11. From Mobster to Daddy #2
"Yes."
There are already two chairs on the side of the table opposite the wall where Joy is sitting, which leaves creating a spot beside Neeve or Sadie.
Sadie starts to scoot, but I shake my head infinitesimally and nod toward Neeve with a wink. Stifling a smile, Sadie stops moving as I put the stool down and then squat behind Neeve's chair. I grasp the legs and lift, while standing.
Neeve squeals and throws her hands out, like she's trying to stop from falling, but there's no chance I'll let that happen. Keeping her suspended with a hand on one chair leg, I put my other arm around her like a seatbelt.
"I'll keep you safe," I promise her.
This quiet little girl needs to know that I see her and won't forget what we were talking about before Joy came tearing into the kitchen.
Neeve nods, accepting my promise and then starts flapping her arms. "I'm flying," she cries through her giggles.
I take Neeve on a circuit of the kitchen, steering clear of the stove where Maureen is heating a cast iron skillet for the eggs.
Joy jumps up. "I want to fly!"
"I'm sure you'll get your turn." áine puts her arms around her youngest daughter, pulling her into a back-to-front hug.
"But my chair doesn't need to move." Joy says with disappointed logic.
"Here?" I ask with Neeve's chair suspended a few inches to the right of where it was to make room for the stool.
"Looks good to me." áine's smiling, none of the stress that's been riding her since we met riding her shoulders right now. She squeezes Joy. "What do you think?"
"Yes!" Joy screeches while Sadie laughs, shaking her head.
"You good here, petal?" I ask Neeve.
She nods.
I lower her chair to the floor, brush my hand over her smooth hair and then swoop Joy up, tossing her over my shoulder.
áine's looking at me like I'm something, her lips curved in a soft smile. I need to taste that smile, so I lean down and kiss her, drawing her lips to mine. Keeping it G rated is harder than trying to take Mick down to the mat during training.
But I manage it. Just.
Straightening, I flip Joy around on my shoulder. "Fly, sunshine."
She sticks her legs out straight behind me and her left arm lands against my face as she throws her arms wide.
áine shouts, "Watch out, Joy!" But she's laughing.
I "fly" Joy to Maureen's room, ask her if she thinks the wooden ladderback chair in front of the vanity dresser that looks old enough to have been brought from the Old Country when her folks immigrated, is the one her gran meant.
"Yes! Can I ride it back to the kitchen?" Joy asks pleadingly.
In answer, I flip her over so she lands backside down on the seat.
When we get back in the kitchen, the table has been moved out from the wall and the two chairs that faced it are on that side now. áine is sitting in one. Neeve is in the other.
"Joy, you take the stool," Maureen orders. "Kieran, put that chair up to the open side. You'll sit there."
"Obliged," but I'll wait to sit down until Maureen does and take up the leaning position against the wall I had earlier.
I appreciate her not trying to put me in one of the chairs against the wall. I've spent too many years instinctively taking the most strategic place for easy action when I sit down to be hemmed in like that.
I will always stand between my family and danger.
Maureen cracks an egg into the pan. It sizzles, scenting the air with cooking butter as she cracks two more eggs, adding them too.
She breaks the yolks for a flat fried egg just like my gran used to do. "How long did you serve?"
"Eight years." Including the two I was seconded to the CIA, but I don't mention that to my future mother-in-law.
"Did you see combat?" She flips the eggs with deft movements my old mess sergeant would have envied.
"I was in the Rangers." That's answer enough.
The government doesn't train a man to be an elite soldier without plans to use him in hostile environments. Not always recognized as combat, but that's because most of our missions were covert or unacknowledged support.
"As I'm sure you know, my son was a Ranger."
Was? Shit. I nod, pretending knowledge I didn't have before this moment. "I'm sorry for your loss." I look at áine and her eyes are shadowed with old loss.
"He died in combat." Maureen slides two eggs onto a plate and one onto the other. She hands me the plate with two eggs. "That's the story anyway."
I put my hand out for Maureen's plate to carry to the table too. She lets me.
Once she's in her seat, I take mine. "You don't believe it was combat?"
Maureen looks at áine questioningly.
Her daughter shrugs. "You know I don't like talking about the details."
Which is a neat sidestepping of the truth we've never talked about her Ranger brother killed in action.
"Well, first it was missing in action. Then it was killed in action with no body to bury.
All I know for sure is that my boy is dead and grief took his dad a year later.
They called it a heart attack, but it was a broken heart and that's the truth.
" She smiles at áine. "If I hadn't had my girl, I would have followed him. "
The agony those words cause quickly banks in áine's beautiful eyes, but I see it.
Maureen tuts. "That's enough of that. I've been blessed with a loving daughter and granddaughters to make my old age a joy and not a burden."
"Aww, gran, you've got at least a year or two before you're in your old age," Sadie says, tongue in cheek, laughing at her grandmother's look of outrage.
There's a buzz from the counter and áine leans sideways to grab her phone. After flicking a glance at it, she sucks in a breath, her eyes widening.
Three more buzzes follow in quick succession.
"Okay?" I ask her.
She looks up, her eyes filled with confusion. "Uh. Yeah. Ellie's here."
"Good." She can keep an eye on my family while I’m meeting with Mick and his lieutenants later this morning.
I've already assigned Torch to stealth surveillance, but a second set of eyes with hand-to-hand combat training is always a plus.
McLaren didn't have much when she mobbed up, but regardless of their role, Brice expects all the soldiers and runners under his supervision to learn how to handle a physical confrontation.
I supervised McLaren's training and I'm confident in her abilities.
"Aunt Ellie's here?" Joy fist pumps the air. "Yes!"
Neeve looks earnestly toward her mother. "But we have to go to school."
"About that…" I look at áine. "I've got a surprise for you all and McL—Ellie helped me coordinate it."