The Aces MC Complete Collection

  No, I still didn’t feel anything.

  I’m not sure if it was because I had no room for anything outside of the fear I had about Peg’s death, or if it was because I trusted Patrick to handle it… but I felt nothing about Kevie’s impending demise, or even the matter in which he died.

  The man had gone on to reside over his own parish, for God’s sake. He’d ignored his psychopath brother torturing me and had gone on to live as if he was without sin, as if he was worthy of the trust his parishioners placed in him. It made me sick to think of all the women Malcolm may have hurt, while their priest advised them to say nothing. No, I didn’t feel anything but relief that Kevie was going to die, and if that was wrong, I didn’t care.

  Because Kevie never returning to Ireland meant that there was no way he could tell Malcolm where I was.

  And Patrick…well, obviously nothing would end my love for him. After all the things he’d done, killing the man outside seemed insignificant.

  “Dere will be men here soon to pick him up,” he whispered in my ear as he stopped behind my chair. “Ignore dere presence—dey’ll not come into de house.”

  I nodded, “Are—are you sure he won’t wake up?” My hands were shaking slightly from the altercation, and I breathed deeply in order to get control of my emotions. I wasn’t in Ireland and Malcolm wasn’t in Texas. I knew there was nothing to be afraid of, even as my stomach twisted.

  “Yer safe, me love,” Patrick whispered back, making me jolt. He leaned his face into mine until our cheeks were touching. “I’ll never let anot’er t’ing happen to ye. But, know dis—we will be discussin’ de t’ings ye left out all dose years ago.”

  That wasn’t a conversation I was prepared to have, but I wasn’t about to argue. I nodded again, and let him kiss my cheek before reaching out to brush Peg’s wispy hair from her face.

  “Mum, it’s time to wake up,” I called gently. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  Patrick was silent as Peg gradually woke from her drug-induced nap, but his hand reached out to grip the back of my shirt as she opened her eyes and turned toward my voice.

  She was so much worse than the last time he’d seen her—and I wished I had told him before he got there that the tumor in her brain had completely taken her vision.

  “Amy?” She asked, gripping my hand.

  “Hey, Mum. I brought you a surprise.”

  “My handsome grandson?”

  I smiled as tears filled my eyes, “Nope, your handsome son.”

  “Patrick?” her hand reached out in front of her, and I covered my mouth with my palm as Patrick stepped around me so she could reach him.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he said softly, raising her hand to his lips to kiss it.

  “Oh, I’m so glad yer here.” Her accent had gotten deeper after the first week without her sight, and I wondered if it was because without seeing where she was, she simply forgot.

  “I missed ye,” he said, his eyes shut tight in pain.

  “Ach, I missed ye, too. Always too busy for yer mum.”

  “Never.” He leaned forward to kiss her forehead, and I dropped my face into my hands, unable to watch any longer.

  “Amy?”

  “Yeah, Mum?” I wiped at my face frantically even though she couldn’t see me, and cleared my throat.

  “Where’s Patrick’s gift?”

  “Me gift?”

  “Yes,” I groaned playfully, making Mum snicker. “She insisted on buying all of our Christmas presents before she couldn’t see anymore. The only problem with that is she has absolutely no patience, so she won’t wait until Christmas to give them out.”

  “No patience? Ha! No time, more like,” Mum commented, making Patrick take in a sharp breath.

  “Oh, none of that,” Mum scolded, squeezing Patrick’s hand in her frail one. “We both know that I’ll be gone soon, no use pretendin’ otherwise.”

  “You don’t have to be so blunt about it,” I scolded, standing from my chair angrily.

  I hated when she acted like dying was no big deal, absolutely hated it. It was the cause of all of our fights for the past five years. How could she act as if we’d all just go on without her? How could she act as if I could just go on without her? She was my best friend, my confidant, occasionally my co-parent and always the mother I’d never had.

  There would be no moving on from her death. Not for me.

  I was stopped short on my way to the door, as Patrick wrapped one hand around my waist and pulled me into his chest. His light kiss on my forehead had my whole body relaxing once again, and I took a few moments to get my emotions under control.

  With that one gesture, he’d cautioned me that this was not the time to be angry. He’d assured me that he knew exactly how I felt. He reminded me that I wasn’t alone in my grief.

  “I’ll go get Patrick’s present,” I said calmly to Mum.

  “Thank ye,” she replied, all evidence of her cantankerous mood gone.

  Patrick and Mum were talking quietly as I came back in with the wrapped gift, but both went silent as I got close enough to hear them.

  “Here you go, prodigal son,” I said drolly, tossing him the package I’d wrapped two weeks before.

  “Did ye just throw his gift?” Peg asked indignantly.

  “No, Mum,” Patrick and I said at the same time, making all three of us burst into laughter.

  “Eejits,” she grumbled.

  Patrick tore the paper slowly, and a small smile lifted his lips as he realized what he was holding.

  “T’anks, Mum,” he said softly, leaning over to kiss her on the lips. “Dis is a wonderful gift.”

  “For my wonderful boy,” she said back, patting his cheeks. They both had tears in their eyes as she rubbed her fingers over his cheek and down his nose, moving them up again to smooth his eyebrows and run softly over his lashes and the wetness there. “Read to me?”

  “Sure.”

  He sat back in his chair, and I stood to give them some time alone.

  “Amy, lie with me for a bit, my girl,” Peg called out before I could leave the room. “Let’s listen to my boy remind me of home.”

  I crawled in bed with her and laid my head on her shoulder, wrapping my arm around her tiny waist as she ran her fingers over my forearm.

  “I ya gae up to yon hill-tap, ye’ll there see a bonie Peggy—” Patrick began, stopping as Mum spoke.

  “I love Robert Burns,” Peg said, relaxing into me as the movement on my arm stopped.

  “You just like your name in there,” I teased, making her smile.

  I heard Patrick clear his throat, then he started again from the beginning,

  “I ya gae up to yon hill-tap,

  ye’ll there see a bonie Peggy;

  she kens her father is a laird,

  and she forsooth’s a leddy…”

  He finished the poem and started on another as Peg drifted off to sleep, and I listened to his clear voice as his accent grew thicker with each word. It wasn’t the one I remembered from our youth; it was Peg’s, and my throat grew tight with tears the longer he went on.

  “She’s asleep, Patrick,” I said quietly.

  He just shook his head, and continued without pausing. He kept reading as the men he’d called showed up and took Kevie away, as I got up to get him a bottle of water when his throat grew hoarse, as I climbed back in bed with Mum, and as the sun began to set in the sky. He didn’t stop, not for one moment.

  ***

  “Patrick?” I called fearfully, meeting his tear-filled eyes after the sun had completely fallen. “I don’t think she’s breathing.”

  “Come here, me love,” he ordered gently in a scratchy voice. I leaned up to follow his instructions, then froze as Mum’s chest rose one more time.

  “Come to me,” he said again.

  He raised his hand for me to take and I slid off the bed, walking numbly toward him, my eyes never leaving Peg’s chest. When I’d reached him, he pulled me into his lap, settling me acros
s his thighs as he wrapped one arm around me and I pressed my forehead to his throat.

  We were close enough that I reached out and grasped Mum’s hand in mine, running my fingers over the back of her fragile bones.

  I could feel the vibration as Patrick began to read again, and I watched in agony, with tears dripping down my face, as Peg continued to struggle for breath, not once waking up.

  We stayed that way long into the night, until finally, without fanfare and with her son reading her to sleep, Margaret Gallagher left us forever.

  Chapter 46

  Patrick

  I crawled into Amy’s bed as the sun finally began to rise, curling my body around her sleeping form. It had been the longest night of my life.

  Amy had been practically comatose after Mum had passed, unable to do the smallest thing to help me. I’d found the phone number to hospice and the funeral home on the refrigerator and by the time they’d arrived, I’d had to pry her out of the room so they could take Mum’s body away for burial.

  Mum’s body. No longer simply her, but suddenly a thing.

  My mother was dead. A part of me couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of those words, but the rest of me felt heavy in a way I’d never experienced before. I’d felt loss before, my da, men I’d lived with, and a woman I’d loved—but I didn’t think that anything had ever come close to the feeling of knowing I’d never again hear my mum’s scolding voice.

  I missed her already, and I wished for a moment that Brenna was with me. I didn’t think she even really remembered my mum, she’d stopped visiting so long ago. It was a shame that she’d missed so much time with her nan, but when Mum had insisted that she didn’t want to see my girl, I hadn’t argued. I understood why she’d felt the need to stay away, even if I hadn’t agreed with it. Brenna had already lost too much in her short life—I hated the thought of her losing even more.

  As my eyes grew heavy, I rolled to my side so I faced the door to the bedroom, tucking a still sleeping Amy against my back. I had so many questions filling up my mind that I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to sleep, but I knew I wouldn’t be getting my answers that morning. My wife was devastated—completely broken—and I knew deep in my gut that if I brought up the past while she was in that frame of mind, I might never get the answers I was looking for.

  ***

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  The angry words woke me from a deep sleep and I automatically went for the pistol that should have been on the floor next to the bed. Shit. I’d left it in my truck.

  “What are you doin’ in my house? Huh? Where’s my nan?”

  I looked up to see a large kid staring down on me from the doorway, a shotgun in his arms and no shoes on his feet. His skin was light, his body was in that unfortunate stage where it was getting taller but not yet wider, his hair was almost black and his nose was a bit big for his face. I knew immediately who he was, and I had to force myself not to cringe when I saw Malcolm’s eyes staring back at me.

  “Mum?” he asked in confusion as Amy sat up behind me.

  Shit, I didn’t know if I should force her back down or let her talk some sense into the kid—I didn’t want to get my ass shot.

  “Phoenix Robert Gallagher, if you don’t put that damn gun away, I’m going to beat you bloody!” she snapped, her voice husky from sleep.

  “Mum?” Damn, it was fucking odd hearing him call her mum in that Texas accent.

  “Get out, Nix,” she ordered. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  He nodded and glared at me as he stepped out the door, and as he began to walk away, she yelled at him again. “Nix, close the door and lock up the gun!”

  The door slammed with a loud bang, and suddenly I was lying in a quiet room with the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “How ye doin’, love?” I asked, rolling to my back so I could look at her.

  “I feel like shit, how about you?”

  I snorted at the apt description, then gave her a nod. “About de same. Can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “Me, either. And now I’ve got to go out there and tell my son.”

  “I t’ink he already knows.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still his mother… he needs the confirmation from me.”

  “Want me to go wit’ ye?”

  “No, can you stay in here for a while?” She looked sorry for asking, but I sure as hell understood her reasoning. The boy had just held a fucking gun on me. He wouldn’t want me witnessing the moment he learned his nan was dead.

  “Sure t’ing, gorgeous.”

  “Stop being charming,” she grumbled as she rolled away from me and off the side of the bed onto her feet. “I’m immune to it.”

  “Ye care if I get a couple more hours of sleep?” I asked, not even sure that I’d be able to sleep, but afraid if I was awake she’d kick me out before I was ready.

  “Nope, stay as long as you want.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  I watched her move around the room, pulling on a pair of sweatpants with some odd looking mascot on the side of them, and a long blue robe with frogs printed all over it. She moved as if I wasn’t even there, braiding those long ropes of hair and slipping on some socks that didn’t match.

  “Why’d ye do dat to yer hair?” I asked for the first time.

  “It grew in that way,” she answered in an odd tone.

  “No, de dreadlocks. Why’d ye do it?”

  She paused for a moment at the door, then turned to look at me.

  “Do you remember the way you used to run your fingers through it?” She asked with a bemused smile, then waited until I nodded in confirmation before she continued. “It wasn’t the same after it was cut off. It was rough and … I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone rubbing their fingers through it.”

  “So now they can’t.”

  “Right.”

  She left then, and I lay on the bed wondering if the real reason she’d done it was because she didn’t want me running my fingers through it.

  Perhaps it no longer mattered.

  Chapter 47

  Amy

  “How did you get into my safe?” I asked as I strode to the coffee machine on the counter. God, I felt like I hadn’t slept in weeks. My entire body felt heavy.

  “I know the combination,” Phoenix grumbled, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “Who’s the homeless guy?”

  “He’s not homeless, don’t be an ass.”

  The conversation was irrelevant, but I let him continue. We were talking around the elephant in the room, neither of us ready to face it just yet.

  “His beard is down to his chest and his hair is longer than yours.”

  “He’s Nan’s son. You’ve met him before.”

  “I don’t remember him,” he argued, crossing his arms across his chest.

  “He’s known you since you were a baby,” I replied watching him closely.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Patrick.”

  “Patrick what?”

  I knew where the conversation was going, and I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat. Shit. I wished so badly that Peg was there at that moment. She’d know what to do. A wave of grief rolled over me and I closed my eyes until the sharp pain calmed a little.

  “Gallagher,” I answered.

  Nix looked at the table, his shoulders stiff and his entire body practically thrumming with pent up emotion.

  “Is he my dad?” he asked quietly, like he was embarrassed to even be asking. Sometimes it felt like he was already an adult and I was just a nuisance in his life, but other times, like right then? He felt like the little boy who’d been afraid of his teacher in kindergarten and had cried every time I dropped him off that first week.

  “Oh, no. No, baby, I’m sorry, he’s not.”

  “I don’t understand,” he replied, shaking his head.

  His black hair was messy and hanging in his face, and as I watched it fall into his eyes, I had the overwhelming urge to take hi
m in my arms like I had when he was little and brush all of that wild hair out of his face.

  “It’s a long story, you sure you want to hear it?” I asked as I poured creamer into my coffee and sat across from him at the table. I didn’t want to talk about it, but if this was how he chose to spend the morning instead of talking about the huge, gaping hole that we now had in our lives… I wouldn’t argue with that.

  “I don’t have any plans.”

  I laughed a little at his nonchalant reply, and nudged him with my foot.

  “When I was a little older than you are now, my parents and I moved to Ireland—”

  “No shit?” he blurted, suddenly sitting up straighter.

  “No shit,” I confirmed, “and watch your mouth. Anyway, we moved to Ireland and that’s where I met your nan.” I shook my head, and felt a small smile pull at my cheeks. “I thought she was a crazy woman at first. She stopped me on my way home from school one day and asked me in for tea.”

  “You hadn’t even met her before that?”

  “Nope. Are you going to let me finish, or are you going to keep interrupting?”

  He scrunched up his mouth and motioned as if he was locking it up, before throwing the invisible key over his shoulder. Goofball.

  “So, to get the whole effect, you have to understand that my parents pretty much sucked. They were too busy with drugs and prostitutes to pay any attention to me.”

  Nix’s eyes grew so wide they looked like they were going to pop out of his head, and I knew it was taking every ounce of willpower he had not to comment. I laughed, feeling lighter than I had in the last three weeks.

  “So, Peg invited me in, and pretty much took me under her wing. After a while, I was sleeping at her house more often than I was home. One night, her son came home from Uni—their college over there—and he was pissed that some girl was taking advantage of his mom. I was freaked, but it didn’t take long before he realized that I wasn’t out to get anything from Peg.”