About Face (Wolf Within) (8 page)

“For three years every eligible female in this pack and some not so eligible chased after Liam, and he spurned us all. So forgive me, woman, for being a bit pissed the female he finally does choose deserts his ass at the first sign of trouble. It’s been a terrible thing to watch him these past few months. At least after Sorcha died we didn’t have to see him because he ran away to Belfast, of all fucking stupid places, and we weren’t constantly exposed to his sad, pitiful face day after day. Has the man smiled even once in four months, Paddy?” Alannah turned to him, and he looked up guiltily from his Guinness and swallowed the wrong way.

“Stop drinking that and participate in this discussion. It’s important.” Alannah stomped a small foot on the wooden floor, but by the way Paddy cringed I would have expected her to be an Amazon or at least brandishing a weapon.

More and more it seemed my interpretation of Faith’s dream was dead-on. Paddy needed my help with Murphy. Only, was I the one who could give it? That man never took anybody’s help—why the hell would he take mine?

“How many goddamn times do I have to say that
I
am the one who was deserted, not the other fucking way around?” I wanted to get up and kick her pretty face in but somehow controlled myself.

The look of scorn she directed at me could have stripped paint.

“What are you doing here, then?”

I didn’t say anything, and she blew out her breath in impatience. “You silly cow. Why can’t you admit you want him back? Bloody stupid, prideful Americans. You get on my nerves.”

“Did you—you did not just call me a
cow
.” My face heated. I turned in Paddy’s direction. “Did that bitch just call me a cow?”

“Jaysus, I want to eat dinner in peace. Woman, get your ass back to the bar. You’re the one who wanted the job, didn’t you? Begged me for it, in fact. And now you’ve got the job, what do you do? Stand around in my office, badgering poor Stanzie. If she doesn’t want to answer you, she doesn’t have to. Why should she tell us her strategy anyway? You’re gonna spoil all the fun we’ll have watching her.”

“I did not beg you for this job.” Alannah tossed her red hair as she moved for the door. “Declan fucked Fee for it, you bastard.”

I waited until the door was shut before I said anything. Spoil the fun, would she?

“You made her bond mate fuck yours so she could have a job behind the bar? Oh my God.” He ducked when I threw my boot at his head.

“Stanzie. It was a joke! The stupid kind between brother and sister? Alannah’s my half sister, for Christ’s sake. Her ma was bonded to my ma and da.”

“She introduces herself as Declan Byrne’s bond mate but conveniently leaves out the part where she’s your sister? Unbelievable. And rude. And you didn’t say anything either, you bastard.” He ducked again when I threw my second boot.

The lure of the food on the desk was too much to resist. On sock feet, I padded over.

He kept his hands prudently out of the way as I made my choice between the shepherd’s pie and the fish and chips. I retreated back to the armchair with the shepherd’s pie and a foamy glass of Guinness.

Before I dug in, I gave him a dark look, and he groaned.

“Okay, so we’re frigging rude barbarians here in Mac Tire. From now on I’ll make sure to give you everyone’s family ties before I even tell you their names when I’m introducing you. I will never understand women. Particularly American women. I don’t even know why the hell I try to reason with any of them. Ever.” He muttered the last bit to himself and abruptly grabbed a fistful of chips from the plate and stuffed them in his mouth.

“All right then,” I allowed after I savored a forkful of the delicious shepherd’s pie. It was spicy and warm, and hit my empty stomach like a welcome friend.

“Glad to have the royal pardon, your Majesty,” he mocked, and I flipped him off because my mouth was too full to yell at him.

I decided to concentrate on my food and not Paddy because he’d just ruin my appetite, the sonofabitch, and I was starving. I applied myself to my plate, and by the sounds he made, he practically made love to his fish and chips.

Replete, I leaned back in the armchair. My plate was incredibly empty, and so was my glass. Paddy remedied the latter by refilling it from the pitcher on his desk.

He studied me for a moment as he stood before me. “You’ve got some color back in your face. Non-choleric-rage-related color, that is.” He reached down to brush some hair from my face, and I flinched. His mouth tightened.

“I know you think I’m some sort of complete, unfeeling bastard, Stanzie, but—”

“I don’t think—I know,” I interrupted.

He sighed and stomped back behind his desk. Faith’s dream had to be bullshit. There was no way I would forgive this man for abandoning me after he told me I was family.

“So where is he?” At my question Paddy nearly dropped the pitcher of Guinness and set it down carefully. “Paddy?”

“Belfast,” Paddy told me, although by the look on his face he’d rather have eaten glass than answer me. “He got an offer for his cottage, and he went to the closing. He’ll be back soon. I think.” His tone was doubtful.

I thought about the cottage in Belfast. I’d never seen it, but Murphy and I had had plans to go there together for weekend getaways after we made our home here in Dublin. We were going to keep my condo in Boston and his cottage in Belfast, and now he’d sold the cottage. It shouldn’t have hurt because the man walked out on me four months ago, but it still did. Now I’d never see it. Of course, it could be cover for his investigation into the whereabouts of Mick Shaughnessy, but I could not blurt that question in case Paddy didn’t know about the conspiracy.

Besides, Murphy wouldn’t have to put the cottage up for sale to support his investigation of Grandfather Mick. If anything, he’d want to keep it as a base away from home as he traveled around the UK. My stomach soured, and I wished I hadn’t wolfed my food so fast.

“Well, I guess he’s not planning to leave the pack and grow vegetables this time around,” I remarked, chin jutted.

After Sorcha died he’d left Mac Tire, bought the cottage, and escaped. After he left me, he’d sold the cottage and apparently planned to say in the pack. Which meant…

“Who is she? He’s got someone new, hasn’t he?” My heart beat painfully in my chest, and I wanted to rip it out and stomp on it to make it stop.

“Don’t be daft,” Paddy advised. “Sure and he’ll have to bond with somebody if you don’t figure out a way to get back with him, but you heard Alannah, didn’t you? He’s been scowling and moody the whole bloody time he’s been here. Snapping at people or more likely ignoring the crap out of them. If he’s got somebody new, she’s a masochist for sure.” Then a grin spread across his attractive face. “You’re jealous.”

“You’re fucked in the head,” I snapped, and he laughed, the bastard.

“You do want him back,” he crowed.

I scowled at him. “Well, duh, that’s why I’m here. But you don’t have to get all smirky about it. So I admit it. I want him back. But since I wasn’t the one who walked out, I don’t see how what I want means shit.”

“Then why are you here?”

Because of you, mostly
, I thought to myself but didn’t say since Paddy didn’t know that part.
Ask him
,
Stanzie
.
Ask him if Murphy’s in bad trouble.
But I wasn’t sure it was the right time. I wasn’t even sure that’s what the dream meant. I wasn’t sure of any goddamn thing.

“I’m tired. Do you know any good hotels? Since Murphy’s not here, there’s no sense in me sticking around here tonight.” I yawned and stretched my arms over my head.

An affronted expression made Paddy look like a mule.

“A hotel now? You’ll be traveling all this way, and you being Mac Tire and asking me if I know any good hotels? You rude little bitch.”

“What?” I glared. “What did I do now?”

“Mac Tire don’t stay in hotels in Dublin, woman,” Paddy roared, and if they didn’t hear him downstairs in the pub, it was only because everyone had gone deaf.

“Where would you suggest I stay?” I made my voice as sweet as I could, but he still grimaced as if I sounded like nails down a chalkboard.

“Not a hotel,” he barked. He fished in his pocket and came up with a set of keys. He extracted one from the main keychain. It had its own keychain, one with a small Eiffel Tower dangling from it. My heart gave a lurch in my chest.

“Here,” he tossed it to me, and I caught it automatically. My mind flashed back to a windy afternoon in Paris when Murphy and I had sat together on a bench on the first level of the Eiffel Tower and drank coffee while we read case files Jason had given us.

I’d bought the keychain in the gift shop, and somehow he’d ended up with it. I’d forgotten all about it until I saw it in Paddy’s hand.

“I’ll give you a lift to Liam’s place. You’ll stay there.”

“What if he comes home?” I said, panicked.

“Oh, the horror,” Paddy screamed in a girlish voice. “The man you want to get back with comes home and finds you sleeping in his bed. Whatever would you do?”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “You’re such a bastard, Paddy.”

“If you continue to hurt my feelings, I’ll make Alannah give you that lift,” he threatened, and I gritted my teeth.

Paddy watched me drink my Guinness. His eyes fascinated me. I’d never seen anyone with different-colored eyes before him. I wondered if his wolf’s eyes were two different colors and tried to remember if I’d noticed the afternoon I’d had to shift for the tribunal. My mind had been focused on other things—like how my wolf had refused at first to come out, so it was no wonder I didn’t have a clue.

“I meant what I said, you know.” He had that wistful, remorseful look on his face again—the one I didn’t trust because he was a lying, manipulative bastard. “About you being family. About how you belong to me.” The possessiveness in his voice was not overtly sexual, although there were undertones since he was an Alpha male and I was a fertile female. Instead he evoked feelings of protectiveness—feelings I fought because they weren’t true.

Was this the prelude to the scene from Faith’s dream? Would he open his mouth and say,
Now do you
believe in me again?

I hoped not because I sure as hell didn’t feel like saying I belonged to him. Maybe I ought to put the dream aside and concentrate on dialog that actually took place versus the stuff of Faith’s unconscious imagination.

But if Murphy was in trouble, Paddy would know it. And he’d tell me, I hoped. So maybe the dream had nothing to do with Murphy and everything to do with me and Paddy. Somehow I was supposed to learn to trust him again? Was that it?

“You want me back with Murphy, don’t you?”

“Right,” he agreed.

“Then I’m only family if I’m with Murphy, is that it?” I guessed bitterly. “I only count if I’m Liam Murphy’s bond mate.”

He shifted uneasily on his squeaky chair. “I told you before, you’ve got to prove yourself to this pack. You don’t just waltz in and take your place near the top of the ranks without a struggle.”

“Who says I want to be near the top?” I whispered.

He scowled at me. “For fuck’s sake, Stanzie, you’re an Advisor to a member of the Great Council. And, yes, you are Liam Murphy’s bond mate, at least for a little while longer—hopefully more if you get your head out of your ass and kick his. Fee and I have been Alphas for three years. We’ve got another two to go, and then this pack will choose a new Alpha pair. And there’s every chance in the world it will be you and Liam if you play your cards right.

“So people like Alannah Doyle and Declan Byrne, your main competition, are not going to quietly let you sneak ahead of them in the ranks. No matter what I want or what Fee wants, our votes only count so far. The pack has a say, too.”

“The main contender for the next Alpha female is a barmaid?” I spoke without thinking and Paddy groaned and threw up his hands dramatically.

“A barmaid who’s my sister, remember, you horrible bitch? What the hell do you want her to be? A nuclear physicist? Stanzie, for Christ’s sake, since when do we judge who should be Alpha by their damn day jobs?”

“I figure this is a huge pack and it doesn’t just revolve around the fertile duos and triads, so there has to be more criteria than that. Why not day jobs? Sorcha was a scientist, wasn’t she?” I wanted to throw my Guinness at his face, but it was too good to waste.

“A lab technician with delusions of grandeur.” Paddy’s voice was flat.

I wanted to argue. She’d been murdered by the conspiracy, so obviously she’d been more than a simple lab tech. She had to have been.

“She was working late to impress her bosses. She was taking classes and wanted to move up, and maybe she would have, but all that would have been put on hold so she could have her baby. She shouldn’t have even been working still, the stubborn bitch, but nobody could ever tell her what to do. Liam begged her to stop working and act like a real Alpha female, but she laughed in his face. He’s the one who carried that duo when they were Alpha, and everyone in Mac Tire knows it. So they’re going to be doubly hard on you. For all they know, you’re the next Sorcha. Maybe you won’t even stop being an Advisor when you’re pregnant.”

Paddy talked like it was a done deal.

“And when they find out about my wolf, game over, wouldn’t you say?” I looked him in the eye, determined to brazen it out. Did he know my wolf was normal now? Or supposedly so. I inwardly winced when I remembered I’d just taken off for Dublin and hadn’t told Scott I wasn’t going to hunt with him after all. That was rude. I made a mental note to call to apologize, but meanwhile I stared Paddy down.

“Do you not think your Alpha has kept track of you?” Paddy’s eyes burned with triumph, and I knew my bluff had failed. Damn that Jason Allerton.

“Well, since my Alpha never called me once in four months, how the hell was I supposed to know? Who told you? Allerton?”

“I have my sources.” His smile was enigmatic, and I really wanted to slap him hard.

“So Murphy. He told you.” I felt my face turn sullen, and Paddy rolled his eyes.

“He and Allerton do communicate, being that Liam’s his Advisor and all.”