by Jane Henry
“Yeah?” He sighs at the voice on the other end of the phone. “Doesn’t matter which entrance,” he says. “He’ll know soon enough, and I’ll answer to him in the morning.”
I wonder who they’re worried about. Keenan, most like.
He parks the car and we exit. A shadow lurks in the doorway between the garage and entrance to the house. I’m surprised to see long red hair tucked into a messy bun. He’s alerted Maeve? Or was she roaming about and noticed our arrival?
“They’ll go with mam,” he says, reaching for the baby. I turn from him and won’t let him take him.
I shake my head. “No. I’ll help them get—”
“They’ll go with my mother,” Nolan repeats, more forceful this time. “Care to be reminded of our agreement?” His voice is tight, laced with meaning, and I know he’s trying to keep Tiernan from knowing too much.
Maeve approaches. She’s wearing a dressing gown, her brows furrowed as she draws near. I almost forgot for a moment that it was the dead of night.
“Why, hello there,” she says to Fiona, but Fiona pulls into my side and turns her face away from her. Unperturbed, Maeve turns to Tiernan. “Pleased to meet you,” she says, but doesn’t wait for a response. It’s a good thing, as he only glares right back at her.
Nolan’s jaw clenches. “They’ve been through an ordeal,” he says to his mam, then gives Tiernan a stern look. “We’ll work on manners in the morning.”
I glare at him. If he thinks he’s going to bully my brother into behaving a certain way, it’ll be over my dead body.
“Give mam the baby, Sheena, and you’ll come with me,” he says firmly. “We’ll go over all of this after we’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
“I’ll take the baby,” Fiona says, the first time she’s spoken since we’ve left the house. She reaches for Sam, who curls up into her arms and rests his head on her shoulder.
Carson and Lachlan join us, and we all go inside.
Maeve leads them through the kitchen to the main living area, then up a flight of stairs. “They won’t be far from you, Sheena,” she says gently. “And they’ll have everything they need, you have my word.”
“Why isn’t she coming with us?” Tiernan asks, his brows furrowed together.
Nolan squeezes my elbow in a silent warning. I clear my throat. “Get some rest tonight, Tiernan, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
His eyes narrow on Nolan, but Nolan doesn’t pay him any heed. He takes my elbow and leads me away. When we’re several paces away from my siblings, my heart is in my throat.
“Have you forgotten why you’re here?” he scolds.
“How could I forget?” I snap. “You’ve reminded me ten times.”
“Perhaps I need to remind you more clearly back in my room?”
Reluctantly, I clam up. Exhaustion suffuses me and I don’t want to spar with him again, not tonight.
“That won’t be necessary,” I say through clenched teeth.
We get back to his room but my heart is down the hall. The only people I love in the entire world are alone with strangers, and I’m here as a prisoner.
I wonder if he’ll interrogate me tonight, what he has planned for me still.
He shuts the door harder than necessary. It’s dark in here, but a faint glimmer of moonlight illuminates his face. A shock of blond hair falls over his forehead, and his jaw’s clenched.
“Keenan will kick my arse for this,” he mutters. “You know that, don’t you? Probably hope he does.”
He fastens a series of locks before he stalks over to me. I don’t respond to him. I don’t even think he’s looking for an answer, and I’m so tired, so confused and scared for my brothers and sister that I don’t even know what to say. I can only assume they’re safe for tonight, but they’re apart from me. I can’t reach them and have to trust the very people I despise with their safety.
“I couldn’t care less if Keenan kicks your arse for this,” I mutter, but it’s a lie. I don’t want him to get in trouble for helping out my family. He could’ve left them. Then what?
He walks to me and my heartbeat quickens. Have I pushed him too far? When he reaches me, he runs his fingers through my hair, his grip at once tight, primal, erotic. My head falls back, baring my neck. If he were a vampire, I’d be his prey, my lifeblood pulsing beneath him in the light of the full moon outside his window. He’d bite me, and I’d be his for eternity.
“You don’t care, do you?” he whispers.
“What happens to you? No.”
He smirks at me. “Might be the first fucking honest thing you’ve said to me all night.”
I swallow and don’t respond. It isn’t.
“Back in the room,” he says. “We’ll get some sleep and pick this up again in the morning.”
I’m not so sure what “this” is, but I know what I plan in the morning.
He half-drags me back to his room, tugging me along. If he has any tenderness in him, he’s exhausted it. We reach the bed, and he tosses me onto it.
“Clothes off.”
I don’t fight it. I’m exhausted and fearful, and I need to reserve my energy for the next battle I’ll face. I don’t care that he wants to remind me of who I am, what my place is, or that I’m his prisoner. It’s as if he needs to force this knowledge on me because he’s shown weakness with tonight’s rescue.
Is it even a rescue? I’ve no idea. If he plans to use tonight as leverage, it isn’t. It’s merely a bargaining chip.
So I strip my clothes off and toss them to the floor like this doesn’t demoralize me, like my body and mind are two separate entities that don’t entwine.
Are they safe? The baby, Fiona, and Tiernan? Are they scared? Will anyone hurt them again?
I don’t know if I want to hit him or cry, but of course I’m not given a choice. When I’m stripped, he brings me back to the bed, removes a pair of cuffs from the drawer, and fastens them around my wrists. He tosses a blanket over my naked body and turns away from me as if I disgust him.
“Sleep,” he orders. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Chapter 9
Nolan
I sleep in my boxers on my sofa reluctantly. I could’ve slept next to her, but I needed some space to think.
The next morning I rise early after only a few hours of sleep. There’s a crick in my neck and my back aches. Toss pillows aren’t made for fucking comfort. I look out the window, at the sun rising over the ocean, and for one moment I let it bring me peace. I wish I was in my own room. I like to sit on the balcony of a morning and drink tea with the sunrise.
I reach for my phone and power it on, grateful there are no messages from Keenan. I’ve got video feed to my bedroom on it. I zoom in on Sheena.
It took her a while to fall asleep. I watched her until she did. It isn’t easy to fall asleep with your wrists cuffed. I’ve been there before. But she finally did, and after I could tell she was out, I rolled over and got some rest myself.
It’s dark in the room, with only a faint glimmer of light, but I can tell she’s still sleeping. Her red hair’s all tumbled about her, and the blanket’s fallen off her shoulder. Gorgeous and peaceful in sleep.
I wonder what makes her tick. Up until last night, I’d allowed myself to only demonize her in my mind. A bitch on a mission to destroy my family. But after seeing those children in that disaster of a house, after seeing how she came apart and dropped her defenses when she was near them, I know there’s more to her than meets the eye.
If I’m honest, I’ve known that for a while. Hell, it may be the very thing that draws me to her.
Today, I’ll dig deeper. First, I’ve got to cover my arse and act proactively.
I shoot Cormac a message.
You up?
A reply comes back almost at once.
Cormac: Aye.
Need to talk.
Cormac: Right now?
Yeah.
Cormac: Phone, house, privacy?
Pri
vacy.
Cormac. Meet me by the cliffs in ten. Bring tea. Bonus points for food.
I smile to myself. He eats all damn day.
I toss off the covers, and pull on the trousers and t-shirt I left on the floor. I lock the door behind me and head to the kitchen downstairs, grab two cups of hot tea, and nick a plateful of scones. When I reach the cliffs, Cormac’s already staring out at the sea, waiting.
I hand him the tea and scones, and we sit in silence. He doesn’t like to talk unless he’s got at least one cup of tea in him.
Like Keenan, Cormac didn’t have much faith in me when I was younger, when I’d taken to drink and fucked up everything. But he’s got a softer heart than Keenan. He’s the peacemaker in our family. He was the first to come to me when I needed him, and I know he’s got my back faster and more reliably than any other brother in The Clan.
I stare out at the sea. It’s cool this morning, a brisk, salty breeze coming off the water. I inhale deeply. It’s fucking mesmerizing, a balm to my soul.
“Right, then,” he says, after he’s polished off his tea and three scones. “This have anything to do with you boys rolling in last night after you’d taken the girl?”
I nod. “Aye.”
I fill him in. When I get to the part of entering Stone City and the beating I gave the arsehole, he groans. When I tell him about taking the children back home, he smacks his head. By the time I’m finished, he’s cursing under his breath.
“Haven’t talked to Keenan, then, yet, have you?”
I groan. “No.”
“Have any answers from the lass?”
“Also no.”
He curses. “So all you’ve done, then, is manage to bring trouble here.”
“Don’t forget, I also did a right good job of dirtying up Stone city.”
“Oh, right,” he says with a groan. “Well that makes things better.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So you know what you have to do today, then, don’t you?”
“Aye. I do.”
He lifts his brows questioningly.
“Get the answers I need.”
“Aye. You’ve a plan for that?”
I tell him what I did the night before, how I plan on getting answers from her, and he nods. “Seems about right.” He takes another scone. “You let me handle Keenan, alright?”
I appreciate the gesture, but shake my head. “No, I’ll handle him myself.”
Cormac grins and smacks my shoulder. “Good lad. Aye, you can. Now best get up to her and see what you can get before breakfast.”
“I’ll use this to my advantage,” I tell him. “She’s indebted to me with her family here.”
Cormac stands and brushes crumbs off him, looking out at the sea. “Aye,” he says. “If Keenan lets them stay.”
Christ, I didn’t think about that.
Seems I’ve got two jobs today.
I glance at the feed on my phone and see she’s still fast asleep. Cormac looks over.
“Jesus, she’s a sight, eh?” he mutters.
“Aye,” I say, not quite sure why there’s a note of pride in my voice. “Fucking gorgeous.”
“I mean she isn’t as pretty as Aileen, but she’s passable,” he says. I punch his arm, and he laughs, rubbing out the sting. We walk together back up to the house.
“For what it’s worth, Nolan, I think you did the right thing.”
I look at him sharply. “Do you?”
“Aye.” His voice thickens a little. “Maybe even what dad would’ve done. I mean, he was ruthless. I saw things at a young age I’ll take with me to my death. He had a heavy hand, but he didn’t have a heart of stone.”
“Aye.” My throat is clogged myself. I didn’t realize until he said this how much I needed to hear it.
My father never knew me as an adult sober.
Maybe it isn’t Keenan I need to prove myself to.
When we reach the garden, I’m surprised to see mam out front, bent over, holding the hand of the littlest one. He’s toddling around the garden and speaking in gibberish, pointing to one thing and then the next. Jesus, he’s cute.
“Christ,” Cormac says. “I don’t blame you, Nolan, I really don’t. The hardest of hearts couldn’t have left a babe like that endangered.”
I nod, glad he’s on my side. Mam hears us coming and beams at us. “Morning, boys.”
I’ll be seventy years old and she’ll be hobbling around with a cane and still, she’ll call us “boys.”
“Morning,” I say to her. “Didn’t sleep?”
Her face softens and she smiles benevolently down at the wee one. “Ah, well, you know it’s hard to sleep when you have a whole world out there to explore, isn’t it?”
She’s lapping this up. She comes alive when she’s with the little ones.
“You reckon his mother will come looking for them?” she asks, not meeting my eyes as she shows Sam how he can sit on the stone bench. He swings his little legs and raises a chubby fist to wave at me. It’s a marvel to me that such a little one remains innocent when he’s been handed the life he has.
“Don’t know, but we’ll have to prepare.”
She nods.
“Bring him to breakfast, then?” I ask her.
She nods. “I’ll see to it they all get what they need.”
Cormac leaves to take a run on the beach. I thank her, trot up the stairs to the house, and crash straight into Keenan.
Christ.
“Morning, Nolan,” he says. I can tell by the tone of his voice and posture he knows some of what happened last night. Hell, maybe all of it.
“Morning,” I respond. He looks out the large windows out to the garden, his hands in his pockets, the early morning light reflected in his green eyes.
“I’m assuming you’ve got something to tell me?”
He might be my older brother, but as Clan Chief, he’s the father figure of our group. I owe him the truth.
“Aye.” I take in a deep breath, then I fill him in.
I sugarcoat nothing.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he curses. He stands with his arms folded on his chest, so like my father it’s uncanny. The hints of gray at his temples were just like dad’s, the sharp green eyes boring into me the very same. “Christ, Nolan, what the hell were you thinking?”
Also words my father could’ve uttered.
“I was thinking it was the right thing to do,” I tell him.
“We’re not in the goddamn business of saving families,” he says. “We’re not philanthropists, for Christ’s sake.”
“Aye,” I tell him. “But think on it, Keenan. She threw us under the bus with the locals, didn’t she? It’s the very reason you wanted her brought here. Maybe we catch more flies with honey than vinegar. She wanted to be brought here. It’s time we took control, and having her family at our mercy could do just that.”
He curses and looks out the window. “You have a point, brother,” he says. I’m actually surprised he’s agreeing. “But I’m not as concerned about the children being here as I am about you causing trouble in Stone City. Did you know the O’Gregors do their biggest drug sales there?”
Motherfucker.
I groan. “Didn’t know that, no.”
He nods and looks out the window again. “That’ll come back to bite us,” he says, but at least he says us. We’re still in this together. He continues, mulling it over while he strokes his chin. “I get why you brought them here, but they can’t stay. I think a call to Father Finn could help. Let’s find out what’s going on.”
He goes back to pacing, his hands shoved in his pockets. “But fuck, Nolan, we’ll have to have a meeting to prepare for blowback from the O’Gregors.”
I nod, stifling a groan. “Aye.”
He still stares out the window. “Go to her. Find out what you need. I’ll call a meeting.”
Today, I need answers. I need to do my job, and do it fucking right.
I check my phone again and can
tell she’s waking by the way she stirs. When I get to the room, I shut and lock the door behind me and hear her calling me.
“Nolan? You there?”
“Aye.” I come into the room, and take a moment to observe her unhindered. Light streams in from the window. She tosses her head to the side, her vibrant red hair cascading onto the bed. Bright gray eyes meet mine, beautiful and uncompromising.
She changes with the wind. Which Sheena will I meet today?
I cross over to the window and pull back the blinds all the way to reveal the sea before us. “Morning, lass. Did you sleep well?”
“Aye,” she says behind me. “Better than I thought I would with these damn cuffs.”
We’re dancing in time to the music. I lead and she steps along with me. But I’m tired of playing this game, of waltzing around what needs to be said. I want truth.
I stare, looking out at the sea from the balcony window. The sky’s a bit overcast today, but the sun peeks through. It’s high tide, waves reaching high on the cliffs. A herring gull flies overhead. I open the balcony door, inhaling the scent of salty air, before I turn to her.
“I imagine you’d like to see your brothers and sister this morning.”
She eyes me warily and doesn’t speak for a moment. She swallows, then nods. “Aye.”
I walk to her, my hands in my pockets. She follows me with her gaze, apprehension written on her features.
“Then let’s play a little game, shall we?”
Her lips quirk up. and she nods. “Sure. Why not? I’m naked and cuffed in your bed. What could possibly go wrong?”
I can’t help but chuckle. She drives me fucking crazy, but hell, I love that mouth of hers.
“The better question, doll, is what could go right?”
She licks her lips, and this time, I don’t think she’s playing. Her chest heaves when I draw near. I’d do well to remember how she ticks.
She responds well to being dominated. I sit on the side of the bed and reach for her hair. I can hardly stop myself from weaving my fingers through the soft, fragrant mass of it.
She closes her eyes for a moment, tipping her head back. “I know I’m fucked up,” she whispers. “I know it, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But I do love when you touch my hair.”