Irish Sex Fairy

Chapter Twenty

Shane stood.

“Gotta go,” he said to his parents, voice raspy. He kissed his mom’s cheek, carried his glass into the kitchen and set it on the counter then strode out.

He drove home, working himself up into a good high dudgeon, as Ma would say. They didn’t need him. Apparently, nobody needed him. He’d wanted to take Maeve to the doctor and she’d gone on her own, goddammit. She didn’t need him either.

Keara didn’t need him. Every time he’d tried to help her with something, she’d protested, gotten annoyed. He knew it. That’s the way he was. But she didn’t need that. She was a strong, independent woman.

Ah hell. The truth was…he needed her.

His gut cramped as he pulled into his driveway. His big house sat empty, black windows like vacant eyes. He sat there in his car, staring at the garage, fingers still holding on to the steering wheel.

He could call her.

He glanced at his watch. She might not be home from work. Or maybe she’d be out partying. What would he say to her? Did he have the guts to ask her if she’d come back. What if she said no?

Her career was important to her. Like Trista’s. Except he had to admit he hadn’t really given a shit about Trista’s career. He’d wanted her to stay, wanted her to turn down that promotion and he’d been mad when she hadn’t.

He couldn’t ask Keara to do that. Wouldn’t ask her to do that. Because if it meant that much to her, he wanted her to have it. The thought slammed into him like a bullet, driving home the realization of the difference between his feelings for Trista and for Keara. Night and day. Black and white. Whiskey compared to water.

So—he’d go to her. He’d go see her and tell her he’d leave Kilkenny for her. Because he would.

He knew it was crazy, impulsive, maybe stupid—but he put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. If she wouldn’t let him into her apartment, he’d be on the street with only the clothes he was wearing. He’d take the chance. A sudden urgency gripped him, and it felt absolutely imperative that he get to Keara as quickly as he could.

Keara stared at the boy across from her. His mouth was a thin line, his eyes defiant. “You’re Gary’s son?” she whispered, clasping her hands tighter.

“Yeah.” His tone was sharp with bitterness and anger. “And thanks to you, my dad is dead.”

A sharp slice of pain stabbed into her. She rubbed one eyebrow, trying to ease the throbbing below it. What could she say to that? She’d been blaming herself for Gary’s death for months now. Now she was face-to-face with the living, breathing evidence of how badly she’d screwed up.

She tried to breathe, her lungs tight. She nodded slowly, gathering her thoughts, but it was like pulling clouds out of the sky.

“My mom is dying,” Gary’s son continued harshly.

“What’s your name?”

He stared at her. She repeated the question.

“Scott.”

“Okay. Scott.” She nodded, licked her lips. “I know about your mom.”

“Then why did you fire him?” he burst out, the gun wavering. Keara tensed. He could shoot her even accidentally if he wasn’t in control of that thing.

“I didn’t know about your mom then,” she said quietly. “I found out the day he…”

“He tried to rob the bank,” Scott sneered. “You drove him to that. Drove him crazy. And then they shot him.”

“Do you…do you know what happened in there?” she asked, leaning forward a bit.

“I know he talked to Mom. I know he was coming out. The cops told me he was going to give himself up, but I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t give in. We needed the money.”

“You think what he did was right?” She kept her voice soft.

He slashed the air with his hand. “That doesn’t matter. He was doing what he thought he had to.”

Gary’s son clearly had inherited his faulty reasoning skills. Or maybe they managed to convince themselves what they did was right. Keara wasn’t sure, but it was very sad that Scott had been driven beyond rational thought just like his father had.

She took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what happened in there. When it was just your dad and me. I told the police, but I guess they didn’t tell you everything. I’ll tell you, if you’ll put the gun down and listen.”

He glared at her for a long moment while he weighed things. “I’ll put the gun down,” he said finally, laying it on the wide arm of the chair. “But it stays right here with me. So don’t try anything.”

“I won’t. I just want to talk.”

“Fine. Go ahead. But don’t think you’re going to make any difference. You deserve to die just like my dad did.”

The way he said it, the way it sounded rehearsed, the lack of conviction in his words, made her relax minutely. It made her think he wasn’t really a killer. Just like his dad had had no intention of killing her. They were desperate but they weren’t murderers. She didn’t know what Scott thought he was going to accomplish by doing this, other than scaring the bejesus out of her, but she didn’t believe he was actually going to kill her.

Of course, a gun sitting right there still made her nervous.

“This is what happened.”

Keara paused in her story. Scott listened intently, although he stared across the room and not at her.

“Scott. I have to be honest with you.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I don’t know if knowing about your mom would have changed the decision I had to make to let your dad go. I don’t know if it would have. I had to make business decisions. But I’d like to think that if I’d known, I would have done more to make sure your mom was looked after. I would have talked to your dad about options. Before that happened.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. And I will always regret that. You have no idea how sorry I am that I didn’t take more time to get to know your dad and what was going on his life.” She pleaded for understanding with her eyes. He looked away.

He sat there, silent, staring into space, shoulders slumped. She sat up a bit straighter and her fingers gripped her knees. What was he going to do?

Then he turned his eyes to her. “Is that really what happened?”

She blinked. “Yes.”

“He told you to leave and you wouldn’t go without him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She rolled her bottom lip in and let it slowly slide through her teeth as she pondered what to say to him. But Scott answered for her.

“He was going to kill himself, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know for sure,” she said after a short pause.

Scott shook his head. “He was. You did know it. And you didn’t want to leave him there to do that.”

His image blurred as her eyes filled with tears and her chest constricted. “I wanted to help him,” she whispered. “Like I should have before I let him go.” A sob escaped her lips and she covered her mouth with shaking hands.

“So you were trying to save him,” Scott said slowly. His shoulders slumped even more. “And then the cops shot him.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” She twisted her fingers together and leaned forward again. “They told me after. One of the SWAT team just got overeager, or something. Adrenaline apparently can do that. They thought he was still going to kill me. But the guy in charge kept telling them not to shoot. He knew. I knew. Your dad wasn’t going to kill me. And…” she paused, “I made sure our insurance company paid out your dad’s death benefits. They weren’t going to. They thought he’d been trying to commit suicide.”

“Suicide by cop.”

“Yes.” She swallowed. “I told them he wasn’t. The money’s being used to look after your mom.”

Scott bowed his head. A hard shudder racked her body and she bent over her knees at the emotion that swamped her. She covered her face with her hands and choked on another sob.

She had tried to save Gary. And it wasn’t all her fault.

She cried. Scott was sitting there with a gun right by his hand, and all she could do was cry.

She cried for Gary. He’d been so desperate and yes, part of that was her responsibility, and she’d do anything to go back in time and change how she’d handled that, but she didn’t make him rob the bank. That was his choice.

She cried for Scott, for the sadness and desperation and vengeance that made him choose to follow her and try to get revenge for the wrongs he perceived had been done to him and his family. A misguided, desperate choice, but it was his choice.

And she cried for herself. For the guilt and misery she’d been beating herself up with. For trying to save Gary and then having him die anyway. For the mistakes she’d made.

“I’m sorry,” Scott said, sounding almost as choked up as Keara was. “I’ve been following you for weeks, trying to get up the nerve to do something.”

She lifted her head, tears wet on her cheeks and stared at him. “You’ve been following me?”

He nodded miserably. “I tried to break in here one night. Weeks ago. Then you took off.”

“How did you find me?”

“I’m pretty good on the internet. I uh…hacked into your email.”

“Oh.” She swiped her palms over her face. “Don’t tell me…please…was that you in Kilkenny? On the highway?”

He dipped his head. “Yeah.”

“Jesus, you could have killed me!”

“I just wanted to scare you!” he burst out.

“Oh, Scott. And then…in the shop…was that you that night?”

Again, he nodded. “Yeah. I hid in the storage room for a few hours. I was going to sneak up and…hell, I don’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t know that dude was gonna be there with you.”

She sucked in a long breath. Dear God. She wasn’t going crazy. She hadn’t imagined all those things. When she laughed out loud, Scott shot her a startled look.

“Are there even bullets in that gun?” she asked.

He scowled and picked it up. “Of course there are.”

A knock on her apartment door made both of them jump.

Shit.

She did not want a guy with a gun being startled like that. Who the hell was at her door? How did they get in through security?

Maybe it was the security people, having seen her being dragged at gunpoint into the elevator. Her eyes met Scott’s.

“Who is that?” he whispered, and he held the gun like he meant business with it. Again. Dammit.

“I have no idea.” She didn’t lower her voice, hoping whoever was at the door would hear them and know she was in there. Eyeing the gun, she called out, “Who is it?”

“Jesus!” Scott hissed. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Scott.” She stared him down. “You know this is done. You’re not going to shoot me.”

Another hammering on the door blasted through her apartment. “Keara! It’s Shane!”

She froze. Blinked. She must have heard that wrong. “Sh-Shane?”

“Yeah. I…uh…are you alone?”

Was she alone? What the hell did he think was going on in there? Jesus, did he think she was in there doing some guy on her couch? “Shane!” she cried. “Don’t leave!”

She looked at Scott again and tilted her head. His scowl deepened. “Don’t make this worse, okay? And I’ll try to help you with the police.”

“Cops?” His eyes widened. “That’s the cops?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

Shane pressed his ear to the door. Dammit, he could hear them talking in there, and one of them was definitely male. He sagged against the door, head dropping. Who the hell would’ve thought she’d have another guy that fast? Shit. Maeve and his parents had clearly been wrong about her feelings for him.

And he’d driven three and a half fucking hours from Kilkenny for nothing.

“Shane! Don’t leave!”

He straightened. Listened. Nothing. He knew he’d heard that. Keara. A bolt of fear lanced through him like a knife, deep into his gut. Everything coalesced in his head at once—the MVA, the intruder at the shop, the break-in at her apartment—where she was right now. With someone else in there with her. Jesus Christ.

Adrenaline surged in him, made his skin go tight, his muscles rigid. He eyed the door. He took several steps back, then lifted his leg and drove his foot into the door. Sonofabitch! That fucking hurt! But the door broke loose from the frame. She didn’t have the deadbolt on. Stupid. Or good. Okay, in this case, good.

He kicked one more time and a splintering noise filled the air. He charged in, reaching for the gun he still wore on his hip. He hadn’t even been home since he left work and he still carried. He whipped his Glock out and assumed the stance, eyes sweeping the room.

Keara sat on the couch in her living room, gaping at him, eyes about to fall out of their sockets, hands clasped together. A male had jumped to his feet from the armchair across from her, and Jesus, he had a gun and was aiming it right at him.

“Police!” Shane barked. “Drop the gun!”

The young male’s hands shook and the weapon wavered. Shane took a step back and glanced at Keara. “You were right,” the guy said, almost with disbelief. “I thought you were lying.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, standing and walking toward Shane. “Put the gun down.”

He didn’t. His gaze flicked back and forth between her and the guy. “Keara! Sit down, for Chrissake!”

She shook her head and continued toward him. Shane kept the guy in his sights and his gun leveled at him. “Who is this guy?” he demanded. “What the hell is going on?”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not answering his damn question. He stared at her incredulously, then reached for her and shoved her behind him.

“Drop it!” he commanded again.

“Shane,” she murmured in his ear, putting a hand on his arm. “I don’t think his gun is even loaded.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Keara then back to the other man, confused, stunned, disbelieving. Was she insane? She didn’t know? You always had to assume a gun was loaded. Jesus.

“Scott,” she called softly. “It’s okay. He is a police officer, but he’s a friend of mine. Put the gun down.”

Scott whoever-the-hell-he-was didn’t lower his gun. Keara, sweet as she was, knew nothing about criminals. You couldn’t just tell them to put the gun down and expect they would do it.

“I told you,” she continued. “Just cooperate and don’t hurt anyone and I’ll help make it okay.”

The kid—he was just a kid, for God’s sake—stared at both of them. Then, to Shane’s astonishment, he dropped his hands. The gun hung at his side and he seemed to cave in on himself.

His mind boggled, Shane kept his own gun leveled at the guy.

And then Keara—the crazy woman—walked over to the guy and took the gun away from him. Just like that. Shane’s jaw almost smacked the floor.

Keara turned to Shane. “Here. I don’t know how to tell if it’s loaded.”

He took three steps toward her and numbly removed the gun from her hand. His lips curled as he regarded the cheap Bersa, checked the chamber. Holy hell. Empty. He lifted his eyes to Keara, and then directed a stern glare at the kid.

“Are you really a cop?” Scott asked.

“You bet your ass I am,” Shane replied tightly, shoving the Bersa into his waistband then reholstering his Glock. “What the hell are you doing with this? Who are you? What is going on here?”

He looked at Keara. She should have been crumpled into a traumatized heap on the floor. Instead, she stood there beside Scott whoever, and she laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. In his entire life, Shane didn’t think he’d ever been so bewildered.

“We’ll tell you,” she said. “But you have to promise to take off your law enforcement hat and just be my…” She paused.

He waited.

“My…”

He shoved a hand through his hair.

“My friend,” she finally finished.

Whatever. They’d talk about that later.

“Fine,” he snapped. “Sit.”

She rolled her eyes but amusement tugged the corners of her mouth up. “Have a seat,” she said to Scott.

The kid looked terrified now. Sure, now his gun was gone. His unloaded gun. Shit. But Scott sat obediently in the arm chair.

“You too.” Keara sat, looked at Shane, and patted the couch cushion beside her. “Scott and I will tell you everything.”