Risky Business (33 page)

The door didn't close behind him, which meant Marlena had followed him out. He swallowed a curse. As long as she didn't raise her voice at him anymore, he'd be fine. He wasn't trapped inside; he could walk away.

“Everything in your life is a battle. Liam versus the Universe,” she called after him.

That was the way it was for everyone, and if she didn't recognize that, then she'd be in for a lifetime of shock.

The apartment complex that he and Olivia lived in and managed along with their parents was only three blocks south, so he'd come on foot, which was a good thing now because he needed the fresh air and dark night. From his pocket, he removed a pack of cigarettes and shook one out, ignoring the fact that Marlena was seething silently behind him, watching his every move.

When he was halfway across the parking lot, she shouted again. “This could have been the one part of your life where you didn't have to fight. This, with you and me, could have been the exception, but you ruined it.”

All he could do was laugh at that. What a whopper of a tale she was telling herself that what had happened here tonight was the result of some deep, abiding flaw of his—that he was the monster, when she was the one who'd gone ballistic.

He turned to make sure she hadn't followed him to the street, which she hadn't. While he groped in his pocket for his lighter, he watched with absolute dispassion as she stood in front of her studio and blubbered and yelled and quivered. Narrowing his eyes at her, he lit the cigarette, then filled his lungs with smoke. He'd been meaning to quit for more than a year, but couldn't seem to find it in him to do one more self-improvement project on top of everything else.

“Fuck you, Liam McAllister. Stay away from me. Don't ever come back here.”

He ground his molars together as the shrillness of her words, the anger behind them, finally cut through his dispassion, bringing all those memories rushing back through his mind. The soldiers who'd died, the kid, the blood, the grit and the sand, and so much shouting. Made him want to punch his hand through the nearest car windshield.

He raised the cigarette in a mock salute.
Fuck you, too, Marlena Brodie.
Then, hanging his head down, he shoved his hands in his pockets along with the lighter, walked into the darkness, and welcomed the flood of bloody memories that were way more worthy of his time than some a crazy, two-faced civilian.

Melissa Cutler
knows she has the best job in the world, writing sexy small town contemporary romances, western romances, and edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense novels. Besides writing, she was struck at an early age by an unrelenting passion for travel and is probably planning her next vacation as you read this. When she's not globetrotting, she's enjoying Southern California's flip-flop wearing weather and wrangling two rambunctious kids. Find out more about Melissa and her books at melissacutler.net or write to her at [email protected] Visit Melissa online at Facebook (facebook.com/MelissaCutlerBooks) and Twitter (@m_cutler). And be sure to sign up for Melissa's newsletter at http://www.melissacutler.net/newsletter/