I shake my head. It’s been three years since Lachlan and I were together in Boston, but it already feels like a fucking lifetime ago.
A shadow crosses Keenan’s features, but he doesn’t say anything.
“You sure everything’s okay?”
He nods, picking up his pace on the treadmill.
“Aye. I did find something interesting out, though.”
“Did you?”
He nods. “You remember Fiona’s friend Aisling?”
“Aye. How could I forget the little brat?”
Billows of blonde curls, a ready laugh, and bewitching eyes capable of conjuring up trouble in her sleep. I remember my sister’s best mate well.
The memory comes quickly, unbidden. It’s a warm day in Ballyhock and I’m only seventeen years old.
“Tiernan! You can’t catch me!”
She squeals with laughter and Fiona’s on her heels, both of them laughing their damn heads off like stealing my t-shirt’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. They’re barely out of primary school, but fancy themselves all grown up now, what with boys and cars and mobile phones. But they’re still silly little girls, and they get under my fucking skin.
“You give that back.” I follow them, not chasing them like they’ll have me do, but stalking after them. They’re quick, but they don’t know the cliffs of Ballyhock like I do.
I’m home for the weekend, since I normally board at St. Albert’s. Keenan wanted to see me, and to check on my progress at school. So Nolan picked me up last night. I woke up early this morning and trained hard. I want to be a man of the Clan like the men I admire, and they push their bodies to peak physical shape routinely.
I woke up at the crack of dawn, went running with Nolan, lifted with Lachlan, then ate breakfast with them. After an intense meeting going over international travel and guns trade, I came out to the Cliffs for a walk. But the sun beat down mercilessly, a rare warm day in Ballyhock. I stripped off my shirt and put it under my head as a pillow, and drifted off to sleep.
I woke to the sounds of giggles.
Motherfucker.
I don’t like being woken from a nap, and I don’t like being taunted by Fiona’s bratty friend.
“Give that back!” I yell.
“Or what?” she taunts. She looks to Fiona, and covers her hand with her mouth to hide a giggle. “He looks like the giant from Jack’s beanstalk, doesn’t he? All growly and angry and furious. Pounding his chest, because he wants the golden goose.”
“I’ll give you a fucking golden goose,” I grate out, which only makes them giggle louder. She holds my shirt over the edge of the cliff.
“Come and get it then.”
“What are you, twelve?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
That gets her attention.
“Fourteen, you twat,” she says, her eyes flashing at me. She balls up my t-shirt, and Fiona gasps.
“Ais, don’t!”
Too late. She’s whipped the t-shirt far out into the Irish sea. We watch as if in slow motion as it flutters to the water like a flag, quickly saturates, then sinks below the blue-green waves.
She looks to me, wide-eyed, the anger quickly gone. “I’m… sorry?” she says, before she turns and they both take off at a run.
I give them chase. I want to throttle the little brat for losing my t-shirt. Nolan got me that on his last trip to Spain. No one ever gets anything for me. It actually meant something to me. I’m bigger and faster than they are. They squeal, and finally Aisling trips and goes sprawling. Fiona screams, as I catch them.
I grab Aisling right up off the ground. Her palms are scraped and bleeding, and my desire to shake the living daylights out of her quickly vanishes. Her eyes are damp with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t really mean to. Sometimes I do things when people make me angry that I regret after.”
She’s soft and supple in my grasp, and she smells like a field of daisies. I shouldn’t touch her. I shouldn’t be this close to her. I didn’t know she was this pretty.
I let her go, and grunt. “Sometimes I do things I regret when I’m angry, too.” This isn’t like me. I don’t forgive so easily. But I need to get away from her. She’s just a girl and I’m on the cusp of adulthood. “Head back to the mansion and Fiona will take you to get those scrapes looked after.”
I practically shove her at Fiona. Aisling looks at me in wide-eyed wonder. “I’m sorry, Tiernan.”
I wave her away.
“Go.”
I watch her and wonder what just happened.
I blink, coming back to the present.
Keenan runs harder, his breathing heavier. “Found out something interesting about her last night.”
“Did you?” Now that’s piqued my curiosity.
I continue lifting, but my focus is on him.
He nods. “Seems she’s… fallen into some trouble.”
A prickle of awareness travels down my spine. She might’ve been a brat, but she was my sister’s best mate.
“What kind of trouble?”
He shakes his head. “Mother’s gone off to America, left her with nearly nothing. She left school, couldn’t afford it. Does she still talk with Fiona?”
I shake my head. “No. They had a falling out soon after Fiona and Lachlan tied the knot.”
Keenan scowls but doesn’t respond at first. Finally, he sighs.
“Expected as much,” he says.
Is he hiding something?
“Seems she’s gone off her fucking nut, Tiernan. I took an interest in hearing her story. She was around here a lot when Fiona was younger, you know?”
I nod. Though we lived offsite back then, we spent a lot of time here.
“So her mum and dad divorced, and her mum married a man in America. Dad shot himself last year, and she’s been scraping to make ends meet. She’s, eh… gotten loose.”
Bloody hell.
The weights I’m carrying clatter to the concrete floor. Keenan raises a brow but doesn’t speak.
“She’s what?”
The woman was like a sister to me, annoying, but still someone I didn’t want to see get hurt.
He nods. “True story. Boner found out
