Fit to Be Tied [Marshals: 2] (11 page)

Some things didn’t change.

D
RAKE
DECIDED
to hang around for the last hour of Cabot’s shift, and Ian and I left him the rest of the pizza, much to my annoyance.

“I’ll get you more.” Ian laughed at me as we walked out of the restaurant. “You might not want that for dinner anyway.” I grunted and he bumped me with his shoulder. “I could maybe take you out.”

Turning to look at him, I found him staring back at me. “What?”

“Like on a date. I could take you out on a date.”

My grin conveyed my disbelief.

“What?”

“You wanna take me out?”

When he smiled, slowly, the laugh lines in the corners of his eyes crinkled, and the pleasure he got from looking at me was obvious and made me momentarily breathless. “Yeah, I do.”

“Okay,” I replied hoarsely, clearing my throat. “Bring on date night.”

He was chuckling when his phone rang as we walked back toward the 1973 Ford Capri with a sunroof we were currently getting around in. I had enjoyed driving the muscle car, but with Ian home now, my days of riding shotgun had returned. He had, in fact, already taken over.

He moved by me, stepping off the curb to walk in the street to get in on the driver’s side, but then he instead turned and took hold of my forearm to keep me close.

“No,” he said quickly, his pale gaze meeting mine. “I didn’t realize it was today. I wasn’t staying away on purpose.”

There went date night.

“Miro and I will be by at some point.”

His grip on me loosened but held, sliding to my wrist and then lower, until he was holding my hand. Since Ian was not in any way a PDA kind of guy, the motion was odd and very telling. He was taking some sort of comfort from touching me, but for what, I had no clue.

“I don’t know that we’ll make it for din—cake is at six, I got it.”

When he hung up, I waited.

“My father’s sixtieth is today,” he said, searching my face.

Colin Doyle was Ian’s estranged father. While I had at one time thought the relationship might be on the mend, I was wrong. They hadn’t seen each other in months. “That’s short notice, huh?”

“Apparently she sent me an invite that was returned to her. I moved without filling out one of those forms for the post office.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, mostly it was just bills anyway.”

“Sure.”

“And I got all those taken care of, and no one ever writes me, they e-mail me.”

I nodded because he was rambling about mail and I cared that he was feeling awkward while explaining it to me, but I couldn’t have cared less that an invitation for his father’s birthday party had gotten lost.

The move had been seamless. We spent a Saturday moving Ian from the cinderblock wasteland that was his apartment and into my Greystone in Lincoln Park. He went from renting a hovel to co-owning my eight-hundred-thousand-dollar home that would maybe be paid off—since I’d increased the payments—a year or so before I died. It had been quick, yes, but I’d asked and Ian was crazy about the idea of taking on a mortgage with me. He’d been touched that I’d thought to include him, moved by my faith in him, and finally, over the moon about signing a piece of paper that made us more than work partners. It made us
life
partners. It was my big gesture, shackling him to me, and he took it as it was meant, as permanency. We had told everyone important that Ian lived with me, but apparently that had not included Colin.

“So,” I said after a moment, “we’ll stop at a liquor store and get him a really good bottle of Irish whiskey.”

“Because he’s Irish,” Ian teased, brought out of his thoughts by my ridiculous stereotyping.

I shrugged and his smile was there, curling his lip in a way that made my stomach flip.

He placed his hands on my coat, tightening, pulling me close. He laid his head on my shoulder without loosening his grip. “Stay by me when we get over there, okay?”

“Of course,” I replied, hands on his hips, breathing in his warm, citrusy scent.

He lifted my chin and planted a kiss on me that lasted only a moment but ran through my body like wildfire, heating every cell and nerve ending.

As we got in the car, I was again reminded why Ian driving was always cause for concern. My hand immediately braced on the dash.

“This is what hanging with a stunt-car driver is like,” I groused.

The chuckle made me smile in spite of myself.

I
AN
THOUGHT
we spent too much, but we were arriving late to the party, plus how many times did a guy turn sixty?

The drive out to Marynook took some time even though it was Saturday. Chicago always had traffic—morning, noon, and night. Once I had been going home from a club at 3:00 a.m. and got caught in a bumper-to-bumper snarl. It was best never to assume that we’d make it anywhere on time.

The normally quiet street was loaded with cars, and to find a spot, we had to park a full block away. Once we got close to the house, I saw the front gate open and balloons and streamers decorating the yard.

“We’ll just go in, wish him a good one, and bail, all right?”

“Whatever you want,” I agreed, watching him tense, making me uneasy.

We walked around the side of the house and into the backyard filled with people. They’d set up picnic tables, card tables, those plastic scoop chairs that buckle if you’re not careful, and a wide assortment of other benches, lounges, and folding chairs. The enclosed back deck had space heaters, and guests were walking in and out of the house.

I checked the bottle of Redbreast Non-Chill-filtered 21-Year-Old Irish Whiskey we’d bought, made sure the red bow was on securely and that there wasn’t a price tag on it anywhere before I passed it to Ian. Looking around, I saw his father in a group of men dressed as he was, in a long sleeved T-shirt under a bowling shirt.

When we were close enough, he saw us, and I could tell from the flush of his cheeks and the enormous smile Ian got that he’d been drinking. Normally his father was much more reticent.

“Here’s my boy!” he yelled, spreading his arms for Ian to fill.

Ian took a quick breath and moved fast. The hug was hard, tight, and if it looked as awkward as it felt, I had no idea why Colin held on so long. But he thumped Ian on the back and then shoved him out to arm’s length.

“It’s so good to see you,” he sighed, patting Ian’s cheek. “What’s it been, six months?”

I’d thought, back when Colin told me he couldn’t watch Chickie for a particular weekend, that it was no big deal. I’d asked my friend Aruna and her husband, Liam, to keep the werewolf, and they’d jumped at the chance. But what Ian took that as, was he’d asked his father to do one thing, and that was to be the backup for his dog. So what to me was a nonissue, to Ian was being let down. If Colin had wanted to be there for him, he would have made other plans and kept Ian’s dog. As he had not, Ian made other arrangements. Permanently.

He asked my friends Aruna and Liam to keep Chickie on a daily basis while he and I were at work, and since they actually wanted him, it was a task they willingly took on. Even though Aruna was a new mother, having Chickie around helped. He was her reason to walk to the store and not drive, to feel safe during the day wherever she went, and she could say “fetch the baby” and Chickie would very gently nudge Sajani Duffy in the right direction. The little girl, all of four months, could do what Ian called a commando crawl, but not any serious moving quite yet. She could sort of undulate across a room, and if Aruna was tired, Chickie would bump the baby with his muzzle to get her going. She would, apparently, follow the dog that dwarfed her mother anywhere.

The new arrangement had worked out wonderfully for Chickie, but not as well for Ian and Colin. Without a reason to see his father, Ian didn’t see him at all anymore.

“Yeah, around that,” Ian agreed.

“So you’ve been busy, then?”

“I was deployed,” Ian said, which wasn’t the whole truth but was nicer than the truth. “Just got back today, actually.”

“Oh?” Colin said, and I heard the dare in his voice, like he was baiting Ian. “And you came right over, did you?”

“Stopped to get you this first,” Ian answered in his modulated, matter-of-fact law enforcement voice as he passed his father the bottle.

“Oh, well now,” one of the other men said, slapping Colin across the back. “That’s a nice gift there, Col.” All the men agreed the very expensive bottle was one of the best of the day.

Colin introduced Ian and then me to his friends and made sure to thank me for showing up as well. Just when Ian was about to make an excuse for our exit, Linda Doyle, Ian’s stepmother, popped out of the house to call everyone inside for cake.

Ian wanted to leave, I could tell, but his father made sure to throw an arm around his neck and lead him inside.

There was a screen set up in the living room, and Colin’s son Lorcan and his daughter, Erica, stood at each side of the screen, inviting people to sit down. Linda—a beautiful woman with gorgeous thick gray hair caught up in a chignon that appeared effortless but that I knew, from living with four women, was not—had everyone take a seat and quiet down.

Colin’s family was all dressed casually but elegantly: his wife in a black wrap dress, his daughter in a denim shirt tied at the waist with black lace skirt and platform pumps, and his son in dress pants and a long-sleeved button-down. Ian in his dark denim jeans, gray Henley and John Varvatos lace-up biker boots—they were mine—didn’t measure up.

I had tried to stay beside him, but there wasn’t room for me on the couch at the front where Colin led him with that arm around his shoulders. Ian was still wearing my black Dsquared2 leather jacket. The fact he was the only one wearing outerwear, besides me, while inside was strange. It was like they’d hustled him in and not even allowed him to get comfortable. I was torn between wanting to walk up there and rescue him and knowing that if he wanted to leave, he would. Ian was more than capable of simply getting up and walking out. I just had to wait and see what he was going to do.

“Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming to Dad’s sixtieth,” Lorcan announced to the room, his greeting drawing applause, cheering, and happy whistles. “Erica and I put together this little walk down memory lane of Colin Doyle’s life, and we hope you all enjoy it.”

There are times when you can absolutely and without a doubt see both sides of something. If I were Colin or Linda or any of their friends or extended family, I would have been touched and awed by the amount of work and time and energy that went into creating the movie. The sheer number of pictures that had been scanned, uploaded, and digitally manipulated was staggering. It also included some home movies, interviews, and letters; it was like watching a documentary on ESPN where they do those 30 for 30 films I was addicted to, except with a side of gushing love. The narration was crisp, funny, and kept everything moving with no lull. There was no way to not be overwhelmed by the production values. Linda was crying; Colin, the man of the hour, was holding her; and everyone else was riveted.

Ian sat frozen, and it was hard to tell if he was even breathing.

I knew why.

The entire presentation didn’t include one single picture of him or his mother, and in fact, there was no mention of Colin being married at all before the current Mrs. Doyle. During the show, Ian got to see family vacations he’d never been on, Christmases he hadn’t been invited to, and graduations he had not attended. It lasted an hour but felt like five. The second it was over and everyone called for a speech, Ian stood as Colin made his way up to Lorcan and Erica, and bolted toward me.

People were clapping and moving around us, gathering close to see and hear Colin. No one noticed me grab for Ian, yank him toward me, and duck into the hallway.

“Breathe,” I ordered.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice feigning nonchalance his eyes couldn’t quite muster. He was good and hurt.

“I know,” I replied, pretending to buy the fact that he was in no way affected by him and his mother being forgotten.

He inhaled deep, tugging on my jacket, fisting it in his hands, trying to get me closer.

“You can’t—this is your father’s house.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Don’t do that. Don’t make any part of this about me not wanting you, because you know that’s bullshit,” I warned him.

“Okay.”

“I will be all over you if that’s what you want.”

“Yes,” he croaked out. “That’s what I fuckin’ want.”

I lunged at him, hugging him tight, crushing him against me as I pressed my lips to his ear. “I love you, Ian Doyle. Only you, and every time you go away it fuckin’ kills me. I don’t ever want to us to be apart.”

He leaned into me, and I felt the power in his hard, muscular frame as he gave me his weight and his lips opened against the side of my throat.

“Someday, when I have a movie of my life, all that’ll be there will be you,” I promised huskily.

He kissed up to my jaw and then made his way to my mouth. When he tilted my head back and mauled me, I breathed him in, taking all he was offering. Walking him into the wall, I banged him up against it, rattling the pictures, wedging my thigh between his, pressing, pushing, wanting him naked under me, under my hands, desperately.