Liza stopped next to the car as she fumbled in her purse for the key fob. Her chin trembled violently, and she uttered silent prayers that Connor would stick around and shoot the breeze with Oscar long enough for her to have a quick, private cry before he returned to the car.
No such luck.
A large, strong hand grasped her elbow, and she startled.
“I’m pretty sure I told you a long time ago notto bring up the storm,” Connor hissed, voice low even though they were too far away for Oscar to hear.
She jerked her arm out of his hand. “Yeah, well, you told me a lot of things long ago, and when the rubber met the road, it became clear all of it was bullshit.” She grabbed the fob at the bottom of her purse, clicked the button, and whipped the door open. Dropping herself in the driver’s seat, she pulled the door shut and started the engine.
In the corner of her eye, she saw Connor turn and lean his back against the side of the car, shoving his hands into his pockets. Back on the porch, Oscar gave a wave and slipped back inside his storm-battered house. A sob lurched in Liza’s chest, and she clasped her hand over her mouth, forcing herself to cry in an attempt to purge all her emotions before Connor climbed in.
Unfortunately, once the weeping began thrashing out of her, there seemed to be no reeling it back in. Even when Connor pulled open the passenger side door and climbed in to simply stare at her. But she didn’t look at him. She didn’t even need to see his expression to know it was filled with anger, and resentment, and hate.
* * *
God damn it.
Liza was crying. In her car. And they’d been in exactly this situation the last time he’d seen her before she showed up again a few weeks ago. And between Oscar’s gut-wrenching story and once again sitting in a car with Liza as she sobbed, Connor was precariously close to losing it.
“Liza, listen—”
“If you’re not about to lay out a specific, step-by-step plan for your part of what we’re going to do to launch that kid into the stratosphere, I don’t want to hear it.” She gripped the steering wheel and pressed her forehead against it as another guttural sob forced its way out of her. “I’m so over it, Connor. I am sofuckingover it.”
Connor exhaled loudly. “You know, Liza, sometimes I come off kind of—”
“You come off exactly the way you are.Youare the one who fucked me over when I never did anything but promise you that I’d be there and wait for you, so you don’t have any right to hate me or be such an asshole.” She lifted her head, shoving the back of her hand across her face to wipe her nose, and then gave him a pointed, seething look through eyes streaming with tears. “If anyone is allowed to be the asshole in this situation, it’s me. But I haven’t done that because I can leave the past behind me and focus on what mattersnow. And what matters now is working together to help him become something great.” She pointed at the house. “That is appalling. He can’t live like this. We can help him. So youneed to bury your beef with me and fall in line.”
Connor’s brows pulled together, anddamn. She’d make a good drill sergeant. She always had been good at insisting he pull himself up by his bootstraps when the ghosts of his long-lost brothers shook him awake in the dead of night.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes to fend off a headache, and then there they were again.
Lying in her bed at her small apartment in Austin, she’d wrapped herself around his back, pulling him close, and kissing the nape of his neck.
“Just breathe, baby. Take a breath, Connor. I’m here. You’re here, too, and I know they should all be here, too. But since they aren’t, the best thing you can do for them is try to live a good life. Especially since they lost that opportunity. That’s how you honor them.”
Liza had started doing that from the first time they’d shared a bed, and she’d seen firsthand what his nights were like. And that’s what had made him fall hard and fast for her. She was small, but she was strong. Determined in her own little way. Focused on the future and every good thing it could be despite what things looked like in the moment.
Ten years later, Liza was still every bit that determined young woman he’d loved so much that his heart threatened to turn inside out, only now she was accomplished and had proven she could do all the things she’d insisted he needed to do.
Connor let go of his nose, opened his eyes, and flipped his palm all-too aggressively at her—he needed to stop doing that. “I’m in line. I’ve failed at a lot of things in life.”I failed you,part of him wanted to scream.“But I’ll be damned if I fail at this. If I succeed at one thing, it’s going to be helping Oscar achieve the life he deserves.”
Liza reached into her purse and pulled out a tissue to dab her eyes and nose. “Well, I sure hope so. And not for your sake.” After turning to throw the purse in the backseat, she slammed back against her seat. “This isn’t about you, you know.”
“Iknow that,” he growled. He needed to stop growling at her like that, too. She clearly took all of his angry behaviors as him being angry at her. She believed they were rooted in resentment for her rather than resentment for himself. “It’s never been about me. I’m the one who was trapped in the fucking sandbox fighting a questionable war while I watched my home drown on TV. While my family was back here, and I had no idea whether or not the river flooded my neighborhood and killed them all. I got lucky. Oscar didn’t. So you can bet your ass that I’m going to fight like hell to help him turn his life into something good.”
“Good.” Liza jutted her chin forward and set her jaw.
For only a second, she looked like a woman carved from stone. Her seething gaze locked on his, but then her chin began trembling, and her eyes welled up with a fresh supply of tears. Seeing Liza cry was apparently so alarming and distressing to Connor that it stripped him of all boundaries self-imposed by his knowledge that he was no good for her.
“I’m sorry, Liza.”
I’m so sorry,the unspoken apology repeated in his heart and mind. You’ll never know how sorry I am because I can’t tell you what made me hurt you because I’m a coward.
“I told you I didn’t want an apology from you.”
“I know you did,” Connor murmured. Tears spilled out of her eyes and rolled down her cheek. Before he could think better of it and stop himself, he placed his hand on her face and stroked his thumb just below her eye. “But I hate seeing you cry.”
A deep V formed between her brows as if she were perplexed by his words and his touch. “You don’t care when I cry.”
