“Thank you for having me.”
“Ah, no problem at all. I’m just glad my youngest son is finally going to settle down and in this area—a real cause for celebration,” Rose said, a slight hint of Ireland in her speech. “So the more the merrier, as I always say.”
Tiernan nodded. “Rose took me in never having met me before.”
“Family is family, and there’s always room for another McKenna.” She pinched Tiernan’s cheek and gave Ella a wink. “Good to meet you. Tiernan, make the girl feel at home, if you would.”
“I shall do my best.”
Rose went off to greet more arriving guests.
Ella said, “She’s very nice.”
“That she is. I could use something to drink.”
Which meant Ella met more of Tiernan’s cousins since Kate’s brother, Neil, was playing bartender and his wife, Annabeth, was assisting. Neil was a buttoned up kind of guy, but Annabeth seemed earthy, especially when her toddler son, Jeremy, ran up and threw his little arms around her legs. Annabeth picked him up and smothered him with kisses. Then, to Ella’s surprise, Neil put his arms around them and kissed them both.
“You need to get yourself a wife and kids,” Neil told Tiernan. “Your life will change forever.”
“’Tis what I’m afraid of,” he said, and though his tone was light, Ella got the distinct feeling that he wasn’t joking.
“Forget all that McKenna prophecy stuff,” Neil said, then added, “Kate told me, asked me what I thought, and—”
“Another time.” Tiernan said stiffly.
As they moved on to the food line and loaded plates with potato and bean salads and corn on the cob and fresh fruits, and a chunk of corn bread, Ella found herself covertly peering at Tiernan, trying to figure out what was going on with him.
What kind of prophecy had Neil been talking about?
Before she could analyze what she was feeling, she met cousins from Chicago, who Tiernan didn’t know—Skelly and his wife, Roz, parents to the triplets. The sea of faces began blending together in her mind by the time they got to the brick grill where chicken and ribs and small steaks were cooking.
Just as she was about to reach for ribs that had been put off to the side but close enough to the coals to keep them warm, a flume of fire roared up from the grill and Ella dropped her plate.
“Hey, are you okay?” Tiernan asked.
Ella nodded. “The fire…it scared me, is all.” Her pulse was still whacked out, the blood rushing through her so fast she could feel it throughout her body. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down. “I’m afraid I made a mess.”
“Here, I’ll take care of it. Take this,” he said, handing her his plate, “and go sit down. It’ll just take me a few minutes to load up another.”
Normally she would have insisted on helping, but the area was crowded with family members who were all giving her curious looks. Crushing her left arm into her side, she hurried to a small empty table with a big red-and-green umbrella at the edge of the crowd.
She looked over to see Tiernan trash what she’d spilled. Then he wiped his hands, picked up another plate and started piling it with more food. He filled another with barbequed chicken and ribs, then joined her.
“Oh, Lord, can we really eat all that?” she said with a breathy laugh.
Her embarrassment eased when he grinned at her and said, “We can but try.”
When he sat, she picked up a tempting rib—the meat practically fell off the bone. “You don’t even know how lucky you are to have such a big family. I’m a little overwhelmed and a little jealous, too. Mother’s parents are dead and she has one sister who never married.” Taking a bite, she said, “I have the grandparents on the rez, of course.”
“And your cousin, Nathan.” he reminded her.
“And Nathan,” she agreed. “Though, I honestly don’t know how to feel about him.”
Tiernan set a stripped rib bone on his plate and picked up another. “You do know Nathan was at the casino last night, do you not?”
“I didn’t know until this morning. I never saw Nathan in the casino, but he saw me with Leonard and warned me off the man.”
“He might have a point,” Tiernan said. “If he is not the one stirring up trouble. I saw him at a poker table when we were walking to Leonard’s office. By the time we came out, he was gone.”
“Giving him enough time to slash the tires…” Ella sighed.
As they ate, Ella quickly recapped her early-morning conversation with her cousin and the fact that his truck had been mysteriously returned. Gradually, Tiernan relaxed and was more of himself.
“Nathan seemed sincere,” she said, “worrying about me getting sucked in by Leonard. So do I believe him or not?”
“I can understand your difficulty—a truck being returned several hours after it was supposedly stolen is a bit of a stretch. But possibly it’s true.”
“Did Leonard really have enough time to slash the refuge truck’s tires and then steal Nathan’s truck between the time he left us and we left the casino? I’m still thinking Jimmy is a more likely suspect. He could have seen us arrive—he had enough time to do both before coming inside.”
“Or it could have been Nathan.”
“I don’t know what to believe or who to trust,” Ella said truthfully. “And I don’t know how we’re going to figure out anything more. I tried talking to Nathan about the past and either he didn’t know anything or he didn’t want to go there. I got nothing from him.”
“Perhaps ’tis time to call on your sixth sense.”
“I don’t know that it’ll ever be time for that.”
Thinking about forcing herself to go to the scary place in her mind knotted her stomach. Suddenly losing her appetite, Ella dropped her fork, cleaned her sticky fingers with a wet wipe and sat back in her chair.
Tiernan ate in silence for a few minutes, then, his plate nearly empty, sat back himself. “I guess whether or not you call on your powers all depends on how important it is for you to know the truth.”
“I want nothing more.”
“Then you have some thinking to do on the possibilities.”
“There are no possibilities,” Ella insisted. “Whatever powers I might have had, they’re gone now.”
Even as she said it, Ella knew that wasn’t exactly the truth or she wouldn’t have had those brief interludes with her father. Something had been going on there, but it hadn’t been in her control.
“You know my opinion on that. ’Tis a matter of your pressing the issue.”
“I’ve tried, okay. I’ve tried and nothing.”
“Perhaps you were too stressed. Or of a mind that you could not do it and therefore fulfilled your own fear.”
Not knowing what to say to that—maybe it was the truth, after all—Ella was grateful to see Kate hauling two people to the table. Both looked amazingly like Tiernan with the same twinkle in their thick-lashed green eyes and the same easy grin. The man’s hair was a blue-black, though, and the woman’s a rich mahogany.
“Tiernan,” Kate said, “I want you to meet more cousins who came from out of state. This is Aislinn, who came from Santa Fe, and her brother, Declan, who came from New Orleans.”
“Glad to meet two of Padraig’s brood at last!” Tiernan hugged Aislinn, shook hands with Declan.
“What do the two of you do?”
“I run an art gallery,” Aislinn said.
Tiernan looked to Declan.
“Just some of this and that,” Declan said mysteriously.
Which interested Tiernan, though he didn’t pursue it. Instead he turned to Ella. “Their da and mine are Irish twins.”
Aislinn laughed. “But Da always says he’s the better-looking one.”
“So they’re not identical?” Ella asked.
“They’re not twins at all,” Declan informed her, then explained, “Irish twins just means they were born in the same calendar year.”
“Did you both come alone?” Tiernan asked.
“I’m the only one in the family in New Orleans, so yes, I came alone, too,” Declan said.
“You’re not married, then?”
Aislinn and Declan shared a significant look then shook their heads.
“None of Padraig’s brood has crossed that crevasse,” Aislinn said.
Tiernan sighed. “I understand.”
But Ella didn’t. She only knew they seemed to share some secret knowledge. She felt more and more left out, especially when the cousins bonded, Tiernan seeming to want to know about New Orleans and Santa Fe, Aislinn and Declan wanting to know about Ireland.
Leaving Ella to think about Nathan’s morning visit once more and to wonder again if her own cousin could have tried to run her off the road the night before.
And if so, why?
What could he possibly be up to?
Chapter Eleven
“I never thought I would see the day my little brother settled down,” Neil McKenna Farrell told the crowd who gathered to toast the couple. “I wasn’t even sure I would ever see him again, not knowing he was working undercover for the Feds on a case that had its own personal rewards.”
Tiernan studied the new couple. Quin didn’t look anything like the other McKennas present. He was big, tough, scarred, scary. Even so, Luz Delgado, the exotic beauty cradled in the crook of his arm, seemed to be his perfect match. Their love came at him in palpable waves, and the way Luz was looking at Quin made Tiernan feel empty inside.
Unable to help himself, he glanced at Ella, another exotic beauty and one who tugged at his insides every time he looked at or thought of her. Her long, dark hair was free of the ponytail she usually wore. It draped her shoulders bared by a festive, beaded white top that left a naked strip above the waist of her slacks, but covered both arms to her wrists. Curious that he’d never seen her bare-armed. Studying her face, he noticed she’d subtly highlighted her best features—her eyes and her full mouth.
Realizing the trouble he would get himself into if he didn’t stop, Tiernan tore his gaze away from Ella.
“But all that’s over and your life is about to change for the better, Quin,” Neil was saying. “Everyone is happy that you’re moving back to South Dakota where you belong. And we can’t wait to welcome into the family the woman who tamed you. Luz, you must be quite a woman to have made Quin there stand still long enough to lasso him.” Neil raised his flute of champagne. “A toast to the lucky couple.”
They’d saved the champagne toast for last, to go with dessert. Tiernan raised his glass with everyone else. Too aware of Ella standing next to him, he held himself in check. He’d always known he would never be able to find happiness with a woman he loved. He’d been resigned to it for years. So why was it bothering him now?
Maybe it was being among so many relatives who had what he couldn’t—spouses and kids and a permanent home—and seemed completely happy. He was jealous of their good fortune, ’twas simple as that. As everyone crowded in on the engaged couple to give their personal congratulations, they got between him and Ella, pushing them farther and farther from each other. Just as it should be, he thought. Ella was talking to Roz and seemed right at home.
Suddenly Tiernan felt as if he didn’t belong here.
He backed off.
Seeking to escape, he followed the path that took him to the other side of the house and a track of land with old-growth trees. The path took him to the stand, but once beneath the canopy of firs, the brick walkway downgraded to wood chips. He followed that for a while to a little clearing through which a spring-fed stream cut.
He sat on a fallen, half-rotten log and watched the water trickle by and around the rocks in its path, just as his life seemed to be doing. He, too, was aimless, searching for something he couldn’t find, avoiding what he couldn’t have.
Suddenly the hair at the back of his neck stood to attention. As if he’d conjured her, Ella was there. He felt her, didn’t have to turn around and look to ascertain that she’d followed him.
Tiernan stiffened…waiting…cursing the blood that suddenly rushed through him explosively.
Keeping silent, Ella moved as lightly as the wind and sat next to him on the log. He was filled with her presence, every inch of him. Her being there simply added to the torture that had grown over the past hour. Yet, he wouldn’t have her leave.
Finally, Ella asked, “What is it that’s bothering you, McKenna?”
“I just needed to breathe, Thunder.”
“I think it’s more than that,” she said softly, no accusation in her voice. “You haven’t been the same since Neil said something about the McKenna prophecy.”
She fell silent again, yet Tiernan felt pressured. He’d never told anyone outside family about the prophecy. Certainly not about his seeing what had happened to his aunt. He’d never wanted to. He especially didn’t want to tell Ella, lest she think him ridiculous.
As if he’d spoken aloud, Ella said, “Whatever is on your mind…you can tell me. Of all people, I would understand.”
Would she? He’d never wanted to share the details of the family curse with anyone, not until now. But the way Ella was looking at him…the way he was feeling about her…
Before he lost his nerve, he said, “I can never have what they have.”
“Who? Your cousins?”
He nodded. “Do not doubt that I wish Quin every happiness. The same for Neil and Kate and Skelly and any other McKenna who has found his or her soulmate. ’Tis not for all of us…not for me.”
“What isn’t? Being happy? Does this have something to do with Neil telling you to forget the McKenna prophecy? And then when Aislinn said none of Padraig’s brood had married, you said you understood…. ”
“Neil should have kept his opinion to himself.”
Ella didn’t say anything, just sat quietly as if waiting for him to explain. When he stubbornly refused to go on, she reached out to him, slid her hand over his. Her empathy traveled from his fingers to his arm to his heart…and all without her knowing of the impossibility of his dilemma.
Heaving a sigh, Tiernan knew something was happening between them that he couldn’t allow. He had to warn her off before they got too close to stop it. He had to drive her from him before something terrible happened to her.
“The prophecy goes back nearly a century,” he said, “and ever since, the descendants of Donal McKenna have been cursed. We can marry, just not the ones we love lest we be responsible for their deaths.”
“How would you be responsible?”
He told her about Donal and Sheelin and how the witch had cursed Donal’s descendants to lose their loved ones if they acted upon their feelings. He told her about some of the McKennas who had challenged the prophecy and lost.
In a soft voice, she said, “People do die—”
“You don’t believe me, then?”
“I think prophecies are what you make of them.”
Tiernan laughed. Bitter. Remembering. “I have personal knowledge, Ella, something I can’t deny no matter how hard I try.”
“Someone you loved died?” Her voice suddenly held a tight note that hadn’t been there before.
He nodded. “My aunt Megan. The woman my uncle fell madly in love with and married the moment he could have her…and just as quickly lost her.”
Ella took a big breath and seemed to relax. “What happened to her?”
Suddenly the nightmare appeared to him full-blown on the back of his eyelids. He couldn’t look away. Even closing his eyes, he could see that horrible day as if it were happening now.
“Uncle Ross and Aunt Megan took me and my brothers to their home for the weekend. I was seven, then. Aunt Megan needed to go to the butcher shop and I wanted to go with her to get away from Cashel—my older brother. We were almost to the shop when Aunt Megan saw this auto and grew very nervous, said she recognized the driver.”
“Someone who made her a
fraid?”
Again he nodded. “Because of the Troubles.” He could hardly breathe as he explained. “Aunt Megan was originally from Belfast. Her da and brothers were part of the I.R.A.—part of the violence—and she thought this man was a unionist who’d lost one of his children in a bombing. Thought her brothers were responsible.” Empathetic even as a child, he’d felt her fear wrap him in waves, seen the dark vehicle shoot down the street straight toward them. “I remember the auto heading for us. I tripped and would have been hit if my aunt had not acted quickly, lifting me and throwing me out of the way…. ”
His voice faded as he saw it all happen again. A nightmare in living color.
“Then she was hit?” Ella asked, her voice soft.
Filled with the remorse that would never let up, Tiernan nodded. “I was sprawled on the pavement when the auto ran her down and then just sped away. That fast she was dead.” He could see her again, eyes open, lifeless, expression slack. “’Twas murder, nothing else.”
“How horrible. Did they get the man?”
His vision clearing, Tiernan looked at her. “The gardai didn’t believe me, put what I told them to the wild imaginings of a seven-year-old. I had no name to give them. No description other than the vehicle was black. I knew what I knew, but to them it was nothing. It all happened so fast. If she had not tried to save me—”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Tell that to a seven-year-old.”
He wasn’t seven anymore and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been to blame. Even at a young age, his psychic abilities had been primed. So why hadn’t that worked in his favor? If he’d at least been able to describe the man or had been able to tell the gardai the license plate number, perhaps there would have been justice for the poor woman. No matter how hard he’d tried to get beyond the trauma, he’d seen nothing that made a difference.
“So that’s why you’re so willing to investigate Harold Walks Tall’s death.”
“’Tis why I think every victim is owed some justice,” he admitted.
Ella squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, running his hand lightly up the inside of her arm. Beneath the thin cotton, the flesh felt odd. Tight. Uneven. And suddenly the cotton-covered flesh burned his fingers.
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