by Jane Henry
Her husband Cormac, one of my cousins, is overprotective to a fault. He doesn’t want to see her harmed, even if she brought it on herself.
“Go on,” I tell her, trying to change the subject. “You were saying you understood me.”
I flop back on my couch and lean against Caitlin. Wife to Keenan, she’s the one I’ve known the longest, and we’ve grown to be close over the years. Caitlin had one glass of wine and has had nothing but sparkling water with lemon ever since.
“Aye,” Aileen says. She plops on the floor and tucks her legs under herself. “I mean, a woman has needs,” she says. “And sex is one of them.”
Sheena snorts. The redhead betrothed to my cousin Nolan, she’s snarkier than Aileen and Caitlin, and pulls no punches. She’s sitting on a high stool by the kitchen bar, the sash she wore all night now limp and dangling from her like a deflated balloon.
Bride to Be, it reads in glittering gold letters.
“You girls talk as if you don’t get it on the regular day and night with those men of yours,” Sheena says. “But I know the McCarthy men. And there ain’t a one of them that doesn’t have the libido of a testosterone-infused caveman.”
I cringe. “Right, then, not sure I want to talk in too much detail about this. Those men you’re fucking are my cousins.”
The girls only laugh. Caitlin flushes a bit, but Aileen’s clearly had too much to drink.
“Come off it, Megan,” she says with a grin. “You were the one that brought it up.”
“Aye,” I said. “A decision I’ve come to regret.”
The girls laugh, and we pour another round. We’ve gone to the pubs, watched a play at the theater, eaten more junk food than we have in a decade, and toasted Sheena and Nolan’s imminent wedding with glee. They’ve been with each other now for two years. Sheena swore off marriage, insisting it wasn’t for the likes of her, even after she and Nolan became legal guardians of Sheena’s younger siblings. But Nolan somehow managed to convince her.
They’ve chosen a simple ceremony, just the Clan members and their families. Sheena has no relatives alive anymore, and all her friends are sitting right here in this room.
“Now, now, Megan,” Caitlin says with a coy smile. “It’s well and good to talk about a woman’s needs. After all, if you don’t know exactly what it is you need, how can you ask for it?”
She flushes after she says this. Aileen grins, and Sheena nods her head.
“Aye,” she says. “Like oral sex or a damn good spanking. Very few men are going to know that right off the bat, as it were.”
I snort. “Aw, lord, I don’t want to go there.”
“Why not?” Sheena asks. “You live in the damn McCarthy mansion, woman, there’s likely a kinky streak as well.”
I snort, Caitlin and Aileen laugh out loud, and I finally stop laughing enough to ask her, “Why on earth do you say that?”
“Well,” she says. “First, because it’s hot.”
“What is?” I cringe, waiting for her response.
She grins. “All of it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say all of it,” Caitlin says. “And honestly, I’d imagine you have to be with the right sort.”
“Now that’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard anyone say all night,” I say. “And for goodness sakes, girls, remember who you’re talking to. I’d have you note I’m the one that gave the lot of you advice, no?”
Mother of God, I’m hardly a virgin.
“Aye,” Aileen says. “But if it’s a man of the Clan, he’d be the right sort.”
“How do you get that?” I ask. “The only men that I know well who are even available are…” I pause, ticking them off my fingers. “Lachlan, and he’s too young for me. Boner, too…” I shake my head. “He’s all lines and angles and high energy, the man exhausts me just looking at him. And Tully, who’s way too old for me and I don’t go for the Hagrid type anyway…” There are many others, but the inner circle is the one I know best.
Sheena shakes her head. “You didn’t say Carson.”
I look away, feigning surprise. Of course she’d say Carson. He was the first person that came to my mind when they mentioned the men of the Clan, and the very one I have to avoid. I hope they buy my nonchalance. I swallow. “Carson?”
“Aye,” Sheena says with purpose, clearly not buying my bluff. “Carson.”
“Sheena,” I say, sobering while I shake my head. “Are you mental? You can’t mean that, can you? Carson’s still mourning the loss of Eve.” Hell, we all are. “And he’s got a child. And anyway, more to the point, I’m smart enough to know I can’t possibly date a man of the Clan.”
Aileen chews her lip thoughtfully. Caitlin doesn’t speak for a moment. Even Sheena seems lost in her thoughts.
“It’s true, though, isn’t it,” Sheena mutters. “As the sister they never had, they’d damn near smother you to death.”
“Exactly. I’d never get a moment’s peace or privacy, and if he so much as touched me, the men would beat him senseless. If he broke my heart, he’d be fucking drawn and quartered, and they’d damn near put me under lock and key.” Not that I’d let them, but they’d try. Annoying.
Aileen nods. “This is true. Cormac would lead the way,” she says. Her husband Cormac is the largest of the group, the resident Bonebreaker for good reason.
“And Nolan would join him,” Sheena says, the slightest edge in her voice. Let it not be said her man isn’t as fearless as the rest. I hide a smile so she doesn’t see it, but I think it’s adorable how protective of him she is.
“And not only that, girls,” I say, unable to hide the note of sadness from my voice. “I mean… we don’t talk about this often, but… well, it troubles me to know what some of their jobs are.”
The girls nod quietly. It goes without saying that we accept what they do, because they’re family. Because we love them. Because they work hard for a common good, even if they defy the law, and sometimes the decisions they make are brutally painful and barely moral.
“So I don’t know if… I don’t know if I can handle one of them.”
“Okay, but hear this,” Caitlin says. “Being claimed by one of the Clan… well, there’s nothing like it, Megan. Aye, they have very old-fashioned principles, I’ll give them that. You know it as well as I do.”
I snort. “Old fashioned? You don’t say, Caitlin? The men of the Clan are the heads of their households like it’s the fucking turn of the century.”
“But they were all raised to be gentleman,” Caitlin says. “To protect and care for the woman they love. To meet her every need.”
“Aye,” Aileen says. “’Tisn’t easy being married to Cro-Magnon, but they make it worth your while.”
“Marriage,” I scoff. “Whoa, now. Girls, I don’t want to get hitched. I want to get fucked is all.”
“You say that,” Aileen says, wagging her finger and attempting to look wise, but failing miserably with her slurred words. “But there’s no shortage of sex if you’re married to a man in the McCarthy Clan.”
I roll my eyes heavenward. “Lord, help me,” I mutter. I need to change the subject. Not only do I not want to talk about sex in the same context of the men I grew up with, but the conversation’s dragging up an ache inside I thought I’d numbed long ago. Turns out I haven’t.
People like to joke about girls with overprotective fathers, the muscular ones, the powerful ones, the ones that own gun collections. No man in his right mind would date a girl under the protection of a man who’d kill you if you took advantage.
Imagine having an army of them at your back.
Oh, it sounds good on paper alright, it does. And I suppose I’d rather have their protection than be all alone in this world. But it sure as hell hasn’t helped my dating game.
The girls take their leave one by one until only Sheena remains. She takes off her sash, folds it neatly on the counter, and glances at her phone. “Time for me to get going,” she says. “Nolan’s on his way.”
Cormac has already come for Aileen, and Caitlin went home with her bodyguard. Caitlin’s husband Keenan, my eldest cousin and Clan chief, is home for the night with the little ones.
I’m glad Nolan’s coming. He and I have always been close. We were born the same year, grew up in the same family, and have shared so much we’re practically brother and sister.
“Oh good,” I tell her. “I’d like to see him. And don’t be silly, you don’t have to apologize.”
We get up and clean the snacks and drinks up. Sheena grabs a broom and starts to sweep the floor. “Cormac had to carry her down the stairs, did you see that?”
I snort. “I did. He didn’t seem too pleased.”
She laughs. “Nope. But I’m sure he’ll put her to bed and she’ll sleep it off.”
Now that it’s just the two of us, I’m eager to ask her some questions that have been on my mind.
“So Sheena.”
“Mmm?”
“So I’m… I’m not exactly a virgin, you know.”
She grins. “I wasn’t either. No judgment from me.”
I nod. That isn’t what I’m worried about. “Right,” I say, “But listen. I’m… well, I may be experienced with sex, but it was always vanilla.”
She freezes with the broom still in her hands, her eyes widening, as a slow smile spreads across her face. “You’ve never indulged your inner kink.”
I don’t blush easily, but this time I might. “I… well, no.”
She grins. “No time like the present, then.”
“Well, it isn’t something you can do with just anyone, though.”
“No, that’s true,” she says thoughtfully, when someone knocks at my door. “Ah, that’ll be Nolan.”
“Aye,” I say with a sigh. “Please don’t tell him we were talking about this.”
I can’t talk about kinky sex with a man who’s like a brother to me no matter how plastered I get.
I open the door to find Nolan, grinning in the entrance. Unlike his older brothers Keenan and Cormac, Nolan is blond, with a shock of hair that hangs down his forehead, but he still has the McCarthy family green eyes.
“Where’s my bride?” he asks, nearly busting his damn buttons with pride.
“She ran away,” I tell him with an eye roll.
“Right,” he says, still grinning.
“Not sure why you two have to go and mess up everything that’s perfect with rings and vows and all that crap.” I stand aside to let him in.
“We waited long enough, Megan,” Sheena says sensibly. “We’ve been waiting on this for years.”
“Well, why’d you wait so long, then?” I tease them, shaking my head, as I step inside and Nolan joins me.
Nolan steps in, kisses my cheek on the way by, then sweeps Sheena into his arms when he reaches her.
“We weren’t going to wait at first, but we wanted the children to be a bit older,” Sheena says. “We thought it would ease things a bit, if we didn’t jump right into it.”
“Not to mention, Clan law states that because we’ve got the children in our care, Sheena’s protected.” The brotherhood is protected by Clan rules. If a man of the Clan marries a woman, she’s off limits to any rival or neutral Clan. Seems Sheena’s siblings have provided a similar talisman.
“Understood,” I say.
Her younger brother, now a resident of the McCarthy finishing school, Saint Albert’s, has just celebrated his eighteenth birthday.
“Tiernan’s eighteen now?”
“Aye,” she says with a sigh.
“And what does that mean for him as a man of the Clan?” I ask Nolan.
“He’ll be inducted when he graduates St. Albert’s.”
I wonder if Nolan notices Sheena’s wince. I imagine inducting someone you love into the Clan is a bit like sending your child off to war.
“And Fiona?”
“She’ll be sixteen next week.”
I nod. Everyone’s growing up, moving on, making life decisions.
Everyone but me.
“Sheena, you smell like a tavern,” Nolan tells her, rolling his eyes. “Can you walk to the car, or do I have to carry you?”
She grins at him, grabs him by the front of the t-shirt, then yanks him over to her. His eyes register surprise before she kisses him.
“Aye, I can walk,” she says, waggling her eyebrows at him. “But you’re welcome to carry me, if you’d like. Practice carrying me over the threshold and all.”
“Oh, ew,” I mutter. “Just what I need, my cousins snogging. You two get out.”
With a grin, Nolan predictably ignores me, pushing Sheena against the back of the couch and kissing her, hard.
“You need my place, then? Sure,” I tell him. “I’ll just leave you two alone and go sleep in the library.”
I turn as if to go, but Nolan catches me on the back of the head with a pillow he tosses at me.
“Why do you have your knickers all in a wad?” Nolan says. “Not like you being so uptight.”
I wonder if he’s onto something, if it’s that obvious.
He’s right. I’m the jovial one. I’m the one that cracks the jokes, keeps them laughing, always cheerful and enthusiastic.
I stifle a sigh.
But not tonight. Not when everyone else is happily married and content, and my thirtieth birthday looms ahead of me like the sharpened blade of an executioner.
It’s old fashioned, I know, and maybe even superstitious to think it’s bad luck to be single at 30. But I’ve disavowed the shackles of married life for my own protection.
“It’s nothing,” I tell Nolan. “You two need to get home. Maeve will be ready to dress you before the sun rises, Sheena, and there’s a full day ahead of you.”
“Aye,” Nolan says. “She’s right.”
He stands, takes Sheena’s hand, and tugs her along. “Time for us to get some rest, so we’re ready for tomorrow.” They head to the door, and he calls over his shoulder, “Oh, Megan. Change of plans. Tully, the damn eejit, can’t make it to the ceremony.”
I look at him in surprise. It’s Clan law that all men of the Clan attend the wedding of a member.
“Why not?” I ask. “Keenan will lose his mind.”
The Clan Chief doesn’t abide law breaking easily.
Nolan shakes his head. “Ah, well, this time it’s unavoidable. Seems he’s got something wrong with his appendix. Spent the night at the hospital, and they did surgery and all that.”
I wince. “Ah, well, I suppose even Keenan will allow for that, then.”
Nolan smiles grimly. “Aye. So tomorrow during the ceremony, you’ll walk down the aisle with Carson.” He opens the door. “It’ll work out better anyway, I think. Night, cousin. See you in the morning.”
I don’t know how long I stand in the doorway, but when I whisper, “Good night,” they’re long gone.
I don’t go back inside to bed, though. I go in and get my bag, then walk downstairs. The house is quiet. Everyone else was smart enough to get to bed early for the big wedding tomorrow, but not me. Jesus, not me.
I’ll have to walk down the aisle tomorrow with the very man who’s been at the forefront of my mind now for so long I don’t remember. At first, I told myself it was because I was friends with Eve, that he was on my mind because I knew him through Eve. Eve and I went to school together, both studying nursing. And when I found out she was dating Carson, and she was hooked in the Clan like I was, a friendship with her was natural.
She was funny and sweet, intelligent and kind. So easy to like. A pang hits my heart and I swallow the lump in my throat. I close my eyes as a wave of grief hits me. I hate that her death was so senseless.
After her death, I reached out to Carson, but he was too buried in his own grief. Still, I tried. I told myself it wasn’t because I was attracted to him or that I was hoping to fill the void Eve left with her death. But there’s something about a single dad that pulls my heartstrings like nothing else.
I couldn’t stop
the niggling fears, that I was wandering into territory where I shouldn’t be, and it frankly hurt how detached Carson was. I’m honestly not even sure he knows who I am or what my name is, he’s that in his own world.
It’s understandable, though. I’m the one that melds into the crowd. There’s nothing remarkable about a girl like me.
So I stopped calling. I stopped visiting. I stopped asking questions.
And now, tomorrow, I have to walk down the aisle of Holy Family holding onto Carson. Beautiful, rugged, brilliant, tortured Carson.
Sigh.
But tonight… no, tonight, I have to see, just one more time.
If I tried to take my car out, someone would see. We have twenty-four-hour surveillance by the security gate, as well as guards inside monitoring security cameras.
I can move quicker on foot. It’ll take me a little longer that way, but I’m grateful for the extra time to think, to process. To clear my head of the alcohol I had tonight.
I stop quickly at the garden and make a small bouquet of flowers. Aunt Maeve loves when we take fresh flowers from her garden and would approve of me taking them where I’m going tonight.
With the fragrant flowers in hand, the pretty posies gathered firmly between my fingers, I walk down the path away from the McCarthy mansion toward Holy Family. The ancient spires are magnificent and glorious tonight, black against the moonlit sky. A chill wind whips over the sea. I shiver and draw my cardi a bit closer to me.
Behind this building lies the cemetery. Again, I shiver, and this time it isn’t from cold.
What am I doing here? What am I playing at?
I don’t believe in ghosts.
But when a wisp of a cloud glides by the full moon, I wonder.
Do I?
They’re getting married tomorrow, I tell Eve. Nolan and Sheena. They’re good together. I ramble on and on, unsure of whether or not my words are somehow heard beyond the dead or just clumsy thoughts in my mind.
I’m sorry, I tell her. But I don’t tell her why.
I reach the entrance to the cemetery and open the gate. It’s so quiet out here, so beautiful. The groundskeeper maintains the ancient cemetery to perfection, though all’s cast in shadows under the moonlight. I pause when I think I hear something. I look sharply toward the rectory. Was that a cough? Is it Father Finn, his windows open above me?
