A Reason to Believe

by Diana Copland

  Matt felt the muscles across his shoulders tighten.

  “It appears someone has dredged up the old articles from Seattle…” Aidan said. Kiernan’s expression hardened into one Matt couldn’t have imagined on the friendly face minutes before, and she held her hands up in surrender. “Do not kill the messenger, brother mine.”

  “This is not the same,” Kiernan said, his voice low, vibrating with tension.

  Aidan shot Matt a quick look and then shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “I don’t understand,” Matt said. “Why is the media camped out in the lobby?”

  “Kiernan is a public figure,” Aidan answered. “His show is extremely popular, ratings-wise. He’s something a cable rock star.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Kiernan snapped.

  “Just because it embarrasses you doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Aidan shot back. “He draws the largest share of any cable program airing right now. Bigger than those people with their eighteen children and the New Chef show combined.”

  “I had no idea,” Matt said. Aidan rolled her eyes even as Kiernan choked out a startled laugh. Matt looked down at him. “I didn’t mean to insult—”

  “You didn’t. It’s perfect, actually. You strike me as more of an ESPN type of guy, anyway.”

  “The point is,” Aidan went on, “with his popularity comes a lot of speculation about his private life.” Her eyes went back to her bother. “Some network crews have shown up.” She paused. “And the tabloids.”

  “Fuck.” The humor faded from Kiernan’s pale face. Now, he just looked weary.

  “Tabloids like…The National Inquisitor?” Matt asked.

  “Exactly like that.” She sat next to her brother. “Hotel management has asked us not to come back right away, at least until they can get private security to clear the lobby.”

  “For which we will no doubt be charged,” Kiernan said dryly.

  “Actually, the woman who just called me was very nice. She was more concerned about your privacy than their expense.” She merely shrugged when Kiernan shot her a skeptical look. “Look, you don’t have to believe me. We have to get in to pack so we can make our flight in the morning, but in the meantime we need to make a decision about what we’re going to do.”

  “That’s simple,” Matt said, glancing between them. “You can stay here.”

  * * *

  Matt lay on his side on the sofa in his shadowy living room, his arm pillowed under his head, staring out through the French doors that led to his deck. He’d pulled the drapes open when sleep eluded him. The snow continued to fall, piling up inch by inch on his patio. There was at least a foot of it, and it showed no signs of stopping. All flights scheduled the next morning, both in and out, had been canceled, and he chose not to examine too closely the little surge of relief he felt at the thought. He’d taken Aidan to the hotel so she could pack an overnight bag for both of them, and the night manager had been more than happy to bring her in through a service entrance to avoid the media still camped in the lobby.

  A creak sounded from the hallway, and he turned his head. Someone was standing in the doorway. Matt stiffened, but he was able to make out dark hair and square shoulders. He pushed up onto an elbow.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Kiernan’s sleep-roughened voice came out of the darkness and he took a tentative step into the diffused light. He was wearing plaid flannel pajama pants with another T-shirt. This one read I’m Not a Proctologist, But I Know an Asshole When I See One.

  Matt chuckled and sat up. “Where do you get those shirts?”

  “Everywhere. It’s the one thing I collect when we’re touring. I’ve got a million of them. Almost literally.” He plucked at the hem of the shirt. “Some of them Aidan won’t let me wear in public.”

  “I like that one,” Matt said. “I could use it occasionally in my line of work.” Kiernan’s teeth flashed white in the dim light. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “No, I was asleep. And then…” He shrugged. “I wasn’t.”

  Matt studied him. “Visitor in my bedroom?”

  Kiernan sat on the chair Matt had been in earlier. “No. I don’t expect her tonight. It takes as much energy for her to do that as it does for me to see it.” He lifted his feet, wrapping his arms around his legs. His bare toes curled over the edge of the cushion. “Have you slept at all?”

  “Too edgy.”

  “The meeting with the boss in the morning?”

  “Partly.” Matt shifted, pulling the heavy blanket up under his arms. “And partly…this entire day.”

  “It’s been pretty weird, even for me.” Kiernan’s small smile was sheepish. “And I’d bet I’m more accustomed to weird than you are.”

  “I imagine you are.” Matt leaned back against the sofa cushions. “You know, there was one thing I forgot to ask you about earlier, if that’s okay?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Right at the beginning, there was the toy, the unicorn. What was its name?”

  Kiernan’s smile softened around the edges. “Interesting question.”

  “It stuck with me, for some reason.”

  Kiernan eyes gleamed, even in the dim light. “Skittles.”

  Matt smiled faintly. “It is a good name for that animal. And then, she said something about me, didn’t she. Do you mind…?”

  “She said you were a nice man. I agree with her. You are.”

  “Thanks.” The silence around them deepened. “Can I ask you something else?”

  Kiernan chuckled. “You’re certainly curious tonight. But sure, go ahead.”

  “What happened in Seattle that causes the tension between you and Aidan?” It had been bothering him all evening, ever since their pointed exchange.

  Kiernan’s amusement faded and he looked away.

  Instantly, Matt regretted asking. “Never mind. It’s none of my business. She just gave me this look, and I wondered…” Kiernan’s profile was pale and stark in the blue-tinted light. “I’m sorry. I’ve upset you, and I didn’t mean to.”

  “No, it’s all right.” Kiernan plucked absently at the hem of his pajama pants. Eventually he turned his head to Matt, his expression wary. “It’s a long story.”

  Matt’s gaze didn’t waver. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Kiernan propped his chin on his knees. “Our mum died when I was seven. This—thing I do, with the dead. It came from her side of the family. Her mother did it, her mother’s grandmother did it. It skips a generation, and everyone thought it would be Aidan who inherited it. No one expected it to be me. Least of all, my da. He never understood, thought it was weird. Which, frankly, even I can admit it is. Anyway, she died of cancer.”

  “I’m sorry,” Matt murmured.

  “I wasn’t as aware of it as I would have been if I’d been older. It was harder on Aidan.” He paused, fingers absently worrying the hem near his bony ankle. “She inherited the mothering duty. Da and I never had much in common, but after Mum died, there was…nothing. I wasn’t athletic, or particularly masculine, and he didn’t know what to make of me at all. He left most of the responsibility for taking care of me to Aidan. She’s three years older, but it was an unfair burden to put on a ten-year-old. Things were never great between me and the old man, but we were okay as long as she was there as a buffer. When she was eighteen, she got a college scholarship and moved out. For the first time, Da and I were forced to live with just each other.”

  He twisted the hem of his pants, the only evidence of his discomfort. “In his defense, I know I’m odd.”

  Matt made a protesting sound, but Kiernan shook his head.

  “No, I am. He’s very blue-collar. I’m—” Kiernan gestured toward his chest, “—me. And I was a mouthy little shit. I talked back, defied him. In retrospect I think I was just trying to get h
im to notice me, but I was pretty stupid with the way I went about it. One afternoon, he came home early from work and found me on the couch with a guy from school. We weren’t exactly playing video games, if you get my drift. He…lost it. The seeing-dead-people thing was weird enough, but finding out his son was queer…” He hunched his shoulders. “He threw my friend out of the house, and—” he hesitated, swallowing deeply before going on, “—well, he beat the shit out of me.”

  Matt was shocked. His relationship with his own father was strained, but the man had never hit him.

  “I had a broken arm and a fractured skull,” Kiernan went on with studied casualness, but Matt didn’t buy it for a moment. Something like that left scars, even ones that didn’t show.

  “The cops were called. Child Protective Services got involved, started making noises about putting me in the foster system.” He took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Someone managed to get ahold of Aidan. She waited until the middle of the night, and then snuck me out of the hospital. She knew where Da kept his money hidden. He didn’t trust banks, so he kept it wrapped in foil in the freezer.” He exhaled on a tight laugh. “Right between the hamburger and the frozen peas. She took all of it, about four thousand dollars, and we disappeared. She walked away from her scholarship, and her friends, all because of me.”

  Matt watched the emotions that played over the mobile face. Loss, regret, guilt. The strong feelings of protectiveness he’d felt earlier surged through him again.

  “We didn’t stay in any one place for a long time,” Kiernan went on. “We’d never imagined this—thing I do could be anything more than some parlor trick. We’d settled in L.A. I was in high school. Aidan was working two jobs to keep a roof over our heads.”

  His eyes turned pensive. “I had a teacher I liked a lot. She’d recently lost her daughter in an accident. No one could tell her what happened. The girl’s car exploded, and the mother was torturing herself with every nightmare scenario imaginable.” He linked his fingers around his shins. “The daughter appeared to me one day in class, standing behind her mother. She kept begging me to tell her mom she hadn’t suffered, that she never knew what happened. Finally, just to get her to leave me alone—I did. The teacher didn’t believe me at first but I was able to tell her the girl’s name, what kind of car she’d been driving, where the accident had happened. She asked me to tell her everything I could, and then she gave me a check for five hundred dollars.”

  “So, is that what got you started?” Matt asked. “Doing it professionally?”

  “It seemed like a viable option. And it beat the hell out of Aidan killing herself, working splits between a coffee house and waiting tables in a diner. It didn’t take off right away, but eventually…” He spread his hands.

  “Have you ever seen or heard from your father?”

  “No. He’s never tried to find us. I have no idea if he knows about the show or not. When I started, it was just private readings. Then as my reputation grew, the tours and the public sessions followed. The TV show came after the first three tours. Aidan’s been managing me from the beginning, and trying to keep me out of trouble.” Kiernan gave him a small smile.

  “What, like you’re some sort of delinquent?” Matt teased.

  Kiernan’s grin ripened. “No, but it’s where the story about Seattle comes in. I’ve tried really hard not to be a burden to her. She’s been so amazing all of this time.” He grimaced self-consciously. “Problem is I’ve made some bad choices.”

  “Bad choices?”

  “In men.”

  “Ah.”

  “Mmm.” Kiernan looked down at the floor. “My first real boyfriend turned out to be a user. He said he wanted to help manage the tours, and I convinced Aidan to let him. He waited until all of the deposits for the venues had been made to the bank and then cleaned out the account and disappeared. The one after him could be perfectly charming, until he’d had too much to drink. Then he liked to use me for a punching bag.” He looked amused, even though Matt couldn’t imagine why. “Aidan went after him with a steak knife and told him if he ever came near me again, she’d give him unanesthetized sex reassignment surgery.”

  “Good for her.”

  Kiernan shot him quick smile. “The one after him was a completely decent guy, he just…couldn’t deal.” He shrugged negligently, but Matt saw he wasn’t as casual about it as he wanted to appear.

  “Couldn’t deal with…?” he prodded.

  “Me. With this thing I do. With what I am, who I am. It was all just too weird for him.” His eyes were mild, but Matt could see he’d been hurt.

  “And then there was the one in Seattle. He tipped off the press where I was, what floor I was staying on, and the fact that he was doing me. He managed to secure a deal with a tabloid for a five-figure sum if he could manage to maneuver me in front of a window and provide their photographer and his zoom lens compromising photos.” His eyes shifted to Matt, the expression in them surprisingly untroubled. “They were very compromising. He earned his money.”

  “The son of a bitch,” Matt muttered, infuriated and disgusted.

  “Yeah. And poor Aidan has been there through all of it, cleaning up each of my messes, putting me back together again every time someone has broken my heart. She says for a medium with connections on the other side, they tell me appallingly little about these losers before I sleep with them. She has a point. She’s also told me more than once I have no business falling in love, because I’m lousy at it.” He sent Matt a hooded look. “So, that’s why Seattle is a sore spot.”

  “I still don’t get why she looked at me.” Matt found Kiernan attractive and was drawn to him in a way he hadn’t been to anyone in a long time. But he thought he’d done a pretty good job of hiding it.

  There was no mistaking the humor sparkling in Kiernan’s eyes as they looked at him. “She knows me. And she’s trying to remind me what’s happened when I’ve been attracted to people in the past.”

  Matt wasn’t sure what he should say. His pulse sped even as Kiernan continued to study him impassively, a small smile curving his full lips.

  “Kiernan,” he managed finally. “I…” He stopped, at a loss.

  “Relax, Matt. I didn’t say it to make you uncomfortable. I’m merely trying to explain why Aidan looked at you the way she did. It isn’t you. She knows I like you, and she’s trying to remind me these things tend to end badly.” He stood and gave Matt a fond glance. “Don’t let it keep you up. I won’t jump you in your sleep. Not that I’m not tempted, mind you. I do find you…” his eyes moved over Matt’s face, feature by feature, “…really attractive. And I refuse to apologize for it. But I can also tell you’ve got stuff you’re dealing with. I can respect it enough not to press. Too much.” He winked at Matt before he turned and left the room.

  Chapter Seven

  Sheila turned up at his house the next morning, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed and unwilling to be put off any longer. She was also clearly delighted to find Aidan and Kiernan Fitzpatrick there. Matt couldn’t exactly order her out, though the thought did cross his mind as he watched her pull off her gloves and introduce herself to his houseguests. The prospect of explaining everything to her later made him tired just thinking about it.

  When he entered his kitchen after dressing, the women were plotting ways of getting the siblings back into their hotel. Since it looked as if the airport wouldn’t reopen any time soon, they were discussing other possible options. Matt knew they couldn’t stay indefinitely, and he tried to ignore the ache in the center of his chest at the thought of never seeing Kiernan again.

  “There’s always the train,” Sheila said. “Or the bus. I’m sure they’re running.”

  “The train, I think.” Aidan wrote something briskly on a note pad. “At least that way we might be able to get a private berth.”

  Kiernan ignore
d them as he made his way through a bowl of Frosted Flakes. His hair was a bird’s nest of cowlicks, his jaw dark with stubble, and he was still wearing his flannel pajama bottoms and the irreverent T-shirt. His eyes widened when he saw Matt and he whistled softly.

  “Wow, look at you,” he said with a dimpled grin.

  Matt flushed and checked to make sure his shirt was tucked in all the way around and his tie was straight. He’d pulled one of his good suits out of a dry cleaner bag. If he was about to get canned, he didn’t want to be dressed like a bum. He’d even briefly considered his blues, but thought it might be overkill. Already wearing his shoulder harness with his service revolver safely strapped in, he set his badge on the counter, ready to tuck in the pocket of his jacket when he donned it.

  He could feel eyes following him as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “A gun and everything,” Kiernan teased. “Very impressive.”

  Matt shot him a quelling look over his shoulder, but Kiernan didn’t look intimidated.

  “You look very nice,” Sheila said. “Very professional.”

  “He looks hot,” Kiernan said, still grinning. Sheila looked between them with ill-concealed delight.

  Wonderful. Just what he needed, Sheila on a mission.

  Kiernan leaned back in his chair. “But then, I’ve always had a thing for a man in a suit. The gun is just icing.”

  “I doubt Branson will care much how I look,” Matt said dryly.

  Kiernan’s expression was impish. “Straight, huh?”

  Sheila laughed. “Oh, he’s straight, all right. And not particularly bright. Matt’s the best he has, and he’s had him riding a desk for over a year.”

  “That’s enough, Sheila.” Matt slipped into his jacket, dropping his shield into the hidden pocket. “They’re not interested in my employment woes.”

  “I am,” Kiernan countered. “Why’s he had you riding a desk?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Matt picked up the long wool overcoat and shoved his arms into the sleeves, buttoning it closed.