I put one hand on Paddy’s chest so I could feel the steady thump of his heartbeat. At first it was rapid and angry, but my touch gradually calmed it to a normal rate.
Contact dissolved my tension and I fell asleep soon after.
* * * *
I woke to the enticing aroma of bacon and eggs, and drifted in a daze to the kitchen. Paddy and Murphy sat stiffly at the table drinking coffee. Full plates steamed in front of them. One waited for me at my usual place.
My morning greeting was received with half-hearted smiles. Both men hid behind their coffee mugs. They must still be pissed with each other for whatever obscure reason. However, I didn’t intend to miss a home-cooked breakfast and took a seat.
Paddy watched me pour ketchup on my eggs as if I were performing some sort of strange ritual.
“Want some?” I held the bottle out to him just to watch him shudder.
“I’ve booked seats on the four-thirty flight to Dublin,” he blurted.
Murphy stared at his plate as he sopped up egg yolk with a piece of buttered rye toast.
“Four-thirty as in today?” I consulted the clock on the kitchen wall above the sink. Unbelievable. “Six hours from now?”
“I’m all packed. I’ll do the breakfast dishes.” Paddy sprang from his chair and began to pile the dishes on top of each other. I had only managed half a slice of bacon, but Paddy whisked my plate away as if it had been empty.
I rubbed my eyes. Somewhere I’d missed something. Maybe I was still dreaming?
“I’d better go pack,” I said. Paddy clattered the dished into the sink and I winced. If half hadn’t broken, we’d be lucky.
Murphy continued to push his toast through the egg yolk. He needed to shave and shower. His hair was tousled and he wore a pair of sweat pants and a Faneuil Hall t-shirt. Bare feet. His Mac Tire pack ring glittered in the late morning sunshine that streamed through the kitchen window.
Paddy’s mop of black curls made me think of Medusa’s serpents tangled and twisted. Any second I expected them to hiss at me and tell me to move my ass. He was still in just his boxer briefs and I couldn’t decide if I thought it was sexy or rude to eat breakfast half-naked at my kitchen table. He needed to shave too.
Twenty minutes later, I stood in the doorway of the walk-in closet and helplessly surveyed the shoe racks against the walls. How the hell was I going to pack all my shoes and my clothes in three suitcases?
Murphy stood in the doorway and watched me.
“I thought we’d have time to go through my stuff and get this place together before we left. There’s wash to be done and we need to clean out the fridge and the cupboards. Why do we have to leave today, Murphy?”
I turned around and stopped talking. Murphy was showered and dressed, but he still needed to shave. His expression scared me. I’d never seen him look so awful.
“Are you all right?” I went toward him, but he backed away, so I stopped.
“Honey, come sit down.” His voice matched his face. Fear clouded my mind and sped up my heart. More bad news? What the hell could be left to go wrong?
I sat on the edge of the bare mattress. The sheets and comforter lay in a tangle on the hardwood floor.
Murphy sat too, but maintained a distance between us so we didn’t touch. My heart beat turned erratic as if it already knew what Murphy had to tell me even if my brain did not.
“I know you gave me until August, but I think we both know that a couple of months isn’t going to change anything.”
Gave him until August? At first I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but then my stomach clenched. Good thing I hadn’t eaten breakfast or I would have puked.
“You’re not happy. I’m not happy,” he continued, but he wouldn’t look at me, damn him. He wouldn’t look me in the face. “You’re not coming to Dublin. Paddy and I are leaving.”
Paralyzed by massive shock, I sat there like a fucking statue and said nothing as my whole life crumbled beneath me.
Not happy? What the fuck was I supposed to be? Jumping around for freaking joy after my wolf had torn out somebody’s throat and I’d faced a tribunal? Bethany had died anyway and Murphy hadn’t been there when I’d desperately wanted him?
No, I wasn’t fucking happy, but I never wanted this. I’d told him I didn’t know if we were okay, but I’d also told him I needed time to think, to get things straight.
“Is this cause I won’t talk to you about things?” I whispered. “Because I...”
“I’m sorry, Stanzie. It was a long shot, it would’ve worked. We knew that when we went into it.”
Had we? I’d gone into it because he’d convinced me to do it. In Houston after he’d been poisoned and nearly died, I’d tried to leave because the conspiracy had been uncovered and I was no longer in any danger of being blamed for Rudi’s death. But he’d been the one to ask me to please stay until August, to give him a chance until then.
It was only first week of May. And, despite everything that had happened, I loved him. I just needed to think. Horror and shame engulfed me. Maybe he’d finally realized I wouldn’t fit in with Mac Tire and I was too different. My wolf was fucked up and so was I. Maybe he’d decided that while he could handle this when we were two people on our own, once we tried to blend into a pack, it wouldn’t work. But I wanted it to work. I wanted to at least try.
He doesn’t want you, Stanzie, I told myself before I begged him.
Paddy appeared in the doorway, his face somber.
I looked at him. Four days earlier after my father had renounced me as his daughter, Paddy had taken me aside to tell me that I did have family. Him. Murphy. Mac Tire. A lie? Had it been a lie?
“So he’s told you, has he?” Paddy’s mouth was small and tight. “Got anything to say for yourself, woman?”
It was a challenge, but I didn’t know how to respond or why he’d issued it in the first place. Anything to say for myself? Did he think this was my idea? My fault?
I hung my head.
Murphy’s suitcases were already packed and set by the bedroom door. I’d been the last one up this morning and he and Paddy had used the time to get him packed. Then they’d made me a hearty breakfast before they broke my heart. They’d planned this. I remembered all the strange looks and tension that had passed between them yesterday and how they’d disappeared for hours together the night before.
This wasn’t spur-of-the-moment.
For a bad moment, I was back in the same headspace as I’d been after Grey and Elena’s funeral and I’d moved here to Boston. Those first awful weeks alone in exile when I’d bitterly wished I’d died with them in the car crash because it hurt too much to be alive without them.
“I’m going to call Vaughn and have him come here,” Murphy said.
“No!” My voice was sharp. I’d lost track of time and at least one minute had passed where I hadn’t spoken or moved.
Murphy’s face was drawn and haunted, and Paddy looked just plain miserable. Nervous tension spiked the air and made it hard for me to breathe. Silver spots danced before my eyes as my whole life collapsed into futility. What had I done wrong? I wished I’d never let him know how angry I’d been when he hadn’t stayed with me for the tribunal. Maybe if I could explain to him that I didn’t mean it, he wouldn’t leave me.
The words wouldn’t