Free Full Circle by Avery Beck

more awkward working with him than she had before, which was strange seeing as they’d already slept together. This time it had been only a kiss, though Liam dreamed all the time of having a closer encounter.
    That didn’t seem likely, because to avoid making Justin suspicious and causing trouble at work they had returned to being friends, and though she seemed to be at ease in his casual company, she was still plenty wary of intimacy. Their fingers had touched the other day when she helped him wrap a dog’s injured foot, and she’d jumped like his hand was the top of a hot stove.
    “You still enjoy working with animals?” he finally asked.
    She shrugged. “It’s part of the job. I can’t just let them sit back here all day.”
    “Looks like you’re very good with them. I’m surprised you don’t have a pet of your own.”
    “Why bother? I’d have to give it away when I move.”
    Of course. When she moved. Somehow, Liam kept forgetting that at the end of next month, Elisa would be gone.
    There weren’t any more appointments on the books and if the front bell rang, they would hear it, so he sat next to her. “I know I’m old and all now, but you can still talk to me.”
    She didn’t move, and she couldn’t run away because she was trapped between him and the wall with a dog in her lap—which was why he’d chosen this moment to ask her to talk.
    “I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “What happened after you left school? Why are you bent on landing a corporate office when this is what you’ve always wanted and you obviously love it?”
    Next to him, her body stiffened. “I didn’t want to be a receptionist. I wanted to be a vet.”
    “So why aren’t you?”
    “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
    Her eyes blazed. In a way, he was glad for that. She needed some emotion injected into the shell of herself that she’d become. If he had to piss her off to make it happen, so be it.
    “A lot of nerve is acting like we hardly know each other. I was there, remember? I knew Brett well. I know you got pregnant. What I don’t understand is why you disappeared.”
    “I did not—” The beagle’s ears twitched, and Elisa lowered her voice. “I did not disappear. You did. I found out I was pregnant and you never spoke to me again.”
    He sighed. Unfortunately, she was right. He’d been disgusted to discover that shortly after she spent the night with him, she had fallen back into bed with Brett—and without protection, apparently, which was crazy given how much Brett got around. And she ended up pregnant with the baby she lost. It was a sad situation that could have been avoided.
    But it also hadn’t been his business, and he knew that now. He and Elisa had never agreed to get together. She hadn’t owed him anything—he had just hoped her willingness to make love with him was a sign of something more than her being bored that particular night. In his dumb and hormonal youth, he’d taken what should have been an entertaining friends-with-benefits situation and blown it completely out of proportion.
    Liam nodded. “I’m sorry. I was upset then, and I overreacted. I didn’t come in here to argue with you. Honestly, I’d just like to know about your life over the past several years.”
    She stroked the beagle’s head. It seemed to keep her calm. “There isn’t much to tell. I’ve been here the whole time. After the baby…after I lost it, I moved in with my parents for a while to recuperate and then worked some odd jobs and started taking classes.”
    “And Brett? When did he disappear?”
    “Not long after we found out about the pregnancy. We only lived together for a few weeks before he took off with a fellow trust fund brat he’d apparently been dating behind my back for quite some time.”
    Deadbeat. Liam wanted to punch his lights out. “I heard he got married a while back. I assumed it was you.”
    “Hell no, it wasn’t me.”
    He smiled at the tenacity in her voice. “I’m glad.”
    “Me