CHAPTER TEN

Rosie tsked, tsked. “I don’t know what this world’s coming to. Have you heard the news?”

“What’s that?” Eric asked, only half paying attention. He’d already vacated his room. Jordan had too. Spec ops guys packed light, so it hadn’t taken long. Their backpacks were by the front door.

But then there was Finn. Eric couldn’t tear his eyes off the bumbling oaf clomping down the stairs with one hand on the railing, a small carry-on in his other. As if he might fall, Finn placed each boot on each step with deliberate care. When he reached the last two steps where Jordan sat with Aishling on his lap, Finn asked, “Excuse me, umm, sir, but could you move so I can get by?”

What guy does that?

But then things got weirder. Jordan jumped to his feet with a quick, “You bet,” and offered a hand to Finn. Just to climb down the last two steps.

“The police haven’t found the professor’s body,” Rosie muttered. “’Tis a shame.”

That got Eric’s undivided attention. “You mean Grover?”

“Aye. ’Tweren’t a body in the whole house according to the fire marshal. Not even a single charred bone, for the love of Saint Michael. Can you fathom that?”

Eric shot Jordan a look, his brain pinging over what he thought he knew. “Then why the fire? What’d those three guys do with the professor if they didn’t kill him?”

Jordan shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure out why we’ve got Frenchmen in the middle of what looks like an ISIS terrorist drill in the first place.”

“Do you know?” Eric directed his question at Finn. “Do you have any idea why those guys were chasing you?”

Finn lifted both shoulders and grunted. And that was another thing. The guy lacked confidence. Or testosterone. Or something. He pursed his lips. “Well…”

Eric zeroed in on that perfectly peaked Cupid’s bow, pinkishly tan and probably moist. Probably tender, too, and—What the hell’s wrong with me?

He snapped his fingers at Finn, annoyed for... for... Oh, hell. Just annoyed, okay? “Well, what?” he barked. “They didn’t just drop out of the sky and decide to chase you. They had to have a reason for what they did. What happened last night? Spit it out.”

“I, umm…” Finn stuck his dainty fingers into his messy red hair. “I fell asleep ’n then they were there.”

“Where?”

“Inside his house.”

“Whose house? Grover’s?”

“Ah-uh. Only I thought they had, umm, a big knife.”

“How many of them were there?”

“One, but then there were three of them and I—”

“What’d the knife look like?”

“Um, a sword?”

“What kind of sword? A rapier? Katana? Broadsword? Long swor—”

“A scimitar, okay?” Finn nearly yelled.

Oooo. Touched a nerve, did I? “How do you know it was a scimitar? It could’ve been a—”

“Lay off,” Jordan barked. “God, Eric. What’s wrong with you? He’s been through enough already.”

Eric clapped his mouth shut, not sure what had just come over him. He didn’t badger awkward guys with bad taste. He didn’t badger or bully anyone. Ever. He swallowed hard, seriously worried he might be on the verge of a breakdown. Even Rosie’s brows had lifted.

“Sorry, I, umm…” What could he say to save face? Nothing but the truth. He fixed his gaze on Finn. “This operation’s got everyone rattled. I’m just…” He ran his fingers through his hair, not precisely sure what he was feeling, not with Finn’s lower lip quivering like it was. “I’m sorry for being an ass. You didn’t deserve that.”

Both of the big guy’s shoulders lifted. “S’ okay,” he whispered, which was yet another very un-guy thing to do. Didn’t this man have an ounce of fire in his gut? What was he, a walking, talking doormat? Eric shook all the annoying and unsolved puzzles of the day off. He’d worry about them on the other side of the ocean. He had a plane to catch. “You call a cab?”

Jordan set the cat gently to the floor with one more pat between her ears. “He should be here in ten. You ready?”

“Yes.” I’m past ready.

“You boys be safe,” Rosie said. “May your glasses be ever full. May the roofs over your heads be always strong, and may you be in heaven a half hour afore the devil knows you’re dead.”

Eric had to smile. His Irish hostess had gotten into his heart in the short time he’d known her. She alone made the trip worthwhile. “Goodbye, Ms. O’Banner. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Ah,” she waved his comment off. “’Tis you the pleasure is. You’ve been a joy, m’boy, and a handsome joy. I pity the girl that let you slip through her silly fingers. What a fool she must’ve been to let the likes of you get away. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve got a pure soul in ye, son. A pure and shining soul, as bright as the nuggets of gold in a leprechaun’s treasure, and you’re as good-looking as my Paddy was the day we wed. Do nah forget the loves of your life, though. They have a way of coming ’round about when you least expect them, do they nah?”

Extending his hand in friendship, he meant to end the delightful nonsense she seemed full of. Rosie pulled him into an embrace instead. “’Tis not goodbye I’ll be saying to ye, Eric Reynolds,” she whispered in his ear. “’Tis only ‘til then. God bless ye, and may Saint Patrick bless ye, too. May the blessings of the day be the blessings you need most of all.”

He eased away from her but still held her forearms, needing to see beyond the whimsy she spouted. Mischief gleamed back at him, but something else he couldn’t read. Looked a lot like pride, but why she’d be proud of him—a stranger—he didn’t know. “Thank you for everything. You set a fine table, and I slept well last night for the first time in quite a while.”

“As well ye should have, what with all the running around in the middle of the night ye were doing.” Mischief again. Crimson spilled up from her neck. She gave him a quick peck on his cheek and let him go. “Now be gone, and be good, and if ye think on it, send me a note to tell me when you’re finally safe at home.”

“I will,” he promised, releasing her arms. “Ready?” he asked Jordan who now stood at the door with Finn.

The sight of them together irked Eric for no good reason, but the odd look on Finn’s face? He’d gone blotchy pale. The big guy’s mouth hung open. He had that I’ve-just-seen-a-ghost pallor.

Eric calmed, needing to set things right with his client. “Hey, are you okay?”

Finn shifted away. “Yeah, I’m... fine.” Cough, cough. “Just fine.”

No. You’re not, Eric thought.

“Cab just pulled up. Let’s roll,” Jordan announced.

Rosie shook Jordan’s hand and stuffed a paper bag in his other. “Just a wee bit to tide you over, lad. Mind the gravy. There’s a spoon in there, too. Eat it before you get to the airport with all their blithering security nonsense and such. ’Twill do you good.”

The brown paper bag crackled as Jordan peered into it. “Shepherd’s pie? For me?” For that she got swept off her feet and pulled into a big Jordan-type, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree, whirling hug. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll never forget you.”

Wasn’t that the truth? Jordan knew every mom and pop diner from the Florida Keys to Anchorage. Now one in Ireland.

By the time Rosie landed on her feet, her face beamed red as a beet.

Finn stuck out his hand, but got an odd blessing from her instead. “Don’t you be a stranger,” Rosie said, her index finger waggling under his wide nose. “’Tis a long road ahead of you, darlin’, but all is nah lost. Don’t be afraid to spread your wings and fly. Now go on. Yer secret’s safe with me.”

Whatever that meant, it proved the guy’s undoing. He wrapped his arms around Rosie and whined like a girl, “I’m sorry.”

“There, there,” Rosie soothed as she patted his broad back. “’Twill all work out if you let your heart do the talking. I’m sure of it.”

Another sad whine and Finn pulled away, wiping a delicate finger under his nose. Adjusting his glasses. Shuffling those two big feet. Eric looked away, feeling like an even bigger ass for badgering an obviously broken man who’d lost three friends in less than forty-eight hours. He vowed to be kinder to poor Finn.

By then, a cab had pulled into Rosie’s narrow drive. Gray-haired and whiskered, a little old man exited the right side of what had to be the first Toyota sedan on the island by the scratches and dents on it. The driver’s side mirror was missing, something Eric had noticed on quite a few cars.

The pleasant man extended a hand toward Eric’s bag. “Might I stow your things in the boot?”

“You mean the trunk?”

“Aye. The trunk. The boot. ’Tis all the same.” The cabbie nodded with a smile. “‘Tis clean enough for the likes of your fine American bags. I swept it meself this mornin’.”

“If you don’t mind, we’ll keep our gear with us,” Eric replied, hoisting his backpack to one shoulder. “Finn?”

“No,” Finn said. “It’s small. I got it.”

“Are you sure?” Eric asked. “It’ll get crowded.”

Finn tugged his carry-on against his pant leg. “It stays with me.”

“Have it your way.” The cabbie shrugged his shoulders and grinned at Rosie as he slammed the boot. “You wouldn’t be needing a ride anywhere this morning would you, Mrs. O’Banner? I’m sure to be goin’ your way.”

Rosie surprised them all. “I was just about to ask, Gerald. I need to check on old Mrs. Sweeny. She’s been down with a titch of the gout in her big toe. Might I go to the corner with you? I can pay.”

Eric opened the car door for her and waved her into the front seat. “No problem. Glad to help.”

Without locking her B&B behind her, she all but skipped to the cab and climbed inside. Jordan waved Finn into the center of the back seat, then climbed inside. Eric dropped his butt into the other side of Finn and closed the door.

And they were off.

How awkward. Shea could barely catch a breath sandwiched between these two virile males like she was. Shea could feel both men’s hipbones, but Jordan’s was just a hip.

Eric’s was… Warm. Strong. Heaven.

His muscular thigh pressed alongside hers up to Finn’s baggy knee, flooding her already stretched-to-the-limit nerves with a crazy cocktail of embarrassment, lust, and desire. Her fingers tapped the carry-on she’d tucked into her dumpy men’s jacket, in frantic tune with her heart.

It had been so long since she’d sat next to Eric, and being this close to the only man she’d ever loved? Talk about torture. Could he hear the staccato beat of her frantic heart or the way her breath caught with every muscle he flexed? Every twist of his torso when he moved? Could he feel her shivering beneath all her layers of Finn?

Tensing her shoulders, she dared not look at him, not even to see out the windows.

Eyes forward. Senses on neutral. You can do this.

No, I can’t. The familiar male scent of him filled her nose and settled in the hungry cellar of her starving soul. Two years she’d been without this man.

He’d shaved and showered. The alcohol in his aftershave drifted like a tantalizing male finger under her nose, spiking her poor libido into overdrive as if she were in control of the brakes. Not now. Not here.

Eric was home and refuge to her. He was sex, love, and manly comfort. Lazy Saturdays in bed until noon. Beer and pizza for Monday night football games. Hot passionate baths and desperate-for-each-other sex after any and all deployments.

But that blessing for Eric from Rosie? God, how had the woman read him like a book? Why did she tell him not to forget the loves of his life? Was she talking about Cheyenne and Shea when she said they have a way of coming around about when you least expect them? How did she know about—me?

Finn’s thickly padded knee set to twitching, Shea’s nerves strung too tightly. Her inner muscles clenched, weeping with frustration for the love she’d lost. Moisture pooled where it had no business pooling. Her head buzzed. More and more, she looked forward to Finn’s demise.

He had to die so she could live.

It made for a crowded ride to the corner with Finn’s suitcase squarely on his lap and two backpacks taking up all available foot space. No problem. Eric was plenty used to crowded travel. He latched his seat belt, then shifted his hips to make room for three guys’ big butts on the narrow bench seat.

The weather had cleared. Rosie and the cabbie made small talk, while Eric sought to make amends with Finn. “It’ll be good to get back to America, huh?”

Finn kept his eyes on the road ahead. Typical. Geeky. Reclusive.

Eric tried again. “So where’d you live before Amsterdam? Where are you from?”

Finn coughed into his sleeve. “New York.”

“Ah, a New Yorker. The Queens? Manhattan? Buffal—”

“Look out!” Jordan bellowed, lifting his arm to cover his face.

BLAM! A large vehicle had come out of nowhere. Glass flew sideways from Eric’s window to Jordan’s and everywhere in between. Metal screeched against metal. Someone screamed, and for a split second, Eric thought he heard Shea.

Chaos took over. He caught a glimpse of the vehicle that had crashed grill first into the driver’s side of the cab. A Hummer. Heavy duty push bar. Wire enclosed headlights. The damned thing was still powered up, pushing the cab sideways. What the hell?

Over they went. In the blink of an eye, everyone and everything shifted to the opposite side of the vehicle. Eric clamped onto Finn, shouldering the brunt of the impact without thinking. Rosie shrieked, and Jordan cursed as the cab rolled. Once. Twice. Three times until, at last, it came to rest on its roof, rocking.

Holy shit. The five of them were now suspended upside down, held in place by their seat belts. Eric shook the roar out of his head, blinking through the dust stirred up from the road, his palms on the roof, which was now where the floor should’ve been. The cab windshield remained intact, but neither the side nor rear windows had withstood the impact. The acrid creep of petrol fumes filled his nostrils, urging him to do something and do it fast.

“Jordan,” he croaked, coughing the dust from his lungs. “You okay, buddy?”

“Here,” came a hoarse answer. “Shit. Think my arm’s broke. Leg hurts, too.”

Eric squinted to see through the mayhem. Finn struggled next to him, moaning. A good sign. But Rosie and the cabbie were quiet. Grabbing for the strap of his backpack, Eric dragged it to the roof above his head and went for his knife.

Of all the days not to have worn it on his ankle holster. Dizziness washed over him like a thick, numbing blanket, and that silver snap on his backpack pocket was tough to undo. He blinked when something warm ran into his eyes, obscuring his vision. Head wound. Not to worry. They were typical bleeders.

Finally, he brushed the daze away and worked the snap free. His knife slid out of the pocket into his palm. With slow, deliberate slashes, he freed Finn, then Jordan without cutting either of them. Then himself. Finally, they were on their backs on the ceiling turned floor. It took a couple minutes to get squared away and upright with the backpacks and that roller bag in their way, but at last, they were ready to crawl.

Jordan pushed one backpack out his shattered window, then wormed one shoulder through, but Eric didn’t have the option. His side of the vehicle had gotten the worst of the crash. Both windows were crushed to narrow slits. He caught movement to his right. Three pairs of boots. Men’s boots. Headed toward the cab.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he ordered Jordan. “Get Finn out that window and on his feet. Fast.” He eased his sore body forward, needing to check Rosie and the cabbie even though he’d told Jordan to run.

“You, too,” Jordan urged, on his feet now and dragging Finn out by one arm. For a moment, the big guy’s butt blocked the whole window, and Eric thought he’d get stuck. He coughed on the blood thickening in his mouth. “I can’t leave. Rosie’s out cold. So’s the cabbie.”

Finn was on his feet. At least he was safe, but Jordan was stressed. “Move it, man!”

Eric shifted forward and felt Rosie’s neck for a pulse. Blood dripped from a gash in her cheek. Both she and the cabbie were unconscious. Eric didn’t dare cut their seatbelts for fear of what dropping them on their heads might do if either had spinal injuries.

“Damn it, Eric. Get your ass out of there!” Jordan sounded winded and in pain.

Eric tuned him out and unholstered his pistol. “Talk to me, Rosie,” he urged, patting her cheek and forehead. At last she mumbled. The cabbie, too. But they were in no condition to be moved.

When a gunshot whistled over the undercarriage of the cab, now exposed to the sun like an upended turtle, Eric ducked. The men who’d killed Grover meant business, but he couldn’t leave Rosie and the cabbie. The possibility of the cab catching fire and burning them to death scared the hell out of him.

Jordan fired back, and Eric knew he had no choice. To save Rosie and the cabbie, he’d have to draw the three assassins away from the wreck before one of their rounds set the thing ablaze. It didn’t happen as often as Hollywood said it did, but he couldn’t take the chance.

Climbing out of the cab, he scrambled to his feet. The earth tilted the moment he was upright. He braced one hand to the wheel to make it stop. Sprained or broken ankle. Definite head trauma and whiplash.

He sucked in a deep breath and shook it off. Work first. Whine later.

Finn seemed uninjured. He was still wearing those glasses with those geeky straps, another bonus. The poor guy hugged his suitcase to his chest. Eric didn’t remember it flying around the inside of the cab. No, just two damned heavy backpacks loaded with weapons and ammo. No wonder his head hurt.

“Move it,” he growled. “Let’s lead these assholes away from Rosie.”

“I can’t run.” Jordan leaned against the wreck. Blood soaked his left pant leg. “You go. I’ll never make it.”

“Yes, you can,” Eric insisted. “Finn and I will help you.”

Jordan turned his head and spat a mouthful of blood into the dirt. “No use arguing. I can’t leave Rosie and her friend, and you can’t stay. Our primary job was to get Finn back to the States. Looks like it’s up to you now.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Eric ground out.

“Give me a break, Superman.” Jordan jerked his head toward the quickly approaching Frenchmen. “You’ve seen what they’re packing? One’s got a sawed-off shotgun, the other two, ARs. You’ve got no choice. Save Finn, and let me do my job and cover your sorry ass while I still can.”

Another shot zipped overhead, and damn it, Jordan was right. There was no choice. Finn had to get to America and Eric had to make it happen. He gave his buddy one last once over. Jordan had sunk to his butt, both pistols up and ready, his cellphone stuck between his shoulder and his ear. Calling for help in the middle of Hell.

Finn dropped to his haunches beside Jordan. “I can’t leave you,” he said in a weirdly tragic voice.

“You’d better,” Jordan shot back at him. “The only reason I’m hanging back is to cover you. Now go. Do what you’re supposed to do. Be quick about it for god’s sake. Tell him.”

Tell who what?

Finn leaned into Jordan and kissed his whiskered cheek. Damned if Jordan didn’t close his eyes at the contact, just for a second.

Eric jerked Finn to his feet. There wasn’t time to worry about what was going on between those two. Yanking his backpack out of the cab, he tossed his spare magazines to his buddy and did the unforgiveable. He left his partner behind.