by Katy Regnery
“It’s…I mean, um…”
“Where is the…the fucking phone?” he growled, his warm spittle landing on her cheeks.
She only had one phone, and it was charging upstairs on her bureau. She’d never had the little cottage wired for a landline.
“I don’t have a…I mean—” She stopped speaking when she felt cold, hard metal slide against her temple.
“I am going…to shoot you…in the fucking head…if you don’t tell me…where the phone is,” he said, the words faster and angrier as they flew from his lips.
“Éist liom!” she begged in Irish. Listen to me!
Whether she saw a shadow of movement or just felt it, she wasn’t certain, but there was a thread of surprise in his voice when he answered her in Irish:
“Labhair.” Speak.
“My—my phone is u-upstairs. On m-my bureau.”
He lowered the gun from her face. “Stand up. We’ll go…get it.”
Gulping softly, Tierney braced her hand on the couch and stood up. He reached out in the darkness, grazing her breast through her nightgown before sliding his hand to her arm. Gripping it tightly, he said, “Lead the…way.”
After living in the same place for five years, Tierney could walk about her cottage blindfolded, so it was easy for her to find the stairs and start climbing. But was it a mistake to lead him to her bedroom? Should she be fighting him off down here? What could she do? What can I do? Could she push him down the stairs? Sure, but maybe his gun would go off. No, don’t push him. Fight later, when you don’t have a gun at your back.
As they rounded the landing, she suddenly remembered an article she’d read about kidnapping victims. It advised if you were ever in a hostage situation, you should try to humanize yourself to your captor. It made them more likely to spare your life.
“You’re…” She paused, trying to calm her erratic breathing and figure out a way to connect with him. “You’re Irish.”
“Shut up,” he grunted, and for the first time, Tierney heard something else in his voice. It wasn’t a feeling or an emotion. It was…pain. Raw pain. Real pain. Physical pain. He was in pain. That’s probably why his speech was so breathless and stilted.
“An bhfuil tú ceart go leor?” she asked, trying to keep her voice gentle. Are you okay?
“I told you…to shut…the fuck up. K-Keep walking,” he panted, shoving her forward as they reached the top of the stairs.
In the close space, she lurched forward and hit her forehead on the closed bathroom door in front of her. She gasped with pain. “Ow!”
“F-Fuck,” he growled. “I didn’t—sorry.” Then, “Which w-way?”
Did he just apologize to me?
The question flashed through her brain, then disappeared just as quickly.
“Left or…r-right?”
“Left.”
He yanked her arm to the left, walking down the short hallway to the open door of her bedroom.
“Where’s”—his breathing was growing shallower by the minute, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the grip on her arm was weakening—“the bureau?”
“Just there,” she said.
His fingers on her arm were starting to shake. “W-Where?”
“Umm…” If she continued to stall, would she eventually be able to overpower him? To run away from him? “Over there. To your right.”
He tried to pull her right, but his fingers slipped from her arm just as another bolt of lightning lit up the room. Tierney turned to face him, staring into his glassy, ice-blue eyes. Her gaze slid up to his forehead, which was covered with beads of sweat. Fever, she thought. A bad one.
Without thinking, she reached up with her free hand and laid it on his forehead, wincing at the scorching heat there. “You’re burning up.”
“Stop…arsing around,” he said, jerking away, his breathing shivery and uneven. “Get the…f-fucking ph-phone.”
He staggered forward, pushing her against the bedside table to the right of the bed, which crashed to the ground.
“Please, Mr.…”
“Brrr.” He shivered, his body swaying before he fell backward onto her bed.
She slid away from him, keeping her back to the wall as she inched to the corner of the room, reaching for the phone on the edge of the bureau. She pulled it from the wall, cord and all, running her finger over the home button on the bottom and glancing at it as it came to life. 4:30 am. A light-blue glow filled the room.
“I’m calling the police.”
“No!” he screamed. “N-No police!”
Something in his tone—desperation, terror, maybe both—made her pause and look up. He wasn’t exactly sitting up, but he was trying to.
“Why not?” she asked.
“P-Please.”
“You need an ambulance.”
“Uihm p-póilíní,” he groaned, his eyes at half-mast, his neck barely able to hold up his head. No police.
That’s when Tierney saw the gun. Still held in his shaking hand, he raised it, pointing it at her.
“It’s okay. No police,” she said, holding up her hands and leaning back against the bureau. “Could you put the gun down?”
“No,” he panted, shaking his head.
Tierney lowered her arms, glancing at the home screen on her phone and trying to remember the trick for calling 911 without dialing. But that’s when she noticed something dire: she had no signal.
Her phone, which usually had at least two bars, had none.
She glanced out the window and realized that the house on the hill was just as dark as her cottage. Lightning must have hit the cell phone tower hidden in the barn by the main house. It had happened more than once before.
Shit. Fuck.
No. Don’t panic.
Think, Tierney. Think.
She glanced at the bed, where the stranger still held a shaking gun trained on her, though she could see he was fighting to keep his eyes open. He was in bad shape and worsening by the moment.
“I won’t call the police. I promise. Listen,” she said gently, taking a step toward him, “you’re obviously in trouble, but I don’t want to hurt you. Put the gun down and you can have my phone, okay?”
“Give it,” he said, holding out his other hand, which shook as badly as the first.
“There’s no signal,” she said, scrunching her shoulders up around her ears as she handed it to him and he grabbed it.
Clutching the phone in one hand and the gun in the other, he lay back on the bed, muttering, “I c-can’t…d-die here.”
With the phone resting on his bare chest, the blue glow illuminating his skin, Tierney noticed something else, something unusual and unexpected: a medal of Saint Michael lying on top of his tattoo.
“Saint Michael,” she murmured. The warrior angel. The patron saint of policemen. Huh. Why would this man be wearing such a thing?
“Ssssaint…Miiiiiiiichael,” he breathed. “If he c-could…k-kill the d-devil…so c-can I.”
“Mr.…”
“Burrrrrr,” he said again, and this time Tierney realized that he wasn’t cold; he was telling her his name.
“Mr. Burr—”
“J-Just…Burrrrrr,” he said, his eyes closed, his hands on his chest, still tightly clenched around his gun and her phone.
The adrenaline that had been pumping through her body had exhausted her, and as she realized that he was almost completely incapacitated, she relaxed a little, slumping against her bureau.
With two brothers her age, Tierney Haven had more than a little bit of experience reading men, but this one was throwing her for a loop. A Saint Michael medal sitting on top of a tattoo that read “Destroyer.” Contradictions abounded.
Although he’d forced his way into her home, and his language and manner were rough, she didn’t believe he’d come here to hurt her. In fact, since the moment he’d arrived, he’d been dogged in one pursuit: to use her phone.
Yes, he’d grabbed her hair to get her out of the corner of her living room, b
ut he hadn’t added a gratuitous slap or kick. Even when he’d touched her breast in an attempt to find her arm in the darkness, he hadn’t lingered on it, hadn’t copped an extra feel. And when he’d pushed her at the top of the stairs and she’d bumped her head, he’d apologized to her.
He’s not here to hurt me, she decided, relaxing a little more. But who was he? Where was he from? How did he get here? And why?
His feet were still on the floor, though the rest of his body was lying across her bed. She stepped to the edge of the mattress, leaning over him just a little.
“Burr?”
He groaned softly, his eyes fluttering open. “D-Don’t g-go.”
She gulped. His voice sounded so much like Ian’s, she could almost close her eyes and believe he was her brother.
“Me?”
“You. D-Don’t…want…to…d-die…alonnnnnne,” he murmured, the last word drawn out like the word amen after the Our Father.
It did something to her heart, that terrible and simple request, and she cocked her head to the side, watching as he remained motionless on her bed.
After several minutes, she whispered his name again.
“Burr?”
He murmured in his sleep, groaning softly, but didn’t open his eyes.
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as the screen on her phone went dark. The rain was finally letting up a little, and a faint lavender glow—a mix of moonlight and dawn—filtered into the room.
What do I do? What do I do now?
She backed away from the bed, looking out the window, and that’s when she noticed his car. A little way down the road, outside the gate, the headlights and interior lights were on because the driver’s-side door had been left open.
I should move his car, she thought, taking a concerned look at him before slipping quietly from the room.
She headed downstairs, grabbing an umbrella from the antique bucket beside the front door, and headed out into the rain, grateful that the storm had subsided. It only took a few minutes to reach the gate and punch in the entry code. Luckily the gates opened inward, because his car would have been in the way had they opened outward.
It wasn’t a fancy car—a blue Honda Accord—it was your run-of-the-mill city vehicle. Where was he from? Concord? No. Even in Concord, you’d need four-wheel drive to get anywhere from October to March. Hmm. Maybe Boston? Boston was the biggest big city within a couple hours’ drive.
Peeking into the car, the first thing she noticed was a blackish stain on the driver’s seat where his shoulder would have rested. Oil? She leaned closer, pressing her finger against the moisture and drawing it away. It was dark red on the pads of her fingers. Blood? She didn’t remember seeing blood on his chest or arm, but there’d barely been enough light to get a good look at him, and frankly, an injury would explain his speech and fever.
She slid into the car, leaning forward so she wouldn’t touch the upholstery with her white nightgown. Too far back for her to reach the pedals, she adjusted the seat forward, then pulled the door closed, driving through the gate and up the road to her cottage. Pulling the car into her driveway, she shifted it into park and turned on the interior lights. A pink bubblegum air freshener hung from the rearview mirror and an empty orange juice bottle sat in the center console. There was an open pack of wet wipes on the passenger seat, with several stained wipes littering the floor.
She opened the glove compartment, searching for clues about who he was, and found a sippy cup, two sparkly hair bands, ketchup packets, tissues, and the car’s registration. The car was owned by someone named Suzanne Riley, whose address was listed as Dorchester, MA, a neighborhood located just south of Boston proper. Turning to look in the backseat, she found a booster seat that had a cup of Cheerios in the built-in cupholder and a stuffed bunny beside it on the seat.
Who was this Suzanne? Someone’s mother, obviously. But who was she to Burr? Wife? Girlfriend? Or was the car stolen? Maybe he had no connection to Suzanne at all. Had he hurt the mother and child taking their car? Whose blood was on the driver’s seat upholstery? She let the question sit for a moment, waiting for a feeling of dread to overwhelm her, but it didn’t. She didn’t know Burr at all, but something—intuition, surely—told her that he wasn’t a murderer. If he was, she’d already be dead.
With far more questions than answers, she closed the glove compartment and withdrew the keys from the ignition. About to go back inside, her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, landing on the trunk. Hmmm. Scooting from the driver’s seat and rounding the car, she unlocked the trunk and looked inside. She found a half-opened black nylon duffel bag, which she hoisted onto her shoulder, and a brown Stop and Shop bag. Opening the paper sack, she looked inside to find neat stacks of money filling the lower fourth of the bag.
It had to be thousands of dollars.
Why would he be driving around with that? What was he into? Drugs? Weapons? Was he a gang member? And how did he end up outside her door tonight?
Shoving the paper bag back into the corner of the truck, she slammed it shut and headed back into her cottage, closing the front door behind her. Motionless in the dark living room, she listened for a sound from upstairs, but heard nothing. With his duffel bag still on her shoulder, Tierney made her way to the kitchen and grabbed a flashlight, matches, and two candles from under the kitchen sink.
She placed the candles on the coffee table and lit them, then sat down on the couch with his bag beside her. Curious to know what was inside, she gulped before unzipping it the rest of the way and flicked on her flashlight.
On top she found a white T-shirt that was clean except for some bloody fingerprints, a pair of jeans, socks, and boxer shorts, and underneath the clothes—a pistol, a box of ammunition, a knife, a small pair of binoculars, two Kind bars, a bottle of orange juice, and a pair of handcuffs.
Hmm.
Now her thoughts shifted to the other side of the equation.
Saint Michael, a second gun, and handcuffs.
A cop? Could he be a cop? But why would a Boston cop find himself banging on her door in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, at four thirty in the morning? And why did he have thousands of dollars in his trunk and look like a gangbanger?
“Suze! Suzy!”
The anguished cry came from her bedroom.
Tierney zipped his bag shut, stood up, and turned to the stairs, knowing she had an important decision to make…
She could either walk back out her front door, get in her car, and drive to the Moultonborough Police Station or go upstairs and check on her unexpected guest.
What surprised Tierney the most was that her choice was already made, even before she’d laid it out for herself.
Maybe it was the fact that tonight had been scary, yes, but also exciting when life for Tierney, in general, had become fairly routine.
Or maybe it was that she knew he was in trouble and she wanted to help. Tierney had two brothers she loved more than anything—one of whom had been in trouble many times—and maybe once or twice, someone else’s sister had looked after Ian. Maybe this man, Burr, had a sister who loved him as much as Tierney loved Ian. Looked at in a cosmic context, this was her opportunity to pay back that kindness.
Or maybe it was as simple as her own damned curiosity. Was he a destroyer or protector? A villain or hero? Tierney loved reading mysteries more than anything, pouring over them night after night on her Kindle from the safety of her bed. But here was a real, live mystery on her doorstep. If she turned him into the police, she might never find out where he came from and how he ended up finding his way to her.
One thing was for certain: her choice had nothing to do with his ice-blue eyes, strong jaw, muscular chest, and low, growly voice. She absolutely, positively refused to be attracted to such a raw, brutish sort of man, and that was that.
Clutching the flashlight to her chest, she turned away from the door and started up the stairs.
SMILING IRISH
The Summerhaven Trio #2
~COMING April 3, 2018~
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Thank you for reading
FIGHTING IRISH, The Summerhaven Trio #1
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If you enjoyed Rory and Brittany’s story, why not give Barrett and Emily’s story a try?
Breaking Up with Barrett, The English Brothers #1
Barrett English, a.k.a. “the Shark,” is the fair-haired, firstborn son of the English brothers and the CEO of the oldest, most prestigious investment banking firm in Philadelphia. He rules the boardroom with an iron fist, refusing to take no for an answer and always getting his way.
Emily Edwards, a first-year doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, grew up in the gatehouse on the outskirts of Barrett’s childhood estate. The daughter of his family’s gardener and housekeeper, she was always looking through the window of privilege but forced to remember her place at the very periphery of the kingdom.
When business partners suggest that a fiancée might soften Barrett’s image over business dinners, he approaches Emily for the “job” of fiancée. And while love wasn’t necessarily on Barrett’s radar, he begins to realize that Emily always has been. But will his take-no-prisoners boardroom tactics work on the heart of the woman he loves?
GRAB BREAKING UP WITH BARRETT NOW!
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Smiling Irish
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THE BLUEBERRY LANE SERIES
THE ENGLISH BROTHERS