Tommy’s Baby, Page 2

  “Liza, you’re a smart woman. You got scammed, okay? If they were obvious loan sharks, no one would go to them. But they make it seem like it’s legit, like they’re the answer to your problems. It wouldn’t be profitable to seem shady.”“You make a good point, or at least a comforting one. And I’ll take any comfort I can get at this point.”

  “You’ll figure it out. You will. I just wish you’d tell me where you went.”

  “I think it’s better if you don’t know,” I said, my voice resigned.

  If no one knew where I was, they couldn’t get information out of them to find me. I had flown under a fake name—it had been expensive to fake paperwork, but it was necessary. If I didn’t want to be found, I had to take it seriously.

  “Still trying to protect everybody else,” she said, clucking her tongue at me.

  “Yeah. It’s because I love you.”

  “Love you too. Now go do some relaxing for a change.”

  “More like hiding out and problem-solving, but I’ll get right on that. Bye.”

  I sighed. I could do this. I was determined. I was resourceful. I’d gotten myself some space and time to think. Even though Tommy wasn’t in the equation, I’d be fine. I hadn’t leaned on him in years. Truth was, I hadn’t depended on anyone since him. He had been the one and only man I’d ever trusted completely and knew I could count on. He’d never made me sorry for it, either. I hoped I never made him regret it. I regretted a lot of things. Loving him wasn’t one of them. It was too much to ask that he’d feel the same even after all this time. I clenched my jaw and braced myself when the taxi pulled up to my hotel. It wasn’t as bad looking as I expected. Of course I had lost all my optimism in the wretched unspooling of my life as I knew it. So naturally I had expected the sort of motel you would’ve seen in a horror movie.

  I would handle this. I’d make a new life for myself. On my own.

  Chapter 3

  Tommy

  The only thing worse than stocking was inventory. Thankfully, Connor took care of most of the ordering, the boring stuff with numbers. I liked to be front of house, making conversation, leading dances, making drinks. Connor claimed it’s because I was a natural show-off. He wasn’t wrong. There was nothing showy about hauling crates of liquor and stacking them, bringing in boxes of plates and glasses to replace the inevitable breakages. We were rolling into the height of tourist season, our crowds bigger than ever. And nobody drops shit like drunk frat boys.

  We were already well in the black, but after Morgan’s article went to press about the O’Shea brothers in St. Martin, the pub started overflowing every night. Instead of having a line three nights a week, it became an everyday thing and started earlier every time, it seemed. Connor was making noise about expanding, making the dining room bigger so we could accommodate a larger crowd, maybe even extend the scarred mahogany bar to line up more stools. So far it was just speculation, but I think he was serious. I thought it over as I hauled stuff.

  Guinness and good, simple pub fare had kept people coming back. Tourists trickled in thanks to some help from local resort concierges recommending the place in exchange for free beer back in the beginning. Now it was standing room only every night. I shook my head. I was proud of all my brothers, but Connor had probably overcome the most and deserved every bit of his success.

  When the beer truck rolled up, I groaned. Not loud enough that my older brother would ask if I was too weak to move a crate of rum at my age. Just loud enough to express my frustration at the cases of beer that were about to roll in and need to be stacked. When I’d suggested having a part-timer do this tedious crap, Connor had given a speech about the owners needing to be involved in every aspect of running the place, and if we wanted things done right, an O’Shea had to do them. I hadn’t brought it up after that. So when Connor took his clipboard out to meet the truck, I started arranging crates that I’d already hauled from the larger storeroom around back.

  “He’s just about cutting his first tooth. Poor guy can’t sleep more than an hour without crying,” the beer truck driver said as he came in.

  “I hear you. When Lil cut her first tooth, I would’ve rather taken a bullet than hear her cry like that. I don’t think I ever heard a sound that tore me up like that, and I’ve seen men die. I would’ve done anything to make it easier on her,” Connor said.

  I cringed and went back in the storeroom. I didn’t want to hear about their kids, or hear my grouchy, stoic older brother opening up about how it broke his heart for his baby to suffer when he was talking to some random trucker. Ever since he’d found Brandi, and especially since they had Lilly, he’d been a different man. Still demanding, still grumpy, but more at ease with himself. And finally, happy. I was glad for him but listening to him talk baby problems with the beer guy set my teeth on edge.

  I didn’t know what was going on with me; why I felt this cavern of want opening inside me. A family. A wife and child, something of my own, someone waiting for me, counting the minutes till I got home, and we could be together again. It was foolish. It wasn’t how I’d lived my life. I liked being around people, and I loved women. I could go home with any girl I wanted. I didn’t need a woman tying me down, and I didn’t need a kid waking me up in the middle of the night. At least that’s what I told myself when the sick jealousy bubbled up in me.

  Connor came back in, looked me up and down appraisingly. “What the hell’s up with you? You look like you smell something that stinks.”

  “Maybe it’s you,” I said with a half-smile, wanting to play it off.

  “Showered this morning with my Irish Spring soap same as ever. Try again. What’s got your panties in a wad, baby bro?”

  “Nothing. I’ve got to finish up moving this crap around. I’m busy.”

  “Don’t act like you’re in a hurry to get back to it anytime soon. What’s got you so grouchy?”

  “Nothing. I told you I was fine. What are you up in my grill about?” I asked.

  “You’re too damn old to act like a cranky teenager, Tommy. Now tell me what’s going on with you.”

  “Fine. I just got to thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have a family, alright?”

  “You see what we got, and you want it for yourself?” He challenged.

  “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve just been thinking about it, or it’s been cropping up in my head the last few weeks. Being single and hooking up is getting old.”

  “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing besides stand around and gossip with my brother, it looks like. I got work to do. I don’t have time to shoot the shit about my feelings,” I said.

  “Learning to get in your feelings and acknowledge them was the worst part of therapy,” he mused. “It was worth it though, because Brandi deserved a man who was as whole as I can be.”

  “I’m not going to therapy. I did my debriefing and passed my mental health eval when I retired. That’s enough soul searching for one lifetime.”

  “I didn’t say you should. I’m just telling you what it did for me. But I do think you should look at what you want going forward.”

  “This is turning into a goddamn tampon commercial. Do we braid each other’s hair next?” I asked sarcastically.

  Connor, who takes no shit, just rolled his eyes at me. “If you want to act like a pissed off little boy, go ahead. You’ll wish you’d listened to me.”

  “It sounds like a curse when you put it like that,” I said.

  “Maybe it is one,” he said with a dry laugh and went back to what he was doing.

  Chapter 4

  Liza

  It was supposed to be the day I napped off my jet lag and then took a walk to get acclimated to my surroundings. I was supposed to relax. It’s too bad I was nervous as a cat. Even though I paid cash for everything. Even though I had dumped my cell and number before I even booked my ticket and gotten a prepaid phone. Even though I wasn’t using my name anywhere. I was sure they coul
d find me. It was only a matter of time. If the Mob wants their money, they get it. And they don’t let debts go unpaid.

  I was still hating myself for falling into the trap, for being so stupid, thinking it was the only answer. I didn’t know any better, and that was the truth. I’d had nobody to advise me, nobody to turn to, and I was determined, hell bent on making my dreams come true on my own. I just had to get a loan and pay it back a little at a time. It had all seemed so simple, the way I got myself in trouble. The interest kept rising. The payments needed to be bigger and bigger, more frequent. I couldn’t keep up with them. No one could have. Not even with a successful business. So here I was, on the run. Feeling the walls closing in even outside with a salty breeze to cool my burning cheeks.

  It seemed like everywhere I turned, every quaint street I walked, there were signs and ads for O’Shea businesses. An ad agency. A photographer. Diving and surfing and hiking excursions, and of course, the pub that started it all. I practically had the article memorized, so I knew which brother did what. Tommy had been the dark horse, the one in the background. Handsome as the devil, with a new edge to him, and those piercing eyes looking haunted. His eyes were the only part of him that appeared to have aged at all. Granted, he was bulkier, more muscular than he had been when he left for SEAL training. He had tattoos now, visible twists of dark lines up and down both arms. I bit my lip, wondering where else he had ink. I shook my head at myself. I had to quit obsessing about an ex-boyfriend from years ago. He sure as hell wouldn’t be thinking of me. He was probably married with kids. If not, he’d be surrounded by women begging him to take them to bed.

  My cheeks colored at the thought. Women would be smart to beg him for that. I had been in his bed, and I’d been chasing that high my entire life practically. No one else ever did anything to blur his memory or make me stop thinking of him every time I went to bed with a boyfriend who wasn’t Tommy. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of him, that I didn’t fantasize it was him nearly every time.

  I was alone on the streets of St. Martin, having made my way from the sketchier part of town where I was staying to the tourist areas. There were delicious spicy scents pouring from restaurants and cafes and food trucks. I swallowed hard. I had a budget to keep, a strict one. I couldn’t just shell out ten bucks for nachos just because I was sad and lonely and worried. I kept looking over my shoulder, stopping to look around for anyone watching me or following me.

  I was sad and anxious. I waffled between wanting to go hide in my bare-bones motel room and wanting to get fresh air and learn about my surroundings. And even when my mind wandered from my immediate dilemma—in hiding from a loan shark with Mob connections—I tortured myself by thinking about the one that got away. The guy I had compared every other date to for my entire adult life, and the guy who made every other man seem to come up short.

  When I was working eighteen hours a day at my restaurant, I definitely hadn’t spent time obsessing over him. It was now that I was out of a job, out of my entire life I’d left behind, that I was brooding over the past. That and being on the same island where he lived, being near him after so long apart. That had to be it. Nostalgia. I was sentimental. My life was in major upheaval. Of course, I was reminiscing about what I thought was a happier and simpler time. A time when I had all my life before me with no major mistakes in it yet. A dream of owning my own restaurant and a great guy who loved me and made me feel like a million bucks. If I could go back in time for five minutes and tell my younger self one thing, it would be, “Don’t do it!” Don’t break up with Tommy. Don’t try to start your own restaurant without a real bank loan. Just don’t. Because you’ll be thirty-one years old running for your life with nothing left but regrets, a few hundred bucks, and a fake passport.

  I wandered into a drugstore and looked at the hair care aisle, wondering if I should dye my hair red. Brown would be more ordinary than my usual honey blonde, but I had always wanted to be a redhead. I shook my head and decided to save the money. It would just have to be one more thing I’d always wanted that I wasn’t going to get.

  I’d promised Sam that I wouldn’t beat myself up anymore. I’d promised I’d do some sightseeing and try to relax and worry about a plan tomorrow. After I’d had some sleep and unwound a little. I’d been such a nervous wreck for the last few weeks. It was like I’d been caught in a dust devil, something painfully hot and dry and out of control that swept me up and shook my life upside down. All I could really remember was wishing so hard that it had all been a bad dream. But it wasn’t. I’d fought the inevitable for months, managing to stave off the worst of it with partial payments and cutting kitchen staff and cutting corners on everything. I’d given up my apartment before it was over and slept in my office on the couch. I’d put every dime I could manage and then some into those ballooning payments that came due more and more often and were collected by a series of increasingly scary men. Originally, they were well-dressed and cordial, progressing toward men who showed up with tattooed knuckles and an obvious sidearm. It had been a nightmare, but not the kind you can wake up from. The kind that followed you home.

  About the time that my stomach was cramping with fear again, I saw an ad for the pub. That bolstered me, just seeing the O’Shea name in writing. That whole family was here somewhere, on this island. It made me feel better for some reason. Like maybe this wasn’t hopeless after all. Like maybe hiding out in St. Martin wasn’t the worst idea.

  Back at the motel, I took a quick shower—the light in the bathroom didn’t work, so I hurried. Sliding in between the slightly clammy sheets, I sighed. It was humid. Not terribly hot, but the air conditioning was old and noisy, and it seemed like a dehumidifier would’ve been a good investment for the place. Although for what I was paying, I shouldn’t complain. It had a lock on the door. It had a bed. What else did a woman on the run need, I thought ruefully.

  Tommy O’Shea, my mind announced. That’s what I needed. The love of my life, back from the past and magically forgiving me, missing me as badly as I suddenly missed him. We’d been high school sweethearts, went to prom together, lost our virginity together. He kissed me at the top of the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier while the sun went down, and to this day it’s the most romantic thing that ever happened to me. He, by himself, Ferris Wheel or no Ferris Wheel, was the most romantic thing to ever happen in my life.

  Even our last night together, the night before he left for his first overseas deployment, had been perfect. It wasn’t just the intensity and innocence of first love. There had really been a connection between us. A connection I had let go of because I’d been lonely. I couldn’t imagine going months or a year without seeing him. Not when we were so young, and the whole world was at our feet. Now all I had was debt and clammy sheets and a temporary, cash-only existence before the last of my luck ran out.

  Months of refusing to feel sorry for myself finally caught up with me. I was so damn lonely. So alone, with no one in my life even knowing where I was, no one to lean on or to ask for ideas to get out of this mess. It was just me.

  I gave in. Thoughts of Tommy swept me away, the force of memory bringing tears to sting my eyes. Had it been ten years since the last time I’d felt that loved and known and safe? I ached with that realization. I felt swallowed up by years of regret and loneliness. There he was in my mind. So tall and strong, all swagger after his training, after being the fifth member of his family to earn a place among the elite Navy SEALs. He’d come back from training with a tattoo—an anchor—so proud of himself, his arrogance having a hint of boyish irreverence that made it adorable.

  All he had was a couple of weeks before his deployment to Iraq, and we’d spent every second together. We’d gone swimming, gone boating, made dinner together in my tiny apartment that I shared with a nursing student who was gone a lot. He’d laughed until he clutched his sides when he tried to put me through a modified SEAL workout and I’d failed everything except the plank. Thank God for yoga, was all I could say. It was the onl
y thing that kept me from being completely humiliated. I’d even coaxed my big, strong Navy SEAL into a yoga class where he proved that flexibility was not his strong suit.

  Mainly we’d had sex. So much sex. On the couch, the kitchen counter, in the shower, in the bed, on the floor. In the back of the car, in the driver’s seat when we got so carried away that I hit the horn with my ass and we both started laughing uncontrollably. Once in a bathroom stall at a bar. We couldn’t enough of each other, especially after being apart for weeks. And I had carried bitter sadness in my throat the whole time, knowing he was getting ready to leave me all over again. We didn’t know if he’d be gone six months or a year, if he’d be able to so much as email me while he was over there. While he was in the worst danger imaginable, the kind of danger he’d struggled and strived to qualify for.

  So the last night, we’d stayed in. I’d listened to him go on about how he was excited, how he was going to make his brothers proud, live up to their reputation and make his mark. Fight for his country and defeat the bad guys. I’d burst into tears and told him that the distance was too much for me, that I’d give anything if he’d just stay in Chicago, but that I knew that wasn’t who he was. That I’d never ask him to give up his dream for me. But I couldn’t live like that, alone and worried about him all the time, missing him instead of living my life. We both deserved better than that. He deserved one of those wartime sweethearts content to write letters for years and wait patiently. I wasn’t patient—never had been.

  “You’re leaving,” I’d told him, “and I’m so proud of you. I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I am of the man you are and the man you’ve become and what you’ve achieved. I just can’t do this anymore. Every night when I try to shut my eyes, I see you blown apart,” I’d sobbed. “I love you, and it’s killing me already. I am so afraid to lose you.”