The Call of Bravery

On day three of his emotional withdrawal, Lia braced herself to talk to him. Not for her sake, she told herself, but for the boys’. She found her moment when he came into the kitchen alone to grab a drink.

“Something’s going on with you,” she said directly. “What’s wrong?”

“Huh?” Conall turned from the refrigerator. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve changed.”

His face was devoid of any expression. “I’m doing a job. It’s past time I paid a little more attention to it.”

“And we’re not part of the job.” Chilled, she began snapping green beans into a bowl, her head bent so she didn’t have to look at him again. Humiliation crept over her. She sounded like an outraged wife. No, not outraged—whiny.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. The boys have been helping me finish up in the barn.” His voice softened. “You should come and see what we’ve done. They feel good about it.”

“Later,” she managed to say. “Or I’ll go out in the morning.”

He stepped close to her, close enough she could feel the heat of his body, and said huskily, “Lia…”

She moved aside, evading his hand, pretending she had to run water into a pan. “Let me get dinner on,” she said, in some approximation of a normal voice.

There was silence. Finally he left, and she heard the front door open and close a moment later.

Of course he came to her room that night, and of course she could no more resist his lips and his touch and his body than ever. But afterward she lay rigid beside him, not relaxing against him as she’d been doing, and he didn’t draw her close, either. Instead, after barely a couple of minutes, he rolled toward her, brushed a gentle kiss on her forehead, murmured, “Sleep tight,” and left as silently as he’d come.

* * *

HE SPENT A GOOD DEAL of the next day up in the attic with Jeff, leaving the boys to their own devices, which meant they followed Lia around and kept saying, “I’m bored.” She offered to kick the soccer ball with them, and Brendan mumbled, “You’re not very good at it.” Finally Lia saddled the horse and pony, something she didn’t do very often, and gave the boys a riding lesson. Afterward they were happy to help her comb out tangled manes and tails and learn to brush in the direction the animal’s hair lay. She showed them how to check hooves for stones and clean out packed mud and manure, and they were all sweaty and horsey smelling by the time they went in, which meant taking turns in the shower.

She told herself she was relieved that tonight was Jeff’s turn to join them for dinner. Brendan took Conall’s meal up to him and came back more quickly than usual, his shoulders hunched. He stayed quiet at the table, Lia watching him covertly.

What a jerk, she fumed. Conall must have been brusque with him. Hurt my feelings, she thought, fine. But not the boys’.

Not until after dinner, when Sorrel disappeared upstairs to spend time on the computer and Walker and Brendan decided to watch TV, did Lia have time to brood.

What had changed? She couldn’t figure it out.

The boys were upstairs getting ready for bed and Lia was rinsing plates and loading the dishwasher when she thought again about the way Conall was all but leaping out of her bed the minute he was done with her these past few nights. With an icy tingle, she remembered thinking, As if he longed to be gone.

Yes, that was it exactly. And it wasn’t only the sex. It was everything. He’d had fun here for a while, but he wasn’t anymore. Conall was ready to wind this operation up and move on to one that was more exciting. One that might give him a real shot of adrenaline.

She had gone completely still, scarcely conscious of the hot water pouring over her hands. The most awful pain tore through her, a brushfire that seared and blackened all of her as it burned. A small sound escaped her, quiet but raw.

She’d been fooling herself all along. He was using them as a diversion. The boys filled his idle afternoon hours, and she met his sexual needs. Full stop.

Lia felt cheap suddenly, no better than Sorrel probably had after some dirty old man had let her out of his car. Angry at herself, too, because she couldn’t even blame Conall. He’d never been anything but honest. He’d wanted to avoid case of terminal boredom while he was here, and she’d offered herself up because…oh, because she was lonely and probably starved for sex or maybe only for tenderness and the illusion that somebody actually loved her.