Catching Serenity (Serenity #4) (31 page)

“You’ll… you’ll do,” I manage.

Before I could give much thought into that kiss or the self-deprecating way Quinn handled me, we are directed away from the church and to McKinney’s for the reception. You know, because what I need is to be surrounded by my friends and my whatever Quinn is under the scrutinizing eyes of my ex-boyfriend-who-recently-kissed-me.

Sure.

No potential issues could arise.

None whatsoever.

AUTUMN WAS A
Fraser now. She’d take Declan’s name because she was proud to be his. They had both been dealt some pretty rough blows in their lives, both taking their mother’s maiden names, both had long-reaching daddy issues that made keeping those surnames an easy choice.

There was no doubt that Autumn loved her father, Joe. Anyone who met Joe Brady today, would be hard pressed denying how charming, how generous he is. Sadly, that hadn’t always been the case, hence, Autumn being a McShane for most of her life. And now she was McShane-Fraser. Her children would be as well. But that didn’t seem to matter a bit to Joe, at least not if that proud, wide grin on his face and those watery eyes were any indication.

Joe dances with his daughter, holding her hand between his massive fingers, looking down at her as though he’d had a hand in making perfection and no one could top him.

Sam and his staff at McKinney’s have outdone themselves, working magic with purple streamers and thick swags of mesh netting. There are white fairy lights strewn in every free space, every nook in the ceiling. It reminds me a bit of Autumn’s winter wonderland, and that thought had me smiling, remembering how magical Autumn had made that day, how pleased Carol had been by everyone’s generosity.

“What’s up, then?” Mollie asks, sliding next to me on the free stool, looping her arm in mine. “Aren’t you supposed to be dancing with the best man?”

“Yes, well, he’s disappeared. Again.” Quinn had been scarce during the reception, something that didn’t surprise me.

“That’s a shame really. You look beautiful. Here,” she says, laughing to herself, “you can borrow mine.” Mollie waves over her live-in giant of a boyfriend and the former Marine bowed to us both, his eyes a little red and glassy. “Shit faced yet, Winchester?”

“Ma’am? Me? Indeed not.” His wink came easy and he didn’t bother trying to apologize for the way he wobbled standing there or why he smelled quite a lot like Jamesons.

“Good. Then you can dance with Sayo.” Mollie pushed me toward her boyfriend with a pat to my back. “She’s in need.”

“We live to serve.” Vaughn bowed, worked some sort of ridiculous hand wave and then tugged me off onto the dance floor.

He was at least a foot and a half taller than me so anyone looking at Vaughn’s back would think he was dancing by himself. Ridiculous, but not exactly an unreasonable assumption to make since half the party was shitfaced. While the ceremony had been a simple, private affair, the reception was a debauched, proper Irish party. Between Autumn’s godmother Ava, and Joe, no expense had been spared and damn near the whole of Cavanagh had been invited to celebrate the happy couple.

I was in a sea of loud, laughing, dancing depraved partiers, my folks and siblings among them, not to mention Aunt Carol and a hesitant, awkward Uncle Clay. He’d missed Rhea’s funeral, most of the aftermath of her death, but was making strides, asking for forgiveness I wasn’t sure Carol would give him.

“Never seen so many happy people in all my damn life,” Vaughn says, twirling me around the dancefloor like I weigh less than a feather.

“Any excuse in Cavanagh to party will be used. Guaranteed.”

He says something then, but the room is loud and his laughter is louder, then Vaughn spins me again and I lose hold of his hand, only to be twirled back around by Mollie, who kisses my cheek, then Joe, who hugs me tight, until all the spinning and twirling and bodies and moving this way and that among the loud music, the thick scent of liquor and the grasp of strange, friendly fingers and then, finally, I stop and find myself in Quinn’s arms.

“Oh.”

But he either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care how awkward I feel. Quinn navigates us away from the crowd, dancing past Autumn and Declan, beyond the reach and ear shot of Mollie and Vaughn until we are next to the end of the bar.

“Thanks,” I say, keeping my eyes on the bar, on the dance floor, anywhere but at Quinn.

“Are you ever going to bloody look at me again? And I don’t mean to glaring at me, or otherwise giving me shite for one thing or another I’ve done.”

“I don’t give you shit.”

“Jaysus, you do so.” Hands in his hair, Quinn shakes his head, looking around the bar before he steps close to me. “God above, Sayo, you nearly ripped my throat out when that Heather girl was chatting me up.”

“Long damn history, O’Malley,” I say, with a bit of a growl in my voice, and he grins. “You should be thanking me for that one, trust me.”

“Oh I bet you think I should be thanking you for loads of things, don’t you?” Suddenly, he isn’t really joking anymore.

“I never said that.”

“Putting Rhea in my space,” his voice is low, but gentle and doesn’t match the angry frown on his face or the way he backs me away from the crowd. “Making me fall for her, worry over her, grieve her. And you,” he says, reaching for my face, then dropping his hand at his side as if now is not the time nor place. “You invading my head space, making me think thoughts you damn well wouldn’t want me thinking.”

“You got something out of it.”

“Did I now? Did I really?”

Quinn’s hand on my arm is firm but not tight, and I can’t decide if I still love or hate his touch on my bare skin. “You saying you didn’t?” I work my way out of his touch, and watch the room, returning my attention back to Quinn only when no one pays attention to the rise of our voices. “You got what every man wants, didn’t you? You got that a hell of a lot.”

“That what you think?”

“I think you got more than you bargained for. I think you fell in love with that little girl and it hurt you when she… when she died.” When I drop my gaze, blinking fast, Quin moves my chin, but I take a step away from him, needing to say my peace without him distracting me. “I think you did everything you could to make sure she got the treatment she needed and when it still didn’t save her, you got angry. At me, at her folks, at the hospital. And then you shut yourself away from me, from everyone. Because being alone was better than the risk of caring for someone again.”

“How do you know what I want? You’re the one that made no promises. You’re the one that made certain I gave you none either and then, when I do something as simple as flirt with some bird you act like a jealous girlfriend. The bloody hell am I supposed to think?”

Heather is the last thing on my mind. Yes, I lost it when I saw her pawing at him, but this all goes deeper than that tart wanting in his pants. This was about Quinn telling half-truths and failing to acknowledge what’s his for the taking.

When my hand lifts, latches onto his wrist, Quinn’s shoulders tense, as though he suspects an attack. “Did you donate that money?”

His eyes are peering, hard, but he says nothing.

“Did you paint the mural because Rhea asked or because you wanted to?”

There is a shift in his expression, those piercing eyes shifting, but still Quinn remains silent.

“You loved her, didn’t you?”

Those thick lips move, press together until they are tight, as though he has to force himself not to speak.

“You…” I take the advantage, knowing he won’t reject me, knowing he won’t walk away from me; when I move my hand up his arm, Quinn watches my fingers, catching each touch as it crosses his arm. “You love me, don’t you Quinn?”

His jaw works and the tension in his face eases but Quinn doesn’t speak.

“I…”

“Sayo?” Someone calls, breaking us a part until Sam is at my side with a hand grazing my elbow. “Everything okay?”

“She’s fine,” Quinn says, stepping in front of me like a caveman.

“Sorry, man, but I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“Maybe you should be.” He folds his arms, head tilted in a challenge I know Sam won’t take. Living in Cavanagh and working at McKinney’s has taught him better than to cross an Irishman who’s been drinking. “Maybe you should stop bleeding talking to her altogether.”

“Who the hell do you think…”

“She is not for you.” He pokes Sam’s chest, eyes sharp. “Get that through your skull right bleeding now and bugger off.”

“The pair of you,” I say, glaring at them both, waving a hand to silence them when they both look eager to argue with me. “Stop with the chest thumping. It’s pointless.”

The pictures have been taken. My friends are pie eyed. So while the boys play their pissing match, I simply turn and walk out of McKinney’s, annoyed, irritated by Quinn and Sam’s pissing match and feeling less hopeful than I had after I left the warehouse this morning.

Quinn. God how I wish Declan would have left him in Ireland. My life would be a lot less complicated if he had.

And I’d be miserable.

“But I’m already miserable,” I say to myself.

“Why, love?” For a moment, I think I am imagining Quinn’s voice, but he’s real, and I haven’t gotten more than a block from the bar before he’s come for me.

“Because you’re here.” I expect him to frown, to drop his mask again, but he doesn’t. This time, he reaches for me, turns me to face him, and his touch is gentle, almost sweet. When I look into his eyes, they are unguarded, sincere.

“You… you don’t want me to be?”

“No.” There is a crumble of concrete next to the drain on the street and I kick the small bits, toeing them between the grate. “Yes. Hell, I don’t know. God you’re just so…”

“Sayo,” he says, holding my shoulders. “Just what is it that you want from me?”

I could say a lot things, each more ridiculous than the next. Finally I settle on what my heart tells me.

“I want real. I told you that. I want you to tell me the truth about the donation, about the mural about… about Rhea.”

“And about you?”

I look down, unable to take the tease in his eyes. “You can’t do that can you? You can’t be real.”

“Nobody is realer than me, love. Especially,” he says, stepping closer, “not wankers with blonde hair and dimples whose greatest achievement in life is managing a bar in the smallest bleeding town in America.”

I shake my head. “You’re jealous of Sam?”

“Hardly, but that doesn’t mean I like him sniffing around you, trying to chat you up.”

That smug amusement twitching his mouth drops altogether when I tilt my head, frowning at him. “Oh he did more than that.”

Quinn works his jaw, nostrils flaring as he moves a step toward me. “What did he do, Sayo and when did he fecking do it? Today? Last week?”

“The night I saw you with Declan. The night Layla had the baby.”

I can almost see him thinking. It was the same night I went to him, the night he told me he wanted nothing from me. He’d touched me then and I’d never mentioned Sam or what he’d offered me. “And what did he do then? After I left?”

“After you ran away?” The wall behind me of the closed bakery hits my back as I move from him, but Quinn follows.

“Tell me.”

“He kissed me.”

Quinn is livid, but his rage is calm, collected. A purse of his thick lips, the dip of his eyebrows, his jaw moving as he grinds his teeth—I expect him to turn quickly, jog back to McKinney’s and find Sam, maybe knock him around a bit. Instead, he retains his cool, stretching out one arm to rest his palm next to my head on the brick. When he speaks, that voice is lethal, low. “He kissed you.”

“He did.”

Quinn pops his neck, letting those nostrils flare once before he leans down, both hands now against the brick wall behind me. “And what did you do when that wanker kissed you?”

“Oh. Well, for a few seconds,” I start, trying not to grin when Quinn’s mouth thins out further, “I guess I kissed him back.”

“A few seconds?” I nod and Quinn grunts, passing off the frustrated sound by clearing his throat. “And after a few seconds?”

“I told him to stop.”

“Why?”

“Because I realized I didn’t want to kiss Sam.” I grab Quinn’s collar, surprising him. He comes close with no resistance, leaning into me like he has no control. “Because as he was kissing me…” I narrow my eyes, scrutinizing, “as he let his tongue slip into my…”

“I get the bleeding picture, woman.”

“Anyway… as he kissed me I realized he shouldn’t be.”

Finger against my forehead, Quinn brushing back my hair, licking his lips as he watches me. “And why is that, Sayo?”

“Because I didn’t want him. I didn’t want to be with him. Because, Quinn, I realized I didn’t love him.” He lifts his eyebrows, waiting. “I knew I shouldn’t be kissing Sam because I was in love with you. God help me, that was when I realized how much I love you.”

His expression shifts. He’s fighting disbelief, mistrust, hope, but then his face transforms and he relaxes, releasing a sigh. “I… I don’t know how to do this a’tall. I’ve never… Sayo, I think.” Another exhale and Quinn rubs the back of his neck but doesn’t step out of my reach. “I might, but I don’t know how to…” He takes a breath. “It wasn’t just you and you… Jaysus, I wanted to forget too. It wasn’t just you. I needed you. I… I still do.” When Quinn blinks, leaning toward me, I catch his face between my hands, breathing in deep when he rests his forehead against mine. “I’ve been alone a long time and family hasn’t ever meant much to me but you… you and Rhea and shite, even Fraser, have given me pause. The only thing I know for sure, Sayo, is that you’re the only family I want. I might not be good at saying the words…”