About Face (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  The woman turned away and covered her mouth, but we all heard her stifled snickers anyway.

  “Goddamn it,” swore Paddy and stomped up a flight of old wooden stairs just inside the door. A red velvet rope stretched across the bottom, but he had long legs and simply stepped over it.

  I was not as tall and had to hang onto the banister to keep my balance, but I managed not to trip over my feet.

  At the top of the staircase was a door marked Private. To the left was a small, very antiquated bathroom. Paddy shoved open the office door and stomped toward an old rolltop desk piled with papers and a desk calculator. He threw himself into a leather chair on wheels that squealed in protest and nearly bashed into the brick wall behind it.

  A battered sofa, two armchairs with the stuffing coming out, an ancient coffee table and a set of built in bookshelves crammed haphazardly with books and magazines made up the rest of the furniture.

  A grimy window covered with curtains in a faded red chintz pattern overlooked a dark alley.

  “Very film noir.” I brushed off the seat of one of the armchairs before dubiously taking a seat. “Are you a private eye or a publican? All you need is a fedora and a fifth of rye stashed in your desk drawer, and you could be straight out of a Mickey Spillane novel.”

  “Shut it,” Paddy advised and put his head in his hands for a moment.

  “Dramatic bastard.” I looked around the room and grimaced at the grime on the window.

  “I take it by your comment outside that you’re here to sever the ties with Liam?” Paddy moved his squeaky chair so the desk didn’t block me from his sight.

  “Actually, the opposite. I came to work things out. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, right?”

  “Huh?” He gaped at me, and I rolled my eyes.

  “That was a Jaws reference, you dumbass.”

  He continued to stare.

  “American movie from the seventies? About a huge shark that ate half the damn town and then got blown up with an air tank and a lucky-as-hell rifle shot?”

  “What the hell are you blathering on about now? You’re delirious—you do know that, right? You need to eat something and maybe then we can have a genuine conversation. Jaysus.” Paddy rolled the chair back behind his desk and began to sort through the phenomenal mess spread across it.

  “This office is a joke. You can’t seriously run a business out of here. How can you possibly keep track of anything with it thrown all over the desk like that?”

  “I have a system.” Paddy gave me a defensive glare and I shook my head.

  “And I have nine lives like a cat. My ass, you have a system,” I sneered and something pounded the desktop. Possibly his fist.

  “This is not the Stanzie Newcastle I remember,” he muttered. “Step one foot on Irish soil, and it’s like a fucking banshee possessed you.”

  I settled back in the armchair.

  “So where is he? Murphy?” My voice was casual, but I didn’t fool either of us. I thought of Faith’s dream again and wanted to beg the man to tell me Murphy wasn’t in over his head, but I had to play it just a little cooler than that. If I could. Subtlety was not one of my better talents.

  “No,” he decided. “We are not having this conversation until after you eat and after I drink copious amounts of beer. Not gonna happen.”

  “I know he’s giving everyone in the pack the impression I walked out on him. Or maybe that was you,” I accused and Paddy’s mouth fell open.

  “Me?” he bellowed. “I’m not in the habit of blabbing pack members’ private business all over the place.”

  “Fine. It was him, then.” I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice but I knew I failed. “That red-haired giant hurt my feelings,” I yelled. “I wasn’t in half so bad a mood before he treated me like shit and talked about the pub being fucking private.”

  “I told you I’m gonna kick his ass. Why do you have to take it out on me?” Paddy shouted.

  “I’m also mad as hell at you! Worse than I am at the giant!”

  “His name is Colm, damn it,” snapped Paddy. “And why the hell should you be mad at me?”

  My blood pressure zoomed again at his treachery.

  “You said I was family. After my father disowned me at the tribunal, you took me aside and told me I didn’t need him because I had a family. You. Mac Tire. You fucking lied to my face, Paddy, and what’s worse, I believed you. I believed in you. And then you just walked away. You couldn’t even look me straight in the eye the day you and Murphy left. And in four months not a phone call or an email to see if I was okay. Nothing. Not one goddamn thing.”

  “Fuck.” Guilt spread across Paddy’s face, but I was unmoved. Then the guilt turned to anger, and he yelled, “And why the fuck has it taken you four months to get your ass over here anyway? I didn’t think it would take you even four days, but no, you’ve got to be a bitch about it!”

  “Me? A bitch? What?” I spluttered, unable to form a coherent sentence due to the rage strangling me.

  “You heard me. You sat there and didn’t say one word when he said he was leaving, and how the hell do you think that made him feel? Like complete shite, that’s how it made him feel. And here I am, having to pick up the pieces for you, and now you have the gall to be mad at me, woman? I’m the one who should be mad, and I am. I am good and frigging mad, so don’t you glare at me like that. You tell me what the hell took you so long to get here.”

  “He left me,” I screamed. Rage burned up and down my spine and all through my blood until I thought I might spontaneously combust. “How many times do I have to keep telling people that? Why is everyone blaming me? He walked out on me, and I’m supposed to come crawling after him to beg him to take me back? Fuck you! Oh, you arrogant bastard, I cannot even believe you!”

  “Where in the hell did you hear me say the word crawl? Stanzie Newcastle, will you calm your ass down and shut the fuck up for one minute? I can’t even hear myself think.” Paddy tore at his hair with his hands, and his cheeks were so red I thought he was close to combustion too.

  Affronted, I turned away from him and stared at the damn brick wall. He wanted me to shut the fuck up, did he? Fine. I would not say a word.

  The office door banged open, and the redhead from behind the bar walked in with a tray of food and Guinness. My stomach rumbled, and she flashed me a smile I didn’t trust an inch. Too many teeth.

  “I’m Alannah Doyle,” she introduced herself as she set the tray down on Paddy’s desk. “My bond mate’s Declan Byrne.”

  “Constance Newcastle.” I took a deep breath. “At the moment, anyway, my bond mate is Liam Murphy.” I wanted to throw up or crawl beneath the sofa, but I managed to look her in the face, braced for pity or ridicule.

  “What took you so long to get here?” she demanded, hands on hips.

  “Thank you,” Paddy yelled rudely.

  “Does this shit happen all the time in Mac Tire? People walk out on other people, and other people chase after them, even though they were the ones that were walked out on?” My tone was snotty, but, honestly, what the fuck?

  “For three years every eligible female in this pack and some not so eligible chased after Liam, and he spurned us all. So forgive me, woman, for being a bit pissed the female he finally does choose deserts his ass at the first sign of trouble. It’s been a terrible thing to watch him these past few months. At least after Sorcha died we didn’t have to see him because he ran away to Belfast, of all fucking stupid places, and we weren’t constantly exposed to his sad, pitiful face day after day. Has the man smiled even once in four months, Paddy?” Alannah turned to him, and he looked up guiltily from his Guinness and swallowed the wrong way.

  “Stop drinking that and participate in this discussion. It’s important.” Alannah stomped a small foot on the wooden floor, but by the way Paddy cringed I would have expected her to be an Amazon or at least brandishing a weapon.

  More and more it seemed my interpretation of Faith’s
dream was dead-on. Paddy needed my help with Murphy. Only, was I the one who could give it? That man never took anybody’s help—why the hell would he take mine?

  “How many goddamn times do I have to say that I am the one who was deserted, not the other fucking way around?” I wanted to get up and kick her pretty face in but somehow controlled myself.

  The look of scorn she directed at me could have stripped paint.

  “What are you doing here, then?”

  I didn’t say anything, and she blew out her breath in impatience. “You silly cow. Why can’t you admit you want him back? Bloody stupid, prideful Americans. You get on my nerves.”

  “Did you—you did not just call me a cow.” My face heated. I turned in Paddy’s direction. “Did that bitch just call me a cow?”

  “Jaysus, I want to eat dinner in peace. Woman, get your ass back to the bar. You’re the one who wanted the job, didn’t you? Begged me for it, in fact. And now you’ve got the job, what do you do? Stand around in my office, badgering poor Stanzie. If she doesn’t want to answer you, she doesn’t have to. Why should she tell us her strategy anyway? You’re gonna spoil all the fun we’ll have watching her.”

  “I did not beg you for this job.” Alannah tossed her red hair as she moved for the door. “Declan fucked Fee for it, you bastard.”

  I waited until the door was shut before I said anything. Spoil the fun, would she?

  “You made her bond mate fuck yours so she could have a job behind the bar? Oh my God.” He ducked when I threw my boot at his head.

  “Stanzie. It was a joke! The stupid kind between brother and sister? Alannah’s my half sister, for Christ’s sake. Her ma was bonded to my ma and da.”

  “She introduces herself as Declan Byrne’s bond mate but conveniently leaves out the part where she’s your sister? Unbelievable. And rude. And you didn’t say anything either, you bastard.” He ducked again when I threw my second boot.

  The lure of the food on the desk was too much to resist. On sock feet, I padded over.

  He kept his hands prudently out of the way as I made my choice between the shepherd’s pie and the fish and chips. I retreated back to the armchair with the shepherd’s pie and a foamy glass of Guinness.

  Before I dug in, I gave him a dark look, and he groaned.

  “Okay, so we’re frigging rude barbarians here in Mac Tire. From now on I’ll make sure to give you everyone’s family ties before I even tell you their names when I’m introducing you. I will never understand women. Particularly American women. I don’t even know why the hell I try to reason with any of them. Ever.” He muttered the last bit to himself and abruptly grabbed a fistful of chips from the plate and stuffed them in his mouth.

  “All right then,” I allowed after I savored a forkful of the delicious shepherd’s pie. It was spicy and warm, and hit my empty stomach like a welcome friend.

  “Glad to have the royal pardon, your Majesty,” he mocked, and I flipped him off because my mouth was too full to yell at him.

  I decided to concentrate on my food and not Paddy because he’d just ruin my appetite, the sonofabitch, and I was starving. I applied myself to my plate, and by the sounds he made, he practically made love to his fish and chips.

  Replete, I leaned back in the armchair. My plate was incredibly empty, and so was my glass. Paddy remedied the latter by refilling it from the pitcher on his desk.

  He studied me for a moment as he stood before me. “You’ve got some color back in your face. Non-choleric-rage-related color, that is.” He reached down to brush some hair from my face, and I flinched. His mouth tightened.

  “I know you think I’m some sort of complete, unfeeling bastard, Stanzie, but—”

  “I don’t think—I know,” I interrupted.

  He sighed and stomped back behind his desk. Faith’s dream had to be bullshit. There was no way I would forgive this man for abandoning me after he told me I was family.

  “So where is he?” At my question Paddy nearly dropped the pitcher of Guinness and set it down carefully. “Paddy?”

  “Belfast,” Paddy told me, although by the look on his face he’d rather have eaten glass than answer me. “He got an offer for his cottage, and he went to the closing. He’ll be back soon. I think.” His tone was doubtful.

  I thought about the cottage in Belfast. I’d never seen it, but Murphy and I had had plans to go there together for weekend getaways after we made our home here in Dublin. We were going to keep my condo in Boston and his cottage in Belfast, and now he’d sold the cottage. It shouldn’t have hurt because the man walked out on me four months ago, but it still did. Now I’d never see it. Of course, it could be cover for his investigation into the whereabouts of Mick Shaughnessy, but I could not blurt that question in case Paddy didn’t know about the conspiracy.

  Besides, Murphy wouldn’t have to put the cottage up for sale to support his investigation of Grandfather Mick. If anything, he’d want to keep it as a base away from home as he traveled around the UK. My stomach soured, and I wished I hadn’t wolfed my food so fast.

  “Well, I guess he’s not planning to leave the pack and grow vegetables this time around,” I remarked, chin jutted.

  After Sorcha died he’d left Mac Tire, bought the cottage, and escaped. After he left me, he’d sold the cottage and apparently planned to say in the pack. Which meant…

  “Who is she? He’s got someone new, hasn’t he?” My heart beat painfully in my chest, and I wanted to rip it out and stomp on it to make it stop.

  “Don’t be daft,” Paddy advised. “Sure and he’ll have to bond with somebody if you don’t figure out a way to get back with him, but you heard Alannah, didn’t you? He’s been scowling and moody the whole bloody time he’s been here. Snapping at people or more likely ignoring the crap out of them. If he’s got somebody new, she’s a masochist for sure.” Then a grin spread across his attractive face. “You’re jealous.”

  “You’re fucked in the head,” I snapped, and he laughed, the bastard.

  “You do want him back,” he crowed.

  I scowled at him. “Well, duh, that’s why I’m here. But you don’t have to get all smirky about it. So I admit it. I want him back. But since I wasn’t the one who walked out, I don’t see how what I want means shit.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Because of you, mostly, I thought to myself but didn’t say since Paddy didn’t know that part. Ask him, Stanzie. Ask him if Murphy’s in bad trouble. But I wasn’t sure it was the right time. I wasn’t even sure that’s what the dream meant. I wasn’t sure of any goddamn thing.

  “I’m tired. Do you know any good hotels? Since Murphy’s not here, there’s no sense in me sticking around here tonight.” I yawned and stretched my arms over my head.

  An affronted expression made Paddy look like a mule.

  “A hotel now? You’ll be traveling all this way, and you being Mac Tire and asking me if I know any good hotels? You rude little bitch.”

  “What?” I glared. “What did I do now?”

  “Mac Tire don’t stay in hotels in Dublin, woman,” Paddy roared, and if they didn’t hear him downstairs in the pub, it was only because everyone had gone deaf.

  “Where would you suggest I stay?” I made my voice as sweet as I could, but he still grimaced as if I sounded like nails down a chalkboard.

  “Not a hotel,” he barked. He fished in his pocket and came up with a set of keys. He extracted one from the main keychain. It had its own keychain, one with a small Eiffel Tower dangling from it. My heart gave a lurch in my chest.

  “Here,” he tossed it to me, and I caught it automatically. My mind flashed back to a windy afternoon in Paris when Murphy and I had sat together on a bench on the first level of the Eiffel Tower and drank coffee while we read case files Jason had given us.

  I’d bought the keychain in the gift shop, and somehow he’d ended up with it. I’d forgotten all about it until I saw it in Paddy’s hand.

  “I’ll give you a lift to Liam�
�s place. You’ll stay there.”

  “What if he comes home?” I said, panicked.

  “Oh, the horror,” Paddy screamed in a girlish voice. “The man you want to get back with comes home and finds you sleeping in his bed. Whatever would you do?”

  “Shut up,” I snapped. “You’re such a bastard, Paddy.”

  “If you continue to hurt my feelings, I’ll make Alannah give you that lift,” he threatened, and I gritted my teeth.

  Paddy watched me drink my Guinness. His eyes fascinated me. I’d never seen anyone with different-colored eyes before him. I wondered if his wolf’s eyes were two different colors and tried to remember if I’d noticed the afternoon I’d had to shift for the tribunal. My mind had been focused on other things—like how my wolf had refused at first to come out, so it was no wonder I didn’t have a clue.

  “I meant what I said, you know.” He had that wistful, remorseful look on his face again—the one I didn’t trust because he was a lying, manipulative bastard. “About you being family. About how you belong to me.” The possessiveness in his voice was not overtly sexual, although there were undertones since he was an Alpha male and I was a fertile female. Instead he evoked feelings of protectiveness—feelings I fought because they weren’t true.

  Was this the prelude to the scene from Faith’s dream? Would he open his mouth and say, Now do you believe in me again?

  I hoped not because I sure as hell didn’t feel like saying I belonged to him. Maybe I ought to put the dream aside and concentrate on dialog that actually took place versus the stuff of Faith’s unconscious imagination.

  But if Murphy was in trouble, Paddy would know it. And he’d tell me, I hoped. So maybe the dream had nothing to do with Murphy and everything to do with me and Paddy. Somehow I was supposed to learn to trust him again? Was that it?

  “You want me back with Murphy, don’t you?”

  “Right,” he agreed.

  “Then I’m only family if I’m with Murphy, is that it?” I guessed bitterly. “I only count if I’m Liam Murphy’s bond mate.”

  He shifted uneasily on his squeaky chair. “I told you before, you’ve got to prove yourself to this pack. You don’t just waltz in and take your place near the top of the ranks without a struggle.”