Haunting Embrace (19 page)

Colleen’s hand shook as she steadfastly ladled stew into shallow crockery and handed it to Meaghan to place on the table, but Meaghan felt her rage. Bubbling fiercely, it welled inside her grandmother like a volcano about to erupt. How she kept it all from spewing out, Meaghan couldn’t begin to guess. Why she did was more obvious. Though Meaghan had no sense of what Mickey might be feeling inside—if, in fact, he experienced anything so complex as inner turmoil—no one could miss the violence radiating from him. Meaghan didn’t like being anywhere near the radius of Mickey’s fist, but she hurried to help her grandmother. Imitating Colleen, she kept her eyes down as she served the stew.

Mickey lurched across the kitchen, snatching a bottle of something golden brown off the shelves as he went. Whatever it was, it didn’t have a label but looked potent. He nearly missed his chair at the head of the table and caught himself awkwardly before he stumbled into it.

Only then did he turn his eyes on Meaghan, and what she saw made her stomach clench and the pendant squeal with something that might have been delight and might have been dismay. The amulet’s temperature spiked until she felt it must surely be melting her pocket. Mickey’s eyes glittered flat and hard, the gray color lost in the cold gleam. Like a mirror, they reflected the bright lights and deep shadows, but no soul gleamed behind them.

She caught her breath and drew a warning glance from Áedán. His concern felt like a welcome wash of warmth, but it could not chase away her apprehension. On the blanket spread in the corner, Niall found his bottle amongst his toys and gurgled happily over it. He, at least, seemed immune to the tension in the room.

With a cautious look at Mickey, Áedán went to the sink, removed his bandage, and washed his hands and face. Silently Colleen handed him a towel, and he dried with deliberate movements. Meaghan caught herself staring at his hands, remembering how they felt against her skin, beneath her dress.. . .

He looked up, as if hearing her thoughts, and his gaze roamed possessively over her body.

“How is your hand, Mr. Brady?” Colleen asked, breaking the electric contact.

Áedán gave her a tight smile. “Almost as good as new, Mrs. Ballagh. Thank you for stitching it.”

“Oh, she’s good at that,” Mickey said with a sneer. It seemed to have a double meaning for him, but Meaghan couldn’t decipher it.

Colleen’s temper flared and cut through the distance separating her from the man she called her husband. As if aware of the emotion she managed to keep from showing in her eyes, in her expression, Mickey smiled. His lips stretching across his yellowed teeth looked like a ghastly grimace, and the flat gleam in his eyes made it all the more sinister.

Meaghan wanted to jump to her feet, scoop up the baby, and drag her grandmother out of there as fast as she could. She forced herself to stay put.

Filth covered Mickey’s hands, but he didn’t wash. He pulled his cup of water to him, gave Colleen a deliberate look, and then dumped it on the linoleum floor before filling it with the liquor from the plain bottle. It had a sharp scent that Meaghan could smell from where she stood.

“You, Áedán?” Mickey said congenially, his hateful words from earlier evidently forgotten. “Would you care to try a drop of mother’s milk?”

“No,” Áedán said.

The entire room seemed to suck in a breath at that, and the baby made a skittish sound. Mickey’s soulless gaze studied Áedán for what seemed an eternity before he muttered something under his breath and slopped another splash into his own cup.

“Where did you go tonight?” Áedán asked him.

Since they’d arrived together, Meaghan had assumed they’d been in each other’s company, but now she took in the details. Mickey was obviously drunk, but not Áedán. His hands were steady, his eyes watchful. His threadbare clothes had stains that looked older than the cloth. They were clean, though. If he’d been drinking tonight, he’d made a neater job of it than Mickey had.

“I don’t answer to you,” Mickey said in a low, warning voice.

Colleen put a plate with warm soda bread in the center of the table, and Meaghan took her seat across from Áedán. Colleen sat stiffly at the opposite end from Mickey.

She folded her hands in prayer, and Meaghan quickly did the same. Áedán followed suit, although she caught the glimmer of irony in his eyes as he did it. Mickey ignored them. He held his spoon clasped in his dirty paw like a caveman as he shoveled food into his mouth. The stew had been simmering on the stove, and he sucked in air as he slurped, then let pieces drop from his lips back into the bowl.

“It’s too fecking hot to eat,” he said, ripping a hunk of bread from the loaf and dipping it into the broth.

The Colleen that Meaghan knew would never have permitted such foul manners or language at her table. She’d have grabbed Mickey by the ear and twisted until he fell to his knees begging for forgiveness and leniency. The Colleen that Meaghan knew would not have given it. She’d have booted his smelly arse into the street. In the silence, she could feel the toxic mix of Colleen’s conflicting emotions as she fought the desire to do just that.

Instead, she sat stiffly at her end of the table, face pale, eyes downcast. Meaghan had been hungry for hours, but now her stomach felt knotted and sour. She wanted to push away from the table and escape. Niall began to fuss.

“Shut the brat up,” Mickey barked.

Meaghan nearly flew out of her chair as she rushed to gather the baby and keep him off Mickey’s radar. She bounced him on her hip as Colleen watched with mingled gratitude and anger. The anger, Meaghan knew, was not for her, but for the vile man who sat at her table.

Mickey paused and glared at Meaghan for a moment. The inhuman eyes made her want to squirm just as they made her want to challenge him. Knowing that’s what he wanted, what he craved, she settled back in her chair and cuddled the baby. The pendant’s drone seeped beneath her skin until it felt like it came from inside rather than out. Áedán watched her, as if worried she might draw Mickey’s vehemence to herself.

“I’ve not had a stew in a long time,” Áedán said in an obvious ploy to defuse the ticking bomb. “You are a fine cook, Mrs. Ballagh.”

Colleen smiled at him tensely and took a small bite. The whole scene wore the tint of the surreal. Nothing was right here. Not the strange man with his merciless eyes, not the stress and strain that warred with the polite façade that everyone but Mickey tried to maintain. Not her grandmother, who spoke with calm and felt with fury. Not Áedán, who seemed to be viewing the situation with a set of criteria that Meaghan couldn’t grasp. He’d made some connection about Mickey’s behavior that she hadn’t, but she couldn’t ask him to explain.

“I used the last of the lamb,” Colleen said in a light voice, as if her rage wasn’t as thick as the steam from her pot on the stove. “Not fish, just like you asked, Mickey.”

Mickey looked up from his bowl. Grease and slop covered his chin, but he made no move to wipe it away. “The last of the lamb,” he mocked. “You used the last of the lamb. Well, do you expect me to keep you in lamb unending, then? Do you think I can prevent it from ever running out? You spoiled slut. Next you’ll be wanting
beef
on your table every night, isn’t that the way of it?”

Colleen recoiled and Meaghan saw her shoulders square and her chin come up. A red abrasion stood out starkly on her face from where he’d slapped her, and her eyes sparkled with a hard light.

Meaghan wanted to jump up, jump in, and defend her grandmother, but Áedán caught her eye and gave a warning shake of his head.

The wrath Colleen had kept tapped down suddenly exploded.

“Beef every night?” Colleen repeated, and a harsh and disrespectful tone replaced her subservience. “I’d sooner expect golden plates to shoot out of your arse than for you to provide what any Irish woman would expect from a man.”

For a moment, Mickey’s mouth opened and closed like a fish as his face turned an alarming shade and those eyes became sharp blades of malevolence. Beyond control of her ire, Colleen glared back.

Mickey’s chair went flying and he lunged across the table, spilling stew without care, burning himself, she was sure, but too enraged to feel it. She got out of the way as quickly as possible, holding Niall tightly as the baby let out a fearful cry.

“Are you going to kill me now?” Colleen taunted, dancing out of his reach. “Then who will care for your spawn, you miserable swine?”

The shade of Mickey’s face bespoke apoplexy or aneurisms. He circled the table and grabbed Colleen’s big butcher knife on the way. At the same time, Áedán caught Mickey from behind, locking Mickey’s arms at the elbows with his own and holding them back. Mickey fought the wrestler’s hold, could have escaped it if he’d let his body go limp, but he was too far gone to think it through, and he twisted and bucked like a caged animal. Áedán struggled to keep him captive.

“Get out of here,” Áedán shouted to the women. “Take the baby and go.”

He didn’t have to tell Meaghan twice. She yanked Colleen away but couldn’t keep her grandmother’s rising taunts from coming. Colleen must have been swallowing them for a long time and now she couldn’t stop. She flung them like acid, criticisms of his stench, his foul manners, his tiny prick. Mickey raged in Áedán’s grip, nearly escaping. She knew that Áedán was made of solid muscle. She’d been held tight against all that brawn only a few hours ago. But Mickey was mindless with fury.

“Come on,” Meaghan said, hauling Colleen out to the porch and the cold. Fear propelled them to the crude road, where they stopped and looked back, as if they might see through the walls to what went on inside. They could still hear the fight, dishes breaking, the thud of fists against flesh and the angry curses that accompanied them.

Doors began to open and buttery light spilled out from the cottages on either side of Colleen’s. A large woman in a housedress and slippers hurried down her walk to where Colleen and Meaghan waited. On the other side, a man and woman watched from their porch. Meaghan realized she knew them—or at least she would in about fifty years. The couple sniffed, as if scenting danger, and then scurried back inside.

“Drunk again, is he?” the fat woman in the housedress said in a voice filled with sympathy. Her concerned gaze moved from the bundled baby in Meaghan’s arms to Colleen’s swollen belly and tight expression, and then back to Meaghan.

“You must be her cousin. I’ve heard you came to visit. I’m Enid Sullivan. Come now. Bring the baby inside where it’s warm. Mr. Brady will take care of that man while I make us a cup of tea.”

Meaghan recognized the other woman even before she’d introduced herself. Enid Sullivan had been her grandmother’s best friend for many years. Meaghan had never met her, but she’d seen pictures of the two and heard stories about their friendship. She thought she would have known her anywhere.

The way Enid said
that man
left Meaghan in no doubt that she’d witnessed Mickey’s drunken rages many times before. But instinctively, Meaghan knew
this
episode was different. For all the cruel incivility he’d shown Colleen earlier, there’d not been this violence. Nor had there been that cold flat glitter in his eyes.

“Colleen,” Meaghan said, drawing her grandmother’s attention from the open door. “Take the baby and go with Mrs. Sullivan. She’ll take care of you.”

Colleen gave a tight nod and reached for Niall, who went to her with a woeful sniffle. The poor child shivered with fear. Colleen held him tight and Meaghan felt a lump forming in her throat at the love she saw seeping in and replacing the anger in her grandmother’s expression.

“What am I to do?” Colleen breathed against the downy cap of baby hair.

“There’s nothing you can do, lass,” Enid said kindly. “But come inside and sit at my table where it’s warm and safe. Perhaps Jesus above is watching over you and that fool of a husband will get himself kilt.”

A snort of reluctant mirth escaped Colleen. “I’ve never been that lucky, and I doubt the morrow will bring a change.”

“Aye, well, we could hope.”

Feeling relieved that her grandmother and father were in good hands, Meaghan took a step away.

“And where would you be off to?” Colleen asked, alarmed.

“I can’t just leave Áedán. . . .” She realized how telling her words were but didn’t care. “He might need help.”

Both Enid and Colleen wore identical expressions of shock. “And just how would a slip of a girl like you be helping a great hulking man like Mr. Brady?” Enid asked.

“I’ll brain Mickey with a frying pan if I must.”

And with that, she hurried away before either of them could stop her. As she stepped through the front door, she heard Colleen saying, “Let her go. There’s more to her than you or I can see.”

Meaghan hoped that was true. She didn’t let herself even consider that Áedán might come out the loser. She refused to examine the grinding concern that filled her as she followed the sounds of the fighting into the kitchen.

Chapter Fourteen

Á
EDÁN fought to keep Mickey locked in his hold while the women escaped. It should have been an easy feat, but his own fear worked against him and made his movements sluggish. He’d languished in the terror and desperation of others for eons unending, but to experience it himself, to fall victim to an emotion as unfamiliar and debilitating as
alarm
nearly shattered him. This was not the place to unravel his actions and reactions, though. Not the time to pretend that the feelings racing with his blood were not legitimate or worthy.

He’d seen the hard glitter of Mickey’s eyes. He knew what it meant.

The Book of Fennore had found Mickey Ballagh—or Mickey had found the Book—and now its power moved within him, giving him strength beyond his own. It made him more dangerous than either of the women could have imagined.

Mickey had wanted to kill Colleen, and sure as the sun rose on this island, he’d meant to harm Meaghan as well. The thought of it twisted Áedán into knots and further stunned him with the savagery of his own response. He didn’t bother to ask himself why he should be so desperately concerned about Meaghan and her fate.