The problem with her mistakes was that she hadn’t just brought this upon herself, she'd brought it to everyone who’d done the wonderful work of keeping her and Sean safe and happy for so long.
He launched into an immediate rebuttal “I can handle being a target, Tierney—”
Slashing the air with her hand, she cut him off. “You're not even fit enough to go back to work! How can you defend me from—” she didn't say what it was.
She didn't need to. She saw his face. He would have looked less stunned and less hurt if she'd actually hauled back and slapped him across the cheek.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. This time the tears did come.
His lips pressed together, his broad shoulders stiffening at the insult she’d heaped on the man who’d watched her at five in the morning to be sure she was safe. “You're right. I'm not quite up to speed to go back to my very physically demanding job. But I'm sure as fuck better than you staying here alone, Tee!”
His voice was demanding, his shoulders taking up her entire field of vision. He was leaning in, towering over her, mad. Whether he was mad that she'd insulted him or refused him, she wasn’t sure. But she was in no shape to deal with an angry Ronan right now.
Swallowing back the sob that forced its way up, she only managed to get out a small, weak protest. “I can't.”
She meant I can't accept your help. Or maybe I can't put you in danger. Even I can't explain. But Ronan didn't read it that way.
“Then let me,” he said gently, “because I can.”
It was too much. Sparkles and darkness closed in at the edge of her vision. She felt as if she developed a fever in the last few seconds and the world started to sway. The last thing she felt as she passed out was his arms closing around her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Tierney?” Ronan moved forward, slowly lifting his still sleeping body from the large armchair in the corner of the bedroom. He moved toward where Tierney was nearly strangled by the covers but had finally stopped tossing and turning.
He’d expected to sleep in his own bed, instead he’d spent the better part of a long morning in the chair Siorse had put here. Not that she sat in it ever. She'd simply decided the room needed it for decor, though mostly she'd thrown her clothes over it.
Ronan, whom she teased for being a firefighter both on the job and off, was absolutely a “place for everything and everything in its place” guy. With Siorse gone, nothing had graced the chair in quite some time. Only now was he grateful that he hadn't moved the ridiculous thing out of the way. It had given him a place to sleep close enough to Tierney that she didn't cry out.
Not that she’d said anything useful. No, she just woke him periodically with her incoherent babbling. He’d needed the sleep as much as Tierney had. But it was ten a.m. So he said her name again. “Tierney.”
“What?” She sounded as though everything from the night before had simply disappeared from her memory.
“You said you needed to go to work.”
Work must have been the magic word. It was clearly difficult to untangle herself from the covers, but she slung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Though she almost toppled over, her sock-covered feet landed on the boots he'd unlaced and left bedside for her last night.
When she’d passed out in his arms, he'd gone directly into EMT mode. In a few moments though, it became clear it wasn’t a medical emergency but just fear and exhaustion, and probably running on adrenaline for too long.
Sure enough, she’d come around enough that he'd felt more comfortable not rushing her to the ER, but not comfortable enough to tuck her in and leave her alone. It seemed to be enough to convince her of the same and she’d finally agreed to stay with him.
She hadn’t been in any shape to pack up or make plans. So he’d walked her out to the car and helped her in, cursing the stitch in his side from having scooped her up when she fell. He didn’t need her to remind him that he wasn’t immortal.
So here he was, with his sister-in-law stomping around the room as the sheet tried to follow her away from the bed. She brushed her hand at it frantically, trying to release herself for good. She'd wound it fifteen different directions around her the night before.
With the covers finally banished, one hand went into her hair while her feet were shoved into her boots. “I—”
She looked around quickly, and Ronan could tell the sleep had done her good. She was here. She was sharp now.
“I—” at last she looked up at him and he could almost see all her memories from the night before flooding her. Tierney looked up at him and shook her head. “I don't know. Maybe I pulled the trigger too soon.”
“But he's safe? From whatever this is?” Ronan asked
Tierney nodded once, sharp and clear.
“Are you going to tell me what's going on?”
“I don't know.”
That was at least better than he'd gotten last time, so he let it stand. Whatever this was, it had to be bad. Though there was nothing he could think of in Tierney's life that would even begin to warrant anything like this. The Doyles had shown up in Redemption when Tierney was a sophomore, and Siorse a senior. Ronan had been a senior and more than ready to get out of town. But, one look at the Doyle girls, and he knew that was going to be the end of him.
Siorse had made a play for him. Tierney had kept to herself. It became apparent relatively quickly that Tierney was about to become a mother.
For him, everything had proceeded naturally onward. He’d dated Siorse and they left for school together. Tierney—who could have gone on to college on a scholarship—had decided to simply stay in Redemption. She helped at the family bar. She ran Sean's life. She eventually rented a small house and probably lived relatively close to hand to mouth.
She could have gone further and done much more. Though she'd often expressed a desire to go to medical school, and he knew she occasionally took online courses in biology and chemistry, this was the life she'd chosen. And somehow, he’d missed something huge.
Standing in front of him now, Tierney looked up, her green eyes meeting his. “Did I drive here?”
“I brought you.”
“But I have to—”
He waved his hand to cut her off. Maybe he shouldn't have done it. Maybe it was egotistical or simply stupid to think he knew what she wanted. Still he tried. “We need to get you home so you can shower and change.”
She nodded.
“And then I need to get you to work.”
“Well, I'll—”
“Please.” He stopped her again. “Whatever this is, it's big. Let me at least drive you in.”
She took a moment to let the words and the offer soak in. He had to admit he appreciated that. She gave him only a slow nod, but then waved her hand toward the bedroom door. “I'm ready to go now.”
Of course, she was. He needed a few minutes. “I'll be quick.”
He shooed her out of his own room so he could change clothing then brushed his teeth faster than should have been possible. He skipped at least three steps but took a moment to wash down the antibiotic he despised. He was so close to finished, but he’d missed last night.
In a few minutes, they were both in the sports car heading back across town toward Tierney’s house. The one that didn’t have Sean in it.
They pulled into the driveway behind Tierney's car, now covered in an extra inch of snow. The snow had stopped falling hours ago, he'd noticed. It wasn't heavy enough to keep anyone off of the roads or out of work, but it was enough that as Tierney came around the car he put his arm out to stop her.
His hand, gloved and warm, lay flat against the front of her puffy coat, and for a moment, he thought even that padded contact was too much for him.
“Tierney, look!” There were fresh footprints in the snow leading up to her front door.
“Someone just came and knocked,” she said.
Ronan turned and gave her a look that told her either she shouldn't be stupid or she shouldn't think that
he was going to be. “They don't even go up the bottom step. The person didn’t get to your door to knock. And your car is here. Someone would have thought you were home.”
“Shit.” She whispered it on an exhausted sigh, making him wonder what else was going on that having someone sneak around her home didn’t seem to elicit anything else.
Tierney turned a full one-eighty, scanning the street and looking for … something.
“Should we go around back?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just take some pictures, I guess. I don't think there's anything we can do. It's not a crime scene.”
Not that they thought … not yet anyway.
She let him snap a few shots with his phone and, in her haste, she walked right up the steps, messing up the footprints. As though, by walking over them, she could actually make the whole offense disappear. Putting her key in the lock, she headed inside, and Ronan stuck close behind her. But he didn't see anything out of place.
If Tierney did, she didn’t let on.
She disappeared and emerged a few moments later in a long-sleeved thermal shirt, layered by the polo with the Snafu bar logo on it. Her jeans hugged her like a second skin. She held her hands out at her sides, as if for inspection. “I'm ready.”
Ronan didn’t move. He just asked again. “Are you going to tell me what's going on?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Hi Mom!” Tierney pushed through the back door, trying to sound cheerful as she called out. She wanted Mom Doyle to know it wasn’t just her.
“Hey, baby,” her mother called back, her voice coming from the front of the restaurant. She sounded like she was in motion.
Aileen didn’t know what was coming, but Tierney was about to ruin her day.
“Ronan is with me,” she called again as she hung her coat on the dark wood stand by the back door.
Ronan did the same, including calling out, “Hi mom!”
“Hey!”
Tierney could hear the change in her voice. The woman had stopped whatever she was doing and her new action was coming to greet her former son-in-law. One who usually didn't show up at the bar unannounced or come in through the back door.
When Siorse had graduated high school, she’d gone to the University of Nebraska and gotten herself an economics degree. She’d helped with the budget for the bar and more, but she hadn't really worked here since she’d been eighteen. Ronan had been only a casual visitor to the place all along. That didn't matter to her mom, though.
The woman stepped forward, looping her arms around Ronan's neck, and giving him a sincere hug. She’d missed him. It flashed into Tierney's mind right then, just how far away her desire for Ronan had to be stashed. If anything were to happen between them—and she knew it couldn't—what would that do to mom and dad Doyle? How would they feel having Tierney usurp their real daughter's husband?
“What are you doing here?” Mom looked up at Ronan, not suspecting anything.
“I brought Tierney in,” he answered it with the kind of tone that didn’t alert anyone, but Tierney could read that he was aiming to get more information.
His sudden interest in being chauffeur elicited some glances as Mom Doyle tried to figure out what was going on. The easiest thing was to simply rip off the band aid.
“Mom.” Tierney stood still, her hands at her side. “I pulled the trigger.”
Mom Doyle's eyes flew wide. “What?” She took a moment to get herself together. Then she sucked in a breath and asked, “It was more than what you told me?”
Her mom’s eyes flicked quickly to Ronan as if to ask, what does he know?
Tierney realized then that she hadn’t told either of them the whole story. No matter what she wanted, everything was about to come out. The only question was, to whom?
Her mother quickly got herself together and looked at Tierney. “So, he's safe?”
Tierney knew her mom was putting all the pieces together. She knew what it meant that Tierney had “pulled the trigger.” “He is but I don't know what to do about the rest of you.”
Mom Doyle surprised the shit out of her. Stepping forward, she wrapped Tierney in a fierce hug. “Sean is safe. That's what matters right now. It's just me and your dad and you don’t worry about us.”
Aileen always referred to them that way—just Mom and Dad. No hesitancy. No casual reduction of their relationship. Now, she doubled down. “We knew this might happen. We knew what we were signing up for.”
She put her hands on Tierney's shoulders and held her tight, her stare fierce.
Tierney’s own parents hadn’t been willing to sign up for that and the tears sprang into her eyes. She'd not really expected this and maybe she'd been stupid not to.
Mom shook her slightly, “We're ready. Tell me everything. Wait, no— Let's get your father , too.”
Tierney shook her head no. Ronan was still here.
She made a motion backward toward him. “Everyone who knows will be in danger. I came into work to keep up the appearance of normal, because I didn't want to alert anyone to what I did in the middle of the night last night.” She took a deep breath. Even though she was relieved to have Sean safe, it hurt so much to have him so far away. “We just say that Sean got an offer to travel with a friend. So he took it. It came up suddenly.”
“Smart,” mom said, “Believable.” But she grabbed Tierney’s hand and pulled her toward the bar. Ronan trailed behind. Pushing Tierney onto a stool, she quickly walked around behind the bar and served her up a lemonade.
That's what she'd served Tierney when she was sixteen and pregnant. Somehow, it had always stuck as her solution when something came up.
Tierney took a sip. It tasted like trouble and support and family. Not for the first time, she understood that the Doyles had been a better family to her than her own.
“How were you and my mom such good friends?” she asked. But only after she asked it, did she realize that Ronan had settled himself into the seat beside her, and she’d just tipped her hand and revealed one of her major cards.
His head had snapped back with surprise. Nope, it hadn’t casually sailed by him.
Mom Doyle stayed planted on the other side of the bar, and asked him, “What do you want to drink?”
“Whatever it is, it needs rum in it.”
He'd not been ready for that one, had he?
Mom stayed in motion, mixing him a rum and a lot of coke. It was, after all, 10:45 in the morning. She set it in front of Ronan and continued talking while her hands kept moving.
It took a moment for Tierney to realize the woman was making herself a Seven and Seven. She pushed her own glass forward and it didn't take long for her mom to catch the hint. She pulled their best vodka off the shelf and topped up Tierney’s lemonade.
“I think,” Aileen said as she went back to mixing her own drink, “I think you tell everybody. I think you gather everyone you trust, and you tell them everything. If you don't have secrets, there isn’t much leverage.” She took a long drink from the glass as if to fortify herself.
Tierney did the same. “Someone will spill the beans though. We made it this far by telling no one anything.”
She could see Ronan following the conversation like a tennis match. He had no say in it but he wasn’t going to lose sight of the ball. When he wasn't getting answers, he chugged the glass, and set it on the counter before too-casually sliding it over to her mom.
With only a glance, he convinced Aileen to refill it.
Her hands worked quickly, then she pushed the glass back toward him, brimming with another rum and coke. But she looked pointedly at Tierney. “Then tell him. He's about to figure it out, anyway.”
Tierney hadn’t even agreed, and Mom was off on another tangent. The woman could organize anything. “I'm calling your dad and we're going to have ourselves a family meeting and figure this out.”
Ronan gulped the second glass down then smacked the glass onto the bar top.
Tierney wasn’t ready to agree.
“We have to get the bar ready. We have to open.”
“Well, shit.” Mom looked out the front, somehow seeming to have forgotten everything that was normal swirling around her right now. “Well then, I'm calling your dad. He'll be here in fifteen minutes. You two help me get the bar ready and then you—” she stared hard at Tierney, “—You go tell Ronan everything. Once we get the regulars in to cover the shift, then we'll have our family meeting.”
“I might just leave. I don't like you being in danger.” Tierney reached out lacing her fingers into the warm grip of the woman who'd loved her maybe more than anyone else ever had.
“It doesn't matter.” Mom squeezed her hand back but then let go to finish lowering the chairs to the freshly mopped floor. She rubbed down the table surfaces she’d exposed, but she spoke backwards over her shoulder. “If you had enough information to do what you did then the danger is already here. They already know about your dad and me. They already know about Ronan.”
Tierney gulped. Mom was right. It was too late. She’d put everyone in danger just by being here. Her only consolation was that she was the one he wanted.
Mom Doyle didn’t have time for Tierney’s guilt. “There was never any way you could have protected us. And it isn't your fault.”
But it was, Tierney thought. It was all her fault.
Ronan was looking at her. Like he'd figured that out, too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"My real name is Emily Gallagher."
Tierney sat in front of him and delivered the shock of his life with all sincerity. Her fingers laced together, her eyes were cast down but then she looked up at him quickly. "You can't repeat any of this to anyone."
He nodded, as though he were agreeing, but not having heard the whole story there was no way to know what he was agreeing to. What he did know was that there was a fierce, sharp knot in the middle of his chest telling him that he'd almost definitely be keeping her secret because he would do anything to protect Tierney Doyle.
But the woman sitting in front of him apparently wasn't Tierney Doyle.
Down in Flames (Wildfire Hearts Book 5) Page 7
