Chasing River: A Novel

If I close my eyes to rest, I can’t say for sure that she won’t try to kill me.

At least, that’s the vibe that Ivy’s giving off from her little spot on the couch, her tiny all-in-black body coiled for an attack. Her dark, unforgiving eyes shifting back and forth between the TV, me, and Rowen, who’s made himself comfortable on the couch with the bottle of whiskey and an annoying leg twitch.

Tap . . . Tap . . . Tap . . .

“Stop that!” Ivy finally snaps.

Rowen stills his leg.

“Why don’t you get some sleep upstairs? I thought you were exhausted,” I suggest.

“Like I could sleep now.” With a groan, he pours himself another shot of whiskey. “This was the last bottle.”

“Whatever. We don’t go through much.” I jut my chin toward Ivy. “Unless she’s there, of course.”

She merely glares at me in response. Everything about her drips with suspicion. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Amber had told her.

“Right. You want more?” Rowen doesn’t wait for her answer, climbing out of his seat to top her glass up.

“Don’t think I’m getting drunk again,” she mutters, but she accepts the drink. She has yet to ask what’s going on, why Rowen is here and wired. Why he pushed through the door like a man being chased. He’s not, of course. If Beznick put a call out for Aengus’s head, it’s for Aengus’s head. Even murderers don’t like to add unnecessary body counts to their résumé. Not because they’re particularly moral; it just makes things worse for them if they ever get caught.

But that doesn’t mean Rowen or I wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. That happens often enough. A guy with a target on him, taking a walk down a street in midday with his buddies, starts taking gunfire from somewhere unseen. His friends are as likely to get hit by a stray bullet as the ones intended for their mark.

As long as we stay the hell away from Aengus—and don’t get mistaken for him—we should be fine.

I think.

My gaze drifts to the stairs. Amber has been up there for a while now. Hiding. Talking to “home.” What does “home” mean? Her parents? I’ve put her through a lot. Is it more than she can handle?

I can only imagine what this sheriff father of hers could convince her to do.

“Where are you going?” Ivy’s cutting tone snaps me out of my thoughts, and I suddenly find myself standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m just going to check on—”

“No you’re not. She’s talking to her sister-in-law, who has her own pile of shit to deal with. Leave them alone.” She says it so simply. As if she could stop me from climbing those stairs if she had to. “Amber will be down when she’s ready to come down. Don’t be that guy.”

“Ouch,” Rowen mutters, but excitement dances in his eyes. He likes the sharp-tongued birds.

I didn’t even know Amber had a sister-in-law, which I guess just proves that I should listen to Ivy. With another glance upstairs, I wander back to stare at the telly.

“You still want that ink?” She stares at me with her eyebrows raised in question.

“What. Now? Here?”

She shrugs. “I have my kit in the car.”

Seriously? “You always travel with it?”

She darts past me, throwing an “of course I do, you idiot” look on her way by and out the door, before I can tell her no. I don’t even have the sketch with me.

“Have you called Fern yet?” I ask.

Fern MacGrath is an eighty-nine-year-old woman and the resident neighborhood watch. She was our nanny’s best friend. She despises Aengus, avoids me, and adores Rowen. The woman will sit in her front room with her knitting needles and her glasses on until after midnight each night, spying on all the comings and goings on the street.

“I tried once, but she didn’t answer,” Rowen murmurs, peeking past the curtain to watch Ivy. “You going to call Aengus?”

I thumb my phone in my hand, considering it. “Not yet. Hopefully the gardai do something useful.” They should have been there by now. I’m halfway tempted to jump in the car and drive down the street, only for all I know these guys are waiting for a green MINI to show up. Aengus has borrowed it enough times. “I mean, if they see gardai round the corner and they take off, they’ll just be back later, in a different car. Knowing Aengus, he’ll camp out at our house, waiting to ambush them. And then he’s got blood on his hands.” I shouldn’t have to spell it out. “We’re protecting him by not telling him right away. If he doesn’t know where the threat’s coming from, he’ll lay low. If we tell him, there are going to be two bodies outside our house.” I shake my head. “Ma would collapse with that news.”

He opens his mouth, but Ivy pushes through the door with a silver briefcase in her hand.

“You weren’t kidding.”

She sets it down on the coffee table, dialing the lock combination and popping it open. “Do I look like a kidder?”

“No, you don’t,” I mutter through a sigh. The girl’s face might splinter with too wide a smile.

“Are we actually doing this, here?” Rowen reaches for the tattoo gun but she swats his hand away before he actually makes contact, earning his grin.

“If you stop drinking, I’ll do you after I do him.” I don’t know if she meant it to sound like it does but there’s usually only one way that Rowen will take something like that. Especially after Sunday night.

I roll my eyes. At least my little brother’s easily distracted from more serious problems with her around. “Thanks for the offer, but don’t you need to make a transfer of the sketch?” That’s what they did for my other one.

“All I need is this.” She jabs Rowen’s chest with her finger, right over the stag on his pub shirt.

“Freehand?”

“Yup. And I’ll do it better than any transfer.” Deadpan. She’s not even being arrogant. She believes it. “What’s wrong. Scared?”

“No. Worried. Is this all clean and hygienic and stuff?”

“More than you probably are,” I think I hear under her breath, but I can’t be sure. I keep my mouth shut and down the rest of my drink as she sets her portable station up at the dining room table, complete with a blinding table lamp, aftercare tape and gauze, cleaners, gloves, and packaged needles.

“Seriously, why do you have all this stuff when you work in a shop?”

“Because I like to be prepared. So?” She kicks out the chair with her socked foot. “What else do you have to do while you’re pretending not to be hiding from someone and in deep shit?”

Rowen and I share a quick glance.

“Fuck it.” I crawl out of my seat and, grabbing the back of my T-shirt, I slide it over my head and toss it to the side.

Her eyes skate over the phoenix and then raise to meet my gaze in a knowing way, but otherwise she says nothing about it. “You sit here. You?” She snaps her finger at Rowen and then points at the chair beside her. “Here.”

“I wouldn’t be too demanding of him if I were you,” I warn. “He likes it when birds boss him around.”

“If there’s one thing I can’t stand about Ireland,” she murmurs and I shudder, the stuff she sprays on the right side of my chest cool and sterile-smelling, “it’s being called a ‘bird.’ ”

“What’s wrong with being called a bird?”

“Do you think I have feathers?”

“I know you don’t have feathers.” Rowen peers up at her face as she leans into his chest to study the stag on his T-shirt. “Though it’s hard to tell either way, with that big tent covering you.”

She ignores his comment on her choice of clothes—he’s right, she’s swimming in her shirt—and punches a few buttons into her phone. Music pumps out of the tiny portable speaker she brought.

“Okay. Ready?” Throwing her hair back into a ponytail and pushing her sleeves up, she slips on a pair of gloves and flicks the switch on.

I grit my teeth against the first burn of the needle. It hurts just about the same as the last one, which was a lot. And yet I forgot about it enough to do this again. My ma said it’s the same way with childbirth—that had she ever remembered the pain that Aengus caused her, Rowen and I would never have been born. Apparently it was the angelic lock of bright red hair on top of Aengus’s head that made her forget instantly.

Easing out an exhale, I let my head rest against the back of the chair, listening to Ivy’s soft hum to the music.

“So this stag represents your family or something?”

“The Delaney family crest, going back a thousand years,” Rowen explains.

“You Irish are awfully proud of your heritage.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I couldn’t tell you the first thing about my heritage. Things just aren’t like that over in America, by and large.”

“That’s sad.” Rowen’s eyes land on her legs, covered in black leggings.

“Maybe.” A pause. “And this other tattoo. Does that have to do with your heritage, too?”

“It does,” I answer for him. “A lot of Delaneys were nationalists.”

“Is that a fancy way of saying IRA?”

Rowen shoots me a questioning glare.

“Relax, guys. I was hanging around my uncle’s shop and watching him ink Hells Angels members when I was eleven. I’m not easily scared off.”

“Hells Angels?” Rowen asks with a frown.

“Yeah, you know. One of the most notorious motorcycle gangs . . . Oh, forget it. Criminals, okay? How are you doing, River. You need a break?”

“Nope.” I clench my jaw as the needle moves farther down, like a knife carving into my skin the closer it gets to my nipple.

“It’s looking good,” Rowen mutters, leaning over.

“You’re blocking my light.” She stops working on me to shove him back into his chair.

I watch the frown across her forehead as she concentrates, the only sound in the house the music and the buzz of the needle. She really is so different from Amber. “How long have you and Amber been friends?”

“Three days.”

“No, seriously.”

“Seriously. Three days.”

“But I thought you guys know each other from back home?”

“We do. But we weren’t friends. In fact, I pretty much hated her guts after she ratted me out to her dad for something stupid.”

Panic instantly ignites in my gut. “She ratted you out to her dad?” The sheriff?

“Long story, but in case you haven’t noticed, Amber’s always been a stickler for the rules.”

I glance up over my shoulder, to the stairs. Fuck. Is that what she’s doing right now?

“I need to take five. Grab some water.”

Ivy backs away. I stand and stretch my arms above me before wandering over to the kitchen to fill a glass. I take my time drinking it, staring out the back window at the terrace. It’s simple but nice, with a dining table and latticed wall covered in vines. I wonder if I’ll ever manage to have something like this. Delaney’s is basically it for me, whether I love it or not. My options for other employment are severely limited by my criminal record. At least Delaney’s does well enough. Rowen and I’ll earn a healthy living, as long as we take care of it.

I’m basically living the life now that I will be in thirty years, minus the wife and kids. I know I’ll find someone; an eighteen-month stint in prison isn’t the worst thing for an Irish-born man. There are plenty of Nualas out there who wouldn’t care. The thing is, I don’t want another Nuala.

I want a girl like Amber.

I want Amber.

But she’s leaving on Sunday and, unless I jump on a plane and go with her, that’ll probably be the last time I ever see her. That thought did cross my mind earlier, during dinner, when she mentioned it. I doubt she was serious. But it did get me thinking that I should look into getting a passport. I never bothered applying for one before, figuring there was no reason to put myself through the hassle. I know I’ll never set foot on American or Canadian soil, but I’ve heard that it’s pretty easy to travel through the European Union without issue. Unless they’ve put me on some sort of watch list. It’s not like they’re going to tell me about that, so I guess there’s only one way to find out: try to get on a plane. Of course, I wouldn’t be trying that with Amber.

“Whatever you did, she’s not going to call the cops on you.”

I turn to find Ivy standing behind me. She would have seen the stitch work on my back.

“Like you said, you’ve been friends with her for three days. How do you know?”

“Because, if she were going to, she would have done it right away. And she definitely wouldn’t have let you into this house.”

I nod quietly, her words calming the worry simmering inside me.

“Can we finish that now, before your idiot brother drinks too much to get his matching ink?”

I glance over her head to see Rowen downing another shot.

The staircase creaks just as Ivy shuts off the tattoo gun, finished.

“See?” She whips out a mirror from her tool kit and holds it up to show me the fierce and proud stag now prominently sketched on my body. It holds my attention for about five seconds—she’s right, her freehand is better than the original sketch I had—before my eyes dart to the landing, and a pale-faced Amber.

Looking like she just saw a ghost.

I’m on my feet in a second. “What’s wrong?”

Her green eyes, full of disbelief, dart from me to my chest to Ivy, then finally to the floor, with the slightest head shake. “Nothing. I just . . .” Her words trail as she staggers into the kitchen, Ivy watching as closely as I am.

Ivy pokes me, then nods toward her. “Okay . . . Next up.” She rolls her eyes at Rowen, who’s already got his shirt off, revealing his bare canvas. “That’s right. You’re a virgin.” She begins dismantling her machine to change out the needle and clean up. “I haven’t had one of you in a while.”

“Then you’re in luck tonight.”

I leave them to their banter and head over to the darkened kitchen, where Amber stares listlessly out the window, mimicking me from not long ago. “Everything okay?”

She sips from her tall glass of water, emptying half of it before setting the glass on the counter. “It looks good.” Her eyes are on the stag, veering to the phoenix for a short moment. “Did it hurt?”

“Not at all.” No man ever admits to the pain.

She drifts back to the window, but with a smirk now. “Liar.”

At least she can smile. Sort of. “You should get one.”

“Yeah? Where?”

I can’t help myself. I step closer, drawing a circle on the back of her shoulder, over that blue dress that’s been teasing me all day, so short. “Right here.”

She shivers but doesn’t pull away. “What would I get?”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know.” She sighs. “I just don’t know anymore. . . .”

Something tells me this isn’t about a tattoo. “Is everything okay back home?”

“Yes. And no.” A deep frown mars her forehead, and that line in between her eyes creases.

“Ivy said you had a sister-in-law?”

“You could say that. She and my brother aren’t married, but they’re forever.”

“What’s she like? Do you two get along?”

“Yeah. She’s great.” She smiles. “I think you’d like her.” The smiles fall off. Because she’s remembering that I won’t ever meet her. Not unless it’s here, in Ireland.

“Look, Amber—”

“She told me things about my dad,” Amber interrupts me. “Things that he did, to protect my brother, and Alex. Illegal things that could have gotten him into so much trouble. I had no idea.”

That’s why she looks so shocked.

I tug on her shoulder until her lithe body turns to face me. I want more than anything to pull her into my chest, but Ivy’s work won’t allow that for that. Maybe Amber won’t allow for that. I can’t tell, the way she’s peering up at my face. Has she forgiven me?

Ivy’s snap of “Stop staring at me like that” pulls both our attention to the dining room table, where she’s already working on Rowen, having positioned herself between his outstretched legs.

He winks at us. “I can’t help it.”

“It’s creepy.”

“Maybe you’re creepy.” He grits his teeth as if in pain, and I’m guessing he is based on how her little fingers are digging into his bicep. He quickly adds, “In a hot way. Hold on a sec, Ivy . . . I need to get this.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks the display screen. His eyes race to mine. “Hello, Fern. How are you?” His tone climbs five octaves to altar-boy status. “No way . . . Really?” He listens intently as the old woman talks. The longer it stretches, the more certain I am that this is about gardai showing up. “Thank you for letting me know, Fern . . . No, I’m good. Just at a friend’s . . . I know. That Aengus, he’s a problem . . . Okay, well, I’ll stop by tomorrow to carry your rubbish out, just like always. See ya, Fern.”

He hangs up and melts into his chair with a heavy groan, followed by a huge smile. “Gardai arrested two suspicious-looking fellas parked outside her house. She says it looks like they found guns on them, too.”

My shoulders sag in relief.

“See? I told you!” Amber pinches my arm, her own beautiful face stretched into a satisfied smile. And, for a quick moment, everything is back to what it was before.

Fuck the new ink. I coil my arm around her waist and pull her into me, gritting against the sting of the touch as I rest my chin on the top of her head. It fits so perfectly in the crook of my neck. Her body tenses but then relaxes, sinking against me. I’ll stand exactly like this for the rest of the night if it means keeping her here.

“I still need to dress that for you,” Ivy reminds me over the buzz of her needle, back at her design on Rowen.

“I guess you can go home now,” Amber murmurs, her breath skating against my bare collarbone, sending shivers down my back.

“I guess I can.” I don’t want to. I want to spend tonight with her, and tomorrow. I want to spend every second with Amber until she leaves.

I don’t want her to leave.

Do I tell her that, though?

I don’t let go of her and she doesn’t pull away. I know she still has feelings for me. But are they enough? I need to find out. “Do you think you could take my stitches out for me?”

“Of course. Let me just get ready.” She pulls away to dig a compact kit out of her purse, leaving me cold. Throwing the kettle on, she says, “Why don’t you go wait for me in my bathroom upstairs. The lighting there’s the best in the house.”

“Okay.” Her bathroom, attached to her bedroom. Where we can be alone and I can beg her to stay in Ireland. Perfect. Grabbing my T-shirt, I head for the stairs. “Let me know what I owe ya, Ivy.” I catch Ivy’s penetrating gaze on me as I pass by. A warning, maybe? Or just curiosity. I can’t tell.

Five minutes later, Amber finds me sitting on the edge of the toilet, my mind playing out a dozen possible ways for this conversation to go. “I’m going to leave the butterfly clip on, where you tore those stitches,” she warns, scrubbing her hands with soap under the running tap. “That’ll need a few more days to heal.”

“I can peel that off easily enough.” If you’re not here to do it for me.

“Okay, hold still.” I close my eyes, savoring the feel of her fingertips on my skin, even as she tugs the threads out of my flesh. “You really should have a doctor doing this.”

“Aengus was always the one removing my stitches before. Trust me, this is a treat.”

“Why him?”

“Because he’s usually the reason why I needed them in the first place.”

She’s silent for another long moment. “You and Rowen could have been hurt tonight, because of him.”

I sigh. “I know.”

She’s finished in minutes, sweeping the tiny bits of thread from her hand and into the rubbish. “I’ve only ever seen shrapnel wounds in textbooks, but they looked a lot worse than these. I think you’ll heal nicely.” She traces the scars with her fingertips, so lightly that it sends shivers through my body. Her voice thick with emotion, she whispers, “I haven’t forgotten what you did for me, River. I’ll never forget.”

“I’d do it again. A thousand times over.”

Suddenly her touch is gone and she’s washing her hands again, her head bowed.

I stand and angle myself so I can see the reflection of my back in the mirror. The three lines are puffy and pink, but they’re not too bad. “I was really lucky. You should see my da’s leg. It’s something else. He had pieces of metal coming out of it for years after.”

She’s quiet as she shuts the tap, then dries her hands. “What happened to him, exactly?”

“A bomber attacked at a funeral.” I recount the story I’ve heard countless times.

“That’s just . . . crazy.” She turns around, leaning against the counter, the bottom of her dress hiking even higher, until I see more thigh than not. She peers up at me, not with that awestruck look that I loved so much, but with the beginnings of some new level of understanding. Or maybe just acceptance of what I am, I dare to hope. “I can’t imagine things like that happening to anyone in my family.”

“It’s happened to mine. A lot.” God knows my brother will be added to the death toll if he keeps this up. It might have happened tonight, had Amber not intervened, offering a smarter solution than the one I naturally reached. “Thank you.”

“It’s not a big deal. They needed to come out.”

“Not about that.” I step in until I can smell the floral scent of her hair, feel the wisp of air from her exhales and the warmth of her body. Until I can sense her heart rate begin to race, see her throat bob up and down in a hard swallow. I slide a finger beneath her chin and pull her face up to meet mine. “Please stay.” It just slips out. I hadn’t intended to say it so bluntly, but now that I’ve said it, I don’t care. I want to be only completely honest with her. “Stay in Ireland. Stay with me. Please, stay.”

Her eyes turn glassy. “I’ve known you for a week and you want me to just drop everything? Drop my entire life?”

“No, I just want you to . . .” I press my forehead against hers. What exactly do I want? Because when she says it like that, I feel stupid for even suggesting it. “I want you to look at me the way you used to. I want you to think that I’m good. I want you to still want me.” I hesitate, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “Do you?”

A stream of tears slips down her cheeks. “We’re so different, River. We don’t make sense—this doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It doesn’t have to.” My insides clench with dread.

She hesitates for a long moment before admitting in a whisper, “I shouldn’t. I can’t. But I do. I still want you.”

Relief overwhelms me. I feel like I’ve passed some monumental hurdle.

Until she shakes her head. “This can never go anywhere, River.” She says it so convincingly. Is she trying to persuade me, or herself?

A painful spike settles into my throat. I know what I’m about to say is crazy, but I don’t care. “It can. You can stay in Ireland, you could get a nursing job, live with me.”

“Never bring you home with me, spend every holiday apart . . .” She’s been thinking about it too, at least. “No, River. What you’re saying . . .” Glossy eyes beg me to understand. “This isn’t me. I know we’ve had an incredible connection but if I were back home, in my everyday life, this would never have happened. You and I would never have happened. Do you not see that?”

I curl my arms around her and pull her close to me, letting her face rest against my newly etched skin. The sting from that contact, the burn from the salt as she cries, is a welcome distraction from the deep throb inside my chest right now.

I’ve never regretted going to that bunker with Aengus more than I do right now.

Her cool fingers dance over my skin, contradicting her words, sending my own heartbeat into a frenzy. Dipping my head down, I coax her mouth with mine, tentatively at first to make sure it’s okay. The smallest gasp from her, the way she trails her tongue along the seam of my lips, tells me it is. I can’t help but groan in relief. But now it’s like I’m in a race to see exactly how far I can get, how many kisses she’ll give me, before she remembers herself and pushes me away.

She doesn’t seem willing to do that just yet.

Amber’s hands wander, grazing my cheeks, my throat, carefully bypassing the right side of my chest in their exploration. Slowly at first, but then more fervently, skating over my ridges, toying with my belt. I wrap my hands around her slender waist and hoist her onto the counter, fitting myself closely between her thighs. She squeezes them tight around me, pressing her hips into me.

I groan again. If she keeps doing that, I’ll come right here, standing in the bathroom.

Her hands push against my chest, forcing our lips apart. She gazes up at me with heated eyes, her breathing ragged. And I wait for her to say that we’re done, that this is over. That she “can’t.”

And then she pulls that tiny blue dress up and over her head, tossing it to the tile floor beside us. Her lacy white bra follows closely, leaving her in nothing but a pair of stringy knickers that, if I turned her around right now, would show off that incredible arse.

“You’re just so . . .” My mouth finds hers again, and I can’t keep my hands off her body anymore—her tits perfect handfuls, her nipples hard against my thumbs, the thin lace between her legs damp. She grinds herself against my fingers once, twice . . . and then her hands quickly find my belt buckle, unfastening it and reaching in to take a surprisingly firm grasp around me. As if she can’t wait either. The very possibility sends my need for Amber into overdrive.

Grabbing my wallet out of my jeans, I slide one hand under her and lift her up, carrying her with her legs wrapped around my body to her bed, laying her down so gently, peeling the last of her clothing off. She reaches for me, grabs my hips, pulls me down with surprising strength. Tempting me to slide into her. I would. I know I’m clean, and don’t doubt for a second that she is, too, and I’d do anything to feel her bare, just once.

But I also know Amber.

She nuzzles her face in the crook of my neck while I put a condom on, her tongue darting out to run along my skin, making my cock jump in my hand.

“Christ, Amber,” I mutter, grabbing her by the back of one thigh, pushing it up and out.

I sink into her and she moans, the sound stealing my lungs.

“Stay. Please, stay.”

She clasps either side of my face and holds it firm for a moment, peering up into my eyes, her mouth parted as if words hang at the tip of her tongue. But whatever it is she’s thinking, she doesn’t say. Finally, she reaches around and, seizing the back of my head firmly, she pulls my mouth down to hers.