by Jane Henry
“What the bloody hell is she doing here?” he asks Lachlan. They have a quick, hushed conversation, and Keenan curses vehemently.
“Of course,” he says. “Do it.”
I watch in silence. I don’t speak or interfere. This is their territory now, and I’d do well to let them do what they must.
“Come, lass,” Lachlan says quietly, but his firm grip on my arm tells me he’s barely hanging onto his temper. “You must do what I say, Fiona. No questions.”
I’m almost glad he puts it this way, that he asks me, because I want to show him that I can do just that. I want to show him that I trust him. I want to give him the assurance of my faith in him, the very foundation of everything we’ve built together.
“Aye, Lachlan,” I tell him, my voice warm with conviction. “Of course.”
He pauses just long enough to pull me close and kiss my forehead. “That’s a good lass.” A few months ago, I may have seen his words as condescending, insisted I was no little lass but a woman. How my feelings have changed in such a short time.
He takes me out a door I’ve never seen before between the library and prison-like room. We walk swiftly to a car and he gives orders on his phone. I didn’t know he was in command like the highest ranking officials, but by the way he tells people what to do, and the way they respond, I know he is. I smile quietly to myself.
I know we’re in danger, but I can’t help admiring the stern cut of his jaw, the furrow of his brow, and the clipped, harsh tone he uses giving commands on the phone.
His authority’s fucking hot.
That’s my man.
“What?” he asks me. He opens the door to a sleek black SUV and practically lifts me in. When I’m seated, he leans in and pulls the belt over my shoulder and buckles me in, then trots to his side and slides into his seat.
“You’re hot, that’s what,” I tell him. “When you go all Mr. Command.”
He shakes his head but smirks. “Your life is on the line and that’s all you can think about?”
“Oh, aye,” I tell him, with an unapologetic grin. “But I can think of much more than that.”
“Like what?” he says as he pulls out of the garage at a speed that makes me catch my breath.
“Like showing you just how sexy Mr. Command is on my knees?” I suggest.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters. “You’re a naughty little girl.” But I can tell he approves.
“Where are you taking me?”
He sighs. “We’ve a bunker. In the past it was only used for the Chief, a one-man room designed to keep him safe when we’re at battle. It’s only used if there’s danger at the house, as you know we’ve got it heavily guarded.”
I wince. “Yet the guard’s been compromised.”
“Aye,” he says with a sigh. “And as the extended Clan family grows, so has our need for protection. The bunker’s been expanded in the past year. And Keenan and I suspect that what you’ve said about the women of the Clan being targeted this time is spot on.”
“So, they’re all going?”
His jaw tightens. “That’s the plan,” he says. “Though you’re my primary concern at the moment.”
I could kiss him.
I look out the window and hold his hand as he drives past the gate, down the street that takes us away from the shore and deep into the heart of the city. The church and graveyard fly by our windows, then the armory and castle. It’s a bright, blustery day, but sunlight dims when we swoop downhill, toward what looks like a cave. There’s a light on the wall outside the entrance that casts a yellowish, dim glow around it.
“What the hell is this?” I mutter. “Looks like we could’ve gotten here by magic more easily than by car. Flick of the wand, as it were.”
But he doesn’t speak. He parks the car and comes around to get me. When the door opens, the air here’s cooler. We really are in a cave of sorts. I can tell by the musty, damp smell in the air. I scream when I hear, then see, the flutter of wings just above me.
“Just bats, lass,” he says. “Relax.”
Just bats?
There’s a series of locks he unfastens before he opens the heavy door and ushers me in. I feel as if we’re going underground. Hell, I suppose we are, in a sort of hovel. It’s a small apartment, windowless and dark, with a thick, heavy door that looks as if it belongs on a castle. I look around the room and can tell it’s been expanded by an addition that goes further than this one small anteroom. There’s the smell of fresh paint, and brilliant, gleaming floors ahead of us.
Lachlan releases my arm long enough to lock the door behind him, while I look around. There’s a refrigerator, a small restroom, a sofa, and a cot in this room, and a very similar set-up in the room behind it.
“Come here,” Lachlan says, pulling me to him when he’s finally secured the door.
I turn to him and lift my brows in surprise. The anger’s gone and in its place, his eyes are furrowed with concern.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “Relax.”
“You bloody well are for now,” he mutters. “To think how easily you could’ve been killed…”
I place my hand on his chest and look up at him plaintively.
“I’m fine,” I tell him again. “Do you need to get back to your brothers?”
“Aye, but not until I know you’re safe. So I’ll stay here until then. Normally we’d call the guard, but you know I can’t do that now.”
“Right.”
I look about the room. “So, this is a private room, a holding place, as it were?”
“Aye,” Lachlan says. “It’s the most iron-clad protection we can offer. There’s one way in, and very few know how to get here. Even fewer know the passcodes to the locks.
“Right.” I feel small yet important when I look around the room.
Finally, he lets out a breath, and I do the same. I didn’t realize I was as tense as I was.
“You’re safe,” he whispers, drawing me to his chest and holding me. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around his body, as if steeling myself with his devotion and protection.
“Of course I am,” I tell him. “I’m with you, aren’t I?”
He drags his hand down the back of my head and cups it in his hand, drawing me tighter to him. “You are,” he says. “You are.”
His phone rings, and he quickly answers, but he doesn’t let me go. Still tucked up against him, I can hear every word of their conversation. The other women of the Clan are waiting outside.
He sighs and walks to the door. “It’s part of my job to commit myself to the safety of all of you. But I must confess, it was easier for me to devote myself to the protection of all before you were mine.”
Before you were mine.
I entwine my fingers with his as he walks to the door, punches a series of numbers in, and opens the door. Maeve enters with Caitlin.
“Working on finding everyone else,” Maeve says. “Megan and Sheena are traveling today, with the children. Nowhere near home.”
“Jesus,” Lachlan mutters.
“It’s alright, isn’t it?” Maeve says with a gentle smile. “Carson’s with them.”
Lachlan nods. “I suppose.”
He wants all of us here, safe, under the protection of the Clan.
Maeve comes to me and reaches to embrace me. She hugs me even though it’s awkward that Lachlan won’t release my hand. I give her a strange, one-armed hug she doesn’t question.
“He’ll do anything to keep you safe,” she whispers in my ear. “Won’t he?”
“Aye,” I whisper back, “Anything. How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she says, but her face is pale and wan.
Lachlan gets a call, and he walks away, whispering angrily into the phone, then he lets out a labored breath and looks to me.
“Keenan needs me back at the house,” he says. “I promise, ladies, we’re doing everything we can to be sure everyone’s safe.
Caitlin nods. Her long, shiny black hair hangs down her
back, gleaming under the bright overhead lighting. Her voice is soft, but there’s an edge of steel in it I haven’t heard before. “Of course you are. And don’t let that husband of mine tell you what to do.”
He grins. “It’s my job, you know. He’d kick my arse if I didn’t let him do what he tells me.”
“Would be a bloody good fight, wouldn’t it?” I say, crossing my arms. No one kicks my man’s arse.
He leans in and kisses my cheek. “That’s my girl,” he says warmly. “I love how fierce y’are. Don’t worry, love. Keenan’s like an older brother to me.”
Maeve rolls her eyes heavenward. “As if that would ever stop any arse-kicking. Ask me how I know.”
“I cannot even imagine what it must’ve been like to be mother to those forces of nature that call you mam,” I say, shaking my head,
“What it was?” she says. “What it still is.”
Lachlan laughs, leaving us with Tully at the door and who knows who else surrounding us.
Maeve looks around us and shakes her head. “My, but I haven’t seen the inside of this place in ages.”
“Been a few years myself,” Caitlin says. “Could use a feminine touch, couldn’t it?”
We laugh. The floor and walls are bare, and the shelf above the refrigerator has cello-wrapped packages of noodles, paper cups with instant soup, and other such meals one could take to the moon if necessary. I grimace.
“Oh, aye. Need a bloody carpet, some decent food, and a damn liquor cabinet,” I mutter.
Maeve grins. “Now that’s a smart girl.”
“Are you alright, Maeve? Feeling okay?”
“Oh, aye,” she says. “Seems someone tried to get me down, but I daresay those boys of mine have it sorted by now, wouldn’t you say?”
I daresay they would.
She sits on the little loveseat in the corner and yawns widely. “So, tell us, lass. What’s going on with you and Lachlan? He put a ring on that finger yet?”
I flush and look away, but she’ll have none of it.
“I’m not asking about your sex life, doll, so no need to clam up. Come, now, look who it is. Just me and Caitlin. We won’t judge.”
None of them will. It’s one of the things I like best about them.
“Course not,” I tell her. “It’s just that everything’s so new, isn’t it? Hardly know what to think myself.”
Caitlin sits beside Maeve and stretches out. “New?” she says with a cheeky twinkle in her eye. “Sweetheart, you’ve been in love with him since grade school, haven’t you?” She speaks with an American accent tinged with Irish, having been raised by an American father.
I laugh out loud, then sigh. “Why I ever thought running away from home would solve my troubles is beyond me.”
“Oh, aye,” Maeve says with a gentle smile. “You’re wise to know that now, Fiona. Some people spend their entire lives trying to run from their troubles. And there’s nothing wrong with moving away if you need some time or space. But never do it out of fear.”
I open my mouth to protest, then shut it again and don’t reply. Until she put it that way, I didn’t really think it was fear that drove me.
“The happiest people build lives from which they don’t need an escape,” Maeve says. I nod slowly, thinking about it. “I live here, by the most beautiful ocean I’ve ever seen. I’m surrounded by my sons and their families, the wee children a joy to my heart. And when I married Seamus McCarthy, I didn’t know him from Adam. I was closed off to him, as it were. I’d seen my mother freeze my father out to get her way and tried the same tactics myself.”
I imagine trying to freeze Lachlan out. Though I didn’t know Seamus, I’ve heard enough about him from his sons that I can surmise he was just as domineering as the goddamn rest of them. He taught his sons to be head of their houses, and the values of the Clan have been passed on to all in the brotherhood. Old-fashioned, aye, no doubt. But fiercely loyal as well.
“You had an arranged marriage, didn’t you, Maeve?”
“Aye,” she says with a smile. “I did. And don’t get me wrong, Seamus and I had our shares of struggles. No need to rehash them all, but it wasn’t easy.”
Since I’ve been welcomed into the fold, it’s come to light that Carson was the illegitimate son of Seamus McCarthy. I’ll bet there were other conflicts as well, but the very thought of Lachlan with another woman makes me clench my hands into fists.
“Wasn’t very easy for us, either,” Caitlin says simply. She shrugs. “Honestly, some days it still isn’t.”
“I don’t know much of your story, Cait.” I walk to the little kitchenette and spy a kettle. “Anyone for a cuppa?”
I make us cups of tea as Caitlin tells me of her marriage to Keenan.
“I was kept in the lighthouse by my adopted father,” she says. “No one in Ballyhock knew I existed.”
“Are you serious?” I ask, pouring steaming hot water over the tea bags.
“Dead serious,” she says with a smile. “I hadn’t touched a cell phone, watched television, or seen a cello-wrapped snack cake in my life.”
“Or a man,” Maeve says with a laugh.
Caitlin giggles. “Oh, you’ve got that right.”
She regales us with stories of the first year they were wed, how Keenan softened and how she learned to appreciate him.
“And in the end, lass, I can tell you this much. Women want to be loved, don’t they? We want to know we’re the epicenter of someone’s universe, that he’ll do anything to slay our dragons and keep us safe, don’t we?”
“Aye, of course,” I say. I don’t have to give it a second thought. When he holds me to his chest, kisses my forehead, entwines his fingers with mine, he shows me how very much I mean to him.
“And men want to be respected,” Maeve says. “It’s how we show them we love them, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” Caitlin says. “We let them take care of us. Now, granted, I don’t have much experience beyond the walls of our home, and I know it might look very different to a woman not wed to one of these cavemen.”
Maeve laughs out loud. “Don’t I know it.”
“But I know it pleases Keenan very much to take care of me. He listens and respects me as well, but from the very beginning, he knew I’d support him as leader of the Clan.” She pauses, allowing her words to have emphasis. “No matter what that meant.”
No matter what.
I mull over her words. We talk on, drink our tea, and finally cave and make some instant noodles in the little cups, unanimously agreeing we’d give anything for some of the staff’s good food. We distract one another with talk, knowing the ones we love still fight battles outside this door.
When I grow quiet, Maeve reaches a hand to me and squeezes my leg. “He’s a strong lad, isn’t he?” she says. “Never knew a boy like him in his youth. Keenan talked nonstop about his potential as a member of the Clan. He can handle himself and will, lass. Mark my words. He’s a woman to come home to now. And that will make all the difference.
It’s good to be here like this, it’s good to be back home with them. Even in the dark, cool room with just my two friends, talking about their men and their children, their lives and mine, my heart is filled to overflowing.
Sometimes you need to lose nearly everything to appreciate the goodness you already have.
Chapter 22
Lachlan
I leave Fiona with reluctance, but know she’s under good protection. No one will hurt her in the fortress of our bunker. She’s much safer there while I do what has to be done.
I return to the McCarthy mansion and go straight to the interrogation room. Tully and Cormac have retrieved our entire guard. Keenan pulls up feed on his phone and mulls it over.
“No one at the gate now, but it’s been locked to anyone returning home until further notice.”
It’s unsettling that the fortress we’ve built’s been compromised.
“We’ll sort this out,” Boner says, uncharacteristically sober as he l
ooks around the room. “We bloody well will.”
Cormac’s taken over interrogation. The fiercest of our number, he knows how to twist the truth out of a man when he needs to.
“Who do you work for?” Cormac asks one of the guards, who looks suitably ashamed as he stares at Cormac.
“No one, sir, we work for the McCarthy family and you know—”
Cormac strikes him so hard and fast, the man’s head snaps back and blood spurts from his nose. “No more lies. You pulled a gun on Lachlan when he asked you to show your ink. Who do you fucking work for?”
The man doesn’t give in easily, but Cormac doesn’t either. When our prisoner hangs his head, both eyes swollen shut and his body sagging from the beating he’s taken, he finally confesses.
“Jay Byrne, Boston,” he says, crying like a baby now. We all watch, prepared for Cormac to put him out of his misery when he’s given his answers. “Said to hurt the women. Paid us to infiltrate your guard.”
Not a fucking rival, then, but a sick old man with a vendetta against us.
“How did you fucking infiltrate?” Carson asks.
“Took them over, one by one,” the man says. “In their sleep. Took their clothes and identities. We were matched by description, facial recognition, and thumbprints modified.”
I cringe to hear what these men were put through.
“Is our guard alive?”
He shakes his head. “All killed.”
Bloody hell.
Cormac interrogates him until it’s clear he’s got very little left to offer. Keenan nods. Cormac pulls the trigger. Without question or flinching, Boner drags the body out of the room.
We move on to the next.
“Were you in Boston?” I ask another, but he isn’t as complacent as the last. He spits at me. Spittle hits my cheek and my stomach rolls, but I swipe my face clean and look back at him. I don’t strike him, though I want to, but stare him straight in the eyes. “Were you hired as well?”
He opens his mouth to speak, when shouting sounds behind me. I jerk my head around to the interrogation room being jerked open. I can’t see who it is, I can’t stop what they’re doing, but the next thing I know there’s a deafening shout, something strikes me, and I fall to the floor. I’ve been hit in the chest.