When she made no move to take a step in any direction, he said, “Go on, then. Or are you going to make me put this down and carry you over there?”
Faith opened her mouth to say something, but promptly shut it again when Kieran lifted an eyebrow in warning, leaving no doubt he would do exactly that. She turned around and shuffled into the living room dutifully.
“That’s better,” he said in approval. He loved her fire, her independence, but he certainly wouldn’t complain about a little good-old fashioned cooperation once in a while.
“How are you feeling?”
“What are you doing here?” she said as she sat down on the edge of the couch. Kieran set the tray down on the coffee table and grabbed both of her legs around the ankles, swinging them up to the couch.
“Taking care of you,” he said simply. He tucked a blanket around her legs and fluffed a pillow behind her back before pressing his hand to her forehead and nodding, pleased to feel her skin much cooler than the last time he’d checked. He stuck a thermometer in her mouth anyway.
“Why?” she asked, pulling it out.
He grinned boyishly, wrapping his hand around hers and guiding the digital probe back between her lips. “Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because I can. Geez, you ask a lot of questions. Now keep this under your tongue until it beeps or I’ll put you over my knee and put it somewhere where you won’t be able to get it out quite so easily.”
Faith’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, uncertain as to whether Kieran was bluffing or not.
She kept the thermometer in her mouth.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” she asked several hours later. He removed the empty soup bowl and re-tucked the blankets around her. College football was on the small, old-fashioned box television, and Kieran settled back into the far end of the sofa to watch. There was nothing snarky about her tone, but Kieran flicked her a sideways glance anyway, on the verge of being annoyed. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked.
“I’m starting to get the feeling you don’t want me here,” he said accusingly.
She turned bemused eyes on him. “How could you not have anything better to do than sit here and babysit?”
He turned his blue eyes to her, and unleashed all of their significant power amidst an expression of infinite patience. “Faith, do you want me to leave?”
She bit her lip and thought about it for several interminable seconds. Finally her eyes softened. “No.”
Inwardly, Kieran did a fist pump. “Then no, I don’t have anything better to do.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
“I like being with you, Faith,” he said, repeating the words he had spoken a lifetime ago. She had doubted him then, too. Before she could question him further, he added with a wink, “You let me have control of the remote.”
The corner of her mouth quirked upward and Kieran breathed a sigh of relief, knowing he had bought himself a little more time. Eventually he was going to have to tell her exactly how he felt, but not yet. He had a feeling she wasn’t ready to hear about croies and soul mates just yet.
Chapter Thirteen
His comment reminded her that as big as he was, he was the youngest of his family. “What is it like, having six older brothers?” she asked, genuinely curious. “I can’t even imagine it.”
Kieran laughed. “That’s probably for the best.”
“Tell me about them.”
Kieran flipped off the TV and gave Faith his full attention. “Well, you’ve already met most, if not all of them. Where do I start?”
“How about with the oldest?”
“That would be Kane. He’s the oldest, and the scariest.”
An image of the large man tackling Kieran at the Fair came to mind. He was big and scary. “The alpha among alphas?”
“Yeah,” he grinned. “Something like that. He handles all the financial stuff for the family. We don’t see him much. He’s not exactly what you would call a people-person. He lives up in the mountains with his wife Rebecca, their little girl Aislinn and their two monster-sized canines, and only comes down into town occasionally. Then there’s Jake, he’s the next oldest.”
“He runs the Pub in town?”
Kieran nodded. “He’s married to Taryn.”
Faith thought about it for a moment. “Taryn...purple eyes and dragon tattoo?” The one who openly wondered about Faith’s age, she recalled, feeling the twinge of that moment again.
“Yep. Taryn’s a bit outspoken, but she’s a real sweetheart. Jake was the first of us to find his croie.”
“Croie?”
“It’s Irish for heart,” Kieran explained. Faith’s eyes softened, the way a woman’s tended to do when she heard something incredibly romantic. “You mean like a soul mate? That’s beautiful.”
“Do you believe in soul mates, Faith?” he asked, watching her carefully. What was she supposed to say to that? In theory, such things were wonderful, but in reality...