High Stakes (9 page)

Rachel stepped out of the town car and said to her driver, “Sam, would you mind not coming in? This probably won’t be pretty.”

Samuel J. Stone, a man she could count on, crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “Then I should go with you.”

“No, but thanks. Stay in the car, where it’s warm.”

Pulling open the carved oak door to Bailey’s Irish Pub, she stepped inside and out of the night. Dylan hadn’t called her after the show and she knew his silence was worse. She’d decided to go on the offensive instead of waiting for an attack.

As it was after midnight, the place was empty of customers and she saw three men at the bar. Dylan was working in a ledger, Patrick was wiping down surfaces and Liam upending stools.

When she came closer, Patrick glanced over at her. “Oh, great, just what we need tonight.”

“Hello, Patrick.”

Dylan’s head snapped up. Liam stopped overturning furniture. “What do you want, Ms. Scott?” Patrick asked formally. He was one tough nut to crack. But at least he wasn’t calling her names.

“I’m here to see Dylan.”

“You been doing a lot of that lately, we hear.” With a cold glare at Dylan, Patrick gestured to the right.

Dylan was watching her. Leaning against the bar, he stared at her but said nothing. She walked to him. Liam approached them and stood by.

“Dylan, may I speak with you privately?”

“I don’t know about that, Miss America.”

Pat walked up to them. “I do. He’s been tellin’ us all night that he had no choice but to work with you. Seems to me you tricked him again by not keepin’ up your part of the bargain. O’Neils aren’t
stupid
, Ms. Scott.”

Liam opened his mouth to speak, but Dylan beat him to it. “No, it’s okay, Liam. Pat’s right. My brothers are pissed as hell at you, Rachel, and now at me, because I gave you a second chance.” He glanced at the television. “Which apparently
was
a stupid idea. You lied to me.”

Unwinding her scarf and unbuttoning her coat, she said with as much aplomb as possible, “I did not lie.”

“You know the rules. I’m supposed to have total access to your stories.”

“I couldn’t tell you about this segment. It was hush-hush at the network. I broke it because I’ve followed the story since November, but if we’d been preempted by another station because I told someone, there would have been hell to pay.”

“And you would have paid the price.” She couldn’t read his tone.

“Yes.”

“Jesus, Dylan, you sound like she’s convincing you.” Patrick straightened and put his hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “She lied, boy. I’m addin’ that to her list of sins against us.”

Rachel felt her lip begin to tremble at the wrath she saw in the oldest O’Neil, so she bit down on it. “I had no choice.”

Liam ran a hand through his hair. “You said the same thing about Sophie. My fiancé, who you embarrassed in front of the whole fire department.”

She faced the brother her network had wronged. “The editing on Sophie’s interview was another thing out of my control.”

“It seems to be your byline.” Pat’s voice was ice cold. “You write the feature just fine and others change it. How can you live like that?”

Before she could answer, Dylan did. “She’s chasing another job. So she gives into them.”

Patrick snorted. “Oh, yeah, the overseas reporter. You wouldn’t last a day, honey.”

Dylan told them about her goals? Her private aspirations? Why did she feel betrayed?

“Look, Ms. Scott, you should really leave.” Liam’s tone was tempered. She read once that Bailey had given the O’Neil brothers nicknames: Patrick the Fighter, Dylan the Taunter, Liam the Manipulator and Aidan the Peacemaker. “You know you’re not wanted here, and it looks like Dylan isn’t in any mood to tangle with you. I’ll call you a cab.”

“She has a driver.” Dylan nodded to the door. “Who looks like he doubles as her bodyguard.”

Rachel tracked his nod. Damn, Sam would freeze to death out there. “Sam is like family to me. Of course he watches out for me.”

Patrick braced his hands on the edge of the bar, white knuckling them. “Like we do for Dylan. Which means we’re never gonna forgive you for what you did to us. If we could stop Dylan from giving you a second chance, we would.”

Dylan shook his head. “I can fight my own battles, you guys.” Reaching into the well for a bottle, he poured two glasses of whiskey then faced his brothers. “Go home, guys, I’ll close up, after I talk to Rachel.”

Circling the bar he led her to a table in the corner, said, “Take off your coat and sit. I’m pissed as hell at you,” he lowered his voice, “but frankly, I’m glad I am.”

“I’ll sit and stay if Sam can come inside. He won’t leave me here and go to the car but it’s frigid out there.”

Dylan sighed. He didn’t want to see this softer side of her. “Liam,” he called out, “can you ask her driver to come in and give him some coffee before you leave? Tell him to stay on the other side of the room.”

After Liam beckoned the older guy in, Sam glared at him and waited for a signal from Rachel. “I’m okay, Sam. I just don’t want you standing out in the cold.”

When she turned back to Dylan, lines of fatigue etched across her beautiful face. He’d never before seen flaws in her complexion. “What did you mean you’re glad you’re mad at me?”

“It’s a good thing.” Raising the Jamesons to his mouth, he took a sip. “I needed to be reminded of who you really are, Rachel. I was falling under your spell, I think.”

“I’m under—”

The glass hit the table hard. “No! No more of that. No telling me how you feel about me. No showing me the feminine vulnerability you pretend is part of you.” Now he leaned closer. “I want to start over. Completely over. I’m going to forget about the night of the wedding. We’ll avoid doing things together that let me see you as a sister, an aunt. I won’t give you another opportunity to be around Hogan and charm him.”

Instead of cowering, she arched a cocky brow. “So what you’re saying is you’re afraid of the real me?”

“Afraid?” he scoffed. “Hardly. Just reminded, once again, that you’re a conniving little bitch who can’t be trusted.”

Before he realized what was happening, Rachel picked up her glass and threw the liquid in his face. “I’ll tell you what I am, Dylan O’Neil. I’m tired of being a doormat because of my guilt over having slept with you. I won’t be insulted tonight, or any other time, because of your Irish temper.” She stood, scraped back the chair, and it hit the floor with a whack. “You can tell your brothers the same thing for me.”

Turning, she grabbed her coat, stalked away from him and swept out of the bar like some outraged victim.

Picking up a napkin, he wiped his face and stared after her. Hell, she was crazy, that’s what she was. He was the victim. And he couldn’t lose sight of that.

The clock struck one as Dylan locked the front door of the pub and closed the blinds over the wall of windows. The room went dark, except for a light coming from behind the bar. Exhausted, he headed to the back just as a figure appeared in the rear doorway. His heartbeat escalated and he looked around for a weapon. Whoever had entered from the back most have broken in, because it was never left unlocked at night.

“It’s just me, son.”

Dylan leaned against a table to calm his heart. “Jesus, Pa, you scared me.”

“Sorry about that.” The old man walked closer and stopped a few feet away. “I couldn’t sleep. Came down to get a nightcap. Wanna have one with me?”

“Nah, I had a drink earlier. One’s my limit when I’m driving.”

“Then sit with me, boy.”

That was the last thing Dylan wanted to do. He was drained from his encounter with Rachel. But this was his pa asking for his company. “Sure. I’ll get you a drink. Bailey’s?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” He dropped down onto a stool. Paddy O’Neil was a big man, but recently his shoulders had started to slump. At eighty, that was to be expected, but Dylan still remembered leaning on those shoulders, both emotionally and physically.

“Ma doin’ good?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t stop chattering about that cruise she’s been pestering me about.”

Dylan set the Bailey’s in front of his father. “Don’t you wanna go, Pa?”

“I didn’t at first. But my Mary Kate is so excited, it’s contagious, I guess. Never did see myself floatin’ around the ocean in a tin can.”

Dylan laughed and the honest humor felt good.

“Haven’t heard that much lately, Dyl.”

“What?”

“You laughin’. You been serious for a while now.”

Dylan shrugged.

“Hogan okay?”

“Yeah, the effects of staying with Stephanie are pretty much gone. We been doin’ guy stuff together. We both like it.”

His Pa stared at the pictures of the grandkids that were tacked up on a wall at the end of the bar. “I was against the divorce at first, but what a bitch she is. She made him cut his hair.”

“He took it good, though. I felt worse than he did.”

“You always feel worse about things than anybody else.”

“What do you mean?”

His pa sipped his drink and then snagged his gaze. “You’re different from the other boys. Sure, Patrick worries about all of you, but you…” He shook his head again. “You’re ferocious in your defense of everybody. Like this thing with that reporter. You took it upon yourself to single-handedly get her in line.”

The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d accomplished the opposite. For God’s sake, she threw a drink in his face an hour ago. “I just want to protect our family, Pa. I thought I could intimidate her into silence.”

“That’s what I mean. Everything isn’t your responsibility. You need to take care of yourself, too. Clay can handle her. Or she’ll just fade away into the sunset.”

Huh. Had his Pa been privy to what happened tonight? “Pa, there’s something I need to tell you. I—”

“Paddy O’Neil, are you drinking with my boy this late at night?”

His father’s smile was so real, so genuine when Ma came fully into the room, it took Dylan’s breath away. “Come on and join us, Katie, me girl.”

She reached them, kissed Dylan’s head and said, “That I will. Get me some Bailey’s, too, son, and tell me what you were talking about.”

But they wouldn’t tell her, Dylan knew, as he poured the drink. The conversation they were having was uncomfortable, and nobody purposely hurt their mother. Not him, not the other boys, not his pa. For Paddy O’Neil, destroying their life once was enough.

The dream came again the next night…

On a crisp and cool fall day, all three boys were roughhousing out in the backyard of the pub. At five, Dylan bent over at the waist and went after seven-year-old Patrick. Hitting his older brother’s legs, he took Pat down, straddled him on the ground and pinned his arms.

Patrick bucked.

From the sidelines, Liam shouted, “Come on, guys. Don’t fight.”

Still Patrick tried to force Dylan off, but he held Pat down, yelling, “You shouldn’t have said I was a sissy.”

“You’re a baby. That’s what you are.”

“I
told
you not to say that.”

Somewhere in his mind, Dylan knew he could do this to Pat, act out, yell at him, just as he knew Pat could call him every name in the book; they’d all survive. If there was one thing the O’Neils were sure of, it was that the family would always stick together, no matter what they did to each other.

“Boys!” boomed a voice over the lawn, and the three of them froze. Their pa, Paddy O’Neil, had come out of the back door. He crossed to his kids and towered over them. “Get up now, both of you. I have somethin’ to tell you.”

He and Pat rolled to their feet. Dylan looked up at his big and unbreakable father. But the expression on Pa’s face, the droop of his jaw told Dylan things weren’t okay. Stupid anger forgotten, Dylan moved in closer to Pat, and Liam came and hid behind them.

Taking a deep breath, his Pa said, “I have something to tell you.” The boys hardly breathed. “I’m goin’ away for a while. Your mother and I are separatin’….”

Dylan awoke in a sweat. For a minute, he didn’t know where he was. He glanced around his bedroom. He was in his half of the duplex, safe. And he was an adult, not a five-year-old kid. Thank God. Inching up, he lay back in the pillows, trying to calm the wild tattoo of his heart.

The dream wasn’t really a dream, per se. The event had happened, though some of the details were different each time. On that day, Dylan’s entire worldview had shifted. On that day, his family foundation was rocked forever. As he grew up, that day had urged him to do everything in his power to keep them all close and safe. But Pa was right last night when he’d chided Dylan. His family dissolving had scared him shitless, and he’d spent much of his life since that incident trying to keep the foundation from cracking again.

Rolling out of bed, he went into the bathroom, ran some water and gulped it back; he stared at himself in the mirror. He looked like shit—scruffy beard, hair a mess, eyes still showing signs of…fear. God, he hated that. “So, man,” he asked himself. “What are you gonna do?”

Pat was still pissed at him. Liam seemed disappointed. And they didn’t even know the whole of it. When Aidan found out, he’d explode. So his relationships with three of the people closest to him in the world were in trouble.

For twenty-four hours, Dylan had been agonizing over what to do. He’d had to put off his editor when Herb asked how things were going with Scott. Of course, Dylan hadn’t contacted her. And she’d frozen him out, too. A decision had to be made today. Limbo was killing him.

Cleaning up some, he threw on jeans and a T-shirt, then went downstairs. From the front window in his living room, he saw a big yellow bus stop in front of the house. The door to Liam’s other side of the duplex slammed open, and his sons, Cleary and Mike burst onto the slippery sidewalk. They raced to their transport and disappeared into it.

Without even making coffee, Dylan opened his own door and crossed to Liam’s. He let himself in and saw his brother on the phone, heard, “They’re gone. Come on over, beautiful.”