by Henry, Jane
There’s laughter at the foot of the stairs, and I try to steel myself for dealing with whatever resistance I might meet. I have to get out of here. There’s no way I’m allowing myself to be tricked into being with him, no way.
“Ah, there she is!” Maeve is at the bottom of the large, winding stairway. Sunlight filters in through the bay windows, making her reddish hair look almost blonde. After they put out the fire on the grounds, they set to work immediately setting things to rights, but from where I am, I can still see the burnt remnants right outside the large windows.
Maeve holds a baby in one arm, nestled up close, a ruddy little beauty with his gran’s reddish hair, and a toddler holds her free hand.
“Hello there, McKenna. Meet the youngest member of the McCarthy clan. Lachlan and Fiona’s firstborn.” She beams at the little bundle in her arms.
“Oh, how sweet,” I say with a smile, my need to get away from here momentarily forgotten.
“So sweet,” another voice echoes behind Maeve. I look behind her to see a black-haired beauty sitting on the cushion by the window, a book in hand. She smiles softly at me. “I’m sorry, you probably don’t know who I am.” She stands, and I’m reminded at once of the mythical fae of Ireland. She wears a long, faded dress that hits the top of her toes, and her black hair’s woven into a plait that hangs over her shoulder. “I’m Caitlin, Keenan’s wife.”
Oh, my. This is certainly not how I pictured the future matriarch of the McCarthys.
“Pleased to meet you,” I say politely. I won’t be rude, but I do have to get out of here.
“And you must be McKenna?” she says warmly. “Tully’s lass?”
“I am McKenna,” I say, not meeting her eyes as I head to the door. I definitely will not identify as Tully’s lass. I often forget I walk with a slight limp, but right now I’m vividly reminded of it, as if they’re watching me. I hold my head high. “I belong to no one.”
They watch me in silence as I open the door. I want to say something polite, like thanking them for their hospitality, but the words fail me. Instead, I clumsily open the screen door to let myself out the front, when a voice comes from the top of the stairs.
“McKenna.”
Goddamn it. Tully.
I look over my shoulder. I will not make a deal with him.
I won’t.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed, Tully.” I sigh. “What is it?”
Caitlin and Maeve, and even the little children watch in fascination.
“A word, please.” His eyes are heated on me.
“I’ve said all I have to say, Tully.” I turn and let the door slam behind me, then like a damn fool, stumble right out the doorway and nearly scrape my knee.
I push myself to my feet and stand on the front step, now the need to get out of here more pressing than ever. How will I, though? He drove me, of course. And I can hardly call a cab to come to the McCarthy estate. I’m not even sure they know how to get past the security gate, and the delay is unthinkable.
In the garden, several other women sit with children roaming about, as well as repair teams mending the damage of the fires.
Some of those here are nannies and others the wives and cousins of the McCarthy men. I recognize Cormac’s wife Aileen, and cousin Megan, now married to Carson. But when a blonde turns to wave at me, I finally breathe out in relief. It’s Aisling, married to Clan enforcer Tiernan.
At least she used to go by the name of Aisling. She’s Faidha now, as a means of protection. I know her from St. Albert’s, as she’s a fellow teacher.
“McKenna! My God, it’s good to see you,” she says, her brow knit in worry. “How are you?”
“Very good, thanks,” I say, sidestepping. “But I need to get going.”
“Going?” she asks. “Where to?”
I blow out a breath.
“Home.”
Is this some sort of cult, or vortex, that I’ve been sucked into so badly I can’t escape? Honest to God. And yet… and yet a part of me doesn’t want to leave.
There’s friendship here, companionship, and family. The scent of the flowers in the garden mixes with the salt air, a perfume so intoxicating I hardly want to go. I live in a one-bedroom flat near the school, and barely go out except to grocery shop. And even though I’ve done my very best to design my simple home to be cozy and warm, there’s a coldness about it that comes from lack of companionship.
I don’t want to leave.
But I can’t have all my freedom stripped away. I didn’t sign up for being ruled by the men of the Clan. I didn’t.
I want so desperately to have my own way, but at the same time, a sense of longing and loss beg me to stay.
No. If I stay, that bear of a man will boss me around. Nope. No. Not happening.
If I stay, I’ll never leave.
They won’t even let me teach! And who even am I if I’m not teaching?
I’m not a failure. I will not let myself down. Not now. Not ever.
So when I get to the gate, I smile and say, “It’s time for me to go home, now, please.”
The guard at the gate gives me a quizzical look. “On foot, lass?”
Does he see a damn chariot? I keep myself calm with effort. “Aye.”
He blinks. “Am I allowed to let you go? I won’t get in trouble with the chief, will I?”
“Of course not,” I say, hoping I sound convincing. “Call him yourself.”
My heartbeat races. What will Keenan say if they do talk to each other? God, I suck at a getaway. I tried to master the art of making my own decisions and walking away, but so far I’ve earned nothing of the sort.
Nothing but grief and misery.
The guard speaks into his phone, and a moment later, to my shock, pushes a button and the gates swing open.
“All set?” I ask, with false confidence.
“Aye,” he says. “You may go. Best of luck to you.”
I walk away, a distinct feeling in my gut telling me I just walked away from the best chance I’ve ever had.
* * *
Chapter 5
Tully
“Let her go.” Keenan stands at the top of the steps outside the mansion, watching the gate swing open.
I look over my shoulder at him, holding my arm and trying not to let on how much fucking pain I’m in.
“How can I let her fucking go? Is that what you’d have done?”
He frowns, stroking his chin. “If we had reason to keep her as we have in the past, I’d give another instruction.”
“Reason to keep her” being she’d been witness or party to our enemies.
“We’ve nothing but her own safety to worry about.”
“That’s it?” I ask, my temper flaring.
He has the right to make me keep myself in check, but he only nods, letting me fume.
“I’ve got a guard on her, Tully. She won’t be harmed.”
“I’ll put a motherfucking guard on her,” I say, heading down the stairs to where we keep the Clan cars.
“You won’t, Tully,” Keenan says quietly. I look up at him in shock. He won’t let me go after her?
“What do you mean?”
“First, you’re injured,” he says, pointing back at the house. “You need to rest. We’re on the cusp of battle, brother, and we have to be mindful of that. I won’t have a soldier sidelined because he chased a lass.”
I open my mouth to protest, but realize I’m too close to cussing him out, and that’s unconscionable with the Clan chief.
“Second,” he continues. “I’ve got a solid guard on her so no one will hurt her.”
“But I —”
He holds up a hand. “Third.”
I blow out a sigh and listen. “She’ll be more loyal if it’s her choice. You could bring her back here, kicking and screaming. I’d even allow it. I could make her wed you and make her yours. But a woman like her…” his voice trails off as he looks to the gates that just closed behind her. “She’s fiery as hell, Tully.
You want her to make the decision on her own. I’ve seen men of the Clan wed women against their will, and there were times they overcame it.”
He’s right. I think of Cormac and Aileen, an arranged marriage. Even Caitlin and Keenan, and Maeve and the late Seamus McCarthy were forced to be wed. And they made it work.
He shakes his head. “She’s isn’t the type of woman who’d ever forgive you for it, Tully. And you could break her…” His voice trails off. “You could make her yours and make her even respect you as her husband.” He shakes his head. “But she’d never fully be yours.”
I want to run after her. I want to grab her by the fucking hair and drag her back, put her behind metal bars so no one can get her, and she can’t get out. I want to fuck her raw in front of everyone so they know, everyone fucking knows, she’s mine.
Up until today, I let our “on again, off again” relationship slide. Hell, I maybe even instigated it. I told myself I didn’t need a woman, and I sure as fuck didn’t need to claim anyone. But the knowledge that she’s out there… without my protection… with a mark on her…
Bloody fucking hell.
One day passes with no communication from McKenna. Keenan swears he’s got a guard on her.
Two days.
Three.
Five.
On the sixth motherfucking day I still haven’t seen her, I stomp up the steps to the house to try to reason with Keenan again. I find him standing at the top of the stairs, hands tucked in his pockets, his gaze ahead of him, focused on the Irish Sea.
“What’s the story, brother?” he asks.
Caitlin opens the front door and steps outside. Her bright eyes alight when she spies Keenan on the front step.
“Ah, hello,” she says, as if delighted to see him. She reaches for his hand. He bends, wraps his hand around her lower back, and draws her to him for a kiss. He kisses her cheek, and she rests her hand on his chest. “Didn’t know you were still out here.”
He speaks gently to her, but I can still hear him. “Everything alright, lass?”
“Oh, aye,” she says with a smile. “Mam and I thought we’d head to the city centre and do a little shopping for the new baby?”
“I’ve sent a guard after Tully’s McKenna, but we can arrange for security in another hour or two, once the next shift returns.”
“Perfect,” she says. She trots past him to the garden, and begins to cut some flowers that she arranges in a basket.
These two are the perfect example of making it work despite all odds.
“Clan meeting tonight,” Keenan says. “This evening we’ll fill everyone in what we know, what we’ve found out about the attack, and piece together where we stand.”
He looks out over the grounds of the McCarthy estate, his eyes roving over the blue-green of the Irish Sea in the distance. “My father was up against more than this. We’ve been up against more ourselves. We’ll figure out where we stand.”
He gives me a sad smile and heads inside.
I turn to face the sea. Here up by the mansion, I’m close enough I can smell the salt air but far enough away I can’t feel the spray of the water as it clashes against hard rocks. I blow out a breath and do what my Chief tells me. I head inside.
Cormac comes by with Aileen, and later Lachlan brings Fiona and their new little lad.
I can’t help but feel proud of how far he’s come. When I first met Lachlan, he was a bruising lad from St. Albert’s, underage, with a temper and a chip on his shoulder. We taught him well, schooled him under Malachy’s tutelage, and he became the youngest brother ever inducted into our fold.
“Where’s McKenna?” Aileen asks, casting a glance around the room. “She hasn’t returned yet?”
I sigh, shaking my head. “She left when Keenan told her she couldn’t return to school and she’d have to stay here.”
Fiona’s eyes widen, her brows shooting heavenward. The baby starts to cry, and she pats his little back. “There, now,” she whispers soothingly. “Shhhh.” She frowns, thinking over what I said.
“How is that safe, Tully?”
Lachlan gives her a sharp look, but she presses on.
“Why’d you let her go?”
“Let her go? Are you out of your mind? Of course I didn’t let her go. Keenan said to let her.” I scowl. “We’ve got a watch on her.”
Fiona shakes her head. “Bet you didn’t like that.”
“Fiona,” Lachlan chides, but I only chuckle.
“She speaks the truth, Lachlan. I hated seeing her go. Keenan says let her come back, and if I push too hard, well…” I shrug and give Fiona a wink. “I bet you know what it’s like dealing with a headstrong lass, no?”
Fiona shakes her head. “Aye, he’s lucky I fell in love with him.”
He tweaks a strand of her red hair. “Hey!”
My phone buzzes at the same time as Lachlan’s. Keenan.
Meeting’s been moved to immediately following dinner. Everyone report to the dining room, we’ll meet there.
Cormac’s response comes first. We’ll meet in front of everyone?
Keenan: Aye. What I have to say tonight impacts everyone.
A somber pall falls over the dining room as we assemble. Tonight, instead of the usual buffet-style food, the staff’s placed large, steaming platters of food along the large dining table, family-style. Uniformed staff fill water glasses and goblets, while others bring out baskets of freshly-baked bread. There’s a decided feeling of expectation over the room. It’s unusual for us to discuss business in front of anyone here.
The children are with their nannies or older siblings, but the wives and women of the Clan sit with their significant others. Keenan with Caitlin, Cormac and Aileen, the youngest McCarthy son Nolan with his wife Sheena. Beside him sit Carson and cousin Megan, and Lachlan and Fiona. Maeve sits at one end of the table beside her brother-in-law, Father Finn, the local vicar of Holy Family Parish.
There’s happy chattering among them all, as we pile plates high with the good food the staff cooks: thick cuts of roast beef aside roasted potatoes and gravy, carrots and peas, golden biscuits with butter, and a garden salad. I tuck in happily, as my brothers ask me about my recovery and a few of the women ask me how McKenna is.
I sent her a text right before we came down, a simple How r u?
I haven’t gotten a response.
“She’s fine,” I say, even though I don’t feel that she is at all.
I have to trust Keenan. He put a guard on her, and he says she’s under surveillance.
Keenan clears his throat. “Thank you all for coming tonight. We need to discuss what’s happened here recently at our home, and where we go from here.”
Everyone quiets.
“We received word, more like a rumor we could call it, the night of the fire, that the Scots in the north were causing trouble. Malachy heard from insiders at the school that they were on the move to Ballyhock.” A low murmur of surprise ripples through the crowd. “As most of you know, the men of the mountains don’t come to Ballyhock for naught.”
Maeve shakes her head. “I’ve been here for thirty-nine years, Keenan. They’ve only come once, to witness a wedding at Holy Family. One of their own married a local.”
“Aye,” Father Finn chimes in. “’Tis the only time I saw one of them myself.”
He knows everyone in Ballyhock and beyond, and though he doesn’t spy for us and likes to keep the church and family distinctly separate, there isn’t a person he doesn’t know, or a birth or death he isn’t privy to.
“It’s why we thought there’d be trouble,” Keenan says. “But upon further investigation, doesn’t seem like that was the case at all.”
I raise my fingers toward the ceiling, a signal that I need to speak.
“Tully?”
“The night of the attack, I was coming back from Ballyhock centre. I’d heard the Scots were causing trouble, and thought I’d confirmed that suspicion when I saw them on their bikes, all headed toward the mansion
.”
“Not sure it was the Scots that came here, but it may have been,” Lachlan says. He looks sharply at Keenan. This is where he can’t speak freely. Lachlan was one that removed the bodies, and he doesn’t want to say so in front of the women and Father Finn. “Some of their ink was consistent with the men of the north.”
“Aye,” Keenan says. “Which corroborates with what I heard as well.”
He gives us a minute as the low murmur of surprise ripples through the room.
He clears his throat, and everyone looks his way. The only sound in the room the gentle clicking of glass as the staff removes our dishes.
“Father Finn’s had a visitor. Father?”
Father Finn stands, and walks to the door that leads from the dining room to a sitting room.
“Come in, Mary.”
I start in amazement when a woman walks in the room. There are audible gasps all around us, murmured exclamations. I stare myself, in amazement.
She looks exactly like McKenna, though distinctly different. She’s the same height, has the same eyes, and even wears similar glasses, but her hair’s a shade lighter, and she doesn’t walk with a limp.
People begin to whisper, and some eyes go to me. I sit in silence, waiting to hear who this is and how she impacts why we’re here.
Father Finn ushers her in like a grandfather, a gentle hand on her shoulder. Lachlan rises and pulls out a chair for her to sit beside Fiona, but she stands.
“I’ll stand, thank you,” she says. My God, even her voice is like McKenna’s.
“Mary came to me recently and told me she’d heard news,” Finn says. “Mary, can you tell us who you are?”
She nods. “Aye, sir. My name’s Mary Fleming, and I’m…I’m now housekeeper for the Cowen Clan.” She’s more timid than McKenna, that’s immediately evident. And perhaps a bit older, but not by much. It must’ve taken a lot of courage for her to come here, to tell us whatever she’s come to say, for her hand trembles a bit as she speaks, and she looks as if she’s facing a roomful of jurors.
Her eyes rove over the table and she gives us a gentle smile. “The Cowens saved my life, and for that I’ve dedicated my life in service to them.”
