“Control—you just don’t like to give it up. Have you always been this way, or is this a recent character flaw?” He threw me a suspicious look over his shoulder.
“Define recent? You try growing up with a father who takes every last decision out of your hands and makes you feel like you’re too stupid to figure shit out for yourself, and top it off with killing your bond mates in a car crash—and you tell me why I don’t like losing control. Control makes me safe, Paddy O’Reilly, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask to feel safe, do you?”
“No.” His tone was subdued, and I became aware I’d screamed at him and, also, surprise, surprise, I was in tears.
More pedestrians scattered out of my way, some of them even went so far as to turn away so they didn’t have to meet my gaze and perhaps become infected with my special brand of crazy.
“Look, I’m tired and starving to death and all I wanted to do was come into the pub. Only I wasn’t wearing my damn pack ring, so that giant bastard wouldn’t let me in. Why should I wear my ring? You don’t give a shit about me. Apparently the whole frigging pack thinks I left Murphy and not the other way around.” I swiped at my eyes with my sleeve and cursed myself.
“A little advance warning would have been nice, Stanz.” Paddy slowed his pace so he fell in next to me and tried to put his free arm around my shoulders, but I shrugged him away.
“You want to watch me kick Colm’s ass? I didn’t have time to do it on my way out the pub door, but I’d definitely planned on it.”
“Violence doesn’t solve anything. I just think it’s stupid you have to be Mac Tire and wear a goddamn ring to get into a fucking pub. Why isn’t being Pack good enough?” I felt my blood pressure skyrocket, and Paddy groaned.
“Because the pub’s private, woman, but…”
“What the hell kind of bullshit elitist crap is this? A pub just for your own pack members and to hell with the Pack at large? Padraic O’Reilly, you sonofabitch, what kind of pack is Mac Tire anyway? Fucking private pub? Unbelievable.”
“Will you shut it, goddamn it?” Paddy cast a nervous glance around, but there were no pedestrians in the vicinity. Not anymore. Anyway, I hadn’t screamed. I had used a very vicious whisper.
“Why? What in the name of hell for?” Incensed, I grabbed his arm and forced him to stop his forward motion.
“Mac Tire’s a big enough pack as it is, Stanzie, and—” He broke off and pushed his hand through his unruly curls. His fingers stuck and with a grimace he yanked them free. “I’ll not be standing on the street discussing pack politics with you, damn it. The pub’s private and there’s a reason for it and to hell with you if you don’t like it. You don’t have to like it, do you? You aren’t—”
“Going to be a member much longer? Yeah, well, screw you, too. Bastard,” I hissed and would have taken a swing at him, but he stepped prudently out of reach.
“If you’d let me finish my sent—” he began, until I hissed, “Bastard” again under my breath, and he shut his mouth.
We stared at each other for a good forty seconds.
“I was gonna say Alpha, you annoying twat. You aren’t Alpha. Next time let me finish my frigging sentence!”
“Sure. I wouldn’t want to stop you from swearing at me and calling me derogatory names in these unfinished sentences, Paddy.”
“Oh, and bastard is a compliment then?” We glared at each other again until the silence was broken by my goddamn growling stomach.
“Tell me you ate something on the plane, Stanzie.”
“So now you want me to start lying to you? I’m sorry I’m not as good at it as you are, but maybe with practice I could get better.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and I swore I saw his lips move as he counted to ten. “Da always told me never to argue with a starving woman. So I’m not saying anything at all to you until you eat something.”
“Fine with me! Who the hell wants to listen to your bullshit, anyway?” I shoved my backpack back on my shoulder so I could follow him the few paces left to the door of the pub.
The red-haired giant had obviously eavesdropped if his expression of complete astonishment was any indication.
“Were you the freak of nature who called Paddy and told him I was here?” I snarled into his chest on my way past. I didn’t feel like tilting my head back enough to look him in the face.
“Ye—es?” He didn’t sound very confident and I rolled my eyes.
“Thanks for nothing, asswipe.”
“For fuck’s sake, will somebody shove some food down this woman’s gullet before we’re all doomed?” Paddy yelled, and the entire pub went eerily silent.
“We have shepherd’s pie or fish and chips tonight.” A redheaded woman with eyes the color of green sea glass stood behind the bar. She looked between me and Paddy with a curious expression and the barest hint of a grin.
“Bring both up to my office,” Paddy ordered. “And Guinness as well. And be goddamn quick. And don’t even think about turning that sly smirk into laughter, Alannah, or I’ll have Fee pull all that red hair out of your skull for you.”
The woman turned away and covered her mouth, but we all heard her stifled snickers anyway.
“Goddamn it,” swore Paddy and stomped up a flight of old wooden stairs just inside the door. A red velvet rope stretched across the bottom, but he had long legs and simply stepped over it.
I was not as tall and had to hang onto the banister to keep my balance, but I managed not to trip over my feet.
At the top of the staircase was a door marked Private. To the left was a small, very antiquated bathroom. Paddy shoved open the office door and stomped toward an old rolltop desk piled with papers and a desk calculator. He threw himself into a leather chair on wheels that squealed in protest and nearly bashed into the brick wall behind it.
A battered sofa, two armchairs with the stuffing coming out, an ancient coffee table and a set of built in bookshelves crammed haphazardly with books and magazines made up the rest of the furniture.
A grimy window covered with curtains in a faded red chintz pattern overlooked a dark alley.
“Very film noir.” I brushed off the seat of one of the armchairs before dubiously taking a seat. “Are you a private eye or a publican? All you need is a fedora and a fifth of rye stashed in your desk drawer, and you could be straight out of a Mickey Spillane novel.”
“Shut it,” Paddy advised and put his head in his hands for a moment.
“Dramatic bastard.” I looked around the room and grimaced at the grime on the window.
“I take it by your comment outside that you’re here to sever the ties with Liam?” Paddy moved his squeaky chair so the desk didn’t block me from his sight.
“Actually, the opposite. I came to work things out. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, right?”
“Huh?” He gaped at me, and I rolled my eyes.
“That was a Jaws reference, you dumbass.”
He continued to stare.
“American movie from the seventies? About a huge shark that ate half the damn town and then got blown up with an air tank and a lucky-as-hell rifle shot?”
“What the hell are you blathering on about now?