Page 20 of Intimately Faithful

That was the problem.

She was going to be in his house, smelling as good as she did and looking at him through her beautiful eyes.

He was just a man.

A stupid man by all accounts, because he was tossing his morals away five at a time.

His meeting in a while would test him the most… see how far he was willing to go for the ginger girl who had once …owned him.

“I’ll be back,” he said this time without force but didn’t turn to look at her again. “Lock this door behind me.”

He waited on the other side until he heard the lock and both bolts slide into place. Then he unglued his feet and strode down the pathway from his house, gave a glance to his church at the side. Peace always settled over his skin when he saw the tall building.

None came right then.

He wasn’t unstable and hadn’t been in a long while, but that didn’t mean he neglected his self-care. He preached it enough to his parishioners.

How could they take care of others if they didn’t take care of themselves?

So with that in mind, and his head full of memories, he headed to an NA meeting first.

Some things from his past couldn’t be so easily ignored.

* * *

Maybe it was the situation of being on the run, having never experienced it before, Aoife was jumpier than ever as she climbed out of the huge bathtub she’d found upstairs right after Danny left.

With a wet, happy gurgling baby in her arms she quickly wrapped a towel around herself and then a smaller towel around the baby, prying the bathroom door open just a touch, she tried to listen carefully.

It might have been the wind.

It might be a Russian mobster climbing through the window to kill me.Her brain filled in, making her shake.

“Shh,A stóirín.I have you.” Though it was Aoife who needed the soothing and not herlittle treasurewho was happily babbling away.

There it was again.

A kind of thump.

Danny said he’d be some time. Did he come home early?

Racking her brains, she tried to remember the layout of the house.

It wasn’t all that big, no bigger than a house in her street back home, but for the life of her, all logic fell out of her skull in replacement of the fear dancing behind her eyes, yelling that she was going to die.

There was a time … forever ago, when she was all about skinned knees and sneaky kissing a boy she loved … that she became wicked cool at hide and seek. She didn’t think crawling under the bed with a squirming baby who could cry any second would work.

Grigori would find her if he wanted to, she realized.

There the noise was again. Louder this time.

Before she lost her nerve or peed with fright, she told herself she was a Flanagan and she was brave.

Only she wasn’t.

She was so scared, her heart nearly burst out of her chest as she grabbed the closest thing she saw to use as a weapon, cuddled Misha close to her and she slowly opened the bedroom door.

“You better get lost,” she yelled as loud as she could. “I’ve called the police, so I have.”