Chapter 1 Cocoa and Heartfelt Confessions
KARA
Mick's going to be back from his meeting with da any minute, and it can't come soon enough for me. This Christmas-in-July thing is chaos wrapped in twinkle lights.
It sounded like a good idea at the time.
That's going to be my epitaph because it's entirely possible I'm not going to survive this mayhem.
But how could I tell Fitz no? He wants to do it for his little brother. The year the twins were born on Christmas Eve, Cormac thought they were his special presents.
It didn't take him long to figure out that newborns don't make the best playmates and they demand a lot of attention from the family he was used to being the center of. His acting out was normal and he settled, like moma said he would.
Until the twins turned one on Christmas Eve and they got both a birthday party, complete with smashing cakes (which Mavie was having none of) and Christmas to celebrate.
Fitz found his little brother crying in his room that night because he wasn't special like the twins. He was only born in July. God must like Mavie and Sorcha more because he gave them a birthday to share with Jesus.
He didn't get that from his da or me, but we're an Irish Catholic family.
People say things like that, even moma, without realizing how hurtful they can be.
She would never has said that God likes the girls more than Cormac, but she did say they're special because they share their birthday with the Son of God.
Fitz tried explaining to Cormac that Jesus wasn't really born in December, because even at eight, he was smarter than a lot of adults. Our youngest son wasn't consoled. Not then, and not when Mick and talked to him.
Usually Mick can get through to our kids when I can't and vice versa, but this idea had been brewing in our two-and-a-half-year-old's brain for months and it wasn't going anywhere.
While Mick and I tried to figure out how to help our son see how important he is to all of us—and my grandmother, father and even Hope, told us he'd grow out of what they termed his sibling rivalry—Fitz came up with the idea of celebrating Christmas-in-July for Cormac's third birthday.
Loving the holidays, I jumped on board with both feet and not a lot of forethought, but Cormac loved it and his confidence really seemed to come back after his third birthday.
We do the whole thing now. A Christmas tree goes up mid-June, we bake Christmas cookies and one week after Cormac's birthday on July 18th, there are lots of presents on the 25th.
That's Mick's favorite part. He loves buying things for me and our children.
Although half my presents from him can't be opened in front of them.
Even if the kids didn't love this new family tradition, all the uproar would be worth the creative gifts my obsessed husband comes up with.
But this year? I've got a special gift planned for him that is going to rock his world.
And mine.
MICK
Semi controlled chaos reigns in our pine scented living room when I come in after my meeting with Brogan.
Because Cormac got to feeling wee about it, we celebrate Christmas twice a year now. Brogan thinks it's daft, but the chisselers love it and Kara gets all gooey-eyed when I participate. That look is worth everything.
And I will never allow it to dim again.
I inhale deeply, letting the rightness of being with my family in our own space settle over me.
I don't know how Kara is going to react to her father's decision to officially hand over the mantle of boss to me nearly a decade ahead of schedule, but right now, my precious wife is in her element.
Softly singing along to carols playing at low volume from the smart speaker, she helps Fitz put the lights on the Christmas tree.
I wince. That's supposed to be my job, but my meeting with Brogan kept me late.
Like a lot of things have been lately and once I take over as boss, it's only going to get worse if I don't do something to change it.
This right here? Is for our chisselers.
Two of which are better at causing Mayhem than Gobby. Mavie, our sunshine girl, is giggling as she pulls ornaments from the boxes, tears away their packing wrap and drops them on the ever-growing pile around her on the floor.
She shoves the wrap at her two-year-old twin sister. "Here."
Expressionless, Sorcha takes the crumpled paper, flattens it and adds it to her own pile, this one as neat and tidy as a nun's room at the convent.
Miles, the mutt with a big dose of bulldog in his ancestry Kara adopted from a shelter for Fitz while she was pregnant with Cormac, keeps a dozy eye on his people from a spot by the fireplace. Gobby, our son's cat, is nowhere to be seen.
He's probably hiding one of the ornaments somewhere in Fitz's room as homage to his favorite person. Although the cat is surprisingly tolerant of the littles.
Cormac, our almost four-year-old, is waging war with miniature nutcracker ornaments. Two have already lost their heads and the tip of the spear of another doesn't look long for this world.
Kara keeps a set of them hung around the bottom branches of the tree for the chisselers to play with, gluing heads and parts back on as needed. There's an entire box of tree decorations she's accumulated that double as toys.
Figurines that used to be Fitz's favorites. Miniature stuffies from a Christmas movie. All of the deer from Rudolph's movie have red noses courtesy of Fitz because Cormac cried about Rudolph being different.
That's our twelve-year-old all over. He sees a problem and he fixes it, but especially for his younger brother and sisters.
Kara brushes her hand over the top of Sorcha's head after passing the string of lights to Fitz who is standing at the top of the step ladder beside the tree. Our dour daughter doesn't react, but she doesn't flinch away from her mam's touch like she does anyone outside our immediate family either.
That's something, I guess.
I don't remember distinguishing between my parents and siblings and the rest of the world as a child. I didn't want anyone touching me. Maybe it would have been different if I'd been born a twin.
Mavie is Sorcha's person and she acts as a conduit to the rest of us.
Kara bends down to redistribute a lump of ornaments all hanging on a single branch close to Mavie.
As she straightens, I pull her into my arms and kiss her temple, inhaling her scent and letting it settle me. "Aren't we supposed to get the lights on before you start decorating?"
Kara turns in my arms and grins up at me. "Good luck getting the wild ones to wait."
Her lips are too kissable to resist. So, I don't. She tastes like cinnamon and I get lost in the sweetness that is my wife.
Until a sturdy body lands against my legs. "Da! You're home."
Kara breaks the kiss and steps back so the chisselers can greet their da.
I drop to my haunches and ruffle Cormac's hair. "That I am." Mavie lands against me with an oomph, demanding a hug and a kiss.
Then I put my hand out to Sorcha and our quiet girl, brushes her own over it before stepping back.
"If you and mom want to hang the lights, I can get the littles to play a game with me," Fitz offers.
I step up to grab the lights, hanging them on the other side of the tree and then bring the long assed strand of multicolored LED lights back around to him.
"Na. Let them do their worst. You know your mam will only come in later and rearrange everything above the lowest branches later tonight anyway. "
And I don't want Kara on the stepladder, which she'll insist on climbing to get the lights on the top half of the tree because I'm so much taller than her.
"And you'll help her because you love her." Fitz looks at me with a question in his eyes.
I don't know what it's about; he knows I love his mam.
"Aye. I'll help her." If for no other reason than to get my woman into our bed that much sooner.
I do not feckin' care if our tree looks festive or like a grumpy Christas elf threw up all over it, but I do care if my wife is happy with it.
"Uncle Adam doesn't treat Aunt Fia the way you treat mom." Fitz is too intent on getting the light strand just where he wants it to look at me.
"He's not unkind to her." If he were, I'd sort him, brother, or no brother.
Once I learned what Chivon's husband did to her during their short marriage, I killed the men who knew it was happening and did nothing to stop it. We hurt our enemies, not our families.
"No. But…" Fitz's voice trails off.
I make another circuit around the tree with the lights while I wait for him to continue.
When I hand Fitz the light string again, he meets my gaze, his serious. "I don't think he loves her."
"Why is that then?" I ask, not really fashed one way or the other if my brother loves his wife.
But something about their dynamic bothers my son.
"When we visited them in March, I saw him with someone."
Someone not Fiona and doing something that Fitz has been chewing on for the past three months. I don't know if my brother has a mistress, but even if he did, I have a hard time believing he did something indiscreet where his nephew could see him.
"Is it something that you maybe misunderstood?" Kara asks.
"No." Fitz is definite.
"What happened?" I ask.
"Remember when we went out to dinner with everybody?"
"Aye. I remember." Protection was a logistical nightmare with that many primaries to guard.
"I went to the bathroom, but when I came out, it sounded like someone around the corner was sick, or something. They were moaning." Fitz's cheeks burnish red. "But it wasn't that."
"Why don't you two let me finish the lights?" Kara puts her hand out for the light strand. "And you can go talk about this."
But Fitz and I shake our heads at the same time. "We'll talk after we're finished." I nod at Fitz. "Right, boyo?"
Relief washes over his features. "Right, da."
Seeing his uncle macking on a woman in the hallway of a restaurant is probably not something he wants to talk about in front of his mam anyway. The fact he started the conversation here and now says a lot about how heavily it's been weighing on him.