I glanced down to see barely raised welts on my hands, aggravated from where I’d been rubbing them.
He pulled me into his arms then, and the comfort of his scent and his strong muscles resting against my body were impossible to ignore. I wished we could stay like that forever, safe from the rest of the world in our tiny room.
“I’ll better be off if I’m goin’ in to work,” Patrick said, pulling away slightly. He leaned down to brush my lips with his, and the heat of his mouth seemed to spread throughout my body in a large wave. He’d barely touched me in over a week, and even though the move hadn’t been sexual, it still made me a little needy. I leaned onto my toes as our lips brushed again, and when he felt me reaching, his tongue slid out nervously to lick across my bottom lip.
We moved into a sensual kiss without thought, rubbing and sucking at each other’s mouths. It wasn’t a prelude to anything, there was no urgency in it, but I don’t think anything could have been more perfect at that moment.
“Charlie and Vera will be over today,” Patrick informed me as he finally pulled away with a squeeze of my hips. “He’ll stay until I’m home tonight.”
I thought about my new best friend while I watched Patrick begin to change for work, pulling on a ratty flannel that was covered in grease stains and an old pair of jeans. I’d spent time with Vera after the night we’d met, having lunch and following her around while she shopped for souvenirs, but it hadn’t been until my life had become so out-of- control that I’d realized how deep our friendship went. She was loyal, unflaggingly so, and a car blowing up in front of my house hadn’t seemed to change her opinion of me in the slightest.
Vera acted as if it was normal. She was conscious of our grief, and helped out as much as she could, but she didn’t go overboard. She wasn’t whispering and looking over her shoulder like the neighbors had been in the days after Robbie’s death. She’d just pitched in when she could and sat with me for hours, even if I didn’t have anything to say.
She’d arrived every morning for the past week, sometimes with Charlie and other times with the big, smelly guy she’d pointed out in the pub the night we’d met. She’d stay all day, helping with chores and gossiping about movie stars while Charlie sat on the couch watching television with a silent Patrick or the big guy sat on the front stairs outside. She was just there, with no hidden agenda or preconceived ideas about us.
She was the best friend I’d ever had.
“I’m sorry I said I wished I didn’t marry you,” I said as Patrick sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. “I’m not sorry.”
“I know yer not.” He tugged me into his lap. “I know yer scared, darlin’. Just stick wit’ me, eh? I’ll fix dis.”
“I wish you didn’t have to work today.” I laid my head on his shoulder and pressed my forehead into his neck.
“First she orders me to work and den she says she wants me to stay home,” he announced to the room, sounding like my old Patrick.
“I know, I’m all over the place lately.”
“Maybe yer pregnant?” he asked, laying his hand on my belly.
“Not this time, Mr. Gallagher. I’m just coming off my period.” It still surprised me how comfortable I was with sharing intimate details of my body with him, but it had been that way almost from the start. He knew everything about me, every curve and mole had been mapped. My body held no secrets anymore.
“We’ll have to work harder dis mont’,” he teased gently, pulling me closer.
“I’m not sure we should,” I mumbled into his neck, already sure of his reaction. “Maybe—”
“De church is very clear on birt’ control, wife.”
“It’s a stupid rule. Do you really want to bring our child into our life right now?”
“It’s not up to us to decide which rules are meant to be broken.”
“It’s my body.”
“Is it not me decision too, den?”
“Of course it is.” I sighed, annoyed that I’d even brought it up.
“I know dat I’ve not been de best man, especially in de church’s eyes,” he said into my hair, rubbing my back softly. “But I cannot agree wit’ puttin’ t’ings into yer body to stop ye from havin’ a child. Me child. To me, it would be like refusin’ a gift from God because it wasn’t convenient for us. Who’s to say dat we’d ever be offered de gift again?”
“Your reasoning is medically unsound, but I understand your point.”
“Medically unsound? Ye’ve been readin’ again, I see.”
“It’s been quiet around here.”
“I know it has.” He tightened his arms around me then tapped my back twice, signaling for me to stand up. “I’ve got to move or I’ll be late.”
He kissed me goodbye, just a quick peck on the lips, and was gone. I really did hate that he had to go to work, even though I’d been dying for him to go just an hour before. We may not have figured anything out, but I felt marginally better about things once we’d discussed them.
Knowing that Patrick was working on a solution instead of just staring at the walls made me feel almost optimistic. As long as we were together, we could figure it out, I told myself. We just had to be careful for now, until we knew what we were dealing with.
When I made my way out of our room, Peg was sitting at the kitchen table eating a piece of toast. I couldn’t stop the wide smile that spread across my face as I realized she’d actually gotten dressed and had brushed her hair. It seemed as if both my favorite people had decided to re-join the living that day, and I couldn’t have been happier for the small steps they’d taken.
I spent that morning with a small smile of relief on my face, just knowing that it was going to be a good day.
I’ve often wondered how my instincts could have been so poor.
Chapter 32
Patrick
“I’m sorry.”
My boss’s quiet words followed me out the door. I couldn’t have replied without choking the life out of the weasely little fuck, so I ignored him.
I’d lost my bloody job. Fucking hell.
They’d let me finish work on the car I’d started before my da was killed, but as soon as I’d finished, they’d given me the boot. Fucking bastards were afraid of their own shadows, it was the only way they hadn’t been pulled in to any side of the war that seemed to be tearing my entire life apart. They were sorry, sure, but their fear had been more important than any reservations they had about letting me go.
Mother of God. We were fucked. Mum hadn’t been working, I had no idea when she’d be ready to go back, and now this. My stomach burned at the thought of asking Amy for the cash I knew she kept hidden in our sock drawer, but there was no other way to keep a bloody roof over our heads.
I may as well have just sliced off my balls and handed them to her.
I slammed into the house, letting the door bounce off the wall, and the first thing I saw was Amy standing in the tiny entryway, going through some mail.
“Patrick? Why aren’t you at work?”
“De bastards fuckin’ let me go!”
“What? Why?” Her shoulders slumped and I hated everyone in that moment. Why the fuck couldn’t life ever be fucking easy? Why couldn’t we catch just one break? Just one! I was failing her, and I’d become the man I’d sworn I’d never be, dependent upon my wife’s labors for food on the table and a roof over our heads.
“Dey’re afraid to keep me on. Afraid one of dere cars will blow sky high if dey’re associated wit’ a Gallagher.”
“Shit,” she whispered, her eyes wide and worried in her face. “Baby—”
“I’ll figure it out,” I promised her, my gut burning at her expression.
“I know you will.”
I wrapped my arms around her, and calmed my breathing by huffing in deep breaths of Amy-scented air. My body was practically shaking with anger, but I had to keep it together. I had to figure all of the shit out, and there was no way I could do that intelligently if I was riding on
emotion. I needed to be logical.
“You thought any more about my offer?” Charlie asked from where he was watching us on the couch. “It stands.”
“We’ll discuss it later,” I said warningly. I didn’t want to get Amy’s hopes up, but Charlie had offered to bring my family to America. His father owned a big motorcycle shop, and he’d offered me a job there. I was pretty sure his club owned the shop along with the men who worked there, and I didn’t know if I wanted to be beholden to anyone like that.
According to Charlie, it wasn’t like that at all. They were a family whose loyalty was unquestionable. They took care of each other. Woman and children were off limits, always, and they protected each one as if it were their own.
I liked Charlie. During the time he’d been in Ireland, I’d gotten to know the man pretty well, and his word was good. But I’d never seen him under fire. His loyalty hadn’t been tested. My family’s lives couldn’t depend on a man that I’d known for only a couple of weeks.
It did sound wonderful, though. I couldn’t lie and say that it didn’t. It was a new place to build, men who would watch my back, a new life for Mum and me and a place where Amy would feel a little more at home. Still, I was leery. I would be exchanging the devil I knew for one I didn’t.
Someone began knocking on the door and before I could drop my head wearily to Amy’s shoulder, my instincts had kicked in and she was shoved behind me. My gun was pulled out of the back of my jeans and Charlie was on his feet within seconds. He lifted his head toward the door, and I nodded once before stepping forward to open it up.
I’ll never forget the sight that greeted me.
Chapter 33
Amy
She was bloody.
Her curly, golden hair was matted and knotted with it.
She was shorter than me.
She was pregnant.
And her hands were smaller than mine. The one I could see looked tiny clutching the back of my husband’s work shirt.
But she was bloody. I had to focus on that.
Her face was swollen, her lips split in three different spots. There was blood beneath her ear, but I couldn’t tell if it had come from there or had been smeared from one of her other scratches.
She was sobbing. Scared. Holding onto Patrick like he was the only thing that could save her.
“I’ll call my dad and have him send Doc over. Thank Christ the old shit came with us,” Charlie said as he looked out the door and then shut and locked it.
“Yer Da has a doctor?”
“Close enough.”
I stood frozen as everyone broke into action around me, until Vera pinched my side hard. “Put it away. Swallow it all up until we know what we’re dealing with.”
I nodded vaguely, still watching as Patrick tried to soothe the hysterical woman.
“Now Amy,” Vera ordered as she moved past me to get to Patrick.
“We need to lay her down somewhere until we know what’s wrong,” Vera told Patrick calmly over the sound of the woman’s crying and Charlie talking to his dad on the phone in the kitchen.
Patrick nodded as Peg came rushing out of her bedroom. She must have heard the commotion, there’s no way she wouldn’t have. The woman was fucking loud.
“What’s going on?” she asked me, her voice full of worry.
“I don’t know.” It all seemed like it was happening somewhere else, like I wasn’t even present.
I watched as Patrick gently lifted the woman into his arms and moved around me and Peg. He paused at the couch for a moment, and his face looked pained as he glanced at me for a split second before carrying the woman into our bedroom.
It snapped me out of the stupor we were in, and I raced to the kitchen to wet a rag. Maybe if we cleaned up a little of the blood, it wouldn’t seem so bad. Head wounds always bled a lot, and the split lips and the scratch on her cheek hadn’t even scabbed over yet. I followed Vera and Peg, who had burst into action once she’d gotten a good look at the woman, but when I reached the doorway I couldn’t go any farther. The room wasn’t built to hold so many people, and it seemed even smaller than normal as I watched detachedly as Patrick sat next to the woman on the bed, brushing her hair carefully out of her face.
I took a small step, scooting around Vera so I could hand the woman the wet towel in my hand, but froze the minute she began to speak.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” she told Patrick hoarsely, her voice ruined from the wailing she’d been doing. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“Shhh. Yer alright now,” he soothed her.
“Michael found out. I tried to hide it.” More tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. “But I got too big and he finally noticed.”
I watched Patrick swallow hard, never looking away from the woman’s face.
“I tried not to tell dem it was ye. I swear it.” Her eyes implored him as I began to feel lightheaded. “But I just couldn’t take anymore.”
I gripped the doorframe hard, willing myself to stay upright. This was wrong. All of it was wrong. Patrick was going to speak up at any moment, and everything would become clearer.
“We need to strip her down and see what we’re looking at. Out, Patrick,” Peg said sharply, refusing to even look in his direction.
“Mum—” his voice cracked. That small break in his words destroyed everything I’d thought, believed and known about my relationship with my husband. It took less than a second.
“Out,” Peg ordered again, ignoring the shame in his voice.
As Patrick hushed the woman again, speaking quietly while attempting to pull away from her, I wrenched myself away from the room. I couldn’t watch it any longer. I needed to get away from him.
I sped through the house, only to be caught around the waist by Charlie. “You need to wait and hear him out, girl. Don’t be stupid and leave when we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
I ripped his arm off me and changed direction, stepping through the doorway of the bathroom just as Patrick came out of our room. I didn’t stop. I didn’t even turn my head in his direction.
I couldn’t even look at him.
“Amy—”
His words were cut off as I quietly shut the bathroom door and turned the flimsy lock. My legs gave beneath me, and I slid to the floor without even turning on the light. I didn’t mind the darkness.
It was quiet in there—a step away from the insanity that had taken over my home. Why had I been so giddy that Patrick had brought everything into clear focus again? Why had I let them pull me in, why had I let myself be pulled? Why couldn’t I have just continued on in the life I’d been living? There were no highs or lows in that life. I’d been comfortable there, before Peg and Patrick. I’d been numb.
I pretended for a split second that everything was back to normal again.
Robbie was watching television while Peg fixed dinner, and any moment Patrick would be home from work. Then the fantasy was shattered as the door vibrated against my back.
“Amy, let me in.” Patrick began knocking and trying to turn the doorknob. “Please, me love. Please, let me in.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have anything to say. Nothing. There was not one word in the entire dictionary, not one word in any language that seemed appropriate at that moment.
He’d slept with that woman. He’d slept with her and gotten her pregnant. The pain in my chest was too excruciating to bear. I couldn’t even cry. I just sat there staring into the darkness.
“Let me explain, me love. It’s not what yer t’inkin’, I swear it. Please, please, please let me in. Let me hold ye. I need ye, Amy. Please, open de door.”
Patrick continued to knock on the door, at one point threatening to break it down, but he didn’t get in. He just stood outside, begging and pleading and threatening and cajoling me to speak with him.
As if I had anything to say.
Eventually, he moved away from the door and I heard other voices in the house. Charlie’s dad must hav
e shown up with the doctor.
I didn’t care.
I didn’t even care what happened to her.
I knew that made me a monster. She was pregnant, and in pain, and someone had beaten the hell out of her. But I still didn’t care. I wanted her to disappear and I wasn’t picky about how that happened.
“Let me in, lovey.” Peg’s voice drifted through the door, but I still didn’t move. “It’s just me. Open the door.”
I couldn’t make myself get up off the floor.
“Charlie?” Peg’s voice was muffled as she turned away, but the walls were so thin in that fucking house that I could still hear her. “She’s not answerin’ me. Can ye take the door off the hinges? I’m afraid if we try to break through it, she’ll be hurt.”
“Sure,” Charlie replied.
I heard him start fiddling with the door, then more voices in the living room.
Suddenly, I couldn’t bear the thought of all those people seeing how absolutely devastated I was. Oh, poor Amy, her husband fucks around on her. Poor Amy, who still isn’t pregnant, but her husband’s side piece is. Poor Amy can’t even get up off the bathroom floor because she’s so upset.
Fuck that.
I climbed to my feet as a familiar feeling of disconnect ran through me. I wasn’t poor Amy. I’d dealt with far worse things in my life. I’d grown up with parents who either didn’t give a shit or outright disliked me, who’d been neglectful at times and cruel at others. I’d moved from one place to the next, never able to make any real connections with anyone. I could deal with proof of Patrick’s infidelity.
It was nothing. He was nothing.
What had he said before? It was just a bump.
I opened the door to Charlie’s surprised face, and gave him a thin smile. I was fine. He didn’t need to take the door off.
Patrick, Peg, Vera and a couple older men were standing in the kitchen discussing something quietly as I made my way to the couch. I kept my torn up copy of Fahrenheit 451 on the bottom shelf of one of Peg’s side tables because Robbie had started reading it when the house was quiet. I didn’t let myself think about that. I was fine.