The man gave her an odd look, as well he might with this sudden about face. “No, I don’t want no fockin’ tea, an’ don’t get any notions about throwin’ the kettle on me once it’s boiled neither.”
“This is my house, and I will have a cup if I like,” she said tartly. “If you refuse to leave, then the least you can do is accept what hospitality is offered. Or did your Mammy not teach you the least bit of manners?”
“Fine, make a pot of tea,” he said, clearly exasperated by her behavior. “But make a fockin’ wrong move an’ ye’ll be sorry.”
She nodded barely controlling an urge to spit in his face. Just then the baby moved, a slow soft ripple that sent a surge of fear through her system for what she was about to do. She prayed that Conor would sleep through this because if either of these bastards took so much as a step toward the stairs she was going to have to kill them, no matter what it meant for her.
It wasn’t tea leaves she wanted, but rather what she had stowed behind the tea in an old biscuit tin.
She reached back as far as she dared into the cupboard, making a show of not being able to find the tea. She could feel the man’s eyes on her back. A fine trickle of sweat ran down her spine and nausea churned her stomach. The baby was making little hiccupy motions inside, jarred no doubt by the massive amount of adrenaline coursing through its mother’s body. She stretched just a tiny bit farther and felt the edge of the tin. Her bruised fingers clawed at it, hoping to God that she wouldn’t just push it farther off.
“What’s takin’ ye so long?” the man asked, irritably.
“The Lyons is at the back of the cupboard,” she said trying to feign as much nonchalance as a woman with a thug in her house was likely to be able to feel.
The gun had been there in the cupboard, up high, since the last time she had lived here on her own and someone had been watching her from the woods around the house. She wasn’t going to be without protection and she knew if she had to put a bullet in this man, if he forced that decision upon her, she wasn’t going to hesitate to do so. The tin was in her hands now and she took it down, casting a glance over her shoulder.
He was looking toward the door, giving her the opportunity to ease the gun out of the tin and take the safety off. She took a quick breath and crossed the floor in two strides, jamming the gun into the man’s ear. He froze in place and put his hands out to the sides. She stepped back so that he couldn’t grab her and take the gun away. Just then, Conor started to cry.
“Alright then lady, take it easy. Ye could hurt yerself with that gun, likely as hurt me.” His eyes flicked toward the stairs as though he were weighing how distracted she was by her child’s cries.
“I know how to use it, you bastard, so don’t even think about trying to take it. You’re in my home. Do you think I’ll hesitate to kill you? I suggest you move toward the door slowly and then get the fuck out of my house and yard. Now.”
Conor was working himself up to a full throttle panic, as if he sensed that below stairs something was very wrong. She was nearing complete panic herself and she knew the man would use it to his advantage if the opportunity presented itself. She could not allow it to happen. She had to get him out of here.
She pushed him toward the door, finger slick on the trigger. At this point it seemed as likely she would kill him by accident as by design.
“Open the door,” she said. The man did as bid and opened it, stepping out carefully with his hands up in the air, so his own partner wouldn’t take a shot.
“Go down the stairs and move across the yard. Don’t even bother to look back. Just get the hell out of here and take your partner with you.”
“We’ll only be back later, missus, an’ yer man can’t be here all the time.”
“Next time, I’ll shoot you on sight.”
She gave him a shove toward the three stairs that ran down to the yard, desperate now, for Conor’s screams had escalated, with those awful silent gaps that meant he wasn’t breathing between cries. Sweat was pouring down her back and sides and her hand was so slick on the gun that she was afraid it would slip right out of her grasp.
The man took the stairs slowly, or so it seemed to Pamela, whose heart was pounding as adrenaline poured in unceasing waves through her body. She felt as though an invisible cord stretched between her and Conor and it yanked at her with each scream.
The ground exploded near the man’s feet as he came off the final stair and he jumped sideways, stumbling and nearly losing his balance. For a second she thought she had squeezed the trigger accidentally, then realized the explosion of dirt had resulted from a bullet coming from a completely different direction.
Apparently the man thought the same for he said, “Jesus—I’m moving just as ye told me to.”
“Not fast enough for me,” said a voice from the edge of the tree line. The other man, hands firmly trussed behind his back, walked out with a knife to his throat. Holding the knife was her husband. Out from behind Casey stepped Lewis Guderson, racking another cartridge into the shotgun he had pointed directly at the tall man’s chest. Owen stood on the tree line, a shotgun held at the ready. Casey’s face was dead white but set in lines of rage of a sort she had seen on him only twice before.
“Go inside, Pamela.” Casey said, and his voice brooked no opposition. “Lock the door and stay away from the windows.” She ran back into the house, wrenching open the door to Lawrence’s old room, barely feeling the tread of each stair as she took them as fast as her shaking legs would allow. Finbar streaked up behind her, as intent on the dreadful crying as she was.
She scooped Conor up and held him close to her body. He clung to her, his tiny fists gripped tight in her blouse. His howling slowly came down out of the rafters, reducing to snuffles of anxiety within minutes.
“Oh baby,” she said, “Mama is so sorry.” She rocked him and felt his body slowly relax into her own. His skin was clammy with fear, hair damp from the exertion of screaming.
She held him tightly and walked to the tub. The only window in the bathroom was up high and therefore not a danger.
Conor clapped his hands excitedly as soon as she shut the bathroom door.
“Mama, baf, baf!”
His tiny face was still streaked with tears, but his snuffles were eclipsed by the thought of a bath. Like her, Conor loved water, and was never happier than when he was in a tub filled with it. Right now, it was likely the best thing she could do for him.
She half-filled the tub with warm water, adding in a little of the lavender oil she often used for its calming effect.
She made happy noises at Conor as she washed him and played with him, but her mind felt as though it were on a greased track, sliding out of control. Three men well armed against two who were unarmed, for she had seen Owen pat down the man on the ground as she was running into the house.
It seemed unnervingly silent, and she could not hear so much as a voice, nor the crank of an engine starting. She would have to wait until Casey either walked in through the door, or he did not.
Conor would happily play in the water until he was entirely pruned, but right now she didn’t mind. The water was still warm and there was nothing else to do but worry and try to resist the temptation to look frantically out the windows.
She laid her head on the side of the tub, watching Conor. He happily smacked the water, shrieking with delight when it splashed back up into his face, and conducting a long conversation with a rubber duck—which mostly consisted of Conor saying ‘bad’ to the duck and then slapping it firmly on the bill. She put a hand to her belly as though she could cradle the inhabitant within and keep it safe from harm.
“Keep us safe,” she said softly, though she wasn’t certain if she spoke to God or her husband. Nor was she certain either of them could.
Outside the yard was quiet, for against two shotguns and a large
knife there wasn’t a great deal to say. Lewis and Owen stood with shotguns trained on the two men, faces impassive. That they would not hesitate to shoot was clear.
For his part, Casey was struggling against the terrible red surge he had known only a few times before in his life. That fury urged a man to kill, to do it quick and clean, and have it over with.
“Do not mistake me,” he said, to the man who knelt at his feet facing away, Casey’s blade drawing a thin line of blood from his throat, “for I will kill ye an’ have little compunction about it. Should ye make the mistake of goin’ near my wife or son again, ye are as good as dead. An’ it matters not who ye send after me, I’ll survive what I must to have my revenge on ye.”
He pulled the knife away, though the desire to kill was still there throbbing in his fingertips, pulsing hard in his chest and throwing its red brand across his eyes. That these men had the gall, the nerve to come upon his own land and threaten his family, to bring weapons into his place of sanctuary, made him angry enough to have killed them with his bare hands.
Clutching his throat, the squat man stumbled toward the lane, his partner following. Lewis kept the shotgun trained on them both until they were gone from view. Casey followed to the head of the lane, keeping the house in sight. He stood for a time, blood coursing heavy beneath his skin, feeling the vulnerability that lay in loving others, in being human, as the rage ebbed away and the reality sank in.
He turned and walked back toward the house. It lay in the last slant of the day’s sun, emerald green sills and door gleaming in the light, the whitewash dazzling and the scent of the earth slowly wakening sharp on the air. This house and the people who lived within it were everything to him. The thought that he might have lost them all today was enough to put a man on his knees.
“Go see to Pamela and the wee lad,” Lewis said, blue eyes scanning the scrim of the trees as the light of afternoon sank down between needles and feathery boughs and was absorbed into leaf and earth.
Inside the house was quiet, the Aga humming to itself as though nothing had taken place this afternoon. One of the kitchen chairs lay over on its side and a cupboard door stood open. Scattered across the kitchen floor were all the fragile seedlings he and Pamela had so carefully planted—tender stalks crushed, soil scattered and packed by a square boot heel. He righted the chair and closed the door, then cleaned up the worst of the dirt and small broken pots and plants. He only wished he were able to rid his wife and child of what had happened here this afternoon so easily.
He found Pamela upstairs in Conor’s room, holding him in her lap. Finbar lay at her feet, growling low in his throat until he realized it was Casey. Just the sight of his wife, with their son’s head resting sleepily on her breast, was enough to make him grab for the doorsill in relief. He smelled the warm, herbal scents of a recently bathed child.
“He wouldn’t settle,” she said quietly. “I just wanted to give him back his sense of security. He was crying so hard, Casey. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t come.”
“I’m sorry, Pamela. Is he alright now, then?”
She nodded, her head still bent over their son. He realized that it wasn’t just gazing at Conor that had her avoiding his eyes, for he saw the tight set of her shoulders and the stark white of her skin.
He knelt by them, putting his hand to the soft spring of Conor’s curls, feeling the reassuring heat and thrum of the laddie’s pulse so close to the delicate network of bone. Conor eyed him warily, as though he distrusted everyone but his mother just now. Casey didn’t dare touch his wife yet for he could feel the anger coming off her in waves, and while he knew much of it was still directed at the departed thugs he also was wise enough to know part of it was for him. They sat that way for long minutes, both silent.
Dusk had begun to gather softly in the corners of the room when Pamela stood and patted Conor’s back. Conor had screamed himself into exhaustion during the panic for his mother, and his bath, a dry set of clothes and a full belly had put him directly back to sleep. She laid him gently on his bed and pulled his favorite blanket up over his deeply breathing form. Finbar settled beside the bed, his narrow silky face alert and on guard.
“Go put the kettle on, please,” Pamela said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Casey went downstairs and did as bid. Outside he could see Lewis still on guard by the front door. He put the kettle on and got out the whiskey bottle, for his nerves could use the analgesic of a small glass.
He heard Pamela’s light tread on the stairs moments later and turned to face her.
She stood at the bottom of the stairs, the bones in her face stark against the white skin. She looked exhausted and terribly fragile. He held himself back from going to her, knowing she had to come to him if she so chose.
She walked toward him and though her tension telegraphed itself clearly, still he was shocked when she slapped him across the face, hard enough to rock him back on his heels.
“You goddamn bastard!”
Casey winced slightly and put a hand up to his jaw. He didn’t say anything because he knew she was right, and that she was reacting out of the aftermath of terror, of fear that her children, both the one upstairs in his bed and the one she carried in her belly, might have been harmed if not killed outright. He had felt the same rage, but she was pregnant, vulnerable and angry that he hadn’t been able to protect her from these men invading their home. He knew, because he was angry at himself for that very thing.
“What the hell is going on at the construction site that you didn’t see fit to tell me about? Goddamn it, man, why didn’t you say something? No more secrets, we both promised. How long has this been going on?”
And so he told her, about the graft, about the payments, and about the fear and worry that had ridden him like a demon these many months. He knew he was bald in the telling, yet there was no way to cushion it. There never was in this country. By the end of the telling, Pamela looked ready to hit him again but began to shake instead, and he automatically reached out to catch her, afraid her knees were going to drop her to the floor. He could feel the resistance in her body, though he knew what she needed right now was comfort and assurance, which he was bloody well going to give her whether she wanted it or not.
“Pamela, ye can rage at me later. Ye can slap me senseless if ye feel it will help, but right now, woman, can ye just let me hold ye? For my own sake as well as yers.”
She looked up at him then, and he thought she saw clearly how terrified he was too, because she moved into the shelter of his arms and let him hold her tightly to his chest.
He breathed deeply of her scent, familiar but changed since she had become a mother, and a comfort to him in all its varying notes. He could feel her pulse slow with the reassurance of his touch. This he could do for her, little that it was. Because he couldn’t be here all the time, and well those bastards knew it. Next time he would not be caught unawares because there wasn’t going to be a next time. He and Lewis would see to that between them.
He had a sick knot in his stomach, for he knew only too well how much worse this situation might have been. If Owen hadn’t called simply because he had a bad feeling about two men who had stopped into his pub for a pint that afternoon, if Lewis hadn’t been there in time to grab the second man and hold him at gun point until Casey arrived.
His wife was no stranger to violence. She had been raped by four men years earlier, and it was a tragedy that haunted him—the fear that it would or could happen again. She had come out of the rape a survivor, had moved through it and then beyond in a way that had told him how very strong this woman was. He had never truly forgiven himself for being absent the day it happened, for as irrational as it might seem, he always felt that had he been with her he could have prevented it happening, or at least died in the effort.
In his arms, his wife had stopped shaking, though she still held tigh
tly to him as if he were the anchor that held her to earth just now.
He placed a palm over her belly in gentle protection. The words he wanted to say were stuck tight in his throat, rammed there and choking him. Pamela must have sensed this for she placed her own hand over his.
“We’re alright, Casey. Stop thinking about everything that might have happened.” She squeezed his hand and he lowered his head in gratitude, knowing his strength often depended entirely on this woman, the touch of her, her limitless capacity for forgiveness, her instinctive understanding of the words he could not say, and her love for him.
“Casey,” she said, moments later, in a quiet but grim tone. “I need you to take me upstairs and make love to me.”
“What, now?” he asked, shocked at the suggestion. Lewis was still out front and would be for the duration of the night. He meant to join him as soon as Pamela was calmed.
“Yes, now. It’s either that or I hit you again.”
He laughed, though it was strained. “Well, when ye put it that way woman, I don’t see as there’s much to the choosin’ here.”
“I need to feel you against me, inside me. I need to know that we’re okay.”
“Alright, darlin’, alright,” he said smoothing the hair from her face, and kissing her forehead gently. He understood the need to touch, to be as close as it was possible for two human beings to be, to regain some ground in the intimacy that had always been their innate language.
He took her upstairs and laid her across the bed, realizing that he needed this too, to know that the heart of what they were was still here and safe, that the bastards had not touched what was sacred.
He made love to her gently, carefully, worried about the baby and that this afternoon’s events might have a price that neither of them could afford. She cried near the end, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him tight to her body. He kissed her tears away, heart beating strong against hers. Pulse to pulse they lay, he holding her, wishing he could infuse his strength into her. He put his mouth to her ear, breath still warm with exertion.
Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3) Page 74