Ma gasped, turning away from me as if I had just committed some cardinal sin.
“Mrs. Parker, why don’t you go get some coffee and I’ll sit with Liam for a few minutes.”
She was going to protest. I could tell by that indignant look on her face and how she stiffened, but at the pointed look Caroline shot her, she backed down.
“Oh, fine. But only five minutes.”
As she stormed out of the room, I breathed my first sigh of relief all morning. “Thank you. These moments are so rare.”
“Yes, and now you’ll have to stay with her while you recover since you no longer have a house.”
There was that as well.
“Maybe Jeff will take pity on me.”
“When does Jeff ever do anything for pity’s sake?” she grinned.
“You may have a point.”
She pretended to fluff my pillows, which I now understood meant that she had something to say to me. Everyone who dropped by seemed to think that fluffing pillows was some kind of segue into a deeper conversation.
“I hear Bailey hasn’t been by yet.”
I grunted, not wanting to talk about her or the fact that she stormed out of the hospital that very first night I was brought in.
“It’s odd, don’t you think?”
She was never going to drop this, and she wasn’t the only personwho had felt it absolutely necessary to discuss Bailey when they came to visit.
“Why would it be odd? We’re not together.”
“But you were in an accident. You nearly died.”
“Nearly,” I emphasized.
“And that calls for a little sympathy.”
Maybe she was right, but I had hurt Bailey badly. I wouldn’t be surprised if she never wanted to talk to me again.
“Is there a chance you two will make up?” she asked hopefully, stepping back, but not making eye contact.
“I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“But you didn’t actually sleep with another woman!” she gasped.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I know you, Liam Parker. You are one hundred percent in love with Bailey Bennett, and you have been since the first grade.”
“Third,” I muttered. Couldn’t anyone get it right?
“See? You don’t even deny it.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s going to come running back to me just because I could have died in a fire.”
“No, but if she knew?—”
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” I interrupted.
