Page 24 of Rejected Heart (The Westwoods #5)

LIAM

I heard the footsteps approaching from behind me before I felt the gentle touch on my shoulder. Before I even saw her face or heard her voice, I knew it was my sister.

But I didn’t move or speak.

My eyes remained on the lake in front of me.

Jules squeezed my shoulder, shifted her body around the chair beside me, and lowered herself onto the seat.

I kept my attention on the water and the way the setting sun hit the surface at just the right spot.

“You’ve been quiet today,” Jules noted.

I closed my eyes, seeing Layla’s face as I did. When I opened them, I replied, “I think I’m quiet every day.”

A lengthy silence ensued before she replied. “This is different, Liam. You know it. And I hate to think it’s my fault, that I’ve done this to you.”

She was right about this being different.

Because while I was typically the quietest of the bunch, I still celebrated with my family.

I still did my best to enjoy my time with them.

And though they’d grown accustomed to my reserved demeanor and quiet nature, never giving me a hard time about it, I always did what I could to be as fully present with them whenever we were together.

But I wasn’t feeling that way today.

I hadn’t felt much like celebrating.

It was the Fourth of July, and we were spending the holiday together at my grandparents’ lake house. I’d been particularly irritable today. The last thing I wanted to do was make my family worry any more than they already were, but I couldn’t bring myself to fake being happy, either.

Even if I felt as miserable as I did, I wouldn’t allow Jules to put this on herself.

For the first time since she’d approached, I tore my attention away from the lake and looked at my sister. Her expression was marred by regret. “It’s not your fault.”

She shook her head in disappointment. “I have a hard time believing that’s true, Liam. Don’t forget I know how you were prior to me sharing what I did a few days ago. I can’t help feeling like I forced you right back to those horrible days and weeks and months following your proposal.”

I couldn’t lie to her.

I wouldn’t.

But I also didn’t want her blaming herself or thinking she’d done anything wrong in this situation.

Unfortunately, things weren’t getting any better for me, so maybe it was best to talk it through like I had all those years ago.

“I went to see her.”

“Well, that explains some of it,” Jules murmured. “How did it go?”

I closed my eyes again and let out a deep sigh. “I don’t even know if that’s the right question. You’d be better off asking me how everything has been going since I went there.”

Jules turned in the chair, so her entire body was facing me. “I might have asked that if I didn’t already know the answer. Whatever happened, I know it wasn’t good. What did she say when she saw you?”

“Not much.”

“Really?” Her disbelief nearly matched mine that day.

I inclined my head. “Yes. Every time I spoke, she either said my name or she apologized.”

Jules took a moment to consider that response. “Well, maybe that could be a good thing…?”

“What’s a good thing?”

I’d been so caught up in my discussion with Jules that I hadn’t heard Tate make his approach. Even if he didn’t know for sure what our sister and I were discussing, I was willing to bet he had an inkling.

“Hey, Tate,” I mumbled.

My brother clapped me on the shoulder, squeezed, and sat down. “Liam. Jules.”

“Hi, Tate. Where’s Ava?”

He chuckled. “Fighting with the rest of the family over Roselle. It seems nobody can get enough of that little girl, so I took myself out of the chaos. I love my niece more than anything, but I’m convinced there’s going to be bloodshed over her soon.”

“The poor girl,” Jules murmured.

“Or the lucky one,” Tate countered. “I swear, she’s never going to want for anything. And if Rosie learns and understands how everyone feels about her and decides to use it for evil when she’s older, we’re in big trouble.”

“I’m sure Skye and Cooper will step in before things get out of control,” Jules insisted.

For the first time since I’d come to sit out near the lake away from the crowd, I smiled.

The mere thought of my niece was the one thing that could bring me a hint of joy.

Earlier in the day, I’d managed a laugh or two, and that had only happened because of her.

Not even the things that the rest of my family did that would have normally left me feeling good could do the trick.

Not today.

“So, I was watching as I approached, and it seems the conversation was a bit tense. Is everything okay?”

Jules didn’t give me a chance to respond and was all too eager to share the truth with Tate. “Liam went to see Layla two days ago.”

“Oh.” He hesitated for a bit, clearly needing a minute to digest that information. “How did it go?”

“I already asked him that,” Jules shared. “He revealed that Layla didn’t say much. She only apologized and said his name. And I thought that perhaps that was a good thing. ”

Tate looked in my direction and held my stare for a few beats. “Are you okay?”

I shrugged and answered honestly. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“I had a feeling. You were especially quiet today. So, she didn’t tell you what happened or why things went south for her?”

“Nope.”

Those questions had been rattling around in my brain for years. I had moments when the need to understand overwhelmed me, but I often found myself capable of working through it.

Now that I’d seen her again and knew she was in Landing for the foreseeable future, I didn’t think it was going to be so easy to push past the questions and pretend I wasn’t interested in learning the truth.

Didn’t I deserve at least that much?

Jules leaned in my direction, resting her weight on the arm of the chair. “How did she seem?”

Over the last several years, I’d learned to observe what was going on around me more than I had before things took that awful turn between Layla and me. But there was something about seeing her two days ago that had me resorting to old habits.

I didn’t pay enough attention.

As much as my focus was all on her, it was on the longing I felt seeing her there. It was on the questions I’d had rattling around in my brain for years about what went wrong between us.

And I was obviously distracted by her beauty.

It was as though I’d had those years of memories replaying themselves in my head as I stared at her.

Memories of running my fingers through her hair and holding her hand and kissing her mouth.

Some memories that had been buried for so long and only came to the surface when she was standing in front of me again.

For those reasons, I could only give Jules the most obvious response to her question. It was the only thing that stuck out enough for me to be unable to ignore. “More than anything, she seemed stunned.”

Jules nodded. “That sounds about right. I think it was the same for the both of us when I saw her, too. She might have been too stunned to speak, Liam.”

“She did speak, though. It’s just that she could only bring herself to apologize.”

“Well, maybe she’s sorry,” Tate reasoned.

“But for what? And why did it take her all these years to figure that out?” I countered.

“I don’t know. Did she say that? Did she tell you anything about what led her to leaving you? Maybe there’s a good explanation.”

Was that even a possibility? Was there any justifiable reason for rejecting my proposal and never even offering any clarification as to why?

I got nothing from her.

Not a hint of anything to indicate where I went wrong and what I’d done to push her away beyond admitting my proposal made her panic.

“She didn’t tell me anything. She only apologized. And the truth is, I think she did that because she couldn’t bring herself to say or do anything else. I only received that apology because I showed up at the store unannounced. It was the best she was willing or able to do in that situation.”

Silence stretched between us as Tate and Jules considered my thoughts.

“You know we love you, Liam,” Jules eventually began. “I don’t think any of us can deny what you went through for years. You have every reason to be upset and to feel frustrated. But maybe it was overwhelming for her to see you again after all these years.”

“It was the same for me. Do you know what that was like?”

“I know it must have been difficult.” She offered a sympathetic look. “And that leads me to draw some conclusions.”

My brows knit together. “Like what?”

She held my stare for several beats, the tension building in my body. “Can you tell me whether you were even in a place where you could hear the truth from her, whatever it might have been?”

I looked away, returning to my attention to the lake as I recalled my mindset that morning. I’d gone into it unsure of what would happen, but believing I’d be able to handle whatever did.

But one look at her made that conviction fly out the window. God, it was like everything inside me had stopped functioning altogether.

“I left so fast, she couldn’t have told me anything even if she wanted to,” I confessed. My throat was unbearably tight. “I didn’t expect how much I’d feel seeing her again.”

“Oh, Liam.” Jules’s voice was barely a whisper. When I looked at her, I saw the sadness etched into her features.

Tate’s expression mirrored our sister’s.

“I wish I knew what to say to you. But I don’t.

I don’t because I don’t know how you’ve survived this long without losing your mind.

Ava left for a couple of months at a time, and I was lost. And when things weren’t good between us, the tension I felt every time I saw her was unbearable. ”

I remembered that situation vividly.

I remembered how angry Tate had been when Ava left and didn’t come back when we all had expected her.

I also remembered telling him that he needed to be grateful she came back when she finally did.

Because at that time, in those moments, I’d told myself I would have given anything for Layla to return.

But now she was here, and I couldn’t handle it.

Maybe that was because she hadn’t exactly returned by choice. She hadn’t come here for me the way Ava had come back for Tate.

And I understood that she probably wouldn’t have been here if her mom hadn’t been in an accident.

But it hurt.

God, it hurt to see her and know that she didn’t want anything to do with me when she was all I thought about from the day she left.

“How can I possibly feel like this after all this time?” I croaked. “This is excruciating. ”

“Maybe you should try going to her again,” Jules suggested. “She didn’t ask you to leave, did she?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Tate reasoned. “Maybe she’ll be better prepared if she sees you again. And not to throw it in your face, but I do recall you telling me to just fix it when I was being stupid about things between Ava and me. Why can’t you tell yourself the same?”

I could have.

I should have.

There was no question I desperately wanted to.

But there was one small problem.

“Because there’s a difference between your situation with Ava and mine with Layla.”

“Which is?”

I pressed my lips together, not wanting to admit the painful truth. “Ava came back because she wanted to be here. Layla came back because she didn’t have a choice.”

Jules wasn’t giving up. “Maybe that’s true, Liam, but I don’t think that it means you can’t work it out. I think there’s still a chance if you want to try for it.”

If it had been any of my siblings in this scenario, I would have been doing precisely what Jules and Tate were doing right now.

I wished I could have done it for myself.

But after so many years of hurt and betrayal, I felt the overwhelming urge for self-preservation.

If I kept putting myself out there, it was sad to admit, but she had the power to destroy me worse than she did the first time.

I wasn’t quite sure I could survive it again.

“Is this where all those who need cheering up are going?”

At the sound of the newcomer, I twisted my neck and looked back to see Ava making her approach.

“Are you sad about something?” Tate asked his wife.

She made it to him, settled herself in his lap, and shared, “Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t manage to steal Rosie away.”

Thoughts of my niece put a smile on my face again. She really was the best thing that had happened to me since Layla.

Apparently, Jules was on a roll with urging others to do what she wanted them to do. “You know, you two could just make a baby of your own. Then you wouldn’t need to fight for Roselle.”

“You just want to be an aunt again,” Tate teased.

“Of course, I do. And I’m thrilled Wyatt and Rhea are making it happen. Are you telling me you don’t want to be a dad?”

The thought of a third baby in the family was so bittersweet. I’d love nothing more than to be an uncle to all my siblings’ children. Roselle had proven just how much love I had to give to them.

But there was one small part of me that was jealous. I’d gone from being the guy who thought he was lucky to have found the woman of his dreams so young to being alone. All the plans I’d had for getting married and having a family of my own went right down the drain.

“At this point in my life, there’s nothing I want more, Jules,” Tate answered .

Ava quickly added, “Tate and I are working on it.”

Jules let out a shriek of delight. “Oh, I can’t wait. There’re going to be so many babies.”

My mouth curved into a smile, despite the painful ache of longing I felt in my chest.

“Sorry, Liam,” Tate lamented. “This probably isn’t helping.”

“Actually, it is. More babies in the family are something that I can look forward to. Right now, Rosie is the one thing that puts a smile on my face and makes me feel genuinely happy. So, keep working on it because I’m all for more babies.”

Silence settled over the four of us. And ten minutes later, Marco and Ivy joined us. Over the course of the next thirty minutes, Wyatt and Rhea joined along with Cooper and Skye.

Conversation had successfully drifted away from Layla, which might have seemed like the distraction I needed. But when the fireworks over the lake began an hour later, nostalgia hit me. I thought back to the last summer Layla and I had together and felt a twinge of yearning.

She should have been here.

All these years, she should have been by my side.

And right now, Layla should have been my wife, settled in my lap, and cuddling close as we celebrated together and watched the fireworks light up the summer night sky.

Instead, I was here alone, wondering where she was and if she ever thought about me even a fraction of the time that I spent thinking about her.