Clarity 5: Loving Liam
Loretta Lost
Publication date: April 26th 2016
Genres: New Adult, Romance, Suspense
Happily ever after isn’t always easy…
Helen and Liam are engaged to be married and their relationship is stronger than ever. But when Helen encourages the young doctor to mend fences with his estranged family before the wedding, she unintentionally opens a dangerous can of worms.
A devastating secret from Liam’s past emerges, threatening to tear him apart. The horrors of his family skeletons make him feel that it is a huge mistake to try to start a new family with Helen. Unable to cope, he pushes everyone away, including his fiancée and even his best friend Owen.
Now Helen must do all she can to save the man who has saved her so many times. Liam has put himself on the line to help her heal in the past, and she hopes to do the same—if she can even get close enough to try…
—
Excerpt:
“Hey! Liam? You okay, buddy?” Owen asks me with concern, putting an arm around my shoulders.
“N-no. My chest. It hurts.”
“Do you want to get out of here, and maybe go sit in the car?”
I am having trouble speaking or breathing, and I can only nod. I allow Owen to guide me out of the bar, and I try my best to remain standing. I don’t understand why my limbs feel like jelly and it is so hard to move my body.
Once Owen helps me into the vehicle, I allow my body to sag against the passenger seat. The passenger seat. Just like in my dream. My breathing comes in short, rapid bursts, and I feel like I am having a mild panic attack. If Owen weren’t here beside me, I would worry that I was about to die. But I know that he wouldn’t let that happen.
“Just calm down, Liam. You’re going to be okay,” he says, grasping my shoulder tightly. “Can you tell me what happened? In the dream?”
“What if it wasn’t a dream.”
“What?”
I blink slowly as I try to make eye contact with Owen and communicate my deepest fear. Something about the alcohol is opening the door to the very back of my mind, where the root of the issue has been lingering all this time. “What if I really did that? What if I really killed that baby?”
“Killed?” Owen says in shock, and I can see that his eyes have gone wide. “Liam, what are you talking about? You never told me that the baby was killed.”
“I left her there. I just left her there to die. Mama said—Mama said we’d go back for her, but we never did. She said the baby never existed, that it wasss a dream. But what if she did exist? Am I crazy? Am I crazy, Owen?”
My friend just stares at me blankly, and I find myself seized by a sudden anger. I reach out and grab him around the neck, dragging him closer so that I can look into his eyes. “Am I crazy?! Tell me! Did I kill the baby? Was there ever a baby! Fucking tell me!”
“Liam,” he chokes out, “stop!”
“I can’t have a baby. I killed the baby. I’m a murderer. Helen would hate me forever. How can I tell her? That little girl was so tiny. She was like a little kitten. Did she get crushed under the tires of a truck? Did she freeze to death?” I squeeze Owen like a tube of toothpaste to try and get the answers out of him.
He claws at my hands to try to break free. “Hey!” he says hoarsely. “Liam, stop it!”
“Why was I so stupid? I killed her, Owen. I know that I killed her. I’m a monster.” My hands grow limp, and they fall to my sides. “I’m a murderer! I’m a fucking murderer! I knew all along. I was never punished. Not enough. He knows. I know that he knows. He’s going to come for me.”
My eyelids grow very heavy and it becomes difficult to hold them open. The world is growing dark, and I am beginning to feel like I am underwater. I try to move my arms, but they are flaccid. My whole body begins to feel like it’s disconnected from my brain.
I think I hear Owen’s voice speaking to me, but it is so far away. I can’t make out the words before the world becomes completely quiet and empty.
Author Bio:
Loretta Lost is a USA Today bestselling author who writes stories where very bad things happen to good people. Mystery, tragedy, and danger complicate her unique romances between characters who will do anything to protect each other.
In the two days of summer that she gets in Canada, she grows a garden of the hottest peppers in the world. She loves using these peppers to torture her guests and challenge their manhood. This could be why she isn't married.
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