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I had refused to cry over Liam ignoring me on a night that I had believed was going to be the beginning of something for us. But this accusation was too much. He had taken my already-wounded feelings and shown me just how much power he had over my emotions.
He had never asked me about my childhood or my parents. My past hadn’t seemed important to him. He thought he knew it all because of the things Selena had told him. He’d had no desire to find out from me. While Country had asked me all about my life, growing up. He knew more about me than the father of my child.
I dropped my head into my hands and let out a small sob.
Ozzy whimpered beside me, but I couldn’t reassure him. I needed to cry.
29
Liam
I stood at her door, listening to the sound of her sobbing. That wasn’t what I’d meant to do. It had all come out wrong, and I’d gotten so fucking pissed that she hadn’t seemed to give a shit about the death of her mother. Her not going to her mom’s funeral or grieving with her sister had seemed so unlike the woman I was getting to know. All the things Selena had claimed Liberty was didn’t match up to the friendly, charming person that she appeared to be.
My club adored her. All of them. Hell, Nina had teared up and hugged her tightly when we left. Then, there was Ozzy. He was in there with her now. Until Liberty, he’d never left my side for anyone other than Cree. Dogs were supposed to be better judges of character than humans.
The only factor here was Selena. Yeah, I had believed what she’d said because she was a well-respected doctor. She had it all, and Liberty didn’t. Wouldn’t an older sister tell the truth about her younger sibling? It seemed to me there had to be a lot of hurt caused by Liberty for Selena to dislike her so much.
Shit just didn’t make sense.
Listening to Liberty’s cries, however, was more than I could handle. I wanted her to stop. I liked it when she was smiling and laughing. This was brutal, and my own damn chest felt as if someone were stabbing me with each heartbreaking sound.
I started to knock, then changed my mind and turned the knob.
Pushing the door open, I took a step inside, then saw her on the bed, her face red and splotchy, lashes spiky from the tears. Her eyes lifted to meet mine, and she wiped at her cheeks with both hands, as if trying to hide the fact that she had been crying from me.
A deep growl snapped my attention from her, and I saw Ozzy standing at the corner of the bed, looking at me with disapproval. He’d never growled at me. That didn’t ease the way I was feeling. He was protecting her, which meant he trusted her over me.
I looked back at her as she crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes shifting toward the far wall and glaring at it. The tight line she was trying to make with her mouth didn’t mask the quivering of her bottom lip.
Dammit. What had I gotten wrong?
“You’re right,” I told her, but she didn’t stop glaring at the bare wall. “I don’t have a college education. I barely finished high school. The men I am closest to, the brothers I trust, none of them went to college. Hell, a few have even been in jail at some point.”
She sucked in her bottom lip to stop the tiny trembling it had been doing.
“I made a lot of unfair assumptions about you. Before I knew you were also the sexy bartender who I took to her motel room and had unbelievably spectacular sex with, you were just Selena’s sister, and she told me things about you that I took at face value. I saw no reason she’d lie about it. But I shouldn’t have labeled you like I did. I’m sorry.”
I stopped when her eyes finally swung back to me. The pretty honey-brown color shone with more unshed tears.
The urge to go to her and pull her into my arms and kiss away all that sadness was really fucking strong, but I had more to say. She deserved it.
“I’m an asshole. Even my dog seems to be smarter than me,” I said, motioning to Ozzy, who was now standing between us like he was ready to protect her at all costs. “Liberty, would you please tell me about your parents? Why you didn’t go to college like Selena did. Why you and Selena aren’t close. I want to hear it all from you. Not because I believe what she said. I don’t. Not anymore at least. But I want to know about you. You’re going to be the mother of my child, and I’d like us to respect each other. And I know I have to earn that from you, and I’ve done a piss-poor job so far of earning any respect, but I’m changing that. Starting right now.”
A single tear ran down her face, and she sniffed, uncrossing her arms and reaching up to wipe it away. Right now, she looked so young, but then she was, especially compared to me. There was also a lot of sadness in her eyes, and I would do just about anything to make that shit go away.
She lifted her chin, and her eyes met mine again. “Until I was seven years old, I lived in Charleston. My mom, dad, and I lived across the street from his mother, Mama D. It was perfect. Then, my Mama D got sick and passed away when I was six years old. It was hard on us all, but my dad struggled with it. Seven months later, my momma was in a car accident that killed her on impact. Nothing was the same after that.” She paused and sucked in air, then dropped her gaze to her hands.
“When my dad was in college, before he met my mom, he had a girlfriend, Abilene, that he got pregnant. They’d been broken up when she told him about it, but then she told him that she’d aborted it. After Mom died, that ex-girlfriend contacted him through Facebook. She hadn’t gotten an abortion, and her daughter wanted to meet her father.” Liberty let out a deep sigh.
“He packed us up, and we moved to Ocala so he could be near his other daughter. He wanted me to have a sister, and I think he truly believed Abilene would help ease the void in my life that Mom and Mama D had left.” A laugh that wasn’t from humor but sounded more seeped in pain came from her. “That wasn’t the case. Abilene hated me. Selena tolerated me, but she blamed me that our father had been with me and my mom. He hadn’t known about her. It was never his fault, but instead of blaming her mother, Selena pinned that hurt on me.
“When I was ten, my dad was in the hospital after having a heart attack. As soon as she heard, Abilene went and checked Selena out of school, then rushed to see him. They were with him when he died.” She shrugged. “My school was right next to Selena’s, but Abilene didn’t think to get me. So, I never made it to the hospital to see him before he was gone. And that was the first day of eight years in hell.”
Anger built inside me with each word she spoke. However, I wasn’t sure who I was angrier with—me or Selena or the bitch Abilene. I took a step toward her, and Ozzy growled again.
“The week following my dad’s funeral, Abilene moved me from my bedroom to one in the basement. It was the only finished part of the basement. The rest was one open area with a washer and dryer, but nothing else. I was given a twin mattress on the floor as my bed. Selena took my bedroom, along with my furniture. Which happened to be furniture I’d picked out with my mom on the last birthday I had with her.” She sniffled and rubbed her face again, and then her stare hardened.
“So, no, I didn’t go to Abilene’s funeral. I didn’t even send flowers. I had shots of tequila with some friends instead. Not one day in that woman’s life had she been even remotely kind to me.
