“You already told me you were rich. I was asking about—”
“You were asking about my family because you think I’ll get homesick and return to them, and you don’t give a damn about my money. I know,” he says quietly with his back still turned. “Hence the reason I’m in Tomahawk.”
He blows out a long breath as he pulls out two bottles of water, and he shuts the fridge door before moving to the other side of the bar across from me.
I take one of the bottles, opening it and taking a sip, as he continues.
“At first I was excited, and I wanted to give my family nice things. We’d never been close, but I thought this would bond us all. Stupid to look back and see how naïve I was.”
He laughs humorlessly as I grow confused.
“Anyway, I paid their bills. I gave them vehicles. I handed them credit cards. Eventually, it just became expected that I would finance their lives, but I never got anything in return. No family Christmases. No Thanksgiving dinners. Nothing. I’m almost thirty, so family seems to be more and more important the older I get, yet I couldn’t even have a Christmas dinner with mine. Then when I got hurt, I finally asked them for something. After years of paying for everything and giving them all they asked for, I asked them for something. You saw how that worked out. You were the only one there.”
Absently, I start peeling the label off the water bottle, unable to continue staring into his intense eyes, because I’m seconds away from believing he’s never leaving Tomahawk and launching myself at him like a crazy girl.
“I cut them off just before I moved out here. I’m sure they’re trying to call me or visit me now, but they don’t have my new number or know where I live anymore.”
My eyes shift up to see a sad smile on his lips.
“They’re adults. They can fend for themselves,” I assure him.
His grin grows. “I know. I’m not worried about them. They can start selling all the pointless things they’ve collected—with my money—over the years to sustain them for a while.”
“I doubt they’d believe you moved to Tomahawk,” I finally say just to cut the tension.
He laughs lightly, looking down, seeming almost boyish.
“When they realize how very serious this all is, they’ll try harder to track me down. I took precautions to cover up where I moved to, though. So that answers your question about my family. I want something real, Shirley. And you’re the only thing I’ve wanted for myself in too long to remember.”
Rabbit hole, here I come.
“I don’t do open relationships,” I decide to say. Might as well list all the things I won’t do. Far shorter list than the list of things I will do.
His grin grows. “I’m not in Tomahawk to be with anyone else. How many times do you need to hear that?”
“I’ll let you know when I come up with a ballpark figure,” I say with a straight face, causing his grin to continue to spread wider.
Someone knocks on his door, and I stand, mud flaking off me and tracking behind me as I walk, resuming the list. We both need showers.
“I’m a terrible cook,” I tell him as I open the door.
Josie Simon is there, and her eyes widen in her head as she holds a casserole dish in her hands. I love her momma’s chili casserole, so I grab the dish just before she squeaks a shrill sound and takes off running in the other direction.
Looking through the clear lid, a smile spreads over my lips. Definitely the chili casserole.
Shutting, the door, I look to see Liam’s smile now taking up his entire face. “I’m an excellent cook,” he assures me, not commenting on Josie’s squeaky departure, as the sound of a car flying out of the driveway sets up some background noise.
He also pulls out a fire extinguisher and puts it on the counter, his lips twitching when I glare at it for a minute.
“I can’t be in the Vincent corner of crazy too many days in a row,” I go on, putting the dish on the bar. “Unless no one finds out.”
He leans forward as I lift the lid, and he hands me a fork that I happily accept.
Just as I put a forkful in my mouth, he says, “I recently bought some land on the Malone corner of crazy.”
I swallow painfully as he regards me with a smirk.
“My new cabin is being built as we speak. It’ll be about the same size, but it’ll be more personalized as far as tastes go,” he goes on.
I put down the fork, no longer hungry.
“You bought land on my side of the lake? And you’re building a cabin?”
He nods slowly. “Looks a lot like that one,” he says, gesturing with his head toward the picture on the wall that I painted of the cabin I’ve always dreamed of building. “Only bigger with extra room for painting. Or doing sculptures. I have a wood shop being put up. Things like that.”