“SO I’LL see you in a bit, okay?” Connor glanced through a picture window at his father regaling his children with his rendition of a song he didn’t quite know the lyrics to. The whispering voice on the other end echoed his thought that soon wouldn’t be soon enough, and Connor sighed, trapped in something he couldn’t quite scrape off and call done.
He ended the call, slumped down into one of the recliners near his father’s study, and brooded, barely looking up when Donal came wandering in from outside. He listened as his father puttered around in the kitchen, then tapped his phone against his knee, wondering what he was doing with his life.
“Are ye going to be coming in here to talk to me, or am I going to be needing to go out there?” Donal’s voice boomed through the house, but Connor knew none of his siblings could hear him outside. More cunning than a weasel, Donal had shut the sliding glass door behind him, effectively sealing them off from the world.
“I don’t know if I should be talking to you in there, Da. Maybe someplace more private, eh?”
It was hard to admit that. He’d been the strong one for so long. There’d never been a time when he didn’t have a younger brother tagging along after him, and over the years, he’d stepped into the space behind his father, dispenser of advice and listener of woes.
His father didn’t skip a beat, calling out to him after opening a cabinet. “Ye go on into the study. I’ll be bringing the whiskey, then.”
The study was a man cave of sorts. The one spot in the house other than the widow’s walk where the Morgan men reigned supreme… or at least untouched by Brigid’s influence. The couches were old, worn in places from big feet and elbows, while the area rug taking up most of the floor was dotted with suspicious stains, and if Connor remembered correctly, a burn mark hidden by a low table near the wall. Thumb-worn mystery novels fought for space alongside college textbooks, and kid-crafted ashtrays boasted mounds of coins waiting to be rolled up into paper sleeves that never seemed to be filled.
It was the room where every Morgan boy had come to bare his soul or take his punishment. He’d stood there many a time, hating himself for bringing a look of disappointment to his father’s handsome face, and he’d once cried in shame when he confessed to letting Kane jump from the roof and into the pool.
That conversation would have gone a whole lot better for him if Kane had actually hit the water instead of the cement ring around it, but Connor stood up and took the blame.
Even when his father gently told him the blame lay on Kane’s shoulders, not his.
“Yer brother’s got to stand for his own mistakes,” Donal told him. “Ye can’t take on the world’s troubles, son. No matter how big your shoulders are. Most times, it’s best for people to carry their own burden, lest they don’t ever learn how.”
After that, Connor tried. He did. But his instincts fought him, and he’d step in, time and time again, when his younger brothers—then sisters—fell behind. They’d looked up to him. Followed him because, as the eldest, he was supposed to know what to do and when to do it.
All in preparation for a time when Donal wouldn’t be there and he’d be left alone to carry on.
He wasn’t ready for that time. Not now. Probably not ever. Especially now as he stewed in the dilemma he found himself in, and for the first time in his life, Connor had no idea what to do.
“Here, take a swig first, son,” Donal said, handing Connor the bottle before closing the door behind him. “Then ye tell yer da what’s going on.”
The whiskey wasn’t rotgut, not by a long shot, but it might have been liquid fire for all Connor could taste. It burned going down, hitting the knot of trouble in his gut and setting off an inferno there. He gasped, choked in some air, and passed the bottle back, coughing a bit while his father pounded him on the back.
He’d built himself up so he could go through doors alongside his SWAT team without hesitation, but his father’s open-handed slaps down his spine rocked Connor nearly off the couch. Eyeing the older man, Connor shook his head for Donal to stop.
“I’m okay.” He cleared his throat. “It just went down wrong.”
“Not since ye’ve ever started have you done that.” Donal frowned, setting the bottle on the coffee table in front of him before joining Connor on the couch. “Or if ye have, I’ve not seen it. What’s the matter, Con? Something on the job?”