"Has she seen anyone?" The question's out of my mouth before my brain catches up. "A professional. A specialist, someone who?—"
I hear it as I'm saying it. Specialists cost money.
"Forget I asked," I mutter. "Stupid question."
"The school counselor tries." Maeve's staring into space. "Twenty minutes a week, when she has time. She's got four hundred other kids. She keeps telling me Cara will talk when she's ready." Her jaw tightens. "But they don't get it. They don't get how sensitive she is. And nobody listens to a kid who doesn't talk."
Once she begins, the floodgates open and Maeve tells me about Jamie’s anger issues and frequent disciplinary troubles at school, and Oisin’s fear of adults, especially men.
I can’t fathom how Maeve’s managed—with no help and little money—to hold her family together for three years.
Nineteen years old.
I've spent my whole life around high-achievers—CEOs, Senators, Crimebosses. And I'm lying here realizing that the toughest person I have ever met is this hundred-pound young woman in a threadbare sleep shirt who never once, in her entire story, mentioned herself. Not what she’s lost. Not what she’s sacrificed. Not what it cost her. Every sentence is about them. Jamie’s needs. Cara’s needs. Oisin’s needs.
Someone should be taking care of her.
I want to be that someone. I want to take some of the burden off her shoulders so badly my hands itch with it.
Also—and this part ambushes me completely—I like her. Not the situation. Not the arrangement.Her.The badger temper and the murder threat and the determination and the spine of pure steel.
"Hey." My voice comes out rough. "Come here."
She hesitates. Then, miracle of miracles, she scoots across the duvet river, and I fold her into my side.
She's stiff for about ten seconds, then her head finds the hollow of my shoulder.
"This doesn't mean anything," she informs my collarbone.
"Course not."
"I'm just tired."
"Obviously."
We stay like that. Her breathing slows. I run my fingers through her hair, and she lets me. I’m not trying to charm her or to fill the silence with a joke. I don't feel the need to perform for her. I just want to be someone she can lean on.
At some point she tilts her face up. I don't know which of us moves first.
The kiss starts soft. Then her fingers curl into my shirt, and a fire ignites between us, and I roll toward her, deepening the kiss, tasting her and savoring the little sounds she makes. My blood is roaring.
I pull back suddenly. Put air between us. My dick’s so hard it’s nearly howling in protest, but I promised. Not tonight.
I settle her back against my shoulder.
"Anyway," I say, "you haven't heard about the time Declan got his head stuck in the stair railing."
She exhales—relief, I think, but maybe, just maybe I hear a tinge of disappointment underneath.
"I have to be up early,” she says instead. “I’m cleaning the Bryants' house at nine. Then the Finkelsteins at eleven."
I go still. "You're not cleaning houses tomorrow."
She sits up. "Excuse me?"
"Maeve. You're an O'Rourke now. You don't need?—"
“No way. I’m not giving up my job.” Her tone makes it clear she’s immovable on this. "If this all goes sideways, I'm not starting from zero again. I've been at zero. I'm not going back."
