Wicked Burn

by BETH KERY

  Vic didn’t say anything. Meg must have thought her brother’s silence implied that he thought Donny should go toss a football out on the lawn right this second.

  “Well, I, for one, am glad they’re keeping you overnight. I don’t know what’s become of hospitals when a person gets shot—shot!—and they discharge him the following day, like he just had his tonsils out or something.”

  She shook her head in disgust. Niall, Tim, Vic, and she had been Donny’s only visitors since he’d been admitted to the hospital. Meg had noticed how exhausted Niall appeared earlier, and both she and Donny had encouraged her to go back to the farm for a nap. Vic hadn’t looked too pleased about the fact that Niall wasn’t there anymore by the time he arrived, but all in all, Meg thought he was restraining himself from going after her with admirable control.

  If Donny’s spaced-out mother had been to the hospital at all, Meg wasn’t aware of it. If she had been here, she’d likely be focusing her attention on Eric Farrell, another of Donny’s brothers, who had also been shot in the fray. Eric was reportedly stable, but his condition was much more serious than Donny’s.

  Still, it made Meg feel heart sore that Donny had never asked where his mother was or even seemed to expect that Deloris Farrell would visit him.

  Meg guessed that Donny had been riding on the natural pain-killers of shock and adrenaline since the incident at the Farrell farm, which had culminated in one of his brother’s being seriously wounded, another man almost being killed, and Errol being charged with the latter shooting.

  As Donny’s principal, Meg felt obligated to report his situation to the Department of Children and Family Services if the police already hadn’t. She doubted Donny would thank her, but Meg had not only a professional but also a moral obligation. It just wasn’t right that a young boy should be forced to live in such an unsavory, blatantly dangerous place as the Farrell farm.

  And Meg could tell that Vic was thinking the same thing as he watched the boy fumble with the remote control.

  Her heart went out to her brother in that moment. His expression and posture gave next to nothing away as he sat there, but Meg heard his suffering with the invisible sense organ that siblings often acquire in regard to each other.

  “Vic, can I talk to you for a second in the hallway?” Meg asked as she stood.

  Vic gave Donny a wry glance as he stood up, communicating to Donny with the speed of lightning the message, “Uh-oh, I’m in trouble with the principal.”

  Meg didn’t mind, because Donny’s sudden snort of laughter did them all a world of good, worried as they were about the boy. She sighed as she walked out to the corridor with Vic behind her. Her and Vic’s invisible connection had been built over a lifetime. Vic and Donny’s connection, on the other hand, had seemingly sprung up full force the first time they had met.

  “Quarter?” Meg asked as she held out her hand to Vic a few seconds later when they wandered up to a coffee machine.

  Vic dug in his jeans pocket and pulled out some change.

  “We’re going to have to do something about Donny,” Meg stated as she dropped the quarter into the vending machine and made a selection.

  “Yeah, I know,” Vic said quietly. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  Neither of them spoke as they watched the paper cup fill with steaming liquid. When Meg withdrew the cup from the dispenser, she handed it to her brother. He glanced up in surprise.

  “There’ll be time to talk about all that tomorrow. Why don’t you go and find Niall? She looked even more exhausted than you do right now. I don’t think either one of you slept last night.”

  The look Vic cast down the hallway told Meg loud and clear that he longed to do exactly that, despite his very real concern for Donny.

  “We’ll do shifts with Donny. I’ll tell him that you’ll be here bright and early tomorrow morning. All in all, I think Tim and I got the better deal,” Meg said with a saucy grin. She gave his upper arm an encouraging shove. “Go on, Vic. I don’t know for sure what happened with you and Niall, but I’m just as concerned for her right now as I am for Donny. Do me a favor though, okay?”

  “What?” Vic asked as he started down the hallway.

  “Just don’t screw it up this time.”

  He gave a soft bark of laughter.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll try my damnedest,” he muttered with an uncharacteristic humbleness that made Meg’s smile widen.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Vic experienced a moment of panic when he searched the farmhouse and was unable to find Niall.

  “Niall!” he bellowed into the obviously empty house one last time. Where the hell was she? He peered out the window over the kitchen sink to assure himself that he hadn’t been seeing things when he pulled up the drive, but no . . . Niall’s sleek sedan was still parked in the drive. His eyes narrowed when he noticed that she’d parked it close to his cottage.

  His heart hammered against his breastbone fifteen seconds later when he charged into the cottage.

  “Niall?” Vic shouted. Silence was his only response. A sinking feeling came over him as he crossed the kitchen to the hallway. It’d been wishful thinking on his part to think she might be here. Niall wouldn’t come to his place, not after the way he’d treated her here last night, not after the way he’d insulted her time and again, not after—

  His condemning thoughts dissipated to ash when he entered his bedroom and saw the small figure huddled beneath the covers on his bed and the golden hair spilled on his pillow.

  “Niall?” he muttered, too softly to actually wake her. A touch of wonder flavored his tone. The realization that she was here, that she’d actually come to him after what must have been a hellacious day for her, left him stunned.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and brushed her hair back from her face. It reminded him of the time in his apartment in Chicago when he’d awakened her because her parents were in the hallway. Now that he knew the context of the Chandlers’ early morning visit, Vic wished he had let Niall continue to sleep peacefully on that morning.

  He hadn’t done it back then, but he would now, Vic vowed to himself. As much as he wanted to talk to her at that moment and ask for her forgiveness, it would have to wait until morning. He brushed his fingertip across the light sprinkling of freckles on her adorable nose.

  A profound, powerful feeling surged in his chest.

  Of course he loved her. He loved her like crazy. She’d had him flat on his ass in love since the first time he’d kissed her . . . maybe since the first time he’d looked into her sexy, soulful eyes.

  How could he have been so dense as not to know that? he thought with genuine amazement. Dense was a pretty good descriptor, Vic recognized. He’d walked around with the equivalent of a toxic cloud of despair and distrust around his head after what had happened with Jenny. His inner vision had been so twisted, so occluded, that he was surprised he’d been able to see Niall clearly at all.

  It was the luminosity of her spirit that had pierced his fog. Like many a male before him, he’d translated the strong feelings he possessed into something he could understand—sexual attraction and good old-fashioned lust.

  He still felt that for her in spades, maybe even more powerfully now than he had in the beginning. But that was just the surface manifestation of the deep well of emotion that Vic recognized within himself as he studied the miracle of the woman who slept soundly in his bed.

  His gentle, ephemeral, lovely little butterfly, Vic thought with a small smile as he lightly traced her elegant arched brow with his fingertip. He went very still when her eyelids opened and he suddenly found himself swimming in the depths of Niall’s hazel eyes.

  Niall stared up at Vic for one of those eternal moments that one sometimes encounters hovering between sleeping and wakefulness. She eventually smiled drowsily.

  “I never knew that a man could be beautiful until I first saw you,” she whispered softly.

  “I never knew the meaning of beauty until I first
laid eyes on you.”

  Niall blinked twice and raised herself on one elbow. Sleep still weighted her eyelids, but it slowly began to dawn on her that she wasn’t dreaming. But surely she’d imagined Vic saying those words. The haloed quality to his deep, husky voice had certainly been the stuff of dreams.

  That, along with the heavenly feeling of his long fingers delving into her hair and slowly massaging her scalp—

  “What a nice surprise to find you in my bed,” Vic said.

  “You said it was where I belonged,” Niall found herself saying while she was locked in Vic’s mesmerizing stare. Her heart began to thump faster when she read what lay in the depths of his light gray eyes. God, if this was a dream, she hoped she’d never awaken.

  “It is where you belong.” The tip of his callused thumb brushed her cheek softly. “But I was wrong to tell you it was the only place you belong. I want more of you than that Niall. Much more.”

  Niall’s lips fell open in amazement. “You do?”

  Vic nodded slowly. “I’m sorry about the way I’ve been acting,” he said gruffly. “And about what happened here last night—”

  Niall shook her head quickly. She brushed her first two fingers over his warm lips, halting him. “Don’t apologize for that, Vic. Making love with you is always so good . . . so right. I was just feeling vulnerable about what you’d said earlier that day,” Niall tried to explain. Tears welled up in her eyes. “It wasn’t the sex toys I was upset about, not really.”

  Vic suddenly leaned down and kissed her warmly on her forehead. Niall stared in amazement when he leaned back and she saw the profound regret that shadowed his handsome face. “You don’t have to try to explain. It was callous of me to tell you I wanted you only for sex and then expect you to give yourself to me so completely.” His gaze met hers. “Which you did, Niall . . . despite everything. You’re so sweet.”

  Niall gawked at him, not sure if she could trust that Vic was staring at her with undisguised longing . . . and what looked very much to her befuddled brain like love.

  “Sex toys weren’t the only thing I was going to give you last Christmas,” he said suddenly with a crooked grin.

  “No?”

  “Uh-uh,” Vic muttered as he stood. He crossed the room and grabbed a black box from his dresser. Niall realized dazedly that it was what he’d placed behind his watch last night after he’d retrieved the bag from the closet.

  “Go on, open it,” Vic insisted when he returned to sit on the edge of the bed and held up the velvet box for her.

  The sheet fell down to where she held it above her breasts when Niall reached for the box. She saw Vic go still out of the corner of her eye.

  “Are you naked under there, baby?” he asked in an uneven voice.

  “Yes,” Niall replied, never taking her eyes off the box in her hand.

  “How’d I ever get so lucky?” he asked in what sounded like genuine amazement.

  Niall laughed softly, flattered by his words and tone. She opened the box and her mirth quickly faded to wonder.

  “Oh, it’s so beautiful,” she whispered in awe as she lightly touched the exquisite butterfly amulet. The gold filigree had been meticulously wrought and the myriad cut gems—emerald, citrine, topaz, sapphire, and tourmaline—had definitely been cut and designed by an artist’s hand.

  “You had this made for me?” Niall asked with wide eyes, but she already knew the answer. She’d rarely seen such fine craftsmanship.

  Vic nodded as he took the box from her and extricated the delicate gold chain. He unclasped it and signaled with a hitch of his chin that he wanted her to sit up. Niall did, clutching the bedclothes around her breasts as she did so. Vic’s hands encircled her throat.

  “Thank you. It’s so special. How does it look?” she asked after he’d fastened it.

  “Beautiful.”

  Niall felt happiness in its purest, most distilled form when she saw that his eyes had never strayed from her face when he spoke. Despite her increasing bliss, she couldn’t help but wonder what had changed Vic’s mind about her. Although she had a suspicion—

  “When Meg came to the hospital, she said that when she spoke to you earlier on the phone, you told her that you were at Joliet Prison.”

  Vic merely nodded.

  Niall swallowed thickly. “How . . . how did you find out about Matthew Manning?”

  “I went to Chicago this morning. I looked for you both at your loft and at the museum. I ran into Evan Forrester at Toulouse’s bar.”

  Niall’s jaw dropped. “Evan Forrester? How does he know anything about Matthew Manning?”

  Vic shrugged. “He said it was from the papers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy trolls for gossip about you every chance he gets. He’s a real bottom-feeder.”

  “I know,” she whispered. She toyed anxiously with the butterfly.

  “Matthew Manning’s execution was postponed, Vic. They sent me a letter yesterday. The state assembly’s temporary lifting of the moratorium on the death sentence for the special case of Manning was ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court.”

  “My God,” Vic muttered, floored by the news. “It wasn’t in any of the newspapers—”

  “They tried to downplay it since several political groups on both sides of the issue were threatening demonstrations today. They were informed by special delivery—just like I was—by the governor of Illinois, saying that Matthew Manning’s fate now hangs in the same balance as the thousand or so other inmates on death row in Illinois.”

  “How . . . how do you feel about it, Niall?” Vic asked uneasily. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she experienced in regard to the man who had so senselessly murdered her innocent child. Seeing Donny in the hospital this afternoon had torn him apart, and he knew what he felt about the boy was nowhere near as deep and complex as what Niall must have felt for the son she bore from her own body.

  Niall stared down at the bed. “I’m not a bloodthirsty person, Vic. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to decide Manning’s fate. I’ll accept whatever punishment the law passes down. But I will tell you one thing. I was relieved yesterday when I got that letter.”

  “You were?”

  Niall nodded, her head still lowered. “There’s been so much violence . . . so much hatred. I’ll do whatever is required to ensure that Manning never sees the light of day again for the rest of his life. But I just want all the violence to stop.” She swallowed painfully. “I just want my little boy to be able to rest in peace.”

  She eventually broke the prolonged silence that fell between them.

  “I wanted to tell you about Michael, Vic. Not just about his murder. Everything. He was such an amazing little boy,” she said with a small, desperate laugh. “I . . . I’ve really hated the fact that I haven’t been able to talk about him for so long. He deserves so much better than that . . .”

  Vic’s hand cupped her jaw, gently urging her to meet his gaze. Niall complied with his unspoken request despite the fact that tears flowed from her eyes and a choking sensation in her throat prevented her from continuing.

  “Give yourself time, Niall. It’ll come. It’ll come because you want it to, not because it’s required.”

  Niall nodded and waited for the painful sensation in her throat to fade. “I wanted to tell you about Stephen, too. But every time I tried, I just . . . couldn’t.”

  “I think I know why you didn’t want to tell me. You were afraid I would judge you. Evan Forrester wasn’t the only person I ran into at Toulouse, Niall. I spoke with Kendra Phillips as well.”

  He nodded when he noticed the surprised widening of her eyes. “Unlike Forrester, Kendra would never run on at the mouth about you. But I think she saw what a mess I was and took pity on me. She told me what she knew about Michael’s murder and Stephen’s breakdown during Matthew Manning’s trial. She explained how your parents condemned you for divorcing Stephen. You were afraid to tell me about your past because you didn’t want to be judged agai
n.” He paused for a second as he caressed her. “I have a suspicion that your ex-husband laid some kind of a guilt trip on you, too, didn’t he?”

  Niall started. “How did you know that?”

  Vic winced slightly at her question, and she realized that she’d just unintentionally confirmed his suspicion. How had he found out the truth? She’d never told anybody about how Stephen regularly ranted at her that the person killed that day should have been her. She’d never revealed how she’d discovered that Stephen projected onto Niall his own misguided guilt about not being there on the day that Michael was murdered.

  “I don’t know why I thought it, exactly. Maybe it was from all those nights holding you while you slept. It was like you carried the burden of the world when you dreamed, baby,” he said softly.

  Their gazes remained locked for several long seconds. “I’ll never forget the look on your face that day when you saw how I reacted to the truth about you being married. It was like I’d just confirmed all of your fears about revealing the truth to me . . . like you accepted the judgment I passed on you. God, I’m sorry for that, Niall. You have no idea how much. I had no right to pass judgment on you.”

  His thumb tenderly caught the tear that skittered down her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, as well,” she admitted. “I shut you out after that night because of my own guilt. It’s sort of hard, when you’ve been surrounded by so much misery and grief for so long, to think that it’s possible to deserve something as wonderful as the way I felt about you . . . the way I feel about you,” she added in a whisper.

  She felt his softly caressing thumb go still.

  “How do you feel about me?”

  Niall rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, causing several more tears to course down her face. “I’m in love with you. What’d you think? That I just fall into bed with every guy who gives me a Scotch and grunts ten words at me?”