Chapter Twenty-One
J ames traced Carrigan’s tattoo and then moved down the center of her stomach. Her muscles twitched beneath his finger, but she just turned her head and looked at him. Tired pleasure radiated from every line of her body. “I needed that.”
“I know.” He kissed her shoulder. Having her beneath him had been almost cleansing.
He felt new and whole and vulnerable in a way he wasn’t prepared to deal with.
He’d told her he loved her. She hadn’t said it back, but she also hadn’t run screaming from the room.
He knew she cared about him. There was time to build things between them.
He wasn’t about to let her go without a fight.
“Do you ever think about just… leaving?” She closed her eyes. “Sometimes I fantasize about getting in a car and driving until I find some tiny little town where no one’s heard of the O’Malleys and where everyone knows everyone else and things are just simpler .”
“I’ve thought about it.” But he’d never left for the same reason she hadn’t. Family . “I figure those small-town people have their own problems and secrets and bullshit. It’s the human condition.”
“Maybe. Or maybe that’s just what we have to tell ourselves not to take out a gun and put it in our mouths.”
He froze. “What?” No fucking way was she talking about what he thought she was talking about.
“Not me.” She opened her eyes and grabbed his hand. “I’m not talking about me. I swear. I love life too much to go down like that. I’ll have to be dragged from this world, kicking and screaming, no matter how shitty things get. But I worry about my sisters.”
He watched the expressions play across her face. “They’re strong.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself, but I don’t know if I believe it anymore.
My brother’s death changed a lot of things.
Everyone is so much more brittle now.” She stroked her hand down his arm, starting at his shoulder and moving over every muscle.
“My brothers are so angry and afraid, even if they try to cover the latter with the former. I don’t think my baby sister has spent more than a half an hour sober since we were hustled out of town after all that shit went down.
And Sloan…” Her eyes darkened. “She’s a ghost of the woman she used to be. ”
He knew all about how the death of someone beloved could change everything—ruin everything. But this wasn’t about him. It was about saying what was necessary to comfort Carrigan. “It won’t always be like this.”
“Oh, no doubt something even more horrible will come along and push our already teetering family off the cliff.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He was seriously worthless as this comforting bullshit, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying.
“Your family is strong. Your parents will hold things together and your siblings will find their feet. Life will go on, whether anyone wants it to or not. This tragedy won’t break you—any of you.
” He brushed her hair back. “I don’t know if I’ve said how fucking sorry I am that it happened.
I didn’t give the order, but it doesn’t matter.
It was Halloran men who did it.” Ricky who did it.
“I won’t lie and say it’s okay.” Her eyes shone, but no tears fell.
“Devlin was too good for this life. I think any one of us would have stepped in front of that bullet to give him a second chance at life. But… it’s not your fault.
When you live the lives we do, your family has a nasty tendency not to tell the right hand what the left hand is doing. ”
Wasn’t that the fucking truth. He traced over her cheekbone and down to her bottom lip with his thumb. “I know. But I am sorry. I wish—”
“We all do.” She sat up, the move knocking his hands away. “There’s no use talking about it. It’s over and done with. Practically ancient history.”
What the fuck? James sat up, too. He didn’t realize what she planned until she lurched off the bed and reached for her dress. “What are you doing?”
“I gave you tonight. We’re done now.”
It took him a full five seconds to hear and process her words. “No fucking way. Get your ass back in my bed.”
She shimmied into her dress. “This has been fun—too much fun—but it’s over.”
He could barely believe she was doing this now . It was stone cold. James scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s over when I say it’s over. We have a long way to go before that, lovely. I said I love you and I fucking meant it.”
She froze, her back to him. “Well, that’s just too damn bad. I’m not responsible for how you feel. I didn’t ask you to fall for me. I know how to keep my emotions in check.”
“Liar.” He was on his feet before making the decision to move. “You’re running scared. Again.”
“What I’m doing is going home before my brothers follow through on their threats to start another goddamn war. We lost too much last time. I’m not letting that rest on my head.”
It was an excuse, and not even a good one. If she’d wanted to avoid the threat of war, she never would have called him in the first place, let alone come out here with him. “Don’t you ever get tired of dancing to whatever tune your family sets?”
“No.” She stepped into her heels. “Unlike some people, my family will always come first.”
She was going to throw that in his face?
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.” He wanted to grab her, to shake her until some sense popped into that gorgeous head of hers, but he’d never laid a hand on a woman in anger and he sure as fuck wasn’t about to start now.
Tying her up until she saw reason wasn’t an option, either.
He was left with nothing but standing there and watching her get ready to walk out of his life.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that if she left now, it would be for good.
So he tried to be calm and rational. “Carrigan, sit down and we’ll talk this through.”
“Talking never did anyone a damn bit of good.” She stopped in the doorway, her knuckles white where they fisted the hem of her dress. “Good-bye, James. For good this time.” Then she was gone, disappearing as if she’d never been there to begin with.
And he just watched her go.
As soon as he heard the door close behind her, he slowly got dressed.
It didn’t take a genius to realize what she was doing—making yet another personal sacrifice for her family.
She’d said as much. She might even be trying to protect him, too.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she’d walked out without talking about it, without giving him a chance to find a way out of this mess.
She might care about him, but she didn’t trust him. And fuck if that didn’t hurt.
He rubbed a hand over his chest, knowing damn well that it wouldn’t do anything to combat the dull ache that started there the second she walked out of this room.
There would be no more phone calls. She wouldn’t come running to him again, no matter how deep into shit she got.
No, she was off to marry this Dmitri Romanov and sail away into the sunset.
Fuck .
He walked through the still mostly dark house, letting the memories wash over him.
Play fighting with his brothers in the living room.
Watching his mother knit in the rocking chair, looking more at peace than he ever saw her in Boston.
The loud meals served around the tiny dining room table, while he and Brendan and Ricky all competed for her undivided attention.
She’d always managed to make each of them feel like they were the center of her world.
And their old man… James touched the thickest scar running across his upper chest. He could feel the ridge of it through the thin fabric of his T-shirt.
His father hadn’t dared touch them while she walked this earth.
He’d always thought that it was because her death broke the man, but now he wondered.
Victor had been a monster for as long as James could remember.
Had his mother been the reason he stayed his hand?
The shield between her boys and their sadistic fuck of a father?
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to fit.
He’d never seen her in a swimsuit. Whenever he thought about it now, he’d chalked it up to the summers that were never quite warm enough.
But what if it wasn’t? His hands clenched.
Had Victor hurt her as a proxy and then turned his attentions on his boys when she was no longer available?
His stomach lurched, and he had to close his eyes and concentrate on breathing. It was the past. Knowing that didn’t magically make the hurt go away, but it helped him focus. Right now he had bigger problems than worrying about if his old man beat his mother fifteen years ago.
He would find out, though.
In the meantime… James turned to the front door.
He’d give Carrigan some time. Chasing her down now wouldn’t do either one of them a damn bit of good.
She was freaked out and she had reason to be.
As much as it stung that she didn’t believe in him enough to give him the chance to fix things, a part of him understood.
A very small part. The rest wanted to track her down, but it would only make her run farther and faster from him.
No, he’d find a way around this, and then he’d come for her.
He walked out of the house and locked the door behind him. The first order of business was to get through the exchange tomorrow with those pieces of shit bringing in women. Then he’d deal with the mess with Carrigan.
It wasn’t like she’d be married in the next twenty-four hours, after all.
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