poster of Mia Hamm’s moment of sports-bra glory. “So, James and I are thinking of taking a trip to Sedona this summer. Pilates, spa, deep meditation, the whole thing.”

“What every teenage boy dreams of,” Jon said. “Why not Outward Bound or a summer at sea?”

“What do you know about Outward Bound? Weren’t we just discussing what a sissy you were, Jon?” The bell rang. “Oops, time to go,” Kate said. She lurched upright in her chair. “Walk with me, you two. I have bus duty. Oh, and hey, Posey, we’re short on prom chaperones this year. You in?”

“No,” Posey said. “Though I loved the way you slipped that in. Nice work.”

“You should come!” Jon declared. “We can go together, because you know your brother would rather chew off his own arm, then reattach it.”

“At last, Henry and I have something in common,” Posey said. “No thanks, guys.”

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun,” Kate said.

“Gee, I wish I could, but I’ll be busy hacking my wrists that night.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kate said, locking her office door behind them.

“It’s so much fun!” Jon said. “I’m the most popular boy there. If I were eligible for prom king, I’d win every year.”

As if on cue, a pretty girl bounced over to them. “Mr. White, I totally wish you were straight. I have such a crush on you.”

“Take a number, sweetheart,” Jon said kindly. “Did you plan out your quilt design yet? It’s due on Tuesday.”

“Well, I need chaperones,” Kate continued. “So far I only have Jack Whalen signed up, and only because I’m blackmailing him.”

“What did he do?” Posey asked.

“He subscribes to Cat Fancy magazine,” Kate answered. “Imagine trying to be an authority figure when your students know you read Cat Fancy.”

“I read Cat Fancy,” Jon said.

“Of course you do.” Kate pushed open the door into the main wing of the school. The hallway was packed, lockers slamming, kids making out, insulting each other, giggling shrilly to show how fun and popular they were, or slinking along the wall, trying to be invisible.

Posey glanced down the hall, her eyes stopping on what looked like a golden couple—the girl was pretty and blonde, her face pink with pleasure as she smiled up at a good-looking boy, who was leaning against her locker. Had to be Nicole Murphy. She was the image of her mom.

A lump came to Posey’s throat. It was so strange to think of Emma Tate, that lovely, generous girl, as an adult, a mother, a wife. To picture her sick and weak…dying…when the last time Posey had seen her, she’d been perfect. In perfect health, perfect happiness, a perfect future spreading out in front of her. All that, gone, and her little girl left alone.

“That’s Nicole Murphy,” Kate confirmed. “Let me introduce you. It’ll be nice for her to meet someone who knew her mom.” Kate towed Posey over, leaving Jon behind to field another admirer. “Ms. Murphy! Hey, Mr. Talcott, how you doing?” Kate’s gym-teacher voice could be heard quite clearly. “Nicole, this is Posey Osterhagen. She was a friend of your mom’s.”

“Oh, hi,” the girl said, her smile slipping a little.

“Hi,” Posey answered, swallowing against the lump. “We weren’t really friends… Well, we sort of were. She was two years ahead of me. She was…she was really nice.”

“Thanks,” Nicole said, her voice quiet. “I have some of her teachers, and everyone always says that.”

“You look a lot like her,” Posey added. “She was beautiful.”

The girl smiled.

“Mr. Harris! Do you mind?” Kate bellowed. “Excuse me, kids. Gotta run. See you later, Posey.” Kate went off to quell whatever trouble was brewing.

The boy was staring at Nicole, eyes glassy with adoration. The girl gave Posey an awkward smile. Her exit cue. “Well, nice meeting you,” Posey said, then turned to leave and bounced right off a man’s chest. Liam Murphy’s chest, to be specific.

Oh, Elvis. He smelled so good…soap and that sharp smell of a garage, oil and metal, and beneath that, the smell of cloves, that pumpkin-pie smell. His hair was rumpled, and either he hadn’t shaved this morning or he was one of those guys who could grow a beard in a few hours. Lust tightened her insides, and the smarter part of her brain clucked in warning. She took a step away and shoved her hands into her jeans pockets.