The Cain Casey Series

Chapter Three

The guards left Cain to her thoughts when they arrived at the Erin Go Braugh, a pub she owned. The crew who ran the place were restocking the bar and finishing their cleanup in preparation for the nightly crowd, and they too worked in silence. Cain closed her eyes and revisited the night that had changed her fate.

Fourteen Years Earlier at the Erin Go Braugh

“Emma, pickup for table five, and try not to spill it this time.” The bartender slid the tray toward the new server, thinking he was going to have to start taking the lost liquor out of her paycheck. He felt sorry for the kid who’d begged for a job so she’d be able to stay in the city and in school. Too bad she wasn’t as graceful as she was cute.

“Don’t worry, Josh. I think I’ve got the hang of it now. This place’s so crowded it takes a miracle to make it to the tables without spilling something.”

Emma Verde had walked by the Irish pub numerous times when she was out with her friends. The live music and selection of beer and native Irish whiskey drew a large crowd nightly, prompting her to wander in one afternoon and ask for a job.

She’d moved to New Orleans to attend Tulane, over the strong objections of her mother. The last thing Carol Verde told her as the bus pulled away from Hayward, Wisconsin, was there’d be no help coming from them since Emma had chosen a place so far from their Christian values.

The tips Emma figured she’d make would allow her the luxury of her tiny apartment and the part of her tuition not covered by scholarship and student loans. Tulane had offered her not only the most lucrative scholarship, but also a chance to get a long way from Wisconsin. Her mother had been right about one thing. New Orleans, especially the French Quarter, was a world away from the farm she’d grown up on.

As she walked toward table five, she thought about the shock that would kill her mom if she discovered her working in a bar. Laughing at her own private joke, Emma never saw the tall woman who crossed into her path. The one thing she noticed, though, was the tray full of ale the woman was wearing when they parted.

“I am so sorry. I didn’t see you.” She used her hands to try and mop the mess she’d spilled from the thick, heavily starched linen shirt. When Josh appeared at her side, she figured he was there to fire her.

“Josh, where’d you find this one?”

The deep teasing voice made her look up and study more closely the face of the woman she’d run into.

“I’m sorry, Cain. Emma’s training day hasn’t been working out quite as planned.”

“Emma, huh?”

She held out her hand, now sticky with ale, but Cain took hold of it anyway. “Emma Verde. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, grimacing at how wet her hand felt.

“Cain Casey. The pleasure’s all mine,” answered Cain, not letting go of her hand. “Where are you from?”

“Hayward, Wisconsin.”

A low rumbling laugh bubbled out of Cain’s chest, which made Emma’s ears get hot for some reason.

“Any bars in Hayward?”

“Just a diner, but they only serve beer at night.”

Cain peered over Emma’s head at her bar manager. “Don’t mind me, Josh. I think this hayseed’s a keeper.”

It had been their first meeting. A night they laughed over often after they had gotten together and Emma had moved in with her.

For Emma, the daughter of a diary farmer, Cain had given up all the women who had shared her life and her bed. For eight years it had been blissful. They’d had Hayden, and the happiness Emma had brought into her life grew. But then Emma had turned her back on all of it.

The hayseed, as Cain often called her, left her seven-year-old son and her lover behind when she couldn’t live with Cain’s darker side any longer. Emma returned to the farm she had grown up on and apparently forgot her life with Cain. Not one phone call, postcard, or letter had come south after she had left, and now after four years she was back. But it was far too late for talking now. She should have talked to Cain four years earlier.

*

Emma took a deep breath and stared up at the sign over the door. “The Erin Go Braugh.” Her inflection of the name never came close to the way it rolled off Cain’s tongue. She felt like a thousand years had gone by since the first time she had stood on the sidewalk trying to work up the nerve to walk in and ask for a job. How different would her life have turned out if she had just turned around and walked away? The question was one she often asked herself, but she never bothered to find an answer because she had walked in and forever tethered her life to Cain’s. No amount of running away was ever going to change that. And now she was back to face the one person who scared her almost as much as she’d loved her.

Merrick opened the door for Emma and scrutinized her before pointing to a table that overlooked a small courtyard at the back of the pub, where Cain sat nursing a beer. Emma hadn’t changed much, thought Merrick; even the smile she graced her with as she passed was the same. A simple blue dress had replaced the designer clothes Emma was partial to when Cain’s money was paving the way, but she carried it off well. The sophistication and style Cain had taught her transcended the clothes.

“Cain?” Emma spoke softly and stood a few feet from the table. The years hadn’t changed Cain much either, and Emma’s heart sped up as soon as she saw her. “It’s good to see you.”

“Don’t.” Cain didn’t turn around, but the tone of her voice was unmistakable. There would be no forgiveness coming from her today.

“I’m sorry. May I sit down?”

“It’s your twenty minutes, Emma. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

She stepped closer and sat down, shaking her head when Josh held up a beer glass in her direction. “Thank you for seeing me. I thought after all this time you’d be willing to let some of the anger go. Can you try for just a little while not to hate me?”

“I don’t think about you enough to hate you, so get off your soapbox. It isn’t going to gain you any sympathy. What do you want?” Cain watched a blue jay out on the patio fly away with a forgotten straw and pretended Emma being there wasn’t affecting her. Next to her sat the woman who had managed to do what none of her enemies had accomplished. She had cut deep and left a wound that still festered.

“Still not big on small talk, huh?”

“You walk out on our family four years ago, we don’t hear from you in all that time, and you expect me to talk to you about the weather when you do decide to show up? Even you can’t be that naïve, Emma. I’ll ask again. What do you want?” Cain finally turned and skewered the woman she had loved with the intensity reserved for her adversaries.

“I want to see my son.”

“Your son? That’s rich. What makes you believe he wants to see you? He’s not the same little boy you left behind without another thought when you went to look for whatever you found in farm country.”

“I’d like to talk to him.” Emma studied the strong profile when Cain’s head turned back in the direction of the courtyard. To have gotten this far without Cain calling the dogs on her was a minor victory. The pit bulls Cain surrounded herself with were always on a short leash and ready to attack.

“Let me ask him and I’ll let you know. Hayden’s old enough to make his own decisions.” Cain heard the surprised breath Emma took and laughed. “Don’t get me wrong or act so surprised that I’m giving in so soon. I’m not stupid. I knew you’d come back one day and I figured that, if he was old enough, I’d let Hayden decide on what kind of relationship he wants with you. That is, if he wants to have any relationship with you.” Cain leaned forward to deliver the rest of the threat, not caring who was listening. “Just remember you don’t get to walk away for free this time, Emma. You hurt my son, or make me spend one more night holding him when he wakes up crying because you left without so much as a ‘kiss my ass,’ and I’ll bury you. I’ll bury you so deep, God Almighty won’t be able to find you, and you know I can do it.”

Emma never got to respond, and she never glimpsed the blue eyes that still haunted her thoughts, because Cain just got up and walked out, trailed by the two constant deadly shadows.

“Yes, Cain, I know you can do lots of things,” whispered Emma to the forgotten glass of beer on the table.

She hadn’t really thought much about how their meeting would go, so she was a bit dumbfounded at her good fortune. Now if she could only control the itch in her hands from wanting to reach out and touch Cain. Her ex-lover even smelled of the same fresh citrusy cologne she remembered.

The short visit convinced Emma that no amount of time would ever erase Cain from her mind, or her body. She’d been branded by the tall, dangerous woman, and that was the way it would stay.