Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3)

by Cindy Brandner

  The silence in the room was so complete that she could hear the tap of empty rose cane against the window, fretting in the night wind.

  “Aye, not tonight then,” he said, voice weary with all the words neither of them seemed able to utter.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear.

  “Aye, darlin’,” he said and took her hand in his own, face still turned from her. “So am I.”

  She lay for some time after Casey fell asleep, listening to the hiss and pop of the peat fire in the grate and the soft sighing of the wind outside their bedroom. Finally, she gave up on sleep and slid from the bed as quietly as her body allowed. She put Casey’s discarded shirt on and went to sit by the window. The windowsills were a good eighteen inches thick and provided a solid seat for watching the moon cross the sky on restless nights. Tonight, however, was moonless, the yard below thick with shadows. She gazed out sightlessly, already chilled to the bone and knowing it had nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

  For months now, this thing had stood between them, and she knew well that the longer it stood there, the more damage it was going to inflict on their marriage. Yet what could she say to him? What could she tell him to take away the things she had done? To wipe from his mind the images and feelings that she knew he could not help but imagine, in painful detail. She did not see how words could help, but was uncertain how they were going to get through this whole without her having to say them. Perhaps it would be better than what he was imagining, but what if it wasn’t? What then? Everything between them was so terribly tenuous right now, their whole relationship as delicate as a spider’s web touched by the elements and torn by the wind. If they spoke of it and he couldn’t handle it—and she knew it was likely he wasn’t going to like it one bit—then what? She could not lose him again, nor have him stay because he felt he had to for their child.

  The night he had come for her at Jamie’s those few months ago, she had hoped that they had mended things well enough so that this would not be necessary; the conversation that Casey felt must be had. It had been a foolish hope born of the sheer relief that Casey had come home to her, as much as he was able at that time. Being that she had waited months not knowing if she would ever see him again, it had been more than enough—then. But now it was all too apparent that something was missing. There was a constraint between them, if not in the small rituals of domestic life then in the bed where they had once given of themselves completely.

  There had been the dreadful night when he had found out. It was still there, whole in her memory like a wound that hurt to touch but was impossible to avoid. She shivered and drew her arms tight around her chest. His scent was heavy on the shirt and she breathed deeply of it, allowing it to give her comfort. That night, she had tried to explain her infidelity, how the FBI had given her very little choice, and Love Hagerty had given her even less, that she had simply seen no other way out of their predicament and had thought her body a small price to pay for her husband’s life. He had told her he would, all things considered, rather be dead. He had meant it and she had meant it too, and would do it again if it meant keeping him alive. But he was male and therefore could not understand her reasoning, not that she could blame him.

  She had made a terrible mistake that night, but even in hindsight she did not see how she might have fixed it. When Casey had asked if she felt anything for Love Hagerty while she lay in his bed, she had been unable to answer. She had meant only that her body had, despite the revulsion of her heart, sometimes responded to the man’s touch. She was afraid to ask Casey if he understood, afraid to open the wound that was her affair with Love Hagerty, for fear of what might be said. Conversations had a life of their own and that was particularly true of one that could not help but be volatile and emotional.

  The night he had brought her home there had been too many emotions in the air to say anything, and after that, it had seemed best to let it all lie. But that night had given them back to one another, and so she would not touch the shape of it for fear of changing the pattern of their lives. He had taken her first to a small tumbledown cottage deep in the countryside and given her the choice of continuing their marriage, their life together and she had felt the gift of that fully. And then he had brought her home here, where they might begin to heal and he, she hoped, could forgive her enough to allow her back into his heart completely.

  The house was warm, a fire glowing in the hearth. The light reflected in small shifting patches in the teacups that adorned the sideboard, and the floorboards gleamed softly. She sighed in relief. It was good to be home, like sinking into a warm bath on a chilly winter evening. She turned to Casey.

  “How—”

  He smiled. “I did hope ye’d come home with me tonight, Jewel. I didn’t want to bring ye back to a cold house. That hardly seemed a proper welcome.”

  “Thank you,” she said, feeling oddly nervous. Here they were home, just as she had wanted and hoped and prayed for these last few months, and now she didn’t know what to do or say.

  Casey took her coat from her and she sat down in a chair by the fire, her legs suddenly wobbly as a new colt’s. He came and knelt on the rug before the fire, adding a couple of bricks of peat to it. The heat steadied her nerves a little. She needed to tell him about the baby.

  Casey rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath. Before she could utter a word, he turned to her with an odd look on his face and said, “Well, let’s get on with it then.”

  “Get on with what?” she asked, confused.

  “Sex,” he said bluntly. “We need to get it out of the way.”

  “Oh,” she said, feeling a little dizzy suddenly as the full import of what lay between them hit her. There was no way for Casey to take her to bed without it conjuring up the pain that needed only the slightest breath to stir it to full wakefulness. How could she lie down with him, give him everything without any barriers between them, when she knew the images that would haunt him every time he touched her?

  “I’m sorry, Jewel. That came out a bit more blunt than I’d intended. It’s just that,” he breathed out heavily, “I want to make love to ye, but I’m afraid to as well. I’m afraid of what I’ll feel. I’m afraid of hurting ye. But I know waiting will only make it worse.”

  She swallowed and began to unbutton her blouse. Casey opened his mouth to say something and then snapped it shut as his eyes took in the changes in her body since last he’d touched her. She shrugged the blouse off, the firelight flickering on the ivory of her breasts, each one tinged blue with the dilated veins of pregnancy.

  “Oh,” Casey said, and it was a small shocked sound, as though someone had let his air out.

  “Give me your hands, man,” she said softly and after a moment, he turned toward her and extended two hands that shook ever so slightly. She took them and placed them on the round of her belly.

  “Did ye… did ye know ye were pregnant the night I left ye?” he asked.

  “Yes, though just.”

  “Oh, Pamela. Why didn’t ye tell me?” His large hands spanned the small mound, eyes dark and riveted to the obvious pregnancy.

  “I didn’t think it was fair. I wanted you to stay for love, not for duty.”

  Casey bowed his head and took a deep breath. “Woman, there’s never been a minute since I first saw ye that I haven’t loved ye. I was angry. I was hurtin’ somethin’ fierce, but never doubt that I loved ye the whole time.”

  “And I you,” she said softly, tears running freely down her face. “You scared the hell out of me, man.”

  “How… how…” words seemed to fail him, for he swallowed, the long line of his throat trembling.

  “Three months—so far, so good,” she said, knowing the fears that haunted him as well as she knew her own.

  He nodded, as though afraid to even give voice to hope. They had been hopeful so many times
before, and been sorely pained at each loss. This time she felt it was different, that this pregnancy would result in a living child, a child that would help them heal.

  He took her down gently, there on the rug in front of the fire.

  She shivered when he touched her, though the fire was hot against her skin.

  He brushed the hair away from her face and kissed her forehead tenderly before putting his lips to her own. She needn’t have worried, for her response was immediate. Having been denied the touch of him for so long she found herself almost desperate, wanting him inside her, hard and needing, meeting her own need like fire striking tinder, setting off an uncontrollable blaze.

  After, he stayed with her, skin to skin, his blood beating hard against her own. They were silent for a long time, both afraid to speak, yet content to be near one another for the first time in so many weeks. The night outside was silent with frost and cold, but inside it was snug and peaceful.

  “Do you know how I love you?” she said suddenly, worried that after all that had passed between them, he still would not know this one crucial thing.

  He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at her, face tender.

  “Aye, there are times, Pamela, when I get a glimpse of it an’ count myself blessed among men for the ferocity of such a thing. Were it only half of what I feel for ye, I would still count myself the most lucky of souls. But I know it to be the equal of my own. We are, both of us, fortunate.”

  The kiss was long and spoke of many things neither of them could find the words for. Their mutual sorrow at the loss of the trust they had once taken as a given, the fear around this newly begun life they had created, the relief that their bodies still knew one another and responded with gratitude for the touch of the other. The knowledge that eventually they would heal this and the many other things that needed time and chance.

  She got out of the chair, thoroughly cold now, and climbed back into the bed beside Casey. He was hot to the touch and roused a little at the icy contact of her hands. She snuggled tightly along his length and he murmured in his sleep, a sound of contentment and intimacy, then pulled her closer with his left arm, drifting back into the deep sleep she had disrupted.

  Chapter Four

  February 1973

  The Boy from Liverpool

  The powers that be had chosen Liverpool as David’s cover. Liverpool with its centuries of Irish immigration and history or, as his boss had put it, “Liverpool has always been an Irish cesspit. No one could ever trace you there, and it’s not likely anyone would ever try.”

  Not likely, but he had his facts in order just in case. His family and siblings, where they had lived—Merseyside of course—had been there since the first great influx of Irish after the 1798 Rebellion. The numbers were so high of those who had fled Ireland in those days, and the record keeping so poor that no one could trace a family in the tangled web of Liverpool’s Irish history. He was meant to be the product of an English father and an Irish mother, thus explaining his sympathy to the Loyalist cause. He had spent a few weeks in Liverpool, familiarizing himself with the Merseyside and nursing a headache from his practice of the Scouse accent and dialect.

  As covers went, it was less flimsy than most and he could occasionally take refuge in acting the foreign naïf. That didn’t wash with Billy though, who was as tough a little cur as David had ever had the misfortune to meet. He was a touch leery of the child, for he had fixed himself to David like a barnacle to a weathered boat from the first day he had taken up residence in the big, drafty old house. He was a suspicious lad, with big white teeth in a narrow, pale face that made him look like a cagey squirrel. He was fifteen, a slip of a child who would likely one day be wiry and tough. Right now he seemed like a wee boy trying to stand in a full grown gangster’s boots.

  David doubted that much got past this child’s screen. It had likely been a matter of survival for Billy much of his life. David had noticed the boy watching him several times.

  It was as they were walking on the Protestant side of the Shankill divide near a particularly grimy drinking club on Centurion Street that Billy finally confronted him. David had been half expecting it, and half praying he was wrong about the boy’s suspicions. He was not.

  “So what bit of England was it ye said ye came from?”

  The boy was direct if without finesse, David thought.

  “Liverpool.” He didn’t offer any more explanation than that. It was always a mistake to offer more information than had actually been requested.

  “Ye might have Boyd fooled, ‘cuz he’s so busy lookin’ at yer arse that’s he’s not payin’ attention. But ye don’t seem right to me.” Billy leaned up against the filthy wall of a betting shop and took a speculative drag on his hand-rolled. David was in no way prepared for the next question.

  “Did ye know Lawrence?”

  He schooled his face quickly to a bored nonchalance, fairly certain there was a method to the boy’s queries and that he was going to have to play this situation carefully, but he saw little reason to prevaricate. If he was made, he was made. He had learned long ago to make the best of a bad or even lethal situation and he was highly trained in the art of playing both ends against the middle. Besides, if the child was going to rat him out, it was likely he would have done so already. If he hadn’t, then he had an angle, and David was a big fan of angles because they could always be worked in both directions.

  “Lawrence who?”

  But Billy’s attention had been sidetracked.

  “Yer bein’ stared at, well, glared at, really,” Billy said and nodded toward a man who stood in the doorway of a corner shop, newspaper in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other. David looked and then looked again, thinking it was quite possible to jump out of one’s skin in startlement. For standing on the corner, and most definitely not being fooled in the least by David’s disguise, was Patrick Riordan, as tall and dark and even slightly more fearsome than the version David had held, somewhat gilded, in his heart and mind.

  Pat tilted his head, hesitated for a moment and then stepped across the pavement, making toward David, who realized he had to move, and move now before disaster struck right here in the middle of this narrow road.

  He walked toward Pat, fishing out a cigarette so that he could ask for a light and ostensibly have a reason to be chatting to this man should any interested eyes be observing him.

  Christ, he breathed deeply through his nose as Pat came within feet of him, a look of furious incredulity on his face. He had forgotten how big the man was. Long and lean with it, so it wasn’t as apparent, but a big bloody bastard nevertheless. They stopped at the same time, like two wary dogs about to square off.

  “What the hell are ye doin’ in this neighborhood?” David said, trying to avoid the dark eyes and look nonchalantly off into the distance.

  “What the hell am I doin’ in this neighborhood?” Pat asked indignantly.

  “Point taken,” David said, eyes low and scanning the area for potential witnesses to this unlikely and dangerous meeting. “Look, just pretend you’re giving me a light for a cigarette or something, and then we’ll move on and I’ll get word to you on a safe place to meet. Just act like you don’t know me.”

  “All things considered,” Patrick said, with a pointed look at Billy still standing on the sidewalk, eyeing them with great interest, “I think maybe I don’t.”

  “It’s not what you think,” David said, thinking that what it was was going to be even harder to explain—not that he owed him explanations—and yet he supposed that in some way he did. For this man was his friend, the best one he had ever had, and friendship was owed a debt, if nothing else.

  “Oh, I’m afraid it probably is,” Pat said with no small sarcasm, and kept on walking, “but I’ll reserve judgement for now.”

  “Kind of you,” David muttered under his breath,
slouching his way back to where Billy stood.

  “Know him?” Billy asked, his face suspiciously innocent.

  “Aye, somewhat,” David said, striving to sound as nonchalant as his pounding heart would allow.

  “Really? Seemed as if ye knew him pretty well.”

  David shrugged as if to say it didn’t matter to him one way or the other if Pat Riordan dropped off the face of the earth. He did not want the man targeted because of the last five minutes.

  Billy tossed his cigarette to the ground, stepping on the spark of ash that was left. He was a small boy, even for his age but he more than made up for it in sheer bravura. David knew to be wary around him. If the child even breathed his suspicions to Boyd or any of his ilk, David would be found in several pieces out back of some grotty drinking club. He waited, drawing out the smoking of his own cigarette to give the boy time. He wasn’t going to speak first. A mistake like that would only confirm the child’s suspicions.

  “Well then, here ‘tis. Maybe I don’t give a fock if yer a copper as long as ye take care of Boyd.”

  “How do you mean—take care?” David asked quietly, careful to keep his accent in place, even if it wasn’t fooling this child.

  Billy looked at him, a long assessing look, his blue eyes as dark and clouded as the sea that lay beyond this troubled city.

  “I think ye know fine what I mean, Davey.”

  Unfortunately, David thought, that was all too true.

  “I’ll tell ye what though—there’s one other thing I want in trade for my silence.”

  “Aye,” said David dryly, “an’ what would that be?”

  “I want to talk to Casey Riordan.”

  Chapter Five