“If you told me earlier there was to be a loss of virginity on this date I would have worn newer underwear,” he whispered in her ear after he caught his breath.
The thought of Liam in his underwear caused a fresh surge of heat to flood through her body. Any minute now the lady across the aisle would ask if she was running a fever.
“This is our stop.” She stood, nearly falling as the train lurched to a halt in the station. Liam’s strong arms came around her and the wobbly sensation in her legs had nothing to do with a near accident.
“Careful,” he said. “I don’t want to have to take you to hospital and explain how you got injured while I lost my virginity.”
“It’s almost worth getting hurt to hear you tell the nurse.”
“Come on, let’s get on this damn cable car. After that, we can wander around Chinatown for a while, then find a nice restaurant to eat at. I’ve had enough of being ogled by transit riders for one day.”
“Of course, Liam. I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“Lady, I haven’t been comfortable since you said the word ‘bus’ first thing this morning,” he grumbled.
They waited for the cable car with a horde of tourists. Three elderly ladies had on T-shirts that proclaimed their heart was lost somewhere in San Francisco. When the tram arrived they all piled in and sat on the long wooden benches. Liam had his arm around Lorelei and she leaned back into his chest. Over the course of the day they had progressed from holding hands to full-on body contact.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the older ladies nudge the one sitting next to Liam. The nudged woman shook her head, yet her companions seemed insistent on something, urging her to “go ahead.”
Eventually she touched Liam on his arm. “Excuse me, has anyone ever told you that you look remarkably like Michael Donnelly?”
“No, can’t say anyone has. Who’s he?” Liam smiled at the lady.
“He was an actor on The Holbys, a soap opera that was on in the early 80s.”
Liam stiffened next to her the second the TV show was mentioned. He sat upright and the arm around her shoulders dropped.
“Sorry, I don’t know him. If you’ll excuse us, this is our stop.” Liam stood, he grabbed her hand, and they jumped from the cable car as it came to a halt at an intersection.
“Liam, what’s wrong?” Lorelei searched his face. It was tight; his eyes scrunched up as he pulled out his cell phone and typed away. He stared blankly at the phone for a moment until Lorelei pulled his hand down to see what he was glaring at.
On the screen was a picture of a man who looked just like Liam. At the top of the photo was the caption, “Michael Donnelly, actor.”
“Shit,” he said. “So that’s the bastard’s name.”
Chapter Six
“Wow, he does look a lot like you. Are you related somehow?” Lorelei’s soft voice brought him back from the edge of the abyss.
“I think he’s my father.”
“You don’t know who your father is?” She turned her beautiful face up to his, her eyes gentle with concern.
“No.” One word, a mountain of pain. “But my mother was a makeup artist on The Holbys before I was born, so it adds up.”
She reached up and put her small hand on his cheek. “I don’t know my father, either. I mean, I know who he is, and I have vague memories of him being around when I was little. He left when I was five years old.”
Her touch was causing all kinds of things to melt within him—especially the ice wall behind which he hid everything from his past. “Did your parents divorce?”
She dropped her hand and turned away. He should let it go, yet he couldn’t. Reaching for her hand, he stopped her before she stepped away. When she looked up, he put his other hand on her face as she had done to him. Her skin was so soft. A shimmer of tears and possibly shame glistened in her expressive eyes.
“Tell me,” he said. Even as the words came out of his mouth he regretted them. He wasn’t supposed to be delving into her secrets. They were only supposed to have a superficial romance to help him write the book.
“The stupid thing is, my mom is still married to him. She still loves him.”
“Where is he, then?”
Liam was aware they were standing on the street corner, people walking past, giving them sidelong glances of curiosity. Two days ago this would have been one of his worst nightmares. Today, for some reason, it didn’t matter. What mattered was helping Lorelei deal with the emotional baggage she carried around in her heart.
Lorelei took a deep breath and the words tumbled out. “He’s in prison. He robbed a bank and shot and killed a guard. He’s serving twenty-five years. My mom went back to using her maiden name, Torres. She changed mine as well so the kids at school wouldn’t put two and two together that I was the daughter of a criminal.”
And there was the reason she hadn’t wanted to go to Alcatraz. “I’m sorry, Lorelei. Sorry you had to grow up without a father to protect you. Sorry you’ve had to live with the worry that others would judge you by what he’d done.”
“Thank you.” She pasted on a watery smile. “I can’t believe I told you all that, and we’ve only known each other less than twenty-four hours. I went out with Barry for a year and never told him.”
Liam dropped his hand from her face before the urge to kiss her became too great. He couldn’t believe it had been less than a day since they’d met. He was already so comfortable with her.
“Who’s Barry?” Even saying the other man’s name made an odd sensation occur in his chest region. Why should he care? Maybe it was someone she could go back to after they broke up.
Lorelei started to walk down the street and Liam followed, still holding her hand. When he thought she wasn’t going to answer his question, she said softly, “He was my boyfriend. I thought we were going to get married.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“’Cause he was already married.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. I was stupid.”
Liam stopped walking and waited until she gazed up at him.
“You weren’t stupid. You were trusting. He’s the jerk. He knew he was married, it was his mistake.”
“Thanks. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the prevailing opinion when it all came out into the light. I was called a home-wrecker by more than one person and nearly lost my job.”