Page 4 of Mob Bride

I hear the whimper that has me spinning around to spy Carys standing on wobbly legs. Uninvited back into the conversation, I walk over as I speak.

“She ought to turn you over her knee. Where do you think you’re going? You’re likely to trip over something and impale your empty head on a stake.”

Meredith stands in front of her daughter, and I know I’ve gone way, way,waytoo far.

“Your parenting skills are lacking, Mr. O’Rourke. Butt out.” Carys looks ready to give me an obscene hand gesture from behind her mother.

“Probably because I’m not a parent. But I’ve been your mother’s patient enough times to know you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. Let Meredith help you. She knows what she’s doing.”

Carys’s eyes narrow as she tries to lean around her mother to see the older woman’s face.

“And just how is that for a pediatrist, Mom?”

“Pediatrist?” That shocks the shite out of me.

“Do you really think I’ve told my daughter who I work for?” Meredith more mouths the words than says them. “I’m not a pediatrist. I’m an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in feet and hands. She’s being facetious.”

I know where she got that from.

“You definitely never told us you’re in private practice for someone who acts like he could be a mobster. I’d ask how long, but you said you’ve known him since he was a kid. So at least thirty years.”

“I was a toddler thirty years ago. Twenty years almost to the day.” Why am I letting her goad me? Because it’s keeping me occupied rather than asking my own questions and demanding answers.

“I’m taking you home, Carys.”

“No. That’s the last place I’m going. Not yours and not mine. I’m not getting you killed, too.”

Chapter Two

Carrie

The man is fucking gorgeous as sin. He’s also insufferable as hell.

I know exactly who Shane O’Rourke is. It also means my mom works for the fucking mob. What the ever-loving fuck?

I thought I keep a lot of secrets. How the hell has she hidden this for decades from the sound of it? What the fuck am I supposed to do with this little bombshell? Fucking hell. Who outside the O’Rourkes knows about my mom?

Motherfuckers. Did they set me up? Is this why they gave me the assignment? Does my boss know my mother works for the Irish mob? Are they using me the way I’m supposed to be using fuckface? He’s a separate issue, yet he’s the reasons I’m fucking in this goddamn Twilight Zone.

I have a jumble of questions rattling around in my head, and I can’t ask a damn one of them without giving away everything. Everything I don’t want to name because I’m in more pain than I’ve ever been in.

“Mom, I’m fine. I need ibuprofen, some water, and a good night and day’s sleep. I’ll get some arnica too.”

“Arnica?”

I glower at Shane. “Let me guess. You’re the little piggie who made his house out of straw.” His brow furrows. “You sound like a pig snuffling truffles when you snort.”

His russet eyebrows shoot straight up, and I want to gloat.

“Carys.” My mom hisses my name.

He won’t whack me in front of her. At least, I don’t think so.

“I’m feeling a little testy.” I opened my mouth to say I just want to go home, but home isn’t my parents’ house anymore. Home is supposed to be four hundred miles from here. I’m not supposed to be in the city. “Do you have any ibuprofen in your bag?”

I know she does. Shane’s still holding the old satchel my granddad gave Mom when she graduated med school. He hands it to her, and she pulls out an economy size bottle of pills. I look at the giant standing next to her. If the medicine went by weight, he’d need half the bottle. That weight is all lean muscle that flexes every time he moves. Such a shame he’s a mobster and an ass.

Granted, I can admit to myself when I’m being a royal bitch. But I don’t feel at my best. Everything right down the microscopic strands of hair on my toes hurts. I feel like death would be a vacation.

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