Catching Serenity (Serenity #4)

by Eden Butler

  Despite wanting to see my friends, my steps slow as Joe’s small house comes into view. Maybe it’s Rhea and her having to undergo chemo yet again that has me hesitating to climb the steps to the front porch. Most days I’ve just wanted to stay with her. It’s why I’ve taken a leave of absence from my job as library director at CU, why I haven’t seen much of my friends in the past few months. It’s the worry, the real fear that Rhea’s condition will worsen while I’m out, and I won’t be there when she needs me, that keeps me anxious.

  “Rubbish,” Uncle Clay would say. “It’s not your job to look after her, love.”

  That didn’t stop me from wanting to.

  Uncle Clay would often give me a wink and a nod of understanding, and despite his protests that I shouldn’t take so much time from my job, I got the feeling that both he and Aunt Carol appreciated the help I gave them. It isn’t an easy thing, tending to a sick child, especially one who has spent more than half her life in and out of hospitals. That obligation becomes monotony. That worry becomes dread. There was no way I was going to leave my aunt and uncle to face that on their own, especially since my little cousin looked up to me the way she did. And not when I knew, deep down, that the time I had with her was limited.

  So it’s Rhea, yet again, who occupies my thoughts, even as the front door swings open and I’m greeted with Joe’s sweet half-smile.

  “There she is,” he says, sweeping me inside before I have a chance to change my mind about attending the barbeque. “Told Autumn, I did, that you’d be along.” A tight squeeze on my shoulders and Joe has me through the den, the kitchen and out onto the back porch before he’s even paused speaking. “Knew you’d come to welcome home our Deco, didn’t I, love?”

  Joe turns, holding up one finger and is down the steps, making for the small table holding cups and bottles of wine, soda and beer next to the porch and I’m left on my own, taking in the neatly outfitted back porch and patio.

  A large pergola connects the porch to the back of the house, made of recycled timber that Autumn told me Joe rescued from a demolished barn just outside of Sevierville. My best friend and I helped Joe last spring, decorating the space with dozens of large pots brimming with blooms of fragrant flowers and hedges that line the perimeter of the fence and along the steps that lead to the covered patio. He had complained only mildly about the fairy lights we weaved through the breaks in the pergola and the chunkier solar lights we fastened in the branches and limbs of the large oak that hung nearly over the entire yard and swept against the ground and planked flooring that made up the back porch. He didn’t mind so much, Autumn told me, about the palette table and kitchenette Declan helped us build along the side of the house or the repurposed wicker chairs and table Autumn found at a garage sale for fifty bucks.

  It has a homey, comfortable vibe, and with the mouthwatering scent of barbeque wafting in the air and the sudden lick of a breeze rustling my hair off my shoulders, I begin to relax, to feel less guilty about being here and not with Rhea. Suddenly, I feel something else on that wind. It isn’t the heat of summer that has sweat collecting against my lower back. It isn’t even the humidity that clouds in the air, or that replaces that small reprieve of cool air with something akin to a waft of heat from a fire. It is something deeper, more significant, that I feel the second I step off the back porch and onto the patio.

  I’m so distracted by the sensation that I don’t bother to acknowledge Donovan, Declan’s best friend standing at the back of the yard, or pay much attention to the slumping shape of a man I pick up out of the corner of my eye next to him.

  Yet something prickles up my neck, like the quick breath of a stranger passing you in the congested crowd of a subway car. I can’t quite put my finger on it, can’t tell if it is the day, or the excitement that we are all finally back together for the first time since Declan had left for Ireland. Whatever it was leaves me feeling on display, as though something thick, something weighted has taken the air around us and turned it still and faint.

  “Here you are, love.” Joe offers me a drink, momentarily distracting me from that odd feeling that someone watches. No, not just watches. I am being gawked at, am the center of someone’s focused attention. “Now then. How are you?” the older man continues, holding my arm at the elbow. Joe is mildly flirty, but Autumn swears he’s harmless. And bored. Very, very bored as of late. “How is your bitty cousin?”

  A small squeeze of my fingers against Joe’s thick forearm and the man takes a small step back, though he still keeps hold of my hand. “The same, I’m sad to say, but not getting worse, I don’t think.”

  Joe makes the sign of the cross and his grip on my fingers tightens. “Don’t you fret, love. The Good Lord has a plan for everyone, even the smallest among us.”

  I don’t argue. There is no need. I’d stopped debating my elders, or their priests a long time ago. Their assertions never wavered, and I’ve discovered that long held beliefs, those taken on out of tradition and obligation, not research or logic, were the toughest to penetrate. I have no idea why Rhea is sick but I suspect God isn’t the one that made her that way. Still, whatever His plan, I couldn’t say I agreed with Him.

  Joe sips on his beer, shaking his head as he awkwardly tries to defuse the slip in mood, and his toothy grin returns. “Tell me if you’ve heard this one then… erm… how do you make an egg-roll?”

  It’s his way, telling jokes that are more corny than funny. It’s the only way he knows to offer comfort—with that sweet laugh and silly sense of humor.

  “You push it, Joe.”

  “You do, don’t you, love?”

  And Joe laughs at himself, nudging me once again as though nothing in life had been funnier than his stupid joke. Joe Brady is one of my favorite people on the planet. He is kind, gentle and always smells of wood smoke and the brandy he isn’t supposed to drink. Autumn says the woodsy smell is from the constant landscaping he does, burning limbs and leaves to keep his place and his neighbors’ neat when no one else is up to the task. It’s hard to remember that Joe hadn’t always been good or kind, having left Autumn and her mother for most of her life, but the past two years he’s mended fences and has quickly become an important part of our lives. All of our lives.

  I take the kiss on the cheek he gives me with as much grace as I can muster. He’d go on telling me corny jokes and trying to convince me of God’s plan for Rhea all afternoon if I didn’t break away from him.

  Just as the wind shifts again, Autumn appears through the back gate followed by Declan with his arms full of cases of beer. “Hey you,” she says and I gladly take the hug she gives me. It is long, firm and I smile at her reaction. You’d swear it had been weeks since I’d seen her last, not just this morning when she and I had our customary breakfast with our friends Mollie and Layla.

  “How is she?” Autumn asks, brushing her fingers in my pink hair to push away the few strands that had flown across my forehead. My friends worry over Rhea nearly as much as I do. It’s hard not to. The girl has an infectious personality and a quick, easy laugh. Two summers ago when Rhea was six, we took her white water rafting in Jefferson County and then stayed at a nice cabin with views of the Smokey Mountains. By lunch the next day Rhea was in love with Declan, and all of my friends were convinced she’d grow up to conquer the world. We’d eagerly agreed to be her minions.

  “She still wants your man.”

  Autumn has a warm laugh, one that isn’t forced or faked. I’ve always loved that about her. “Well, she can’t have him.” She winks at the man in question as he smiles our way, handing over the cases to Joe to place on the table.

  “Which I told her. I even suggested that she set her sights on Quinn since he was younger.”

  “Oh, honey, I wouldn’t wish that even on Heather.” With Autumn’s curled lip I laugh, shaking my head at the attitude she still has about Heather Matthews, the manipulative bitch who tried to blackmail Autumn into staying away from Declan when he first came to Cavanagh. Last I’
d heard Heather had hooked up with Autumn’s ex, Tucker, and then later my ex, Sam. Good riddance on both accounts.

  “That bad, is he?”

  She slips her gaze across the patio, then quickly focuses on me again, seeming unwilling to pay more than a second’s attention at Declan’s errant half-brother. “Girl, you have no idea.” Autumn dips her head, stepping closer as though she is afraid someone will hear her. “He and Declan haven’t stopped fighting since I picked them up at the airport. Other than the ride to the store for more beer, we haven’t had more than an hour alone this whole time.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It really does, friend. Oh but listen to me babbling. You were just with Rhea?” She steps closer, rubbing my back. “How are you doing with all of this?”

  I don’t want to burden her. Autumn would be mad if I told her that’s what I am thinking, but that’s just how I navigate my thoughts. Sorting them on my own, fracturing apart what should and shouldn’t be done, who to tell about my frustrations and worries, it’s all how I manage my life. Autumn has been my best friend since we were kids. I can tell her anything, but Rhea’s illness, and focusing on getting her better is far more important to me than harping on how I feel about it all. People get sick all the time. I could easily. There is no reason to burden my best friend with all the things that bring me the greatest amount of fear. So, I deflect.

  “She’s running out of comics. I’ve got to pick her up some more.”

  Autumn knows me too well, manages to keep from frowning, but the glare is there, the worry that I’m not being honest with her. Still, because she knows me, she doesn’t dig, doesn’t prod into what’s really in my head. Now isn’t the time.

  When Mollie comes through the back gate with her boyfriend Vaughn at her side, Autumn is distracted with greeting them. I take that moment for the reprieve it is, sipping on the beer Joe served me, steeling myself against the questions I know will come.

  Mollie greets Joe, mumbles to Autumn about Layla and why she’s absent from the party, but I don’t pay too close attention to them. My thoughts are scattered, frayed with the continuous urge to get back to Rhea. It’s that central focus, that desire that distracts me, that has me forgetting anything until the sensation from earlier returns, the same one that hadn’t completely died when Autumn distracted me.

  The wind kicks up only slightly, brings a small gust that moves the table cloth on the picnic table and disturbs my bangs again, picking up my hair so that I have to pull the ends together to keep it from flying all around my face, all while feeling the strange sensation of being watched.

  I block everything—Joe laughing with Vaughn, Mollie and Autumn’s whispered worry about Layla—I am too curious to know where the sensation comes from and how to be rid of it. Shifting my gaze around the patio, I pause only for a second on Joe at the grill and then to Declan and Donovan across the patio, beers in both their hands. And then, just like that, the sensation intensifies and suddenly I find I can’t breathe.

  There is a small flush moving across my skin, and the fine hairs on my arms and near my scalp stand at attention. As my gaze slips to my left, away from Declan, from Donovan, it lands on the man next to them. And there it stays.

  Autumn had described Quinn O’Malley, saying that he was just as beautiful as Declan, just as tall and athletic. But the dark color of their hair, the fierce shine in their eyes is where those similarities end. Where Declan is broad, massive, Quinn is slender, lithe. He has the body of a runner, all long, lean muscle, thick thighs, limbs that dominate, tower, but it is his eyes, the piercing sharp stare that flies straight at me, that has me forgetting who and where I am for a moment. That gaze penetrates, it seduces, it leaves me stunned. There is no real expression on his face. Nothing that tells me he wants me, no smirk or smile, no typical manner that announces what Quinn thinks. There is only that stare and the delicious threat it promises.

  In that moment I feel every movement of his gaze, the one that penetrates me, keeps hold of me like I am is a potential conquest. Like I am his to own, a likely possession. That is a feeling I have never wanted, never toyed with needing. Still, I can’t help but catch my breath with how beautiful he is.

  But Quinn, Autumn has related, is trouble—an entitled trust fund kid with too much money and too much time on his hands. He is the brother Declan never knew he had; the legitimate son of the man Declan’s mother had tried to steal for her own. Declan had been raised by his mother and aunt, then by Joe when the situation went bad. But Declan had managed. He’d done what most survivors do: he endured. Quinn, Autumn had said, had never been made to endure a thing but privilege, and he’d squandered a big chunk of his parents’ hard earned savings in the process.

  Looking at Quinn those revelations echo in my brain. Autumn’s voice in my head warns me to stop staring at him. It is Declan’s and Joe’s heavy brogue that insists I remember what men like Quinn offer—heartache and misery. These are rational observations my brain makes. They are loud, fiercely stern, but that still doesn’t pull my attention from that beautiful man. Sire of heartache and misery or not, Quinn O’Malley is a beautiful, beautiful man.

  One look tells me all I need to know—those fingers are long, uncalloused, meaning he’s never done a hard day’s work. Those eyes are unlined and no wrinkles crowd around his mouth, meaning he’s likely never had a worry aging his face. His mouth is wide, the bottom lip plumper in the center, the cupid’s bow pronounced. Quinn’s jaw is angular, sharp and his chest and shoulders are finely sculpted, as though some artist had carved him with precision.

  Look away, idiot, drums in my head and I finally manage to pull my attention away from O’Malley when Declan and Donovan block him from my view. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to know what they’re saying to him and when Quinn spits at the ground and storms into the house, my suspicions are confirmed. They’ve warned him not to mess with me, probably mentioning how fragile I am, how Rhea’s illness makes me worthy of kid gloves—and unwelcome pity.

  “Sayo, love,” Declan moves to greet me and the frown he hurries to hide as he kisses my cheek tells me he still sees me as delicate.

  “How was Ireland?” I mean to distract him, keep that sad little grimace off his face. I even manage a smile, but it feels forced and awkward.

  “Ireland was grand. The company, though… ah, well, my brother is…” the Irishman pauses, rubbing his fingers through his hair. “He’s a pain in the arse, is Quinn.”

  “You know,” I say, forcing myself to maintain the smile I don’t quite mean, “I remember Autumn saying the same thing about you not so long ago.”

  “Aye, well, I grew on her, didn’t I?”

  Now I’m the one to frown, but half-jokingly. “Not the visual I want.” He shakes his head, laughing at my lame response. “Besides, maybe Quinn will grow on you.”

  “Oh I’d not hold my breath on that hope, love. I’m likely to suffocate him whilst he sleeps before too long.”

  “Seems a waste,” I say, glancing back at the house, near the gate as Quinn emerges from behind it with an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. Instantly my stomach rumbles with a sensation somewhere between excitement and disgust. “Although maybe if you beat him enough he’ll start to appreciate how precious life is.”

  “Sayo…”

  I wave at him, disregarding the concern in his tone, offering him a grin. Everyone knows how I feel about smoking, but it’s his business what he does with his body. Why should I care? Still, thinking about Rhea hacking and coughing, struggling for a clear breath while Quinn wastes his own, makes me angry, rational or not.

  I try to keep from bristling as Declan tries to sooth me. “I’m fine,” I tell him, nodding at Autumn when she joins us. “A little maudlin today, is all.” I spot Mollie and run to greet her, knowing full well that Declan watches me, likely wondering why I haven’t spoken to any of them about Rhea’s illness. It’s been four years since my cousin was first diagnosed, but only four months since the doctors
told our family that the cancer had returned and the tumor had doubled in size.

  No one wants to tell the truth. Not when you’re a kid and wide-eyed and eager with hope for all the impossible things in life. No one tells you that some kid your age in China sat in a sweat shop, their fingers bleeding, their family starving as they sew together the pink and green swimsuit your mother buys you for your first swimming lesson. No one tells you that in order for you to live in that big white Victorian with the wrap-around porch and twenty foot high ceilings, that some woman in another land had to sign away her rights to you. She had carried you inside of her, but couldn’t keep you. Maybe she had loved you, but had signed the paper full of words she might not have been able to read, had signed away the claim she had on you. Just so you could live in that Victorian and wear that swimsuit and eat in abundance. But no one tells you that after all that, you still might have everything taken away from you too.

  My parents love me, but even they never told the truth. They never mentioned how tough life forces you to be. They never made me realize what a gamble it is to love blindly, completely. They never told me that loving Rhea as I did would mean I would have to deal with losing her, and that in losing her, I’d lose a part of myself.

  Rhea has eyes shaped exactly like mine. She has the same small cow lick at her temple, and skin the exact color of mine. She could have been me at eight, and now I was having to watch her die a slow death. My friends, no matter how much they love me, would never know this. Not really. Yet, they had their own struggles, their own demons to exorcise. I wouldn’t bother them with mine.

  And so, I don’t.

  Mollie talks a mile a minute. Laughing when Autumn fusses at Donovan for some other stupid thing he’d done to Layla that had kept her away from the party.