Live Wire

chapter 20




Tehya came awake slowly to the sound of Journey gagging and coughing in reaction to her own return of consciousness and the effects of the chloroform used to disable them.

Sitting up from the thin mattress that had been laid over a rough low table, Tehya swung her feet to the floor as she swallowed tightly and forced back the reflex to gag.

It wasn’t her first experience with the sleep-inducing drug. As she stared around the room, she was horribly afraid it wouldn’t be her last.

“Teylor?” Journey’s voice was weak, shaky. “Oh, God, what happened?”

“We’ve been kidnapped.” Tehya stared around the room. It wasn’t large by any means. The dim lights high on the metal walls were battery-powered rather than electric.

“Where are we?” Terror filled the young woman’s expression as well as her voice.

Tehya breathed out roughly. “It’s a shipping crate. The type they use for overseas shipping.”

A sob echoed through the area.

Beauregard. She wondered if he was behind this. God, he had to be. But he wasn’t old enough. He couldn’t have been associated with Sorrel.

“Teylor, what’s happening?” Journey whispered.

Tehya fought to clear her mind. She needed to think. She needed to figure a way out of this.

She remembered hearing Gregor Ascarti’s voice as the cloth went over her face. He was involved, but he wasn’t the one calling the shots.

As that thought went through her mind, she heard the sound of metal scraping against metal and the heavy door at the end of the metal shipping crate swung open.

“Let’s go.” Ascarti, Mark Tenneyson, and Ira Arthurs stood at the entrance, heavily armed.

Tehya stood slowly, her gaze locked on Ascarti.

He was frowning at her, glaring, actually.

“You were supposed to be dead,” she whispered.

He grunted at that. “If you’d had your way, I would be. Fortunately for me, I think I might have actually survived.” He smiled then. A reptilian smirk that sent a chill racing up her spine. “Unfortunately for you, perhaps. Now let’s go.” He waved the handgun toward the darkness outside.

“How did you get into the gardens?” she asked as they moved slowly from the crate.

“A little inside help,” he revealed, his slimy voice amused. “Now, be a good little girl and let’s finish our business. Then I can go about recouping my money from that little hit your friends made against my stash.”

“What hit?” She played dumb. She’d perfected that illusion through the years.

He laughed, clearly refusing to believe her. “Let’s go, Ms. Fitzhugh. Someone is very interested in talking to you.”

Keeping Journey close to her, Tehya ignored the other girl’s confusion as she followed Ascarti.

She was right, they had been held in a large metal shipping crate stored inside a warehouse on the docks. She could hear the sounds of the ships outside, voices calling out and machinery running.

Across from the crate, the doors to an office were thrown open, and it was there they were led.

Tehya stepped into the brightly lit room, her heart racing, fear drying her mouth and making her knees weak. As the men gathered there came into view, she felt something inside her soul wither and die.

At the same time Journey cried out in denial and confusion, then in fear as one of the men behind her all but threw her onto a tattered leather couch at a signal from her father as she moved to race across the room.

Stephen Taite, Craig Taite, and Beauregard Grant stood watching them. Stephen was propped against the edge of an old desk, his arms crossed over his tuxedoed chest, his expression hard and brutal. Journey’s father, Craig, grimaced in disgust as Journey cried out to him.

Only Beauregard remained completely unaffected, cold, brooding as he watched.

Tehya sat down slowly at the other end of the couch, fighting to make sense of it, to believe what she was seeing.

“Ah, I remember that look.” Stephen’s smile was cold, cruel. “The same look your dear mother had when we caught up with her in Nicaragua. I believe she may have actually cried, though.” The pleasure in his voice was sickening. “And I would have thought by now you would have explained who you are. The daughter of our dear departed Francine, Tehya Fitzhugh.”

“That’s not true,” Journey cried out hoarsely.

“It’s true,” Tehya told her quietly, “and they’re the reason Mother died.”

“What are you doing?” Journey cried out before Tehya could speak. “Father? Grandfather? Have you lost your minds?”

Stephen flashed a hard frown at her.

“If she opens her stupid mouth again, gag her,” her father ordered.

Tehya turned her head slowly, not wanting to face what she knew she would see in the young girl’s eyes. She was only twenty-two. She might not have grown up with an affectionate father, but she had grown up with a semblance of confidence in the world and her place in it. That was being stolen from her grip now by the very men she trusted above all others.

“Will you gag me as well?” Tehya turned back to the three men.

Stephen smirked back at her, his lined face twisted in a parody of amused tolerance. “If I gagged you, dear, then I wouldn’t be able to hear the answer to the question I have. And you will answer it, or Journey will pay the price.”

He smiled benignly at his granddaughter.

It was Beauregard’s reaction Tehya caught, though. A flash of something bitter, heated as he slowly tensed his arms unfolding and hanging, ready at his sides.

“You killed my mother.” She felt numb. She stared back at Stephen and Craig. How horrified, how terrified she must have been when they caught up with her.

Stephen chuckled. “She thought we were there to help her. That her father had sent us after she contacted him.” Satisfaction filled his smile. “She was rather upset to learn that wasn’t the case.” He turned to his son. “We did enjoy our last hours with her, though, didn’t we?”

Craig’s answer was a fond smile as Journey’s smothered cry of horror sliced through Tehya’s senses.

What the hell was she supposed to say now?

“Now, my dear, it’s like this.” Stephen’s expression became hardened once again, the monster inside him gleaming through his eyes as they focused on her. “If you want to ensure your dear cousin Journey has a reasonably content life from here on out, you’ll answer my question and do so without a fuss. Refuse me, or dare to attempt to lie to me, and she’ll die with you.”

“I’d rather die!” Journey cried out, her voice echoing with rage and pain as she tried to surge to her feet.

She was caught, and just as Craig ordered, the two men behind her fought to gag her. And they had to fight until Beauregard strode quickly across the room, caught her and jerked her arms behind her.

The cries, the hatred, and the fury that spilled from Journey’s lips struck at Tehya’s heart. The sound of the other girl’s sobs was excruciating to hear.

Tehya forced herself to watch as, strangely gently, Beauregard bound her hands, then placed a wide strip of gray tape over her lips.

She was silenced, but she still cried.

Journey kicked out, striking Beauregard’s leg with her shoe, though there was no reaction from him to even give Journey the satisfaction that she’d at least brought him discomfort.

“Now that we’ve taken care of that.” Stephen sighed as he turned back to her. “Did you understand the rules to her continued safety? Or do you have questions?” His gaze sharpened. “Or do you want to be as stupid as your mother?” He spoke to her as though she were a moron, the superiority he obviously felt leaking through every pore in his body.

Would Beauregard Grant really allow Journey’s family to kill her? He had stepped in to keep Ascarti’s gorillas from hurting her. He’d bound and gagged her with gentleness despite her attempts to fight him.

“Were you behind my mother’s kidnapping?”

Stephen rolled his eyes and shook his head as though amused by her question. “Let’s get this out of the way, then, dear. I kidnapped your mother for Sorrel, but he didn’t keep his end of the bargaine once he got what I wanted. He swore she was unaware of what I wanted when he was only attempting to steal it for himself.

“You worked with Sorrel?”

His smile was filled with pride. “I did. Though, now I will command as I should have been doing all along.” He shot his granddaughter an irritated look. Now, does Journey live or die?

He wouldn’t allow Journey to live. Beauregard might believe Stephen Taite would keep his word, but he wouldn’t. Tehya could see it in his face. Journey would be lucky if she lived to see the next week out.

“What do you want?” She was at least curious why her mother had died.

“She gave you an account number,” he stated. “A code of sorts. I want it.”

Why hadn’t she guessed? Why hadn’t her mother guessed?

Perhaps the fact that her mother had never suspected her family was behind her kidnapping and the deaths of everyone who tried to help her, Tehya hadn’t suspected either.

The shock was horrible. It lanced through her system, it destroyed parts of her she feared would never heal, and left her soul bleeding in agony.

Tremors raced through her, sobs catching in her throat, searing her chest.

“Money,” she rasped. “This is all about money?”

“A rather large amount of money,” Craig answered smugly. “To my calculations, minus the four hundred thousand your mother stole, it should now be close to three point two billion dollars in gold, cash, bonds, and yearly shares in Taite Industries. A legacy Bernard refused to turn over to the family until Francine’s body was found. A legacy that was amassed over nearly a century of the Taites’ superb business sense.”

“As well as nearly a century of laundering the funds my father, his father, and his father before him made in the careful sale, trade, and trafficking of women Sorrel’s clients preferred. And Bernard never knew; that legacy should have never been his. Should have never been given into his safekeeping at our father’s death,” Stephen finished, his voice becoming progressively furious until he was glaring at her in malevolent rage. “Taites and Fitzhughs have always worked together, but we were smart enough to keep from being caught.”

All for money.

He had murdered everyone who had ever tried to help her mother. He had murdered everyone her mother had cared for, and everyone Tehya had cared for.

“Sorrel thought he could convince your mother to give him the set of numbers that would allow him to take possession of the accounts,” Craig continued. “He promised your mother she’d have her freedom.” He smiled. “She didn’t trust him, I gather.”

No, Francine hadn’t trusted the man who had kidnapped her, imprisoned her, and raped her repeatedly for years. And Tehya had trusted him even less.

Stephen straightened from the desk. “Now, do you die alone?” He glanced back at Journey. “Or do you go with company?”

Tehya turned and stared not at Journey, but at Beauregard Grant instead. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze flat and hard as he stared back at her.

Once again she wondered if he would really allow Stephen and Craig to kill her and Journey. There was something about him that wasn’t ringing true. She hadn’t been looking closely enough at him, she admitted. She hadn’t paid enough attention because he also wasn’t aligned with Sorrel. He hadn’t been around before Sorrel’s death. He hadn’t shown up on her background checks on Sorrel.

Who was he?

Her gaze slid to Journey. It wasn’t fear in her eyes now, it was rage and pain. Tears washed down her face, but Tehya recognized the agonized demand in the other girl’s eyes. A demand that Tehya give her father and grandfather nothing.

It was all for money, and the money wasn’t worth protecting. Tehya had known about the legacy her grandfather had ensured her mother knew how to access since she was a child. She knew the set of numbers that would open a vault in a Swiss bank and give the bearer a fortune unimagined.

It wasn’t worth dying for, but neither would she, could she, give them the satisfaction of ever acquiring it.

She turned back to the cousin and the great-uncle whose family she had once dreamed of being a part of. Ached to be a part of with a hunger that nearly had destroyed her.

“I never knew the key to the account,” she whispered, and it was nothing less than the truth. “I couldn’t remember it.”

Anger flashed in Stephen’s face. “Don’t lie to me, bitch,” he snarled, his fists clenching now as though the urge to strangle her was barely held in restraint. “She would never have let that fortune go.”

“Because you wouldn’t?” she whispered. “Her safety and mine was more important or she would have come home. She would have taken what she thought was hers and she would have hired enough bodyguards to ensure no one touched her again.”

So why hadn’t she done it?

Tehya didn’t have the key. What she did have was the safe deposit box where her mother had hidden the paper she had placed the key on. She made Tehya swear she wouldn’t attempt to access the money until she knew that not just herself, but also the family would be safe.

Bernard Taite’s death had terrified Francine and she had believed that the rest of the family could be in danger. She’d had no idea the family was in on it.

Stephen sighed before his fist clenched and he came closer.

Just that quickly Beauregard stepped in front of her.

“Journey’s mine,” he told the other man harshly. “I won’t have what I want from her affected by your treatment of this one.”

Amazement filled Stephen’s face as Tehya tensed, preparing for a confrontation and, hopefully, a chance to escape.

Just as she thought she would have it, a heavy knock sounded on the door, jerking her attention behind the two men.

“What do you want?” Stephen barked.

The door opened and two male figures stumbled into the room and collapsed to the floor.

Tehya stared at them in amazement, blood clotting at the side of Rory Malone’s face and at the back of Turk Gillespie’s head.

“Who the hell is this?” Craig Taite stood almost frozen, amazement filling his voice as it filled Tehya’s mind. “What’s going on here?”

Stephen turned back to Tehya, and before Beauregard could stop him, before Tehya could guess his intent, he struck her hard across the face, throwing her back against the couch as hell seemed to explode around her.

The lights went out as flash explosions took out the far wall and lit up the darkness outside. Shouted orders began to echo around her as she jumped across the couch and threw Journey to the floor seconds before she felt the bullets whiz past them.

Stephen was screaming at Craig and Beauregard, demanding they get him out of there. As Tehya’s eyes opened, though, she knew her cousin wouldn’t be going anywhere.

He stared back at her from his position on the floor as she felt Rory and Turk suddenly moving.

Journey was lifted from the floor along with Tehya and ran for the door.

“No! No, you won’t,” Stephen was screaming in outrage as Ascarti suddenly stumbled in front of them, the handgun he carried slapping against Tehya’s head as Rory came to a hard stop, his arms holding her tight around her waist as Tehya clutched the derringer she had managed to slip from the garter holster she had worn.

“Not her,” Ascarti rasped, a crazed smile at his lips as Tehya lifted the derringer to his chest and fired.

She wouldn’t see another die. She wouldn’t hear of it. She wouldn’t know of it. She wouldn’t allow it.

It ended here.

She watched as a look of amazement came over his face. Shock.

Rory knocked the gun from his hand and Tehya watched as he fell, sinking to the floor as Rory and Turk rushed them out.

Behind her, Jordan and his men and only God knew who else were swarming into the office and kicking ass.

He had sworn he would protect her, and he had.

He had promised her it would end here, and as Rory pushed her into the back of an Elite Ops med-van, she knew, it was definitely ending here.

She watched as, a black-masked, medical operative cut the bindings from Journey’s wrists and pulled the tape gently from her lips.

Their gazes met.

Journey was shell-shocked. Silent.

Her gaze dropped to her fingers as they twined together and Tehya watched the tears begin to fall again.

Tears she couldn’t seem to shed. A raging pain she couldn’t free.

And the fear that nothing would ever make sense again.

* * *

Jordan left the warehouse behind the federal operatives who were pulling a screeching Stephen Taite from the melee that had erupted inside.

He’d had men outside the warehouse before Jordan had called for the advance. Nearly a dozen hard-core mercenary soldiers had been taken down within minutes by Killian Reece and his team.

After the years of manipulating everyone around him in order to see to their safety and their happiness, Jordan had finally been on the receiving end of it.

One of Killian’s operatives had leaked the fact that Tehya wasn’t dead to a known Sorrel associate. An associate suspected of being linked to a shadowy figure rumored to call himself The Marquis, a name French authorities had found in a single file belonging to Sorrel. The single reference had hinted at Sorrel’s fear that the Marquis would find Francine or Tehya before he did.

That someone else, according to the file, was determined to find Francine and Tehya. Just as Joseph Fitzhugh had been determined to keep him from gaining the “key” Francine Taite held.

The information Killian’s team had been working on since the death of Killian’s wife stretched back more than a decade. Killian had refused to let the investigation go, and Jordan hadn’t known about it.

Until the other man had walked into the Senator’s house just minutes after they’d realized Tehya had been taken.

“Jordan, wait up.” Killian turned Stephen Taite over to one of the authorities before moving quickly to his side.

“We don’t have anything to say, Killian,” he snapped. “Get the f*ck out of my face.”

Killian’s expression registered surprise, but only for a second. His gaze darkened and then his lips quirked with somber knowledge. “I knew you loved her. I told you that when I came to base last year, didn’t I?”

Jordan jerked back. There was a part of his mind that watched, completely unsurprised as he grabbed Killian by the front of his mission shirt and slammed him against the metal shipping crate.

“You told me she would f*cking kill me,” he snarled. “You didn’t trust her, Killian. You didn’t give her a safe haven. You f*cking turned your back!”

Killian’s eyes widened for a second before he sighed wearily. “She always had safe harbor,” he finally said softly. “I always knew where she was, and my men were always watching her.” For a second, agony flashed in his eyes. “I lost the woman that owned my soul, Jordan. You’re the only f*cking friend I ever had; did you think I would let this world take what means the most to you?”

He’d known Killian for far too many years. He’d known the other man’s demons, he’d known his rage, and when he was telling the truth.

He was telling the truth.

Jordan released him slowly.

“I had to let her think I hated her,” Killian sighed, still facing him. “I had to let you think it. If even once, she’d turned those haunted eyes on me in friendship, I’d have never been able to do what I knew Elite Command was going to have me do.”

“You could have told me,” Jordan raged.

Killian shook his head. “If anyone came to me and told me they were going to use Catherine in that way, I would have killed them before I allowed it. You would have never let it happen.”

No, he wouldn’t have.

Jordan was smart enough to admit that to himself. He would have run with her. He would have hidden with her. He would have never allowed her past to touch her in this way if he had been forewarned.

“I could kill you for not coming to me, Killian,” he rasped as he pushed closer, feeling that need for violence ripping through him. “And I wouldn’t feel any guilt. I wouldn’t feel a moment’s f*cking regret. Do you know that?”

“Jordan…” Killian spoke softly, warningly.

“My f*cking woman,” he snarled, the fury snapping through his mind. “She was mine and you knew she was mine.”

Killian’s brow arched, some gleam of unholy amusement in them searing the fury only growing inside Jordan now.

“You weren’t claiming her,” Killian reminded him. “You let her go. Maybe, if she was your woman, you should have given a man a clue so he’d know how to proceed.”

“I told you and every other man that came around her to stay the f*ck away. I warned, I threatened, and when I had to I intimidated, so don’t f*cking tell me I didn’t claim her.”

“You never said you loved her,” Killian pointed out.

Jordan’s lips parted, the stunned at the accusation that came from Killian’s lips.

God, he did love her, he realized. There was no f*cking illusion, there were no attempts to deny it any longer. He’d stopped denying it the second his brain had processed the information that Tehya had been taken.

“I shouldn’t have had to say shit,” Jordan snapped. “By God, you should have known.”

“And perhaps you should have said something.”

Jordan froze.

His gaze jerked to Killian’s and found smug satisfaction quirking at his lips. An amusement tinged with a haunted pain, a memory of what he himself had lost.

He turned slowly.

The shoulder of her dress was ripped. It was dirty, streaked with dirt and smoke, tattered at the edges. She was barefoot, her stockings shredded, and her hair was in disarray around her shoulders.

And still, she was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever laid his eyes on.

“Perhaps someone should have enlightened me when I started making a fool of myself denying it,” he told her softly.

Her face was tear-stained, pale, and her gaze was still bright with unshed tears and pain.

Moving to her, he reached up, his thumb smoothing across the tears only to find others taking their place.

“Jordan,” she whispered, her lips trembling as he slowly pulled her into his arms, a wave of agony sweeping over him at the thought he could have lost her.

“I have you, baby.” His arms tightened around her. “Right here, I have you.”

“It hurts.” Her breathing hitched as her hands suddenly clutched at his back. “Don’t let me go. Please. Please don’t let me go.”

Let her go? He’d tear his own heart out of his chest before he even considered such a villainous act.

“Come on, baby.” He picked her up and carried her to the waiting car that Nik had driven in. “Let’s go home.”

Where he could hold her. Where he could hopefully help ease just a small part of the horror she was feeling.

As he passed the medi-van, in the shadows close to the opened doors at the front of the vehicle, he caught a figure moving.

The form wore the familiar dark mask, and rather than a tuxedo, he was pulling on the utility belt that went with the mission clothes he had obviously changed into.

He hadn’t known who or what Beauregard Grant was until Killian had met him at the warehouse. He’d had no idea Beau had been doing the same thing Jordan had done more than fifteen years before.

He was creating a background, an identity, and a history that would put him in place where the Elite Ops needed him most.

He was a dead man walking. But if the way he was staring at the young woman sitting on the van’s gurney with her back to him, her eyes closed, tears still whispering down her cheeks, then he was a haunted man.

Jordan could hear Stephen still screaming at Journey from the car he’d been placed in. Furious, filthy curses and accusations as the young woman appeared deaf to the words.

But he knew she wouldn’t be.

Placing Tehya in the car, he turned to Noah as he loped over and nodded to Stephen’s granddaughter. “Get her out of here. Send her to Ireland until this blows over. Let her stay in the castle. She’s going to need time.”

“Where are you heading?” Noah tilted his head to stare at Tehya sitting silently in the back.

“Home,” Jordan breathed out, suddenly feeling the tension easing inside him. “I’m going home, Noah.”

* * *

As they drove away with Nik at the wheel, Jordan sat in the back, his woman cradled in his arms, thanking God for her safety.

Noah couldn’t help but grin, even as thankfulness swept through him with enough force to weaken him.

He had a feeling that for the first time in far too many years, Jordan had found home.

* * *

What was she supposed to believe?

Tehya watched Jordan, desperate, terrified to believe he truly loved her as he carried her into the bedroom of the suite Nik had escorted them to.

He kicked the door closed before lowering her slowly to the floor and locking the door behind him.

Her lips parted, the question she needed to ask almost falling from her lips before he laid a finger over them.

“Not yet.” His expression was fierce, demanding. “Not yet, Tehya. Let me know you’re still living, that you’re still here with me first. God, let me get that nightmare out of my head.”

His lips covered hers.

Shock vibrated through her at the agony, the pure emotion that filled his voice before he kissed her as though he were dying for her.

Deep, drugging, his arms surrounded her, enfolded her as he held her to him, his lips slanting over hers as his tongue licked at hers.

The remnants of her gown were dealt with quickly, the material falling at her bare feet as he shrugged his jacket from his shoulders.

Suddenly hungry for the feel of him, Tehya pulled at the buttons of his shirt, several snapping free and falling forgotten on the floor until she could spread the edges apart, her fingers finding warm, hard flesh.

Hunger rose between them like an inferno, blazing across their flesh, searing their emotions as they hurriedly undressed each other.

Tehya breathed out roughly as she felt him lift her, the strength in his arms making her feel dainty, helpless, and protected as he laid her back in the middle of the bed.

Reaching for him, Tehya drew him to her, her breath hitching in her chest; the overwhelming feeling of complete absorption coming from him was intoxicating.

It was different. Each touch was laced with something that hadn’t been there before. A tender possessiveness he had kept leashed until now.

His fingertips stroked along her breasts, following the curve, feathering against her nipples and tightening them further as she arched to him.

His lips sipped at hers, strong teeth nipping, catching her lower lip and worrying it before his tongue stroked over it with a hungry lick.

Broken moans filled the air as he came over her, strong knees pressing between her thighs as his lips released hers and moved down the line of her throat, following the taut arch until he laid quick, heated kisses on her breast.

His tongue licked over a tight nipple as he moved between her thighs, his fingers stroking over the wet curves of her p-ssy before they parted the sensitive folds.

“Jordan.” Desperation filled her as she felt the thick, broad width of his cock press against her. “Jordan, please.”

Heat speared through her, circling her * before whipping through her body, as he began to penetrate her with tight, slow, shallow thrusts.

His lips lifted from her nipple and moved back to her face.

“Look at me, Tey,” he groaned, his voice tight, heavy with hunger. “Let me see your eyes, baby.”

Her lashes lifted, lips parting at the brilliance in his eyes.

“No illusion,” he whispered then, his tone tight, guttural. “I love you, Tehya.”

She froze beneath him.

“What did you say?”

His fingers stroked down her side to her thigh before his hand cupped beneath her knee and lifted her leg higher, over his head, he seated himself deeper inside her.

Stretching, burning, pleasure rippled through her flesh in a wave of such intense sensation she cried out with it. Arching, her legs lifting, arms holding him closer, Tehya held his gaze and let herself be taken by him.

However he wanted to take her.

With his body. His hands. With deep drugging kisses as her lashes feathered over her cheeks and she lost herself to each sensation.

The hard, powerful thrusts of his hips, the wicked, heavy strength of his cock impaling her, taking her, marking her in ways she couldn’t have imagined she could ever be marked.

There, in the darkness, their moans rising, heat building between them until felt herself exploding in such intense ecstasy that she could only cry out his name and hold tighter to him.

“I love you, Tey,” he groaned at her ear as he f*cked her, thrusting deep a second before she felt the hard flesh tighten further and the eruption of his release suddenly filling her.

As though her soul opened and he filled it, light flooding her entire being as she cried out in his arms.

She was home.

For the first time in her life, Teyha was home.

Her eyes opened, lifting languorously to stare up at him.

Perspiration beaded along his forehead, his shoulders. His gaze was drowsy, black hair falling over his cheek and forehead.

“Jordan,” she whispered, her heart racing, suddenly terrified she hadn’t heard what she thought she had heard.

“I love you,” he whispered again. “I’ve always loved you, Tehya.”

The warmth was brilliant, racing through her, flooding her being.

“I love you.”

The dream she hadn’t wanted to admit to was suddenly real. It was there, in his gaze, his touch, his kiss.

For the first time in her life, Tehya belonged.

Alpine, Texas

Riordan Malone, father, grandfather, Irish stock, and a man who longed to join the woman who held his soul, sat at her graveside and stared into the night.

He could feel it. His Erin had always laughed at him when he looked at her and told her when he felt his sons and his grandsons.

He blinked back his tears and reached out a gnarled hand to touch his wife’s headstone, feeling the warmth of the marble as he fought to imagine it was the warmth of his beloved Erin.

She’d made him swear that if she went before him, he’d stay long enough to see her babies wed and happy.

There would be another wedding soon, he thought, then he’d just have to wait on his namesake, young Rory, to find his future.

Damn, that boy could be slow, though. He’d never been one to move fast on anything, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to settle down anytime soon.

“What are we gonna do with him, my Erin?” he sighed into the night. “He’s too slow, and I’m tired of waiting. I’m ready to come home.”

Home. Back to his wife’s loving arms.

And God he missed the warmth those arms held. The gentleness, the acceptance.

He missed his Erin.

Bending his head he kissed the top of the stone, touched his forehead to it for a moment, then rose from the bench he’d placed there.

He was getting too damned old to kneel the way he used to. But he couldn’t miss saying good night to his laughing lass. To the woman who had completed him.

“Good night, my love,” he whispered. “We’ll work on young Rory soon, I promise,” he sighed. “Just a little more time to finish growing the boy into the man, then I’ll be comin’ home to ya. Ah my Erin, I can’t wait to come home to ya.”

He patted the stone, turned, and walked back to the small home he’d shared with her, the one he’d raised his boys and his grandsons in, where he’d grown old, grown tired, and now, moved ever closer to leaving to his boys.

Soon, he could go home.