Delaney propped her elbows on the table and cradled her chin in her hands. “Ooh, I’m intrigued. Tell me all about her.”
“Her name’s Sierra. She’s pretty great. And that’s all you get.”
Her arms fell to the scarred wood. “Sierra Williams?”
“Yeah.” Uh-oh. Were they being bugged? Or followed? “How’d you know that?”
“Because she’s in the police report as a witness to the event that brings me down here tonight.”
Shit. “You came to talk to us about what happened at the Gorse on Saturday.”
“No. Not ‘what happened.’” Delaney made air quotes with her fingers. “More ‘what you did.’ A hailstorm happens to you. When you repeatedly punch and then toss a man out a door, that’s a conscious choice.”
Kellan’s chair had barely scraped backward before he moved to the head of the table and lifted one upraised finger to hammer home his point. “Rosalie O’Hearn is the one who made a choice that night. She chose to put her faith in the wrong man. Flynn didn’t make a choice. He had a responsibility—as a man, as a concerned citizen, and as the bar’s official bouncer—to help her out of a tight spot. To prevent her from getting a worse injury than just her broken arm.”
Pride puffed out Flynn’s chest. There was nothing like watching Kellan on a tear. Law school might’ve honed Kellan’s abilities to argue his point. Most of it, though, was raw talent. Rafe and Flynn had always called his current stance the takedown position. Once Kellan stood that way, whoever he argued against—for an extra bag of Cheetos or for class president—was going down. Period.
The kid was magnificent. Most of all because he was standing up for Flynn.
Even Delaney gave him a brief nod. But then she was right back into it. “While I appreciate your vociferous defense of your brother, I need to hear from Flynn himself.” Palms up, she placed one hand on top of the other and laid that icy cool stare straight across the table. “What was your intent that night? Did you have any prior interactions with Mr. Neal before bloodying his face?”
Kellan’s speech had given Flynn just enough time to think this through. If they were really in trouble, there wouldn’t have been this time lag. Black SUVs would’ve pulled up to their house by 2:00 a.m. after the fight and disappeared the Maguires yet again.
They had a history of fighting in their previous towns. Not to mention his own string of underground fights in Chicago that the FBI and marshals were well aware of. Delaney was only doing her due diligence, questioning him in person.
No need for panic or pissyness on his part.
“Look, as far as I can remember, I’d never seen Gil Neal in the Gorse before Saturday night. We’d definitely never spoken before. Until he pushed Rosalie into the wall, I hadn’t even noticed him. My intent? To get his strung-out ass out of there. And, to be one hundred percent honest, to teach him a lesson about the right and wrong way to treat women. If that broken nose makes him think twice before laying his hands on a woman again, then I don’t regret any of it.”
The sound of Delaney’s skirt rustling as she crossed her legs was as loud as a burp in church. “Mr. Neal’s not pressing charges against you. Or claiming undue harassment. Are you sure that you want to admit to a federal agent that you were teaching him a lesson?”
“I do. Because I’m being up-front.” Because earning her trust was better than just expecting it. The marshal didn’t have to like them or respect them. But she did. She’d fought for them, to give them this one last shot at staying in the program. Flynn needed her to know that it hadn’t been a mistake. “I didn’t get in a fight because I was jonesing for one. Hell, if you’ve reviewed the tapes of my MMA fights, it should be obvious that he easily could’ve been in much worse shape than how I left him. Out of respect for our town, for the promises we made to keep our noses clean, I took it easy on the scumbag.”
“There is a part of me, the part that likes it when a date opens my door and believes in fairy-tale endings, that applauds your actions.” Delaney stood. Crossed her arms and paced down to Kellan’s end of the room. “The part of me that puts on a badge every morning, however, wonders when you’ll stop looking for trouble.”
“It’s the other way ’round,” Rafe insisted. His voice got louder. Lower. Rough like he’d run a cheese grater over the words. “We’re laying low, living our lives. Period. Trouble finds us.”
“Is that so? Because the weak link in that assumption is that the only one of you who never dirtied his hands with the mob still seems to be clean as a whistle. Kellan, has Lady Trouble found you yet?”
“I don’t know.” He gave a slow, exaggerated wink. “I’ve got blinders on to any woman who isn’t you.”
Flynn leaned back. Crossed his ankles, as loose as if he was in seats just behind the dugout at Wrigley Field. “Your office hooked me up with the interview at the Gorse, Marshal. The job listing is in your files. Go back and look at it. Bouncer is a job responsibility. You don’t just bounce drunks. You bounce trouble, before it spreads. That’s all I did.”
“Agreed.” With a sigh, she said, “You made the right call. I had to hear it from your lips, though. Look you in the eye and be sure that you weren’t enjoying flexing your muscles again. That this wasn’t the start of a slow, backward slide. Anger and resentment are dangerous. They’re like tinder, just waiting for a single spark to set them off. I’ve seen a lot of both in you over the past few months.”
“Fair enough.” He curled his lip up into the smile Sierra had captured on that cocktail napkin. “See any in me now?”
“No. Which is a relief. Because as long as I’m here, I need to update you on McGinty’s trial. A date’s been set. The first week in October.”
“Right after the Cranberry Festival,” Flynn murmured. Good that they wouldn’t miss it. It’d look weird, no, suspicious if they weren’t around that weekend after spending all these months prepping for it.
“We’ll have a technician swing by your house next week to give you a secure phone line. He’ll look like he’s installing a satellite dish.”
Rafe shook his head. “Nobody has those around here. Cable works fine.”
“Exactly. That’s how we can slide him in. Since you’re new to the area, you’ll bring in this highfalutin technology without realizing you don’t need it. Then, in a few months, you can get rid of the dish, admit it was a dumb idea, and nobody will realize what he was really doing in your house.”
“Highfalutin?” Yeah, it felt a little weird. But Flynn was compelled to defend the town. “We’re not pioneer folk in the eighteen hundreds. Bandon is a fully operational, modern city.”
“It doesn’t have a Starbucks. Or a Dunkin.”
“Not a hardship,” Flynn shot back. “Norah’s coffee is pretty kick-ass.”
“No, thank you. I don’t want a contact high along with my mocha.” Delaney looked at her watch. “I’d better wrap this up. The secure line is for you to rehearse your testimony with the prosecution lawyers back in Chicago. We can’t risk flying you out there to prep. Every extra day you spend in that city multiplies your danger. You’ll do weekly calls to go through it.”
Rafe tugged at his hair. Kinda looked like he wanted to pull it all out with one massive yank of frustration. “We’ve been through it. No less than a hundred times already.”
“You exaggerate.”
“I really fucking don’t,” he growled.
“You gave us your sworn testimony, but you haven’t walked through all the possible ways the defense will attack. There can’t be any slipups when you’re on the witness stand.”
Itchy underneath his skin, five-cups-of-coffee jittery, Flynn shoved his chair back. Started jiggling his leg. “We know the facts. I turned over the books. The passwords. You have the proof of the money laundering. There’s no wiggle room.”
“You’d be surprised.” Delaney sauntered closer to look down her nose at him. Condescension dripped off of her as thickly as rain off of pine needles. “Why should
we trust anything you say, Flynn? You voluntarily swore your allegiance to a mobster. Danny McGinty paid for your education, your clothes, box seats at Bulls and Bears games. Your entire life was funded by and revolved around the mob. That means that a certain flexibility with the truth is to be expected from you.”
The way she put it . . . it wasn’t how it happened.
Flynn didn’t have a choice. There were explanations for all of it.
“You’re twisting it all around.”
“You better believe I am. And what the lawyers for the other side will do to you makes this little example look like child’s play. That’s why you have to get ready. Because if this doesn’t work? If McGinty goes free? He’ll rebuild in a matter of months. And if we don’t get a conviction on any of the charges? It’ll be almost impossible to justify keeping your whole family in the program.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?”
“It’s motivation. You’ve had a break, boys. Gotten comfortable. Seen how good things can be here. Now you’ve got to do the work to earn this new life.” She walked out without another word.
So much for Flynn’s calm. A hornet’s nest inside his head would be an improvement from his current condition. Stirred up didn’t begin to describe it. They’d had a rocky road getting here. He’d hated the idea of McGinty sending him to jail as a fall guy. But he’d hated going into WITSEC just as much.
Now they were finally settled in a decent place. With weird but decent people. Their house was too small for all of them to share, but Rafe was planning to move in with Mollie after the trial. That’d help.
If they got to stay. Delaney’s speech brought home just how delicate their position was. How it could all disappear in a flash.
Damn it, they’d been suckered by a bait and switch. Shown the good life. The now really fucking good life, being with Sierra. With his new friends. With having a purpose that didn’t embarrass and shame him anymore. And it had all been a setup. A bribe. A carrot to dangle, before being ass-fucked with the stick of reality.
How dare they?
How dare they finally give Flynn the chance to be happy again, and then remind him that it could spoil faster than mayo in the desert?
He headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Kellan asked. “I thought we were grabbing tacos?”
Flynn white-knuckled the doorknob. “I need air. I need to walk this off before I punch someone. And since you two are within arm’s length of me, it’d be in your best interest to let me go.”
And then he slammed the door shut behind him, with no idea of where to go besides away.
Chapter Twelve
A tiny breeze rustled through the trees, which was why Sierra had put in her earbuds. The breeze made her think of the beach and Flynn, and those thoughts made it very difficult to focus on the painting in front of her. So she’d dialed up some Bach—peaceful, but boring enough that she wouldn’t get caught up in it—and promised herself that this time, her painting would be perfect.
The light on her porch was perfect. Diffused but bright. The temperature at six thirty had cooled down just enough to be perfectly comfortable. Just in case it was true that an artist’s mood seeped through the paint and onto the canvas? Well, her happiness reservoir was finally back up at a level not seen since before leaving grad school. Every possible condition was perfect.
This one would be right. Would be good enough. Would be perfect. Then she could send it to Miriam Newberry as an apology.
It wouldn’t be enough of a gesture. But it was all Sierra could think of to do. She dabbed a tiny bit of Winsor Lemon on her brush. Swirled it with Winsor Yellow on the palette and hoped that it would finally match the perfect yellow of Mrs. Newberry’s prized orchid.
Flynn ran to a stop right in front of her.
Sierra yelped, dropped her brush and was pretty sure her heart had skipped a beat or three in surprise. He took the three stairs up to the porch in one leap. Flynn’s arms were outstretched, his face twisted in anger.
She lunged off her chair, earbuds slipping out. Except her feet got twisted in the rungs at the bottom and the whole thing tipped over. Sierra barely managed to stay upright. But it only took two steps to come up against the porch railing on two sides and the house wall on the other.
She was stuck. Scared.
This time, Sierra couldn’t run.
So she lifted her wooden palette—still miraculously in her left hand—and tried to bash the side of his head.
Flynn simultaneously grabbed it and sent it flying like a Frisbee. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Why were you coming at me?” Why was he still looming over her? Sierra’s teeth clenched so tightly her jaw ached. Her stomach knotted up, almost cutting off her diaphragm from moving her lungs.
“You looked surprised. Like I’d snuck up on you. I was trying to hug you to apologize.”
Oh, crap. He’d been doing the sweet, normal boyfriend thing and her anxiety had blown it totally out of proportion. It made sense.
But the knee-jerk cascade of fear wasn’t easy to shake.
“You looked so angry,” she murmured. Her arms drew around her sides into a hug. Sierra needed the comfort, even if it was just from herself. The edge of the rail dug into her lower back, but Flynn still wasn’t giving her an inch of space. “You scared me.”
His jaw dropped open. Flynn took two steps back, all the way to the opposite railing. Then he put up his hands, palms out. “Sierra. Look at me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
After two deep breaths, Sierra calmed enough to process the pieces. Flynn might be mad, but it wasn’t directed at her. He hadn’t tried to attack her. This was a full-blown panic attack on her part over nothing. Her arms slid down her sides.
In a very small voice, she said, “Okay.”
“Can I come closer?”
“Yes.”
Flynn shuffled back across the narrow space. When she didn’t flinch this time, he put his arms around her waist. It felt reassuring. Comforting.
Who was she kidding? It felt amazing. Better than crawling under an electric blanket during a snowstorm. Sierra’s hands moved up to rest on his chest. The feel of it moving up and down with each breath, the quiet thump of his heart, also soothed her. Beat back the panic one long, slow breath at a time.
“Sierra.” Flynn rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Sweetness, don’t you know that you don’t ever need to be scared of me? I’ll never hurt you. I’ll do everything in my power to protect you.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. But I appreciate the thought behind it.”
“Sweetness.” In one fluid motion, Flynn picked her up and set her down on the top step. He settled next to her, lightly rubbing her back in slow circles. “What happened to you? Why are you reacting like this?”
There really was no better segue. If she was ever going to tell him, this was the moment.
Sierra had spent the last three days waffling about sharing her secret with Flynn after her initial, hasty decision to do so. Bottom line? It was a selfish impulse. To burden him with that knowledge. Was it fair of her to put that on him?
No. Not exactly. But it was a lot less fair to keep lying to him. There had to be trust between them. There couldn’t be any more forward motion without trust. Without admitting who she really was. Why she was out here.
Why she’d tried to clock him with a piece of wood just for trying to hug her.
Clearly, there wasn’t a choice to be made. They’d passed that point.
Flynn had to know.
“It’s kind of a long story. And you may not like me as much by the time I’m finished.”
“Not possible.”
It was nice that he said it. Sierra wasn’t so sure she believed his easy reassurance, though. And she cannonballed into the story. “When I was little, a teacher gave me a box of crayons as a reward for something. It was the best gift of my life. I drew all the time. I’d draw in the dirt with s
ticks. I’d draw in the snow.”
Flynn bumped her shoulder with his. “Also with sticks?”
“What can I say? They’re an all-season tool. When I drew, when I painted, I could make beautiful things. Different worlds, different settings. Places that were prettier, happier, nicer. Art was my escape from living in foster care. Which, some of the time, was harsh. Not pretty at all. Crowded and dirty, full of yelling and fighting.”
“God, it sounds awful.”
“Not everyone fosters because of their love of kids. Lots of people just do it for the money. Money they’re in no hurry to spend on their foster children. I landed in a few good situations. They never lasted, though.”
His hand tightened to knead the suddenly rock-hard muscles along the ridge of her shoulder. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“I’m giving you the short version. I mean, I still had food and clothing and got to go to school. I wasn’t living on the streets. I wasn’t getting beat up—much. Lots of kids had it way worse.” That used to be Sierra’s mantra. That she was lucky. That she at least had her art.
“Don’t diminish how far you’ve come. How you managed to bloom into an amazing woman out of a dung heap of a beginning.”
“I’d hold off on giving me too much credit until I finish.”
Flynn leaned against the post to the railing and pulled her back against him. “Go on.”
“I got a scholarship to art college. A full ride, but money was still tight.”
“I’ll bet a scholarship doesn’t cover clothing and Q-tips.”
“Nope. So I worked two jobs, too. The thing is, an undergrad degree from an art college doesn’t give you many options after graduation. It was supposed to be my ticket to freedom. But with nobody to fall back on, it wasn’t enough.”
“What was your major?”
Never Been Good Page 15
