Liam: Branded Brothers (2 page)

He cocked his head, his lips twitching at the corners. “I
think I can give a drink out when I want to, and I didn’t take you as the type
who didn’t take care of herself. Just the opposite.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather pay for it,” she
said, running her fingers along the cool glass. She’d maybe come across a
little bitchy, but she wanted to send a message. She wasn’t going to be wrapped
up into whatever was written in the note. She had contemplated opening the
envelope for the last three years, but every time she got close to breaking the
seal, she stopped herself and thought of Jack. She had promised not to open it,
and she wasn’t one to break promises. After all, she still held onto a
decade-old secret about the death of her step-father.

If anything Jack said was even remotely close to the truth,
she wanted nothing to do with the envelope or Liam Murphy. She should leave and
never look back, just like she always did. She could hire someone to clean out
Jack’s house and put it up for sale. It could be easy, if she wanted it to be.
She had a million other things she should be doing like finding a new place to
live, buying a new car, and finding a new job.

A job.
The problem was that her only reference was
six feet under. Despite knowing he would die one day, she never thought about
finding another job, even after she earned her RN license six months ago and
was qualified for a much higher paying one. Jack needed her.

“I’m Liam Murphy. I own that stool you’re sitting in and
that glass you’re running your fingers over. If you don’t like how I run this
place, talk to management.” He extended his hand just inches from her. “I’ve
never come across anyone who refused a free drink. Anyway, you don’t seem like
the kind of girl to be drinking on a Tuesday at four in the afternoon.”

“I guess you don’t know me very well.” She swallowed hard
before she held her hand out to meet his. She tried to ignore the warmth that
spread through her body at his touch. He pumped his hand before he stopped,
still holding her hand delicately. “Charla Taylor.”

“Well, Charla,” he said, finally letting her hand go, “It’s
a pleasure to meet you. The drink’s on me and any drinks after.”

“It’s got to be tough to keep your place open if you offer
free drinks to every single woman who walks in here.” She pulled her hand back
and gripped the glass.

“I don’t. Just the pretty ones.” He flashed his cocky smile
again.

“Right,” said Charla, her eyes steady on him. She knew she
wasn’t bad to look at. She had olive skin and deep brown eyes with thick brows.
She had an exotic look to her for small-town Illinois, which made her stand out
from the sea of fair-skinned, blue-eyed girls in her nursing program. But she
was sure she was the hundredth woman to hear the pickup line from Liam Murphy.
She contemplated throwing the drink in his face, but Jack’s last pleas four
days ago crept into her head.
Please, if you don’t do anything else, just
deliver the note. I’ll rest knowing this note is in the right hands, Charla.
She
tried to shake his voice out of her head. “You give free drinks just to the
pretty ones, huh?”

“Yeah, between you and me, this is only the second drink
I’ve given away in two years.” He leaned against the counter, making his dog
tags sway against his chest.

“And what happened to the first girl?”

“Wasn’t my type.” He shrugged.

“And what’s that?”

“Intelligent and goal-oriented with a heart of gold, just like
my mom,” he replied. “She was missing the last one. Doesn’t hurt if she’s
drop-dead gorgeous like yourself, but it’s not a prerequisite.”

“Charming.” She took a swig from the glass. She needed to
steer clear of him, and men in general, for a long while. She looked down at
her bare finger, where the engagement ring used to be. That was
before
she found Rex with a giggly blonde and his pants around his ankles. It’d been
two years, but the scars still lingered.

Even my goddamn finger looks lonely,
she thought to
herself.

“Let me guess, Ms. Taylor. Your ex-boyfriend cheated on you
with some red head. You busted them going at it, and he lied to you all along.
Played you like a fiddle. So you stay away from any man that throws a
compliment at you because you’ve been burned beyond recognition.” He raised his
eyebrows, studying her face.

Charla shook her head. She hated that he had somehow laid
out her cards with a few exchanged words. Was she that transparent?

“Ex-husband?”

She shook her head harder. The envelope was getting hotter
by the second.

He furrowed his eyebrows and then slapped the edge of the
bar. “Ex-fiancé. That’s it. You were engaged.”

“Maybe.” Charla brought the glass to her lips, letting the
alcohol sear her throat. “And it was a blonde.”

“Goddamn blondes.” He shook his head. “It’s always the
blondes. Just for the record, I’m not into blondes. Brunettes on the other
hand…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Charla replied before she chugged the last of
the mixer and slammed the empty glass on the bar. “Let me guess, you always
dreamed of owning a bar one day. After leaving the military, where you served
bravely and saved countless lives with your expert artillery skills, you opened
up Dirty Leprechaun at the age of twenty-six. You work out three hours a day at
the gym down the street, only taking
natural
supplements to enhance your
body. Never had a long-term girlfriend. Hell, you have radar for the smart ones
who want you to commit. And you get your fill of rotating women each night in
the back room.” She nodded her head toward the door behind him.

He gave her a long, silent stare. She envisioned him
grabbing a pool stick from beneath the counter and smashing it against the bar.
Guys like this were all the same. She would know; she had her fair share of
them before she dated Rex. She was prone for falling for the bad guys who
needed fixing. Rex, on the other hand, didn’t need fixing. He was the straight
arrow All-American boy, enrolled in medical school and surrounded by a
steadfast family with a long line of doctors. Except he couldn’t keep his hands
just to Charla. She’d been all wrong about the didn’t need fixing part.

She sighed before she reached for her back pocket. It was
time to get the hell out of here and back to Jack’s house. She’d have to kill
some time to let the alcohol wear off before she got back on the road to take
the drive. Maybe she’d splurge and get a pedicure at the spa down the road. She
at least deserved that. She was sure Jack would have agreed. Her fingers
grasped the corners of the envelope.

“God, you have me down right to the last detail,” he said,
still with a hard face. She couldn’t resist finding pleasure in the way his jaw
tightened up. She had laid out his cards, just like he had done to her.

“Oh yeah?” She fought to hide her smile.

“I was in the Marine Corps for six years. I’m twenty-eight
now, bought the Dirty Leprechaun two years ago. I do work out down the street
at a boxing gym, except it’s only two hours a day.” He crossed his arms,
highlighting the massive bulk of his chest.

Charla nodded her head, pulled out the envelope, and waved
it in the air.

“What’s that?” He eyed the envelope with suspicion.

“It’s for you.” She took a deep breath and tapped it once
against the edge of the counter before sliding it over to him. She didn’t know
what was in the envelope, and she wanted to keep it that way. She wanted to
stay out of it as much as she could, or at least as much as Jack allowed. He
was gone, and her life had been turned upside down, once again. She thought
she’d be used to it by now, but she was wrong. Giving him the envelope would
bring her one step closer to getting her life back on track.

“What is it?” Liam picked up the envelope and studied the
front inscription.

“I don’t know.” Charla dug in her purse to retrieve a ten
dollar bill and threw it on the counter. “Whatever it is, good luck.”

“Good luck?”

“Yeah, good luck. You’re going to need it.” Charla turned to
walk out of the Dirty Leprechaun, leaving a still gaping Liam behind the bar.
Dealing with Jack had been more than a handful the last two years, but she had
come to love his crazy antics and demands. It shouldn’t be surprising that he
would wreak more havoc after his death. Jack wasn’t the type of man to go out
peacefully. But she wanted to pass the torch and move on, and more than
anything she wanted to forget all the things he said before he died.

“That’s it? How’d you know who I was?” He called to her.
“Who is it from?”

“I’m just the messenger.” She shrugged her shoulders without
turning around. With any luck, it would be the last time she’d see Liam Murphy
and his damn tattoos.
A little peace
, she reminded herself. She opened
the door and let a stream of midday sun into the dim bar, pausing momentarily
to call over her shoulder, “Don’t shoot me.”

***

Charla pulled into the driveway of
Jack’s cottage in the waning summer sun. The drive back was at least more
tolerable than the drive to the Dirty Leprechaun. Her jean shorts only stuck to
her legs for the first half of the trip back. Regardless, the envelope was
delivered. She figured in a week’s time she could have the house cleaned out
and listed with a realtor. And if she priced the house low enough, she could be
sitting with a good stack of cash in no time. She’d been shocked when Jack’s
lawyer told her he’d left the cottage to her. She was sure there would have
been some long-lost kin down the line he hadn’t mentioned. She had grabbed the
paper from the lawyer to see her own name in black bold lettering. A house,
her
own house
. Jack left her without a job, but he definitely didn’t leave her
high and dry. She could pay off the rest of her school bills, get a new car,
and put a down payment on a house. She could start over thanks to him.

She wanted to call Dotti and tell her how wrong she’d been.
That working for Jack was the best thing she could have done for herself. But
she knew dollar signs would flash in her green eyes and somehow she would
sucker Charla into her latest sob story, and convince her to dig her out of
some financial mess like she always did. It was always someone else’s fault.
Her stingy boss. Her asshole landlord. The stop sign that came out of nowhere.

Charla killed the Corolla’s engine and promised herself she
wouldn’t tell her alcoholic mother under any circumstances. It would be
different this time.

She opened the cottage’s side door and threw her purse on
the kitchen counter, assessing the boxes she had started to pack. It would take
her another three or four days to finish sorting and boxing up all his stuff.
She wouldn’t keep much for herself besides some kitchen items she had purchased
while living with him. The rest she would donate or toss. She cursed Jack for
being a pack rat and for not letting her start this process sooner, especially
a few weeks ago when she first noticed he was starting to fail. He was getting
weaker, spending more time in bed, and forgetting who she was every twenty
minutes. She had started to pack some boxes then, but he lost it, taking a jar
from a box and attempting to throw it at her head. The glass had slipped out of
his hand and shattered just inches from his toes. She had stopped packing the
box, brought him to bed, and sat in a chair while she held his hand.

“Damn you, Jack,” she said softly as she picked up a pot
from a box. He was one stubborn son of a bitch. She felt a sudden wave of
emotion swell in her chest. She wasn’t the crying kind; she was the strong one
who cleaned up everyone else’s messes. She was the one who didn’t cry when luck
turned to shit, when her fiancé cheated on her, or when the man she had grown
close to died holding her hand. She didn’t shed a tear when her step-father was
lowered into the ground or when Dotti admitted herself to rehab.

A single tear rolled down Charla’s face, burning her cheek
with a liquid hot streak. She quickly wiped it away and slammed the pot back
into the box. She couldn’t let any of it break her. Nothing had so far, nothing
would.

She looked out the back window of the cottage to the lake.
She would miss it here. Jack’s cottage felt like home more than any other place
she’d ever lived in. The crap apartments, the run-down duplex on Fifth Street,
her aunt’s sweeping two-story colonial. Those were all places she’d stayed.
This cottage was home. She would have liked to keep it that way. It had a
beautiful view and was the perfect size for her, but Jack insisted in his will
she sell it.

She looked longingly at the swing just a few feet off the
shimmering water. She used to sit down there with Jack when he could take the
stairs. That was in the beginning, when he was coherent and fresh-legged, as he
called it. It had been at least a year since he had been down there. She folded
the box back up and grabbed one of his old Cubs sweatshirts off the coat rack
hanging by the door. She trotted down thirty-two wooden steps to the swing,
wishing the entire time Jack could have experienced this one last time even
though he wouldn’t have remembered it. The simple smile on his face would have
been worth every drop of blood and sweat she had endured over the past two
years. He would have been happy, even if just for a passing moment. She wanted
to bottle up that happiness and save it for herself. God knows she needed it
right about now.

She slid Jack’s sweatshirt over her head, inhaling the
familiar smell of him. It was a mixture of outdoors, musky cologne and man. She
loved the smell of a man’s man. She sat down on the cracked wood of the swing
and kicked her legs forward. “Well, I did it. I delivered the note, Jack. You
should be happy. It’s what you wanted.”

The low hum of crickets filled the cooling summer air. “By
the way, that Liam Murphy is something else. He reminded me of you. Cocky with
a wicked smile. I’m sure he kills it with the ladies, which I’m sure was the
case with you when you were younger. He had a tattoo just like you. I don’t
know what this is all about, Jack, but you better bet your ass I’m going to
stay away from it all. I’m going to sell this place like you wanted me to and move
on.”