Chapter Fifteen
BOTH HIS GIRLS WERE sleeping. Ari looked so small tucked up in their bed, with Pru curled around her. But she was safe. That was the important thing.
Flynn slipped out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. The volunteers had been fed and sent home. Someone else had dealt with their two guests, who’d refused to allow their rooms to be compe
d. Xander was down at the Sheriff’s Department, doing whatever it was he did at the end of a search. It was down to family in the house, and that meant it was time for him to face the music.
Pru’s sisters were gathered in the family room. They looked up as he strode in.
“They’re sleeping, finally.” He dropped heavily into a chair himself, as the past twenty-four hours caught up with him.
“You look like you ought to be sleeping, too,” Kennedy observed.
“Probably. But there are things to discuss, and I’d as soon do it without Pru. She’s been through enough.”
Athena poured him two fingers of whiskey from the bottle on the table and walked it over to him. “You’re probably gonna need this.”
“Thanks.” It was barely past noon, but Flynn knocked it back, relishing the way it burned through his exhaustion. Maybe, if he were lucky, it would dull the edge of his guilt.
“Is someone finally going to tell me what’s going on?” Maggie demanded.
Flynn had no idea what she’d been told before she flew out, but he didn’t see the sense in delaying the inevitable. “Ari ran away because she overheard her social worker telling us yesterday that she’s seeking an injunction to have her removed from the home.”
“What? Why? What possible justification could they have for that? Pru has been her constant since Mom died. Before that, even.”
“Because we got caught in a lie.”
“About what? Do you have some hideous skeleton in your closet that she uncovered during her background check?”
“No. Not like you’re thinking.” He eyed the bottle of whiskey and wished for more as fortification for this conversation. “Pru and I didn’t meet two years ago in Ireland. We met when I came here for Kennedy’s wedding.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes. “Why would you lie about that?”
“We were having an affair. Pru’s choice. And Ari’s new social worker caught us in a position that made our intimate involvement obvious. I knew it would look awful for her to be sleeping with a guest, so I lied and said I was her fiancé. And as an engagement after less than a week didn’t make her look any better, we came up with a different, more plausible backstory.”
“So, all of this the past two months has been one big cover up?”
“Yes. And no. I love your sister, and I love Ari. The only thing we lied about is when it started.”
“This is…I don’t even know what this is.” Maggie looked at her sisters. “You knew?”
“I had to sell the cover story,” Kennedy said.
“Logan told me they were engaged. I came to get to the bottom of it,” Athena said.
“So, I was the only one who didn’t know the truth?” The frost in her tone made it clear enough how she felt about that.
“That was my idea,” Athena admitted. “None of us were nuts about the deception, but you’d have flipped out worse.”
“You’re goddamned right I would. And with good reason. How could you endanger Ari like that? How could you not know you’d get caught? What the hell was Pru thinking?”
“That in a lifetime of doing things for everyone else, she’d spend five minutes doing something for herself.”
“And look where that got her.”
Temper flashed through him, hot and bright as a wildfire. Flynn didn’t move, but when he spoke, his voice was iron. “You won’t say one word to make her feel more guilt than she already does. She’s just been through absolute hell the past twenty-four hours, and there’s fresh hell to come because some arrogant, by-the-book woman cares more for her rules than what’s in the best interest of that child. You’re angry, and justifiably so, but take it out on me. She’s been through enough.”
He could see a matching flare of temper in Maggie’s eyes before she banked it. “I’m not out to berate her. I’m just trying to understand.”