“You drink too fucking much regardless of the name.”
He turned around, walking backwards, arms open. “And you accuse me of not being full-time Irish!” He wiggled his eyebrows at two females walking past him. “Tell ’im, ladies. There’s nothing wrong with a drink every once in a while. And if it’s with a beautiful woman, or two, it’s considered socializing, right?”
They smiled at him and he took this as an invitation to wrap an arm around each of their shoulders, kicking his feet together before he walked off with them.
What a fucking winner.
I headed in the direction of the nut roaster. That was where Harry Boy said he’d be waiting for me at the arranged time. Maybe he picked the nut stand because he was busy getting his balls busted by the girl named Mari.
She was working one of the food booths, dressed in vintage clothing of the time, except for the plastic flip flops on her dirtied feet. It was hard to miss her. She reminded me of a young queen in an oil painting—there was something regal about her.
I stopped, stepping to the side of the constantly moving foot traffic.
Fuck. Her face. Either she had face-planted, or someone had used her as a punching bag.
I found Harry Boy eating roasted almonds coated in cinnamon and sugar, watching as Mari served food. I studied his reaction to her for a minute. When she would touch a spot on her face that must’ve been sore and wince, his jaw would tighten. I wasn’t getting involved in his personal affairs, but I was curious as to how he was going to handle this.
However he did would prove to me what kind of man he was. Was he going to kill the bastard who did that to her face? It wasn’t hard to tell when a man made that kind of mark on a woman. If it were my woman, I’d kill a fucker for much less than that.
Harry Boy stood up straighter when he noticed me and held out his hand. We shook.
“Nice day to be out,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “The weather is turning warmer.”
Even though he looked at me, I could tell he was itching to look at her again. “Your girl,” I said. “She have a date with the ground, or someone do that to her?”
“My girl?”
I nodded in her direction. “The one you keep staring at.”
“You noticed that?”
“I notice everything.”
He nodded, trashing the rest of his nuts. “She’s my sister’s best friend. Mari Flores. We all grew up together on Staten Island. My sister told me her deadbeat landlord did that to her. He’s a fucking prick.” Then he really looked at me, at my plain clothes. He’d never seen me out of a suit.
“Harri—” Keely stopped cold when she noticed me standing there.
In less than a second, her eyebrows lifted and then her eyes narrowed. In this light, they were pure blue. Maybe it would’ve been easier to compare them to the sky or to water, but heaven was all I could think of—a blue only known to heaven. Peaceful. Her fierce red hair made the color seem even brighter.
Keely Shea Ryan was a beautiful woman. Heavenly, in fact. But there was also no doubt that she had a tongue that was made in hell. That temper, too. It matched her hair.
“You,” she said, and not nicely.
Hell, could I call ’em or what?
“Kee, this is my boss,” Harrison said, standing taller. He was pissed at how she had spoken to me. He didn’t want to lose his job. Or worse.
He knew I was a testy motherfucker, and I didn’t put up with much. I might’ve just gotten out of prison, but I was still known on the streets. It was hard to forget a man called “the marauder”: a man who always took what he wanted, damn the consequences.
“Mr. Kelly,” Harrison continued, “this is my sister, Keely Ryan.”
Keely Ryan looked so fucking ridiculous in her vintage clothes that a smile that I knew pissed her off came to my face. One long curl came loose from the plastic crown adorning her red hair, and she blew it out of her eye with a harsh breath. It didn’t budge and she swatted at it.
“We’ve met,” she said, narrowing her eyes even sharper at me.
Her eyes were just as I imagined the gates of heaven would be: narrowed to a slit to men like me.
“Good to know you have a strong memory,” I said.
“Oh, it’s excellent, Mr. Kelly.”
“Keely—”
I lifted a hand, stopping Harrison from whatever he was going to say. He was trying to communicate through narrowed eyes that she was being rude to his boss. It was something Killian would’ve done to me. Manners were never a strong point of mine, though.
“You can call me Cash,” I said. “We missed that part at the cemetery.”
“You were too busy scaring people, that’s why we missed that part.”
“I wasn’t being quiet. You’ve seen my feet.”
She looked down and then her eyes flew up, catching my grin and scowling at it. A flush crept up her neck and stained her cheeks red.
“They’re big and not ashamed of it.” I winked. “You were lost in thought. That’s why you didn’t hear me.”
“Cemetery?” Harry Boy said, his eyes moving between the two of us. “You met at the cemetery? When was this, Kee?”
“When I went to visit Roisin on the day she died.” She looked at him. “Your boss scared the shit out of me.”
“I wasn’t his boss then,” I said. “And our meeting was happenstance.”
“Happenstance,” she repeated, like she didn’t believe me.
Good. She shouldn’t. My feelings told me she knew that. Something also told me that she’d thought about me since then. And she hated it. She loathed that I had somehow entered her mind, sifting through her thoughts for the most valuable ones, and marauding things she fought to keep—her time and attention, two of the most valuable things to a person.
I saw the way she was with Stone. Bored. And he had nothing in his eyes but floating fucking hearts when he looked at her. There was something off about the entire situation. Why she was settling for someone who didn’t do a thing for her was a mystery. But when she was around him, she played her part well.
She wanted to be an actress on Broadway. She acted every second they were together.
Her…softness when it came to him worked out well for me to a certain degree, though I knew when pressed—and she would be soon—it was only going to make her hard and more determined to see her resolve for Stone through. Like a child.
Too bad I refused to entertain the notion of reverse psychology, or this might be fucking easy.
Harry Boy cleared his throat, and I realized that the archer and me were staring at each other. “Staring” was a stretch on her end. She was aiming arrows at my head through telepathic wavelengths.
“You seem to have a strong dislike of me, Ms. Ryan,” I said. “I didn’t realize I shook you so hard at the cemetery. Next time I walk through, I’ll go through singing a song.”
“Oh, cute. An Irishman who can sing!” She made a noise that didn’t hide her anger. Her neck was patched with red, and so were her cheeks. “I don’t know you enough not to like you, but that never stopped me before. I don’t like the smell of bullshit that hovers around you when you come close—”
“Keely,” Harry Boy cut her off. But it wasn’t harsh. He was more afraid of her than he was of me.
“Don’t ‘Keely’ me,” she said. “There’s something off about this guy. He’s all charming when you invite him into your home, until he comes back later in the night to steal.”
“That’s why they call me ‘the marauder’ on the streets. I take whatever I want.”
Blunt. There it was. Take it as you fucking please.
Quiet came for a stretch of time after.
Then, all of a sudden, she let out a rush of hot hair, setting her hands on her fine hips. If they were street curves, they’d be labeled deadly. “I don’t have time for this!” she hissed. Then she turned toward a man coming toward her with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. The feathers of the fle
tches were all green—a real jealous color. The color hovered around her, like it did the arrows.
“Time to start,” the man told her.
She settled the quiver on her back and took the bow like it was a toy. She gave me one last scathing look before she turned to go.
I watched her walk away from me, admiring her ass. I had seen it one night while Scott Stone fucked her up against the window in his apartment. The curtains had been pushed to the side, and it was a gorgeous sight, like a full moon on a dark night.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She stopped abruptly when I caught up to her a second later.
Scottish drums had started beating in the background, and I knew whatever she was about to do would be good. I wanted to see her in this setting, making those arrows fly with sharp precision.
“Walking.”
“Why next to me?”
“Because I can.”
She opened her mouth, about to lash out at me. Then she took a deep breath. “This is a huge place,” she said. “Plenty of room for you to walk on the other side of the field.”
“I’d prefer to walk next to you. Seein’ as you’re packing.” I nodded to her gear.
“Why? Lots of people want to kill you?”
“We both know that’s true.”
She nodded her head, like she could believe that. Then she took a step closer to me. She was tall for a woman, but she still had to look up at me. “Listen. Cash. You might’ve fooled my brother with all your glittery things, but you don’t fool me. The moment you found me in that cemetery, I knew you were up to no good. I’m not girlie. I don’t indulge in fantasies—princes and princesses and all of that fairytale shit. And I don’t believe in fucking happenstances. Men like you don’t just show up out of the blue. You plan. You scheme. You maraud. You met me at the cemetery. Then you hired my brother. And now you’re here. Whatever this interest is—” she motioned between us “—stops now.”
I refused to hide my grin. She had been thinking about me. No woman comes to all of those conclusions if her mind wasn’t on it. Her thoughts were on me. I must’ve made some impression at the cemetery.
Stone’s heart was as good as mine.
I watched her walk off, knowing I had rattled her some. A woman like her wasn’t easily shaken, and later on, it would be both a blessing and a curse.
Later.
Think about the curse later.
Deal with it then.
My eyes followed as she got lost in a crowd surrounding the archery competition. These people were novices, all trying their hands at an ancient sport. I noticed they were all men. The last one had just loosed his arrow, actually hitting the bullseye. When the crowd went up in a cheer, he lifted his bow, cheering with them.
I stood back, crossing my arms, getting comfortable.
“What are we looking at?” Raff said, crunching on nuts.
The noise drove me fucking insane. Hearing people chew grated on me like nails on a chalkboard.
He stopped when he noticed the way I was looking at him. “You have issues, Cash.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And killing men who chew in my ear is one of ’em.”
He went to open his mouth again, but I held a hand up. I narrowed my eyes.
Someone must’ve given the archer a cape that covered her hair and quiver. She weaved through the masses, making her way to the front of the crowd. She was tall enough to make people move out of her way with ease. A fucking force of a woman. The kind of woman I always said had good bones.
The MC of the archery games had brought the winner up, holding his arm in the air, while the crowd roared with applause. After a second, the MC made a motion for the crowd to settle.
“Scotty Campbell!” He announced. “You have won the grandest of prizes!” His eyes scanned the crowd until he found the archer. The entire crowd seemed to follow his gaze, all heads turning toward her. “Maeve—” Before he could finish her fake name, she threw the cape to the ground, revealing her gear, and started slaying each of the contestants’ targets.
She made her way, hitting the bulls-eye where the contestants hadn’t, and when she came to Scotty Campbell’s prized shot, her eyes narrowed even further as she pulled back the bow. With a collective released breath from the crowd, she let the arrow fly. Upon impact, it penetrated straight through the other wooden arrow, splitting it in half. The Robin Hood shot. Some people called it a once in a lifetime shot.
“Feck me.” Raff whistled.
The crowd became silent, not sure where to look the longest, at the shot or at her. She turned toward the MC and Campbell, and without a tremble in her voice, said, “I’m the only one allowed to choose my husband!”
The crowd roared again, and the MC messed Campbell’s thinning hair as he cheered along with them.
“That had to hurt his pride,” Raff said, one hand clapping against his arm so he wouldn’t lose his fecking nuts. “She’s savage, man. Truly savage. I didn’t realize feminists were rife in medieval times.”
The archer turned those heavenly eyes on me once again, as narrowed as they ever were, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the arrows protecting the gates of heaven piercing straight through my heart, sending my soul to hell. As a prize, she would steal the color of my eyes and use them as feathers on her arrows.
6
Keely
On the ride home from the fair, I wondered if there was a way to purge my brain. Do one of those detoxes everyone raved about, but instead of doing it for my body, do it for the wellness of my mind.
Because when one infuriating, probably fucking crazy Irish marauder got into my brain, it was almost impossible to get him out. He kept pillaging around, taking what he wanted—my time and attention.
I refused to give them up.
Yet.
There they went. Straight to him.
Even in that moment, I was still thinking about him and what had happened at the fair. My reaction to him took me by surprise. As soon as I laid eyes on him, it felt like my breath had been knocked from my lungs. The man looked fucking amazing in a t-shirt and jeans, as fine as he’d looked in a suit.
For someone who was probably put together in hell, he was heaven to look at.
His eyes were green; his limbal ring thick and black. It made him look wicked. And for the first time, I noticed a tattoo on his neck: a tiger with the same color eyes. The collar of his coat had hidden it when we’d met at the cemetery. It spanned from underneath his ear to the end of his neck, ending right above his collarbone. It looked like it was going to climb out of his skin and devour me.
Heat crept up my neck at the thought of it. Think about something else. Anything else.
Happenstance. That was the word he’d used to describe our meeting at the cemetery, and he’d said it with that soft and lyrical Irish lilt.
Happenstance my ass. Even in such a dead place, he was such a life force. His moves were calculated and done with purpose.
Yeah, that wasn’t technically thinking about something else, but I couldn’t seem to stop.
I’d always go back to our meeting at the cemetery. Something had been nagging me about it, and I couldn’t figure out what. Not until it hit me at the fair: this was New York. If you met someone twice, there was probably more to it. Then when Cash turned up as my brother’s new boss? The one who gave him a fully restored vintage car as a bonus? My bullshit meter exploded.
The cemetery. Bam.
Harrison’s new boss. Bam.
Showing up at the fair to “meet” me. Bam.
I was waiting for the BOOM.
What the fuck did he want with me?
What was even more puzzling—the thought of him made me uneasy and excited.
Being close to him? Excited me more than anything. It was also what pissed me off the most. My feelings around him screwed with my mind. There was something about him that immediately made me want to take a step back and then a step forward. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I felt like the family in Beet
lejuice when they all started dancing because the husband and wife ghosts controlled their functions.
Giving myself some credit, though, I felt like I handled him pretty well at the fair.
On the other hand.
I wished I could extend a fist through time and punch myself for giving him the satisfaction of knowing he had rattled me.
Darlin’. The way he’d said the word, with that sexy voice of his, made me shiver.
I was not an experienced woman when it came to men like him, but I did have a heightened sense when it came to the world in general, and something told me that he was the kind of man who easily read the signs from a woman. And he used them for his nefarious schemes. In his case, he had the perfect weapons: face, voice, body. His fucking charm locked it in tight.
Charm—such a pretty word for something that could turn life ugly if used as a weapon. Especially when he used it to get whatever he wanted. And when charm didn’t work? There was no doubt he’d get it another way.
I hoped after I showed those men at the fair how good I was at hitting each target set out for me, Cash Kelly would realize that I wasn’t to be fucked with. I’d shoot an arrow in his ass so fast that he’d think an invisible foot had kicked him in it.
I grinned to myself, imagining it.
There was one truth that I couldn’t ignore, though, no matter how hard I tried. It always led me back to why the bastard excited me. It was nice and simple, clean cut, but with a sharp and dangerous point.
I was attracted to him on a level that felt unholy. Which by itself was okay—attraction was not actually cheating—but it almost felt like I was when I thought about Cash Kelly, even when Scott wasn’t around.
Scott—the man who loves you—Stone.
After I met Scott’s family in January, he asked me to think about marrying him. I told him I needed time, but he was starting to get impatient. Making a man wait a few months for an answer to such an important question didn’t do anything good for his ego, it seemed.
If he was true about his intentions, though, why rush it? It wasn’t like he really asked, either. He didn’t get down on one knee or give me a ring. He told me to think about it.
Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2) Page 5