Page 13 of Return
“Ah, I see…” Liam tried to not smile, but this was exactly what he had expected to happen. If Sophie hadn’t returned his call from Christmas yet, then she wasn’t going to. Not without a swift, hard kick up the ass, anyway.
When their eyes met, the years between them disappeared. And for a moment, there was nothing but the weight of history and unspoken words.
The years had changed her appearance, but she was still his Sophie. Her thick, dark hair had a few wisps of gray now, and there was a guardedness in her blue eyes that hadn’t been there before. But she was still breathtaking.
Sophie didn’t move, she didn’t so much as blink.
That was a bad sign.
Well, now Liam knew what was coming next. The question was: could he make it behind that bar where he’d be safe, or should he duck for cover under the nearest table? Because things were about to get ugly. Keefe appeared behind Sophie, apparently having finally torn himself away from his appliance hunt.
“Liam, good to see you! Thanks for coming. Come on in.”
Sophie plastered on a smile. “Liam, would you excuse us for a minute? I need to have a word with my brother.” Then she snatched Keefe by the ear and dragged him to the kitchen, where she laid into him.
He felt a little bad for Keefe—just not terrible. He knew well and good that Keefe wouldn’t have told her he’d invited Liam over, just like he knew there was no way Keefe was coming out of that kitchen without either a black eye, a welt, or blood dripping from somewhere on his body.
The fact was, she was going to gut her brother like a fish.
Liam waited behind the bar and listened.
“What the actual fuck! You lied to me? And you tricked me?”
Sophie hadn’t thrown a good tantrum in a long time. Since her divorce, she hadn’t gotten mad. Not once. Not really, anyway. The argument they’d had before when Keefe called Liam was their usual sort of argument.
But if Keefe knew anything about his sister, it was that she needed to get angry.
Furious.
She needed to let go of the pain from her divorce once and for all and move on, and the only way to do that was to confront her feelings head-on. He was sure of it. Just as he was sure that Liam was the one who could help her do that, even if Sophie didn’t want to admit it. He would never risk Sophie’s wrath or her trust if he wasn’t certain that Liam was what she needed—even if she couldn’t see it yet.
Keefe dove right into the argument. The sooner he did, the sooner this would be over and he sure as hell would not apologize. “He’s my friend too! I didn’t know I needed your permission, Your Highness, to talk to my friends! And now he’s here and you’re being rude!”
“Yeah, and now what huh? What’s your big plan, Master Instigator?”
“I don’t know, I just thought—” A bagel slapped him in the chest.
“You thought? Are you fucking serious? You couldn’t form a proper thought if it came with step-by-step instructions and a manual!”
She grabbed a coffee cup and hurled it at him. Keefe dodged it and it hit the wall behind him.
“What did you think I would do? You’ve been moping around like a wet fart long enough!”
“Moping? I was moping?” She hurled another cup, hitting him on the shoulder. “My whole life was torn in two! My husband despised me! He made my life hell! And you have the nerve to say I was moping! I think I could be allowed some time?—”
On second thought, perhaps moping was not the word he should have used. But it got the job done. Now she was good and furious. “You had time! A whole year! More than that! There is a vanity in too much penance, you know?” He really should not have said that. Various items from around the kitchen were now sailing past him in record time. Keefe patted himself on the back for thinking ahead of time to hide the knives. “Sophie, goddammit! You could have hit me with that!”
Crash again. Followed by a groan. She didn’t miss that time!
“You’ve been banging on about Liam for weeks! What did you think? That he’d show up here and I would fall into his arms, we’d fuck on the bar, get married, adopt a herd of kids, and live happily ever after?”
From the dining room, Liam willed for Keefe to just shut up. Shut up Keefe right now! Don’t answer!
“Well, yeah something like that! Sophie, don’t you dare?—”
Bang! Crash! And another groan.
“I would have called him myself!”
