Page 86 of Debt of My Soul

“She wants to have us over for dinner tonight.”

My mouth drops open. “She does know the situation between us, right?”

Liam bounces a fist up and down over his knee while pretending to inspect a chip in his other hand. “My mother doesn’t know about Adam or what happened. My father and grandparents kept it from her. At the time, they … they thought it was the compassionate thing to do. Keep her from knowing what Adam’s involved in.”

“And does she know about you?” I ask.

“Yeah. She knows. Tries to avoid talking about it. Probably thinks the worst about me already. Now add the town’s gossip surrounding us—my brother’s girl.”

I bristle. “I’m not.”

Frankly, I’m getting sick of all this talk as if Adam and I were practically walking down the aisle already. I was upfront and honest with Adam about my fragile state, the one I’m running from.

Liam’s eyes move over my face, surely noticing the tension there, but he regards my lips so intently. My tongue darts out to lick my bottom lip, and he snaps his gaze back to mine. The silence extends between us, and Liam looks as if he wants me to say more.

“I was in a long-term relationship before I moved here. I told Adam this when he wanted to explorethingsbetween us.”

Liam’s jaw tightens but he softens his stare. Can he read what’s written all over my face? The hurt, the ache of pain thrumming through me.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Who? Adam? No, he?—”

“The man you were in a long-term relationship with. Didhehurt you?”

I swallow, the knot in my throat painfully unbearable. I don’t want to talk about this. For him to see how broken and tarnished I truly am.

I shake my head. “Uh, no. Well, not physically.”

It’s all I offer. Because some days it felt like Chis drove a knife into my heart. It felt like I couldn’t breathe. That suffocating weight in my chest has lessened as the weeks and months have ticked by, but it still … hurts.

“Sometimes it’s the emotional pain that scars us the deepest,” Liam says, studying where I’ve moved my fingers to toy with the rubber bands on my wrist.

My breath hitches and the sting I know too well prickles behind my eyes. How did this conversation get so off course? I don’t want to be vulnerable with him … do I?

“Fleur.” Liam’s voice towers over me. It’s then I look up to see he’s moved directly in front of me, his hand gripping my wrist where I’ve unconsciously pulled both bands taut needing to snap. “Fleur.” He says my name again, gently lowering my hand to my thigh. He doesn’t let go of my wrist. He simply cradles it, featherlight strokes tickling the most sensitive skin there.

Stepping back, his warm touch disappears as I move out of his grasp.

“It won’t be pretty, but my mother is a good person. This”—he motions between the two of us—“is going to be hard to explain.”

A warm glow descends around the open fields and road we’re on. Silhouettes of sizable oaks shadow the tall grasses swaying in the early evening breeze. Deep yellows and oranges dye the sky, and the last of the setting sun’s rays flicker behind the trees.

The hum of the truck along the rough pavement, coupled with the settling dusk, almost lulls me into sleep. It’s only the clink of the wine bottle jammed into the side of my door keeping me awake at this point. Liam thankfully had a bottle shoved deep in his cabinets. My mother would be ashamed if I showed up as a guest empty-handed.

I have no idea what to expect from this dinner with Liam and his parents. Well, maybe that’s not true. If it were my parents learning of my marriage through the town’s gossip lines, this dinner would be an intervention.

After Liam explained how his mother was deliberately kept in the dark about Adam, and the lengths he, his father, and grandparents took to ensure she was unaware of her son’s issues—this dinner feels like a disaster already, and we’re still twenty minutes from arriving.

The road winds in the familiar way it did when I drove to the Fourth of July party. I sigh. That day feels so far away now. So much has happened. With September slowly giving way to the awkward fall heat intent on gracing the South, time is both slowing down and speeding up.

Ringing out my hands, I clench the yellow sundress I picked out on the clearance rack at River’s shop and squeeze it between my fingers. I do this several times, only to realize I’m effectivelywrinkling the dress. The smattering of tiny flowers dusting the pale yellow aren’t something I typically gravitate toward, but the dress reminded me of the farmhouse and the yellow haze that set over the property each morning as the sun rose.

Liam is quiet, no doubt wondering how tonight is going to go as well. Every few minutes, he’ll slide his palm up and down his blue jeans or fidget with the pulled-back bun in his hair. He’s apparently opted for zero music because the only sound is the whoosh of the truck plowing down the empty roads.

Diverting my eyes from Liam, I glance out my window?—

Are those?

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