Hero is a Four Letter Word (6 page)

“Right, whoever you are, I have a mobile with me. Come out, or I call 999.”

A repressed snort of laughter. “But
that
is different.”

“Seriously, now,” Jennet says, fishes the mobile phone from her coat pocket and lifts it demonstratively. The blue glow cuts through the gloom and lights on the figure, just a few paces away. It is thin, slumped, hands shoved in the kangaroo pocket of a hoodie, and when it looks up from under the hood, green eyes glitter in the light.

“Oh, Maggie, how bold you’ve grown.”

“It’s Jennet. Who the hell are you?”

The figure sweeps a deep and ironic bow. “Liam. Ma’am.”

“Miss,” Jennet corrects with knee-jerk reflex. “And that’s still no answer to why you’re skulking around in my woods.”

Liam stands to his full height, pulls back his hood, removes his hands from his pockets, and steps into a slanting shaft of late afternoon sunlight. Motes and pollen dance in the air between them, and his hair sparks gold and straw. Jennet lowers her mobile as he spreads his arms, palm up.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks.

“No,” Jennet says.

He grins. “Good.”

Jennet presses the 9 button twice. The electronic beep is harsh and flat in the small, mist-battened clearing.

Liam No-Last-Name laughs. “I’m no threat to you, Mistress Carterhaugh. Nor to your guests. I come for you, only.”

“
Come
for me?” Jennet repeats, both eyebrows caterpillering towards her hairline. “And you think that
doesn’t
sound threatening?”

“I live down the way,” he says, gesturing vaguely behind him. “I walk the woods often. More now that I’ve clapped eyes on you. I saw you, at the funeral.”

Jennet sucks in a breath, hands suddenly shaking. “Right, now you’re sounding like a creeper. Just so you’re aware.”

“I came upon it by accident, I swear,” Liam says, hands now towards her, placating. “And you looked so sad.”

“I was burying my father!” Jen snarls.

“Of course,” Liam allows. He looks younger when his smile dissolves, his face relaxing into pity, the lines falling away. Far too young for a man who is now suddenly holding her free hand, a thumb running along the back, soothing and very obviously attempting to be seductive. Succeeding, if she’s honest.

Right,
Jennet reminds herself,
this is how missing persons reports begin.
But there’s something so
entrancing
about his touch, the look in his green, green eyes. Something …
irresistible.

His breath is sweet and cool against the back of her hand when he lifts it to his cheek, eyes closed as if the texture of her skin is the most exquisite silk. “And in your bedroom window, such
sorrow
upon your face when you look to the woods.”

Right, no. Never mind. The spell is frayed with a sharp slap of worried disgust.

“You’re a stalker,” Jen says, and it’s meant to be an accusation but it comes out far more weak, like there’s is something … different in his touch. Something calming. Something nearly magical, only there is no such thing as magic.

She reaches for the self-righteous fire she throws at all the men who think a woman of Jen’s age and marital status are easy prey, but finds it banked into a small coal of absent-minded worry. She has nothing to throw. That’s … wrong.

“A stalker, no. I am an
admirer,
and you must admit, I am a polite one,” Liam purrs. “No obnoxious boom boxes, or pebbles thrown at your window. Put away your mobile, Jennet.”

She swallows hard and pushes her mobile into the back pocket of her jeans, unthinkingly. Then she wonders why she did it. She reaches for it again, perturbed that she did as she was asked so quickly, so neatly, but is distracted when Liam’s grip on her hand shifts. He slides them so that they are palm to palm, fingers folded over the backs of each other’s knuckles, and he pumps her hand in a slow shake.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Carterhaugh,” he whispers. His eyes are gravity wells. As deep and as appealing as Da’s grave.

“Pleased to make yours, Liam,” she replies, enchanted far too easily by his smooth manners.

He raises her hand to his mouth, brushes a dry kiss across the back of it. Then, from somewhere behind him, he produces a flower. It is one of the late-blooming wild roses, two blossoms fully blown on a single stem.

Jennet can’t help it. The spell is broken. She throws back her head and guffaws.

He stands there, roses upheld, looking equal parts surprised and hurt.

“Oh, your face!” Jennet howls. “Did you think that would
work?
”

“It always has,” he pouts. “Do ladies no longer like roses? Have they fallen out of fashion?”

“Do you
hear
yourself?” Jennet laughs. “You sound like a period drama!”

Liam drops her hand and turns away, obviously upset, and rubs his free palm on the thighs of his dark jeans.

“Oh, come on,” Jennet says, calming down. “Don’t get your feathers in a ruffle. It’s a very nice rose. And your manners are lovely. And I do appreciate you not throwing rocks at my windows.”

He turns back to face her, face twisted in a strange rictus of amusement and horror. “Ladies are not at all what they used to be,” he says, definitive.

“Nope,” Jennet agrees. “And thank the Lord for that.”

Liam runs a frustrated hand through his hair, and gold fluffs up like dandelion down. “You’re not making this easy, Jennet,” he huffs.

“What’s meant to be easy?” Jen counters. “Me?”

“Oh, no,” he says, eyes immediately round and apologetic. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Tell me how you meant it, then, and choose your words carefully.” She pats her back pocket expressively.

“How is a man enchanted with a woman meant to behave, if not like this?”His arms spread in askance. The heads of the roses bob, as if to agree with his frustration.

“Well, threatening the safety of a woman by behaving like a horrible creeper is right out of fashion, now-a-days,” Jen says, and she can’t help the lilt of tease that slips into her voice at the end.

“And what then?” Liam asks, receptive to her smile. His frustration is ebbing, replaced with interest in her explanation.

“Most guys chat up women in the grocery store, or in a bar,” Jennet says. “Somewhere
public,
you know? Sometimes they even
call
a girl. Or message them on the internet. Send them cards, or knock on their doors. Anything but skulk around, alone in the forest with roses and cheesy lines.”

Liam grins puckishly and dips another theatrical bow. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

Jennet snorts. “Only because I decided to listen to you instead of brain you with a branch. Which I may yet regret.”

“Oh, no you won’t, Jennet,” Liam vows, his eyebrows and the tilt of his chin serious. “I’ll do nothing to make you regret giving me this chance.”

Jennet snorts again. “Who says I’m giving you any chance? Cocky.”

He holds out the roses. “Please?”

Jennet reaches out and plucks the flowers from his hand. A thorn bites into her thumb and it feels good, feels
real
, so she lets it stay. She buries her nose in the topmost blossom, breathes in the fresh air, good sunlight, clean soil, crisp water. Life.

His smile doubles, not in size but in brightness. “Will you allow me to escort you home, Miss Carter?” He crooks his elbow.

“No,” she says. “You’re still a strange man who’s been staring in my bedroom windows. I should report you to the police.”

“But you won’t,” he hazards, more hope in his voice than she thinks he knows.

“I should.”

“But you
won’t
.”

Jennet twists her mouth into a moue of disapproval. “You’re a forceful fellow, and too young for me. Go home, Liam, and forget your stupid crush. And I’ll forget to report a trespasser on my property.”

Liam bites his bottom lip enticingly. “Or you could meet me here again tomorrow and we could talk again.”

“That’s not happening,” Jennet says, grinning as she waves the rose at him, “But good try. If I see you in these woods again, I
will
be calling the police. Good day, Liam.”

“Good day, Miss Carter,” he replies, and turns back into the shadows, and vanishes.

“How much time do we have?” Liam asks as he pops out from around a fir tree.

“
Jesus!
” Jennet yelps, hand pulled close to her breast like a Victorian heroine. Liam laughs and bows a little hello and waits with hands folded behind his back for her to swallow her heart. “Time until
what
, you
lunatic?
”

“Until the police arrive,” Liam says, as if this is the most obvious answer in the world. “You said you’d call them, and you must have seen me out by the forks, or you wouldn’t have come down to the woods. So, how long until they arrive?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“So I know how much time to woo you I have left,” Liam replies. His mouth, his plush bottom lip, is serious; but his emerald eyes spark with mischief. “If it isn’t long, I shall have to forgo the longer poem for a sonnet. They’re not as good, but they’re quick.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jennet says, pulling her shawl around her shoulders. She hadn’t thought to put on her pea coat this time, too peeved at having caught a glimpse of Liam from her library chair as she was going over the accounts for the first week of the B&B. She had just stormed out, intent on slicing into him with the sharp edge of her tongue. “I haven’t called them.”

“Oh, Miss Carter, you do care!” he crows.

“I don’t. I just don’t think it’s fair for an obviously bright young man to get nicked for something that is – and I am really giving you the benefit of the doubt, here – a harmless misunderstanding. Now don’t get it into your head that I condone stalking, because pestering and street harassment are very real crimes. But you seem to be under the illusion that this is allowable, and it’s absolutely, one hundred percent
not
. So. You’ve been told. I’ve made it perfectly clear.
Do not
wander around my woods alone, staring through my windows again. Shove off.”

“I don’t mean to be making you uncomfortable, Jennet,” he says, and his regret does seem genuine. “I’m not
stalking
. I just like looking at you.”

Jennet throws up her hands and sighs loud and long. “Which is the
exact
definition of stalking. So, here it is, my last mercy.” She reaches out and flicks his forehead hard with her fingertip, leaving behind a small red mark. “Are you listening? Next time I
will
call the police.”

Next time she
does
call the police, but they never find Liam. Not even any footprints, they say, none that are recent enough to have been imprinted on the ground less than an hour prior.

The fourth time, he walks up to her in the supermarket, while she’s trying to decide between two brands of butter, and slips a bottle of red wine into her hand-cart.

“There now,” he says softly, a dark purr beside her ear, “Is this a more appropriate way to chat up a woman?”

“Much,” Jennet says, but doesn’t give him the satisfaction of turning to face him. She continues to contemplate her butter.

Silence. Liam rocks on his heels and Jen reads labels.

“Well, what happens next?” Liam asks, and his voice held a note of a petulant whine.

“Oh, you really are bad at this,” Jennet says, and puts one of the tubs back onto the chilled shelf. She places the butter in her basket, pats his shoulder consolingly, and wanders down the aisle. “Thanks for the wine. Good choice.”

She leaves him standing there, mouth hanging open.

“Jennet!” he calls, scrambling across the slick tiles after her. “Really. Please. What do I have to do to catch your attention?”

“You could
ask
for it,” Jennet suggests, now deeply engrossed in picking a brand of yogurt.

“I … you …” Liam gawps for a few minutes, and Jennet is happy to realize it is the first time she has giggled since her father died. The realization dampens the glee immediately, but she forces the smile to remain. “Jen … Jennet Carter!”