“About what?” Jace asked, pausing what he was doing.
“That once the baby gets here and everything gets more real, he’ll get scared again and leave.”
“I’ve known Liam a long time, Molly, and y’all’s parenting journey didn’t get off to the greatest start, but he would never leave his son. He knows what it’s like to have an absent father—he wouldn’t do that to his own kid. Besides,” he added, “he knows I’ll kill him.”
“Yeah, sometimes I just get in my own head. It’ll pass.”
Jace studied the instruction manual that came with the pool table. “This doesn’t look that bad, honestly. Add the legs and we’re pretty much set,” he said, closing it and pulling the pieces out of the box. “Youwork on hanging the small stuff, like the dartboard, while I work on putting this together.”
For three hours, Jace worked on assembling the pool table and hanging the panels on the wall. Once he finished that, he arranged the couches to make a small seating area off to the side of the pool table.
Everything was coming together like I’d pictured it. I was so thankful for Jace. Without his help, I never would’ve been able to pull this off. As we finished the final details and made our way back into the house, I glanced up at the clock. Liam would be home in half an hour. We were done just in the nick of time.
“Look at us, working together without fist fighting,” I said, smiling at Jace as he grabbed a cold water from the fridge. He twisted the cap off and took a long gulp.
“I’m going home before you con me into another project,” he said, laughing.
“Liam will kill you if you leave me here alone for even a minute,” I joked, but truthfully, the thought of being left alone out here terrified me. I was at least a ten-minute drive from Silver Creek. If another one of those goons found me and I had to call for help, it would be too late by the time Liam or anyone else got here.
“I’m kidding,” Jace laughed. “No way in hell am I leaving you alone with everything going on right now.”
“Who do you think is after me?”
“Have you upset anyone recently? Maybe an angry customer from a while back that you forgot about?” he said, searching for an explanation.
“No,” I said. “I’ve spent hours trying to figure it out, but I can’t think of a single person I’ve upset lately. No angry customers, no random strangers I’ve argued with at the grocery store—literally nothing comes to mind.”
“If you think of something small, even if you don’t think it’s important, you need to tell Liam. It could be the missing piece to the puzzle he’s trying to put together.”
He must’ve seen the worry on my face. It was getting harder and harder to hide. “It’s exhausting always feeling like I have to watch my back.”
“Liam will figure out what’s going on, Molly. You have to know that. He won’t let anything happen to you. He’s doing his best with the evidence he has,” Jace said, trying to cheer me up.
“You know me, I’m a social butterfly. Being locked away like Rapunzel in her tower sucks, no matter how nice Liam made this house big ol’ house.”
“Speaking of the devil,” Jace said, pointing as Liam made his way up the driveway.
I watched from the window as Liam hopped out of his truck and headed toward the front door.
He glanced at Jace, eyeing him curiously as he walked in the door. “Why do you look like you just ran a marathon?”
“Oh, you’ll figure it out soon enough.” Jace laughed and took another gulp of water.
“When you go home, can you remind Cassie about girls’ night tomorrow?” I asked Jace. “For obvious reasons, we have to have it here.”
“Trust me, I don’t need to remind her. She’s been talking about it all week—can’t decide if she wants to bring her pickle pinwheels or lil smokies. She acts like her life depends on choosing the right answer.”
“Those sound amazing. Tell her to bring the pregnant lady both,” I said, practically begging.
“Will do,” he said. heading out until the next time he got to babysit his little sister.
Once Jace was gone, Liam pulled me in, giving me a long, soft kiss. “How was your day?” he asked, kissing my neck gently.
“It was good—even better now that you’re here.” I giggled as his kisses continued to pepper my neck.
“What did you and Jace do all day?”
“Well, actually, I have something to show you,” I said, smiling. A worried look flickered across Liam’s face. “You’re gonna love it—I think,” I added, trying to reassure him.
