by Nashoda Rose
“I… Deaglan….” I inhaled a breath and started again. “I don’t know. I can’t… I can’t… I need time to think.”
He stepped toward me. “Eva…”
I shook my head. “Don’t.” He stopped. “I need time.” It strangled me to say the words because the only person I wanted to hold me and take the hurt away was him.
I spun around to run back to the house, but he snagged my hand and pulled me into him. “Eva. Christ. Don’t do this,” he whispered next to my ear, his voice raspy and broken. “We can get through this, baby. I need you to try and understand.”
But I did understand. I understood that he kept something so significant from me.
I pushed at his arms. “I had to hear it from the man who beat me. A man I hate. Do you have any idea what that’s like?” He flinched. I shoved at his arms and stumbled away from him. “Go, Deaglan.”
His hand jerked through his hair before he turned and walked to the car, and my heart slammed into my ribcage.
It shattered. It ruined. It destroyed. That was what my love for him did to me.
He opened the door and I thought he’d get in and drive away, but instead he bent, reaching inside for something. He straightened with a folder in his hand.
“Did Curran tell you how he knew about me? About Crown?” I shook my head. “That seven years ago he’d tried to steal a girl under my protection. That he tried to sell her.”
My eyes widened. What was he talking about? Curran owned a shipping company in Toronto. He was a businessman. He hadn’t even gone to Ireland as far as I knew.
He dumped the folder on the hood of the car. “The police report on your assault,” he said. I tensed, and his eyes met mine. “I didn’t look at the photos of you. I know you don’t want me to. But I saw Curran Carrick’s mug shot.” He opened the folder and took out a photo.
He held it up. “This is the man I met in Ireland seven years ago. The man who tried to sell a girl to the highest bidder. This is Seth Garrett, Eva.”
“Aunt Eva. Mister. The pancakes are ready. The pancakes are ready. Come on,” Maddie shouted from the front porch.
Deaglan’s eyes shifted from me to Maddie. “Can you give your Aunt Eva another minute, hon?” he asked.
Silence followed a beat, then, “Okay,” she said, and waltzed back inside.
He turned his attention back to me. “This is why after seven years Seth Garrett decided I’m a risk, Eva. Because I knew what he looked like. Because I’m with the one woman who knows his real identity. He knew I’d figure it out if I ever saw the police file. If I ever saw a picture you had of him. He wasn’t going to risk it. Not after so many years of building his new identity.”
It was like my body landed smack on the ground after jumping off the cliff. No breath. No heartbeat. Nothing except an ice-cold blanket lowering over me and I was falling under the weight of it.
And I would’ve fallen if hands hadn’t grabbed my shoulders from behind me.
“Eva,” Vic said.
I hadn’t heard him approach, probably because my mind was drowning in a swamp of murky water.
Seth was Curran. Seth is Curran.
“You told her?” Vic said.
Deaglan nodded.
“He doesn’t….” My eyes widened and stomach lurched. Oh God. I was with him. I was with a man who sold people. Girls. He hadn’t only hid his personality. He hid who he was. That’s why he knew about Crown. How he knew Deaglan.
Seth Garrett had disappeared for years. He’d disappeared because he became Curran Carrick.
My hand covered my mouth, smothering the gasp.
No. No, damn it. This couldn’t be happening. I was a part of that. I was with a man who did that.
I’m going to be sick.
Deaglan swore beneath his breath and strode toward me, arm hooking my waist. Vic’s hands dropped, and I heard his boots on the gravel as he walked away. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known, Eva.”
There was so much spinning and colliding in my head right now that I couldn’t think clearly.
“Eva, you couldn’t have known.” His thumb and forefinger held my chin as he forced me to look at him. “Give me your eyes, baby.” He applied pressure to my chin and the haze lifted. “You couldn’t have known. We didn’t know. He disappeared as Seth Garrett and reinvented himself as Curran Carrick. After he was released from jail he’s been renewing old contacts as Seth Garrett and that’s why Frank Davidson was watching my place. We think he planned to use his shipping company for transporting girls.” The pad of his thumb stroked back and forth over the subtle dip in my chin. “You couldn’t have known.”
I jerked from his hand, and he lowered his arm, sighing. “I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this.” I stepped back, shaking my head. “Crown is important to you, Deaglan, and I understand why, but I can’t be with someone who hides himself. Hides his past.” Like Curran had done.
Everything was colliding in a murky swamp of quicksand that was sucking me under.
He stared at me a minute before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone and held it out to me. “You need a phone. This isn’t about us, Eva. This is about keeping you safe.”
I took the phone and put it in my back pocket. I wasn’t arguing because I knew he was right, and no matter who Deaglan was, I knew deep down that he’d always look out for my safety.
“Does Curran know about the farm, Eva?”
I shook my head. “No. She bought it a year-and-a-half ago.”
“Okay. Stay here until we find him. Vic will stay with you, and I’m sending Ernie, just in case.”
I nodded without looking at him. I didn’t want to go back to the city. Back to my house without Deaglan in it. To facing a life without him.
How did this happen? Why?
The gravel beneath his feet crunched as he walked to his car. “What are you going to do?” I called.
“What I do best. Kill him,” he stated as he opened the car door and folded in.
The words to call him back were trapped in my throat as his car purred to life.
To tell him to be safe.
Tell him not to go.
Tell him that I loved him.
But instead, I watched as he drove away, taking pieces of me with him. I didn’t know where those pieces would end up, except that I wasn’t getting them back. He owned them.
I stood in the driveway, unable to move as the dust from his tires floated around me.
The screen door squeaked. “He’s leaving?” Charlotte stood with her arms crossed on the front porch.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“You okay?”
Instead of answering the question, I said, “Maddie must be starving.” I turned to walk back to the house and caught a glimpse of Vic leaning his shoulder up against a willow tree.
But his eyes weren’t on me. They were on Charlotte, and they weren’t exactly friendly, but then there was never anything friendly about Vic.
I stepped on to the porch and Charlotte wrapped her arm around my shoulders, and we went inside and had pancakes.
“He was there. In the fuckin’ hospital,” I shouted into the phone. “Right in front of her. He could’ve grabbed her and….” I couldn’t finish the sentence because the nightmare was replaying over and over in my head.
“He didn’t,” Deck said, his voice calm and steady, because he knew I was not calm and steady. I was in a convoluted web of fucked-up emotions. “And he doesn’t know yet that we saw the police report. But he had to have someone on the inside to keep that sealed, and if they look into it, they’ll know we saw it and Seth will disappear again.” He paused, then asked, “Where’s Eva at with Crown?”
“The entire foundation just blew the fuck up,” I ground out. But I’d rebuild. I wasn’t losing her, but first I had to deal with Curran.
“How long before you’re back in town?” Deck asked.
“Two hours away,” I replied.
“Good. Meet us
at VUR. We go in Carrick Shipping at midnight.”
“He’s mine, Deck.”
“He’s yours,” he confirmed.
I’d managed to bury who I’d been. The damaged kid who found his mom beaten to death. The teenager who fought in the cages. The man who hunted and killed without remorse.
He was being unearthed, and Curran was going to suffer for what he’d done to Eva.
“Aunt Eva, are you still sad?”
I picked up one of the piglets and kissed the little pink nose that never stopped wiggling. “I’m still sad, sweetie. But Annabelle and her piglets make me happy.”
My eyes were puffy and red this morning because I’d been crying—again.
It had been four days since Deaglan drove away and I thought each day would get easier. It didn’t. It got harder.
Missing him. Worrying about him. Everything inside me hurt. Ached.
I spoke to my dad and told him everything, including all of the details about Deaglan and his mom and Crown. After a good minute of silence, he asked if I loved Deaglan. I didn’t hesitate and said that I did. But that had never been in question.
The tears this morning were from my dad’s words when he said, “I’m not saying what he did was right for keeping that from you, that’s not for me to judge. I’m saying if you love him, then there’s a reason you do, Eva. Trust in that.”
Then he gave me shit for not telling him about the mugging sooner.
I placed the piglet back in the pen with the others and he oinked several times as he darted away with his back legs kicking up in the air.
“Did the man make you sad?” she asked.
Kids were so perceptive and Maddie was exceptional.
“I miss him, so yeah, it makes me sad.”
Her eyes lit up. “Mommy says if I miss Kendra or grandma and granddad that I can call them anytime I want. So, you can call him and not miss him anymore.”
I smiled. “I guess I could, birthday girl.”
“Oh, Aunt Eva.” She rolled her eyes.
I heard the low rumble of the tractor start up outside the barn. “Come on. Maybe we can ride the tractor with your mom again?”
“Okay.” Maddie skipped to the half door and undid the latch and I followed her out.
My phone vibrated in my back jean pocket and I pulled it out as we walked outside. Ally and Kendra had returned to the city on Sunday night, but several times a day they texted to see how I was doing.
I staggered to a stop as my eyes hit the screen.
Deaglan: You done processing, baby?
I swallowed, staring at his words. No. Not really.
I wanted so badly to believe in him, and maybe I did already. Maybe I had never stopped, but he’d kept more from me than just owning Crown. He kept who he was. He knew I had trust issues after Curran, and now even more after finding out that Curran is Seth.
“Eva!”
I jerked my eyes from my phone and looked up at Charlotte sitting on the tractor with Maddie in front of her holding the steering wheel.
“Sorry, what?” I asked.
She half-smiled. “Deaglan?”
“Uh, yeah, he texted.”
She squeezed her daughter’s shoulder. “Honey, do you think you can go open the gate into Blaze’s paddock by yourself?”
She vigorously nodded as she quickly hopped off the tractor. “Yeah. I’ll do it. It’s not hard, you know, Mommy.”
She smiled. “Not for a strong girl like you. I’ll drive the tractor over in a sec.”
“Okay, Mommy.” Maddie ran off.
Charlotte turned back to me, her hands lightly resting on the bottom of the steering wheel. “I swore to Deaglan I wouldn’t tell you, but damn it, Eva, you need to know. He calls. Every friggin’ day that man calls to ask if you’re okay. It’s short. It’s to the point and there’s no idle conversation to that guy, but I hear the concern in his voice. He’s worried about you. And he should be, because I’m worried. You barely eat and you look like shit.”
I felt like shit. I needed permanent cucumber slices for my eyes, and every time I ate my stomach objected.
She sighed. “I’m trying to stay out of this, Eva. But the guy doesn’t call to gain points with you. He calls because he loves you.”
I chewed my lower lip and leaned up against the enormous tractor tire, crossing my arms over my chest. “He owns a brothel, Charlotte. That’s something you tell a woman you love. It’s something you tell someone you plan to make a life together with. God, if Curran hadn’t told me, he may have never said anything. What else is he hiding? Maybe I don’t know him at all, just like I didn’t know Curran. Or Seth. Christ, I don’t even know which is his real name.”
She sighed. “I know you’re having trouble trusting your judgment, especially after learning about Curran, but what is your heart telling you?”
My heart wasn’t telling me anything because it was broken and bleeding. How could I trust it? “I don’t know.”
“Mommy! Come on,” Maddie called as she stood holding open the gate.
“Coming,” Charlotte called and restarted the tractor. She offered me a half-smile. “Maybe it’s not enough, I don’t know. But that man loves you, Eva.”
She slid the large gearshift into first and the tractor chugged forward. I glanced down at my phone still clutched in my grasp.
“Aunt Eva, Aunt Eva. Blaze wants to say hi,” Maddie yelled as she stood on the fence and pointed to a chestnut horse trotting in her direction across the field.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and jogged toward her.
The calloused hand skated from my hip, across my abdomen, to settle on my waist. Goosebumps bumped along the back of my neck, then skipped down my spine to scatter like little embers of fire across my skin.
I sighed in the comforting warmth, my body finally relaxing after hours of restlessness.
A light kiss tickled the back of my neck, then a raspy whisper vibrated next to my ear, “Eva.”
“Deaglan,” I murmured. My eyes flew open and my body bolted upright at the sound of his voice. “Deaglan. What are you doing here?”
“I told you I’d be here,” he said. He laid on his side with his head propped on his hand and his other hand resting on the mattress where I’d just been.
“Uh, not exactly. You asked if I was done processing.” I must have looked at his text message a hundred times today as I attempted to type something back. But the words were never right and I didn’t know what to say because I was still processing. Finally, I tossed my phone into the dogs’ cookie jar and refused to look at it.
“You’ll over process if I let you,” he said.
He was right. I would.
I clung the sheet to my chest, even though I wore a camisole, and he’d seen me naked numerous times. “How did you get in the house?” I peered around the darkened room, as if he’d magically entered through some mysterious wormhole.
“Front door,” he replied. “Vic saw me. Let me in.”
Of course, he did. Apparently, Vic the machine didn’t require sleep and had a way into the house despite the two locks on the door.
Unless Charlotte had given him a key, but I’d never seen him in the house, and he’d been using the loft apartment above the barn.
Jesus, I couldn’t think clearly with him so close. All I smelled was his deliciousness and that had always been my Kryptonite. “You can’t be in my bed.”
He sighed. “You’re still in your head.”
“Yeah, Deaglan, I’m still in my head. It’s a lot to think about.”
“Eva,” he said, curling his fingers around one wrist. “Look at me.”
I kept my head down, knowing the tears would fall if I looked at him. I tried to will them away, but my willpower sucked when it came to Deaglan.
He sighed. “I’d give you the world, baby, but I can’t give you any more time. Please, don’t ask me to give you more time.”
A tear spilled over the rim of my eye and slid down my cheek.
“I hated that he knew. I hated that Curran was the one who told me. He didn’t use his fists, Deaglan, but when he told me about you… God, it felt like he did. It felt like he plowed his fist into my stomach and I couldn’t breathe.”
“Jesus, baby.”
“I felt alone, Deaglan. I felt blindsided.”
But what I didn’t say was that I’d gone over everything in my head a zillion times and nothing resolved except that I still loved him. And my dad was right, I loved him for a reason. Who he was now. This incredible man who had protected me. Who did thoughtful things for me like buy me a can opener because mine sucked. Who helped me pick out a fridge. Who took me to a hotel because he knew I wouldn’t sleep after being scared. And my house. What he’d done to get my house ready so I could move in.
But there was so much more to Deaglan that I didn’t know.
He shifted and the mattress creaked under his weight. I glanced up as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed with his back to me. His head dropped forward and his shoulders slumped as he jerked his hand through his hair.
There was a crushing vulnerability in his posture. Something I never saw in Deaglan. He was the definition of strength, and seeing him like this was what he’d hid from me. What was behind the shield.
This was a part of him I’d never seen.
It was all of him.
“My mom got pregnant with me at sixteen,” he said, his voice crackling. He cleared it and inhaled a ragged breath. “Her boyfriend, Gregory Kane, asked her to marry him, but there was no way either of their parents would let that happen. Reputation was too important to both families and they wouldn’t let them ruin their lives with a baby. They shipped her off to a convent in the north to have the baby and Gregory was sent to a boarding school out of the country.
“She was supposed to give me up and go home, back to her secure life. Her family. But she didn’t. She refused to give me up. She ran away two days after I was born. But with no money and no place to go while raising a baby, it wasn’t long before she became desperate. Fell in with the wrong crowd. But she did what she could to keep me fed and alive.”
