by Jane Henry
“What did you think it was?” I ask, giggling.
“Something to make it look pretty?”
I laugh out loud. It’s the lightest I’ve felt in ages.
When the tub’s suitably filled, he helps me remove my clothes, taking care not to hurt me. He holds my hand as I walk up the little steps to get into the tub, and when I’m good and well secured, he removes his own clothing and follows behind me. I submerge in the steaming hot depths, surrounded by billows of bubbles, and sigh deeply.
“God, that feels good,” I whisper on a yawn. “I could fall asleep in here.”
“Just rescued you,” he mutters. “Don’t need to bloody well do it again in the same night, lass.”
I laugh, then sigh. “Thanks, Lachlan.”
He tucks me up against him. “I love you.”
“And I love you. I’m sorry I can be difficult sometimes.”
He shrugs. “Nolan’s given me advice on how to handle you when you’re difficult. And to be fair, I’m not always a walk in the park.”
I snort-laugh at that, though I have to admit I’m not sure I want to find out what Nolan’s advice was. The McCarthy men are heavy-handed but love fiercely.
He shampoos my hair, then tips my head back and gently rinses it. He massages soap into my shoulders and back, gently washing me clean, then I do the same for him. When I stroke the washcloth across his chest, he doesn’t stop me. His eyes go half lidded, but his gaze is fixed on me.
“Who do you think did it?” I ask.
“Likely rival mafia,” he says with a sigh. “Usually what it is.”
“Aye.” I know he’s right.
“Do you think they had anything to do with what happened in Boston?”
“Aye.”
He doesn’t offer any more, and I don’t ask any more.
We’re too tired to do more than clean each other off, after we’ve rinsed and dried and changed into clean lounge clothes.
“Your things will be here tomorrow, and you’ll have your new phone,” he says. “But for tonight… maybe we unplug.”
I smile at him. “Oh, aye, I like that idea.”
We lie in the large bed and watch mindless TV. We order food from the kitchen and eat shepherd’s pie and greens fresh from the McCarthy greenhouse. We follow it with large portions of spiced apple cake with whipped cream.
“Jesus, but it feels good to be home, doesn’t it?”
He entwines my fingers with his and nods his head. “Aye, lass.” He kisses my fingers. “It’s bloody good to be home.”
I wake in the night and reach for him. He opens one eye and drags me to his chest. He kisses the top of my head and we fall asleep like that, with me curled up beside him and our fingers still locked.
The next day when I wake, he’s gone. I sit up and look around the room, but find him a few minutes later out in the living room. I see him pacing back and forth across the floor, talking animatedly on the phone. He’s cursing in Gaelic, his hand waving back and forth.
I want to ask him if everything’s alright, but I’ll wait for him to tell me. I look to the bedside table, where he’s placed a glass of water for me. With a small smile, I sip it. Beside it lays a brand new phone. I lift it and turn it on, to find that it’s been synced to my old account. I have seven unread messages.
Aisling: GIRL what happened? Are you alright? You can’t keep me in the dark anymore!!!!!
I sigh. She’s right, of course. I can’t.
Megan: So good to have you home. Will you be joining us for breakfast? I glance at the clock. 11:22. Ah, that would be a no. Seems Megan figured that out, for the next message reads, Guess not. Lunch, then?
I message her back. Hi! Maybe for lunch. I’ll have to see what Lachlan’s plans are.
Oh, God, but it feels so damn good to say that.
Tiernan: Got in last night at midnight. Staying in the Clan Mansion until further notice. Keenan pulled us all out of Boston.
Jesus God, I’m grateful he’s okay.
Maeve: My sweet girl, I hear you’re home. Welcome home. And I hear Lachlan’s claimed you. Funny how my boys are making such a big deal of it. I’ve known since he met you this day would come.
What are they planning? What does she mean, ‘making such a big deal of it?’ Oh, Lord.
Now I do have questions for him. But first, I have to answer these messages.
Maeve!! I’m so glad to be home. Leaving Ballyhock wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. How are you feeling???
She responds right away. I understand, sweetheart. One wants to spread her wings, but you’re so loved here. Stay with us, we’ll give you room to fly. :) I’m feeling much better, thanks!
A knock comes at the door, and Lachlan, still on the phone, wearing nothing but pajama bottoms, answers the door. He gestures impatiently for Sebastian to come in, then returns to his phone call.
Sebastian comes straight to me. I tug the sheet nearly up to my eyeballs, since I’m stark naked under here.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “No need to check me again.”
But he brushes me off, and still takes my temperature and blood pressure.
“Sebastian?”
“Aye.”
“What happened to Maeve?”
His face goes sober. “Don’t know yet, but Keenan’s launched an investigation, though.”
I really need to talk to Lachlan. I swear, the women of the Clan are being targeted.
“Is everyone else alright, Sebastian? Aileen and Caitlin… Megan?”
“Aye,” he says, giving me a curious look.
A few minutes later, Lachlan enters and has a brief, hurried conversation with Sebastian, who assures him I’m fine. Lachlan tries to brush him off, but I insist he get checked as well.
“If you’re insisting I do, you will, too!”
He rolls his eyes heavenward and mutters something about “feisty woman with a mouth on her.” Sebastian checks him, and finally takes his leave.
“What is it?” I ask after the doctor’s gone. “Can you tell me?”
He works his jaw. “Not yet,” he says. “Not yet, lass.” He crawls into bed next to me and kisses my bare shoulder. “Do you mean to tell me you were just inspected by the Clan doctor, stark naked?”
I give him a coy look. “Oh, aye,” I say with a shrug. “Does that bother you?”
Before I know it, I’m pinned onto the bed and he’s kissing me while he holds me down.
“Thought I could only claim you once, didn’t you?”
Chapter 20
Lachlan
She melts beneath me, this time so eager for me it’s all I can do to contain myself as I kiss her, hold her, and finally when we’re both panting and she’s practically begging to have me in her. I hold her wrists between my fingers.
“You’re mine,” I breathe, as I slide my swollen cock into her hot, tight body. “You’re mine, Fiona.”
“Of course I am,” she says, grinning and panting, her mouth parting when I thrust in her again. “I have been since the day we met.”
She closes her eyes and her mouth parts, her body arches into mine.
“You couldn’t claim me, then, Lachlan,” she whispers, gently shoving against me as I rock my hips, swallowed fully in her. “But it was then that I gave you my heart.” She gasps, and I kiss her cheek. I love listening to her heartfelt confessions while we make sweet love. “I knew then...somehow, I knew. There would never be another man for me.”
“I love you,” I whisper in her ear, with another hard thrust. “I love you.” I kiss the apple of her cheek and she begins to climax, my own ecstasy rolling through me. “You were worth waiting for.”
She falls asleep, but I lie awake beside her in the aftermath of our lovemaking. She’s curled up next to me, her head on my chest.
There’s much on my mind, not the least of which is the prisoner we’ve captured, held in the interrogation room on the bottom floor of the mansion.
It was a bomb, Keenan said. Carso
n saw someone running after the bomb went off. Nolan and Cormac have him in custody.
But even as I hold her, I know, someone responsible for hurting her is in the very walls of this fortress.
She wakes with a start and sits in bed with her eyes wide.
“I know,” she says, turning to look at me as if surprised.
I give her a quizzical look, still half asleep myself, and raise up on one elbow. “What are you talking about, lass?”
Her hands flail in the air as she tries to explain, always talking with her hands when excited. “I know, my God, I know now.” She throws off the covers and paces the room. “The guard, Lach. It was the guard. You all thought the guard was attacked by the men in Boston, didn’t you?” She mutters to herself, shaking her head. “You all trusted the guard. I mean, of course you would, Keenan vets all of them, doesn’t he?”
I sit up and draw in a deep breath.
“Fiona. Slow down, lass. You’re not making any sense.”
She nods, still talking to herself. “The day of my birthday,” she begins. “Tiernan was here. He was pretending to be the guard at the gate, wasn’t he?”
I nod. “Aye.”
“He had on his uniform, I saw it. Just the standard guard uniform, Lachlan. And there was a crest on the sleeve, I figured you guys had new uniforms or something. Didn’t even think twice. And it was the same crest Matt had in Boston.”
I furrow my brow. “Matt?”
She nods excitedly. “Yes, Matt. The same name of the guy I hung out with my first night in Boston. Remember I told you, he asked me all sorts of questions about my home and where I came from? He wanted to be sure he had my identity.”
I listen warily.
“Think, Lachlan. Did you find the bodies of my guard? Did you?”
I think back to what Keenan said. “Mutilated beyond recognition.” I pick up my phone and dial Keenan.
He answers on the first ring, sounding tired and weary.
“Keenan, when you found the guard that was supposed to be with Fiona — did you identify their bodies?”
“No.”
“How did you know it was them, then?”
He curses under his breath. “Suppose I didn’t. I sent our Ballyhock guard to accompany her on the plane to Boston, but they came straight back. Tiernan’s crew arranged guard for her in Boston.”
“We need to call Tiernan,” Fiona says excitedly. “But God, Lachlan, do you know what this means?”
I hold my palm up to her. “Slow down, lass. Slow down. Let me call Tiernan.”
Tiernan answers on the first ring. I put him on speaker.
“Tiernan. Lachlan here. Sitting with your sister.”
“You two alright?”
“We’re fine,” Fiona says, eager to talk to him. “Tiernan, do you remember the day of my party?” I watch her speak with wide, excited eyes, her hands flailing around her like sailboats. My pretty, brilliant little brat.
“Aye,” he says. “Remember it well.”
“Where did you get the coat?”
“What?”
“The uniform you wore. It was different, and it just came to me all at once, like my subconscious was working it out or something.”
“Just found it in the booth,” he said. “Put it on. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But we need to do some investigating. Has anything happened over there involving the McCarthy Clan since we left Boston?”
“Not a thing.”
She nods, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed, she’s that intent on unravelling the mystery. “Can you call your connections in Boston, see if anyone in a homeless shelter went missing that night?” she asks Tiernan. “You never saw the bodies of my guards, Tiernan. You saw the mutilated bodies of men who wore the uniform, didn’t you?”
“Aye,” he says with a groan. “You’re right.”
“And who arranged for my guard to meet me in Boston?”
“Calum, but you can trust him.”
Fiona’s eyes come to mine.
“That will be my next call,” I tell Tiernan. “You look into what your sister said, and I’ll call Calum.”
I call Calum, but dread already suffuses my limbs. I know what he’s going to find when he investigates.
There was no guard watching Fiona in Boston. It was a set up from the beginning.
Our enemy’s in Ballyhock.
Chapter 21
Fiona
It all makes sense now. It’s like I can see every part of the puzzle with the vivid recollection of someone who’s studied this for ages.
Lachlan hangs up the phone with Calum, and shakes his head. “Bloody hell, lass. You were right. Calum did some investigating, seems the guard he assigned that night were told to take the night off in a message they thought was from him. Wasn’t him, though, he apologized his bloody arse off. Every one of his guard’s fine.”
The phone rings. Tiernan. “You were right,” he said. “Same bloody night your supposed guard got attacked, two men went missing from a shelter. Haven’t found their bodies yet.”
“It’s just a hunch,” I say. “But we need to investigate the guard here at Ballyhock. I think you’ve been infiltrated. I don’t think the threat’s in America. Think about it. Those blokes I met with Aisling, they were likely just the lackeys of whoever’s here, aren’t they?”
Lachlan’s pacing. “Of course. And when were we actually attacked? When we set foot back on Ballyhock.”
“They were the crest,” I tell him. “I know it. They made a mistake leaving it that first day I saw it, though I’ve been a fool not to see it before now. Who do they have in the interrogation room right now?”
“Don’t know.” He gives me a stern look. “How did you know we’ve anyone in the interrogation room at all?”
I roll my eyes at him, only making his stern look darken. “Lachlan, stop pretending I don’t know who you are,” I tell him, and for some reason, I feel lighter than I have in days. Weeks. Months. Ever?
“Lachlan,” I say, reaching for his hands and giving them a squeeze. “I know who you are. I know who all of you are. And I love you. I wrestled with this, of course I did. And I know I’ll wrestle with it still. But you need to know that I understand, I accept, and I love you as you are.”
He reaches for me and holds me to him in an embrace. I pull away after a few seconds.
“Lachlan,” I say earnestly. “We need to go down to the interrogation room. And you need to tell Keenan. His guard’s been compromised.”
“Bloody hell.” He calls Keenan, but the line rings and rings with no answer. He looks out the window but of course there’s nothing to see, not yet. “You fucking stay right by my side,” he says. “Don’t push me, Fiona.”
“I won’t,” I tell him, “I promise. Now go, Lachlan.”
He draws his gun when we open the door to our apartment.
No guard.
Bloody hell, who’s here? Who’s compromised us?
We walk down the stairs to the main lobby area of the house, and it feels eerily quiet here. Lachlan looks to me and I to him. “We don’t usually take women below to the interrogation room,” he says, holding my gaze. “When we get down there, I swear to God, Fiona—”
I roll my eyes. “I know,” I tell him. “I get it, okay? I promise, I won’t fuck up.”
He walks with his gun drawn, toward the stairway that leads to the basement. He loops an arm around me, and we open the door. Voices come up the stairs, and he moves with purpose now. At the bottom of the stairs stand two guards. They nod to him respectfully. Normally, he wouldn’t even think twice, but this time he’s been warned.
“Gentleman,” Lachlan says sternly. They nod back.
“You,” he says, jerking his chin at the man to the left. “Show me your ink.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
Lachlan goes sterner than I’ve ever seen him, his eyes narrowed with fury, his temper barely in check. “Take off the jacket,” he orders. “And sho
w me your motherfucking McCarthy ink.”
“Lachlan!” I shout, as the guard to the right pulls a gun. “No!” But Lachlan’s quicker than either of them and was prepared. He loops an arm around me, drags me to the ground, sweeps the legs of one guard who crashes to the floor while he pulls the trigger on the second. In seconds, he’s got one disarmed and the other holding his arm, howling in agony.
“Serves you right,” I say, kicking at him when fury rips through me. These sons of bitches are responsible for so much harm and devastation. It’s a bloody wonder they haven’t done more yet.
“Call Keenan,” Lachlan tells me, panting, his knee on the chest of the incapacitated man in front of him. I do with trembling fingers. Keenan answers immediately on speakerphone, and Lachlan talks to him over me.
“I’m outside the interrogation room. Send someone now. Our guard’s been compromised.”
Keenan curses, and I hear a door open not far from where we are. Moments later, Cormac and Tully show up. When they see the men on the floor, they pull their weapons. A chill sweeps over me at the look in Cormac’s eyes. He’s a beast of a man, but the gentlest giant when it comes to the women of the Clan. He’s welcomed me in as if I were his very own sister. But now, looking at him, it’s clear to me he could pull that trigger and send this man to damnation without thinking twice.
“Get these men into the room,” Lachlan orders. “And you know what to do with the women.”
Tully grabs one man, still howling as crimson blood splashes onto the floor, and Cormac grabs the other.
“Want me to take Fiona to —”
“No. I’ve got her.”
He takes me and leads me past the library to a room I’ve never seen before. It’s chilling and dark, windowless, the floors made of concrete, but I only catch a glimpse from the doorway. It’s like a cell in here, and I can see the men of the Clan, powerful and menacing, lined up like soldiers with weapons. They have prisoners in there. I look away before I see something I can’t unsee.
Keenan meets us at the door, his brows drawn together and his eyes stern and angry.
