Until There Was You(2)

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her face burning.

Emma Tate, dead? Crikey! She’d been a nice girl. A very nice girl and a very popular girl back in high school, when such things seemed mutually exclusive. “So, what happened?” Posey asked. Then, aware that perhaps this was none of her business, she added, “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. It’s… I don’t have to know. It’s your…private, um…thing.”

“Leukemia,” Liam answered.

Posey flinched. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“A tragedy,” Max added. “Such a sweet girl.”

“He told us at Home Depot the other day,” Stacia said. “You know how the fan in the upstairs bathroom has been broken for years? Well, we thought it was time to finally fix it, since Gretchen’s coming home, and there we were and who did we see but this handsome boy! We were so sad to hear about Emma. So sad.”

Granted, not sad enough to tell Posey, despite the fact that Stacia called her every morning at 8:15. Then again, not passing on big news was a family tradition. Stacia had told Posey about Carol Antonelli’s gallbladder surgery in relentless detail, as well as how much they’d saved by driving forty miles to buy coffee at Stop & Shop instead of Hannaford’s, sure. But bigger news—deaths, births, marriages, etc.—tended to fall through the cracks.

A sudden flash of memory caused a lump to come to Posey’s throat—Emma at Sweetie Sue’s Ice Cream Parlor, loading up a waffle cone with four scoops instead of three, a conspiratorial wink as she handed it over the counter.

“I’m really sorry,” she said more quietly.

“Thanks,” Liam said, still staring with that cold, disinterested gaze.

Posey looked away, torn between sympathy, guilt for not knowing about Emma, trepidation (Liam had done some damage, after all), and, yes, lust. “You guys have a kid, right?” she asked. At least she remembered that.

“Nicole. She’s fifteen now.”

“Wow. Fifteen. That’s… Wow. Fifteen.”

Liam didn’t answer, but his look was loaded with that same disdain Posey so well remembered.

Once upon a time, when he was channeling Bono, Liam had worked right here in Guten Tag, a miraculous and agonizing time for Posey. The fact that the Osterhagens had given Liam a job at a time when his reputation was questionable (and fascinating) hadn’t caused Liam to warm up to Posey, however. Nope. He always treated her with the same interest he might give a speck of dust.

At first, anyway.

Whatever. Mom was gabbling away. “Liam, sweetheart, you haven’t changed a bit! You have to stay for a drink! You have to! Did you eat? We’ll feed you. I insist. Max, you insist, too, don’t you?”

“I also insist,” Max said, smiling.

“Just a drink,” Liam said. “I have to get back to my daughter.”

Just then Otto, a longtime waiter and accordion player at Guten Tag, poked his head through the door to the dining room. “Max, Stacia, the Schmottlachs are leaving.”

“Posey, make Liam at home, would you? Liam, this will just take a minute. Bruce and Shirley are our best friends. You remember them, don’t you?”

Liam’s mouth pulled into a reluctant smile as Stacia grabbed Max by the hand and towed him into the dining room. Said smile caused Posey’s girl parts to clench in a warm, strong squeeze. Hello! Her stomach began flipping like an overexcited dolphin. Alone. She was alone with Hottie McSin, widower. Oh, crikey, that wasn’t nice. She shouldn’t be lusting after the poor guy. Except the words poor guy didn’t seem to apply to Liam Murphy. She swallowed, the sound louder than a gunshot in the now-quiet kitchen.

Meanwhile, God’s gift to women—because, yes, he was that good…all smoldering male beauty made all the more inaccessible by that touch of disdain—folded his arms and looked around the kitchen.

It was hard to fathom that bright, bouncy Emma Tate was gone. Posey swallowed again, her throat thick. “How’s your daughter handling things?”

“Pretty well.” He allowed her a brief glance.

“So, what brings you here? Just visiting?”

“No. We moved to be closer to Emma’s parents.” He was back? Staying? “Oh. Um…that’s nice. Good. I mean, it’s good to be close to family. Good for children, I mean.”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t ask what she’d been up to, if she was married, if she had kids. Of course not. Apparently he was still way too cool to care about—

“So, what have you been up to, Cordelia?”

Oops. Strike that. “Oh, I’m just filling in tonight. I own an architectural salvage company,” she said, well aware of the pride that tinged her voice. He didn’t respond, just gave a half nod. “What about you?”

“I’m a mechanic. I build custom motorcycles.”

Of course he was a motorcycle mechanic. This would enable him to wear leather and smell like oil and have large throbbing machines between his thighs. At the image, Posey’s legs weakened. Down, girl. It wouldn’t do to wrestle him to the floor here in her parents’ kitchen. But he’d always had that effect on her—and every other female. He was like the Death Star’s tractor beam, pulling in whatever the heck it wanted. “Motorcycles. Neat-o,” she managed.