“That was nice of you,” Tobin murmured.
“All part of my job,” Sawyer said brightly. “I’ve got some antiseptic. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
Something was definitely off between them. They were too stilted, as if waiting for him to leave so they could finish their conversation. “Well, I better get back to it,” Sawyer said.
“Have the doc take a look at your hand,” Tobin said. “Before some...”
“Before some what?”
“Before it gets infected,” he finished, which wasnotwhat he’d been about to say. Sawyer was sure of it.
Just then, the store door flew open, almost sheared off its hinges, and Ciaran was there. He was livid about something, his nostrils flared and his eyes burning into Sawyer.
“Before someone does that,” Tobin mumbled.
Sawyer’s heart rate spiked, his blood pumping. Thrilled, excited, even a little daring. He had no clue why Ciaran was so angry all the damn time, or why it seemed directed at him, but he liked it, for reasons he couldn’t explain.
It felt like a game.
A game he’d never known he liked to play.
Sawyer smirked at Ciaran as he walked up to him, stepping in close as he stopped by the door. “You got something against doors?” Sawyer murmured.
Ciaran almost vibrated with rage, his eyes ignited, and for another reason Sawyer couldn’t name, he liked that even more.
“Enjoy the rest of your day, guys,” Sawyer called out as he stepped outside.
Not even the biting wind, overcast gloomy skies, or the freezing cold could dampen his mood.
It had been a productive day, and he’d learned so many things.
One, Mr Brown wasn’t as lucid as Sawyer had first thought. He might have had some insight into the men of Tenebrae Cove, but his view on how many years they’d all lived there while not aging a day had lost some of validity given he was still writing cheques from a bank that hadn’t existed in thirty years.
Two, how weird and terrible could the said men of Tenebrae Cove be when they fed the old man for free and looked after him and his car out of the goodness of their hearts?
And three... Ciaran Brenner had anger management issues. There were a few problems with that, the first and most important being that he posed a threat. He was a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode.
The second thing and most concerning thing about that was that Sawyer found it incredibly hot, and right or wrong, he wanted nothing more in the world than to light that fuse.
Chapter
Eight
CIARAN
Everything was going so fuckingwrong.
A week ago, everything in Ciaran’s life was as it should be. As it had been for a long time.
Peaceful, quiet, and blessedly uneventful.
Uneventful was good. Boring was good.
Ciaran liked boring.
He loved his life in Tenebrae. He loved his job, his store.
His family.
