Chapter 50
Chapter Fifty
Aisling
Carl was inside on a phone call when Aisling gathered the kids outside after lunch. She had them sit in a circle with her in the soft grass under the shade of an oak tree.
What she was hoping for was for them to take full-tummy naps.
She pulled the tin whistle out of her back pocket. “Any of ye know what this is?”
Most of them shook their heads, except for Dania. “Is it a flute?”
“Close, lass! It’s called a tin whistle, or a penny whistle.
” She ran a quick scale for them, unable to deny the delight on their faces warmed more than a tiny part of her hardened heart.
“Can ye recognize this?” She played “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and she was barely a few notes into it when the kids were singing along.
Well then. At least I have somethin’ to keep ’em focused.
“What else can you play?” Dania asked.
“Would ye like to hear some songs my da used to play for me?”
They all nodded.
Aisling thought briefly and then started playing “Banshee”, which had been one of her da’s favorite tunes.
Apparently, it was also one of the children’s favorite tunes, from the way their faces lit up as she played.
It’d been…
Well, a long damned time since she’d intentionally played in front of others.
Hell, it was the first time she’d really felt like playing in a couple of years.
When she finished, they all cheered again, delighted, and she belatedly realized maybe it had been the wrong tack, to think this would prompt them to go to sleep.
“How about ye all have a lie-down and listen? I used to do that with me da.”
Shockingly enough, they all did, and she gently launched into a slow version of “The Rocky Road to Dublin.”
The twins drifted off, slack-jawed and softly snoring by the time she finished the first go-through. Dania and Bebe were both yawning, too.
Trying not to let melancholy memories suck her under, Aisling played another of her father’s favorites, “Cup of Tea.” Gently and slow, soft, and within minutes both Dania and Bebe were sound asleep, too.
Whew. Nice to know I have one minor superpower.
That’s when Carl emerged from the house, and before he started over, she motioned for him to stay quiet.
Carl squatted next to her. “They’re asleep?” he whispered.
She nodded. “Aye,” she whispered back. He arched an eyebrow and she added, “Music soothes even these little beasties. No, I didn’t give ’em any Guinness.”
He silently snorted. “I’m off the phone if you want a break. I can stay out here with them.”
She nodded and stood, glancing at her watch. “We shouldn’t let ’em sleep more than an hour if we don’t want their parents hatin’ on us for messin’ up their bedtimes.”
He gave her a thumbs-up and she headed inside, straight to her bathroom, where she locked the door and silently cried.
Miss ye, Da. Bloody hell I miss ye fierce.
Later that evening, after dark, she slipped out to the backyard, sat with her back against the same tree, except on the far side, away from the house, and started softly playing “Lark in the Morning.”
Sitting in the bedroom frigging herself in Tamsin’s bed wasn’t the worst idea, but not if she wanted to get her mind off that conundrum.
Instead, she opted to do something she rarely let herself engage in, and that was think about her father and revisit some of the good times.
So many memories, and it was difficult to focus on the good and not her still-seething rage at what happened to him, Paddy, and Nic. How bloody senseless their deaths had been.
Wondered how her father would have loved being a grandfather. What kind of fathers and uncles her brothers would have been.
Shoving those thoughts away, she tried to remember her father’s smile, his laugh, the pride when she played with him and his mates in the pub.
Remembered the feel of his hands on hers as he taught her how to play the fiddle.
Remembered how good it felt to have his undivided attention in those times when both money and time had been desperately scarce in their household.
The little ones she now watched would, hopefully, never know the pain, the grief—the rage—that had shadowed and darkened most of her years.
She’d worked her way through several pub jam favorites when Carl’s voice startled her from the other side of the tree.
“That’s really good. I didn’t know you played music,” Carl said.
Bloody hell, I didn’t hear him. She paused to catch her breath and let her pulse return to normal, but she didn’t look up.
“Ye never asked.” She resumed playing, this time a slow, mournful rendition of “Whiskey in the Jar.”
Then again, anything sounds mournful if you play it right. Or wrong, I suppose.
He walked around the tree, his footsteps crunching in the grass, to stand in front of her. She looked up at him, where his bulk was backlit by the security lights on the fence.
“Why do you always act so prickly?” he asked.
“Are all Americans as rude as ye seem to be, or are ye just special like that? I was sittin’ here mindin’ me own business, ye feckin’ bogtrotter.”
He squatted in front of her, at eye level. “Aisling, I’m really trying, here. It’s like you don’t want to let any of us in, and can I remind you we’re on the same team?”
She didn’t respond, instead slipping into playing “Cheeseburger in Paradise” but more like a reel.
Something that used to irritate the unholy hell out of one of her mates, which of course made her take great pleasure in doing it.
Unfortunately, he never made it home from deployment.
Twenty years on, she could still smell the blood and hear his dying moans.
Carl heavily sighed before a scowl washed over his face. “Is that…Jimmy Buffett?”
She kept playing, transitioning into “Parting Glass.”
He finally reached out and curled a hand around hers and the tin whistle. “Aisling, talk to me. Please?”
She resisted the urge to jerk free of his grip because she didn’t relish looking like Badger because she poked her eye out with a tin whistle.
That would be both painful and humiliating, and she wasn’t a masochist. “Got nothin’ to talk about.”
“Well, then we’re at an impasse, because I need to know what’s going on. And we’ll sit here all night if we have to until you talk to me.”
She scowled at him while trying to come up with the perfect snarky response until he suddenly blurred and doubled, tripled in front of her as tears filled her eyes.
Up until that second, she’d thought she hated his irritating ways, but nope.
Turned out she hated his sympathy even more.
“This is between us,” he softly said. “Please talk to me.”
She finally met his gaze. “I have a mate bond with Tamsin,” she whispered. “And bloody hell, I can’t tell her that now, can I?”
His head dropped forward as a heavy sigh escaped him. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Does Dewi know?”
“Yeah. And Badger and Duncan. They helped me with their Prime to try to keep my head and wits about me.”
“That’s why that day I saw you in her room…” He sighed again. “And it’s why you keep trying to rile me up to get you kicked out.” He finally looked up, releasing his grip on her. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, even I’m not arsehole enough to tell Tamsin. So here I’m stuck, in bloody hell.”
He sat cross-legged in front of her. “Dewi wouldn’t reassign you?”
“Not when Trevor himself requested I do this. And no, he don’t know, either. And no, not tellin’ him.”
“You never felt it for her before now?”
“Never met her before in person. Christ, she just became a mum, and from what ye all said, she barely hung on to life to reach that point. I surely can’t burden her with this. Correction—I will not burden her with this.” She blinked away the sudden, burning memory of that day.
Of the sound of Maisie’s last words.
He slowly nodded. “Did you think maybe what you should do is tell Tamsin?”
“Are ye feckin’ daft, man? I just told ye—”
“She had a mate bond with Maisie. She’s felt it before.
Maybe give her some credit, huh? Let her have a say before you unilaterally decide to keep it from her.
Maybe she’ll feel one for you, too. And,” he continued when Aisling tried to speak, “as far as I’m concerned, I’m all for it.
Maybe it makes me selfish, but it would damned sure make life a hell of a lot easier for all of us if we knew we only had to worry about Tamsin and the baby’s safety from outside forces, not from Tamsin harming herself. ”
Aisling’s jaw snapped shut as she processed his words. “Ye think she still might? Dewi and them said they thought she was past all that.”
“I don’t know, and that’s my whole goddamned point.
Badger and Duncan think she’s turned the corner, but even they aren’t sure.
You didn’t see how she was back then. Understandably so, obviously, considering everything she’d survived, but she wasn’t pulling out of it.
It took all of the Primes constantly nudging her to keep her eating.
Brianna practically sat on her day and night, keeping an eye on her.
I’m not saying if you claim her it’d automatically heal her soul.
That’d be a stupid thing for me to say. But if you claim her, maybe it would give her yet another external reason to keep going until she’s strong enough to reach a healthier place.
I don’t think there’s a single person in this pack who’d object to you doing it. ”
“Except maybe Trevor and Elizabeth.”
“Aisling, they know mate bonds. From what I understand, they have one. They knew Maisie and Tamsin had one. They love Tamsin, and her baby is still their grandbaby. Unless I’ve seriously misjudged the guy, I think that maybe it’d be a surprise to Trevor, but he’ll come around in short order if not immediately. ”
“That’s bloody disrespectful though, innit?” she countered. “Here he’s taken me in and put his faith and trust in me, and it’s like I take advantage of it.”
“How, Aisling? That’s fate or the Goddess or blind damned luck that’s done it, not you.
” He reached out and touched her knee, reminding her a lot of one of her older brothers despite being younger than her.
“Look, if you have any worries about the Targhees not accepting your mating because you’re gay, stop worrying.
They had gay members before we joined. Even transfolk.
They accepted me and Mateo without hesitation.
They immediately accepted Tamsin. You’re pack.
Tamsin’s pack. And all anyone wants for you both as fellow packmates is for you to be safe and happy. Full stop.”
Part of her wanted to take everything he said at face value.
But then the dark void in her soul reached out and slapped her. “What’s she gonna want with someone like me, eh? I’m nearly three times her age. I’ve been to hell and back and not even sure I’m fit to be someone’s part-time fuck buddy, much less their full-time mate. And be a mum to a little one?”
“I can’t claim to know what you’ve been through,” Carl said.
“I was in the military, but my experience was different than yours. While my childhood wasn’t the best, yours makes mine look like a long-stay, all-inclusive Disney vacation.
Meaning I won’t bullshit you and tell you to just do it, and everything will be kittens and roses from here on out.
“But what I am telling you is that this pack has been through hell and back multiple times in its history. They stand by their own. And whether you want to admit it or not, you’re a damned good person with an even better heart and soul.
As for being a mom? You are a natural mom to those kids, Aisling.
Frankly, while I appreciate your sense of honor and duty, I think you’re a fucking idiot if you don’t sit down with Tamsin and talk to her like an adult.
You’re taking her choice from her on the opposite end of the spectrum by not telling her.
” He studied her. “Did Badger and them tell you not to tell her?”
Aisling didn’t answer at first. “More like they weren’t going to order me one way or the other. That it’s my choice. The help they gave me was shorin’ up my willpower to not go and claim her unless she wants it.”
“So…they didn’t forbid you from telling her?”
She shook her head.
He climbed to his feet. “No, I won’t tell anyone.
But if you think I’m so wrong, talk to Badger and Duncan again.
If they agree with me, then you have to start thinking that maybe the problem isn’t the situation but that you are a goddamned chickenshit who’s so used to not living up to people’s expectations in your head that you deliberately blow opportunities out of the water so you can feel right about something.
Even if it’s to be right about being wrong.
Because I gotta tell you, this sounds like it’s about your fear. ”
She wanted to jump up and punch him, scream at him, tell him how wrong he was.
Except…
She couldn’t.
Because he was most likely spot-on.
Or rather, he was completely right.
And she knew it.
That wasn’t something she had the mental or emotional bandwidth to contemplate at that moment.
But there was no way she’d drag Tamsin down with her.
After sniffling back tears and rubbing her face against her shirt sleeve, she put the tin whistle to her lips again and started playing “Slan Le Maigh” while trying not to cry.
Carl slowly shook his head and finally left her alone in the backyard.