A Heart Revealed (65 page)

From its cubbyhole in the bookcase, Emma’s antique clock chimed three times, the tinkling sound almost deafening in the silent apartment where Sean sat in the shadows, lying in wait for a monster who had hurt Emma Malloy for the last time.

His body felt as stiff as the striped wingback chair in which he’d hunkered down over an hour ago after he’d convinced Mrs. Peep to unlock Emma’s door.

“He didn’t come home last night,” Mrs. Peep had whispered. “And it’s not the first time.” An abundance of worry lines fanned from eyes that held a glimmer of moisture while two silver brows inched up in concern. “He fooled me at first, but lately he’s been coming home all hours of the night, and I knew something wasn’t right. I’m worried for her, Sean.”

“Me too, Mrs. Peep,” Sean muttered out loud, the sound earning a bored look from Lancelot as he groomed himself on the couch. Sean’s muscles twitched under his skin as if he’d just downed a pot of Katie’s day-old coffee, a quick scan of Emma’s apartment revealing that Rory was not only a monster, but a slob as well. Newspapers littered the sofa where Lancelot lay, spilling onto the floor in disheveled heaps occasionally punctuated by discarded socks. Several coffee cups crowded the cherrywood coffee table that now sported a layer of dust and additional coffee-cup rings. The once clean scent of lemon oil gave way to the distinct smell of licorice mingling with the odor of stale cigarettes, now a mountain of butts ground into a floral china plate. An empty package of Lucky Strike cigarettes lay crumpled on top of Emma’s Bible, prompting a tic in Sean’s jaw. Yeah, Lucky Strike, for sure.

My fist, his face.

“Don’t rough him up,” Steven had warned. And yet Rory had never hesitated with Emma—hitting her, beating her, scarring her for life. The very thought kindled Sean’s fury until it was white-hot, and he flexed his fingers, every nerve as taut as a wire trap begging to spring.

Like a hunter stalking his prey, Sean’s body stilled at a key in the door, and when Rory lumbered in, he quietly rose to his feet. A hard smile curled on his lips, and his voice was deathly still.
Like Rory’s about to be.
“Well, would you look at what the cat drug in.”

Rory’s body jerked at the door, wide eyes narrowing as they leveled on Sean. “How the devil did you get in?”

A spasm twitched in Sean’s temple as he slowly moved forward, adrenaline fairly quivering in the sinews of his arms. “No, I think the question is, how the devil did you get in, Malloy? Back into Emma’s life to lie and cheat on her again?”

The blue of Rory’s eyes fused to black as he yanked the door wide. “Get out—
now
!”

“You took the words right out of my mouth, you bloodsucking leech.” Striking like a rattler, Sean heaved the man up against the door, knotted fists buried into his half-buttoned peacoat like meat hooks, his bristled jaw just inches away. “Get out,
now
—out of this apartment and out of Emma’s life.”

A slow smile slid across Rory’s face as his eyes glinted like steel. “Well, well, what do you know—the boy’s in love with my wife.” With surprising strength, he thrust Sean away and laughed, his breath as foul as the intent in his eyes. “You want a piece of my Emmy, do you?” He fumbled with the buttons of his coat, peeling it off and tossing it on the floor, then egged Sean on with a wave of his fingers. “Or maybe you already have . . .”

Rage exploded in Sean’s brain and he lunged, slamming him to the wall with brute force that put a glaze in Rory’s eyes. “You aren’t worthy of speaking her name, much less calling her your wife.” With iron fists, he jerked him up hard, his voice a dangerous hiss. “I’m warning you now—walk out of her life, or so help me, you won’t be able to.”

Rory shoved him back, and then readied his stance with a heated look and a cold smile. “I don’t think so, Yank. It’s my ring on her finger, and it’s my bed that she’ll warm.” His grin could have belonged to the devil. “And there’s not a bloomin’ thing you can do about it.”

“No?” With unnatural speed, Sean drove an iron fist to his jaw, crashing him to the wall with a sickening thud. Blood splattered when his lip split like overripe fruit.

Swiping the side of his mouth, Rory’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You wanna play rough, do you now?” A feral smile curved on his lips as he reached back in his waistband. He fumbled with something, and then with a faint click, a blade shot forth from the knife in his hand. “I won’t kill ya for Emma’s sake,” he said with the touch of the brogue, and then he grinned. “But you’re gonna bleed, Yank, make no mistake about that.”

With a wild jab, he sliced the knife through the air and Sean jumped back, body taut and instincts ready. He saw the same crazed look in Rory’s eyes he had seen before, in the eyes of the man who stabbed him during the war. His skin prickled as Rory circled, the blade gleaming in the sunlight that spilled through Emma’s window. Blood pounding in his brain, Sean backed up slowly with a quick scan of the room. His gaze lighted upon Emma’s coffee table.

Rory advanced, his confidence restored by the blade in his hand. “Afraid, are ya? Well, I would be too, Yank, if I were you. Because I’m gonna take my Emmy away, and you’re gonna be left with naught but a bleedin’ heart . . .” He awarded Sean with a handsome gleam of teeth. “Not to mention a bleedin’ body.” And in a catch of Sean’s breath, he charged, the slash of his knife a mere whisper in the air as it nicked Sean’s hand with a scarlet gash.

His blood pooled and slithered down his arm, and something sinister rose within, bringing him face-to-face with an evil he had courted before, suffocating him with the desire to kill. Gasping for air, he felt it swallow him up, a blackness in his brain that blotted out everything but the need to avenge, the urgency to right a wrong.
I promise not to kill him
, he’d said, but it was a promise he couldn’t keep . . .

Pulse roaring in his ears, he bent to heave the coffee table high overhead, arms bulging from the effort and adrenaline surging through his veins. With a guttural groan, he heaved it at Rory’s head, buckling him at the knees. His merciless kick sent the knife in Rory’s hand clattering across the room while the Irishman clumped into a heap on the floor. Chest heaving, Sean launched a foot into Rory’s gut, leveling him flat on his back with a garbled groan. But it wasn’t near enough. Suddenly he saw Uncle Paul and Rory and men like them, preying on women, defiling them, abusing them, and a vehemence rose so strong that it stole the breath from his lungs.

With a mindless power that seemed to take control, he descended upon Rory with his fists, bludgeoning him until he lay limp on the floor, his groans dying to a whisper.

Kill him
, he heard his mind say, and a surge of power shot through him, vile and cruel, luring him with a depraved pleasure that empowered his rage. A rage that had lain dormant until the war, a vile and ruthless time when he’d been trained to kill. A soldier who’d been nothing more than a machine, schooled to destroy. And yet, he’d survived it all, moments in hell that changed a man forever, haunting some with distant memories and nightmares. While for others—those with a demon inside—branding them as killers forever. Killers like him, bearing silent shame until someone unleashed the monster within.

Someone like Rory.

Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

Gasping for air, Sean froze, hands clenched and covered with blood.

Finish him . . . now . . . to vindicate Emma . . .

His fist hardened to rock, ready for vengeance . . .

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.

Rory’s eyes fluttered open and spanned wide as Sean drew his fist back, ready to take a life that wasn’t worth living.

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

He froze midair, muscles quivering with hate, no strength to halt his need to avenge.

He teacheth my hands to war . . . a bow of steel . . .

A spasm traveled his arm that felt like fire, and in a violent heave, his fist shuddered to his side, all air wrenching in his chest. Sweat trickled the back of his neck while harsh breaths rattled from a throat parched with the thirst to revenge. He slowly rose to his feet, Rory’s blood and his coating his hands. Swiping his mouth with the side of his arm, he trudged down the hall to Emma’s bedroom and retrieved a battered suitcase and men’s clothing out of the closet and drawers. Returning to where Rory lay, he tossed the suitcase on the floor and threw the clothes in his face. “Get out now,” he rasped, “and if you’re here when I come back or you ever come near Emma Malloy again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

With labored breathing, he retrieved the knife across the room and carefully closed it, the blade bearing his blood an eerie reminder of how close he had come. Not in the pain to his body, no, but in the pain to his soul in taking another man’s life. Dropping the knife in his pocket, he moved to the door and slipped his coat from the rack, suddenly aware he had won.

My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Without looking back, he quietly closed Emma’s door, his arm as taut as a bow of steel. He drew in a cleansing breath and lumbered down the steps and out the front door, understanding for the first time in his life, that the strength to conquer one’s sins had never been his.

No, he thought, oblivious to the bitter cold for the warmth flooding his soul.

It was God’s.

20

L
ord, give me the grace to get through the holidays.

Emma sighed, peering out the window of the crowded motorbus in an attempt to see past the flurry of snowflakes that obscured her vision. Saturdays were supposed to be her easiest days, but with the arrival of the holidays on the heels of Sean’s departure, nothing was “easy” at Dennehy’s anymore.

A snort sounded, and she glanced at the sleeping man beside her. She smiled at the jingle of bells on his red and green sock hat while he snored with a bag of Christmas gifts in his lap.
Now there’s an idea for catching up on my rest,
she thought with a twist of her lips. Between extra holiday hours at Dennehy’s and several evenings with Rory, there seemed to be less and less time for sleep these days. Emma rested her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes, choosing to follow the example of the holiday Rip Van Winkle in the next seat.

Her thoughts immediately drifted to Rory, and a shiver danced down her spine that she couldn’t quite blame on the cold. Rory Malloy had been nothing but kind, doting on her every need and tempting her with his charm, and yet Emma remained uneasy. He had no qualms about praying with her, going to church with her, and she’d even found the Bible open several times on those rare occasions she’d visited him at her apartment. He seemed to be genuinely grieving the tragedy in Dublin, for he was noticeably reluctant to talk about it, and so Emma didn’t pursue it, but she wasn’t completely convinced the resultant conversion was real. No, that would take more than a few weeks of wooing as far as she was concerned, although Rory didn’t seem inclined to give her more time.

He had begged her to start a new life with him in Killarney, and despite the grief over leaving those that she loved, she was actually mulling it over.
With conditions.
They both would find jobs and live separately while he courted her, until she was dead certain that he had changed.
And
never again would they become intimate until their vows were renewed . . . by a priest. He had readily agreed, and yet he quietly persisted in pursuing intimacies she wasn’t ready for—the stroke of his thumb to her palm, the touch of his hand to her waist, a look in his eye, a stolen kiss. Intimacies that, in truth, she wasn’t sure she would
ever
be ready for.

Except with Sean.

Her eyes popped open at the thought, and she felt a swell of heat in her cheeks. She peeked at the sleeping man beside her, grateful for the snores that grew in volume despite the bag jostling in his lap. She exhaled slowly and stared straight ahead, lips cemented like her will, which assured her she would do what she needed to do.

She would leave.

And Rory was the perfect excuse, the perfect reason . . .
the perfect sacrifice.

A ragged breath wavered from her lips. Then Sean would finally have his store. And someday, God willing . . . a wife.

“Huntington and Tremont,” the bus driver called, and the motorbus lurched to a halt, jolting the sleeping man awake.

Digging a dollar from her purse, Emma lumbered to her feet with a nod at the bleary-eyed man beside her. “Merry Christmas,” she said before inching her way down the aisle. She waited for others to get off before slipping the dollar bill in the flap pocket of the bus driver’s bomber jacket. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Tuttle, I haven’t seen you on this route in a while.”

The gray-haired gentleman grinned with a lift of his salt-and-pepper moustache. “Mrs. Malloy! Now you don’t need to be spending your hard-earned money like this . . .” He attempted to fish the dollar from his pocket. “Seeing your pretty face is tip enough for an old man like me.”