Chapter 18 #2
“You told me to.” She stops a few feet away, her head cocked to the side. The garden beds and vines, the stone path. Cataloging everything. “This is where you keep the sprites? And what’s the story with them?” Her eyes twinkle at me.
“Aye. Your wee sprites and fae. They’re taking over the whole garden. Come on.” I push off the fence and gesture toward the wildest section, where the plants have gone mental. “Let me show you what your magical friends have been up to.”
“I’m surprised. You’ve got siblings and cousins younger than you, and you let a few wayward sprites get to you?”
“Aye. After I texted, I sent the lot of them to time-out in the shed.”
She smirks. “Did you, now? Or did you use their misbehavior to get my attention, Cavin?”
I shrug. “Might’ve done.”
Her gaze finally lands on me. “You wanted to talk.”
I push off the fence and gesture toward the barn. “Let's walk.”
She hesitates, then follows. Inside, the smell of hay and horse and leather fills the space. It's quiet here. Bronwyn’s a horse lover, and Da liked to put the barn on the property to good use.
“Horses,” she breathes out. “You have horses.”
“Aye. They’re Bronwyn’s.”
Here, it’s peaceful… almost. I lead her past the stalls—Midnight, Banshee, Finn—until we reach the tack room in the back.
I grab two stools, then set them facing each other. “Sit.” When she quirks a brow at me, I tack on a “Please.”
She does, perching on the edge like she might bolt. Her hands rest on her knees, fingers tapping. One, two, three, four. Over and over.
“You do that a lot,” I say, nodding at her hands.
She stills them immediately, clasping them together. “Do what?” Her pretty cheeks flush pink.
“The tapping. Counting.”
Her jaw tightens. “It helps me think.”
“Helps you think, or helps you cope?”
Her eyes narrow, but her voice drops. “What's the difference?”
“One's about problem-solving. The other's about surviving.” I lean back, arms crossed. “Which is it?”
She doesn't answer right away. Just stares at me, weighing whether I'm taking the piss or if I actually give a fuck.
“Both,” she says finally. “It's both.”
Fair enough.
“Look,” I say, “we're doing this thing. Getting married. And I know you didn't sign up for it willingly, but neither did I, so we're even there.”
“Even.” She repeats the word like she's testing it. “You think this is even.”
“No. But I think we're both stuck, and we can either make it hell or we can try not to kill each other. Your choice.”
She considers this, her head tilting slightly. “You're surprisingly pragmatic for someone who locked me in a bathroom.”
Jesus Christ. Straight for the throat.
Are her eyes dancin’ a bit?
“Erin, I didn't lock you in,” I say, keeping my voice level. “The lads did.”
She holds my gaze for a moment. “But you were there.”
“Aye.”
“And you didn't stop them.”
I shake my head. “I didn't.”
She nods once, like I've just confirmed something she already knew. “At least you're honest about it.”
“Would lyin’ make you feel better?”
“No.” Her fingers start tapping again. “But an apology might. It felt… good when you apologized at St. Albert’s.”
I exhale slowly, scrubbing a hand over my jaw. “I'm sorry. For that, and for every other shite thing I did to you back then. I’m sorry, Erin. You didn't deserve it.”
She blinks—once, twice—like she's processing.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay?”
“Yes. Okay. You apologized. And this time, I… I accept.” She shifts on the stool. “Can we move on now?”
Christ, she's a different sort.
“Right. Moving on.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
“Figured we needed some time, just the two of us, without crowds or family pressin’ in.
And every time we’re together, we’ve got a damn audience, so…
” I rub a hand across the back of my neck.
“Now that the sprites and fae are momentarily quiet…”
Her lips twitch, and she nods. “You want to get to know each other a bit more? Cavin McCarthy, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think that was downright civilized.”
I snort. “Let’s not get carried away. I do have a reputation to keep.”
She smiles softly. “So I can ask questions?”
“Aye.”
“Are there… limits to the questions?” Her brow rises.
“You can ask anything you want. I’ll tell you as much as I’m able.”
Nodding, she leans back a bit. “That’s fair. Alright.” She studies me for a long moment. I could get lost in those earthy brown eyes and be happy for it. “Can you tell me more about why you were in prison?”
Of course that's her first question. Likely been holdin’ back.
“Assault. But it… wasn’t me. It was my da. But I took the hit. At the time, he was acting head.” I sigh. “And it would’ve killed Mam. He nearly killed a man.”
“Nearly.” Her tone is clinical, detached. “Not quite.”
“No. Not quite.”
She blinks. “Why?”
“Bloke hurt my sister, Bronwyn. Not the kidnapping—this was before that. He… touched her. At a party.”
Erin's expression doesn't change, but her fingers stop tapping. “And your da found out.”
“Aye. Beat him bloody. Broke his jaw, three ribs, and fractured his skull. Would've kept going if Seamus and I hadn’t intervened. When the police arrived, I was the one standing over him. And that was on purpose.”
She blinks. “How long were you in?”
“Six months. Got out early for good behavior.” I snort. “Barely.”
She nods, filing the information away like she's adding it to a spreadsheet in her mind. “Your brother Torin. He’s in prison too?”
“Aye. He’s got time to serve, still.”
“I'm sorry,” she says. And the thing is, she sounds like she means it. Not performative. Just… factual.
We sit in silence for a moment, the only sound the soft snorting of horses in their stalls.
“Your cousins,” she says eventually. “And your uncles. Tell me about them.”
I settle back, glad for the change in subject.
“Ashland's older than me. Uncle Nolan’s son. He's…” I search for the words. “Dangerous. Quiet about it though. You'd never know unless you saw him work. He's Seamus's enforcer. When someone needs to disappear, Ashland handles it.”
“Disappear as in leave town, or disappear as in die?”
“Both, depending.”
She nods like I've just told her he's an accountant.
“And Lorcan?”
“Uncle Nolan's boy, Ashland and Donovan’s brother. He was at the dinner? Built like a tank. Does security, mostly. Studied engineering at Trinity before he dropped out to work for the family.”
“Why did he drop out?”
“His da got shot. Nearly died. Lorcan came home to help run things with Donovan while Nolan recovered.”
“That's loyal.”
“That's family.”
She absorbs this, filing it away. “And your uncles? Cormac and Nolan?”
“Aye. Da's younger brothers. Once ran the clan, but they’re older now, with families of their own, so they don’t hold the weight in the clan they once did, and now their sons are of age.
Still, they’re well respected and hold heavy clout in Ballyhock.
You don't fuck with the McCarthys because of them.”
“And your father?”
“Head of the family. Was, anyway, until he handed it to Seamus. He retired after the… incident.” The one that sent me and Torin to prison. “But he's still the most dangerous man in Ireland when he wants to be.”
Erin's quiet for a moment, processing. Then, “Your family operates in a clear hierarchical structure. Patriarchal, militaristic. Roles are defined by skill set and reinforced through loyalty and violence.” She gives me a curious glance. “And your family’s… prolific, one could say.”
I smile. The lass is bloody brilliant, if a bit quirky.
“You writin’ an essay, lass? That's one way to put it.”
“It's the most accurate way.” She tilts her head. “My family is different.”
“How so?”
“We're more… distributed. Less hierarchical. My father's the head, technically, but my mother controls the money, the alliances, the social networks. My father handles the violent side—the enforcement, the intimidation. But he doesn't make decisions without her.”
“A partnership, then.”
“No. A codependency.” Her voice is flat, clinical. “He needs her intelligence. She needs his brutality. Together, they're formidable. Apart, they'd crumble.”
“And where do you fit?”
“I don't.” She says it simply, without self-pity. “I'm useful, but not valued. I manage the books because I'm good at it and because no one else wants to. But I'm not part of the inner circle. I never have been.”
“And your sister? Bridget?”
Her expression shifts—just barely, but I catch it. Pain, there and gone.
“Mam doesn’t like to talk about it, but it’s useless hiding it. Bridget’s sick right now.”
She twists her hair as if she’s uncomfortable. It takes me by surprise. Sometimes, she seems so poised and detached. Then others…
“I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
I smile. “I know.”
I study her for a long moment. The way she holds herself—rigid, controlled. The way her mind works—data and patterns and brutal honesty. She's not like anyone I've ever met.
“You really don't care what people think of you, do you?” I ask.
She shifts and sighs, tucking a stray strand of hair out of her face, back into the plait that’s come loose.
“I care. I just can't change how my brain works, so I stopped trying.” She shrugs.
“People think I'm rude, or cold, or strange.
Maybe I am. But I'm also right most of the time, and I'd rather be right than be liked.”
God, I fuckin’ love that. She tilts her head to the side.
“You're not what I expected,” she says suddenly.
“Aye? How so?”
“You're not…” She pauses, searching. “You're not performing. Most people perform. They say what they think you want to hear, or what makes them look good. You don't do that.”
“Neither do you.”
“No. I don't.” She almost smiles. Almost. “Sort of a pair, then? Maybe that's why this… might work.”
“This being…?”
“The marriage. The arrangement. Whatever this is.” She stands, brushing hay off her leggings. “I should go. I have work.”
“Erin.”
She stops, then turns back.
“For what it's worth,” I say, “I'll try not to make this hell for you.”