Page 31 of Intimately Faithful

Grown up and ready for that life together.

Hopefully.

He could be angry. And he would be when he knew it all.

But where Aoife was once backed into a corner without a way out. She was free now to love and adore who she wanted to.

Only… there was just a small matter of the mafia looking for her …most probably.

And a very angry Irish man who still hated her decisions.

Aoife unglued her feet, rounded her shoulders and grabbed a cookie, shoving half of it into her mouth.

Even chewing on oatmeal coconut, she still tasted Danny on her tongue.

The war, she decided, was hers for the taking.

He better be ready.

Because she wasn’t going anywhere this time.

Not unless Grigori caught up with her first.

EIGHT

“Like a moth to a flame, I was drawn back to her fire.” – Danny

“What do you want to eat?”

Filling the doorway, with both of his hands caught on the top of the jamb, he watched her blowing raspberries on the baby’s belly and his own tightened.

He’d given her seven hours alone until he couldn’t help himself by going to find her.

Scowling over his own weakness dogging his every step, as he’d set down his work on the table and tracked the short distance through his house from the back room in the church, where he’d been trying in vain to come up with a subject for this week’s sermon.

The pull towards her was too great and he’d needed to see her.

“Nothing,” she replied, not looking towards him.

She went on dressing the baby who pumped her little legs and made those noises young bairns made.

He still couldn’t grasp she was a mother.

It pained him in a place he’d locked up forever ago. A selfish pain because why shouldn’t she be a mother?

She deserved a slice of happiness more than most.

Her childhood hadn’t been the best.

Most often, Aoife had been in the adult role taking care of her deadbeat parents.

Taking herself to school, making her own dinner.

Was she happy before all this mess? He’d wondered more times in the last day than he could count. And the warring parts of him couldn’t take any of her happiness not being with him.

“You have to eat.”

“I’m on a hunger strike.”