Splayed on his back on the floor, McKay was unconscious. Liam, still in life-preserving fight response, crawled to his would-be assailant and began to hit McKay’s face over and over. Finally, he felt himself being dragged off and heard a familiar voice imploring him.
“Liam! Stop! It’s over!”
Sean pulled him a few feet away where they fell to the floor. They were both covered in blood.
~~~
McKay lay dead in a pool of his own blood. One of his men sat in manacles, and the other was dead on the floor from the gunshot delivered by a deputy. Liam gasped deeply for breath.
“Liam, a nurse just told me Ed Murphy called, said there was an incident at the restaurant, but Eva and the babies are safe and on their way home.”
“Thank God,” he whispered. “I think I’m gonna vomit,” he said hoarsely to Sean.
“Go ahead,” Sean said, at which time Liam leaned toward the floor and puked his guts.
Liam, half sobbing and half retching, finally began to calm. “Get me out of these bloody clothes,” he said. He began to struggle to get his doctor’s coat off. “I need to get to Eva.”
“It’s mostly yer white coat, and yer knees.”
“Let me stand, Sean.”
“Are ye able?”
“Aye.”
Liam stood, feeling a bit lightheaded, and took the coat off, his whole body shaking. Then he looked over to McKay, who was covered from head to foot with a sheet. “He’s dead, then?”
“Aye, I’m certain.”
Liam shuddered and puked again. Then he sat hard on a nearby gurney, putting his head in his hands and sobbing.
It was over. His idiocy in his early days in America would no longer follow him in the form of a vicious killer named Sheridan McKay. The chains were now lifted. The threat to him and his loved ones was gone. But instead of the fear of dying overwhelming him, the anger began to build.
He gathered himself rapidly, thinking of his family. “I gotta get home to Eva and the children.” Liam looked at Sean, who let him go. “I’ll be back in a while.”
“No ye won’t. Stay home. We’ll manage here.”
~~~
Liam ran home with only Eva and his children on his mind. He burst into the front door, leaving it wide open as he ran, yelling for Eva. He was still highly agitated. He found her in the living room.
“Ye’re safe, thank God.”
“I am fine. He don’t hurt me or babies.”
“It’s done, sweetheart!”
Annie was sitting with Eva on the sofa. She had Eva sipping on a glass of wine, something Eva rarely did. As a matter of fact, she drank only on a holiday. Annie explained what had happened, that Eva had shot and killed a vested man.
“Where the hell did ye get a gun?”
“Yake Russell,” Eva answered.
It was information Liam did not want to deal with at the present. He then explained briefly that he’d killed McKay to save his own life.
“You two need each other,” Annie said. “Get upstairs now. The young children are napping. Ellen is at the O’Neill’s. I’ll stay and get your supper ready.”
Eva nodded at Liam. They went upstairs.
“Vhat happen to you?” She began to cry as she moved towards the bed.
“What the hell happened to you?” he answered. “Ye shot someone. Jesus.”
Liam put her in his arms and held on tight. He told her what happened in spurts, his voice cracking. He began to rouse. He let go his hold somewhat and felt Eva push away. It was something she never did.
Eva sat on the edge of the bed. She felt overwhelmed and wanted some space between them. She couldn’t think of making love at the present.
Suddenly Liam took his erection out and knelt in front of Eva.
“I don’t vanna do dat,” she said.
He didn’t respond to her. He pulled her buttocks toward him. He pushed her skirt up, he moved her bloomers to the side, and started to enter her.
“Liam—stop.” She pushed his hands away.
He said nothing.
He was being gentle with her, yet she didn’t want him. “I don’t vanna do dat now.”
He didn’t respond. He kept insisting by pushing her hands away again.
“Liam …”
He took her fast, gasping and grunting with each thrust. He killed McKay. “God damn it to hell!” he hissed through clenched teeth. Over and over. He would not look at Eva’s face. Nothing was going to prevent the orgasm he needed so badly. He began to cry as he climaxed. Afterwards, he sobbed into her breasts. It finally registered on his brain she was saying something.
“Liam, let me up. Don’t you hear me?”
He moved in an exaggerated way to let her up. “I’m sorry … Eva … come back. I didn’t mean to …”
She went into the bathroom and closed the door.
He went to the door, tried the handle but it was locked. “Eva, will ye let me in?” He got no response. She didn’t want the sex but he made her anyway. “I’m sorry.” He took off his bloody clothes and put them in the laundry basket. He sat on the bed and put his head in his hands.
~~~
Eva closed the bathroom door and locked it. He came to the door and wanted to come in. Why didn’t she want him to have sex with her? He was her husband, for heaven’s sake. He had needed her. Just like she did, he killed to stay alive. She was so grateful he’d come home to her, that he wasn’t dead, because it could have turned out that way. She was still in shock for having to kill that man at Murphy’s. She took of her undergarments. She ran the hot tap and wet a washcloth. She wrung it out and cleaned Liam’s semen from her inner thighs.
As she wiped her legs and genitals, it turned in her mind that Liam’s act began to arouse her. She closed her eyes. She wanted to go to Liam so he could make her finish. She wanted to be able to do the whole thing over. Her heart pounded, and her arousal peaked. She needed him.
~~~
A few moments later, Eva came out of the locked bathroom. Liam looked up at her, but couldn’t bear having her see him. He turned from her, his back toward her.
She came very close to him. She took his chin in her hand so he would look at her. He realized she was naked, having taken her hair out of the bun. With a wet hot cloth, she knelt in front of him and began to clean his blood-stained hands.
“Eva, ye don’t have to …” For one moment, he flashed on Dolly, then sweet Kelly Ann Sullivan, the woman who wanted to take care of him in Chicago a few short years ago. The feeling of shame for taking advantage of her mirrored his feelings at the present. “I’m so sorry.”
“I verdy happy you came home to me. You are ’live.” Her hand pressed his cheek.
He tried to turn away from her again, but kept up her cleansing of his hands. “I sordy I didn’t want to. I yust feel fright. I had to do somptink bad, too.”
“Ye’re apologizin’ to me?” he asked, looking at her.
“Yes.” She refolded the cloth and dabbed at his eye. He flinched when she touched it.
“All right, all right,” She whispered as if to a hurt child.
“Ye don’t have to say sorry, Eva. I do. I made ye.” He glanced in her blue eyes and read forgiveness. How could that be? “I should’ve taken care of ye.”
“Vell, I tink in batroom how mutts I feel … sexy. I vant finiss. Can you? Maybe sex vhat help us now, nottink else.”
She climbed on the bed and bade him come to her. Still feeling guilty and bewildered at her treatment of him, he was unable to have an erection.
“I can’t,” he said.
“You can use you tongue,” she suggested, eyes half closed. “I’m verdy glad you home. You could be dead and I never see you ’gain. I luff you, Liam. You are my luff. You make me feel good.”
You could’ve been dead, too, Eva. Christ, I’m glad ye’re home. Liam got on his knees and did what she desired. As he obliged her orally, he could hear her murmur in between moans and deep breaths of increasing pleasure.<
br />
“I luff you, Liam. You are my man. Minun mies.” Her hips gyrated under Liam’s tongue, her arms splayed out on the bed. She whimpered, “I luff you, I luff you. You are my good man. You make me feel so good. I come, I come, I come.” She suddenly gasped for air. “It feel so good,” she whimpered as she climaxed from Liam’s oral prowess. He grabbed hold of her bucking hips and slipped himself in, coming as she finished. It didn’t take long.
She wrapped her arms around him when he climbed onto the bed. They both sobbed into each other’s necks.
~~~
Sometime later, Liam woke. He didn’t know what time it was exactly, but definitely evening. Eva was gone. He felt still and calm, breathing in her lingering fragrance. As he stretched, he smiled at her skill at giving him orgasms beyond what he thought he could ever have.
“Damn, Eva. You knew how to pull me out from hell once again.”
Thinking about McKay lying dead on the floor under a blood-soaked sheet, Liam felt the horror of it, all over again. He thought about not being able to breathe and fighting for his life while McKay’s hands had his throat in a death grip. In those moments, he thought he was going to die. He thought about how Eva was forced to kill to save her and their children’s lives. Then he thought of how he forced Eva. Oh, she would never call it that, but he thought he had.
“You forgave me, Eva,” he said to himself, in awe of her. “Then ye made me make you feel good, pulling me out of hell once again.” He recalled his fierce arousal while he watched her hips buck in her climax. “Christ, ye’re good in bed.” He said it out loud as he rubbed his face with both hands, avoiding the tender black eye.
He lay in bed with a grin on his face. I give Victor credit lettin’ ye, teachin’ ye, to enjoy yerself, gettin’ pleasure as well as givin’ it. Watchin’ ye get yer pleasure is a fierce aphrodisiac. I’m certain it was for Victor, that he taught ye well. Liam wanted her to come back to him right then, but she was probably in the middle of preparing supper with the children surrounding her.
He went into the bathroom and washed thoroughly. For the first time since the fight, he looked at his black eye. It still hurt. He saw the finger marks in the form of bruises on his throat, giving him that visceral reaction of just barely avoiding death. After drying, he dressed in clean shirt and trousers and headed down to the kitchen.
Liam had been correct in his assumption that Eva was serving supper, having remembered that Annie said she was going to leave food for them. From the bottom of the stairs, he could hear that Ellen had Liisa and Conor on the front porch swing. The porch gate was closed. Liam went to Eva in the kitchen. She was washing a glass at the sink. She looked up and smiled sweetly at him. He stood behind and put his arms around her.
“I love you,” he whispered in her hair. “When I woke, I was thinkin’ how ye just pulled me back from the brink of hell, one more time.” He nuzzled her neck. “And I realized again, how grand ye are in bed.”
“You, too. You so sexy.” She turned in his arms to face him. She put her cool, wet hands on his face, avoiding his injuries, and kissed him. “I crazy for you,” she whispered.
He fixed his eyes on hers. “Are you all right?”
“I gonna be. All I need is you, and take care my babies.”
“I’m sorry for it all, Eva.”
“It all done, Liam.”
They held each other, giving and gaining strength as they had in the beginning. Liam spoke in her ear. “I hope it’s goin’ to be one of those long nights for us,” he whispered, smiling.
“If you like,” she said, raising her strawberry blond eyebrows in reply.
“I want us to have another baby. I feel it strong inside me,” he announced impulsively.
Suddenly, someone cleared their throat from the door of the kitchen. It was Ellen, catching them in their embrace. She was carrying Conor, who was fussing. Ellen rolled her eyes in seemingly feigned annoyance. Liisa, who was in close pursuit, went to her parents and hugged Liam’s knees.
“You two are at it again,” Ellen stated bluntly. She gave Conor to her mother, who opened her blouse to nurse him. But he would have none of that.
“He vant real food,” Eva said.
Liam answered Ellen with delight, “We’re at it again because I love yer mother.” He took Conor from Eva. “We’re supposed to hug each other.” With Conor on his hip, he went to the ice box to pull out a bottle of milk. He put it on the counter. Eva handed him a silver cup with a disconnected sip spout.
“What happened to your eye and neck?” Ellen asked.
“It was a belligerent patient at the hospital.”
“Well, I hope you did him in, Da.”
Neither Eva nor Liam said anything else.
Ellen asked, “Did Mamma tell you what she had to do?”
“Yes, I tell him,” Eva said to Ellen. “Ve not gonna say any more, Ellen.”
“Like I just said,” Liam replied. “I love yer mother and I’m supposed to show her.”
“Is that why you are having babies every ten minutes?” Ellen said while she walked to the table, her hand on the back of a chair.
“It’s not every ten minutes,” Liam said, amused. He poured milk into the cup and screwed the sip spout on, deftly keeping Conor at his hip. He sat at the table and fed his growing son. Conor greedily drank the milk; grasping the cup and helping Liam hold it. Liam kissed his son on the forehead, eliciting a milky smile from Conor. His son now had two bottom teeth erupting.
“I think you’ll have another soon,” Ellen announced. “You were both in that bedroom for a long time,” she added.
“What are ye now, a clairvoyant?” Liam asked, enjoying the banter with his stepdaughter. She, who could take it as well as give it.
“How do you spell that? I want to look it up, because it could be a bad name.”
“C-L-A-I-R-V-O-Y-A-N-T,” Liam spelled. “I believe there’s a dictionary in the library.”
“I know where it is, Mr. Smarty Drawers.”
Liam laughed. She had a humorous way of getting away with being a twelve-year-old smart alec. “Go on!” he cried. “Who’s being a Smarty Drawers? Get!” He pretended to start after her. She squealed and ran out of the kitchen.
Liisa, who was milling around Eva, got caught up in Ellen’s glee and followed her into the library, squealing and running in pure joy. Conor, on the other hand, was disappointed the milk was already gone and let his father know in no uncertain terms by wailing.
~~~
It was a sweet family supper. Liam held Conor, balancing him on one knee as the seven-month-old looked at his family. Liam fed him bits of mashed cooked carrots and potatoes off a small spoon. Liisa sat next to Ellen, who enjoyed taking care of her sister at supper time.
“Ellen, how was the parade this morning?” Liam asked.
“It was not easy keeping my horse under control, but my Sean rode next to me and helped a lot. He’s very good at riding, you know. It was very noisy with lots of shouting and firecrackers. They don’t call it ‘the wild west’ for nothing,” she quipped, not realizing the understatement.
“I daresay,” Liam added. “Did ye have fun?”
“Oh, yes. Mr. Russell let us watch some of the horse races. They were grand. Sean told me the horses that would win, and they all did. Then Mr. Russell heard there had been a knife fight in one of the buildings, so he said he had to hustle us out of there. That’s when he brought us back to the O’Neill’s.”
“He was meant to keep ye safe, so I’m pleased he did that.”
“Da, he heard the man was being taken to St. Johns. Did you see him?”
“Yes, I did, and he died of his wounds.”
“So, he’s no longer going to hurt you. You’re safe, now.” Ellen focused her gaze on the wounds on Liam’s face and neck. “Mamma shot a man, too.”
“Ellen—” Eva interjected.
“Look at Da’s eye and neck, Mamma,” Ellen said. “Ever since we’ve been here, I’ve heard you and Da talk a
bout McKay, and I’ve heard Da talk to Sean’s Da and Pappa Ed about McKay. He was a bad man and he wanted to kill Da. Now he’s dead. You’re both safe.” She turned and looked at her stepfather. “Right?”
“Yes, it’s all over, Ellen,” Liam said, looking straight into Ellen’s fierce blue eyes. They were just like Eva’s.
“Good,” Ellen said. “Let’s get on with our lives.”
Epilogue
Over a year had passed since the summer of Sheridan McKay. It was1906. That meant freshman year for fourteen-year-olds Ellen and young Sean. Sean had a brand-new baby brother, Robert, born in July a couple weeks after his birthday. He had been a little small at birth but healthy, another one, just like his mother and the rest of the O’Neill children.
Ellen was pleased that they had newer, young teacher, a Miss Alicia Avery, who had started a year prior, fresh from back East. Ellen liked her very much. In Ellen's eyes, Miss Avery was not afraid of anything. But the biggest reason Ellen liked her was she didn’t seem to favor the boys. She was more equal, treating everyone fairly. She was strict when it was called for, but she let the children express themselves when they needed to. Miss Avery was petite and pretty with light brown hair and smooth skin. She wore a plain, crisp white blouse and dark skirt every day. She had round wire-rimmed reading glasses that sat at the end of her nose. Ellen couldn’t figure how old Miss Avery was. Not as old as her mother or Mrs. O’Neill. Her Da said she might be in her early twenties, since she just got out of teaching school, perhaps as young as nineteen or twenty.
“Well, she’s really nice,” Ellen said to Liam one night. “And she doesn’t seem afraid of the men at school. Miss Avery stands up to them while staying nice. She reminds me of Miss Lehto, in Minnesota. I should write a letter to her, now that we’re not hiding from McKay anymore.”
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