by Jane Henry
LACHLAN
A DARK IRISH MAFIA ROMANCE
Jane Henry
J. Henry Publications
Copyright © 2020 by Jane Henry
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover photography Wander Aguiar
Cover art by Popkitty Designs
Contents
Synopsis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Previews
About the Author
Synopsis
Fiona Hurston was too young when we first met.
Too naïve.
Too innocent.
Too tempting.
I vowed to protect her, to keep her safe, and I have, for five long years.
Even when keeping her safe meant keeping my distance.
Even when the greatest threat to her innocence was me.
But Fiona’s not a girl anymore.
When danger’s at her door and we’re forced together, I won’t back down.
I’ll defend her. I’ll shield her. I’ll comfort and keep her.
Because Fiona Hurston is all grown up now.
And it’s time she realized... she’s mine.
Chapter 1
Fiona
I walk with my head down and my hands shoved into my pockets as a light wind whisks my hair all about me. I shiver, and an odd feeling settles over me. I don’t think it’s apprehension because of the surprise party I know they’re throwing for me but something… different.
I dismiss the thought and toss my head, lift my chin and walk faster. Today, I wanted to come alone, even though my sister Sheena and brother-in-law Nolan offered to walk the short distance from our home to the mansion. I enjoy the walk and they have their hands full with the kids, and Sheena’s expecting again. It took me a while to feel as if I belonged here in Ballyhock, but there’s something about the wild, brisk wind over the sea and the smell of salty air that grounds me.
Maybe it’s because it reminds me I’m part of something bigger than I am.
Today’s my eighteenth birthday, and I’m feeling a bit philosophical.
I know they’re brewing something up at the mansion. I just know it. I’ve heard whispers and giggles among the children and my friends, though no one’s said anything to me. It’s a “surprise.” I’m not sure how I feel about surprises, but I know how I feel about the McCarthys.
Though to the rest of Ballyhock, Ireland, they’re the Irish mob… the Clan that runs damn near everything that happens here… to me, they’re family.
Well. Most of them.
I swallow hard and look over my shoulder, as if somehow, I can manifest the guard that trails behind me into… him. Lachlan. My heart thrums at the mere thought of his name in my mind, and I whisper it to myself just to hear it on my lips.
“Lachlan.”
The only one I really want guarding me. But Lachlan is too high ranking a member of the Clan to be relegated to the mundane task of babysitting Fiona Hurston anymore. A natural-born leader, he’s moved quickly up in rank. I try to think of other things, to prepare for what I know will happen today. It’s been more than a week since I’ve seen him last, and I long to see him again.
But what’s a girl to do, really? Eighteen years old and barely out of school… I’m a child to him. I push the thought out of my mind. I can’t be melancholy today. Today’s my birthday.
I hear strains of music as I draw near, but the McCarthy mansion’s set apart from the rest of Ballyhock behind an iron gate and massive bushes, so I can’t see anything at first. My heartbeat accelerates, though, and I begin to tremble.
Will they make a big to-do? I hope they don’t make a big to-do. I’d have been happy with dinner in their stately dining room, some of the excellent food their staff cooks, and a nice glass of wine now that I’m old enough to legally drink it. I’ve had plenty to drink, but Nolan and Sheena, and definitely Lachlan, don’t need to know that.
When I reach the gate, from the distance, the guard at the gate recognizes me and gives me a huge grin.
“Happy birthday, Fiona.”
“Thank you—” I begin, then I burst into laughter. When I draw closer, I recognize the reddish hair and boyish, twinkling eyes, though he’s more of a man than a boy now. My brother Tiernan sports a beard and Irish ink I haven’t seen before, dressed in the guard’s uniform, tipping his hat to me. I run to him and he gathers me up in his arms for a big hug. Damn, it feels good to give him a hug. I haven’t seen him in ages.
“Tiernan, when did you get home? I thought you were stationed in Boston.” Tiernan graduated from St. Albert’s, the Clan’s finishing school, and has been a full-fledged inducted member of the Clan now for two years. Keenan sends him on international missions, and Tiernan lives for it.
“So I am,” he says. “But Keenan let me come home for this. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He kisses my cheek, then lets me go.
“Miss what?” I ask with a curious look.
He only grins. “Now, sis, you’ll not tease it out of me. If you think the McCarthy family will let you turn eighteen without a bit of a celebration, you’ve got yer head up yer arse.”
I laugh out loud as he shrugs out of his makeshift disguise. “I hardly recognized you. Did they change the uniforms?” I haven’t seen this one before, with a crest on the cuff. “Between you and the new uniforms, you took me totally by surprise.”
“No idea, just grabbed it as a decoy,” he says with a grin. “Christ, but things have changed here in such a short time. It’s good to be back.”
He tosses his jacket to the side, and the men who followed me here take their positions by the gate. I won’t need a guard with me once I’m on McCarthy premises. I’ll have the whole Clan.
I hope it’s only a “bit of a celebration,” as he says, but we will see. He takes my hand and leads me up the stone walkway toward the garden.
“My we’ve come far, haven’t we, Tiernan?” I ask. I’m feeling nostalgic today. “I still remember the very first day we arrived here. Do you?”
We were rescued from the dank, dilapidated hovel we called home by my older sister Sheena and her husband Nolan. At the time, I was too young to fully understand that Nolan was part of the McCarthy Clan, the most powerful mob in all of Ireland. I wasn’t afraid but enamored. Hell, I still am.
“Aye,” Tiernan says grimly. “I do. I was a right twat, wasn’t I?”
I laugh out loud. “You had good reason, didn’t you?”
Tiernan knew who they were and didn’t take kindly to being brought to their home. He was angry, with a chip on his shoulder the size of the craggy cliffs of Ballyhock. He didn’t trust them, and he let it be known. But over time, he saw past who they were, or what they did. He saw that the McCarthy clan took us in, welcomed us, and took good care of us. All of us. Sam, who was only two at
the time, me, Tiernan, and our older sister Sheena. Soon we became family and we were welcomed into the fold.
“I did,” he says. “But I didn’t really know who they are.”
As a sworn-in member of the Clan, Tiernan now has iron-clad protection, financial security for life, and an army of brothers at his back that will defend him to the death. He’s devoted himself to them entirely.
“Oh my God,” I whisper when I look up and see what’s ahead of us.
“Now, no running,” Tiernan says in a warning tone. “I promised them I’d catch you if you ran.”
“So that’s why you were stationed at the gate,” I mutter.
The McCarthy estate is enormous, stretching as far as the eye can see. There’s the tree-lined pathway that leads to the huge garden, the stone steps that lead to the house, a garden pathway that goes to a greenhouse in the back, a treehouse the men built for the kids, and more. A pathway that leads to the cliffs of Ballyhock, and a path that leads behind the home into town, to Holy Family Church, and the cemetery.
A pang hits my chest when I see the balloons, streamers, flowers, and tent. I come to a stuttering halt beside Tiernan.
“It’s alright,” he says quietly, reaching for my hand. He knows. I’m not sure anyone else knows the way he does, even Sheena.
I never had anything like this. We grew up in dirt poor Stone City, and the memories of my drug addict mother and the slums we grew up in will haunt me for the rest of my life. Sheena and Nolan came to take us away from there. When the McCarthy family welcomed us in as their own, we left poverty and the pain of an abusive mother behind us. Our found family is everything a girl could ever hope for.
Old habits die hard, though, and Tiernan and I remember. Everything. Nights our bellies gnawed with hunger for we had no food in the house. The lewd, manky men my mother brought home, not even bothering to hide the fact she slept with them for drugs. The filth and squalor we lived in. It was an unspoken rule that if you lived in Stone City, you never left, that you remained mired in destitution and that you did not rise above. Those who did were never forgiven.
We broke that rule. But we haven’t forgotten.
We never had birthday parties. Our birthdays were any old day for my mum. There were no cakes, no presents, and certainly no fancy celebrations.
We weren’t made to feel special, and I suppose when you’re raised like that, it’s difficult to believe that you are.
“I don’t deserve this,” I whisper. “I don’t, Tiernan.” I’m not fishing for a compliment. I need his assurance.
He puts his arm around my shoulder and gives me a sideways hug. “I know exactly what you mean,” he says. I’m grateful he doesn’t try to tell me I’m right or wrong, or to silence the inner critic in my head I’ve given voice to. He just understands. Sheena moved out when she was younger, and Sam was only a baby when we moved. But Tiernan and I remember it all.
“Do it for them,” he says with a rakish grin. “You know the McCarthy family will do damn near anything for an excuse to party.”
I smile. They will. The women especially love a reason to spread tables with food, pipe music through speakers, and kick up their heels.
“Who’s there?” I ask. For some reason, Tiernan doesn’t meet my eyes, but shades his and looks in front of us.
“Oh, looks like loads,” he says. “Maybe they’ll even let you have a drink tonight, eh?”
“Maybe,” I say quietly, but I’m still hung up on his evasive answer. Maybe he knows there’s one person I really want to see.
“There she is!” Cormac’s booming voice carries through the air, and cheers erupt as everyone turns to face me. I’m so grateful Tiernan’s with me.
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath, but I don’t get a moment’s reprieve. In the next second, the whole swarm of McCarthys surrounds me. Nolan and Sheena with my younger brother Sam, Nolan’s brother Cormac and his wife Aileen, Clan Chief and eldest brother Keenan with his wife Caitlin and their children. Maeve, the clan matriarch, her arms laden with flowers and all the little toddlers at her heels. She’s like the pied piper, and they follow her everywhere.
“Happy birthday, love,” she says, kissing my cheek. “I know you hate surprises, but I couldn’t bottle them up.” She rolls her eyes, but I know she loves it.
I give her a brief hug, both to silently thank her and for a bit of quick assurance. She hugs me back and whispers in my ear, “You deserve this. We love you.”
I swallow hard. Maeve is mum to all in the clan, and I’m no exception. I love her for it.
I scan the crowd, and can’t help but grin in spite of myself. Wow. So many are here. Carson and cousin Megan, with little Breena holding their hands. Nolan joins Maeve and kisses my cheek.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he says. He’s been something between a father figure and older brother to me since he and Sheena adopted us. I lean into him and give him a massive hug, squeezing him around the neck.
“Thank you,” I tell him, and my voice is a little shaky. I hope he knows it isn’t just the party I’m thanking him for.
Tiernan joins his brothers, and the band they’ve hired kicks up. Before long, I’ve got a pint in my hand while I watch the children dancing up a storm. I’ve got a plate heaped with food, and I sit at a little white table with Nolan and Sheena.
I keep scanning the crowd and pretending like I’m not. I wait for Nolan to join his brothers for a pint before I speak in a low voice to Sheena.
“Sheena,” I say quietly. “Many are here, but not… not all?”
She sighs. Why does she sigh? “He’s here.”
Why is her voice tight? And dammit, how did she know exactly who I’m looking for?
Whatever. I’ll go with it, then, because I want to know.
“Where is he, then?”
He hasn’t come to see me, to greet me, or to wish me a happy birthday. His absence only confirms my biggest fear.
Though I’ve experienced vivid, visceral pain, unrequited love may be the most painful.
Sheena jerks her head toward the very back of the tent to where the green grass and flowers lead to the fullest part of the garden.
And then I see him. He’s got one hand in his pocket, the other holding a pint, but he doesn’t sip. And he’s staring out beyond the garden to the depths of the Irish Sea.
I’m on my feet before I know it. Trembling.
“Fiona?”
I walk away from Sheena. I don’t want my older sister’s admonition, not now. I don’t want her warning or a lecture. Sheena’s been as good to me as a mum, but there are things she doesn’t know.
When I’m only paces away, he turns to me.
Lachlan McCarthy. Though he isn’t one of the sons of Seamus McCarthy, he’s related by blood, second cousins. He’s so tall he has to duck to bend under the loping branches of the willows, his large frame dwarfing the small, private space. He’s grown into manhood over the years, no longer the young, jovial youth I met when I was a child. A scruff of a beard lines his sharp jaw, and his muscles are harder and more defined, but his sharp, endless hazel eyes are the same. My heartbeat races and my mouth goes dry. Never in my life have I met a man more beautiful, more rugged, or sexier than Lachlan.
Lachlan looks my way, and a muscle twitches in his jaw.
Why does he look so angry?
My heart sinks. I wish I hadn’t come over. I’d nearly resigned myself to unrequited love.
He’s a man of the Clan, and a high-ranking one at that. And I’m just—just a girl.
But Lachlan’s my friend, and has been ever since the day he joined the others in rescuing me from Stone City.
Just a friend.
My heartbeat accelerates just being near him. Normally, I wouldn’t even have the courage to come this close, he intimidates me so.
I wonder now if I’ve imagined the way he’s looked at me. The way he’s gone out of his way to protect me, to teach me the ways of the Clan. Is it just a schoolgirl fancy t
hat he has any feelings for me at all?
I can still remember the first day we met.
I was only a child. Thirteen years old, trapped in the hovel of a kitchen in my home, surrounded by squalor and filth. He came in with his brothers, fellow men of the Clan. He barely fit in the doorway, and his eyes met mine across the room. He’d come to rescue us.
“Hey,” he said. “Name’s Lachlan. What’s yours?”
I’d never talked to such a hot guy before. He was a powerful, masculine force of nature, handsome even then, long before he grew into the man he is today.
I opened my mouth to speak, then looked to Sheena. Could I trust him?
“Go on,” Sheena said to me. “It’s okay.”
“Fiona,” I whispered. It took effort to say my name.
“’Tis a beautiful name.”
It was a brief conversation, but I never forgot it.
“Happy birthday, Fiona.” Lachlan’s voice is hollow and distant, and my belly twists into knots. What’s wrong? Why isn’t he Lachlan, my friend, the guy who taught me to drive and protected me from bullies, who made sure I was safe and oversaw my guard all the way through school? Why is he acting like this?
“Thanks.” My voice mimics his. Distant and hollow. I wish I hadn’t come over to see him. I turn away, inexplicable hurt making my eyes water. I don’t want him to see. I’m shaking, and I don’t know why.
Maybe I expected things to be different between us now that I’m eighteen. Maybe… maybe I’ve been lying to myself about the way he feels about me.
“I got you a present.”
His words arrest me. I turn to look at him, my head inclined to the side.
