“Sorry?” she asks softly. “Why are you sorry?”
For fucking everything.
“Just a minute. I’m with Keenan. We’re checking on your guard now.”
She sighs. “All good here.”
“Good,” I tell her, walking to a corner of the workout room. I lower my voice. “Now, lass. Get some sleep, aye? And we’ll talk again in the morning.”
I love you, I think. I close my eyes. I love you.
“Aye,” she says. “I will. And Lachlan? Thank you.” Her voice wavers a bit. “I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time, I really am.”
I turn my back to Keenan, who’s thankfully on the phone. “I know, sweet girl. Now get some rest, will you? We’ll talk in the morning.”
“I will,” she whispers. “Goodnight.”
She hangs up the phone.
My heart’s in Boston.
Keenan’s scowling. “I can’t get ahold of them either.”
I’m pacing a hole in the fucking rug walking back and forth, when a solution dawns on me. “Give me the private jet, Keenan.”
He blinks in surprise. We have a private jet for travel, but I’ve never asked to use it. Doing so now emphasizes the urgency.
“Please, Keenan,” I ask, less demanding this time, and my voice actually cracks. “Tiernan can stand in my stead until I get there, but you know he’s got to get back.” He’s doing covert operations for the Boston contingent of the Irish mob, and he’s about to close in on a deal that would solidify our affiliations with them for decades.
He pushes himself off the bench. “Of course, Lach,” he says. “I’ll give the orders. Jesus, I want her safe as much as you do.”
While I appreciate his support, it’s a lie. No one wants her safe as much as I do.
“One request, Lach,” Keenan says. His eyes are sharp and piercing, a reminder we may be blood brothers and related, but he’s still my superior. I feel the weight of his expectations.
I hold his gaze.
“I’d be blind not to see what she means to you,” he says softly, but there’s an edge in his voice. “And you’d be blind not to see what hurting her would do to this family.”
I want to pull my eyes away from him, to hide from his brutal honesty, but I make myself hold his gaze. I swallow and nod.
“Aye,” I say huskily. “Don’t I know it, Keenan.”
“Do you, Lachlan?” he asks, his voice stern, the father of our Clan.
Do I?
“Christ, of course I do, Keenan. It’s the only reason I haven’t staked my claim over her. I haven’t touched her. I’ve done nothing but protect her all these years.”
“Haven’t staked your bloody claim?” he asks, and there’s humor in his voice now. His eyes twinkle, and his lips twitch. “You haven’t claimed her the way a man of the Clan typically does, no.” He means I haven’t fucked her, put a ring on her finger, or put my baby in her. “You’ve too much honor for that. Too much respect for her. For Nolan and Sheena. But you’ve just asked me to fly our private jet over a bloody ocean so you can personally see to her safety and protection, Lach.”
I shrug. “What of it?”
He claps me on the shoulder. “All I’m saying is, be smart about it, Lach. The girl loves you.”
I wince. “She’s barely a woman, Keenan. How can I?”
He shakes his head with a sigh.
“Sadly, lad, that isn’t the case, now, is it? Any girl who’s been through what she has lost her childhood long before she became a legal adult.”
He speaks a truth I’ve suspected for years. She was a child when I met her, already bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders. She never dated the way her mates did. How could she? She’d already experienced more challenges, tragedy, and heartache than most adults.
“Lachlan,” Keenan continues. “Use the brains God gave you. We’re men of the Clan. We don’t do things the traditional way.”
I bloody well know it. Keenan took his wife Caitlin as his prisoner when they first met. Cormac’s wife Aileen was his as tribute, an arranged marriage to prevent war between clans. Hell, even Nolan imprisoned Sheena for spying on us, and Maeve, Keenan’s mother and the matriarch of our group, was wed to the late Seamus McCarthy when she was about the same age.
“Doesn’t mean it’s right,” I tell him, but this time, he shakes his head.
“And that’s where you’re fucking wrong.”
“Come again?”
“It’d be wrong if you didn’t claim her, Lach.”
“Nolan would kill me.”
Keenan strokes his chin, as if thinking about the possibility of a painful, brutal death at the hands of my Clan brother.
“Maybe.”
And that makes me laugh. “Such a casual response to such a violent way to die,” I say with a derisive snort.
“Nolan loves you, and you know it,” he finally says. “As does Sheena. They’d have to be blind to not know how much you care for the girl.”