Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Carl
Mateo tapped Carl on the shoulder and pointed out the kitchen window. “Whatever sketchy shit Aisling’s up to right now, should I assume you’ve signed off on it?”
Carl turned from where he’d been toasting himself a bagel to take a look. Honestly?
Aisling was starting to get on his nerves more than a little.
Way more.
The kids, however, adored her. And she took great care of them. Since that was her primary job, he didn’t have any valid reason to demand Aisling be sent away.
Aisling being annoying would never work as an excuse, considering Aisling also annoyed the shit out of Dewi.
In the backyard, Bebe, Dania, Lucia, and Laura stood gathered around her, intently watching and listening.
Carl did a double-take. Aisling had a huge plastic tote, and it looked like she was pulling things out of it that—
Is she making a fucking bomb?
He bolted out the back door with Mateo on his heels, pulling up so short that Mateo nearly ran into him. “Hey, Aisling? What the hel-eck are you doing?”
“Just teaching the little ones some chemistry today!” she cheerfully said.
As he scanned the items…
Yep. Looked like she had the perfect makings for a homemade IED.
Carl cleared his throat. “I don’t know how you do things where you came from,” he said, “but our HOA doesn’t allow explosions in the backyard.”
“Yer what now?”
“HOA. Homeowner’s association. They make the rules. No explosions.”
She sat back on her heels and cocked her head at him. “What? Not even wee ones?”
He grimaced that he’d been right on the money. “No. Not even small explosions. And I’m retired military, so, yes, I’ve handled explosive ordinance before and know what I’m talking about.”
She pointed. “Look, I even bought ’em goggles and earplugs and face shields for them to wear for safety. I’m not irresponsible. I’ll keep ’em far enough back.”
“That’s not the point! It’s—”
“And I am trained, ye know,” Aisling said.
“But—”
“Kinda what I was trained to do fer a livin’.” The girls’ heads bobbed back and forth, watching them like a tennis match.
“I don’t doubt your qualifications,” Carl said, “but we are trying to blend in, not become the focus of 911 calls.”
She cocked her head in the other direction. “What’s that, then? Like calling the guards?”
Carl silently counted to three in his head. “Yes. Emergency services.”
“Oh, ye mean 999?”
“No, I mean 911.” He closed his eyes and rubbed that spot in the middle of his forehead, right above the bridge of his nose, hoping he could stave off the tension headache already threatening.
He hadn’t experienced a true headache in years, and now it felt like he always had one.
No shocker it coincided with a certain redheaded Irish Wolfhound’s appearance in his house.
“Ye all right there, Carl?” Aisling asked, the girls also looking up at him now with nearly identically cocked heads and concern on their faces.
“Please safely dismantle that and then meet me inside,” he said. “I’d like to speak with you for a moment. Alone.”
“Oooooh!” Dania and Bebe crowed in unison.
“Miss A’s in trouble!” Dania added.
Bebe jammed her hands against her hips and looked quite indignant. “Don’t yell at Auntie A, Uncle Cawl! We want to make booms!”
“No one’s getting yelled at!” He took a deep breath and gentled his tone.
“Sorry. No one’s in trouble, no one’s getting yelled at.
And we can’t make booms here, honey. It’ll get us all in trouble if we do.
I just need to have a conversation with Miss A, okay?
Uncle Mateo will stay out here with you all while we go inside and talk. ”
Uncle Mateo, who stood behind Aisling and the girls, looked all too unhappy at the news that no one was in trouble or getting yelled at. He stood there with his arms crossed and a scowl furrowing his brow in a way Carl knew likely mirrored his own.
“You need to chew her a new one,” Mateo said to him through their mate bond.
Carl cleared his throat and returned to the house, pausing just inside the rear sliding glass doors as the crisp AC smacked him in the face.
I am beginning to regret my career choices.
Aisling followed him inside, carrying a tote he assumed contained the ingredients for the bomb.
“If this is gonna be one of those ‘ye need to be responsible’ speeches, save yer breath,” she said as she set the tote on the kitchen counter. “Don’t forget I’m older than ye an’ have more experience in this area than ye do.”
“Aisling, we cannot teach toddlers how to make bombs!”
“Now houl yer whisht. They’re not all toddlers.
Dania’s older. And Bebe’s beyond the toddler stage.
And it’s not a bomb!” She held up her right hand, thumb and forefinger barely apart.
“It was just a wee firecracker. Not even enough to dent a car! Ye make it sound like I was teachin’ ’em how to re-enact Guy Fawkes Day.
And I think ye meant we shouldn’t, not that we can’t, because obviously I can, and was.
For years, I got paid by the government to teach people how to do it.
Safely, I might add. Doesn’t do for our own lads to blow their feckin’ fingers off now, does it?
” She held up both hands and waggled all ten digits at him. “See? Nothin’ missin’.”
Yep. Headache.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think you’re grasping the nuances of this delicate situation.
If we were living in Idaho at the pack compound, yes, you absolutely could do this.
Even larger munitions. This, however, is a residential neighborhood where people will call the police if a dog is barking too long and too loudly, or if you start mowing the lawn before or after certain times.
Even on the 4th of July, people will call the cops on people shooting off fireworks. ”
She glared at him. “I thought Americans were supposed to be all gung-ho to shoot an’ blow things up. Especially in Florida. Back home, we use shite larger than this to blast the feckin’ hell out of rocks an’ stumps in fields.”
He pointed to the sliders, indicating the backyard. “Do you see a field full of rocks and stumps out there that need blasting? No. Why? Because we DON’T FUCKING HAVE ANY!”
Aisling didn’t cower, but she drew her head back a little. “Well, ye don’t have to be gettin’ all thick wi’ me, now. Quit yer gurning. Dewi told me I’m supposed to be teachin’ the wains, and that’s what I’m doin’! My FECKIN’ JOB!” she was screaming back at him by the end of her rant.
Now I understand why Dewi wanted to shoot and disembowel her.
Carl struggled to rein in his temper. He ticked off points on his fingers. “Numbers, letters, spelling, reading, writing, shapes, colors, basic science, how to tell time and tie their shoes, even geography—not creating IEDs out of common household ingredients!”
“Well, that’s chemistry an’ maths, innit? Science. STEM classes. Don’t ye know girls are sadly lacking in—”
“AISLING!” He wondered if she was deliberately fucking with him now.
Part of him suspected exactly that.
Especially the way her gaze glittered in a calculating way like…
The breath exploded out of him. “You’re trying to piss me off. Why?”
Her guarded look returned, and she focused on the floor. Folding her arms over her chest, she took a step back. “Don’t know what yer on about,” she mumbled.
“Bullshit.” He closed the gap between them. “What in the actual fuck, Aisling? You’re trying to get me to go to Dewi and demand you be pulled from this assignment, aren’t you?”
She wouldn’t look up and meet his gaze, just slowly shook her head as she studied her feet.
Another sigh escaped him. “Look, if you want to teach them age-appropriate explosive science, stick to baking soda volcanoes, or mints dropped into bottles of diet soda, or something like that. Outside,” he added.
“Or hell, how about teaching them baking if you want to work science and math into that?”
“Tryin’ to keep ’em locked into gender stereotypes at this age, are ye?”
He threw back his head and groaned. “Goddammit, Aisling. We’re on the same team. I’m trying to be friends with you, and it’s like you’re building a wall between you and all of us, and I don’t understand why.”
She still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Just tryin’ to do my feckin’ job, that’s all,” she muttered.
“Okay, fine. Don’t tell me what the fuck’s going on with you.
I’m over it. You want a friend? You know where I am.
” He waved his hand in a circle at her. “You want to hide behind this bullshit facade, that’s your call, I guess.
But my job is to protect Tamsin and those babies.
And I’m not going to let anyone—including you—do something to fuck that up, okay?
” He pointed at the tote. “No more fucking bombs, no firecrackers, nothing dangerous, nothing to attract undue or unwarranted attention to any of us. Got it?”
She finally nodded.
“Good.” He returned outside. Mateo arched an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything, silent or otherwise.
Aisling
She blew out a long breath as she watched Carl return to the backyard.
Fuck, he’s a spooky one.
Spookily tuned in, that was.
No, she wouldn’t have made an actual bomb in the backyard.
Not a large one, that is. Just a tiny thing that would make a Christmas cracker look like mortar fire in comparison. A little bit of smoke was what she was going for.
And a one-way ticket back to the UK, but apparently Carl was onto her plan.
Last night, she’d frigged herself several times with her legs and free hand wrapped around Tamsin’s pillows, and still it barely offered her any relief.
Not when she knew her mate was on the other end of the country and not there, in her arms.
Aisling dragged the tote out to the garage, swallowing back the urge to scream in frustration.
Of the mental and emotional kind.
I’m mental, all right.
Aisling wasn’t sure how she’d survive not sleeping in Tamsin’s bed and being covered with Tamsin’s scent every night.
She wanted Tamsin back, and yet…didn’t. Because if Tamsin was back, it meant another level of self-control she’d have to endure, having the other woman right there and being unable to touch her.
Brianna and Da’von would move out in the next few weeks to live with Joaquin and Malyah, and Aisling would take their room.
If Aisling hadn’t already mated with Tamsin by then, that was.
I can’t be lucky enough that she’s into me, can I?
Because her luck was never that good.
Ever.
Evvveerrr.
Then Maisie’s voice filled her head.
“Tell her I love her. And the baby. Tell her to be happy.”
She closed her eyes, hands clenched so hard she knew she might draw blood from her nails digging into her palms.
Maisie’s voice haunted her dreams, her nightmares.
Bloody hell.
After taking several deep breaths to calm herself, Aisling returned to the kitchen. Carl and Mateo were still outside with the girls. She smelled something and stopped in the kitchen, where she spied the bagel sitting in the toaster, its cycle finished.
After a moment, she walked over, pulled one of the halves out of the toaster, took a huge bite from it, then returned it to the toaster, bit side down.
Hesitating only a moment, she did it to the other one, too.
Then she found the package of bagels and hid them in the back of the pantry cabinet, where they wouldn’t easily be found.
Yes, it was petty.
But if it kept the men at arms’ length so they didn’t catch on to her secret…
Then it was worth it.
Besides, she had a bunch of siblings and was fluent in petty.