About Face (Wolf Within) (7 page)

I saw him then as he rounded the corner. Black curls ran riot over his head, black jeans, black t-shirt, black jean jacket, black boots.

“Who are you? The Dark Lord of Dublin?” I eyed him up and down as he approached, and he rolled his eyes at me.

“And you? Who are you? The Bedraggled Bitch of Boston?” His gaze was equally derisive as he took in my jeans, t-shirt, gray hoodie and boots. My hair was a dreadful mess and my makeup long since worn off.

We glared at each other for thirty seconds before we both burst out laughing.

“You do look like shite,” he said when he’d recovered, but he sounded concerned, not derogatory. I shrugged and remembered what a bastard he was. The warm moment between us evaporated, and he sighed before he righted my suitcase. It dripped, and he grimaced. He shook his head but didn’t say anything, although I suspected it half killed him to keep his mouth shut.

“Did you not sleep at all on the plane?” He started back the way he’d come. My suitcase bumped along behind him, and I was forced to follow him if I wanted it back.

“I can’t sleep on planes.”

“Jaysus,” he muttered. “What is with you and your dire distrust of all methods of modern transportation?”

“It’s not just modern. I’m kinda afraid of horses, too,” I admitted, and he snorted.

“Well, doesn’t that figure.”

“Walking and running are the two best ways to get anywhere, Paddy.”

“If you never want to go more than a couple miles or get someplace in less than a month, I suppose.”

“I also like bikes. The ones with pedals.”

“Aren’t you awful scared you might hit a pothole and fly over the handlebars and break your arm, maybe?”

“If I’m that damn stupid not to avoid the pothole, I deserve to break my arm. Haven’t you figured out yet I distrust putting my life in the hands of someone else? Someone who may fall asleep at the wheel or screw with his cellphone just as the light changes?”

“Control—you just don’t like to give it up. Have you always been this way, or is this a recent character flaw?” He threw me a suspicious look over his shoulder.

“Define recent? You try growing up with a father who takes every last decision out of your hands and makes you feel like you’re too stupid to figure shit out for yourself, and top it off with killing your bond mates in a car crash—and
you
tell me why I don’t like losing control. Control makes me safe, Paddy O’Reilly, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask to feel safe, do you?”

“No.” His tone was subdued, and I became aware I’d screamed at him and, also, surprise, surprise, I was in tears.

More pedestrians scattered out of my way, some of them even went so far as to turn away so they didn’t have to meet my gaze and perhaps become infected with my special brand of crazy.

“Look, I’m tired and starving to death and all I wanted to do was come into the pub. Only I wasn’t wearing my damn pack ring, so that giant bastard wouldn’t let me in. Why should I wear my ring? You don’t give a shit about me. Apparently the whole frigging pack thinks I left Murphy and not the other way around.” I swiped at my eyes with my sleeve and cursed myself.

“A little advance warning would have been nice, Stanz.” Paddy slowed his pace so he fell in next to me and tried to put his free arm around my shoulders, but I shrugged him away.

“You want to watch me kick Colm’s ass? I didn’t have time to do it on my way out the pub door, but I’d definitely planned on it.”

“Violence doesn’t solve anything. I just think it’s stupid you have to be Mac Tire and wear a goddamn ring to get into a fucking pub. Why isn’t being Pack good enough?” I felt my blood pressure skyrocket, and Paddy groaned.

“Because the pub’s private, woman, but…”

“What the hell kind of bullshit elitist crap is this? A pub just for your own pack members and to hell with the Pack at large? Padraic O’Reilly, you sonofabitch, what kind of pack is Mac Tire anyway? Fucking private pub? Unbelievable.”

“Will you shut it, goddamn it?” Paddy cast a nervous glance around, but there were no pedestrians in the vicinity. Not anymore. Anyway, I hadn’t screamed. I had used a very vicious whisper.

“Why? What in the name of hell for?” Incensed, I grabbed his arm and forced him to stop his forward motion.

“Mac Tire’s a big enough pack as it is, Stanzie, and—” He broke off and pushed his hand through his unruly curls. His fingers stuck and with a grimace he yanked them free. “I’ll not be standing on the street discussing pack politics with you, damn it. The pub’s private and there’s a reason for it and to hell with you if you don’t like it. You don’t have to like it, do you? You aren’t—”

“Going to be a member much longer? Yeah, well, screw you, too. Bastard,” I hissed and would have taken a swing at him, but he stepped prudently out of reach.

“If you’d let me finish my sent—” he began, until I hissed, “Bastard” again under my breath, and he shut his mouth.

We stared at each other for a good forty seconds.

“I was gonna say Alpha, you annoying twat. You aren’t Alpha. Next time let me finish my frigging sentence!”

“Sure. I wouldn’t want to stop you from swearing at me and calling me derogatory names in these unfinished sentences, Paddy.”

“Oh, and
bastard
is a compliment then?” We glared at each other again until the silence was broken by my goddamn growling stomach.

“Tell me you ate something on the plane, Stanzie.”

“So now you want me to start lying to you? I’m sorry I’m not as good at it as you are, but maybe with practice I could get better.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and I swore I saw his lips move as he counted to ten. “Da always told me never to argue with a starving woman. So I’m not saying anything at all to you until you eat something.”

“Fine with me! Who the hell wants to listen to your bullshit, anyway?” I shoved my backpack back on my shoulder so I could follow him the few paces left to the door of the pub.

The red-haired giant had obviously eavesdropped if his expression of complete astonishment was any indication.

“Were you the freak of nature who called Paddy and told him I was here?” I snarled into his chest on my way past. I didn’t feel like tilting my head back enough to look him in the face.

“Ye—es?” He didn’t sound very confident and I rolled my eyes.

“Thanks for nothing, asswipe.”

“For fuck’s sake, will somebody shove some food down this woman’s gullet before we’re all doomed?” Paddy yelled, and the entire pub went eerily silent.

“We have shepherd’s pie or fish and chips tonight.” A redheaded woman with eyes the color of green sea glass stood behind the bar. She looked between me and Paddy with a curious expression and the barest hint of a grin.

“Bring both up to my office,” Paddy ordered. “And Guinness as well. And be goddamn quick. And don’t even think about turning that sly smirk into laughter, Alannah, or I’ll have Fee pull all that red hair out of your skull for you.”

The woman turned away and covered her mouth, but we all heard her stifled snickers anyway.

“Goddamn it,” swore Paddy and stomped up a flight of old wooden stairs just inside the door. A red velvet rope stretched across the bottom, but he had long legs and simply stepped over it.

I was not as tall and had to hang onto the banister to keep my balance, but I managed not to trip over my feet.

At the top of the staircase was a door marked
Private
. To the left was a small, very antiquated bathroom. Paddy shoved open the office door and stomped toward an old rolltop desk piled with papers and a desk calculator. He threw himself into a leather chair on wheels that squealed in protest and nearly bashed into the brick wall behind it.

A battered sofa, two armchairs with the stuffing coming out, an ancient coffee table and a set of built in bookshelves crammed haphazardly with books and magazines made up the rest of the furniture.

A grimy window covered with curtains in a faded red chintz pattern overlooked a dark alley.

“Very film noir.” I brushed off the seat of one of the armchairs before dubiously taking a seat. “Are you a private eye or a publican? All you need is a fedora and a fifth of rye stashed in your desk drawer, and you could be straight out of a Mickey Spillane novel.”

“Shut it,” Paddy advised and put his head in his hands for a moment.

“Dramatic bastard.” I looked around the room and grimaced at the grime on the window.

“I take it by your comment outside that you’re here to sever the ties with Liam?” Paddy moved his squeaky chair so the desk didn’t block me from his sight.

“Actually, the opposite. I came to work things out. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, right?”

“Huh?” He gaped at me, and I rolled my eyes.

“That was a
Jaws
reference, you dumbass.”

He continued to stare.

“American movie from the seventies? About a huge shark that ate half the damn town and then got blown up with an air tank and a lucky-as-hell rifle shot?”

“What the hell are you blathering on about now? You’re delirious—you do know that, right? You need to eat something and maybe then we can have a genuine conversation. Jaysus.” Paddy rolled the chair back behind his desk and began to sort through the phenomenal mess spread across it.

“This office is a joke. You can’t seriously run a business out of here. How can you possibly keep track of anything with it thrown all over the desk like that?”

“I have a system.” Paddy gave me a defensive glare and I shook my head.

“And I have nine lives like a cat. My ass, you have a system,” I sneered and something pounded the desktop. Possibly his fist.

“This is not the Stanzie Newcastle I remember,” he muttered. “Step one foot on Irish soil, and it’s like a fucking banshee possessed you.”

I settled back in the armchair.

“So where is he? Murphy?” My voice was casual, but I didn’t fool either of us. I thought of Faith’s dream again and wanted to beg the man to tell me Murphy wasn’t in over his head, but I had to play it just a little cooler than that. If I could. Subtlety was not one of my better talents.

“No,” he decided. “We are not having this conversation until after you eat and after I drink copious amounts of beer. Not gonna happen.”

“I know he’s giving everyone in the pack the impression I walked out on him. Or maybe that was you,” I accused and Paddy’s mouth fell open.

“Me?” he bellowed. “I’m not in the habit of blabbing pack members’ private business all over the place.”

“Fine. It was him, then.” I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice but I knew I failed. “That red-haired giant hurt my feelings,” I yelled. “I wasn’t in half so bad a mood before he treated me like shit and talked about the pub being fucking private.”

“I told you I’m gonna kick his ass. Why do you have to take it out on me?” Paddy shouted.

“I’m also mad as hell at you! Worse than I am at the giant!”

“His name is Colm, damn it,” snapped Paddy. “And why the hell should you be mad at me?”

My blood pressure zoomed again at his treachery.

“You said I was family. After my father disowned me at the tribunal, you took me aside and told me I didn’t need him because I had a family. You. Mac Tire. You fucking lied to my face, Paddy, and what’s worse, I believed you. I believed
in
you. And then you just walked away. You couldn’t even look me straight in the eye the day you and Murphy left. And in four months not a phone call or an email to see if I was okay. Nothing. Not one goddamn thing.”

“Fuck.” Guilt spread across Paddy’s face, but I was unmoved. Then the guilt turned to anger, and he yelled, “And why the fuck has it taken you four months to get your ass over here anyway? I didn’t think it would take you even four days, but no, you’ve got to be a bitch about it!”

“Me? A bitch? What?” I spluttered, unable to form a coherent sentence due to the rage strangling me.

“You heard me. You sat there and didn’t say one word when he said he was leaving, and how the hell do you think that made him feel? Like complete shite, that’s how it made him feel. And here I am, having to pick up the pieces for you, and now you have the gall to be mad at
me
, woman? I’m the one who should be mad, and I am. I am good and frigging mad, so don’t you glare at me like that. You tell me what the hell took you so long to get here.”

“
He
left
me
,” I screamed. Rage burned up and down my spine and all through my blood until I thought I might spontaneously combust. “How many times do I have to keep telling people that? Why is everyone blaming me?
He
walked out on
me
, and I’m supposed to come crawling after him to beg him to take me back? Fuck you! Oh, you arrogant bastard, I cannot even believe you!”

“Where in the hell did you hear me say the word
crawl
? Stanzie Newcastle, will you calm your ass down and shut the fuck up for one minute? I can’t even hear myself think.” Paddy tore at his hair with his hands, and his cheeks were so red I thought he was close to combustion too.

Affronted, I turned away from him and stared at the damn brick wall. He wanted me to shut the fuck up, did he? Fine. I would not say a word.

The office door banged open, and the redhead from behind the bar walked in with a tray of food and Guinness. My stomach rumbled, and she flashed me a smile I didn’t trust an inch. Too many teeth.

“I’m Alannah Doyle,” she introduced herself as she set the tray down on Paddy’s desk. “My bond mate’s Declan Byrne.”

“Constance Newcastle.” I took a deep breath. “At the moment, anyway, my bond mate is Liam Murphy.” I wanted to throw up or crawl beneath the sofa, but I managed to look her in the face, braced for pity or ridicule.

“What took you so long to get here?” she demanded, hands on hips.

“
Thank
you,” Paddy yelled rudely.

“Does this shit happen all the time in Mac Tire? People walk out on other people, and other people chase after them, even though they were the ones that were walked out on?” My tone was snotty, but, honestly, what the fuck?