“Thanks.”

“I mean it.”

“Thanks even more, then, biker boy.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Now, shoo. Go home to your kid.”

Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight for a long minute, and it was so unexpected that Posey felt her eyes prickle with tears. She kissed his cheek again. “You’re a good guy, Liam Murphy,” she whispered. Then, a little embarrassed at the proclamation, she pulled back. “Go on, git,” she said. “And thanks.”

Inside, with Shilo licking her face and wagging so hard he knocked over an end table, Posey found that she was still smiling. Even with the Tates ending their night on an off note, Liam had really come through.

NOPE. THAT HAD NOT been cool. The joy of riding his Triumph was gone as Liam made his way from Cordelia’s back into town. The Tates hadn’t wanted him with Emma, but they sure didn’t want him with someone else. Not now, anyway. And of course, they’d busted him at the very moment he’d been picturing Cordelia naked and underneath him. Bad enough that he’d deflowered, then stolen, their precious daughter. Now he was—in their minds, anyway—cheating on her.

Liam pulled into the garage, figuring the walk home might cool him off a little, give him time to figure out how to make this okay. The thing was, being out with Cordelia had been pretty fantastic. She’d been upset, he’d made her feel better, they’d had fun. It had been a long time since he’d felt so…well, so good. You’re a good guy, Liam Murphy, Cordelia had said.

It wasn’t something he’d heard a lot in his life.

Enter the Tates, almost on cue to remind him just how not-good he really was. Not only was Nicole left alone— Liam, the negligent father, was out with another woman. The warmth from being with Cordelia evaporated as he walked through the quiet streets of Bellsford. He hadn’t heard the end of this, he was quite sure.

He opened the door of the apartment building and ran up the five flights of stairs. Heard the sound of the Ramones and smelled popcorn. Nicole must’ve finished that paper. Good girl.

Then Liam opened the door, walked into his apartment, and found Tanner Talcott and Nicole sitting on the couch, entwined around each other, kissing like a meteor was about to hit the planet and end life as they knew it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“YOU CAN’T GROUND me for kissing someone!” Nicole yelled.

“I already have grounded you!” he yelled back. It had been three days since Nicole had aged him fifty years—three days of whining, sobbing and yelling—and if he could magically turn her mute, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

“You’re so unfair! I’m sixteen years old, almost! I should be able to kiss my boyfriend!”

“You weren’t grounded for kissing that boy! It was for breaking every rule I have! You were home alone, Nicole! No guests! You know that! Let alone a horny boy who just wants to get into your pants!”

“Our clothes were totally on! Maybe he doesn’t just want to get into my pants, Dad. Maybe he loves me!” She burst into tears and threw herself into a chair.

Emma, you really screwed me by dying, Liam thought irrationally. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. He took a deep breath. “Stop crying, Nic,” he said in a calmer voice. “I’ll drive you to school.”

She cut him a glare. “I’m taking the bus.”

“Get your stuff and get in the car, Nicole!”

There should be some drug for fathers of teenage girls. Something that calmed your heart so it didn’t practically rip through your chest. Something that could soothe the fury your daughter could inspire, the absolute terror that something unspeakable would happen to her, the almost murderous sense of protection. Something that would give you the words to tell her that no one would ever love her as much as dear old dad, and if she just listened to him, she’d have a much easier time of things and be safe from boys who ruined her life.

Liam would bet his left nut that George Tate had wished for the same thing.

They rode to school in silence. When he pulled into the parking lot, she didn’t get out right away, just sat there, staring straight ahead. “I still get to go to the prom, right?” she asked, her voice defiant. “Tanner already bought the tickets, and they were, like, really expensive.”

No. You don’t ever get to go out with that boy again. Do you know how hard it was for me not to kill him the other night? Prom? Are you serious? Are you out of your mind? Absolutely not. Never.

But nearly sixteen years of fatherhood had taught Liam one thing—sometimes, it’s best not to answer right away. “Have a good day at school, and I’ll pick you up at 2:30. I love you, even if I’m really, really mad, Nicole. And I know you’re mad, too, but you’re grounded for your own good.”

Nicole answered with the Slitty Eyes of Death and got out of the car.

It was not with a light heart that Liam went to work. The smell of oil and machines, the faint bite of soldered metal, the cool echo of the garage that usually welcomed him failed to work its magic today. Usually, he loved coming to the garage. It was the one place he really knew what he was doing. When Liam was six years old, his father had asked him to help him take apart an engine. The car had been stolen, but Liam didn’t know that and probably wouldn’t have cared if he had. Father-son bonding times were few and far between. Dad may have been a mean drunk, but when he was sober, he’d been great with an engine. Liam had been hooked.

And now he had his own place, and work was going great. He was even hiring a kid from the vocational school. The bakery women had ordered a matching pair of custom bikes (who knew there was so much money in pastries?). They loved the design he’d made for them; he was just waiting for their down payment to get started. Right here in front of him was Jimmy Spencer’s Harley, which had a burned-out clutch. Liam could fix that in his sleep. Wires, connections, components, all fixable. After that, he had three custom gas tanks to make. He picked up a wrench and got to work on Jimmy’s bike, took off the housing and started disassembling the clutch plates.

Everything was so logical here. If you put something together the right way, it worked. The spark plugs didn’t just decide that the rules of mechanics didn’t apply to them. They didn’t just say, You know what? We’re not firing up today. No, there’s no reason. We just don’t feel like we should have to. Screw the distributor and its stupid wires. We don’t care. Maybe we’ll care tomorrow. Maybe not. We’ll let you know. Or we won’t. We might hate you tomorrow. Count on it, in fact. No, if the spark plugs didn’t work, there was a good reason for that. Not like fatherhood.

And not like marriage.

That was another thing. His wife had left him a long time ago. Long before she got sick. She might’ve lived in the same house and slept in the same bed, but she hadn’t really been there, not when it was just the two of them. He could tell in the way she listened to him, her mind elsewhere even if she made the right response, in the way she distanced herself from him just a little when they were out in public. He could tell in bed. What had once been that kind of soul-to-soul connection dwindled into a pleasant physical exchange, until all Liam had was the mother of his child and the woman who slept on the other side of the bed.

And then she’d died and taken even that and left him with a daughter. A daughter who seemed determined to ruin her life the same way her mother had.

“Damn it!” Liam yelled, throwing a wrench across the garage, where it clattered against the wall.

“Dude, chill,” came a voice.

He straightened up, then closed his eyes. Red-faced Rick Balin. Again. The blowhard came in three times a week at least and thought nothing of wasting Liam’s time.

“What can I do for you, Rick?” he asked. “I’m pretty busy.”

“Dude, I’m ready to make a commitment, right? And nothing but the best, okay? I can afford it.”

“Sure,” Liam said tightly. “Come on into my office.”

Rick wanted the best, all right. He looked through some of Liam’s basic designs, adding features like a kid in a candy store. An S&S motor, Italian leather seat, custom-cut aluminum alloy wheels. Shortened handlebars, which Liam would send out to be chromed, to accommodate Rick’s rather stubby arms. A turn here, a swoop there, more chrome here. He wanted the whole thing to be powder-coated a bright orange.

The price tag would be just over sixty grand.

“Not a problem,” Rick said. He suppressed a burp, then leaned back and gave Liam a self-satisfied grin. “A man’s gotta treat himself right, know what I’m saying, dude? And hey, I work hard. I deserve it.”

Liam looked away, his eyes settling on the Gypsy Tour medallion. There was no doubt about it. He hated Rick Balin. It was more than the fact that the guy was an obnoxious, lazy, entitled pain in the ass…there was something else. Something visceral.

“Get out,” he said.

Rick blinked. “What’s that?”

“Get out, Rick. I’m not selling you anything. There are enough idiots on motorcycles in the world. I’m not gonna add one more to the roster. Buy your midlife crisis somewhere else and get out of my garage.”

“Dude—”

“Now.” He stood up, and Rick shrank back in his seat—well, shrank back as much as a three-hundred-pound man could.

“You’re making a mistake,” Rick said as Liam grabbed his beefy arm and towed him toward the exit.

“Doesn’t feel that way,” Liam said.

“You can’t do this to me! I’m the president of the Downtown Merchants Coun—”

Liam closed the door in his face.

It should’ve felt good. It did feel good, even if he’d just flushed a year’s worth of tuition payments down the toilet. But Rick…he was like that kid who’d called Liam no one from nowhere. Someone who felt entitled to everything.

Something flashed in Liam’s memory…something from high school, something to do with Rick…but then it was gone.

He had the sudden urge to see Cordelia, and without further thought, he flipped the Open sign to Closed.

VERY, VERY CAREFULLY, Posey set the porch railing in place on the model house she was building, then held it as the wood glue set. Of all the models she’d built, The Meadows was most involved—try making stained-glass windows that were half an inch high. But she loved it; it was such a contrast to salvage, where everything was taken apart. Now she was building something. From the tiny slate shingles on the roof to the turned balusters of the porch, the model would be an almost exact replica. Vivian would love it.

She glanced over at Shilo, who happened to be sleeping on a black-and-white cow-skin-covered couch, meaning he was almost invisible. He was snoring, having exhausted himself by hiding from Al the UPS man earlier that morning.

She was pretty tired, too. Thoughts of the letter had been keeping her up at night. What had her birth mother wanted? Was she heartbroken because Posey never answered? Did Posey have biological siblings out there somewhere? And why would her parents keep that from her? How would they react when she brought this up, because really, how the heck could she not bring this up?

“Hey.”

At the sound of Liam’s voice, Posey jumped, knocking the railing askew. “Dang it. Hi, Liam,” she said, feeling her face warm. She straightened the railing and looked up at him. There was Elise, standing behind Liam and grinning hugely, mouthing the words Oh, my God! as her hands fluttered in excitement. “How are you?”

So hot! Elise mouthed.

“Great.”

He didn’t look great…well, he always looked pretty great, actually. At the moment, though, he looked clenched, his mouth grim, jaw tight, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. “Want to grab lunch?” he asked.