The worry in her eyes was more than he could take. “Come here.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest as he pressed his nose to her hair. It managed to have a calming effect on his entire body.
And really, when it came down to it? All of this outside nonsense was insignificant. What was important was the woman in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she kissed his neck.
He moved back just far enough to look down into her face. “Why in the world are you apologizing to me?”
“Liam, once she figures out who you are, it’s going to go much further than just some local blog. And when she gets her hands on the fact that I’m pregnant? I don’t even want to know.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I flat out refuse to let whoever the hell this woman is mess with our relationship. I refuse to let anybody mess with it. People can write whatever they want to write. At the end of the day, we both know the truth.”
“We do.” She nodded.
“And what’s the truth?” He cradled her jaw in his hand, tracing her cheek with his thumb.
“Are you testing me?” She raised her eyebrow.
“Just making sure you remember. What’s the truth, Harper?”
“That I love you and you love me.”
“Exactly. Everything else isn’t important. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and turned, leading her to the bathroom. “We aren’t letting anyone put a dark smudge on this trip. We’re ending on a high note.”
“A high note?”
“Yup, you screaming my name when you come in the shower.”
* * *
Bethelda’s little call to arms in figuring out the identity of Liam/Scruff McGruff took seventeen days to finally yield the answer she’d been looking for, and with it a few more facts. It came out the day before Liam was flying back to Mirabelle from Australia.
THE GRIM TRUTH ROCK A BYE, BYE BABY
It’s all fun and games until someone gets knocked up. Yup, that’s right folks, she’s not fat. She’s just pregnant. VV is procreating, Lord help us all. And the knocker-upper? Well, I’m guessing it’s a certain mystery man who has been hanging around our area for the last few weeks. But he isn’t that much of a mystery anymore.
The man in question is actually a country musician (name rhymes with Shmiam Shames) if you feel so inclined to classify him as that. The man doesn’t have all that much talent to speak of, but at least he’s pretty. Though I will say his taste in women is rather questionable.
I was pretty curious to know how VV sunk her claws into a semi-famous singer. But it’s really all because McGruff sunk something else into her. Another case of “I can’t keep my pants on despite my nose…or all common sense, logic, or reason.” Because really if he’d just taken a few moments to think he wouldn’t have gotten himself into a situation like this.
Who really knows what drew him to VV in the beginning, but I’m sure that the only thing really keeping him around now is the fact that she just might be carrying his child. For his sake, he really should get a paternity test (along with a few other tests if you know what I’m saying. Who knows what the woman is carrying besides the bun in the oven).
I still don’t really see this whole relationship lasting. It’s got an ice cubes chance in hell if you want my oh-so-humble opinion. But we shall just have to wait and see now won’t we?
Yup, so the pregnancy was out along with Liam’s identity. And there were certain words in that stupid article that had stung more than others. But it didn’t send Harper over the rails. She knew for a fact that Liam wasn’t with her just because they were having a child. He’d made that quite clear.
He loved her.
Bethelda didn’t have the power to take that away. No one did.
But there was a part that did infuriate Harper beyond all reason: Bethelda insulting Liam. “Not all that much talent to speak of” her ass.
“Forever” had been officially released almost three weeks ago and not only had it already cracked the top one hundred downloads on iTunes, but it was steadily climbing. Country music stations were getting frequent requests for it, and Harper heard it on the local station daily.
Those were the facts. Another fact was that Bethelda was probably suffering from gonosyphilherpes and it was beginning to affect her brain at this point.
Actually, Harper was still surprised that it had taken that long for someone to figure out who Liam was. Maybe it was because Bethelda’s minions hadn’t known what they were supposed to be looking for. How were they to know that he was a celebrity of any sort? Harper hadn’t known who Liam was when’d she’d gone home with him that first night…or after spending the weekend with him.
No, she hadn’t found out until six weeks later.
She supposed that was the power of the radio though. You knew the voice and the name, but not necessarily the face. Well, not until the name got a whole lot bigger. Kind of like Tim McGraw, or Keith Urban, or Taylor Swift. Liam’s touring mates were another prime example. If Isaac Dylan or Hunter Andrews walked into a bar, a lot of the people in it were going to know exactly who they were.
But Liam was gaining on recognition, and it was only going to grow as the video for “Beyond the Limits” was scheduled to be released in less than a week. Not only was Liam going to be singing right alongside Isaac and Hunter, but there was the association with Mason-Dixon…
And Kiki Jean Carlow, otherwise known as Harper’s least favorite person of all time…and yes, the woman had beaten out Bethelda.
Bitch was tryin’ to steal her man.
Liam had told Harper everything about that entire situation, everything that had gone down on the video shoot and before then. Kiki had apparently ruined the song for him and he wasn’t looking forward to the video being released in any way, shape, or form.
And after he’d told her about it, she wasn’t, either. Liam with another woman made her go about fifty shades of jealous. And they weren’t pretty shades, either. More like a wheel of the ugliest colors a person could think of, like rust or taupe or mold green.
But she knew what was going on, and there would be no surprises on her end. It was a fact that made her slightly guilty that she still hadn’t told Liam about the newest Bethelda article.
Though to be fair, he’d been in the air during a twenty-four-hour flight…and when he’d gotten back to Mirabelle they hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time talking. They’d spent hours getting reacquainted in other ways, which she hadn’t had a problem with in the slightest as she was a veritable hornucopia.
And good Lord did the man deliver in everything she’d needed. He left absolutely no doubt in her mind as to how much he loved her body or that he still wanted her just as much even though it was changing.
And was it ever changing.
She’d gained back the majority of the weight she’d lost, filling out her curves to the fullest. Her breasts were now in the DD range and the bump at her belly was no longer a slight rise. She was visibly showing and her clothing was no longer camouflaging the pregnancy. It was well past the point of the expertly draped dresses and flowy tops that she’d bought with her mother a few weeks ago doing the trick.
Obviously, as Bethelda had figured it out. And she was going to tell Liam just as soon as she got home. But really how was she going to have told him when she’d been at work all day and he’d been sleeping to get over the jet lag/time difference.
A time difference that had been the bane of her existence for the last two and a half weeks.
But she didn’t have to deal with that now. What she did have to deal with was the crowd of people currently at the Piggly Wiggly at five thirty on a Friday afternoon. And of course she had Liam on the phone helping her shop, because why wouldn’t she?
“So what’s today’s craving?” his voice rumbled low in her ear. He’d only just woken up and had called her while still lounging in bed.