by Cassie Wild
“Well, that means there was a fire,” I replied, keeping my tone easy and agreeable. He looked like he was in the mood for a fight, and I wasn’t going to give him one. “The bombs were the cause of it, sure, but there was a fire.”
He lifted the bottle and took a long, deep drink, watching me the entire time. “How did you end up getting hired? You work at a sporth….” He scowled and shook his head. “Sports bar. You work at a sports bar. How could you help in the library?”
“I answered a Craigslist ad,” I told him. Briar had placed one the day after I’d accepted the job, then removed it the next morning, although she’d told me she was probably being paranoid.
I didn’t like it, because it felt like the web of lies was spinning a little too deep, but without some sort of way to connect the two of us, how could we expect Sean to believe I’d just somehow wandered upon his father’s library?
“Dad uses Craigslist?” he asked skeptically.
Some of the fog had cleared from his eyes.
My belly rumbled once more as I shifted from one foot to the other. “Mr. Downing…well, I guess that’s your father…he didn’t place the ad. Briar did. She’s your sister?”
“Briar hired you? To work on Dad’s library?” The cynicism in his voice was thick enough to cut.
“Yes.”
He scowled, brows beetling in closer together as he studied me. Finally, he shoved off the wall. When he wobbled, I instinctively reached out to steady him.
My hand touched his arm, bared under the short sleeve of his wrinkled t-shirt. His eyes, that intense purplish-blue, flashed to mine. For a split second, the cynicism disappeared, the anger…everything disappeared, save for an empty, yawning void that seemed to reflect the very bottom of his soul.
He looked lost. He looked empty. He looked alone.
Then he jerked away, stumbling and falling off balance.
I tried once more to steady him, but he evaded me, somehow managing to stay on his feet.
“You’re here to work and buy books, so do that and lemme alone,” he said, his voice sharp as a blade.
He cut around me and started down the stairs, walking with the exaggerated care of somebody who knew he was very, very drunk.
I held my breath until he got to the very bottom. He swayed a little. I watched his shoulders drop, as if he was letting out a deep breath before he looked around.
My jaw dropped as he saw the plate that held my dinner and grabbed it, heading on off down the hall.
The jerk.
Eighteen
Sean
Thanks to the sandwich I’d eaten the night before, and the water I’d guzzled, when I woke up, I wasn’t too hung over. My head ached a little, and there was a nasty film on my tongue, but some ibuprofen and oral hygiene would deal with that.
Muted light shone in through the slit in the curtains, and I groaned as my eyes bounced off the clock. It was only a little after seven. I had some vague recollection of falling into bed around midnight, though, so I shouldn’t really complain. Seven hours of sleep. That was pretty decent.
I went to rub my face, and a starburst of pain exploded as I touched my right cheek. Groaning, I got up—slowly—because once I started to move, it was damn clear that my face wasn’t the only thing aching. My right knee was sore, and so was my elbow.
This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up sore, so I had to think back, and once I did, I started to swear a blue streak. Not because I’d remembered falling and spilling a bottle of bourbon I’d grabbed from the storeroom in the basement. Dad would be pissed about that if he knew I’d wasted such a good bottle of booze. But that wasn’t what set me off—I remembered what happened immediately after.
Tish.
I could always hope I’d dreamed that moment, but I knew better.
Now my headache increased—about two hundred percent.
I dragged myself into the bathroom, stripping off my t-shirt and the athletic shorts I’d been wearing since yesterday. Eying the mirror, I studied the bruise spreading across my cheek with a jaded eye. I’d smacked into something hard—a table, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure.
“You could always ask the cute girl you kept flirting with at the sports bar,” I muttered as I grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen and washed down four of them with some tap water. “She was there. She saw it.”
Climbing into the shower, I thought through the foggy conversation with her, trying to make more sense of that, although I wasn’t having much luck. She’d said she was working here at the house, doing something in the library. How did one go from working as a server at a sports bar to dealing with some guy’s library full of books so old, half of them looked like they’d fall apart if they were even touched?
I hadn’t figured the puzzle out twenty minutes later when I emerged from my room, wearing jeans and an old t-shirt I’d left behind when I moved out. Nearing the main staircase, I paused. Dad and Declan’s voices drifted up the stairs, and I was tempted to slink back to my room and hide there until they were gone.
The big grandfather clock at the head of the staircase chimed, and I grimaced as I noticed the time. Seven-thirty. If I tried to hide out in the room, I’d be doing it for the next two hours. They didn’t have to leave for their flight until nine-thirty.
“Damn it,” I mumbled. Probing the bruise on my cheek once more, I told myself to suck it up. Then I forced myself to walk downstairs to see them.
Dad grinned at the sight of me, but the smile faded when he saw the bruise. “Not sure how you managed to get into a fight between last night and this morning, unless you and Declan got into it and that doesn’t make much sense, seeing as how you usually leave a few marks yourself.”
“Funny, Dad.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, feeling awkward and out of place, even though I’d grown up in this house. It felt different here now, and not just because of the extensive remodel. I didn’t even feel comfortable in my own skin, much less my childhood home. “I had a go at a table. I lost.”
“Trust you to pick a fight with the furniture.”
I glanced at Declan.
He had a faint smile on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“What did the furniture ever do to you?”
“You’re a regular comedian, Dec.” I didn’t flip him off, although I was tempted. Hanging in the foyer was a large painting of my mother, commissioned by Dad. It had been done from a picture taken when she was working in the garden, and although she was in profile, I didn’t feel right flipping my brother off with my mom’s image hovering nearby.
“We’re going to get some breakfast.” Dad clapped me on the shoulder as he started to walk, urging me along.
I was too tired to argue, so I fell along in their wake and listened as he talked about the upcoming trip—two days in New York, then over to Ireland for a few weeks.
“You haven’t been back over there in a while,” Seamus mentioned after we’d all sat down at the table set up in the kitchen nook. “Next time I go out, you should come with me.”
“Next time?” I picked up the juice that Shelly, the cook, placed in front of me. “I can’t believe you’re not nagging me to go now.”
“If I asked, would you go?” Dad focused on his coffee. When I didn’t answer, he glanced back at me and shrugged. “I didn’t think so. Anyway, this works better. I’ve told you about the girl I’ve got working here in the house, and while I like her and she seems a decent sort, I’d be more comfortable if there was somebody in the house with her while she’s here.”
“If you’re expecting Sean to keep an eye on Tish—”
“Quiet, Declan.” It came out low and flat, catching my attention as well as my brother’s.
Briar breezed into the room. “What are you telling that lug to shut up over now?”
“He’s just being Declan,” Dad responded, rising to meet her. “You didn’t have to come out here, baby. We talked yesterday.”
“I know. I just wanted to say bye one last
time and check on Tish. We’re throwing a lot at her.”
“What are you throwing at her?”
Briar glanced at me. “You met her already?”
“You could say that.” Scowling, I grabbed my juice and drained it. “We ran into each other in the hall. Don’t really understand what she’s doing here.”
“Helping me rebuild my library,” Dad said. “I’m getting too old to be messing with that, but I enjoyed my library. It won’t ever be the same, but I want it back. One of these days, I’ll leave this house to one of you and that library will be part of it.”
“I don’t have any use for a library.”
Briar ruffled Declan’s hair. “That’s because you stopped reading the day you turned in your final book report in high school.”
He gave her a dour look and flipped her off.
“All of you, quiet,” Seamus said. “Briar, have a seat. Have you had breakfast?”
“No.” She breathed in deeply. “I was holding off because I wanted some of Shelly’s cooking.” She shot the woman in question a brilliant smile.
Shelly winked at her from across the room. “You could come visit more often and have my cooking whenever you liked, Briar. You know that.”
“Busy,” Briar replied breezily. “The job keeps me hopping.” She shifted her attention to me. “Did you get into a fight?”
“With a table,” Dad said before I could.
Briar looked from him to me. I shrugged and reached for the pitcher, pouring more juice. “The table won.”
I managed to stay away until mid-afternoon.
Briar had filled me in on the job they’d hired Tish to perform. For some reason, I wasn’t entirely surprised to find out there was something of a genius hiding behind Tish’s quiet, pretty eyes. She looked like the bookish, smart, nice-girl type. I’d always avoided girls like her. Back in college and high school, I’d been too interested in having fun, but I hadn’t been enough of a jerk to go chasing after the studious, serious girls no matter how pretty they were.
Besides, there was something about the way girls…no, women like Tish looked at me that made me think they could see clear through me.
It had been unsettling before.
Now, it was just downright unacceptable.
I couldn’t stand the thought of somebody looking at me and seeing all the guilt and rot and misery that had eaten me through to the core.
I knew all of that, as much as I hated to admit it. Self-reflection wasn’t a pastime I’d ever enjoyed. Now? Well, there was a reason I spent most of my time either drinking, fucking, or pushing my body through intense, brutal workouts. The harder I pushed myself, the more I blurred my mind through booze or debauchery, the easier it was to just…not think. And thinking led to self-reflection.
But here it was almost three o’clock, and I was stone cold sober, still wearing the jeans and the t-shirt I’d pulled on earlier, my feet bare—clearly not getting ready for a workout—and the chances for sex? Well, unless I left the house? It was non-existent.
Not entirely…a sly voice in my mind murmured as I leaned against the doorframe and looked into the library. Tish was on her knees, bent over a box, giving me an excellent look at her excellent ass. My libido flickered to life, and I immediately slapped it down.
There were plenty of women out there if I was lonely—and fuck, was I ever lonely. This serious-eyed woman who looked at me with sympathy and understanding was so far off the list of possibilities, I couldn’t even consider it.
She stood up and half-turned, holding a couple of books in her hands, then jumped when she saw me. “Shit!” she yelped.
Two of the books fell from her hands, and she swore again, immediately hunkering down to grab the books.
“Hope those aren’t The Iliad and The Odyssey books Dad’s always rambling about,” I said, even though I knew they weren’t. Those had been Mom’s pride and joy and had survived the fire, thanks to being kept in a glass-front bookcase along with several other first editions.
She whipped her head around and glared at me. “Of course, they weren’t.” Still, her cheeks were hotly red, and her self-consciousness was obvious as she stood up, clutching the paperbacks to her chest.
“Good thing because he’d be seriously fucking pissed if you went throwing those around.” I hitched my thumbs in my front pockets, admiring the way worn jeans outlined her long, pretty legs as she turned to stack the books on the desk next to other neat piles.
“Maybe you should try not to startle people who might be working with old, fragile first editions, if that’s the case.” She slanted a look at me. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Nah.” I continued to watch as she made a second trip back to the box. “Just making sure you aren’t trying to make off with the silver…or one of the first editions of Poe. I actually enjoy him.”
“I’d—” She spun to glare at me, then snapped her jaw shut. Face fixed in an expression of pure innocence, I returned her look. “Are you just here to pester me?”
The question struck me as absurd, and I started to laugh. Nobody had accused me of being a pest in years. I was pretty sure Briar had been the last person.
Tish eyed me oddly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I wasn’t entirely sure you even knew how to laugh.”
I scowled and shoved off the wall, a retort climbing up my throat. I snapped it back before it could fly out, even as confusion washed over me. What in the hell was I doing?
“What are you doing?”
“Are you—” I snapped my mouth shut before the question could escape and make me sound as crazy as I felt half the time. No, she wasn’t reading my mind. The headache that had started to fade roared back, magnified. Shoving the heel of my hand against my eye, I looked around. What the hell was I doing in here?
I absolutely had no idea.
Before I could do anything to look more like an idiot, I turned around and left.
Almost immediately after, though, I wanted to go back.
Since I wasn’t about to do that, I headed for the gym instead. I’d go for a long, hard swim. Then I’d find a bottle and get wasted.
Nineteen
Tish
He wandered back.
Two hours later, as I was going through a carefully packed crate of first editions—including the Poe books Sean had mentioned—I sensed him coming in. I wasn’t startled this time, and the book I held remained cradled carefully in my hands.
The white gloves I’d donned to keep the oils in my skin from adding any more damage to the fragile tomes suddenly felt damp as my palms began to sweat. I put the book on the table and checked it off on a list that had been provided by Seamus before he left.
Looking over at Sean, I watched as he came in and dropped down into a chair, his hair damp and tumbling over his forehead. He’d changed clothes at some point, wearing a half-buttoned white work shirt and a pair of jeans that I suspected cost about as much as I would have made in a week at my last job.
His feet were bare. I didn’t know what it was about that simple fact that caught my attention, but I had to keep from staring at his feet, naked against the deep burgundy carpet as I passed by him to add two Poe titles to the glass-fronted case. I was going to have to rearrange things at some point, but until I had a better idea of how I wanted everything, I’d have to make use of the available shelf space just so I could clear out all of the boxes and crates that had been stacked in here.
“I see you found my Poe books.”
His voice, low and velvet-smooth, stroked across my senses. The temper that usually snapped in his voice was missing, and when I glanced at him, I decided his gaze was entirely too unsettling. It only added to the warmth I felt from just listening to his voice, and the combination worked together, forging a heat inside me that was more intense than I could have expected.
Clearing my throat, I put the two books on the shelf as I said, “I didn’t know they were yours.”
“Technically, they aren’t. They’re just the only books in here that ever really held my attention.”
I turned to go back to the crate, and as I passed by Sean, he reached out, lightly circling my wrist with his fingers. “What’s with the prissy little gloves?”
“They’re not prissy.” I wrinkled my nose at him and tugged on my wrist. He didn’t let go, and I tugged harder.
He still didn’t let go. Instead, he came to his feet, responding to my next tug by moving in, acting like I’d pulled him closer. “Why are you wearing them?”
“Because I’m being cautious.” I twisted my wrist this time and dislodged his grip, then placed my hand on his chest, pushing him back a few steps. He went easily enough, but his gaze dipped speculatively to my white-gloved hand again. Sighing, I relented. “I don’t want the oil or sweat in my hands to transfer onto the books while I move them around. If I’m actually looking through the books, I won’t wear the gloves, even though people should wash their hands to remove those oils. Right now, I’m moving a lot of things around, and I’m just trying to be careful.”
He reached up and tugged on the edge of one glove. “What’s the big deal with oil?”
“Because the pages are old and brittle. Actually, until wood pulp started to be used for paper, the pages were sturdier, but as reading became more popular and books more accessible, it was determined that using wood pulp was more efficient. But the oil in our hands was believed to be detrimental, and it can be, but that oil can be washed off. So, I don’t use gloves when I’m actually examining antique books since gloves make it harder to feel the pages, making it easier to rip them. But I’m not examining them. I’m moving them around, and a lot of them. I’m just being cautious.”
And I was rambling, so I snapped my mouth shut.
But Sean didn’t look bored. “Are you always cautious?”
I ignored the question and pulled my hand away. Looking down at the glove, I scowled when I saw the tips were slightly smudged with dirt. “And I’m going to have to change them now.”
