Liam didn’t know if he should laugh or bang his head on the table. “I need to call Gabrielle.” Putting his coat on, he took his bag in one hand and Chewy’s leash in the other.
Catriona quickly put on her coat. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
He walked out a little too fast for his stiff leg. Pushing the door open, the cold hit him hard, and he lifted his collar, allowing Chewy to sniff a fire hydrant as he pulled his cell phone out. He realized he’d left his gloves at the precinct.
“Liam! Wait!”
Ignoring the soft voice behind him, he dialed Gabrielle’s number, only to be sent to voice mail.
A string of curses flew out of his mouth as the angel nun stepped in front of him, and he bit his tongue when he realized it. “Sorry, sister.”
Before he could sidestep, Catriona touched his hand, and that immobilized him better than any shackle. “Liam, you seem upset, but I don’t know why. I need you to explain.”
People passed them by on the sidewalk. The temperature made him huddle even more in his thick coat. He saw Catriona shiver. “I’m not going to discuss it here in the cold. My apartment is around the corner and it’s Chewy’s feeding time.”
Her smile returned. “Of course, let’s go.”
Chewy pulled on his leash, knowing perfectly that food was at the end of this trek. Catriona walked companionably beside him, admiring the Christmas decorations on the streets, and she laughed when a couple of kids started throwing snowballs at each other. Liam was tempted to close his eyes at the sound. It was so pure, so unchecked, it almost hurt his soul. Clenching his jaw, he pushed those unwanted emotions away. Catriona Walsh was off-limits. She was married to another, and even if that man wasn’t made of flesh and bones, in his mind, it was the same thing. His mother’s strict Catholic upbringing ingrained this profoundly and irrevocably in him. He didn’t know why he felt such a strong connection with her. He hoped it was because she was Irish like his mother. After all, if it was another sick coincidence that Liam didn’t want to contemplate, he had no idea how he’d deal with the situation.
Silently, he pointed to a restored brick building. Since his injury, he’d trouble with his landlord and had to relocate in a rush. Gabrielle had helped and offered him an apartment that had been used previously in a mission as lodging. The downside was that he had to get up a flight of stairs and his thigh didn’t like that at all, often suggesting sleeping in his car.
He appreciated having neighbors on the first floor. The elder lady, Miss Lupe, and her roommate Marcus, who acted more like her caregiver, were friendly eccentrics who kept watch over anything and everything. Apart from the odd call over strange noises or invisible shadows, he liked them. Another added benefit was that Miss Lupe’s nephew, Hector Nazario, was deep in the criminal underworld, but he was one of the good guys who’d helped him and his brothers secretly in the last few years. As a cop, Liam had serious issues with that, but when confronted with the fact that he shouldn’t push aside any help to bring his father down, he’d had no other choice but to come to grips with it.
Unlocking the door, he unhooked Chewy’s leash and the mutt leaped up and down the couch, shaking his shaggy brown fur while looking at him with hopeful eyes.
“All right, all right. Let the human slave remove his boots and I’ll get your food.” And then he turned to Catriona. “Welcome to our little home. It’s not much, but I had to relocate quickly. Gabrielle found me this place until I can look for something new. Get comfortable while I feed the impatient child in the room.”
Turning his back on her, he went into the small kitchen as Chewy was jumping all around him like an overjoyed puppy. Ignoring him, Liam quickly filled the kettle before taking both dog bowls and putting them on the counter as he got the food. Filling one dish, he put it down and his dog scarfed his dinner down like it was going out of style.
As he was washing the water bowl, he saw that Catriona had discarded her gear and was walking around his living room from the corner of his eye. There wasn’t much to see. The last person who had lived here had been Zoe, his brother Archer’s wife, and she had only used it as a temporary base.
His kettle whistled, bringing him back to the present.
He prepared his teapot and filled it with hot water. As Catriona approached the counter, he turned to fetch a couple of cups.
“Wow! It’s the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve seen someone making tea instead of coffee.”
“There was only tea when I grew up, and I prefer it to coffee when I’m here.” A euphemism of everything it entailed as, in his childhood, tea, or what passed as a very weak version of it, was all he ever got to eat or drink. Cold, at the bottom of his mother’s cup when she wasn’t looking. However, that wasn’t a topic for a polite conversation with a nun. He pushed the steaming cup in her direction, careful to avoid any contact. She took the cup, closed her eyes, and sighed.
Liam held his cup, admiring her beautiful face. Even in the shadows, it was as if she were radiating light.
He was almost caught in the moment when she opened her eyes.
“Thank you for the tea. Now, start explaining why you frantically tried to reach Gabrielle.”
“I don’t doubt your intelligence or your courage, but you’re coming into this blind and that’s the most direct way to heaven for you. I appreciate your willingness to help, but I won’t have you killed on my watch. I’ll find another way to get the information I need.”
Where he thought the little nun would cringe at his order and tone, Catriona instead slammed her cup on the counter. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a fire in those wise eyes.
“I want to know what’s going on, what’s making you so afraid of me helping you?”
Was she for real? “You’re… you’re like a baby! You lead the sheltered life of a nun! The person after us won’t go down without a nasty fight. He’s violent and perverted, ready to sacrifice anything to get what he wants. So, sister, the best you can do is say a prayer, and I’m sending you back to where you came from, where it’s safe.”
Calmness resettled over her featured. “Gabrielle said a family needed my help. I guess it’s yours. Who’s after you? Ready to even kill you?”
Liam felt tired now. So tired. His leg throbbed and he’d had enough fighting her for today. So when he turned to look at her once more, the words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them, hurting like always. “My father.”
