Chapter 25
Skye
Morning changed the farmhouse more thoroughly than I expected.
The night before, every room had seemed to exist beneath the weight of Irish's memories, as though fifteen years of silence had settled into the stone and timber until the house itself understood that nobody was supposed to live there anymore.
In daylight, it looked less like a monument to tragedy and more like what it had always been beneath the dust sheets and closed rooms: a family home that had simply been waiting too long for someone to come back.
Pale light filtered through the old glass beside the staircase, catching imperfections that scattered it across the hallway walls, and the smell of rain drifted through the bedroom window Irish had finally forced open before we slept.
Somewhere downstairs, pipes groaned awake after he turned the heating higher, and the sound made me smile because it was exactly the kind of complaint an old building made when someone suddenly expected it to function after years of being maintained rather than inhabited.
Irish was still beside me, and his presence mattered enough that I noticed it before almost anything else about the morning.
He hadn't retreated during the night, hadn't found an excuse to sleep elsewhere once the intimacy between us became something neither of us could dismiss as attraction sharpened by danger.
When I woke earlier and found him watching the rain through the window, there had been a moment when I wondered whether he was already planning how to put distance between us.
Instead, he had looked back at me, climbed into bed again, and pulled me against his chest with the quiet certainty of a man making a decision he wasn't ready to discuss.
Now he stood near the wardrobe pulling on a dark shirt while I sat beneath the blankets and tried not to stare.
I failed spectacularly at pretending not to stare, and naturally, Irish noticed before I could disguise it.
"If you're going to inspect me like a building," he said without looking up from the buttons, "I'd like a warning before you start discussing structural weaknesses."
I leaned against the headboard. "I hadn't reached weaknesses yet."
His gaze moved toward me.
"Strengths?"
"Possibly."
"Should I be worried?"
"Probably."
The corner of his mouth lifted.
There was something profoundly unfair about how easily he could make himself look like a man who hadn't spent the previous evening telling me about the worst night of his life.
The grief hadn't vanished. I could see it beneath the humor whenever his attention drifted toward the hallway or his expression tightened at a sound he recognized too quickly.
But the darkness was no longer the only thing in the room with us, and I suspected that mattered more than either of us knew how to say.
I found my clothes and dressed while he opened the wardrobe farther, staring briefly at shirts and jackets left behind from a life he had outgrown. Most were far too small now. One old leather jacket still hung near the back with a faded patch sewn onto the shoulder.
I touched the sleeve.
"Yours?"
"Aye."
"Before the club?"
"Long before."
"You rode then?"
"First bike at sixteen."
"Your parents allowed that?"
"Mam didn't know until I brought it home."
I laughed. "How did that go?"
"She threatened to set it on fire."
"Did she?"
"No. Da convinced her the insurance paperwork would be annoying."
I turned toward him. "Your father sounds increasingly practical."
"He was practical when it suited him."
"And when it didn't?"
"Then he called it principle."
That sounded familiar enough that I smiled.
Irish looked toward the jacket again but didn't take it down. He closed the wardrobe and headed toward the door, waiting until I joined him before we stepped into the hallway together.
The floorboards creaked beneath us as we descended.
He still noticed every familiar sound the old house made, but this morning none of them stopped him from continuing down the stairs, which felt important in a way I didn't need to point out.
The kitchen had brightened considerably in daylight.
Rain streaked the windows overlooking the fields, and the old wooden table that had carried so much weight in Irish's story the night before looked almost ordinary beneath the gray morning light.
He stood in the doorway for a moment, then crossed directly toward the kettle.
He crossed the kitchen without the hesitation or sudden memories that had stopped him halfway the night before.
I pretended not to notice because some victories deserved to belong entirely to the person earning them.
"Tea?" he asked.
"Coffee."
He looked offended.
"You're in Ireland."
"I'm Scottish, not confused."
"Brigid would throw you out."
"Brigid likes me."
"Another character flaw."
He opened one cupboard, frowned at the contents, then another.
"How long has anyone actually stayed here?" I asked.
"Maintenance company sends someone through every few months. Plumbing, heating, roof, damp checks."
"Food?"
"Apparently not."
He held up a tin of tea with an expiration date old enough to have historical significance.
I took it from him.
"This could probably qualify for preservation funding."
He laughed quietly and put it aside.
We found coffee in the supplies we'd purchased the day before, along with bread, eggs, butter, and enough other groceries to make breakfast possible without risking Brigid discovering we had failed to return with half of her shopping list. Irish moved around the kitchen cautiously at first, opening drawers as though expecting their contents to have changed in his absence.
Then memory began taking over. He knew where the frying pan belonged before checking.
Knew which cabinet held plates. Reached automatically toward a drawer for cutlery, paused when his hand found the right handle, and stared at it for half a second before continuing.
I busied myself slicing bread, not because I hadn't noticed him remembering where everything belonged but because he already knew that I had.
"You're doing it again," he said.
"What?"
"Pretending not to watch me."
I glanced over.
"Would you prefer obvious staring?"
"At least it's honest."
I leaned against the counter. "Fine. You're remembering where things are."
"Aye."
"Does that bother you?"
He considered the question while cracking eggs into the pan.
"Less than I thought it would."
"Good."
He looked at me.
I raised both hands.
"That wasn't an attempt at emotional analysis."
"Sounded suspiciously close."
"I can be quiet."
"No, you can't."
"Rude."
"Accurate."
The kitchen began smelling like butter and coffee, and something about the ordinary domesticity of the moment affected me more than the night before had.
Irish had told me about blood in this room.
About his mother's body near the table and the argument with his father that had sent him away.
Yet now he stood at the stove making breakfast while rain tapped the windows, and the contrast made the farmhouse feel as though it were being reclaimed one ordinary action at a time.
My phone vibrated on the counter.
Storm.
How's he?
I looked toward Irish.
He was concentrating on the eggs.
Still here.
Her reply arrived almost immediately.
That's not what I asked.
I smiled.
Apparently the Flaming Skulls had communication problems as a collective.
Better than yesterday. Not fine.
Three dots appeared.
Good enough for now. Trigger says Hawkeye confirmed Saint Brigid's has movement. No approach yet. Cipher wants you both back by noon.
My attention sharpened.
Irish noticed before I said anything.
"What?"
"Saint Brigid's."
He turned off the stove and crossed toward me.
I handed him the phone.
His expression changed as he read.
"Movement?"
"Apparently."
"Vehicles?"
"Doesn't say."
He reached for his own phone, but I caught his wrist lightly.
"Breakfast first."
His eyes narrowed.
"You're telling me what to do?"
"I'm preventing you from burning eggs and then blaming an international criminal organization."
He looked toward the pan.
The eggs were beginning to overcook.
"Fine."
"See? I'm useful."
"Debatable."
We ate at the kitchen table.
That was his choice.
He pulled out the chair near the end—the one he'd told me his father always used—stared at it, then deliberately took the chair beside it instead.
I sat across from him without commenting.
He didn't seem to notice what he'd done until halfway through breakfast, when his gaze dropped toward the empty place beside him.
His expression went distant when he noticed the empty chair beside him, but after a moment he simply took another drink of coffee and stayed where he was. That was enough.
Afterward, Irish stood near the sink checking messages while I carried the plates toward the counter.
I should have been thinking about Saint Brigid's, the vehicles Hawkeye had seen, or what Cipher might have uncovered overnight, but the professional part of my brain had begun doing something irritating the moment sunlight entered the kitchen.
I had started measuring without realizing it, my attention shifting from the exterior kitchen wall toward the hallway as the dimensions I'd unconsciously collected began arranging themselves inside my head.
Something had bothered me yesterday, but there had been too much emotion attached to every room for me to isolate it.
This morning the house was just a building.
And buildings told on people.
Irish noticed me staring.
"What?"
I didn't answer immediately.
I walked toward the doorway leading from the kitchen into the hall and looked along the wall toward Declan's study.
Irish lowered his phone.
"Skye?"
"How thick is this wall?"
His expression changed from concern to suspicion.
"You're asking me?"
"I know. Very inconsiderate."
I crossed the hall and studied the plaster beside the study door.