Once More From the Top (The Women of Willow Bay) by Nan Reinhardt

a time.
    But the heat is still there, even after sixteen years .
    And oh, God, she was so ready for some heat. So ready for Liam’s arms, his hands, his mouth. So ready for the fulfillment of years of fantasizing and waiting, even though she’d never realized she had been waiting. She hadn’t dared believe she would ever see him again, let alone touch him, kiss him. Shivering, she pressed her hands against her belly, almost as if to hold that feeling in.
    Her cell phone sang “Maggie May” on the bar. A check of the caller ID revealed a number she didn’t know, an area code she didn’t recognize. But there was no name. “Hello?”
    “Are you hungry? Would you like to have breakfast with me?” asked a deep, sexy voice.
    Her stomach did a crazy flip. “How did you get my cell number?” Moving to the window, she glanced down at the boat, where Liam sat in a canvas deck chair, his feet resting on the stainless steel rail. He waved up at her.
    She backed away from the window, embarrassed that he saw her looking for him.
    “It’s on your business card. I picked one up yesterday when Will and I were in your studio.”
    “Oh–oh–um, well…,” she stammered, tongue-tied and foolish.
    He chuckled, almost as if he knew the effect he had on her.
    Closing her eyes for a second, she took a deep breath. “Actually, Liam, I have coffee and blueberry scones. Why don’t you give me thirty minutes and come on up?”
    “Do you have eggs?”
    “Yep,” she said. “Thirty minutes. Okay?”
    So it begins.
    Change begins today , and I can open my mind and heart, or I can kick and scream.
    Either way, life is going to change.

 
     
     
    ELEVEN
     
     
    Exactly a half hour later, Liam tapped on the screen door.
    Carrie had barely had time to shower and change into a pink polo and white capris. Still barefoot and detangling her damp, loopy curls, she held the screen door open. “You’re up early.”
    “I’m always up early.” Clad in jeans and a faded plum-colored T-shirt, he flashed that killer grin as he eyed her up and down. He’d already gotten some sun in the couple of days he’d been on the boat, and the color suited him.
    Carrie’s heart stopped for second, but amazingly, resumed beating as he ambled in, fingers tucked in his pockets. She headed for the kitchen. “I like mornings too. How do you like your eggs?”
    “Scrambled, if that’s okay.” He stared around the big open space that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen for her and Jack. “Nice place.”
    Nodding, she began work on breakfast. It was better to keep busy. If she didn’t, she was sure to humiliate herself since she longed to touch him. Longed for him to touch her .
    He roamed around, peering at the paintings on the walls, picking up pictures from the baby grand. “ What a beautiful piano.” He ran his fingers over the keys.
    “It was my mother’s. One of the few things I brought with me when I came up here.”
    “This is her, isn’t it?” With a smile, Liam picked up a gilt-framed photo of Beth Anne Halligan sitting at a piano. “She was a knockout.”
    “Yes, she was. I don’t really remember her, only that my father was heartbroken when she died. That’s Dad with her in the blue frame.” Carrie turned on the gas under a skillet. “Are you okay with butter or are you a low-fat kind of guy?”
    “Butter’s great—that’s how I always make them.” One by one, Liam took photos off the piano—her father, Margie and Noah, Jack in the sailboat, she and Julie on the beach. He gazed at a picture of Julie, her husband Charlie, and their kids, taken last Christmas. Eliot at his piano. Carrie and Jack by the lighthouse. He examined each photo intently. That was how he did things, she remembered from Montreal. Always scrutinizing. Studying.
    “You cook your own eggs?” Somehow that wasn’t a picture she had of him. She’d never thought of the man as holding an ounce of domesticity.
    He looked up and laughed, a warm,