Page 74 of Tamed Enemy
Best drops his hand to his side. “Clean up this mess,” he says to Jacobson. And he gestures to Kate to lead the way out of the garage.
27
KATE
By the time we’re crossing the drive, I’ve vowed to forget the rotten hunk of meat that used to be Jeremy Collins. Best did what my own da would do if he found a man ruining the Crew’s good name. Best probably showed more mercy, only taking his gun out at the end.
But the way Collins blubbered… The way he actually thought Best might set him free…
He couldn’t always have been such an eejit, or he never would have made it as a Seal. Gambling does strange things to a man.
Stepping into the foyer, I feel like I’ve aged a hundred years in the past four days. When I turn to Cole, his face says he feels the same. In some ways—a lot of ways—everything that happened in New York was harder on him.
“Kate, dear? Is that you?” My grandmother’s voice floats out from the parlor.
“Yes, Granny.” I do my best to lighten my voice. By the time Cole and I have walked down the hall, I’ve remembered how to paste on a smile.
Mrs. Watson stands as we enter. “We’ve been holding dinner until you got home,” she says. “Nilsson said you’d be here almost three hours ago.”
“Bad weather in New York,” I say, crossing the room to kiss Granny’s cheek.
“That’s a lovely suit you’re wearing,a chroí. Something new?”
“Cole decided to spoil me.”
The look Granny shoots his way is pure skepticism. She knows clothes will never be the path to my heart. But she asks, “You had a good trip, dear?”
“I…”
I’m supposed to lie. I’m supposed to make up a story for why we’ve been gone since Tuesday. We went to the Met and a Broadway show. We climbed the Statue of Liberty. We…
“We shouldn’t keep Anna waiting any longer than we already have,” Cole says.
Granny doesn’t miss a thing. The twist of her lips is tighter than ever.
But Cole offers her his arm. “Now tell me what you’ve been doing while we were gone. How long did it take you to solve the crossword puzzle this morning?”
Granny allows herself to be distracted, at least until we get to the dining room. I wince as I take my seat at the table.
“Kate?” Granny asks. There’s a volume of questions in the one word.
“I’m fine, Granny,” I say quietly.
I watch her make a conscious decision not to press.
Before I can wrestle another topic of conversation into the open, Anna comes in from the kitchen. She’s boiled finger-longshrimp and made a green salad and baked cottony dinner rolls, the kind that are slathered in butter. Beefsteak tomatoes cover a serving plate in thick slices. For just a moment, I need to look away from the red as dark as blood.
Granny says to Anna, “Is Breagha out there in the kitchen with you?”
“No, ma’am,” Anna says. “I haven’t seen her since lunch. She said she had a bit of a headache. I think she was going to lie down.”
The hair rises on the back of my neck. Breagha doesn’t get headaches. And she doesn’t miss meals. Exhausted or not, I start to push back my chair, but Cole stands first. “I’ll get her,” he says.
“I—” I start to argue.
“Sit.”
He’ll move faster than I can. I stay in my chair.
