by Henry, Jane
She reads on. “God, pardon me! He subjoined ere long; “and man meddle not with me: I have her, and will hold her.”
I have her, and I will hold her.
The words echo in my mind, as I make them my own, as I plunge myself fully in her and she moans in surrender.
I have her, and I will hold her.
Her words are choked, her voice wavering as she continues.
“You—you almost unearthly thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—”
Her voice trembles and she swallows, her tight grip on the book making her knuckles whiten. “I love this scene, Tully,” she whispers. “And I love you.”
I slow my thrusting, bend and kiss her shoulder, then embrace her fully from behind. “And I love you, McKenna. Read.”
“Poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.”
Is she crying? The book falls to the floor and she drops her head as my movements quicken and she welcomes me fully.
“I love you,” she pants, gripping the edge of the couch as we near ecstasy.
“I love you,” I echo, as my pulse quickens and she begins to moan.
We stop speaking, our bodies saying everything.
Heated skin, spasms of pleasure, I hold her to me as we chase our joy together.
* * *
We say our vows in the quiet of the garden, as so many men and women of the Clan before us have done. It’s a cool day, but she’s prepared, wearing a long-sleeved dress with these pretty little satin loops that attach to her fingers.
“Oh, she’s lovely,” Mary sighs, clasping her hands under her chin.
“A veritable beauty,” Caitlin says with a sigh.
We chose not to have a wedding party, since everyone we’d invite to be in our wedding party are the only people actually attending the wedding. Still, the girls are all dressed in pale green satin gowns. “Pistachio,” McKenna called it but whatever the fuck it is, it’s green. “Filmy and pretty, like they’re made of gossamer wings and fairy dust.” They could wear slinky little cocktail dresses for all I care, if it makes McKenna happy.
Because goddamn, if that isn’t the total focus of my attention, the center of my universe. Make her happy.
I stand with pride as she walks down the aisle on Keenan’s arm, my chest tight with feeling. She has no father to walk her down, and we haven’t seen her mother since the day she escaped. It’s just as well this way, and McKenna agrees. Still, she shed a few tears.
“I’ll walk you down the aisle,” Keenan said one day over breakfast. “If you’ll have me, McKenna.”
It’s fitting, as he’s my chief, my brother, and someone who’ll stand in her father’s stead.
She readily agreed. Now I watch as she gracefully holds Keenan’s elbow, walking down the rose-lined path that leads her to me.
Maeve beams beside me and clasps my hand.
“Oh, that girl loves you so very much,” she says.
I shake my head. “Must’ve fucking fooled her.”
She smacks my arms and snorts. “Tully, for the love of God, you and that mouth of yours—”
“Will take me to my deathbed? Oh, aye.”
We have a new priest in Ballyhock, and our wedding is the first ceremony he’s performed. He waits under the trellis, prayer book in hand. He’s adapted well to being the new vicar of Holy Family, and Keenan’s formed a solid alliance already.
When they reach us, Keenan bends and kisses McKenna’s cheek, before he passes her to me and shakes my hand.
Clouds part as we take our vows, and I slide the simple wedding band on her finger. She didn’t want anything fancy, but just wanted it engraved with a Celtic knot.
“I have you,” she said. “I want something sturdy, that will remind us of our vows to one another. Always.”
So that’s exactly what I had engraved in the inside of our rings in Gaelic.
I gcónaí.
Always.
Forever and always one.
* * *
Epilogue
McKenna
One year later
I walk by the garden, giddy with anticipation. My steps feel light, my heart full. Tully’s due home at any minute, and I’m so damn excited to see him.
Today was the last day of school as we break for the summer holidays. I have a full summer ahead of me to spend with Tully, and the family I’ve made here in Ballyhock.
He’s been traveling lots lately, heading to the north as liaison with the elusive Scottish mafia. “They’re a hardheaded lot,” he said after his first visit. “Stubborn as fuck and as loyal as they come, though.”
Keenan praised him for playing liaison, as it’s always helpful to have the loyalty of another brotherhood on your side, and within a few short months of our wedding day, Tully made his first trip to Scotland.
I stayed back, because I had to teach, but he met up with Mary.
“You’re our bridge, lass,” he said just before he left. “Without you, we’d never be able to join alliances with the north the way we have.”
I’m not sure how much I had to do with it, but I’m pleased that he’s pleased.
“I feel I don’t have much to offer the Clan,” I told Maeve the eve of his first trip to Scotland.
She shook her head and smiled, squeezed my hand, and assured me. “Oh, love, you have everything to offer.”
I’m not sure exactly what she meant, but perhaps I’m learning.
Occasionally, Tully co-teaches with me, and it’s honestly a bloody riot. It’s especially helpful, if I have a particularly feisty bunch of students to teach. All he has to do is clear his throat, and they fall in line like soldiers going to battle. Every one of them knows my husband is a high-ranking member of the McCarthy Clan. Every one of them wants to be in his good graces.
But he’s restless at school. He says he likes to go because I’m there, and while I love the sentiment, I know he grows restless. He needs to move, needs to act, and sitting in a classroom with books is not truly his idea of a good time.
“I get enough book learning from when you read to me,” he said one night as he polished off his shot of Jameson.
“Oh, you mean the little snippets of novels I read when you fuck me senseless, hmm?”
He grinned. “Precisely.”
We still fight from time to time. Sometimes, we battle it out and come to an agreement. Sometimes, I provoke him on purpose and end up belly down over his knee. But most of the time… most of the time we’ve got an ease and simplicity in our relationship I never thought possible.
He knows I’m fiery, and I know he is, too. He knows what I like, and I know what he does. I know he’s domineering to a fault, and he knows I have a hair-trigger temper, but somehow… we make it work.
I’m saddened that I don’t hear from my mum much. But recently, Maeve pulled me aside and assured me that she’s just fine, that she’s personally seen to her care and wellbeing. She’s been diagnosed with early onset dementia, and I know she’s in good hands.
Since we drove the Welsh out of Ballyhock, they haven’t so much as overturned a stone here. They’ve fled, and when Keenan made it clear we knew they framed the Scots, the McCarthy Clan let the Scots and Welsh duke it out. I mostly stay out of the inner workings of the Clan, and prefer it that way. If it’s anything of importance, Tully will tell me. He trusts me. And moreover, he keeps me safe from whatever harm may come to me.
I hear the crunching of tires on gravel, and a moment later, the heavy gates swing open. I wring my hands, walking under the trellis.
Today’s the day.
The car comes slowly up the driveway, and as the sun glints on the roof, I wonder for a moment if it’s him. But then a moment later, it comes to a stop, the door opens, and I hear Tully’s gritty, booming voice.
“There’s my girl.”
I nearly clap my hands with glee.
I run to him, he opens up his arms, and he swings me up in the air.
“Get a f
eckin’ room,” Tiernan mutters from the driver’s seat, but we ignore him.
“Fancy a walk, Tully?” I ask him, trying to sound all nonchalant, but failing miserably.
“You alright, lass?” he asks, his dark eyes glinting beneath drawn brows.
“Oh… aye,” I say, but there’s enough hesitation in my tone it rouses his suspicion.
“McKenna,” he says warningly.
“I’m fine, Tully.”
“Did one of those boys at school pull something in class before they left? Honest to God, I will have a word with Malachy—”
“Tully, no. The boys were fine.”
He nods. “Nothing amiss in Scotland?”
“Not at all. Everything’s right as rain.”
He nods, frowning, but I quickly change the subject.
“A walk, please?”
He takes my hand and leads me down the path so familiar to all of us, it’s worn down from the feet that have crossed it time and time again. Soon, we can hear the waves crashing on the shore below us, as we make our way to the cliffs.
I sit by the edge, on a large, flat rock, and pat the ground beside me.
He grunts, but folds his large form down beside me.
I reach for his hand.
“Remember how a few weeks ago, I felt sick and we assumed it was something we’d eaten in town, since you were sick as well?”
“Aye,” he says hesitantly, holding my gaze.
I nod and smile. “Well, it seems that was a bit of a coincidence.”
He looks puzzled.
“Remember how I’ve been falling asleep beside you every damn night, and we can’t even get through one episode of damn near anything before I’m snoring against your shoulder?”
“Mmm. What of it? You’re a tired girl after all that teaching.”
“Aye, well…” I draw in a breath. “I’m three months pregnant, Tully.”
He blinks. He blinks again. Then he gives me that boyish grin and that wide smile that makes me swoon Every. Single. Time.
“McKenna,” he says softly, his voice overcome with emotion. Then his voice goes a bit hoarse. “Are you sure?”
I nod. “I’ve known for a few weeks, but wanted to wait, you know. I… I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
He shakes his head and drags me over to him, kissing the top of my head, holding me so tightly I can hardly breathe.
“There’s nothing you could do that would ever disappoint me, lass. Nothing.”
I let him hold me, basking in the warmth of his touch. I swallow the lump in my throat when he rests his hand on my belly.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
And as he holds me to his chest, his hand resting on the back of my head, he asks curiously, “For what?”
I sigh in utter contentment. I imagine bringing this child into the world. Watching Tully father our baby. Watching our child grow up with a Clan full of cousins, and doting aunts and uncles.
“For everything.”
From the author: Thank you so much for reading Tully: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance. I hope you’ve enjoyed this book! I’m so grateful for every review you leave. Please consider telling me what you thought HERE!
For those of you interested in more from the McCarthy Clan, be sure to check out the rest of the series HERE, and grab your totally free novella, Christmas with the McCarthys HERE.
Finally, read on for a preview of Leith: A Dark Scottish Mafia Romance, book one in my Mountain Men series. The McCarthy Clan spin-off series launches in January of 2021.
Thank you!
Jane
Preview
Leith: A Dark Scottish Mafia Romance (Mountain Men)
By: Jane Henry
A Dangerous Doms spin-off series
CHAPTER ONE
Leith
Snow falls heavily as I lift my ax and swing it, but I welcome the way the wet, icy flakes cool my body. Every stroke of the ax makes my muscles ache, and I’m damn near blinded by the snow, but I don’t bloody care.
This is where I find myself. Other men might lift weights and run on a treadmill that goes nowhere, but I’d rather work in the great outdoors on a day like today to keep myself in peak physical shape. The Captain of the Clan is meant to garner respect, and enforce the laws of our men when necessary. So, I train. I run the mountainous terrain, chop wood on our vast, wooded property, and spend as much time outdoors working the land as I can.
It’s quiet in the woods, the snow insulating us against both cold and noise. I swing the ax again, my anger at the meeting we had this morning forcing my ax with greater gusto than before.
Imagining that somehow I can exorcise my demons with my aching muscles and the cut of the blade. It doesn’t work, though. It never does. Still, I try.
My final blow splits the log in two, the blade sinking into the stump with an air of finality. I’m heaving with the effort, panting and sweating as I take a moment to admire the clean, fresh cut of the ax, the smell of the freshly cute pine, before I resume my work.
“Leith!” Paisley’s high voice is quickly drowned out by the wind, but I heard her clear enough. I turn, still panting, to see her standing in the doorway to the back entrance of our lodge. My youngest sister’s just turned seventeen, on the cusp of womanhood, the roundness of youth fading with every day that passes. Soon, she’ll be wanting to leave our reclusive home in the mountains.
I sigh. I haven’t been out here long enough, haven’t even touched the anger that boils within me, the fury that lies in wait like a prowling mountain lion. I can feel it fueling me even now. “Aye?”
She rolls her eyes. “Really, Leith. It’s fucking snowing out and you’re bare-chested like you’re ready to sunbathe on the beach?”
I lean on my ax and give her a withering look. “It’s hot swinging that ax, and you’d better watch that smart mouth of yours before dad hears you swearing. I’d better not hear it again myself.”
She opens her mouth to protest, then thinks better of it. “I don’t understand why you boys swear like damn convicts, but God help the Cowen woman who curses,” she mutters.
I don’t bother explaining the double standard, or how it swings both ways. The girls may not be able to curse like we do, but on the flip side, they haven’t been held to the brutal standards of our upbringing either. If I rolled my eyes at my father like she does, I’d get the back of his hand across my mouth, even at the age of thirty-five. Even as the highest-ranking member of the Cowen Clan. I’m technically even above him in rank, but once a Captain always a Captain.
“Did you come out here to tell me how to dress, or tell me something of actual importance?” I start to turn away from her to grab my ax again, tired of her nonsense already.
“Dad wants you, and he said be quick about it.”
I bury my ax in the earth, snag my shirt from a nearby low-hanging branch, and head back inside.
Leith Cowen may have retired and appointed me Clan Captain, but he’s still my father.
I kick snow off my boots as I enter the house, and Paisley frowns.
“Don’t really understand why you chop the wood, Leith. We’ve staff to do chores like that, and you know it. Why do you bother?”
“For the same reason mum cooks dinner once a week, even though she doesn’t need to either.”
Paisley still frowns but doesn’t reply. If she doesn’t understand the correlation, she has more growing up to do than I thought.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Cowen,” Mary says, stirring a large pot of soup on the stove. “Are you wanting dinner, sir?”
I shake my head. “No, thank you, Mary. I’ll eat later.”
She nods. “Yes, sir.”
She’s one of several staff that runs both the mountain lodge where our family resides, as well as the chalets that decorate the outskirts of our home. Last year, my family ventured all the way south to pay the Irish a visit, to save Mary from a heap of trouble. They’re our allies, one of the few Clans who’ve got our backs. She’s been even
more loyal and dedicated to us ever since.
It’s warm in here and smells strongly of Scotch broth and freshly-baked bread, but I’m not hungry. My mind is too occupied with what we discussed this morning, and moreover what my father’s called me in for.
I walk through the kitchen, nodding to a few of my men who sit at the heavy farm table in the corner of the room with pints of ale and hearty sandwiches. They stand out of respect when I pass, but I wave at them to give them leave to relax.
Paisley, tall and willowy like mum, keeps up with my long strides. She’s chattering on and on about a trip she’s taking to the island, but I only half hear her until she says she’s leaving at the weekend.
“What do you mean, at the weekend?” I ask her sternly. Why has no one said a thing about this before now?
She gives me a haughty look. “Not sure how else to say it. As in Saturday and Sunday. Perhaps that makes more sense to you then?”
God, my father spoiled the lass and let her get a mouth on her, and she’s usually the more timid of my two sisters. Honestly, I won’t put up with it myself.
I pause before I enter my father’s study, plant my hands on my hips, and give her a cutting look. “Need I remind you, Paisley, that though dad’s the patriarch of our Clan, as Clan Captain I can override where you go and when?”
She blinks and stares, soft blonde hair falling in those wide blue eyes she inherited from my mother. She shoves it behind her ears angrily. “What?”
“Aye. I’ve been appointed Clan Captain as of January first, which you’re well aware of, aren’t you?”
Before then, I was Clan Chief, second in command. Now as Captain, I rule all members of the Cowen Clan.
She opens her mouth, then closes it like a fish out of water. “Aye, of course I bloody well knew it, but I —”
“Language.”
She starts, as if I struck her, then pales. She looks at me pleadingly, and her eyes brim with tears. “Leith.”
“Mmm?”
“Why would you do such a thing?”