Читать книгу About Face - Amy Lee Burgess - Страница 7

Chapter 3

“May I sit down?” Startled, I glanced up from my solitary breakfast of eggs and bacon to see Jason Allerton with his hand on the chair opposite mine.

Next to the motel was a small diner where many of us ate breakfast before attending the day’s activities at the Regional. However, it was barely past six o’clock, and until Jason’s arrival I had been the only Pack person there.

I nodded, and my breakfast began to congeal into an uncomfortable lump in the pit of my stomach.

Outside a light rain misted the diner windows, but the sun was attempting to burn through the cloud cover.

Jason sat, but before he could say anything, the waitress hurried over to take his order. The Sunday morning rush was still two hours away, and she looked bored.

He asked for coffee and a ham-and-cheese omelet, and I decided my breakfast was over. To keep my hands busy, I pulled my coffee cup closer and pretended I needed cream.

“I owe you an apology, Stanzie.” My hand jerked at the unexpected words, and most of the cream ended up on the Formica tabletop, where it began a race toward my lap. I hastily swabbed at it with my napkin and cursed my clumsiness.

Jason’s scent was apologetic. At least I detected no anger. That surprised me, too, and I gave him my full attention.

“You’re absolutely right. I do default to Councilor mode. I’ve been one for so long now, it’s automatic. How dare anyone challenge me? You weren’t speaking to me as Councilor Allerton, you were talking to me as Jason Allerton, the man who swept into your mother’s life and went behind your back to court her.

“Something that had developed between us over a two month span was dumped into your lap as fait accompli in two seconds over what you thought was an innocent dinner. You see, I thought my personal life was none of your business.”

“It isn’t.” My throat was dry, and I wanted a sip of water in the worst way but couldn’t move.

“It is if my personal life intersects with yours through your mother.”

“She’s fifty-eight years old,” I reminded him.

“We did it wrong. We should have told you earlier. Lauren followed my lead. I wanted everything private, the way I always do with my personal life. I thought perhaps she might have shared her feelings with you, but she didn’t, did she?”

“No. Looking back, I guess I knew she was keeping something from me, but mainly we talked about how I envisioned her life was going to go. No wonder she got so nervous and upset when I’d talk about fall foliage tours we’d take in Vermont when she knew she’d be in Montana. Or at least suspected it. No wonder she couldn’t make up her mind about anything.”

I looked across the table at Jason’s face. As always, I found his aristocratic good looks intimidating. I thought of how kind and gentle he’d been to me at my tribunals and most recently with everything that happened in my birth pack, Mayflower. I wanted to believe in him again.

“Maybe I was willfully blind. I wanted her to stay with me. I didn’t want to be alone. So maybe I ignored the signs she was trying to show me.”

Affection tinged with sadness made his eyes very blue. “I think most of the blame for this rests squarely upon my shoulders. I was so affronted you’d question my motives that I didn’t share with you how I felt about Lauren. I did nothing to address your valid concerns. I anticipated you’d be pleased. I believed you trusted me and would know your mother was safe with me.”

“Maybe I wanted more for her than just safe.” I looked away from him as the waitress returned with his omelet and a fresh pot of coffee. She filled his mug, reheated mine and rushed to intercept a new customer. I wished I had her energy, but I felt thick and slow.

He pushed the cream and sugar in my direction and gave me a wistful smile. I didn’t like Jason Allerton to be wistful. As a Councilor he ought to be above such emotions. But he was more than simply a Councilor.

“You’re wrong,” I blurted, and his eyes widened. “About me appealing to you as Jason Allerton the man, not the Councilor. I never do that. I don’t like to think of you outside of your Councilor role because you make me feel safe when you’re the Councilor. When you’re not, when the mask slips, I get nervous.”

His smile was warm. “I am in love with Lauren Newcastle. I am her bond mate, and that puts our relationship, yours and mine, Stanzie, in a different category than previously. I’m not going to be the Councilor for you all the time anymore.”

Yeah, great. When would I ever see him now that I didn’t work for him? Did he think I would visit Montana? Would there be an annual Christmas holiday now where’d we play the happy family? Maybe he’d intend it at first, but in my life, people had a way of slipping through the cracks. Montana might as well be the moon for all I’d see of him or my mother after this weekend.

“I saw that you did at the bonding ceremony. All I wanted to say to you last night was that I was sorry for doubting your motives. I didn’t know you really cared about her or that she loved you.”

Or that he could get over Kathy Manning in the space between one breath and the next.

I’d mourned for my dead bond mates Grey and Elena for two years. I still missed them sometimes so much it felt like a stab to the heart. And Murphy? Ha. I couldn’t stop loving him no matter what I did. But Jason Allerton just decided to be over one woman and in love with the next in the blink of an eye. And in the middle of it all deal with the grief of a dead bond mate. Yeah, sure, she’d been insane for years, but he must have cared about her at some point in his life. Must be nice to be him.

I fumbled in my wallet for money to cover my check and dropped it on the table. I had to get out of there before I bawled like a goddamn baby.

“Where are you going?” He put a hand on my wrist, and I froze.

“I was going to go for a walk on the beach.” Just anywhere away from him.

“Please, let me join you.” He got his own wallet out.

“You didn’t finish your breakfast.” Finish—hell, he’d never even started.

“I need to talk to you about a job I want you to look into for me.” He reverted straight back to Councilor mode without a pause. Or did he? I peered suspiciously at him through the hair that had fallen across my face in my rush to get the hell away. I brushed it back with impatient fingers.

“But I don’t work for you anymore.”

That made him smile, but there was also a plea in his blue eyes. “I hoped we could erase that part of our previous conversation. The Great Council knows nothing of it, and unless you’ve told—”

“Kathy,” I finished for him.

He sighed, and a look that was half irritation, half amusement crossed his face. “That’s no matter. I can smooth it out.”

“Like you smoothed out her life’s ambitions?” The words escaped me before I could help it, and I waited for his expression to turn cold and hard against me.

“Would you like me to confess to you I handled that situation poorly as well? I can do that. It’s the truth after all.”

I gaped at him. “It is?”

“It is. It was very unfair of me to expect her to uproot her entire life while I gave up nothing in return. I believed she loved me and would agree to my vision of our lives together. The truth was she did love me but didn’t share my vision, nor should she have. Three months later I’m in love with another woman, and I’m an arrogant, manipulative bastard. Okay? Can we get past that and work together, or are you done?” His words were clipped and concise. Cold.

I got to my feet, this time sure he would let me leave, but he pushed back his chair to follow me until the conversation was concluded to his satisfaction.

“Jason, I want to go to Dublin,” I heard myself say past the ringing in my ears. Up until that precise moment, I hadn’t realized I’d made up my mind. This did not mean I wanted to belong to Paddy O’Reilly. There was a perfectly valid reason other than him to return to Dublin, and the dream just gave me the impetus to try. “I want Murphy back. I know it might be too late, but I’ve got to at least try.

Trepidation and elation warred within me, and black pinpricks of light danced before my eyes as my vision narrowed and my heart rate accelerated in a dizzy burst of adrenaline. I hadn’t given myself permission to even think it was possible to reconcile. Was I setting myself up for a disastrous disappointment? What if he pushed me away?

“Can I work for you after? Will you give me a few days to try to sort things out with him?”

“Stanzie,” he said. “Sit down.”

I sat. Jason handed me a napkin, and that’s when I realized I was crying. That figured. I always cried. He reached across the table to put his hand on my arm. His fingers were warm and comforting, his face full of concern and affection.

“The job is in Dublin. I want you to help Liam either find Mick Shaughnessy or give up the search gracefully. It’s become an obsession with him and he’ll put himself and his pack at risk if he’s not careful.

Now do you believe in me? Paddy’s face swam before my eyes. Could he need my help with Murphy? Is that what Faith’s dream meant?

“He’s not thinking clearly lately. You, my dear, I suspect are the cause of that.”

Mick Shaughnessy. The name sent a shiver down my spine. Four years ago Murphy placed him in a janitorial job at the lab where Murphy’s bond mate, Sorcha, worked nights. Grandfather Mick repaid the generosity by arranging her death in the name of the conspiracy. Once his cover had been blown and his role in the conspiracy revealed, Mick Shaughnessy disappeared. Murphy was chasing him down? That was so dangerous I wanted to scream.

“Murphy’s not running around Dublin spouting off about the conspiracy, is he?” I was scared. I knew Murphy when he had his mind set on something. He was single-minded and relentless. He threw his personal safety to the wayside.

“Not quite yet, thankfully.” Jason gave my arm a squeeze and sat back. He cast a hungry look at his omelet, and I pushed the salt and pepper shakers toward him.

“Eat. Do you want ketchup?” At his horrified look, I let go of the bottle and then decided my eggs needed more and dumped a red blob of it onto my scrambled eggs. They were cold but still delicious.

Jason tore into his omelet with the appetite of someone who had spent the previous evening occupied with strenuous exercise. I didn’t really want to think about him and my mother thrashing around passionately between the sheets, so I forced my attention back to my plate.

We ate in silence for a moment, and the less I thought about Jason and Wren, the more Murphy crowded into my thoughts. What if the asshole did something stupid? Fatally stupid? The conspiracy already tried to take him out with an overdose of narcotics. Would they hesitate to act again if Murphy threatened them? I didn’t think so.

“Someone told Grandfather Mick the Council knew he’d been involved in Sorcha’s death,” I said when my plate was empty. Jason’s was, too, except for a few lone breakfast potatoes. “Someone in Mac Tire?”

“Presumably.” Jason set down his fork and gave me his full attention. “The problem with Mac Tire is that it’s a very large pack and is not confined to simply Ireland and Northern Ireland. England, Scotland and Wales have to be considered as well. Mick’s obviously taken refuge somewhere, and he’s nowhere to be found in Dublin. At least not yet. Liam doesn’t believe he’s there.”

“So you two are in contact? You authorized his search efforts?” My coffee mug was lukewarm between the palms of my hands. Outside the diner, the rain had intensified, the sun blocked by a raft of ominous dark clouds. Heavy droplets spattered against the window and combined to smear the glass so I could barely make out the wavering shapes of the cars in the parking lot. Maybe the hunt would be a wet one tonight, but it seemed more and more likely with every passing moment I wouldn’t be there to find out.

“We’re in contact,” Jason confirmed, but frowned. “But the colder the trail, the hotter his pursuit. Maybe you could distract him.”

Murphy had been focused on finding Sorcha’s killer for nearly four months. Would I be a distraction he would brush off easily? I’d never been able to compete with Sorcha, even four years into her grave, why in the world would I be able to start now?

But I had to do something.