Chapter 44
forty-four
I pace nervously around the entertainment room, waiting for their arrival. It has been nearly a month since Katherine woke up, and today is the day she is being discharged from the hospital. I prepared her room across from mine. It is the only one I was able to modify to fit her accommodations.
Katherine is still weak, mostly using a cane to get around for short distances, but anything past that requires a wheelchair.
The bathroom is also the only one that has a walk-in shower instead of a tub.
I outfitted it for my mother several years ago, in case something was ever to happen.
She cursed me out and threw several rags at my face, calling me an ungrateful son and insisting she was fresh as a spring chicken.
Since everything went down with Marianne, I’ve been adamantly avoiding the house we share together. Not that I was ever there much to begin with. It was always too ostentatious for me, but Marianne insisted on a large, opulent home for entertaining.
“I can walk perfectly fine, you know.” Katherine’s voice drifts through the space. The elevator doors open on a ding, but I am too immersed in my thoughts to hear it.
“I know, Mama.” Ava sighs dramatically. “We’re just trying to make sure you don’t tire yourself out too fast.”
Katherine snorts dismissively. “I’ll have you know…
Liam.” Her gaze catches me lingering in the doorway, and she leaves her sentence unfinished.
I haven’t laid eyes on Katherine McDonough in nearly twenty-four years, but seeing her again, even after all this time, still takes my breath away.
She is just as gorgeous today as she was the day I met her.
Her ginger hair is set on top of her head in a messy bun. Ava’s signature look. Her lush emerald eyes are still bright and full of life, but there is a strip of sorrow there that I have never seen before.
“Hello, Kat,” I breathe her name, my voice low and husky, as I take in her lithe form.
Katherine has always been shapely, with solid hips and muscular thighs that squeezed me tight when I pounded into her sweet cunt.
Now, her body is thinner, less defined from years upon years of tube-fed nutrients.
The gorgeous minx stands from her chair, hands and legs shaking slightly with the effort. Ava hands her the wooden handcrafted cane I designed specifically for her discharge. She takes several shaky steps toward me and stops when we are nearly toe to toe.
I breathe in her scent.
Sweet honeysuckle.
Slap.
Avaleigh gasps in horror behind her mother, whose aim is still spot on. Stretching my jaw to ease the pain, I bring my hand up to massage the area, chuckling beneath my breath.
“Haven’t lost your power behind that swing, I see.”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares up at me with tears of anger in her eyes. I doubt they are tears of happiness and joy. We definitely won’t be falling into old times together anytime soon, as much as my dick jumps at the thought.
“Do it again!” one of the boys shouts from behind me. I let out a long sigh, my eyes falling closed as I count to ten. “We would love to get a video of that for our Vidbox.”
Startled, Katherine steps back, eyes wide as she takes in my twin sons, who are only months younger than their sister.
Funny thing is, they don’t look anything like Marianne with their ginger locks and green eyes.
The only thing they seem to inherit is her ability to turn up at the worst possible moment.
“I…”
Seamus strolls up next to me and smiles down at her. His charming smile disarms her for a moment, and she simply stares at him, mouth parted slightly in surprise. “Hi.” He holds out his hand for her to shake. “I’m Seamus, the better-looking twin, as you can clearly see.”
Katherine barks a laugh, her body jumping slightly, as if she’s surprised by her reaction. Gingerly, she takes his hand and gives him a weary smile.
“Katherine.”
“Oh, we know who you are.” Kiernan smirks next to his brother.
“Our da has been telling us stories about you since we were in diapers,” Seamus chuckles.
“Like about the time you put Mentos in his toilet before he sat down to take a shit.” He grins. “Or the time you dragged his air mattress out to the lake, and he woke up the next morning in the middle of it.”
Ava nervously bites her lip behind her mother, afraid of the reaction she might have to the sudden bombardment of memories and my oldest sons—Marianne’s oldest sons. None of us bothered to factor them into the equation when we built out the plan to bring her here.
To bring her home.
Her face is drawn in sorrow as she stares at my sons, but I can see a glimmer of affection sitting just beneath the surface. These may be the children of the woman who nearly murdered her, but unlike her…sister—Jaysus, that is still odd to say—there is no hostility to be found.
Tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and I move to shoo the two boys away, but someone beats me to it.
“Seamus and Kiernan Kavanaugh, what in blazes do you think you’re doing?” Mam hustles her way into the entertainment room, hands on her hips, staring at her grandsons. “Honestly, making such a ruckus when she just arrived. The poor girl will think you were raised in a barn.”
“Technically, the compound was an old barn, so—”
“Get out with you.” My mother snaps her towel at the two as she stomps our way. “Out. Out.” Seamus laughs wildly, winking at Katherine before he and Kiernan hop off to meet their girlfriend.
My mother shakes her head in disbelief as she stares after the twins.
“Honestly, now.” She sighs and turns toward us.
Her smile brightens when she sees Katherine, eyes brimming with raw emotion as she gazes at the woman before her.
“Well,” she takes a quick breath, “you’re just as beautiful as the last day I saw you.
” My mother opens her arms. “Welcome home, iníon.”
At the word daughter, the tears Katherine has been holding back fall from her eyes like a dam breaking. She falls forward into Mam’s warm embrace, crying into her shoulder, while my mother whispers into her hair.
“It’s all right now, love,” she coos, running a hand up and down her back. “You’re home. You’re safe, and you’re family.”
It is at that moment that I decide I will slay every last one of Katherine’s demons, no matter the cost. Even if it never makes things completely right between us again.
I have to at least try.
She doesn’t know it yet, but Katherine McDonough is mine.