Chapter 1
Fiona
I walk with my head down and my hands shoved into my pockets as a light wind whisks my hair all about me. I shiver, and an odd feeling settles over me. I don’t think it’s apprehension because of the surprise party I know they’re throwing for me but something… different.
I dismiss the thought and toss my head, lift my chin and walk faster. Today, I wanted to come alone, even though my sister Sheena and brother-in-law Nolan offered to walk the short distance from our home to the mansion. I enjoy the walk and they have their hands full with the kids, and Sheena’s expecting again. It took me a while to feel as if I belonged here in Ballyhock, but there’s something about the wild, brisk wind over the sea and the smell of salty air that grounds me.
Maybe it’s because it reminds me I’m part of something bigger than I am.
Today’s my eighteenth birthday, and I’m feeling a bit philosophical.
I know they’re brewing something up at the mansion. I just know it. I’ve heard whispers and giggles among the children and my friends, though no one’s said anything to me. It’s a “surprise.” I’m not sure how I feel about surprises, but I know how I feel about the McCarthys.
Though to the rest of Ballyhock, Ireland, they’re the Irish mob… the Clan that runs damn near everything that happens here… to me, they’re family.
Well. Most of them.
I swallow hard and look over my shoulder, as if somehow, I can manifest the guard that trails behind me into… him. Lachlan. My heart thrums at the mere thought of his name in my mind, and I whisper it to myself just to hear it on my lips.
“Lachlan.”
The only one I really want guarding me. But Lachlan is too high ranking a member of the Clan to be relegated to the mundane task of babysitting Fiona Hurston anymore. A natural-born leader, he’s moved quickly up in rank. I try to think of other things, to prepare for what I know will happen today. It’s been more than a week since I’ve seen him last, and I long to see him again.
But what’s a girl to do, really? Eighteen years old and barely out of school… I’m a child to him. I push the thought out of my mind. I can’t be melancholy today. Today’s my birthday.
I hear strains of music as I draw near, but the McCarthy mansion’s set apart from the rest of Ballyhock behind an iron gate and massive bushes, so I can’t see anything at first. My heartbeat accelerates, though, and I begin to tremble.
Will they make a big to-do? I hope they don’t make a big to-do. I’d have been happy with dinner in their stately dining room, some of the excellent food their staff cooks, and a nice glass of wine now that I’m old enough to legally drink it. I’ve had plenty to drink, but Nolan and Sheena, and definitely Lachlan, don’t need to know that.
When I reach the gate, from the distance, the guard at the gate recognizes me and gives me a huge grin.
“Happy birthday, Fiona.”
“Thank you—” I begin, then I burst into laughter. When I draw closer, I recognize the reddish hair and boyish, twinkling eyes, though he’s more of a man than a boy now. My brother Tiernan sports a beard and Irish ink I haven’t seen before, dressed in the guard’s uniform, tipping his hat to me. I run to him and he gathers me up in his arms for a big hug. Damn, it feels good to give him a hug. I haven’t seen him in ages.
“Tiernan, when did you get home? I thought you were stationed in Boston.” Tiernan graduated from St. Albert’s, the Clan’s finishing school, and has been a full-fledged inducted member of the Clan now for two years. Keenan sends him on international missions, and Tiernan lives for it.
“So I am,” he says. “But Keenan let me come home for this. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He kisses my cheek, then lets me go.
“Miss what?” I ask with a curious look.
He only grins. “Now, sis, you’ll not tease it out of me. If you think the McCarthy family will let you turn eighteen without a bit of a celebration, you’ve got yer head up yer arse.”
I laugh out loud as he shrugs out of his makeshift disguise. “I hardly recognized you. Did they change the uniforms?” I haven’t seen this one before, with a crest on the cuff. “Between you and the new uniforms, you took me totally by surprise.”
“No idea, just grabbed it as a decoy,” he says with a grin. “Christ, but things have changed here in such a short time. It’s good to be back.”
He tosses his jacket to the side, and the men who followed me here take their positions by the gate. I won’t need a guard with me once I’m on McCarthy premises. I’ll have the whole Clan.
I hope it’s only a “bit of a celebration,” as he says, but we will see. He takes my hand and leads me up the stone walkway toward the garden.
“My we’ve come far, haven’t we, Tiernan?” I ask. I’m feeling nostalgic today. “I still remember the very first day we arrived here. Do you?”
We were rescued from the dank, dilapidated hovel we called home by my older sister Sheena and her husband Nolan. At the time, I was too young to fully understand that Nolan was part of the McCarthy Clan, the most powerful mob in all of Ireland. I wasn’t afraid but enamored. Hell, I still am.
“Aye,” Tiernan says grimly. “I do. I was a right twat, wasn’t I?”
I laugh out loud. “You had good reason, didn’t you?”
Tiernan knew who they were and didn’t take kindly to being brought to their home. He was angry, with a chip on his shoulder the size of the craggy cliffs of Ballyhock. He didn’t trust them, and he let it be known. But over time, he saw past who they were, or what they did. He saw that the McCarthy clan took us in, welcomed us, and took good care of us. All of us. Sam, who was only two at the time, me, Tiernan, and our older sister Sheena. Soon we became family and we were welcomed into the fold.
“I did,” he says. “But I didn’t really know who they are.”
As a sworn-in member of the Clan, Tiernan now has iron-clad protection, financial security for life, and an army of brothers at his back that will defend him to the death. He’s devoted himself to them entirely.
“Oh my God,” I whisper when I look up and see what’s ahead of us.
“Now, no running,” Tiernan says in a warning tone. “I promised them I’d catch you if you ran.”
“So that’s why you were stationed at the gate,” I mutter.
The McCarthy estate is enormous, stretching as far as the eye can see. There’s the tree-lined pathway that leads to the huge garden, the stone steps that lead to the house, a garden pathway that goes to a greenhouse in the back, a treehouse the men built for the kids, and more. A pathway that leads to the cliffs of Ballyhock, and a path that leads behind the home into town, to Holy Family Church, and the cemetery.
A pang hits my chest when I see the balloons, streamers, flowers, and tent. I come to a stuttering halt beside Tiernan.
“It’s alright,” he says quietly, reaching for my hand. He knows. I’m not sure anyone else knows the way he does, even Sheena.
I never had anything like this. We grew up in dirt poor Stone City, and the memories of my drug addict mother and the slums we grew up in will haunt me for the rest of my life. Sheena and Nolan came to take us away from there. When the McCarthy family welcomed us in as their own, we left poverty and the pain of an abusive mother behind us. Our found family is everything a girl could ever hope for.