Page 123 of Road Trip
Maeve pushed on the door, but it barely budged. She leaned her weight into it and it fell open.
Her first impression was of the smell. It was dark and dank and smelled of mold and dirty socks and hot garbage. Spiderwebs crisscrossed the walls and the corners of the room. The brick floor was littered with fallen leaves and bits of debris. There was a bed of sorts, an army cot with a rough woolen blanket tossed atop it. A soapstone laundry sink stood next to an unspeakably filthy toilet. She was astonished that anyone could have lived here, even an alcoholic, ill-tempered person like Reggie, the former handyman.
Esme pointed to the propane camping stove with pride. “That should keep you toasty tonight. There could be a bit of a chill in the air later, when the sun’s gone down.”
A chill? Maeve already found the shed as cold and dank as a tomb, if tombs came furnished with revolting toilets.
She saw a movement out of the corner of her eyes, a blur of something gray with a long tail. Sinead gave a sharp bark and pounced, snapping her jaws around the thing’s head and shaking it, sending droplets of blood into the fetid air.
“Good girl!” Esme exclaimed.
“Jesus! A rat!” Maeve shrieked, backing out of the shed.
“I can’t. I won’t…” She grabbed the handle of her wheeled suitcase and ran as fast and as far away from Esme and her shed as she could.
She made it to the rental and heaved her suitcase into the trunk. After that, she didn’t stop to think. Miraculously, she remembered the way.
His Jeep was parked out front. She knocked, he answered, and she fell, sobbing, into his arms.
CHAPTER 53
Liam’s arms closed around her. “Oh my darlin’, what is it? What’s happened?”
She pressed her face against his bare chest, inhaling the clean scent of his soap, breathing it in like an oxygen-starved high-altitude mountain climber.
“There was a rat,” she said, hiccupping as she said it. “A huge rat that ran right across my foot, and the dog got it, and I think… I mean, there was blood on his fur. And there were spiders everywhere, and it stank, really stank, and it was so cold…”
“Whoa now,” Liam said, stroking her hair as though she were a child waking up from a nightmare. “What sort of hell on earth are we talking about?”
Maeve was sniffling and sobbing, twin trails of tears and snot streaming down her cheeks. He took her arm and gently guided her into the living room. “Sit. I’ll make some tea.”
“Tea… would be good.” She couldn’t stop shivering.
Liam’s dog edged closer, her expression wary. After a moment, Lucy rested her muzzle in Maeve’s lap, as though it was a perfectly normal part of her routine, comforting hysterical women who showed up on her doorstep.
And then Liam was back. He handed her a tissue and a mug. “Blow your nose and sip that now. Don’t try to talk.”
He sat down beside her on the sofa and waited. He was dressed for bed: barefoot, shirtless, wearing only baggy flannel pajama pants.
The tea was steaming hot, with honey and lemon and something stronger, she thought.
He stretched an arm around her shoulders, and she curled into him. “There’s a jigger of brandy in the tea,” he advised. “That’s what my mum always gave us when us kids had an upset.”
Maeve closed her eyes and let the hot liquid trickle down the back of her throat and the warmth of the brandy warm her belly.
Lucy nudged her hand, so she scratched the dog’s head and then her ears.
When she’d finished the tea, Maeve set the mug carefully on a coaster on the coffee table and said the first thing that came to her mind.
“I can’t get over this place. I’ve never met a man with such an immaculate house. I never met a man who owned coasters.”
Liam threw his head back and laughed. “So you’ve come to me, out of the blue, to compliment my housekeeping, in the midst of whatever trauma you’ve just suffered?”
Maeve sniffled and nodded.
“What can I tell you? I was raised with two brothers who were world-class slobs. I swore that as soon as I was on my own, with my own place, I would live with peace and calm and order. My shameful secret is my recessive tidy gene.”
“When I told Therese what a neatnik you were she said she thought maybe you were gay.” She ducked her head to hide the blush blooming on her cheeks.
