Unsung (25 page)

“Exactly. Everything else isn't important. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and turned, leading her to the bathroom. “We aren't letting anyone put a dark smudge on this trip. We're ending on a high note.”

“A high note?”

“Yup, you screaming my name when you come in the shower.”

Bethelda's little call to arms in figuring out the identity of Liam/Scruff McGruff took seventeen days to finally yield the answer she'd been looking for, and with it a few more facts. It came out the day before Liam was flying back to Mirabelle from Australia.

Yup, so the pregnancy was out along with Liam's identity. And there were certain words in that stupid article that had stung more than others. But it didn't send Harper over the rails. She knew for a fact that Liam wasn't with her just because they were having a child. He'd made that quite clear.

He loved her.

Bethelda didn't have the power to take that away. No one did.

But there was a part that did infuriate Harper beyond all reason: Bethelda insulting Liam. “Not all that much talent to speak of” her ass.

“Forever” had been officially released almost three weeks ago and not only had it already cracked the top one hundred downloads on iTunes, but it was steadily climbing. Country music stations were getting frequent requests for it, and Harper heard it on the local station daily.

Those were the facts. Another fact was that Bethelda was probably suffering from gonosyphilherpes and it was beginning to affect her brain at this point.

Actually, Harper was still surprised that it had taken that long for someone to figure out who Liam was. Maybe it was because Bethelda's minions hadn't known what they were supposed to be looking for. How were they to know that he was a celebrity of any sort? Harper hadn't known who Liam was when'd she'd gone home with him that first night…or after spending the weekend with him.

No, she hadn't found out until six weeks later.

She supposed that was the power of the radio though. You knew the voice and the name, but not necessarily the face. Well, not until the name got a whole lot bigger. Kind of like Tim McGraw, or Keith Urban, or Taylor Swift. Liam's touring mates were another prime example. If Isaac Dylan or Hunter Andrews walked into a bar, a lot of the people in it were going to know exactly who they were.

But Liam was gaining on recognition, and it was only going to grow as the video for “Beyond the Limits” was scheduled to be released in less than a week. Not only was Liam going to be singing right alongside Isaac and Hunter, but there was the association with
Mason-Dixon
…

And Kiki Jean Carlow, otherwise known as Harper's least favorite person of all time…and yes, the woman had beaten out Bethelda.

Bitch was tryin' to steal her man.

Liam had told Harper everything about that entire situation, everything that had gone down on the video shoot and before then. Kiki had apparently ruined the song for him and he wasn't looking forward to the video being released in any way, shape, or form.

And after he'd told her about it, she wasn't, either. Liam with another woman made her go about fifty shades of jealous. And they weren't pretty shades, either. More like a wheel of the ugliest colors a person could think of, like rust or taupe or mold green.

But she knew what was going on, and there would be no surprises on her end. It was a fact that made her slightly guilty that she still hadn't told Liam about the newest Bethelda article.

Though to be fair, he'd been in the air during a twenty-four-hour flight…and when he'd gotten back to Mirabelle they hadn't exactly spent a lot of time talking. They'd spent hours getting reacquainted in other ways, which she hadn't had a problem with in the slightest as she was a veritable hornucopia.

And good Lord did the man deliver in everything she'd needed. He left absolutely no doubt in her mind as to how much he loved her body or that he still wanted her just as much even though it was changing.

And was it ever changing.

She'd gained back the majority of the weight she'd lost, filling out her curves to the fullest. Her breasts were now in the DD range and the bump at her belly was no longer a slight rise. She was visibly showing and her clothing was no longer camouflaging the pregnancy. It was well past the point of the expertly draped dresses and flowy tops that she'd bought with her mother a few weeks ago doing the trick.

Obviously, as Bethelda had figured it out. And she was going to tell Liam just as soon as she got home. But really how was she going to have told him when she'd been at work all day and he'd been sleeping to get over the jet lag/time difference.

A time difference that had been the bane of her existence for the last two and a half weeks.

But she didn't have to deal with that now. What she did have to deal with was the crowd of people currently at the Piggly Wiggly at five thirty on a Friday afternoon. And of course she had Liam on the phone helping her shop, because why wouldn't she?

“So what's today's craving?” his voice rumbled low in her ear. He'd only just woken up and had called her while still lounging in bed.

Really, why in the world should she give a flying flip to that stupid Bethelda article when there was a sexy, scruffy, gorgeous man waiting for her to get home?

Yup,
perspective
. That was what she was learning. See, being rational was possible even while pregnant.

“Tacos for dinner, and Oreos for dessert.” She sidestepped the man in the Jimmy Buffett T-shirt who'd been blocking her path pretty much the entire time she'd been shopping. He had no regard for anyone else in the aisles shopping around him.

“With milk?” Liam asked, his voice magically pulling her away from her annoyance at Mr. Cheeseburger in Paradise. Asshole in the Piggly Wiggly was more like it.

Again, it was all about
perspective
.

“Is there any other way to eat them?” She grabbed the hard-shells and put them in the cart.

“You dunk them right away or lick the center first?” The grin in his voice was obvious.

“Liam, could you have made that sound any more inappropriate?”

“I could try.”

“Oh, I'm sure you could.” Harper propped the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she grabbed the cart again and started pushing, heading for the produce section.

“Do we have the ingredients to make fresh salsa?”

“Let me check.” He shifted in bed and the sheets ruffled through the phone.

While he went to the kitchen, she hunted for ripe avocados, because guacamole sounded like the greatest thing ever.

“That's a negative, rubber duck. You're going to need to get onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and lemon juice. Geez, woman, did you go grocery shopping at all while I was gone? You've got nothing here unless we're going to eat peanut butter and jelly.”

“And this is why I'm at the grocery store. So shut it.”

“Did you just tell me to shut it?”

“Yeah I did.” She headed to the tomatoes and threw a couple into a plastic bag. “What are you going to do about it?”

“As soon as you get home I'll show you. And it will be a very similar experience to how I eat my Oreos.”

A shiver ran down Harper's back as a blush crept up into her cheeks. “Is that a promise?”

“You bet your sweet ass it is.”

“Language, Mr. James.”

“Oh, you like my mouth. And feel free to call me mister when you get home and I use it on you.”

Home. Home to him. God, how she wished all days were like this.

“Deal. I'm getting off the phone now. You're distracting me from shopping.”

“Translation: you're getting all hot and bothered as you look at the eggplant.”

“Hanging up now.” She snatched a bag of cilantro as she rounded past the herbs.

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.” She grinned hugely as she hung up, sticking her phone in her purse before she went to grab an onion to add to the cart.

Five minutes later she had everything she needed and was heading to the front of the store. There was a line at each of the open registers, so she went to number ten at the very end because it seemed a tad bit shorter. Her prime number tendencies weren't all that important in the moment. All she wanted was to get out of there and get to the man who was waiting for her.

Waiting to do wicked things to her with his mouth. Yes, that was a good thing to focus on. A much,
much
better thing to focus on.

The line shifted and she moved forward, loading the groceries onto the belt while the woman in front of her paid. When the last item was up on the belt she stepped back and glanced over to the stand next to her, her eyes catching on the tabloids. There were the usual articles discussing the supposed demise of another A-List couple, or if so-and-so was coming out of the closet, or how aliens had abducted what's-his-name.

But none of those were what caught Harper's eye. No, it was the tabloid with a massive picture of Kiki Jean Carlow front and center. She was batting her baby blues at the camera and grinning. Right next to it was a separate—and smaller—headshot of Liam.

Has Kiki Jean Carlow Found Love with Musician Liam James? Is She the Girl from His New Hit Song “Forever”?

Seeing his name connected to Kiki's almost had Harper losing it right there in the middle of the Piggly Wiggly. As it was, her heart was pounding out of her chest, her palms had gone sweaty, and her ears were ringing.

It was automatic, her flipping through the pages to get to the article. She stopped breathing when she found it.

More pictures were here, these with Liam and Kiki actually together. One was of them sitting in a club, the photo slightly blurry but clear enough to see him leaning closer to presumably hear her speak. Another of her leaving what looked to be a room backstage; he was shirtless and she was running her fingers down his chest. The last was from the video shoot, the two of them walking side by side, his hand on her hip as he looked down at her.

Yup, just like that,
perspective
was gone. She was going to be sick.

L
iam was starting another load of laundry when Harper walked in the front door. Luna bolted from her comfortable position all snuggled on the bed and ran through the living room to get to her owner.

He shut the lid of the washer and closed the accordion doors before heading down the hallway.

“Groceries in the car?” he asked as he rounded the corner. He'd told her to call him when she was close and he'd get them out. But as her arms were laden with four reusable bags she hadn't listened.

“There wasn't that much.” She shook her head, barely sparing him a glance as she headed for the kitchen.

He made a move to grab the bags but she didn't let go. “Wasn't that much? You're carrying your weight in groceries.” Okay, maybe a slight over-exaggeration. But still, he'd told her he would get them.

“I've got it.” She pulled away and stepped around him.

He followed automatically, an uneasiness settling over him.
What the hell was going on?
They'd just been on the phone not twenty minutes ago and everything had been fine. Now she wouldn't look at him.

“Harper, what's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said as she pulled the milk, cheese, and sour cream from the bag and walked over to the refrigerator.

Bullshit.

“You lying to me now?”

Her back snapped in tension as she straightened, shutting the door a little harder than normal as she spun around. There was a fire in her eyes, passion in her cheeks, and fury on her mouth. “Did you just call me a liar?”

“No, I asked if you were lying. Not the same thing.”

Her eyes narrowed and she took a deep breath, letting it out through her nose. She walked back over to the bags, pulling out a magazine and tossing it on the counter. “That's what's going on,” she said, pointing.

His eyes dropped to the magazine, scanning the front and seeing his picture next to Kiki's with a headline that immediately had his own temper flaring. He didn't need to read what was inside to know it was all a bunch of lies.

Apparently it didn't matter that he'd been one hundred percent honest with her from the get-go, she thought he was cheating.

He looked back up to her, doing everything in his power not to lose his damn mind. “Tell me you don't believe that.”

“You don't even know what it says.”

“I don't need to, Harper. Anything connecting me to Kiki is horseshit.”

“I know that!” she shouted.

“Really? Do you? Then why the fuck did you buy it?” he shouted right back. He didn't mean to, but good God, she was killing him. “Because if you believe a word of that garbage for a single second, then you don't know me at all!”

The instant her eyes filled with tears he knew he'd missed the mark. Had gone too far and let his temper take control. This didn't have to do with trusting him. Whatever was in there had scared her and she didn't know how to deal with it.

“Harper—”

But she turned and walked away. Out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom, and before the door shut, her sob echoed down the hallway.

“Dammit.” He followed, refusing to let her walk away. He'd done that once before, not stopped her when she'd left him on that balcony. He wasn't doing it again.

Never again.

Harper was losing it. She was
freaking
losing it.

Another sob broke out of her chest and she tried to bury it in the pillow, her body curling in on itself as she started to shake uncontrollably.

God it hurt. Everything. Her lungs that were having difficulty pulling in air. Her head that was pounding. Her heart that was throbbing. All of it.

The bedroom door opened, Liam's bare feet moving across the wooden floor before the bed dibbed and his arms wrapped around her. His front solidly pressed to her back.

“Honey, please don't. Please don't cry,” he whispered, his lips on her neck.

It just made her cry harder.

She knew that stupid article had been garbage. The article that implied “Forever” was about Kiki. The article that implied Kiki and Liam had been seeing each other for months. It didn't matter that Harper knew the truth. Didn't matter that she trusted Liam implicitly.

Because it still hurt so badly she couldn't breathe.

She wasn't sure how long they lay there before she calmed down. Before she wasn't gasping in air. Before the crying had changed from sobbing to a wave of tears running down her cheeks every time she blinked.

His hand found hers, his palm covering the back of the fist she'd made. She was clutching on to the pillow and he tugged lightly until she let go, her hand relaxing.

“You're who I want, Harper.” Their hands moved down and when he brought it to her belly he flattened her palm against the not-so-slight bump, his hand still covering hers. “You and this baby. Please tell me you know that.” His nose skimmed her neck, the scruff of his beard tickling her skin. “Please tell me you know how much I love you.”

She rolled to her back, looking up into Liam's face as he hovered above her. The green-gold of his gaze was all that she saw, the raw honesty in his eyes so real.

“I know.” She reached up with her free hand—he still had the other pressed to her belly—and touched his jaw. “This isn't about me being pregnant and hormonal you know…well, it's not all about that.”

Okay…maybe she hadn't been nearly as rational as she thought…or not at all. She'd apparently just reached the limit of what she could take before she'd lost it.

“Tell me what it's about.” He leaned down, resting his forehead against hers.

“There are pictures in there, Liam. And even though I know what's going on in every single one of them, seeing that? It…it just hurts.” She blinked and fresh tears fell from her eyes, tracking down her temples. Most got caught in her hair but the light tap of a couple hitting the pillow filled her ears. “This isn't going to be the last of it, either. Bethelda figured out who you are…and that I'm pregnant.”

“What?” His head came up at her words, and he looked down into her eyes again. “When?”

“Two days ago. That blog isn't hard to find, babe. It's only a matter of time before someone finds out the relationship between the two of us. Especially the way “Forever” is getting bigger and how everyone wants to know
who
it's about. It's…it's only going to get worse.”

“I know.” He smoothed his hand across her hair.

“And then the video for ‘Beyond the Limits' is going to be released, and not only is that going to take off, but…but I have a feeling those pictures are going to be
nothing
in comparison to what's in that video.”

“Don't watch it.”

“You think it's going to be that easy?” she asked desperately, wanting to hear him say yes.

“No. But God I wish it was.”

“What would you do if you saw a picture of me with another man? Pictures that were taken while you and I were together? Pictures of his hands on me? Even if you knew the context.”

Pain flashed across his face. “It would kill me. It isn't going to happen again.”

“You can't promise that.”

“No, I can. This hurts you. And I can't change the past but I can prevent it from happening again in the future.”

“And what happens when you piss your label off?”

“Oh, that would be a headline I'd love to see: ‘
Liam James storms off set because he refuses to hurt the love of his life.
' Let's just see what happens after.”

“Love of his life?” Harper repeated, a small smile turning up the corner of her mouth.

“Yeah, didn't you know?” He pressed his mouth to hers, in a soft and slow kiss that morphed into frenzied in seconds.

Mainly her doing.

The sudden shift in what her body needed was so strong that she couldn't for a second deny it.
Him.
She needed
him.
Would
always
need him.

He shifted to hover over her and she spread her legs, making space for him between her thighs that now cradled his hips. His hand was up and under the skirt of her dress, and he wound his fingers in the lacey band of her thong. One good tug and he ripped the material from her body.

Her hands were at the front of his athletic shorts and she pushed them down just enough to free his erection. He thrust inside her and the cry that emanated from her mouth was one that couldn't be helped.

“You okay,” he gasped as his hips stilled.

“Yes. Don't stop.” She grabbed the back of his head and brought his mouth back down to hers, pushing her tongue past his lips to taste him.

He started to move, pulling back before driving into her again. She didn't need to tell him harder, because he was giving her just what she needed.

Him
.

Over. And over. And over again.

Liam hadn't had a place that he
really
thought of as home in years. Sure the cabin in Tennessee was where he'd spent the long stints of his off time…but that was Logan's place. Not his.

But now? Now Harper's apartment felt more like home than any place ever had before. Mirabelle had started to feel like home…way more so than Nashville. He wasn't sure when exactly that shift had happened, all he knew was that it
had
happened. And he had absolutely no doubt that it pretty much had
everything
to do with Harper.

God he loved that woman. Loved her so much he couldn't think straight. But hey, him not being able to think straight had pretty much been the case from the second he'd met her…

No, from the second he'd seen her.

For years all he'd been working for was his career. All he'd wanted was to make music. Was for people to listen to the songs that he'd created and get
something
from them.
Anything
from them.

But ever since Harper had come along his focus had shifted. What he wanted was morphing to encompass a whole hell of a lot more. Being on the road and not seeing her, not getting to experience every moment of watching her body change, of watching her grow with
their
baby…well, it was physically painful actually.

He just had to keep telling himself that they could get through this. That they
would
get through this. Australia was the biggest hurdle to deal with—as he'd been on the other side of the world—and they were past it now.

The last month of the tour was all on the East Coast, and mostly in the south. He'd be able to see her way more often than before. Even if the trip was only as long as twenty-four hours, his butt would be on a plane.

And once that was over, he was off for a few months…until it all started again.

But that was something he didn't need to worry about. The next tour was a good ways down the road, and would be happening well after the baby was born.

He and Harper had discussed a few pre- and post- baby topics. Like the fact that he was going to be there for the birthing classes, or that there would be nothing circus themed in the baby's room if it included clowns. They freaked Harper out. They'd also talked about the holidays and that if his parents wanted to do Thanksgiving in Nashville it would probably be fine, but since she'd be eight months pregnant when Christmas rolled around they should spend it in Mirabelle.

And of course they'd talked about what they were going to have. The boy versus girl debate was ongoing, and it wasn't like they had a preference either way. The only factor they were hoping for was healthy. It was the possible name selections that they were going back and forth on.

His top picks? Chloe if they had a girl. Caleb for a boy.

Her current favorites? Well, it depended on the day really. She couldn't decide between Piper and Mackenzie for a girl. And Bentley, Donovan, or Sawyer for a boy.

They'd gone through a number of them…more than he even knew. When he'd been on tour there was always a phone call first thing in the morning. Or when he was with her, a whisper low in his ear in the middle of the night. And as he was throwing suggestions out right and left as well, they texted each other possibilities throughout the day.

They hadn't exactly agreed on anything as of yet.

Though the field was cut in half on Monday at Harper's next doctor's appointment. They were having a girl.

A baby girl.

Knowing the gender was another step that brought them that much closer to the day. One more piece of information to get them prepared for the future.

He still had no idea where they were going to raise their child…Nashville or Mirabelle or anywhere else for that matter.

If they lived in Nashville they were going to need to buy a house. If they stayed in Mirabelle…they were still going to need to buy a house. Her apartment wasn't going to cut it. There was absolutely no doubt about that. Her tiny spare bedroom was barely a closet. A cupboard under the stairs probably boasted more space.

The few things they'd bought or received for the baby weren't even being stored at her apartment. They were keeping them in a spare room at her parents' house because there was no extra space to find anywhere.

They needed room and rooms to grow. All of them. Space for multiple additions to their family. Yup,
multiple
additions to
their
family.

He wanted everything with her.

And her apartment wasn't going to fit the bill when it came to building said family. The lease ended in October, a little bit more than a month away. She'd mentioned moving, talked about renting a place farther in town. The prices dropped as the distance from the beach increased.

But that wasn't exactly what he had in mind for the future. Nope, he wanted something
way
more permanent. He wanted
forever.