A Shift in the Air (6 page)

Going through the motions of grinding
the beans centered her, the rich, sweet scent surrounding her like
a warm embrace, and while the oats simmered on the stove, she sat
down with her laptop, intending to watch something on Netflix. To
the right of the computer, a white rectangle with black lettering
drew her gaze.

Liam O’Sullivan

Owner

O’Sullivan and Shea
Construction Services

“
Shit.” On the back, his
handwritten note brought snatches of the night flooding back. Oh
God. Had she made a total fool of herself? Had she told him her
name? If so, would he associate Bella Pond with the woman who’d
helped kidnap his alpha’s mate?

Bella dropped her head back against
the frayed brown cushions. The risk outweighed the odd pull she
felt to the water elemental. She’d done what she could. The quartz
she’d buried at the four corners of Mara’s yard, the sage she’d
burned to draw smoky runes over the home’s door…it had to be
enough. Checking her front door, the one solid piece of the entire
run-down unit, and setting the deadbolt, she made her decision.
She’d leave after work the next day. If she sweet-talked her boss,
she might be able to get her last paycheck. And she didn’t like the
idea of running out on the poor woman. The travel agency suffered
from the popularity of Internet travel sites, though other than her
colossal screw-up the day before, Bella had a better close rate on
vacation packages than anyone else in the office had ever managed.
Air charms had their uses. She couldn’t bring herself to use her
element to change people’s minds—those charms always left her with
an oily, bitter taste in her mouth—but a little prod towards first
class over coach, or a ten-day package over a seven-day option
never hurt. Bella spun words into rich tapestries, which had come
in handy on the debate team back in college—

The bowl of oatmeal slipped from her
hands, splattering all over her bare feet. “Fuck!”

College
.

Hot grain burned her tender skin, and
she cursed and hopped and tried not to cry as she cleaned up the
mess. For years, she’d ignored the faded, blurry images that
occasionally flashed through her mind, but this memory was as
clear—clearer—than Liam’s face from the previous night.

She’d been young. A leather jacket.
Sneakers. Super-sweet coffee. Sights and sounds came back at a
dizzying pace. Her professor’s heavy brogue ordering her up to the
stage. Taxes. They’d debated taxes. Her partner, a cute boy named
Aiden, had a shy smile and long, blond hair.

Winning. Applause. Her
professor shaking her hand. He was a small man. Round. Bald. And
then a pub. Beers. Kissing Aiden. She’d been free then.
Where did that thought come from?
So odd. A pub in Dublin.

The words Liam had said the
night before—
mo chuisle, mo
chroí
...

She knew what they meant
now.

***

The day passed in an agonizingly slow
dance that never quite found a rhythm. Bella couldn’t stay in her
apartment alone—every thud on the stairs, every slammed door
snapped another nerve—so she headed into the office a little after
noon, booked another two cruise packages, helped an elderly woman
get an accessible room for her grandson’s college graduation, and
lied to her boss about having a client on the hook for a whirlwind
tour of Ireland so she could look at photos of the country, hoping
to stir more memories. The landscape reminded her of the Washington
countryside, though greener and with more castles. Only a few
photos brought memories with them, usually of faceless boys and
girls, laughing, occasionally slipping into Gaelic, but mostly
speaking in rapid, heavily accented English.

Often, she twirled the business card
Liam had left the night before between her fingers, and once, she
even picked up the phone to call him. But apprehension twisted her
stomach into an icy knot, and she hung up before she finished
dialing. That kiss in the alley behind the bar sent stars exploding
behind her eyes, and there’d been a familiarity to him that she’d
written off as the bourbon. But when she stumbled across a tourism
site for Doolin, a tiny town in County Clare, she let herself
accept what she’d probably known all day. She’d been there. She
could picture herself walking down the central street with the man
from her nightmare. The silent movie streamed by; she could see his
lips moving but couldn’t hear the words. All she knew for certain
was that the man hurt her—badly—more than once. Fear prickled along
her skin, and a gust of wind knocked over a stack of paperwork on
the desk next to her. “Shit!”

She had to get out of here. Glancing
up at her boss’s darkened office, she scowled. The woman left early
on Fridays. Snapping the laptop shut and tossing her cell phone
into her purse, she escaped before her air element could do any
more damage. A run would clear her head. And if it didn’t, at least
she’d be outside where her unstable emotions couldn’t do much more
than toss leaves upon the wind.

Chapter Five

Taking a seat at the only empty table
left in the bar, Liam waited for Peter to grab two pints of
stout.

“
You want to tell me about
last night? This isn’t your usual haunt.” Peter set the beers down,
and his face tightened in pain for a brief second before he relaxed
into the wood chair.

“
Never going back to
Teddy’s.” The ice-cold beer soothed his rough words. “The lass I
took to bed…shite. I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“
And you never got her
name?”

“
She didn’t want names. I
tried.” Liam rubbed the back of his neck and scanned the room. The
bartender slung pints and spun bottles of amber liquid in a
dizzying, mesmerizing dance. “She reminded me of
Caitlin.”

“
What?” Peter leaned
closer. “Who?”

“
Caitlin.” He had to force
the word out through the pain that choked his throat. All day he’d
tried to forget her, but every breeze reminded him of his air
elemental. Every nail he pounded deep into the wood pierced his
heart, and the rough angles he sanded exposed layers upon layers of
grief. His wolf had wanted to mate with her, and though they’d
never consummated their relationship and sealed the mating, he’d
vowed to never love another.

“
Liam, you’ve been gone
over that woman as long as I’ve known you. Come on, man. You have
to move on.” Peter’s gaze landed on a high-top table a few feet
away. Two women laughed, and one raised a glass in a toast.
“Speaking of which…those two look promising.”

“
I don’t want to move on,”
Liam muttered. Fine. He’d promised to be a good wingman for the
night, though he wanted to be anywhere but here—or perhaps one
place other than here. He wanted to go see the nameless woman with
the chestnut locks and sad smile. But Peter needed him tonight.
“Let me find a bit of lively music, and then we’ll chat those two
up.”

As Peter downed a pint for courage,
Liam flipped through the old-fashioned jukebox in the corner of the
bar. “Brilliant.” He fed a bill into the machine and called up
Dropkick Murphys’ most iconic song. As the fiddles blared, he
turned to smile at the women. The brunette raised her pint in his
direction, while the raven-haired beauty giggled at something her
companion said.

“
Ladies, can my friend and
I buy ya the next round? No strings. I swear it.” He purposely
thickened his brogue, and the brunette’s blush deepened.

“
I suppose. What’s your
name, handsome?”

“
Liam. This is Peter. He
owns the construction company working on the condos down the
street.”

“
You do?” the brunette
squealed. Peter flushed beet red.

“
I’ll take care of the
pints.” Liam escaped quickly, grinning when Peter took a seat on
one of the empty stools.

By the time he returned with pints for
the women, the brunette had her hand on Peter’s arm. If he could
get the nameless woman out of his head, perhaps he and Peter would
both have a good time tonight.

***

Bella paced her apartment. The run
hadn’t calmed her nerves. If anything, the time she’d had to think
left her even more confused, panicked, and jittery. On her laptop
screen, a grainy newspaper photo taunted her. The man who
terrorized her dreams stood with his hands in the pockets of a long
black coat, staring out over the sea. Two hours of searching
yielded the first mention of him, and since then, a dozen more
articles surfaced. The caption sent her to the fridge for a beer,
despite the bourbon headache that lingered.

Fergus Tharp mourns the
loss of his love, Caitlin Brannigan. The young woman jumped off the
Cliffs of Moher three days ago. Inclement weather made the recovery
of the body impossible. According to one witness, Ms. Brannigan was
crying as she jumped. Tharp maintains that they were happy. No
investigation is pending.

The article featured a second photo,
and she’d burst into tears when she’d scrolled down. Caitlin
Brannigan stared back at her, with Bella’s eyes, lips, and hair.
Twins, to anyone looking on, but Bella knew otherwise.

The Gaelic words Liam whispered the
night before, her violent dreams, and his admission that he’d loved
a woman named Caitlin…all pieces to the puzzle of her life. The red
crystal warmed against her skin. Whenever the stress threatened to
drown her, the crystal threw her a life preserver. Katerina’s love,
her protection, kept Bella safe. But alone, terrified, and with
only fragments of memories from the time before she washed up on a
beach in Mexico, injured and alone, the crystal wouldn’t solve her
problems now.

She pulled out Liam’s card and ran her
fingers over the embossed letters. Liam O’Sullivan. The name
resonated in her memories like a warm, comforting embrace. She’d
known him in another life. Why couldn’t she remember? Clearly she’d
jumped off the Cliffs of Moher, but how had she gotten all the way
to Mexico?

More research—this time about Liam.
There were dozens of photos of the man, including one accompanying
an article about his “death” in Bellingham after the fire Katerina
set to capture Cade. The obituary linked to another article, and
another. “Oh shit.” Boisterous revelers filled the photo, most
wearing green and gold sports jerseys of some sort after a rugby
championship. Liam smiled from right of center, younger, a short
beard darkening his jaw, with his arm around Caitlin.

She reached for her phone, then
paused. No. This conversation had to take place in
person.

***

If he didn’t pound something soon, his
wolf would snap. The beast clawed and growled under his skin,
cursing the moon and the woman he’d been unable to evict from his
thoughts all day.

Why? They’d had a connection.
Something more than a simple fuck. Why the hell did she have to
look like Caitlin? Throwing open the door to the pack’s house, he
inhaled deeply. Dinner. Some pasta dish. Remnants of popcorn. He
cocked his head and listened. Nothing but the creaks of old
construction, the sounds of slumber—Ollie snoring down the hall,
Christine’s white noise machine.

Run
. His wolf demanded to be set free. When that failed, he
cursed, pleaded, and pulsed against Liam’s tenuous
control.

The decision made, he turned, only to
be shoved, hard enough to knock him off his feet, into the front
yard. His shoulder rammed into the ground, and the wolf broke free,
Liam’s fingers and toes aching with the start of the
shift.

“
Peter?” The word escaped
as a half-growl, and Liam wrestled for control of his beast as
Peter stalked towards him.

“’
Get out there,’ you said.
‘You’ll be fine,’ you said. I wasn’t fucking fine. We got back to
her place, and as soon as I took off my shirt, everything went to
shit. She was
disgusted
by me. Physically ill.” Peter charged, driving his shoulder
into Liam’s abdomen. The two tumbled towards the street with
Peter’s blows raining over Liam’s torso.

“
Stop.” Liam caught Peter’s
fist in his palm, twisted, and threw the man five feet. The bitten
wolf staggered up, his eyes glowing with amber flames, and
growled.

Liam returned the challenge, a snarl
curling his lip. He cracked his neck, letting the wolf shine in his
own eyes, and charged. Peter’s elbow slammed into his jaw. A knee
cracked against his ribs, pain spiraling through his chest. The
smaller man had anger on his side, but Liam wouldn’t go down
without a fight. He left his own marks: his fist split Peter’s lip,
the back of his head snapped against Peter’s nose, breaking the
cartilage in a sickening crack, and he landed on top of the man
with his knee bruising Peter’s kidney.

“
Fight, you fucking
coward!” Peter flipped Liam over, scraping his cheek along the
rough concrete. “You’re holding back!”

No one called him a coward. Not even
his brother. Liam hefted Peter over his head, no longer caring if
he hurt him. Visions of another fight, of Bella channeling
Katerina’s fire, keeping his wolves from reaching Cade, high atop
the tower, consumed him. The howl that rumbled in his throat
widened Peter’s eyes a moment before he flung Peter to the
ground.