by K. A. Tucker
I smile, giving his back a rub. I haven’t stopped touching him in some way since we left the garda station. “I’ll be upstairs in just a minute.”
He eases up the steps with great care. I still don’t know what happened with Duffy. I asked but he shrugged it off, saying, “Later.” I don’t know what that means and, while I know he needs his rest, I need assurances that this is all going to work out for River. The only thing I do know is that he doesn’t seem angry with me at all.
Opening his bottle of prescription painkillers, I fill a glass of water, throw together a few ham and cheese sandwiches—neither of us have eaten all day—and make my way upstairs to my bedroom.
River’s already undressed and stretched out in bed. Gauze covers the phoenix over his chest. I didn’t know he had an injury there as well. “Thank Christ. I’m starved,” he mumbles, reaching for a sandwich.
“Does it still hurt?” I pull back the sheet to find more gauze bandaging wrapped around his left thigh.
He grunts in response, his mouth full.
I slide my hand over the curves of his healthy leg in a soothing manner. Such strong, thick muscles.
Rowen’s leg was just as sturdy.
“What’s going to happen now? With Aengus?” I watch him chew slowly, and I’m not sure if it’s a deliberate tactic to stall.
“He confessed,” he finally admits through a mouthful, his eyes downcast.
My jaw drops. “What? How? I mean . . .” I hadn’t expected that answer. “What made him do it?”
Swallowing, he tosses the last bit of crust onto the plate and washes it down with water, chasing it with the pills I set out for him. “He didn’t have much choice. Either he confessed to Duffy or I’d testify against him in court as an eyewitness.”
“You said that you’d never do that.”
“I know.” He toys with the compass charm that dangles from my bracelet. “I never thought I would. But after what he’s put my ma and da, and Rowen, through . . .” His fingers lace through mine. “Protecting him was going to further harm my family. Harm you. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened and I could have done something to stop it. As it is, none of this would have happened if I’d spoken up sooner.” His Adam’s apple bobs with a hard swallow, and a sheen suddenly coats his eyes. “I’m already not sure how I’m going to forgive myself for that.”
“Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.” I curl into his side, careful to avoid his injuries. “So Aengus would rather confess than have you put him in prison?”
“The IRA doesn’t take too kindly to people testifying against them. Despite all the bad decisions that Aengus has made, he has always protected me when it’s counted. I was counting on him to do it again.”
There is a shred of good in that guy after all, I guess. “So, he’s going to prison.”
River nods.
“And you’re safe?”
“I’m safe.” He lifts my chin up until I can see his eyes. “And you’re safe. No one’s going to stop you from staying in Ireland for as long as you want to stay.” Unspoken words linger between us.
How long does River want me to stay?
How long do I want to stay? Never in a million years would I ever have thought I’d actually be even considering questions like this. I’ve known River for a week. A week!
The single most memorable week of my entire life.
“Well, immigration might have a problem with me staying for too long,” I joke, because I don’t know what else to say.
So would my parents.
But what do I want?
THIRTY-THREE
RIVER
“It’s all rubbish now.” Ma lets go of the charred piece of paper, once a signed picture of Michael Collins, now worthless. It floats and lands on a tabletop by her feet. The table’s body is elsewhere.
The inside of Delaney’s is one giant heap of rubble. Pint glasses and liquor bottles shattered, splintered sticks where stools used to be, the fine dark wood blackened and punctured by nails and bits of metal. Two hundred years of our family history, which survived a famine, wars, and an entire revolution, destroyed within seconds.
And in the middle of it all stand my parents.
This may have been “tit-for-tat,” but there’s no mistaking that the bomb Beznick’s men set in here was meant to kill.
“Have you called the insurance company yet?” I set down the box of receipts and other valuable paperwork that I just collected from the office. Close the door to the back and you’d never imagine that anything was wrong up front. Even Rowen’s runners still hang from the laces on the wall.
I guess he won’t be needing one of those anymore.
He also won’t be running ever again.
Da leans against his cane, his stature bent. “They’ll be in as soon as the gardai finish with it.” He looks like he’s aged ten years since yesterday. Ma says they didn’t get to bed until well after midnight last night and were back at the hospital this morning, in time to see Rowen finally wake up.
“The back of the pub is fine, at least.”
“I reckon, in a building this old, they’re going to condemn it anyway and make us rebuild. It’ll never be the same.” He sighs. “Come on, we don’t have long before they chase us out of here. We’re lucky they let us in at all.”
“It’s our bloody pub!” Ma protests, never a fan of the police. Today, fueled by emotion, she’s tenfold worse.
“It’s for our own safety, Marion,” Da mutters, nudging the remains of the grandfather clock with the end of his cane.
“Should we try to bring that with us?” Amber offers. “We may be able to get it fixed.”
Da smiles at her, his tone softening instantly. “It’s full of glass, lovey. I wouldn’t want ya cutting those healing hands of yours.”
She nods, that tiny frown line between her eyes appearing. “I really loved your pub. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
I reach over to pull her into me, her back to my chest, folding my arms around her.
Ma eyes us, pursing her lips tightly. I know what she’s thinking—that I’m just going to get my heart broken. “We’ve survived worse. We’ll survive this just fine.”
Voices sound beyond the gaping hole where the door used to be. I don’t know if it met its demise from the blast or the emergency crew who cut in here to rescue us.
“That’s still a crime scene, sir! We haven’t released it yet.”
“But my daughter’s in there,” a gruff American voice answers.
Amber’s body goes rigid within my arms.
THIRTY-FOUR
AMBER
“Dad?”
I blink several times, thinking my eyes are playing tricks on me, just like my ears may have a moment ago.
They’re not.
Sheriff Gabe Welles, in his standard-issue blue jeans and plaid button-down—this one cotton and short-sleeved—is standing in the gaping hole where the door used to be, staring at me.
“Amber.” I can’t get a read on his tone—there’s a hint of reproach, but more, I think it’s just relief.
River’s arms release me from their embrace, freeing me to scramble around the debris and fall against my father’s chest, the knot that has suddenly sprung in my throat large and prickly. He pulls me into him tightly, the way I remember him doing years ago, when I was a little girl and he’d say that he’d had a really hard day. He smells the same now that he did back then—a mix of Irish Spring soap and Old Spice cologne.
I’ve missed him so much.
“Dad, what are you doing here?”
“Ivy called Alex and told her that you needed me right away. She said you were in some sort of trouble.”
“Ivy did?”
“Yeah. That little graffiti artist I almost arrested once,” he says, a smile barely touching his lips. “She even picked me up from the airport. I left her back there, behind the tape. I think she’s hiding from you, actually.”
I can’t beli
eve she called for my father. “What did she tell you?”
“Not much.” His gaze scans the destruction. “Not nearly enough . . . clearly.”
“But . . . I don’t . . .” I’m stumbling over my words, still in shock. “You don’t even have a passport!”
“You think I’d let you out of our country with no way of reaching you?” He smirks. “I applied for one the day after you booked all those flights. Just in case.”
I shake my head at him. “Always two steps ahead.”
His eyes settle on River. “Not always.” I sense his demeanor shift, from loving father to suspicious law enforcement officer. I’m sure it’s imperceptible to anyone else.
“Dad . . .” I warn, as River limps over.
“Sir. I’m River. Amber’s told me a lot about ya.”
“Has she, now . . . River.” I feel his sideways glare but I ignore it. Finally he shakes River’s extended hand. “Gabe Welles.”
“This is my mother, Marion.”
Marion steps forward, wiping her hands against her blouse before taking Dad’s hand. “Pleasure.”
“And this is my father, Seamus.”
Dad, seeing the cane, takes quick steps forward to reach Seamus.
“You have a lovely daughter. Ya must be very proud.”
“We’ll see,” I hear my dad mutter under his breath, too low for anyone else to hear.
“Seamus, let me drive you back to the house so you can rest. There’s nothing more we can do here for now.” Marion hooks an arm through his and the two of them begin working their way around the rubble toward the entrance.
“You going to the hospital, Ma?” River asks.
“As soon as I drop your da off. They should have moved Rowen into a proper room by now.” She doesn’t mention a word about Aengus in front of Seamus, though we all know she’ll take the opportunity away from River’s dad to duck in to see his eldest, too. Which means she’ll finally see the gardai stationed by the door, waiting until Aengus is well enough to be released into their custody.
She doesn’t know that he confessed to the bombing yet.
River and I share a look. “I should be there for this,” River whispers. “She’s likely to take a swing at them.”
“Of course. Dad, you’re staying with me, right?”
“After what I just paid for a last-minute one-way ticket here? Yeah. I’m staying with you. I could use a meal and a nap soon. I feel like I haven’t slept in days.”
I smile. There was a time when his car would roll out the driveway before daybreak, and not roll back in until well after dark. His lifestyle has definitely changed since last fall. On a few occasions, I’ve caught him snoring on the couch in the afternoon. “Okay. I’ll meet you outside in a minute.”
Dad’s gaze shifts from me to River and back. “Don’t be long. I’m afraid that friend of yours is going to ditch my bags on the side of the street and take off.”
I chuckle. “Ivy wouldn’t do that. I think she’s still afraid of you.”
“Hmm.” That seems to please him. I hear a mutter of “Maybe I’ve still got it” as he leaves.
River’s arm ropes around my waist. “You seriously had no idea he was coming?”
“I can’t believe she called him!” She must have done it the second they arrested me, which was just around the time the thought to call my father was going through my head. I smile. “She just did what I’ve always done. Call my dad. He always knows how to fix things.”
“But you’re in the clear, so what exactly are you going to tell him now? That she made a mistake?”
“I can’t lie to him, River. He’ll know.”
“I know. I just . . .” He groans. “I’d like him to not hate me for at least a day.”
I reach on my tiptoes to kiss him softly on the mouth. “How could he possibly hate you?”
“Now you’re lying to me.”
“You’re right. I am.” I chuckle. “Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”
“You certainly haven’t been suffering,” Dad mutters. Ivy and I hang back as he strolls through the main floor of Simon’s house.
“I’m sorry,” Ivy hisses, “but they arrested you! It looked bad and I didn’t know what else to do. By the time you texted me last night, it was too late. He was already on his way.”
“It’s okay. I get why you called him. I’m not mad. But you didn’t think to warn me?”
A rare, sheepish look passes over her face. “Yeah . . . I thought about it.”
Dad nudges River’s duffel bag in the living room with his boot—I meant to move that upstairs—and his brow tightens, but he says nothing.
“He said it was an open-ended ticket?” Ivy asks.
“Yeah. What exactly did you tell him?”
“I’m not deaf,” he calls out, sizing up the bottle of Jameson that Rowen left here. “She didn’t tell me a damn thing. Kept pleading the Fifth, despite my best interrogation tactics.”
“And on that note . . .” Ivy slips out the door, leaving me to deal with Gabe Welles all on my own.
“So?” I wander toward the kitchen. “What do you want to eat? I have cold cuts and cheese, fruit . . .” I open the freezer. “. . .veggie burgers . . .” I don’t have to turn around to know that he’s rolling his eyes at that. “A lasagna?”
“Meat or vegetarian?”
Mom being a surgeon and a terrible cook, most of our meals growing up were frozen, pre-made grocery store finds. She’d buy a lot of vegetarian things, even though none of us were vegetarian. It drove Dad nuts, and he’d grumble about it, but in the end, he’d shut up and eat it. The first thing that changed when he retired was that he started doing all the grocery shopping. I haven’t seen a vegetarian casserole in our house in the better part of a year.
“Meat . . . if saying that will make you eat it.”
“You’re too much like your mother in some ways.”
“And too much like you in others,” I retort, punching buttons until the oven preheat lights come on. “It’s going to take an hour to bake. Can you make it that long, or should we go out to eat?”
“Nope.” Flipping through three cupboards before finding the glassware, he pulls two glasses out and pours each to a third full with the amber liquid. He never drinks hard liquor. “Neither of us are leaving this kitchen until you explain why you were arrested.”
My stomach drops. “How did you—”
“Told you, I’m not deaf. Besides, Ivy promised you weren’t hurt, but you were in trouble. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.” He sets both tumblers on the kitchen table, drags the chairs out, and sits. “Let’s hear it, from the beginning. And I want to know exactly how this guy is involved, because I’m guessing he’s at the center of it.”
Crap. Dad’s never been one for delays, so I shouldn’t be at all surprised.
“So?”
I pour the whiskey back, grimacing at the unpleasant burn. It’s not nearly as unpleasant as this conversation is going to be. “Remember that bombing last week?”
“It’s not that bad, actually.” I scoop a mouthful in. “A bit too much salt, but the sauce is good.”
Dad twirls his fork in his hand absently. “The IRA, Amber. I ought to drag you to the airport right now.”
“See? This is why I lied in the first place.”
His answering glare is full of exasperation. “And now you’re actually carrying on with this . . . River. What kind of name is that anyway? Doesn’t sound Irish.”
“I like it, actually. It suits him.”
He snorts. “What’s his middle name? Twigs? Bog?”
I roll my eyes. Dad’s sarcastic side can be pretty predictable. “He saved my life, Dad. If it hadn’t been for River, you would have been flying here anyway, only it’d be to visit me in the hospital or collect my body.”
The cords in his neck tense. “Because of his brother.”
“Yes, his brother. Not River. He had nothing to do with it or with those people. Cond
emning him would be like condemning me for that mess with Jesse and Alex. You know . . . the one that cost you your job?”
“My choices are what cost me my job,” he mumbles. “I can’t blame Jesse for that.”
“Yeah, so Alex told me . . . finally,” I say softly. “I know what you did, Dad.”
His gaze flashes to me. “I’m not proud of what I did but, to be clear, it was the best way to protect everyone under the circumstances.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. And we’re not talking about me here. We’re talking about you, and what is going on here in Ireland. I know you’re twenty-five years old and I can’t dictate what you do anymore, but your mother and I raised you to be better than this. Just associating with this family is a bad idea, Amber. Look what’s happened since that bombing. You’ve been arrested for lying to a police officer!”
“You lied to an entire police organization,” I remind him. “And a judge. And Mom, for a while.”
He purses his lips. I’m guessing Alex is going to get an earful when Dad makes it home. “Well, you’re damn lucky that detective isn’t pressing charges. I should go down there and kiss his ass. And do you realize that you could just as easily have been in that pub when it got bombed?”
“I know,” I say quietly. Had I not decided to go to Cork, I likely would have. I would have met the infamous Aengus Delaney, looked the asshole right in the eye, perhaps shared a pint with him.
And then who knows? I could have ended up like Rowen. Or worse.
Dad pours himself another whiskey. “You know, since Jesse finally settled down and started using his head, I thought I could finally relax. I thought our family was past this sort of thing. I never thought you’d do something so stup—” He cuts himself off, and then, in a slightly softer voice that screams of disappointment, he finishes off with, “so dangerous.”
“Neither did I,” I admit. His words burn, but not nearly as much as they might have in the past. “But it was the best way to protect everyone.”
He heaves a sigh, shaking his head to himself. “How do you know?” He parrots me, just as I did to him.
