Page 19 of Montana Silence

My voice was quieter now, my steam running out. “The other day when you saw me, I’d gotten a package. Daniel opened it.”

I couldn’t keep my eyes off the box that sat on a table across the room. I hadn’t moved it since I’d brought it back that day.

“May I?” he asked.

I nodded.

He stood and walked to the box, and in spite of myself, I watched the way he moved. He was graceful, the way all the Resting Warrior men were. But this was Liam. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.

He held the veil in his hands, and he was staring at it the same way I had—like it was coated in acid.

“He’s still in jail,” I whispered. “I don’t know who sent it, and everything is…probably fine. But the cameras make me feel better.”

“I’ll help you put them up more securely,” he said, the corner of his mouth turning up into a smile. “I don’t think them falling down will make you feel better.”

“Thank you.”

Liam put the veil back into the box and carefully closed it. “I don’t know what to say, Mara.”

“It’s a lot. I understand.”

He truly smiled then. “But the one good thing is it’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”

My whole face flushed, and I stood, unable to keep still even though my ankle ached. “I—” I swallowed. “It’s just that I already knew what to say, and—”

“Mara.” Liam stepped toward me with his hands out. “It’s not a bad thing. I love the sound of your voice. And, subject matter aside, I could listen to you talk forever.”

His words froze me in my tracks.

He liked my voice?

To me, it always sounded too brassy and loud. It was an intrusion and not a welcome one. But when Liam said that, it made me question all of it. How many of those feelings about my voice were things I had learned because I’d been forced to cling to silence?

It was like the world shifted, and no one felt it but me.

Silence stretched between us once more, as my mind tried to make sense of everything happening. Liam liked myvoice. For anyone else, that might sound like nothing, but all I’d ever known was to be wanted for my silence.

What did I do?

The question forced me to sit down again.

I wanted this, and I wanted him…whatever that meant for the two of us. But it wasn’t something I fully understood or knew how to initiate. It felt like I was a million miles out at sea and Liam was the only land in sight.

And still, even after him telling me something so lovely, I was frozen. Like a block of ice or my flowers on a winter morning. Brittle and unable to move without breaking.

Liam’s face, which had hosted a beautiful smile, fell. I didn’t like the pain I saw in his eyes as he took in all of me.All of me. He took a step back, reversing all the distance he’d closed between us.

“I’m sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “That probably—that wasn’t appropriate. I’m sorry, Mara. Forgive me for overstepping. Especially in your house.”

No.

Emotion tumbled through my stomach. Liam hadn’t done anything wrong, or anything I didn’t want. But I didn’t know how to tell him. All my words were evaporating like mist in the morning sun. How did people do this? How did anyone manage to say what they needed to say without drowning?

The rest had been easy because it was just a memory. I didn’t need to think about it; I just needed to recount it. This was so much fucking harder, and this was the moment where it truly mattered.

I couldn’t let him think I didn’t want this, because something deep in my gut told me if he left now, nothing would ever be the same between us again.

Liam’s shoulders fell, and he turned toward the door. I stood so quickly I nearly fell over trying to balance on my ankle, and Liam turned, moving faster than I thought possible, catching me and keeping me steady.

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