Olcan (Boston Bear Brothers 2)

She didn’t fear a moment of what might come going forward. She was better, stronger, happier than she’d ever been in her entire life, and things would only get better from there.CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUROlcan

TIME SEEMED TO JUST blow by after Niamh had the triplets. They were barely three years old and already showing that they would be fine, strong boys. In the time since they were born, things had been quiet, almost boring by some standards, but Olcan had been happy enough with it. Though he had retained his place as Alpha at Fergus’s request, he still considered passing it along to one of his brothers so he could just enjoy his family.

It was funny how one’s priorities changed with age and responsibility. He was still very much in control of his clan but had begun to see that there was so much more to life that he could easily get lost in without the responsibility of the Alpha role. A part of him wished his father had not chosen this life for him and his brothers.

Cathal McNally could have just as easily come to America and bought a farm or started a legitimate business instead of turning to a life of crime, one that could sometimes be brutal and dangerous. Olcan wasn’t one to shirk his responsibilities to the family, but it didn’t stop him from wondering how much simpler life might have been with different choices.

He looked at his boys, all giggling as they played happily in the swimming pool Niamh had gotten for them to sit in during the heat of the summer. They splashed about and enjoyed their innocence. He’d not be able to keep them that way forever. If he continued down this path, one day, they’d be required to step into his shoes, just as he and his brothers had stepped into their father’s.

Niamh stepped out on the porch, an accounting book in her hand as she poured over her studies in preparation for a test the next day. She’d not wanted to go during summer term, but it would allow her to finish up before fall, when she would be too busy for school. Once her finals ended this week, she’d take a break until the new year before finishing her senior year and her degree.

He stood up and walked toward her, kissing her softly on the cheek as she eased herself down into a chair, her belly already huge with the expected birth of their second litter. Just as last time, there were three beans continuing to sprout, and they’d agreed they’d call it a day after this set.

“Uncle Ronan!” one of the boys squealed as a familiar figure walked around the edge of the house and joined them on the porch.

“Hey, boys,” he told them, taking a seat by Olcan as they resumed their play.

“I’ve got news,” he told Olcan quietly.

“Good or bad?” Olcan replied.

“Maybe we should take it in the house,” Ronan replied.

“Okay. I’ll be right back,” Olcan said to Niamh, opening the back door and walking into the house ahead of Ronan.

They went to his study and closed the door, Olcan sitting across from him at the large desk that sat to one side of the room while Ronan sat in one of the large leather seats on the other side.

“They found Sorley,” Ronan told him.

“Oh? And?”

“He never made it beyond the spot he dropped into.”

“Dead then. How did they find him after all this time?”

“Someone’s dog went in there for a piss, I guess, came back out with his jawbone in his mouth.”

“What do you know beyond that?”

“Nothing yet, but they’ll identify the bones sooner or later, and there will be questions.”

“We’ve been expecting that for a while. It changes nothing for us.”

“They’ll eventually tie it to the SUVs and bodies they found abandoned in the middle of the road several years ago. What if they start tapping cameras, tracing where those boys came from?”

“They’ll get nothing. Any security camera in the areas surrounding that stretch of highway will have long been erased or recorded over. The vehicles were reported stolen the moment those boys drove off the lots and got far enough away for us to get the jump on them before police did, and they’ve already established that the guys found there were criminals with long rap sheets. If anything, they’ll just assume they are the ones that did the guy at the bottom of the canyon beside them in or that whoever did them did him also.”

“Which isn’t wrong, and leads them to us.”

Olcan shrugged. “We’ve covered up bigger events. I mean, we made a dragon in the middle of the suburbs disappear.”

“Unless you ask your old neighbor.”

Olcan laughed. “Yeah, except for James, or Crazy James, if you want to call him what all the neighbors and his ex-wife do.”