We’d been sitting in the car all morning, and I had to piss so bad I felt as if my eyes were floating. I should have known that coffee wasn’t a good idea when Da had refused a cup, but I’d been so tired I hadn’t been thinking straight. Sleep was getting harder to come by as the days went on, especially on nights that I was away from Amy. I’d found myself plagued with either insomnia or nightmares, the two intertwining until I was no longer aware of how long it had been since I’d slept.
The morning was moving into afternoon when Da finally sat up a little in his seat and nodded toward the house. The wife and husband were moving between the house and the car, carrying what looked to be luggage.
Fuck.
He had better not be leaving town before we could get to him. My orders had been clear. Eliminate him before he had a chance to do any more damage than he’d already done. I wasn’t sure whose ear he’d been whispering in, but the information we’d been given said he was passing things on that he shouldn’t have been and it needed to be stopped.
We watched silently as the man kissed his children as they piled in the car, then stepped over to his wife to kiss her long and hard. I didn’t quite understand what I was seeing until I heard Da mumble, “Well, fuck me,” as the wife got into the car and drove away.
It was our chance.
We waited about a minute after the wife’s car turned the corner before we stepped quietly out of our car and moved toward the house. It was a stroke of luck that the family seemed to have been going on some sort of trip. They wouldn’t find him for days.
As we reached the side of the house, headed for the back door we knew led out to a small garden, we heard the shot. Both of us ducked down and searched the street, but nothing was moving.
“Jesus Christ,” Da hissed as he stood to his full height and looked into one of the windows. “De man shot his bloody head off.”
I moved in behind him to get a look and then wished I hadn’t.
The man was sitting on his sofa, a hand-stitched afghan wrapped around him like a cocoon, with one hand out—holding the gun that was resting on his chest. He’d pulled himself so far into the blanket that he hadn’t even tilted his head back before putting the barrel into his mouth and pulling the trigger.
He’d wrapped himself like a baby before ending his own life.
“He must’ve known we were comin’,” Da said quietly, pushing me from where I was frozen. “It’s time to leave. Now.”
We made our way to the car in what seemed like slow motion, and for the first time in over a month I felt the urge to vomit.
It took us over an hour to get home, and we didn’t speak one word during the entire trip. I was sure that my father had seen much more gruesome sights in the past twenty years, but he didn’t seem any more inclined to talk than I was.
I had no idea how I’d articulate my thoughts if he had tried to speak with me. I was completely and utterly without words at what we’d just witnessed and it seemed odd to me that the scene had affected me so much. I’d killed. I’d taken other men’s lives, but the sight of one man comforting himself with a blanket before he blew the back of his own head off seemed to have pushed me over the edge.
“It looks like yer mum and Amy are still at de commencement ceremony,” Da said as we parked in front of our small house. “Shall we drive over dere and see if we can catch dem?”
I couldn’t make myself form the words to tell him no. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even move my mouth. I just stared at him blankly.
“Right. Let’s get ye inside den.”
He opened his door and climbed out of the car before leaning back in. “Get out of de fuckin’ car Patrick,” he ordered, knocking me slightly out of my stupor.
I followed him inside and stood by the couch, replaying over and over in my head the way the man had kissed his wife before she left. He’d known. He’d known what he was going to do, but she hadn’t. She’d probably assumed that her husband had to work, or some other excuse he’d given to make her take a trip with three kids on her own. He’d made sure that they were gone, out of the house before we got there, and then he hadn’t waited before taking care of his death himself.
I’d seen many men beg and plead for mercy and promise their own mothers for a chance to live. I’d never before seen the courage I had that morning.
“Let’s go, son,” my da said gently, pushing me into the bedroom, and shoving me slightly onto the bed. “I’ll tell Amy ye weren’t feelin’ well.”
He pulled off my coat and boots, then flipped back the blankets on the bed and motioned me to crawl inside. Once I was there, he covered me slowly then leaned down to kiss my forehead like he had when I was a child.
“Put it out of yer head,” he commanded quietly. “He made his own decisions, and he paid for dem.”
I lay there silently for a long time after he’d gone, breathing in the comforting smell of Amy and trying to marshal my thoughts into some sort of understandable pattern. Then I slid my hand down the side of my leg and began to tap the rhythm that Amy had taught me the month before.
Chapter 29
Amy
Life was a mixture of incredible highs and frightening lows. Since Robbie had moved back in with Peg, Patrick and I were looking for an apartment or a small house of our own. Peg’s house just wasn’t built for four adults, and it felt like we were tripping over each other constantly.
My job at Dillon’s pub was working out well. I was getting more and more hours every week and had been setting aside most of my pay in a coffee can inside our dresser. The only downside was that Peg and I worked pretty much opposite shifts, so I barely got to see her anymore. I couldn’t complain too loudly, though, because Patrick had found mechanic work at a used car dealership and spent most nights after work sitting at the bar to keep me company.
We were living. That was the only way I could explain it. Finally, after months of surviving in that weird limbo, we were finally building a life. It wasn’t what I’d imagined, and I wasn’t sure how the hell we would manage if Patrick got me pregnant like he’d been trying to, but we were finally together and that fact made me practically giddy.
I didn’t ask about Patrick’s other job. He hated it and he’d come home looking like he hadn’t slept for days, even if he’d only been gone for a few hours. It made my stomach burn, and I’d been drinking so much milk to try and soothe the feeling that I had gained at least five pounds. I wanted to help him somehow, to take away the shadows in his eyes and get him at least one full night of sleep—but I couldn’t. There wasn’t anything I could do for him.
Sometimes, he’d walk through the front door and come directly to me, pulling me away from whatever I was doing and taking me straight to bed. Other times, he’d pass right by me on his way through the house, completely silent as he went into our room and shut the door solidly behind him, knowing I would follow. His moods were unpredictable, he barely slept, he carried a gun that I’d never seen before, and he spent most of his time at home glued to my side, even if he wasn’t speaking.
But it wasn’t all bad.
He also brought me flowers home. He brushed out my hair. On rare occasions when we had the house to ourselves, he’d run a bath and tug me in with him. He took me out to dinner, taught me how to play basketball, sat beside me in church and held my hand throughout the service.
He showed me he loved me in a million different ways and I tried to do the same for him. I think we were happy, as happy as we could have been under the circumstances.
***
“Hey, gorgeous, can I get another beer?” The American accent coming out of the stranger’s mouth had a wide smile breaking out across my face.
“Sure!” I chirped back, tossing down the rag I’d been using to wipe off the bar. “What were you drinking?”
“You’re American.” The man leaned over onto his elbows on the bar and smiled back. “What the hell are you doing all the way over here?”
“She goes where her
husband is.” Patrick must have seen our interaction, because he’d come up behind the stranger and moved smoothly around him.
The man started to laugh. “That makes sense.” He lifted his hand between them. “I’m Charlie.”
“Patrick,” my husband said with a nod, shaking Charlie’s hand. “Me wife, Amy.”
“Nice to meet you, Amy.”
“She’s workin.’ Ye can talk to me.”
I felt my face heat over the way Patrick was behaving. He might as well have pissed on my leg. The guy was just being nice, and he hadn’t even tried to flirt.
“I think you’ve got the wrong idea,” Charlie said, chuckling.
Patrick’s fingers began to tap on the bar top, and before I knew what I was doing, the palm of my hand slapped down over them, pinning them to the polished wood. “Knock it off, Patrick,” I warned through my teeth.
“Vera!” Charlie yelled across the pub. “Come over here, baby.”
A thin woman around my age stood up from where she’d been sitting surrounded by a big group of rough looking men and strutted toward us, her eyes never straying from Charlie’s. “Whattya need, baby?”
“Patrick and Amy, meet my wife, Vera,” Charlie said proudly.
I snickered, looking over at Patrick, whose expression hadn’t changed.
“Nice to meet you, Vera.”
“Whoa, you’re American.”
“Born and raised.”
“Well, shit,” she pushed Charlie out of the way and slid onto a barstool. “It’s nice to finally hear someone who sounds like home.”
“Where are you guys from?” I asked, wiping my hand down the cool wood of the bar top.
“I’m from Washington, but Charlie’s from Oregon, so we live there. How about you?”
“I’ve lived all over. Moved here less than a year ago, though, and it looks like I’m staying since I married an Irishman.” I smiled at Patrick, who still hadn’t said a word, and watched his eyes go soft.
“Well, hello there, handsome,” Vera said, following my gaze to Patrick. “Vera.”
“Married,” Patrick replied, making me want to flick him in the forehead.
“Yeah, I got that from your wife.”
“Get your man a beer, Amy,” Charlie said, sitting on the stool between Vera and Patrick. “On me.”
“I’ll buy me own,” Patrick argued.
“After the first one you will. I just made a new friend and I’m gonna buy his ass a drink.”
“Yer delusional.”
“I’ll grow on ya.”
“He will,” Vera piped in, nodding her head. “I didn’t even like him at first.”
“Sounds familiar,” Patrick mumbled.
“You just watch, man. You’ll dig me.”
My gaze shot between them as I watched them banter back and forth, and for the first time in weeks I saw my husband’s shoulders lose a little of their tension.
“What are you guys doing in Ireland?” I asked Vera as Patrick and Charlie started talking about motorcycles.
“We’re on our honeymoon. Well, sort of.” She sighed. “His club had some business over here, so Charlie brought me along, promising a romantic getaway. Romantic … shit. You see the big one over there, bigger than all the others? His room is next to ours in the house we’re staying at, and when he busts ass at night, we can fuckin’ smell him through the vent.”
I snorted. “Sounds romantic, for sure. Club?”
“Motorcycle club.”
“Oh,” I whispered, not really sure what being in a motorcycle club entailed.
“It is what it is. That’s life, ya know? I married him knowing that this was how it would be, no use bitching about it now.”
“I can understand that,” I replied quietly, glancing at Patrick.
“Yeah, your man’s got that same look about him.”
“What look?”
“That hard look. You know, always ready for something bad to happen—almost like they expect it.” I nodded. “It’s worth it, though, I think, living with that look. Because we get the other looks, too, the sweet ones and the sexy ones and the exhausted ones. They only share those looks with us.”
“I like the sexy look best,” I murmured as Patrick glanced up and met my eyes, his lips tipping up a fraction until his dimple came out.
“No doubt.” Vera laughed.
“Is your husband a mechanic?” I asked, deciding to change the subject.
“Sure, he works on bikes and shit.”
“Patrick’s a mechanic, too, but I think he works mostly on cars.”
“That right?” she glanced over at the men. “Well, maybe they’ll hit it off and then me and you can hang out more while we’re here. I’ve been bored outta my mind.”
“Sounds good to me,” I answered with a grin. I knew plenty of people, but I think Vera was my very first girlfriend in Ireland.
We chatted while I worked, our husbands moving off at some point to talk to the rest of Charlie’s friends, and I learned that Vera had run away from home at sixteen. She was a year older than me and had been with Charlie off and on for the past two years, the last ‘off’ ending with a marriage proposal. They hadn’t been married long, but it sounded like they’d been living together for a while. She didn’t have that starry-eyed newlywed look about her that I knew I still had. It was a more full-bodied look, comfortable, solid.
The night went by more quickly than it usually did, and before I knew it, I was closing down and locking up. My boss let me work a couple nights a week on my own, usually when it was slow and he knew Patrick would be there. I loved those nights, when Patrick and I would work together to close up. It gave us a few minutes alone that we wouldn’t have had otherwise in our packed house.
“Give me a call this week and we’ll hang out,” Vera said, moving in for a hug. “I’m so glad we met.”
“Me, too.”
Vera and the group of men walked boisterously down the quiet street as Patrick wrapped his arm around my shoulder and led me home.
“Ye like her?” he asked in a low voice, the quiet wrapping around us like a blanket.
“Yeah, she was nice. Too bad she lives in the US.” I wrapped my arm around his waist. “Charlie seemed cool.”
“Yeah, he’s not bad. De lads he came wit’, dough… I don’t want ye seein’ dem alone, alright?”
“Okay.”
I wanted to ask questions, but I knew better. If Patrick didn’t want me to see them by myself, there was a reason for it. It wasn’t worth it to me to argue.
“I can’t wait to get home, I’m so tired,” I moaned, leaning into his side.
“Dat’s too bad,” he whispered back, leaning down so his breath brushed across my neck, “I was hopin’ we wouldn’t sleep for a while yet.”
“Is that right?”
He reached for my hand and pulled it across his body to rub it against the front of his jeans, “I’m dyin’ for ye.”
“Poor baby,” I said back huskily with a wicked smile. I could see our house in the distance and broke out into a run as his carefree laughter floated out behind me, making my heart skip a beat.
I had my key in the lock when he caught me and my breathless laugh was loud against the door when he pressed his body against my back.
“None o’dat.” His hand covered my mouth to keep me quiet as he ushered me inside. “Ye have to be quiet or ye’ll wake de house.”
We walked with his body pressed tightly against mine all the way to our bedroom, one of Patrick’s hands covering my mouth and the other cupping my breast under my coat, flicking and pinching at my nipple.
We made it to our room in only seconds, but I was already slick and ready as he closed the door behind us.
“Don’t move,” he ordered, pulling my coat down my arms. “Have I told ye today how beautiful ye are?”
“Not today.”
“I apologize for lettin’ ye go all day wit’out hearin’ it.”
“Can I move yet?”
r /> “No.”
Patrick pulled my snug t-shirt over my head, immediately unhooking my bra and pushing the straps all the way down my arms until it dropped to the floor. He was still behind me as he wrapped his arms around my waist to unbutton my jeans. “Kick off yer shoes.”
My breath became choppy as I kicked off my shoes, and as soon as I had my balance, he was pulling off my jeans and underwear in one swift movement, leaving me in nothing but a pair of white socks I’d stolen out of his drawer that afternoon.
“Bend over de bed,” he said huskily, pulling the scrunchie out of my hair so it spread in waves over my bare back.
“Oh, so I can move now?”
“Smart mout’.”
He grabbed a handful of my hair and walked me forward until my knees hit the bed, but when I tried to lower myself he stopped me.
“Legs straight, wife.” I loved it when he called me wife that way, all growly and fierce like he was reminding me who I was to him.
“Dat’s right, now bend,” he said softly, putting one hand on my belly to situate me how he wanted.
The muscles in the backs of my legs protested the position, but I didn’t complain as I heard first his jacket and then his shirt fall to the floor behind me. I was braced on my elbows with my head hanging between my arms when I felt him move to his knees behind me, gripping my legs gently as he moved them farther apart.
“I’ve been waitin’ all day for dis,” he said, his breath hitting the back of my thighs. “Daydreamin’ when I should have been workin’.”
His hands moved up the backs of my thighs until they met between them, and I whimpered as I felt his thumbs pull me apart. The first touch of his tongue against my flesh made me jump, and he made a soothing noise in the back of his throat as he moved in again, licking me delicately at first and then harder as my hips began to undulate.
We’d done almost everything we could when it came to sex; Patrick wasn’t shy and he wouldn’t let me be, either, but every time felt new, the orgasms stronger as inhibitions fell to the wayside and we grew more comfortable with one another’s bodies.