Cathal
I tossed the pen across my desk and watched it skitter and fall off the edge. Frustration lived inside of me along with pain, the emotional kind. I’d left the commune in the early hours of Saturday and had been at Wicked Desires since.
I hadn’t wanted to check into a hotel and have people speculating on why I was staying there. And going to the beach house in Dania Beach was out of the question. I needed to be here at Wicked in Palm Coast, even though there was one in Hollywood, only about five miles away from Dania Beach.
Not that I was getting much work done. I kept reliving Bronagh’s reaction to finding out about my ties to Wicked.
She had been hurt and wouldn’t even look at me.
It almost killed me to leave her at the commune, but what else was I to do?
I couldn’t let her leave. If anything happened to her, it would kill me.
Plus, as stupid as it was to hope, my heart kept saying if she were nearby and with my family, I’d find a way to make things right, and she’d accept me, so that the wedding that was supposed to happen this coming Saturday would go ahead. Foc, how had everything gone so awry in less than a month?
The sequence was so rapid. I saw her picture, then met her, brought Bronagh home, and declared I would marry her all in less than twelve hours.
And then, within three weeks, I was consumed by her and falling in love.
Why hadn’t I told her about Wicked and myself before we got in so deep?
It would’ve saved a helluva lot of misery.
I glared at my desk. I acknowledged that I wasn’t accomplishing much here.
Jaleel had asked if everything was alright, and I lied.
He knew it, too. I kept spacing out, spending hours in the office doing nothing.
I had to snap out of it. Wicked was my only escape and future.
I couldn’t afford to let it go down the drain like my future happiness with Bronagh had.
Sighing, I stood to pick up my pen and get my ass back to doing actual work.
I bent down to grab it. As I did, my cell phone went off.
Groaning, I found it on my messy desk, buried under spreadsheets.
It was Daid. Was he calling again to lecture me to come home?
Dia, I hoped not. I’d heard from everyone in the family.
They thought if Bronagh and I talked, we’d work this out.
I was tempted not to answer, but I never ignored my parents on purpose. I hit the Talk button.
“Hi, Daid, how are you?” I asked, deciding to direct the conversation from the start.
“Cathal, you need to come home,” he said without preamble.
“Daid, I’m not doing that, and you know why. You and the others have to stop calling me and saying that. I can’t be there with Bronagh. You know that and why.” There was a slight tinge of irritation in my voice that I couldn’t keep out.
“Fine, I thought you’d want to be here when Dr. Keim comes, but if that’s how you want it. I won’t bother you again.”
“Wait! What is Dr. Keim coming for? Who’s sick? Is Mam alright? Is Bronagh?” I asked, panic rising.
“Your Mam is fine. And so is the rest of the family…well, if you still count her as family, then I guess that’s not true,” he muttered.
“Daid, is it Bronagh?” I asked again, nearly ready to scream at him to spill it.
“Yes, it’s Bronagh. If you don’t care, that’s fine, I—”
“I’m coming!” I shouted, already racing for my office door.
“I thought you would. Troi is waiting for you outside. See you soon. Don’t get into a wreck.”
“Soon,” was all I said before hanging up.
Running through the middle of Wicked, I saw the few employees there give me worried glances as I ran by.
“Tell Jaleel I had to go home,” I called out to them as I passed. I didn’t wait for any of them to indicate they would.
I found Troi was waiting exactly where Daid said he would be. He had the passenger door open and the engine running. I dove inside and barely closed the door before I ordered him to go.
“Put on your belt. I’m not getting killed for you getting hurt because you didn’t wear it,” he replied.
I scowled at him, but I did it. He hit the gas as soon as I was secured.
As he drove toward home, I kept wondering what had happened to her.
If Dr. Keim was coming to the commune, it meant it wasn’t a medical emergency.
She wasn’t seriously hurt or dying. Or that’s what I told myself as the miles slipped by agonizingly slow.
?
Troi headed for my house, not the main one. He glanced over at me.
“Your dad told me to bring you to your place. That’s where they have her.”
“Thanks, Troi.”
“You’re welcome. Here we are. Get in there and see what’s wrong with her. And while you’re here, figure out this goddamn mess and get her back. I can’t stand to see you so despondent.”
He brought the car to a stop. I flung my door open before he fully stopped, and my feet hit the ground the second he halted the car.
I threw up a hand and ran for the door. It was opened a moment before I would’ve torn the handle off trying to get inside.
It was Mam. She had her arms open. I stopped to give her a gentle, though hasty, hug, followed by a kiss on the cheek.
“Where is she? What happened? How is she? Is the doctor here yet?” I rattled off.
“Take a breath. She’s conscious now. And Dr. Keim just got here. He’s checking her over,” she said calmly.
“I need to be in there,” I said, pulling away, but Mam latched onto my arms.
“Cathal, let the doctor work. You can see her as soon as we know what happened to her.”
Her words began to soak in, though I still wanted to be with Bronagh.
However, I let Mam lead me to the couch in the nearby living room.
Other family members were seated there. Daid was one of them.
Besides him, I saw Patrick, Maeve, Sean, Aisling, Alistair, and Brenda.
The rest of the family would still be at their various businesses or at the main headquarters.
“Can someone tell me what the hell happened to Bronagh? Why was the doctor called?” I asked before my ass touched the cushion.
“I came over earlier to see if I could get her to come have lunch with us. She refused. I backed off and left. However, when I got back to the main house and told Mam what Bronagh said, she said we were going back together and get Bronagh. She’s been alone in this house since you left, Cathal.
“Anyway, we did, and she didn’t answer, but that was how she was when I came the first time.
She had music playing then. The second time, when we opened the door, the security alarm went off.
She’d set it. I punched in the code. We weren’t concerned until she didn’t come running or holler out.
We found her in the study. She was lying on the floor next to the desk, unconscious.
” Aisling stopped there, but Mam took over.
“While I checked her out, your sister called Alistair, and then your dad. You know we don’t call outsiders unless we need to.
She was breathing fine, and her pulse was strong and steady.
She wasn’t bleeding, either, so we didn’t try to move her.
All we did was call her name to see if she’d wake up.
By the time Cormac and Alistair got here, Bronagh was regaining consciousness,” Mam explained,
“I did a general assessment on her when she regained consciousness. And Cormac called Dr. Keim to see if he was at home. If he weren’t, we would’ve taken her to the hospital.
However, we were in luck. He was playing golf at the club today.
He assured us he’d be here as quickly as possible.
Bronagh tried to make us call him off, and she insisted she was okay, but it’s clear that she isn’t.
She’s pale, tired-looking, and has lost weight.
You two look like twins. When I finished checking her out and got her to the bedroom, where she could rest, I asked Cormac to call you,” Alistair finished up the explanation.
“Did she say what happened? Did she hit her head?” I asked. It took everything in me not to jump up and run to the bedroom.
“She said she’d felt dizzy after I left, when she went to the study, but it went away after a few seconds, so she thought nothing of it.
She’d sat there for a few minutes when she decided she wanted something to drink.
Bronagh got up and was coming around the desk when she got dizzy.
Things began to go black, and that’s all she remembered until she woke up to us all standing over her,” Daid explained.
“Cathal, honey, you look terrible. Have you been eating? Sleeping?” Mam asked. Her concern was audible in her voice.
“I’ve been…” I was about to lie to her, but the look she gave me told me she already knew the answer, so I shut up.
“We’ll have Dr. Keim look you over when he’s done with Bronagh. The two of you are pining away for each other, yet too stubborn to talk. I should knock your heads together,” Aisling muttered.
“I seem to recall ten years or more of someone pining,” I shot back.
“Yeah, and we both regret not telling each other sooner how we felt. We wasted all that time,” Alistair replied, not a bit scared. Of course, it took more than my halfhearted jab to worry the leader of the Hounds of Justice.
“Thank you for checking on her,” I told him.
“No problem. I’m glad I know enough to do at least that much.” He shrugged it away.
Alistair knew a lot more than what he claimed. He’d learned a lot of emergency first aid and other medical stuff, some from Dr. Keim, over the years, so he could take care of his men and women in the field if someone got hurt.
Dr. K.’s arrival halted the conversation, which prevented the lectures. He’d come out of our bedroom. His forehead was creased with lines. I came to my feet. I hurried over to him and held out my hand. He automatically shook it.
“Hello, Cathal. I was told you would be coming.”
“Hello, Doc, thanks for coming. How is she? Did you figure out what’s wrong?” I asked.