Lachlan (Dangerous Doms 5)

I hope it’s only a “bit of a celebration,” as he says, but we will see. He takes my hand and leads me up the stone walkway toward the garden.

“My we’ve come far, haven’t we, Tiernan?” I ask. I’m feeling nostalgic today. “I still remember the very first day we arrived here. Do you?”

We were rescued from the dank, dilapidated hovel we called home by my older sister Sheena and her husband Nolan. At the time, I was too young to fully understand that Nolan was part of the McCarthy Clan, the most powerful mob in all of Ireland. I wasn’t afraid but enamored. Hell, I still am.

“Aye,” Tiernan says grimly. “I do. I was a right twat, wasn’t I?”

I laugh out loud. “You had good reason, didn’t you?”

Tiernan knew who they were and didn’t take kindly to being brought to their home. He was angry, with a chip on his shoulder the size of the craggy cliffs of Ballyhock. He didn’t trust them, and he let it be known. But over time, he saw past who they were, or what they did. He saw that the McCarthy clan took us in, welcomed us, and took good care of us. All of us. Sam, who was only two at the time, me, Tiernan, and our older sister Sheena. Soon we became family and we were welcomed into the fold.

“I did,” he says. “But I didn’t really know who they are.”

As a sworn-in member of the Clan, Tiernan now has iron-clad protection, financial security for life, and an army of brothers at his back that will defend him to the death. He’s devoted himself to them entirely.

“Oh my God,” I whisper when I look up and see what’s ahead of us.

“Now, no running,” Tiernan says in a warning tone. “I promised them I’d catch you if you ran.”

“So that’s why you were stationed at the gate,” I mutter.

The McCarthy estate is enormous, stretching as far as the eye can see. There’s the tree-lined pathway that leads to the huge garden, the stone steps that lead to the house, a garden pathway that goes to a greenhouse in the back, a treehouse the men built for the kids, and more. A pathway that leads to the cliffs of Ballyhock, and a path that leads behind the home into town, to Holy Family Church, and the cemetery.

A pang hits my chest when I see the balloons, streamers, flowers, and tent. I come to a stuttering halt beside Tiernan.

“It’s alright,” he says quietly, reaching for my hand. He knows. I’m not sure anyone else knows the way he does, even Sheena.

I never had anything like this. We grew up in dirt poor Stone City, and the memories of my drug addict mother and the slums we grew up in will haunt me for the rest of my life. Sheena and Nolan came to take us away from there. When the McCarthy family welcomed us in as their own, we left poverty and the pain of an abusive mother behind us. Our found family is everything a girl could ever hope for.

Old habits die hard, though, and Tiernan and I remember. Everything. Nights our bellies gnawed with hunger for we had no food in the house. The lewd, manky men my mother brought home, not even bothering to hide the fact she slept with them for drugs. The filth and squalor we lived in. It was an unspoken rule that if you lived in Stone City, you never left, that you remained mired in destitution and that you did not rise above. Those who did were never forgiven.

We broke that rule. But we haven’t forgotten.

We never had birthday parties. Our birthdays were any old day for my mum. There were no cakes, no presents, and certainly no fancy celebrations.

We weren’t made to feel special, and I suppose when you’re raised like that, it’s difficult to believe that you are.

“I don’t deserve this,” I whisper. “I don’t, Tiernan.” I’m not fishing for a compliment. I need his assurance.

He puts his arm around my shoulder and gives me a sideways hug. “I know exactly what you mean,” he says. I’m grateful he doesn’t try to tell me I’m right or wrong, or to silence the inner critic in my head I’ve given voice to. He just understands. Sheena moved out when she was younger, and Sam was only a baby when we moved. But Tiernan and I remember it all.

“Do it for them,” he says with a rakish grin. “You know the McCarthy family will do damn near anything for an excuse to party.”

I smile. They will. The women especially love a reason to spread tables with food, pipe music through speakers, and kick up their heels.

“Who’s there?” I ask. For some reason, Tiernan doesn’t meet my eyes, but shades his and looks in front of us.