Boundaries..... It's not just a word

Chapter - 17

The two men shook the cops hand and walked him to the door and locked it behind him. Charlie said "Liam do you think that you can look out for her today? I would but I'm so tired I'm afraid I would fall asleep and she would go out somewhere where that lunatic could find her. I would owe you one." Liam smiled "No it's no problem at all, actually we seem a lot in common so it will be pretty easy to keep her busy and her mind off this shit." Charlie felt like shit asking another man to look after her but with Lynda out of the country and the waitress quitting on him again he had to pull so many hours just to keep up with everything. He feared that he might be pushing her into someone else's arms but he had to make sure that she would be safe and judging by the way he reacted tonight he knew that she would be physically safe for the day.

Misty came back from the restroom and smiled at the two men and then Liam held out a hand for Misty and she took it and she smiled. She had been smiling all night, so much it actually hurt her cheeks. Liam was not oblivious to her fondness and he said "Well Misty, it is early in the morning and we both are supposed to be at work in a few hours." He then laughed and she joined in. Liam said "I'll tell you what, how about we play hooky today? That way we can spend more time together, get to know each other better. How does that sound?" Misty looked up at Liam and smiled coyly and agreed "I think that would be a wonderful idea, I really would like to get to know you better but I'm worried that I might get in trouble with my boss if I call in" she said jokingly, she smiled and batted her eyelashes. They both laughed and she picked up her phone and called and left a message on the company answering service stating "This is Misty Rhodes, I am not going to be able to come to work today. I'm taking a personal day." Liam laughed "don't worry, if anyone has anything to say about it, you tell them to come talk directly to me about it." They both broke out in laughter at that comment. The two walked out of "Bottom's Up" and ended up going to a cafe just down the street that had the most amazing apple pie in the entire area, it was made daily, fresh apples and spices. It was mouthwatering.

He was sitting in his car watching the two of them in the café, he grew angrier and angrier with every moment she was with him. What was she thinking, he already told her that she was his! How can she sit across him and smile and laugh at whatever stupid thing that idiot said? Every time that the waitress came back to refill their drinks he would growl and curse. It took everything that he had not to crash into the café and pull her out by her hair. He knew with Mr. Mannford there he couldn't touch her but he was going to follow and see where they went. He would punish her for every infraction that he saw and perceived as a betrayal on her part. They left the café after about two hours of sitting there, eating and talking. They walked down the street to a small specialty boutique and picked up some item that Misty wanted and ordered. Then they went to the organic grocery just across the road and a block up, they went into the produce department and picked up some oranges and apples for her, she loved these fruits. While they were paying the cashier is when the two of them noticed that there was a car that had been showing up everywhere that they had gone this morning. Both a little concerned but just figured that it could just be a coincidence and hopefully nothing else. They went to a local park, they walked around for some time and then found a table to sit at. So, sitting there they spent the day just talking about anything and everything basically like sports, movies, books, favorite food. She listened to his funny childhood stories and laughed. It felt good to laugh and she finally had this sense that life wasn't all bad.

 Liam was very active child and teen. He was on a few different sports at the time, baseball, track and soccer. Liam is one of five siblings and both his parents William and Melissa Mannford were lawyers. He laughed when he told her that he was on the debate team in high school and how that had made for interesting dinner conversations. Everyone would bring in their own thoughts and suggestions and they would try to persuade one or both of the parents to choose which idea was best. Liam has two brothers and two sisters, Marcus and Phillip and Sally and Jean. Marcus was a land developer and Phillip owned his own construction company, they worked together all the time. It was more like a package deal, Marcus sold the land and Phillip built the buildings. Both were making very good money with their combined companys. Sally and Jean both were in college to become doctors. Sally wanted to be a neurologist and Jean a pediatrician. Sally had always been fascinated with how the brain works and she would always be reading about medical procedures when she had free time. Jean wanted to be a pediatrician from the time she was young, she remembered her doctor's visits and how every time, no matter what was going on, that she always felt special and she wanted to do that. She wanted to help children and make it fun for the kids at the same time.

They obviously were a very close-knit family, always meeting up for lunches throughout the week and Sunday dinners, all the major holidays and all the birthdays. Misty was jealous at first because of his family life and wished that she had had something like that, then it hit her like a ton of bricks, she realized that she already has this kind of relationship. It was with the Chaplin family, always had been since she met Lynda. That was truly her family, Lynda, Charlie, Nancy and Doug. She never saw it that way before now and it made a huge impact on her. Liam was absolutely glowing when he spoke about his childhood and all his accomplishments. He had started his first company at the age of 17, it was an application for a smart phone. It made find specific information easier for people who needed to know about specific part in a manual. It would allow the user to type in the name of the part and the page number relevant would be shown. It was very popular, especially in machine shops and molding production when it first came out and after that. The app started very well for him and continued to grow by popular demand. Seeing how his application had improved and was basically in use everywhere. That was when he decided that he was just going to keep going bigger and bigger. Now his company which at first had only three employees and handled a basic smart phone app to now handling government contracts and foreign relations communications with a team of more than one hundred and fifty people. This was a certain application that cannot be hacked or have any information leaked via the system in any way. He had hired the best hacker's money could buy to try to get them to break in an attempt to hack the site. The sites security was so high that there was no way that anyone could get anywhere near the information. What actually happened was when the hackers attempted to break into the site they would actually have a hidden virus downloaded onto their system, that ran hidden and silently in the background of the computer. This program would allow the company and government agencies to track the IP addresses to a physical address so that in the future if there were any further attempts to retrieve top secret information, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would be able to swoop in and take possession of the information, the cell who was attempting to get the information and find out what the information was going to be used for. Misty was so awe struck that he was able to do all that from such a young age. Liam then asked about Misty's life, she looked sullen and began to tell her story.