Breaking Perfect (8 page)

As he stepped out of his truck and
slammed the heavy door he paused. Music was playing loudly from inside the
home. Beautiful music, not the shit that was on the radio nowadays. This was
piano and it reverberated from the house. He didn’t recognize the song, but
whatever it was it was lovely. He could hear the emotion pouring into every
chord as if the artist was happy, but somehow alone. There was turmoil in the
melody, but also hope, promise.

By the time he reached the front
step, lined with impeccable landscaping and an array of plants whose names he
probably would never be able to pronounce, he realized he couldn’t only hear
the music, but feel it as well. It was pumping from within the house so hard
that it vibrated the soles of his feet.

Taking a solidifying breath, Sean
rang the bell. The music abruptly stopped. Unless someone was standing poised
with a remote pointed at the stereo, he suspected that music wasn’t recorded,
but being played by a real person. Was Mase’s wife a musician?

The door opened and he froze. His
mind blanked and filled with numbers and calculations. Thirteen years. If Mase
moved on right away he could have had a child in that time, but she would be no
older that eleven or twelve. This beauty in front of him, although appearing
very young, was no child. She also bore no resemblance to Mase. Fuck, was this
the missus?

“Can I help you?”

That voice. He recognized that
voice. “Mrs. Davis?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Sean O’Malley. Is your husband
home?”

* * * *

Liberty couldn’t help but step
back. The stranger standing on her porch was enormous and no one she had ever
seen before. He didn’t look like a solicitor, but for some reason a curious,
self-preserving instinct awakened inside of her. She had the sense that this
man could harm her, in more than just a physical sense. A foreboding impression
unnerved her. It somehow signified the one thing she never dealt with well.
Change. This man was more than just a stranger passing by. The disquiet
thrumming through her veins was palpable.

Liberty held the door securely in a
position so she could shut it quickly if need be. “Can I help you?”

The man shifted awkwardly on
enormous booted feet and rooted his hands farther into his pockets. The sun had
set and, like most Carolina nights on the coast, the temperature had dropped
significantly. He only wore a threadbare white T and was likely cold. However,
that threadbare T did nothing to hide his enormous arms, corded with muscle and
decorated with some sort of tattoo peeking past the cuff.

“Mrs. Davis?”

Her searching eyes jerked from his
thick arms to his face. How did he know her name? “Yes.”

His gaze moved over her as if
analyzing her as she’d been analyzing him. Who the hell was this guy and how
dare he look at her and make her feel as if she somehow didn’t measure up to
his expectations? She pressed the door closed a little more and braced her bare
foot behind it.

He cleared his throat. “I’m Sean
O’Malley. Is your husband home?”

Sean O’Malley? Sean O’Malley?
Why did that name sound familiar?
“You
called last night.”
 

“Yes, I’m the man that called.”

She didn’t want to admit Mason was
out, let alone that he wouldn’t return until morning. Not to this towering pile
of muscle and tattooed flesh, but she couldn’t lie and then fail to produce her
husband. “He can’t come to the door right now. Can I pass along a message?”

He frowned at her as if he knew she
was lying. She stood a little taller, daring him to challenge her. He most
likely found her attempt to intimidate him with her five foot stature next to
his probably six and a half foot build laughable. Something seemed to click in
his mind and his expression softened.

He held his hands out as if in
peaceful surrender. “Uh, I know you probably don’t know who I am, but I’m an
old friend of Mase’s. We went to Duke together.”

Her shoulders sagged a little in relief,
but she wasn’t wholly convinced this guy wasn’t out to do her family harm. As a
doctor, anyone could look up Mason’s records and see where he went to school.

“When? He’s never mentioned you.”
She probably shouldn’t have said that. It seemed to poke a sensitive nerve. If
this was in fact her husband’s friend, she’d just said something incredibly
rude.

“Thirteen years ago. He lived at
Brier House with me. We were in the same fraternity. I played football there,
but hurt my knee junior year and my grades weren’t enough to keep me in. I
ended up leaving when I was twenty-one and finishing up at State back in
Arizona.”

Libby supposed the slight lilt to
his accent was what someone from Arizona would sound like. She eyed him
critically. He looked about Mase’s age, maybe a few years younger. He
definitely could have been an athlete. Even under his loose fitting jeans she
could detect heavily muscled thighs.

He smiled at her kindly, exposing a
mouth full of perfectly straight pearl white teeth. Wow, that must have been
some popular fraternity. His smile softened his hazel eyes and upgraded him
from attractive to gorgeous. A big hand ran through his dirty blonde hair
causing it to stand on end and distract Libby.

“Look, Mrs. Davis, I assure you,
your husband and I were friends, very good friends. I’ve been driving for days
and I’m in need of a hotel and a bed. Do you know when a better time to stop by
might be? I hate to be a pest, but I’m kind of just runnin’ on empty right now
and didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see how he was doing after all these
years.”

She sighed. The sense of unease she
first felt in his presence faded slightly. His forbidding appearance was
rendered merely unfamiliar and therefore somewhat less alarming. Slowly
acknowledging her total fear may have been misplaced. He actually appeared to
be quite genuine. “Okay, Mr. O’Malley—”

“Sean.”

“Sean,” she amended. “I’ll be
honest. Mason isn’t home right now. Didn’t he return your call yesterday
morning? I gave him your message.”

“He never called.”

She pursed her lips. Yesterday had
been a complete disaster and that was probably why Mason neglected to tell her
that this man was actually his friend from college. She wanted to believe him,
and if what he said were true, Mason would expect her to be hospitable to his
old friend. She didn’t want to disappoint her husband. Her teeth pressed into
her lower lip as she considered her options.

“You say you’ve been driving a
while?”

“Over fourteen hours. You see, my
dad just passed away and I took off right after the funeral. I really don’t
have anywhere to be at the moment and somehow wound up here. It only made sense
to see if I could locate Mase.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“It’s really okay, but thank you.”

“Um, can you…can you excuse me for
just one minute? I just need to check something. Just one minute please.” She
held up her finger as she stepped back. When he nodded she shut the door and
quietly latched the chain.

She turned and ran into the
kitchen, her bare feet smacking quietly across the cool tile floor. Mason’s
familiar words played through her mind.
When we are unsure what to do, we
ask for help, and our problems immediately feel smaller and easier to solve.

Picking the cordless phone up off
the counter, she pressed speed dial one as she walked into the formal living
room and spied on their visitor from behind the heavy satin drapes. Her finger
ran through a slight drift of gray dust marring the windowpanes and she made a
mental note that cleaning the windows once a week was not enough in the fall.

The phone rang and clicked over to
voicemail. “Hello, you have reached the voicemail of Dr. Mason Stevens. I’m
unable to take your call right now, but please leave a message and I will
return your call as soon as possible. If this is an emergency and you need to
reach me, please contact Faith Baptist Hospital, extension two-two-nine.”

When the phone beeped Libby said,
“Babe, it’s me. Um, there’s someone here for you and he says he’s an old friend
from Duke. He seems to know a lot about you and I don’t think he’s lying. His
name’s Sean O’Malley. He’s the man who called Friday night. Well, he’s kind of
without a place to go. He drove here all the way from Arizona or somewhere out
west and needs a place to stay. I don’t know what to do. He says his father
just passed and I can’t help but feel sorry for him.
 
If he’s a friend of yours I think, under the
circumstances, you’d want me to welcome him in our home.” She pressed her lips
together and then mumbled, “God, I hope that’s what you would want.” She
sighed. “I’m going to let him in and offer him something to eat. Please call
me.”

When she returned to the door Sean
was standing back and gazing toward their soffits. He appeared to be admiring
the exterior of their home. It was really getting chilly out. She could have
called the hospital, but if Mason wasn’t answering the phone it was because he
was likely with a patient and that was more important than her needing
approval.
 
Maybe.
 

“Um, Sean?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her with those
piercing hazel eyes and her thoughts scattered like autumn leaves in the wake
of a sudden gale. She shook her head and tried to focus. “Um, Mase is going to
call back any minute. Would you like to come in? Could I fix you something to
eat?”

He stilled for a moment as if
considering if the offer was a good idea or not. “Uh, sure. Thank you, Mrs.
Davis.”

“You can call me Libby.”

“Libby?”

“Yeah, it’s short for Liberty, like
the bell.”

He laughed. “Cute. Thank you,
Libby.”

She stepped back and let him enter
their home with one last hope that she wasn’t making a mistake. As he stepped
past her she looked up at his hulking size and admitted that if she was, she
was a dead woman.

* * * *

Sean entered the home. An ominous
chill crested his shoulders as though he were crossing into a secret place he
might never escape from unscathed. So many insecurities came rushing to the
surface. His father’s taunting voice intruded on his calm. Stifling the
unwanted memories, he focused on the little woman in front of him.

Mase’s wife wasn’t beastly. As a
matter of fact, she was perhaps one of the most adorable females he ever laid
eyes on.

She was a little thing and he had
the unusual urge to lecture her for inviting a strange man, twice her size,
into her home when Mase wasn’t around. What was she thinking? He agreed to come
in only because he had the sudden ridiculous fear that some other beggar might
come knocking and feed her a line of bullshit and trusting little Libby might
end up inviting someone truly dangerous into her home. Oddly, something about
her tapped into his protective instincts. This little girl needed someone to
keep an eye on her.

The house entrance was
ri
-god-damn-
diculous
. He let out
a slow whistle that echoed all the way up to the thirty-foot ceilings. It was
homey, but also sort of like a museum. Nothing seemed out of place. Maybe the
missus just finished cleaning.

“The kitchen’s this way,” she
announced and he followed.

She only came up to his midsection,
not even reaching his chest. Her feet were bare and her toes were painted pink.
Girlie. She wore cute frayed daisy dukes and a sweater that hung precariously
low over her one arm. Her bare shoulder hinted she had nothing underneath. Wild
golden curls bounced with each step she took. Kudos to Mase for at least
finding a woman with a bangin’ body. If he were going to switch teams, he
clearly made out in the draft.

Sean had the impression of lots of
white and open space. He was too busy sizing up his old friend’s wife to really
take in the house. He was sure it was what American dreams were made of if
Mase’s knack to adhere to pursuing a goal was still as sharp as it once was. If
anything, his boy had an incredible ability for sticking to his guns and
keeping his word. He promised one day he would have an easy life with a good
partner and nice home. Sean had no doubt he had walked into just that.

Libby stopped and Sean plowed right
into her.
Nice
. His hands reflexively grabbed her shoulders so he didn’t
knock her down and hoped he didn’t trample her little feet “I’m so sorry.”

She quickly extricated herself from
his grip and turned to face him. She took a step back and smiled, but he could
tell he made her incredibly uncomfortable.
Nice move, bonehead
.

“I wasn’t looking where we were
going. I hope I didn’t step on your feet.”

She looked down at her feet and
back at him. Her hand held a cordless phone he hadn’t noticed earlier and she
tapped it against her thigh nervously.

“Maybe I should just go,” he
suggested. “Thank you for the hospitality, but maybe it would be best if you just
tell Mase I stopped by—”