When a Rat Can’t Take a Hint #2
"Everyone did so good this time, you can all pick out your own desserts."
"For after dinner," I hastily interject. "Neeve and I have a conference with her teacher at St. Patrick's after lunch and won't have time for dessert."
"We do?" Neeve pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Will Kieran be there?"
"Yes."
She smiles and sits on the floor in front of the coffee table to eat her soup and watch her movie.
How did he become so necessary and trusted so fast?
Torch comes from the kitchen and makes for the front door. "I'll be in the hall until it's time to go to St. Patrick's."
"In the hall?" I ask, startled.
Ellie answers as Torch slips out the door. "It's his job."
"To stand in our hallway?" Sadie asks, not as enthralled by the movie as she is our discussion.
Ellie shrugs. "Sometimes, yes."
Okay. I add that to my growing list of things I need to ask Kieran about. Do we have a bodyguard now? Is it because Kenneth is a threat to us? Or is it something a man who is worth more than thirty-million dollars expects his family to have all the time?
He's so normal. Intense, sure, so maybe not normal, but he doesn't act like a wealthy man. I mean, does he even have to work?
Why would he?
More questions for the list.
Mom, Ellie and I are sitting at the table, our food on plates (like mom prefers) and mugs of steaming tea in front of us when she gives me a measuring look. "No wonder you kept him a secret."
"Uh…" I had the whole drive over here to think and I still don't know what to say.
"You didn't want to tell me you were dating a mobster." Mom sighs. "Ten years ago, I would have flipped the lid right off my kettle if you'd told me you were dating a gangster."
"But not now?" I ask cautiously.
Mom shrugs. "Life changes us. Kieran's a mobster but I can already tell he'll be better to you than Troy ever was."
Does that mean she missed Kenneth's pointed remark about my dead husband?
"What did Kenneth mean when he said he saved you from the bad choice you made marrying Troy?"
"Kenneth never saved me from anything. Troy was in the mob." There's no reason to tell my mom he got killed for betraying them. "I didn't know until Kenneth told me and then he used that fact to blackmail me into working for him for low wages."
All true. Just not all of the truth.
"He's such an asshole," Ellie says angrily. "I wish I'd known."
"Like we knew you were working for the mob?" mom asks her with raised brows.
Ellie smiles sheepishly. "I didn't think you'd want to know, Mamma Mo."
"You might be right about that." Mom takes a sip of her tea. "I never told you, but when your dad worked on the docks, his boss was mobbed up."
"Most men in positions of power are," Ellie says, a shrug in her tone.
Mom nods. "You might be right about that. Braden liked the man, but when his boss asked him to join the mob so he could give him a promotion he wanted to, my husband turned him down. He could work for them, but he couldn't break the law to do it and that's what it would have meant."
My dad was one of those men that never told a lie in his life. I bet Kieran has told plenty, but I still have this inexplicable certainty the two men were cut from the same cloth.
One with bends and the other on a straight and narrow.
"Braden's boss couldn't promote him, but he never treated him differently either. Mr. O'Brien respected your father and Braden respected him."
I remember my dad's boss coming around after his death, offering help. Mr. O'Brien paid for dad's funeral and made sure mom was doing okay. My dad might not have joined the mob, but his boss treated us like he'd been one of their own and I'm only seeing that now.
Mostly because I had no clue about Mr. O'Brien's mob ties.
"I don’t know what Kieran does for the mob, but I can guess by his nickname it's not something we'll be talking about over the dinner table.
" Mom sips her tea. "What I do know is that he was there for you when you needed him.
He showed up this morning doing his best to take away the bad and get Sadie and you all smiling.
He put his man on us to keep us safe today. He reminds me of your dad."
"That's high praise, Mamma Mo, but I think you're right."
"I do too." I tell them how I think the two men were cut from the same bolt of fabric, just with different pattern pieces.
Mom nods, smiling. "That's a good way to put it."
Kieran's like my dad in more ways than one. He could have kept this marriage thing about the safety thing and whatever white knight complex he's got going on. But he didn't.
He's taking us to Disneyland to give the girls a good memory to go along with their mom getting married again.
He orchestrated the shopping today. And the way he showed up with pastries and morning cocoa for the girls this morning?
The way the man Ellie considers dour made all of us smile like mom said?
That's about making our lives better, not just safe.
Kieran might be part of a criminal organization. He might break the law and even kill people. He definitely threatened to kill Kenneth, so his Wraith days aren't in the past, but for all that…he's a good man.
A man I could fall for. Which might just be scarier than being stuck in the underboss's crosshairs.