Chapter 20
TWENTY
TWIGGY
I am not thinking about Bran’s hands.
I am not thinking about his hands on my hips, about the way his chest felt under my palms, about the moment on that mat where the whole world narrowed down to weight and heat and the very real possibility that I was about to climb him like a tree.
I am absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not thinking about any of that as I stare at the ceiling in Cotton’s office, very much awake.
The clock on the desk clicks over to 1:03 a.m.
I flop onto my side, blanket tangling around my legs, laptop screen black on the desk across the room. I shut it down hours ago after Brady’s lecture about no unsupervised contact, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.
My brain does not like idle time. Idle time is when it starts replaying things.
Mia Hart’s name. The way the Falls looked last winter. Jason’s file. Henry’s old chat logs. Henry’s new chat logs.
And, threaded through those in a very unhelpful way, Bran Kelly’s voice saying I need you in one piece. All of you. Not just your brain.
I groan and drag the pillow over my face.
Somewhere in the house, a pipe ticks. The old bones of the estate settling for the night. Outside, the wind moves through the trees. I can hear a horse snort, faintly—Jasper or Rook shifting in their stalls.
The normal noises should be comforting. Instead they just underline how not-normal everything else is.
There is a man out there who thinks I’m his favorite bird.
There is a man down the hall who’s been told he’s not allowed to touch me.
There is another man somewhere between them who will absolutely “fecking murder” the second one if he breaks that rule.
Irishmen and their rules.
I push the pillow away and sigh at the ceiling.
“Sleep,” I whisper to myself. “Now would be great.”
The house answers with a shriek.
For half a second my brain can’t process it—it’s too loud, too sudden. Then my whole body jolts upright as the alarm keens down the hall, high and vicious, not the soft little chime of a door sensor but a full-body siren.
My heart slams into my throat.
Security. Not fire. Cotton’s system has different tones; Brodie explained them to me once, aware that I was probably the only other soul on earth who would geek out over his security system the way he was. This is the one that means someone’s where they shouldn’t be.
“Shit,” I gasp, already scrambling.
I’m sleeping in one of Cotton’s oversized long-sleeve shirts and a pair of soft cotton booty shorts that should absolutely not be seen by anyone who didn’t buy them for me.
Too late now. I wrench open the office door and bolt into the hall, bare feet slapping the hardwood, hair in a wild knot on top of my head.
The corridor pulses red with the emergency lights, each flash strobing the family portraits into something out of a horror movie.
“Brodie?” I shout, voice high and thin under the howl of the siren. “Cotton?”
A door bangs open at the far end of the hall. Brodie comes out first, already wide awake, a handgun in his fist like it grew there. Cotton is right behind him in a nightgown, one hand on her belly, the other clutching a crying Saoirse to her chest.
Savvi appears from the other direction in a robe and slippers, gray hair loose, eyes sharp despite the sleep.
“Stay back,” Brodie barks, and even over the alarm, the command in his voice hits like a shove.
Another door opens.
Bran is already making his way toward me in nothing but sweats and a T-shirt, hair mussed, eyes lethal. The red strobe catches the ink on his forearms, making the knots of Celtic work look like they’re moving. There’s a gun in his hand, too, held low and easy, like it’s an extension of him.
His gaze hits me.
For a split second, his eyes drag from my bare legs up over the hem of Cotton’s borrowed shirt, the way it hangs off one shoulder, the rate my chest is rising and falling.
Heat flashes through me, hot and full of awareness.
Then his face shutters, everything snapping back to business.
“Alarm panel?” he snaps.
“Downstairs,” Brodie says. “Motion in the north barn.”
Of course it’s the barn.
“Savvi.” Brodie doesn’t look away from Bran, but his voice cuts sideways. “The panel, ma’am.”
To my surprise, she has a small handgun in her palm, as well, and she looks very familiar with how to use it.
“I’m on it,” she says, already moving toward the stairs. “Go.”
Bran takes one long stride down the hall, bare feet silent on the wood. His attention rakes every shadow, every doorway.
“Tallulah, with Cotton,” he says. “Now.”
My spine bristles automatically at the order, but this is not the time for a debate about autonomy and tone.
“What about you?” I demand.
“Brodie and I will check the barn,” he says. “Whoever tripped that sensor is either gone or about to have a very bad night.” His gaze snags mine again, hard. “You do not come out of the house. I don’t care what you hear.”
My heart is beating so hard it hurts. “What if—”
“Twiggy.” Cotton’s voice is tight, soothing and strained at the same time. Saoirse’s arms are wrapped around her neck like a koala’s, little fingers dug in. “Come on, honey.”
Brodie presses a quick kiss to Saoirse’s head and then to Cotton’s hair, fast and fierce. “Panic room,” he tells her. “Now. You know the drill.”
Of course they have a panic room. Of course they have a drill.
Cotton nods once, eyes wide but steady, and starts down the hall toward the wing where the older part of the house meets the newer addition. I move with her, my body already wanting to put a wall between us and the sound.
Bran falls into step behind us, watching the shadows like they’re going to reach out and grab someone.
“Where?” I ask, breathless, as we turn past a framed racing photo and a painting of horses in the snow.
Cotton reaches what looks like an ordinary linen closet and taps a sequence on the digital thermostat beside it. The panel beeps, then clicks. She presses her palm flat against the molding, and a seam I never noticed before silently swings inward.
“Go,” she tells me.
Inside is a narrow room lined with shelves—bottled water, blankets, a first-aid kit, a couple of battery lanterns.
The air is cooler, concrete under the nice hardwood.
There’s a bench along one wall and a small monitor in the corner showing a grainy grid of camera feeds: driveway, barn, house side, back paddock.
Cotton steps in with Saoirse. I follow, heart in my throat, my upper arm catching briefly on a hook on one of the shelves. I shake it off impatiently, squeezing through the narrow door.
Savvi hustles down the hall, pulling Cotton’s mother along with her, and slips in after us just as the door starts to swing.
Bran catches it with one hand, leaning in. The alarm is still screaming; over it I can just make out the distant clatter of the front door being opened then shut again and Savvi’s voice talking to the panel downstairs.
“Door stays sealed until you hear me or Brodie,” Bran says. His eyes are on Cotton, but his gaze keeps flicking back to me like he can’t help it. “No one else.”
Cotton nods. “Don’t be stupid,” she says, voice shaking. “Either of you.”
“When am I ever stupid?” Brodie calls from the other end of the hall, but there’s a thread of dark humor in it. Then to Bran: “North barn. You take the inside, I take the perimeter.”
“Copy,” Bran says, and that’s the last thing I hear before the door shuts tight and the world shrinks.
The siren cuts off a heartbeat later, leaving silence ringing in my ears.
Saoirse is still crying, soft hiccupy sobs that stab right through my chest. Cotton sinks down onto the bench with her, murmuring in Irish and English, rubbing circles on her back.
Savvi flicks on one of the lanterns, bathing everything in a gentle yellow glow, then checks the monitor with practiced eyes.
I stand there, feeling useless and wired and very, very awake.
On the screen, two small shapes move—Bran and Brodie cutting across the yard at a run, one angling wide, the other beelining for the barn. They’re just dark blurs against a darker backdrop, mouths moving, weapons low and ready.
My hands curl into fists.
“If I hadn’t been here,” I whisper, “you wouldn’t need any of this. You wouldn’t need a panic room on a horse farm. You’d just be…sleeping.”
Cotton looks up at me sharply. Her hair is mussed, cheeks flushed, eyes fierce.
“Tallulah Gentry,” she says. “Don’t you even start with that.”
“It’s true,” I say. My throat is thick. “He’s here because of me. All of this—”
“He is here because he’s a broken thing who never learned how to love anything that didn’t scream,” Cotton cuts in. “You didn’t make him that. You didn’t invite him back. You just refused to let him stay hidden the first time.”
Saoirse sniffles against her chest. “Mama?”
Cotton softens instantly. “It’s okay, baby. It’s just loud noises. Daddy and Uncle Bran are checking on the horses.”
“And the man?” Saoirse whispers. “The bad man from the story?”
My whole body goes cold.
Cotton catches my eye over her daughter’s head and shakes her head a fraction, a silent later. She kisses Saoirse’s curls.
“Daddy’s making sure no bad men are allowed near our house,” she says. “You’re safe, okay? You’re with me.”
Savvi lays a hand gently on my wrist, like she can feel the panic bubbling there. “Sit, child,” she says. “You pacing a hole through the floor won’t help them any.”
I sink down onto the edge of the bench, my eyes glued to the monitor.
It feels like hours. It’s probably fifteen minutes.
Shapes moving. Lights sweeping. The barn camera flickers once, twice, then steadies. At one point, both men disappear off-camera and my stomach drops like I’m on a free-fall ride.
“Come on,” I whisper. “Come on, come on—”