a Touch of Revenge (Romantic Mystery - book 6): The Everly Gray Adventures (18 page)

“Yup.” He shut off the engine, popped the trunk, and pocketed the car keys. “Get that Sig out of the glove box will you? Needs to be stowed in the boot.”

Was boot an Irish term as well as British? Not that it mattered. I dropped the gun in my handbag, got out of the car, stood, stretched into a couple of yoga poses, then hustled to the back of the Citroën where Pierce was unloading his duffle and my suitcase.

He pointed to a metal box. “Gun goes in there. You have any other weapons?”

“Just my knife.” I dug it out of my handbag, showed it to him.

“You can keep it with you.”

I clicked the suitcase handle into “pull” position. “Which way?”

“There’s a path.” He slammed the trunk closed and pointed. “Follow me.”

We wandered along a paved trail that wound through a wooded area. Eventually it opened to a… “It’s a village. Your parents live in a…” Words defeated me.

“Self-sufficient commune.” Pierce broke off from the path and turned to the left. “House on the end.”

The houses were small, but well kept. There was a center building that appeared to have shops, a grocery, and other places like that. Pierce wasn’t giving me time to check things out. “Are we in a hurry?”

“Not exactly.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps leading to his parents’ front door.

My last morsel of patience was gone. “You know, it would help if you told me exactly what’s going on here.”

I glanced up at the exact moment the front door opened and forgot to breathe.

She was a Madonna…without the halo, but she definitely radiated peace. Her complexion was lighter than her son’s, and her hair was pure silver, but those eyes were exactly the same and left no doubt I was face-to-face with Tynan Pierce’s mom.

“
Máthair
.” His voice was soft, respectful.

“
Bheatha bhaile
.” She nodded at me. “Welcome to our home, Everly. I’m Siofra, Tynan’s mother.” Her voice had the lilting brogue that Pierce’s did, but it didn’t carry his usual undertone of command. She sounded the way a soft Hawaiian breeze felt, and for a moment I was home. Until the enormity of her words hit me, and shock rolled down, pooling in my belly. Pierce’s mother knew about me. Knew who I was.

Pierce motioned me up the stairs. “Leave the suitcase. I’ll get it in a minute.”

I shut down my ESP fingers as tightly as possible, grabbed the handrail for support, and made my way up the six steps. Siofra smiled at me, and then touched my cheek, delicately as though I might break. Tears welled from someplace deep in my heart, surprising me with an unexpected emotion that I couldn’t identify. Acceptance, maybe. She wrapped me in a gentle hug, and I inhaled the scent of lavender and honey. It fit her perfectly. And embarrassed the hell out of me, since I must have smelled like week-old garbage.

When she broke the hug to reach for her son, a crazy sensation of loneliness overwhelmed me. It disappeared in an instant, but left me reeling. Must have been the power of a mother’s hug. I hadn’t felt that in a long time.

They said a few words in Gaelic to each other, then Siofra took my hand, apologized, and switched to English. “This is rude of us. Please come inside, Everly. It’s early, but there’s supper waiting.”

Pierce had jogged down the steps to retrieve my suitcase, so I paused, turned, waited for him to join Siofra and me on the stoop. A flash of movement in front of the grocery store caught my attention, and when I looked up a young woman caught my eye. She seemed familiar, but I couldn’t see clearly, because she was bending over a man in a wheelchair.

I stared.

She stood, tossing a fall of long, brown hair away from her face.

It was Cait Connor. In an exact replica of the future image I’d picked up from touching Pierce.

NINETEEN

OF COURSE I’D KNOWN CAIT
was in Ireland, but here? At Tuatha Dé Danann? That didn’t fit at all. I’d only been here five minutes and already knew it wasn’t your average community. What were the odds Cait would show up here?

I whirled on Pierce. “You knew.”

He shook his head. He had to be lying.

Siofra smiled. “Do you know our Caitlin, then?”

I spun back around. “Yes, from Torquay. Is she a frequent visitor?”

“Just casually. She carries much on those young shoulders.” Siofra fussed with her hair. “She’s here to visit with her father of course, and the community encourages him to share her burdens. So far our success can be measured in very small increments, but we have faith that the Goddess Dana will touch his soul with harmony from the earth, and he’ll come to understand Caitlin’s needs more fully.”

Pierce snorted. He’d joined us on the stoop while Siofra and I chatted, and now he used the edge of my suitcase to nudge me behind my knee. “Inside, Belisama.” Tension vibrated in his words.

My spidey sense kicked in and my heart dropped to my toes. Something was up, and it wasn’t good. “I’m just going to run and say hello to Cait—”

Pierce’s grip on my suitcase made it into an immoveable force that he used to shove me into the house. “Not now.”

“Just leave the bags here in the hall, Tynan. I want to be sure you have a chance to eat before your da gets home from the community service,” Siofra said, then she scurried down the hall toward the amazing scent of what I hoped was Irish stew.

Pierce grunted his agreement, set our bags down, and manacled my upper arm with a don’t-even-think-of-escaping grip.

I wrestled free. “I’ll wait to find Cait until after you explain what the hell is going on. But right now, please tell me that smell is Irish stew. Other than convenience store food, it’s my first meal in your country, and at the risk of being annoyingly predictable, I really, really want it to be stew.”

Pierce gave me a forced smile. “It’s stew.
Máthair
makes the best, and there will be pub salad as well.” His brogue had become richer, fuller in the short time he’d been talking with Siofra. It vibrated in my chest, making me want to trust him. But I couldn’t. Not after his noticeable lack of surprise at finding Cait here.

We sat at a weathered pine trestle table in Siofra’s warm kitchen. She ladled the stew into handmade pottery bowls, then took a loaf of bread from the oven and placed it on a blue plaid cloth in the center of the table. “I heated the bread just a bit so the butter would melt,” she said, putting a plate of what looked like a lump of homemade butter next to the bread.

She sat across from us, her gaze steady on my face while I took the first bite of stew. I groaned. The lamb melted on my tongue and mixed with the flavors of cabbage, leeks, celery, and peas.

Siofra grinned. “You like it, yes?”

“It is absolutely perfect,” I said, tearing off a hunk of bread.

She scooted a plate and fork toward me, then scooped a mound of salad on the plate. I recognized lettuce, beets, cucumber, cabbage, and eggs, but when I tasted it, the ingredients in the dressing escaped me. “Delicious. What’s in the dressing?”

“The flavor you’re unfamiliar with is probably the malt vinegar.” She tucked her chin, shy.

I barely controlled the urge to lean across the table and hug her. With only warm smiles and few bites of food that had been prepared with love, Pierce’s mother had firmly established herself in my heart. “Your mother is incredible.” I nudged him with my elbow. “How is it she knows about me, my name?”

Pierce scowled. Siofra blushed.

“She, ah, asked.”

“I’ve always known when my son is hiding something. It’s a mother’s way, and he’s a rare visitor here, so there had to be a reason he needed my Citroën.”

Pierce hadn’t lost his scowl. “She’s a force to be reckoned with.”

Siofra nodded. “I am that. Best you eat before I start poking into what you and Everly are about.”

A prudent woman would have dug into her food and left Pierce to answer Siofra’s implied question. I’d never been that sensible or practical. “We’re here to…see…Eamon Grady.”

Surprise fluttered across Siofra’s face. “Eamon?”

I swallowed my last bite of stew. “Yes. Does he live here?”

A low, threatening rumble sounded in Pierce’s throat.

Siofra stared at her son, one eyebrow arched. There was no doubt where Pierce inherited the expression. “Yes. Eamon is a resident.”

Anger spiked. I didn’t think about it, simply latched onto Pierce’s arm fingertips tuned to wide-open trespassing mode. To give him credit, he didn’t so much as flinch. Images flashed of Grady at a distance, Pierce arguing with his parents, and a pissed off Pierce storming away in his mother’s Citroën. “You never talked to him? Never questioned him?”

“No. Needed more intel.” Pierce pushed his empty bowl to the side, then buttered a slice of bread.

Siofra patted my hand. “Eamon is one of our more difficult residents. He’s never fully embraced our connection with the land, but the Goddess Dana doesn’t give up on potential followers. We are gentle people and offer protection to anyone who actively pursues peace.” She sounded desperate.

“He’s a psychopath, Ma. You’re not safe.”

My attention flipped between mother and son, and I began to see why Pierce had been acting so odd lately. With Eamon Grady living this close to his parents, Pierce had to be freaked out about their safety, and apparently Grady had been living here for quite a while. And now my quest for revenge had brought my confrontation with Grady into Pierce’s family home. Guilt settled like a lead weight. “We need to leave, Pierce. Take Grady away from here.”

Siofra jumped up. “No, that is not allowed. We provide refuge for everyone who requests it, and who is actively studying and living according to our beliefs.”

Pierce shot to his feet, faced his mother. “Grady is genetically incapable of love.” He sucked in a breath. “I’ll move our bags out to the guest house.”

Stunned, I stared after him. The unflappable Tynan Pierce had just flapped.

Siofra nodded. “Of course I’d prefer you stay here with us, but you’ll need your privacy.”

“I’ll respect your values as much as possible, Ma,” Pierce said, then disappeared out the back door.

Siofra dropped back into her chair. “I apologize for our outburst, Everly. As you might have guessed, Lorcán and I have been discussing this with Tynan for a while now. He doesn’t come home often, as there’s a part of him that feels unworthy to be here because of the path he’s chosen in life.” She cradled my hand between hers. “I hope you can help him understand that his work stems from a deep desire for peace and…justice in the world. We embrace that completely, but cannot condone the methods our son employs to achieve his goals.”

Her touch was warm, comforting. Fortunately her skin didn’t come into contact with my fingertips. Unfortunately, her explanation put me smack between my need for revenge and the much, much more difficult path of acceptance. “Eamon Grady was directly responsible for my parents’ deaths, and possibly my husband’s. I feel no tolerance for him. None. All these years he’s been free to live however he chooses, while my parents…” I choked.

“Would they want you to seek revenge?” Her expression radiated innocence.

I shook my head. “No. But there’s more at stake here. My mother was a forensic anthropologist, and she had a gift, an affinity with plants. She worked for our government, creating a substance that could be used for biological warfare, but I know she would have refused to release the formula until she’d found an antidote. She was murdered before…”

Siofra squeezed my hand. “You and my son have the same inborn desire for peace and justice. It’s a part of both your souls that is undeniable, even though neither of you is completely able to see it yet.”

I couldn’t let her go on thinking I was
good
inside, not when I had every intention of ending Eamon Grady’s life. Not until after I had all the facts, of course. “But—”

“We’ll always differ in how to implement our beliefs, but the core, where they originate, is the same. You and Tynan, you’re quite perfect together, and I’m pleased you’ll be part of our family, Everly Gray.”

Say what?
A panicked rush of guilt popped me right out of my chair. “Oh, no. You’re… That’s not how it is. Pierce is my backup, my friend, but we’re not—”

“Mothers see things.” Siofra smiled. It was one of those Cheshire cat moments when you knew you’d been left out of the loop. My panic shot up another level.

With perfect timing, Pierce threw open the kitchen door. “Ready to work, Belisama?”

I practically flew to his side. “Absolutely. Ready.” And then my manners surfaced. “Thank you so much for the wonderful meal, Siofra, and the…conversation.”

Her lips twitched. She glided across the room, gave Pierce a hug, and then it was my turn. Somehow Siofra’s touch saturated me with another burst of peace and love. It was overwhelming, and left me in a fog until Pierce nudged me out the kitchen door and into the sharp coolness of the evening mist.

“Cottage is in a clearing just beyond those trees.” He had a firm grip on my elbow.

I jerked free. “You knew Eamon Grady was living here.”

“Yes.”

Confusion rattled my thoughts. “You should have told me, and make no mistake I’m pissed as hell at you. And surely there had to be a better way to deal with this than bringing my issues into your parents’ home. Why didn’t we just kidnap him? Or get super sniper Annie over here to shoot him? From a distance? No, never mind. That wouldn’t work at all. This is my revenge. My fight. And Annie’s a mom now.”