Page 24 of Wicked Ruin

“I still can’t believe the man you all called ‘the Priest’ is in love.”

“Right?”

I make a sound that isn't quite a laugh. Poor Bianca. Though I suppose she knows what she's getting into… or she's about to find out. The McCarthys don't do things the way other people do.

Word on the streets of Ballyhock is that Ashland beat Bianca’s ex-fiancé to death in a fight ring, and the family raised a glass to it. Not exactly something you'd read about in a wedding announcement. Not something most women could sit across a dinner table from and call love, but…

But then again, I'm sitting across from Cavin McCarthy, who was released from prison just before he married my sister and has the ink to prove it, so…

“Well, ’bout time Ashland’s going to propose,” Cavin tells Erin, who nods pragmatically.

“I really never thought Ashland would be one to marry,” she says, then shakes her head. “But you have to in the end, don’t you?”

Cavin’s taking out a plate for his breakfast, so his back’s to us. I can’t read his expression, but I hear the sigh. “Aye. Every one of us. Clan law.”

Clan law, the kind that predates Ballyhock law by a mile.

“Who else will be at the dinner?” I ask absentmindedly, writing notes in the ledger.

“Lots. Kyla and Lorcan. Tiernan, Seamus, Zoya. Bronwyn, my Aunt Aileen and Uncle Cormac, Aunt Sheena and Uncle Nolan. Oh, and Declan’s back.”

The name hits me so hard my pen freezes in midair. I stop breathing.

“Right,” I say, fighting for my life to catch the next breath. “Grand.”

Thank god Cavin’s looking away, and Erin tends to be unaware of microexpressions, because I am confident I just gave myself away. Declan.

I take a sip of tepid coffee and gulp hard. “Declan? He’s back from America?”

I tried to sound casual, but Cavin’s gaze is assessing. “Aye. His job’s done for now.”

Oh god. So it isn’t just a visit… He’s back.

How can I do this? How can I go on with my life, knowing he’s back, socializing with the McCarthys, doing their work for them, and still be anywhere near that man without giving myself away?

You’re an adult, Bridget. Act like it.

Maybe I’ll see him and realize it was just a schoolgirl crush. It happens. I’ll laugh at myself for ever letting myself fall for him, for replaying the one time he ever kissed me and the one time we ever danced, over and over again until I’d committed every second to memory. Maybe he won’t have the hold on me he once did. Maybe I won't read too much into every text we exchanged, or every time he took me out for ice cream or to run errands.

Maybe I won’t even find him hot anymore.

Maybe.

But it wasn’t just that. We were friends. He was the best friend I ever had until Seamus had to send him to America and fuck it up. And god, I miss that so damn much it makes me ache.

“Right,” I say with a nod I hope is convincing. “Been there long enough, I suppose.”

I move a figure, check a formula, move it back. The spreadsheet swims in front of me. I need fresh air or something stronger in my coffee.

Cavin goes up to shower, and Erin follows a few minutes later. I hear the creak of her feet on the stairs, the distant sound of Cavin’s voice, Erin saying something back, then laughing at whatever he says. The sounds of a comfortable home filled with people who love each other. The sounds I’ve fallen asleep to for ages and never taken for granted.

I sit at the table long after they leave, trying not to cry, and hating that I want to. I twist the little rose quartz on my chain, but it doesn’t help this time.

I will cry, I suppose. Later. After everyone’s gone to bed and I can lock my door, sob into my pillow, and not have to face questions about why my eyes are all red and blotchy.

I think about Sunday. About Zoya and Seamus’s little ones. About the table stretched to fit the growing family, the brothers and their wives, the noise, and the particular warmth of being inside something that large, that solid, after you lost almost everything.

I do not think about Declan McCarthy.