Page 33 of Fall of a Kingdom

I smiled, tears stinging my eyes. Flynn met my gaze and his expression softened. He whispered something to the children, and they immediately crawled off him and ran back toward me.

Hawk latched onto one of my hands and Noah took the other. Iain skipped ahead.

“I’m being herded, aren’t I?” I asked with a laugh.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Hawk asked.

“We thought about it, but then we realized we wanted to surprise you,” I replied.

The late afternoon sun failed to penetrate the cold Irish winter and the back of my neck quickly grew chilly. I hadn’t bothered to put on a coat before getting out of the car.

“Aunt Moira!” Hawk called out when we stepped through the front door.

Flynn closed the door behind him and slid his boots along the rug in the foyer, dusting off the snow before it began to melt. Moira came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishrag.

Her smile was warm and genuine. “You’re just in time. A loaf of soda bread just came out of the oven.”

“Let me guess. There’s warm honey butter, too,” Flynn said, moving toward his aunt and kissing her cheek.

“I know my audience. And if I want you to stay for a few hours before you take my grand-nephews home—”

“Guilt. You’re good with the guilt.” I smiled. “Is there Irish whiskey, too?”

Moira nodded. “We’ll sit by the fire. Make yourselves comfortable.”

I let Hawk and Noah pull me to the den and I sat down in a big, plush blue chair. I scooted over and patted the spot next to me. Iain immediately took it and then Noah settled himself on my lap.

Hawk clearly was too old to be a mama’s boy. Suddenly, a vision of him walking across the stage at his university graduation assaulted me. I got lost in the moment picturing him looking deceptively solemn and then sticking out his tongue at the last moment.

I smiled as I gazed with tenderness at my eldest who was running a hand though his mop of dark hair. He plopped his bottom on a cushion in front of the fireplace and Flynn took the spot next to him.

“What trouble have the three of you been getting into?” Flynn asked. His cobalt blue eyes looked at each of his sons. Hawk, feigning innocence, didn’t squirm at all. That one would become an iron vault, I had no doubt about it. Iain was a picture of guilt and deception. Noah’s gaze darted to his brother’s before coming back to rest on his father.

“Out with it,” Flynn demanded.

“It was Brandon’s fault,” Iain blurted out. “It was his idea.”

“What was his idea?” I asked.

Hawk sighed. “He was the one that said Aunt Moira was scared of spiders. And he took us to a shop in Belfast and we bought fake spiders and placed them all around the kitchen, in drawers, everywhere, and the next morning when she came downstairs she…”

“She what?” I demanded.

“Screamed,” Noah said. “A lot.”

Iain nodded. “And then Uncle James ran into the kitchen to see why she was making a fuss.”

“That wasn’t nice of you,” I said.

“But they got even with us,” Hawk retorted.

“Did they?” Flynn asked, his lips twitching with amusement. “What did they do?”

“Toads,” Iain said. “Lots of them. In our beds.”

“Kilmartins don’t get mad, they get even,” James said as he entered the den.

Flynn rose and held out his hand to his uncle. James grasped it and then pulled Flynn into an embrace.