Keeping Faith. Janice Macdonald

He’d heard her sing the same song so many times he could recite it by heart. She’d get back to Ireland and insist she was through. They’d have to find a new singer. But then plans for the next tour would get underway, and he’d see her wavering. The truth was, the music was as much a part of her life as it was Liam’s. She was every bit as addicted to the life.

      “What about you then, Liam? You never feel like putting down roots somewhere? You don’t miss being close to someone?”

      With an elbow on the windowsill, he watched the road. “If I do,” he said, “I take a couple of aspirin until the feeling goes away.”

      Brid pushed his leg and he turned to smile at her, then went back to watching the white lines flash past. Only one time had he ever considered packing it all in. About six years ago now. A marriage, brief as a blip in time. She’d missed her family, hated the long absences and frenetic craziness of his life. Because he’d loved her, he’d seriously considered settling down. Until he’d found out what she’d done.

      He’d channeled his anger into the music and the following year he made the UK charts for the first time. Betrayed. That was the name of the single. And now, in a nice bit of irony, his next gig was in her hometown, where it had all started.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE DAY AFTER HANNAH read about Liam coming back, she was standing in the kitchen making a salad for dinner when her sister Debra announced that she was pregnant.

      “Don’t tell Mom,” Deb said. “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it.”

      “You’re kidding.” Hannah dropped into the chair opposite her sister.

      “Well, God, you don’t have to say it like that. It was okay for you to get pregnant but no one else can?”

      Hannah held up her hand. She wasn’t in the mood for Debra. “If you want to talk,” she said, “we’ll talk. Otherwise, you can take your damn attitude and leave.”

      “Zowee.” Debra’s eyes widened. “Chill out, Hannah. What are you so steamed up about anyway?”

      “Nothing.”

      “Come on.” Debra peered at her. “It’s something. You had a fight with Allan? You had a fight with Mom? You got fired?”

      “For God’s sake, Deb.” She got up from the table, filled a glass with water from the fridge dispenser and sat down again. “Tell me what’s going on with you.”

      “I missed two periods and I threw up twice this week at work. Dennis freaked when I first told him, but once he got over the shock he thought it was kind of cool. Now he’s saying I can move in with him until the baby’s born. After that, who knows?”

      “What do you want to do?”

      Debra shrugged. “Not what I’m doing right now, that’s for damn sure. ‘Hi, my name’s Debra,’” she said in a mincing voice. “‘And I’ll be your waitress tonight.’ God. I am so sick of that job. I just want to have a decent job where I’m making some money and I don’t have some jerk telling me to push the desserts and smile more. At least if I have the baby, it’s something different, plus Dennis is being a whole lot nicer since he found out.”

      Hannah counted slowly to ten. Where did she even start? She traced the moisture on her glass and looked up at her sister. “What’s happening with your classes at State?”

      Deb rolled her eyes. “The instructors were such a bunch of idiots, I swear I couldn’t even listen to them. I mean, I could learn more from surfing the Internet.”

      “But you’re not going to get a teaching credential that way.”

      “Don’t start on me about that, I’ve already heard it from Mom.”

      “Deb.” Hannah put her elbows on the table. “You hate working where you are now, you hated working at Marie Callender’s, you hated worked at Denny’s—”

      “Shut up, Hannah.” Debra jumped up from the table, stomped over to the pantry in her clunky black waitress shoes and emerged with a bag of Oreos that she ripped open. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” A cookie in one hand, she regarded Hannah as though she’d suddenly recognized something that hadn’t been clear before. “You think you’re so damn perfect.”

      Hannah snorted. “Right.”

      “No, you do. And Mom does, too. I am so sick of hearing how hard Hannah worked to get her degree, how wonderful Hannah’s job is, what a great boyfriend Hannah has. ‘Allan’s an attorney,’” she said, mimicking Margaret’s voice. “‘And he lives on Riva Alto Canal and he’s just so wonderful and Hannah’s so wonderful—’”

      “Maybe that’s your interpretation, but it’s not the way I feel…”

      “Yeah, whatever.” Debra eased the top off a cookie and bit into the cream filling. “I don’t give a damn. Maybe you’ve got it figured out now, you know damn well the whole reason you got pregnant was to keep Liam around.”

      “No, I don’t know that.” Her face suddenly warm, Hannah held Debra’s glance. She heard Margaret’s car pull into the driveway and lowered her voice. “Look, Deb, having a baby is a huge decision—”

      “Well, duh…” Debra was up from the table again. “Like I don’t know it’s my decision, too? God, I don’t even know why I try to talk to you. Just because Liam was a jerk doesn’t mean all guys are that way.”

      “Whoa…” Rose walked into the kitchen just as Debra stormed out. “What’s the matter with her?”

      WHILE MARGARET WORRIED aloud about Debra all through dinner, Hannah thought about Liam. Twenty-eight hours since she’d seen the article. Twenty-eight hours of thinking about practically nothing else. She didn’t know his schedule—except for next Friday—but he was somewhere in California and it was making her crazy. Thinking of him in Ireland was one thing, thinking of him maybe just an hour or two away was something else. He could call. Of course, he could have called from Ireland, too. But he hadn’t called. And he wouldn’t call.

      “Dennis is not a good influence on Deb,” Margaret was saying now. “I mean a bartender, for God’s sake. And he bleaches his hair. What kind of guy would do that?” Her brow furrowed, she dug a fork into the gooey custard on her plate. “What is it with my girls?” she asked, glancing at Helen. “Why is it they both seem to have this thing for irresponsible men?”

      “Well, hey, bad boys are more fun, huh, Hannie?” Aunt Rose, in a loose black silk shirt printed with beer bottles from around the world, winked at Hannah. Rose, a cosmetologist, was divorced from her second husband and staying at the house just until she got her credit card bills paid off. She’d recently had her eyelids tattooed with permanent liner because, she confided to Hannah, she hated to wake up beside a man and look washed-out. Rose was absolutely certain Mr. Right would turn up one of these days—for her and for Hannah. Rose had her money on Allan.

      Aunt Helen shot Rose a disapproving look. “I’m quite sure that Hannah has already learned her lesson with…immature young men and I have no doubt that, before long, Debra will, too.”

      The youngest of the three sisters, Helen was small, pink and fair with a large soft bosom and a similarly proportioned bottom. Faith, who adored Helen, once confided to Hannah that hugging Aunt Helen was like hugging a great big marshmallow. Helen taught junior high school and everything she said had a sweetly reasoned tone as if she knew that, even under the most obnoxious and intractable behavior, goodness was just waiting to shine. Helen’s husband had died years ago in a freak lightning storm back in Missouri where they’d gone to see his mother. Afterward, Helen had moved into the small guest cottage on Margaret’s property and decorated it with Laura Ashley fabrics.

      “What about that nice attorney?” Helen asked Hannah now. “Are you still seeing him?”

      Rose