Liam's Witness Protection (Man on a Mission 4)

“It’s not always about money,” Liam threw in.

“I know that. For people like Angelina—and Alec, too—the jobs they do mean everything to them. They are protectors. It’s in their nature.” Her voice dropped. “You too, Liam. I haven’t thanked you for saving my life. I should have thanked you yesterday, but I...”

“I’m not looking for thanks.”

“I know you’re not. But I’m grateful anyway.” She drew a deep breath. “I don’t want you to think I take you for granted. That I take your protection for granted. I... I don’t. Even though it may have seemed like it this morning.”

Liam wasn’t sure what to say. Part of him wanted to tell Cate the truth—that she’d hurt him immeasurably when she’d assumed he was abandoning her. And that he was falling for her. But another part of him knew it was best not to say anything about that. She was starting to trust him. Trust was a huge step for Cate. He didn’t need to throw anything else at her. Not now. Not yet. Time enough for that later...assuming what he was feeling was the real thing, and not some crazy, misguided knight-errantry.

So all he said was, “I understand. So long as you understand me. So long as you understand I care about keeping you safe.”

“I do.”

“Okay then.”

Another long silence was broken only by the voices from the front of the plane. Then Cate said, “Tell me about your family. About your brothers and sister.”

“What do you want to know?”

Her tone was wistful. “I was an only child, and after her brother’s death so was Angelina. That’s one of the reasons we’re so close, I think. It must be nice being part of such a large family.”

Liam chuckled. “Well, when I was little I wanted to be an only child, so what does that tell you?”

“You did?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I love my family. But sometimes a kid can feel as if he’s lost in the shuffle when there are so many.” He caught the quizzical expression on her face. “I wasn’t the baby of the family. That was Keira, my younger sister. But I was the last boy out of four boys. It seemed as if anything I wanted to do had already been done by my older brothers. Better than I could do it, too.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true. And being as I was only eleven months younger than Alec, we were always competing with each other when we were younger.” He laughed abruptly as a cherished memory rose in his consciousness. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I was the day I gave Alec a black eye.”

“You fought with your brother?”

“Hell yeah, all the time.” He cast her a rueful grin. “Shane and Niall—my two oldest brothers—were constantly at each other’s throats, despite the fact that they presented a united front to the world if an outside threat should arise. Alec and I were the same way. We could fight with each other, but woe betide anyone who tried to take on either of us one-on-one. He had my back and I had his in that situation.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “But if you love your brother, how could you fight with him?”

Her disbelief amused him. “It’s what boys do, Cate. And in a large family, competition for attention and affection can get pretty fierce at times. Studies show that sometimes children act out—misbehave—if that’s the only way they can get their parents’ attention.”

“Is that what you did? Misbehave?”

“No more than any normal kid. I won’t try to tell you I was an angel growing up, but neither were any of my brothers. Our parents grounded us occasionally, but we deserved it—even if we would have denied it at the time. And there were times we deserved it that we skated by.”

Her face crinkled in puzzlement. “Grounded? Skated? I don’t think I—”

“Skated means we got away without punishment, kind of like an ice skater scooting away from trouble. Grounded is a type of punishment that can be particularly effective for kids—it means being confined to the house, or your room, or something like that, except for school and church.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll bet you were a perfect little angel growing up,” he teased. “You probably were never grounded.”

She laughed. “No, I wasn’t perfect, but I never gave anyone a black eye, either.”

He laughed, too. “Alec and I don’t fight like that anymore. Actually, I don’t think we physically fought each other once we entered our teens. But competing—yeah, we continued to compete until the day I turned eighteen and joined the Marine Corps. After that, we only competed against ourselves. The Marine Corps has a way of turning a boy into a man despite himself.”