There had to be a way.
He licked his lips, savoring the residual sweetness from Norah’s special tea she’d downed in the car. “That’s you showing me how you feel?”
“I’m more about action. Less about words. That’s why the act of your giving me a gift absolutely brought me to my knees. Literally.” As she tossed him a grin, her eyes sparkled more than the river behind them. “How do you feel?”
Fan-fucking-tastic. “I feel like myself again. Life is good, I’ve got a plan, a girl, a job, and I’m in control.”
“Really?” Delaney looked away. Far, far away, not just physically but as though she was leaving him and retreating inside her own mind. She started to pull out of his embrace, but Kellan solved that by rolling them both to the side and pinning her beneath him on the grass. “Because I’ve never felt more out of control. Being with you is so risky. It’s so unlike me. And there’s no good outcome.”
“The Maguires always find a way.” Or, this time, the one Maguire. He couldn’t ask his brothers for help. But with all the times they’d lauded his giant brain, Kellan could damn well believe he’d solve this problem on his own.
He had to.
Delaney barreled on with recounting how badly the deck was stacked against them. Man, it was almost like she took comfort in it. Like it was an evil rosary that had to be said once a day or they’d be struck down by lightning.
“Once the trial is over, I’ll be assigned a new case. We’ll never see each other again.”
“You need to end that sentence with #worstcasescenario. Or maybe an emoji of a cartoon character falling off a cliff.”
Blue eyes snapped to his like a rubber band. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“No need. For two reasons. I try not to get bogged down in being serious, and because you’re serious enough to depress all of Death Row.” Kellan tucked her head against his chest and stroked her hair. He was going to live in the moment, because they didn’t get a lot of them together. For now. And it promised to be a damned fine moment. “It’ll be okay. Trust me, babe.”
“That’s not really my natural state.”
“Let’s start small. You trust I’m going to show you a good time tonight, right? Wine? Cheese? A river as the background soundtrack to drown out your screams of pleasure?”
One blond eyebrow arched up. “I’m willing to give you a shot.”
Delaney never gave him an inch without making him work for it.
Nothing excited Kellan more than a good challenge. Especially one with the promise of sex as the reward . . .
Chapter Eleven
It had been a little over a week since Delaney’s wonderful overnight with Kellan. A week of swapping favorite playlists—after the obligatory debate about the legality of Spotify and infringement on artists’ intellectual rights. A week of sharing the minutiae of least favorite sport to watch—they agreed on NASCAR because it was just driving around in a circle—and most favorite food—they didn’t agree at all.
Which was fine. They were used to not agreeing. Doing it without rancor was new and delightful, though. Delaney promised to give sushi another try (once) and Kellan reluctantly agreed to try lemon meringue pie again, despite railing against its texture. Everything was fun.
Even the nightly FaceTime sessions that ended with the cameras aimed someplace about two feet below the face while they simultaneously talked each other to climax. That was shatteringly sexy, but fun. Laughter and panting and breathy murmurs all meshed together into complex chords Delaney wasn’t sure she’d ever heard before. And it was absolutely beautiful.
Which is why she should’ve been braced for something to go wrong. For this idyll to end. Abruptly. Because life wasn’t smooth-sailing perfection.
Delaney couldn’t even blame Fate for ruining her truly excellent run of days. Days of texting and daydreaming a ridiculous amount and staying up way too late because neither of them wanted the conversation to end. Nope, Fate didn’t toss the stink bomb into her cocoon of happiness.
It was the Maguire brothers.
All of ’em.
They’d screwed up yet again. Not a huge surprise, after spending the last eight months riding herd on them. Frustrating, yes. But Rafe and Flynn not sticking to the rules wasn’t a shock.
The shock was that Kellan, her secret boyfriend, the man who’d pushed her to open up and not keep things hidden . . . he’d been a willing participant in their idiocy. So after a long drive to read Flynn the riot act, now she was supposed to meet Kellan for a hiking date.
Except that learning he’d kept important, WITSEC-related, vital-to-the-continued-safety-of-the-Maguires information from her didn’t put Delaney in a romantic mood.
It put her in the mood to push him over the waterfall that was their planned destination.
Delaney spotted Kellan right off as she pulled into the small parking area at the trailhead. The sight of him jacked her temper right back up to a full boil. The long drive from the surprise meeting with his brother hadn’t exactly cooled her off. Especially not with the last three miles jarring her way down a single lane gravel road.
He looked handsome as ever. Sexy as sin, with long tanned legs showing between his hiking boots and cargo shorts. He looked happy. Well, she’d been happy too, anticipating this date to kick off the holiday weekend.
She should’ve realized things were going too well. That they were bound to implode far sooner rather than later.
After securing her backpack—the one with her service weapon in it, as well as sandwiches Delaney wasn’t sure they’d even get to depending on how heated the discussion became—she got out of the car and slammed the door. Hard.
Kellan waved the deep green Coffee & 3 Leaves travel mug. “Brought you more of Norah’s special tea. You know, to keep you calm enough you don’t jump my bones before we hike up to the Gold and Silver Falls.”
Fat chance of that. With or without the tea.
Wordlessly, Delaney took the tea. Swung open the top and drained the entire thing in six long gulps. Then she handed it back.
“Nope. Not calm. Not one fucking bit calm.”
Kellan jumped off the wooden picnic table. “What’s wrong?” He reached for her shoulders, but Delaney sidestepped away. She couldn’t bear for him to touch her right now. His betrayal hurt too much.
Oh, and she was pissed enough that she just might let her combat training slip to the forefront of her brain and give him a few hard knocks.
Where to begin? Where to begin with this ruined, crappy day? To think that when she’d joined Flynn in his truck, she’d been a little bit frustrated. Yes, protectees were supposed to reach out all the time for reassurance and/or help from their marshals. Except the Maguires never did that. Not in all the months—and cites, and jobs—they’d weathered together. For Flynn to break that habit on the start of a holiday weekend when she got to spend actual consecutive days with her boyfriend? Well, he was lucky she hadn’t knee-capped him in principal.
Not that she ever would. Not that she’d ever be vindictive or in any way judgmental to a protectee. But apparently being lied to brought out a caveman level of violence in her.
“Let’s see. While I want to rail at you for about two days straight, I should put the blame where it belongs. On me. Because I’m the one who knowingly broke protocol. Broke the rules. Broke my rules.”
“What are you talking about?”
Delaney pointed at the trailhead. “Start walking. We don’t want to attract attention, standing here fighting.”
After stuffing the mug into his own backpack, Kellan fell into step beside her. “How can we be fighting when I have no idea what you’re talking about? And even if we are, why would it matter if people noticed us? We’re not in hiding.”
Wow. Talk about picking the most wrong thing to say. Delaney did a full three-sixty to make sure there were no other hikers around. Then she stopped and jabbed a finger at his chest.
Voice low and terse, she said, “You
are, Kellan. You and your brothers are in hiding, and will be for the rest of your lives. More to the point, you’re in hiding right now in the hopes we can keep the three of you alive long enough for Rafe and Flynn to testify against McGinty, his entire crew, and hopefully remove ninety percent of the threat against them.”
“I know the drill.” His eyes and his tone dropped, slightly sullen, as though she was reminding him of something as ingrained as looking both ways before crossing the street.
“Oh, do you? Then how about you tell me what flashed through your brain when you discovered a known mob associate in your town?” Fury flashed through her again, just as it had when Flynn had broken the news to her. That he’d met with her as the Maguire brothers’ representative, to give her a heads up that Patrick O’Connor, a fellow freaking Chicago mobster, had shown up in Bandon.
Delaney had been blindsided by Flynn this morning.
Because there was a price on the Maguire brothers’ heads.
Sure, the Chicago mob was splintered and struggling now. More than half were in jail already, or at least indicted. The others were too low down the totem pole and thus didn’t have the leadership or balls to make a plan.
But someone could be dispatched. To take them out. Finding them was the hard part. Killing them was incredibly simple.
The fact that Kellan and his brothers hadn’t raised the red flag, set off a flare and freaking called her and 911 simultaneously was a serious breach of not just the rules, but of trust.
“That’s what you’re mad about?” Kellan’s whole demeanor relaxed. Like he honestly believed there was nothing to her obviously raging temper. “We told you about O’Connor. I mean, Flynn did tell you today, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Flynn told me this morning. Saturday morning,” she clarified, enunciating slowly so Kellan would get the clue about where they’d all gone wrong. “But he and Rafe spotted O’Connor on Thursday. Do you realize how much could’ve gone wrong in that amount of time that I was left in the dark? How can I protect you guys if I don’t know you’re in danger?”
That thought had twisted her belly into layers of knots. One layer of how if anything happened to them, she’d be responsible as a person for their deaths. Another layer about how she’d be responsible as a marshal, and possibly lose her job. The third, most twisty layer, was about losing Kellan.
The man she’d fallen for, completely.
No matter how dumb and wrong and self-defeating those emotions might be.
“We weren’t in danger,” Kellan insisted. “Rafe and Flynn told me. They’d followed him all around town. It was obvious O’Connor had zero idea we’re living there.”
She’d felt . . . impotent when Flynn said they’d spotted one of their known associates days ago. Powerless. Panicked. Those pent-up feelings exploded as Delany slammed the side of her fist into the nearest tree trunk. Bits of bark flew through the air.
“It is not your brothers’ job to tail a known criminal. The point is not that this O’Connor character accidentally stumbled into Bandon, and happily stumbled back out none the wiser as to your presence. The point is that he just as easily could’ve been on a mission to kill all of you. That at any moment, he could’ve ducked around a corner and shot Rafe. That he could’ve been pretending to not know you were there, and then murdered you in your sleep.”
Kellan’s brows drew together in confusion. Either at her reaction or the way his brothers had brainwashed him into feeling safe enough to not tell their handler about the level of danger. “Rafe and Flynn know O’Connor. They know how he works, what to expect from him. He’s a mean son of a bitch, but he’s not the guy who gets sent to take people out.”
Civilians. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees. They didn’t have the training to flash through every possible scenario, rather than just the obvious ones.
Delaney started walking again, one hand out to brush the softness of the waist-high ferns. Because as mad as she was? It was her job to make sure that Kellan learned from this mistake. That he fully understood why this was such a big deal.
“O’Connor didn’t used to be that guy. But McGinty’s crew is upended. Half of them are in jail, and the other half are charged but out on bail. That means the power structure changed. People end up doing different things after a shakeup like this. Put on your lawyer hat and think about the possibilities. What if Pat was the only one who could get out of the state? Maybe McGinty believes he’s the only loyal soldier left, and sent him on one last mission of vengeance? Or promised that if he carried out this hit, all the charges would be dropped and O’Connor would be a hero to the mob.”
Kellan tromped along silently for at least a hundred feet, twigs and dirt crunching beneath his boots. “Those are all worst-case scenarios. Highly unlikely.” He shook his head. “Look, my brothers said it was handled. I trusted their judgment.”
That was the problem. The one she had to make him see, no matter how much Kellan might hate her for it. The truth would hurt. A lot. But his continued safety was worth it.
Delaney swept her gaze left and right, taking in the creeping vine that bordered both sides of the path, the variety of shades of green on the trees, and the steady whoosh of the creek to their right. It was picturesque and peaceful, but not nearly enough to cushion the blow she was about to inflict.
“At this point, you should trust me as much as your brothers. Hell, maybe more. Because I’ve never lied to you, Kellan. Never once endangered your life.” Sucking in a deep breath, she asked, “Can you honestly say the same about them?”
His answer came as half snarl, half sentence. “That’s fucking low.”
“I told you, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. That includes fighting dirty. You know the truth about how your parents died now. Your mom was collateral damage in a mob shootout. Your dad was a hit by the head of the mob. That means the whole time your brothers were not just involved, but integral to McGinty’s crew, their actions put your life at risk. Knowingly. Because the mob isn’t just a job. It isn’t a glorified club. It is a dangerous, lethal way of life.”
“Fucking A, I know that.” Kellan slapped his palm over his sternum. “I’ve struggled with that since the day you ripped the blinders from my eyes. Rafe, and then Flynn, made choices. Choices that kept us together, but choices that weren’t the smartest or safest.”
“Exactly. I’ll grant you that they had good intentions, to be sure.”
Because Delaney honestly didn’t know what she would’ve told a teenaged Rafe to do when his dad died. Let his brothers get ripped away and put into foster homes? Maybe not see them again?
Since he was already working for McGinty, letting the man pay the mortgage and employ him full-time must’ve been a no-brainer. Didn’t mean he had to stay in it once Kellan hit eighteen, though. Nope, she didn’t approve of that one bit. “But they made dangerous choices from day one.”
“Are you saying I’m supposed to never trust them again?”
The shattered pain in his roughened voice sliced through her righteous anger like a hot knife through ice cream. “No. Of course not. You know I like and respect your brothers. You’ll always have that bond. But I am saying that when it comes to decisions regarding the mob, your status in WITSEC, and your safety—those are instances you should trust me above all else.”
They continued walking in silence for a few more minutes. Only three other hikers passed them, with friendly nods. Kellan looked like he was brooding. Delaney poked at her own hurt feelings, going back to them like testing a sore spot on her tongue against her teeth.
This lecture she’d just delivered was necessary and appropriate as his marshal. As his girlfriend, though, she wanted to push harder.
It hurt that Kellan hadn’t reached out to her. That they texted all day long, Skyped every night, and he didn’t think to tell her that this big, scary development had crashed into his life. Whatever it said about their relationship, it wasn’t good.
The one thing she could
n’t do was carp at him about not volunteering to be the Maguire who officially told her about O’Connor. Flynn had a secret reason to reach out to her that even Rafe and Kellan didn’t know about. The favor he’d requested from her was to protect his girlfriend, Sierra, who’d evidently witnessed a crime back in Wisconsin and had been on the run ever since.
Technically, Delaney was happy that Flynn had trusted her to take care of someone he cared about. But it just hammered home how much Kellan hadn’t trusted her.
She’d spent the drive to meet him on the phone, organizing surveillance on O’Connor from the moment he stepped off the plane back in Chicago. And getting another agent to pull his file and go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Then she’d reported on Sierra’s unwitting involvement in a counterfeit art ring to her boss and gotten things rolling with that investigation. It hadn’t left a lot of time to pout.
Now was a good time for that, though.
She’d been an idiot. Let a man cloud her judgment.
Just like her mom had. Which is why Delaney had sworn to never, ever let that happen to her.
“I’m sorry, Laney.”
Kellan’s apology yanked her from her wallowing. Okay, she’d give him one shot at redeeming himself. “Sorry for what, specifically?”
“You want the bullet-point list?” He bit off the words and spat each one out.
Freaking engraved and gilt-edged. Yeah. “To make sure I got through to you? You bet I do.”
His head whipped to the side, as if he was about to keep snapping at her. Something in her expression must’ve made him reconsider, though. Because Kellan looked up to where the sun filtered through the roof of leaves and took a deep breath. Much slower—and more earnestly—he said, “I’m sorry I held back from you. Sorry I listened to my brothers instead of thinking for myself. I swear I heard everything you said. I’m dialed into it all with the logical, lawyer side of my brain, not the emotional, Maguire-family side. I get it.”
Got it Bad Page 15