Interesting. If Liam and I didn’t hate each other’s guts, we could probably be friends.
Obviously, Liam Sullivan’s expertise was engineering, and doing calculated stunts and work on special effects. If Micah wasn’t here for a far different reason, he’d be bombarding the guy with questions.
“I want to help Tessa,” Micah answered stubbornly. Even if she didn’t need his money, he wanted to take the stress of refurbishing the restaurant off her.
“The last thing my sister needs is your kind of help, Sinclair,” Liam snarled, his face still flushed with anger.
“Much as I hate to disagree with you, you’re wrong.” Micah’s tone was dripping with sarcasm. “She’s skating again, something she should have done a long time ago.”
Liam snorted. “She can’t skate.”
“Something you feel is your fault,” Micah said lightly.
“It is my fault,” Liam grumbled. “And how the hell is she skating? The rink is closed.”
“I opened it. She’s regaining her skills, and she’s going to skate a routine for a reunion performance of Olympic champions in just a few weeks.”
Liam stepped forward and grabbed Micah’s shirt again. “What in the hell are you doing to her? She can’t skate. I’m proud of the way she’s learned to function in a hearing world, but she’s still working with a hell of a handicap. What happens when she fails, dumbass? Huh? Are you going to be around to take care of her when her world falls apart again?”
Pissed off now, Micah used his forearm to force Liam to release his grip, then promptly punched the big man in the face. It propelled Liam’s body back against the counter of the preparation area.
Micah shook his hand, irritated that he’d bruised his knuckles on Tessa’s jackass of a brother. “I asked you nicely once. I don’t ask a second time,” he warned Liam with a growl. “You might be a little bigger, but I’ve practiced martial arts since I was a kid, and I learned my fighting skills from some of the best in extreme sports. That was a warning. Touch me again and I’ll actually kick your ass.”
“Bastard,” Liam rasped, but he strode across the kitchen to get a clean towel for his bleeding nose, holding pressure on his face as he walked back to stand in front of Micah with a murderous glare. “You’re fast,” he confessed with a grimace as he held the towel to his face.
Micah shrugged. “I can be even faster. I didn’t come here to fight with you. I came here to help. Whether you can get it through your thick head or not, your sister certainly can skate. Losing her hearing didn’t affect her abilities on the ice. Yes, she’s rusty from lack of practice, but she’s improving, and she’ll be damn good by the time she appears in New York. This is something she wanted, something she needed. Nobody was forcing her to try.”
Micah inwardly flinched just a little because he had challenged her, but Tessa had been more than capable of calling him on his dare.
“How did you get the rink back open?” Liam asked gruffly.
“I own much of the property on that side of town. I also own the rink and Randi’s old home. I encouraged Tessa to skate again. It was a big part of her life that was missing.”
Liam shot Micah a threatening look as he answered, “You’ll end up breaking her, Sinclair. And when you do, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“It’s not possible for me to break her. Without skating, Tessa was never whole.”
“She was happy,” Liam insisted.
“Happy? With you breathing down her neck, telling her what she could and couldn’t do? Dealing with your sense of guilt? You think she was happy?” Micah’s voice rose automatically until he was almost yelling at Liam to try to get through to him.
“I’m the only one left to protect her,” Liam bellowed.
“Not anymore,” Micah told him in a lower, more dangerous tone.
“You think she carries my guilt?” Liam asked in a confused voice.
“Of course. She feels guilty that you feel guilty.” It sounded strange, but there it was . . . the truth. Liam could take it or leave it. “You need to get over something that wasn’t your fault. Nobody could have known Tessa would get sick, or that she’d go deaf. I get it. If you’d known, you would have been there. But you couldn’t be there and it happened.”
“I was supposed to be there—”
“But you had responsibilities, a job to finish. You made the same decision any person would make who cared about their job. You cancelled. I would have done the same damn thing.”
Liam slammed his fist down on a nearby counter. “Fuck! I don’t understand why it had to happen at all. Not to somebody like Tessa. She’s never hurt anybody in her entire life. She didn’t deserve it.” He strode to the back of the kitchen and threw away the towel he’d been using, his face a dark mask of remorse as he returned.
For that brief moment, Micah could sympathize with the man in front of him. Tessa hadn’t deserved any of the multiple shitty things that had happened to her, but it was reality. “She’s alive, and she’s handled her situation with more courage than most people would.”
“That’s why I need to be there for her. Don’t you get it? I want her to stay safe. With Mom and Dad gone, she’s my only family.”
Micah nodded abruptly. “Yeah, I get it. But you’re not keeping her safe. You’re suffocating her now. Tessa is capable of nearly everything a hearing woman can do. She’s smart, and she’s talented. If you keep holding her back, you’re shortchanging her.”