Page 7 of The Unlikely Spare (Unlikely Dilemmas #3)

“I can tell by your expression. You’re obviously not a hunting enthusiast.” Those cool eyes scan up and down my body in a way that causes a prickle along my spine. “I wouldn’t have thought you fit the profile of the typical animal rights activist.”

I shrug. “I have no problem with people hunting when they need the food.”

The unspoken words hang between us.

Not this choreographed slaughter that serves no purpose besides entertainment.

Nicholas’s mouth twitches upward like I’ve spoken aloud.

“What counts as ‘needing’ the food? Does one have to be starving or merely hungry? Where does your moral line in the sand get drawn?”

I blink at him. Somehow, it’s not what I expected him to ask.

Nicholas watches me with detached amusement, like a cat that’s discovered a particularly interesting mouse.

“I have to admit, I haven’t spent time contemplating my exact stance.” I scan the perimeter, keeping my voice neutral despite the acid bubbling beneath. “I’m a practical man, not a philosophical one. But I do believe that killing should serve a purpose beyond simply amusing people.”

When I’m undercover, I’m usually playing someone so different from who I actually am that it’s easy to bury my own reactions beneath layers of fabricated personality.

But my protection officer persona is just an extension of my usual role in law enforcement, so it’s difficult to separate the real me from the role I’m playing.

Therefore, it appears my honest opinions are at risk of leaking out.

“It’s tradition.” Nicholas rubs the dog’s ears as he stares up at me. “Do you give any value to that?”

“Not everything worth doing once is worth doing forever,” I reply. “I tend to judge things by what they contribute, not by how long they’ve been around.”

Nicholas’s eyes glitter with something I can’t quite name.

“My whole life is entrenched in tradition, so I guess I have a vested interest in believing traditions are important,” he says finally.

I’m struggling to reply when a horn blasts through the air. It’s apparently the signal that it’s time to retrieve the fallen birds.

Nicholas rises in one fluid motion, whistling softly to the dogs.

“Come on then. Time to earn your kibble.”

I follow him at a careful distance as the dogs weave through the frost-tipped grass like furry torpedoes. Nicholas moves with easy confidence while I scan the tree line.

Everything about this moment screams ambush potential. The isolated location, limited visibility, predictable movement patterns.

A violent rustling erupts from a nearby thicket, and something bursts upward in an explosion of noise and movement, heading directly toward Nicholas’s face.

My training kicks in. Movement equals threat, threat equals action.

I launch forward, tackling Nicholas sideways. We hit the ground hard, my body curving protectively over his. One of my arms cradles the back of his head, preventing it from cracking against the frozen earth while my torso shields his. My free hand reaches instinctively for my weapon.

Only then do I register wings beating frantically above us.

Fuck.

Nicholas lies perfectly still beneath me, those winter-ocean eyes wide with shock. My face hovers inches from his, close enough to count individual eyelashes. His breath comes in short puffs, visible in the cold air between us.

For a few heartbeats, we simply stare at each other.

“That,” Nicholas says finally, voice strained, “was a partridge. Not an assassin.”

I’m suddenly acutely aware of every point where our bodies connect. My chest against his, my leg between his thighs, my hand still cradling his head.

His hair is soft, dark silk under my palm. The scent of his cologne fills my nostrils, something crisp and woodsy. His pupils have dilated, black nearly swallowing that impossible blue.

His lips part, just a fraction, and fuck if I don’t track the movement like it matters.

Heat spreads from every point where we’re pressed together. A flush crawls up his neck. I know I should look away, but I can’t.

Why the hell can’t I drag my eyes away from this man’s face?

The dogs are circling us, the yellow retriever licking enthusiastically at Nicholas’s ear.

“I’d really appreciate it,” Nicholas continues in an icy tone, “if you could remove your elbow from my spleen.”

Fuck. I roll away from him, my knee sinking into the frozen mud with a squelch as I get to my feet.

Nicholas remains splayed on the ground, leaves tangled in his dark hair, a smudge of dirt across his cheek.

“We must stop this little trend of finding ourselves in compromising positions,” Nicholas says as he pushes himself up on his elbows. “At this rate, I’ll need to start charging you rent for all the time you spend in my personal space.”

He reaches up a hand imperiously. I grasp it, surprised by the strength in his fingers. He rises in one fluid motion, wincing slightly as he rotates his shoulder.

Shit. I hope I didn’t hurt him.

Cavendish materializes from behind a copse of trees, his expression thunderous. His hand remains on his weapon, eyes scanning the surrounding area before settling on me with barely concealed irritation. Officer Blake jogs toward us from the opposite direction. She speaks rapidly into her wrist mic.

“Status report,” Cavendish demands in a clipped voice.

“False alarm,” I admit, feeling heat crawl up my neck. “Just a startled bird.”

Fuck. I don’t need a shrink’s perspective to know exactly where my “shield first, ask questions later” impulse comes from.

It comes from being sixteen and having to dig through the rubble of what had been our home to find my brother.

I’ll never forget those frantic moments when I’d clawed at crumbling concrete and twisted metal, Malachy’s freckled face ashen and still beneath the dust.

I just never thought about how that experience would affect me doing this particular undercover assignment.

Officer Davis appears on the scene, looking simultaneously relieved and disappointed that there’s no actual threat to neutralize.

Officer Singh catches my eye from his position near the hunting party, giving me a subtle head shake that clearly communicates: overreaction, mate.

It appears the entire security team is a witness to my second embarrassing disproportionate response in as many days.

Grand.

I go off duty at eight p.m., which is a relief. I’m still smarting from what happened at the hunt.

I’m used to being good at my job, not fumbling around like some rookie fresh out of training who can’t distinguish poultry from peril.

To settle myself down, I FaceTime my brother.

Malachy answers on the second ring. The familiar cluttered walls of his flat provide a backdrop that instantly transports me home.

“If it isn’t my prodigal brother,” he says, grinning wide. “Still alive then?”

“Barely,” I grunt, lounging back on the pillows of my bed. “Long day.”

“Poor lamb,” Malachy mocks, wheeling himself toward his kitchen counter.

“Try spending all day sorting packages that people can’t wait five bloody minutes for.

Had a woman ring the warehouse today asking if I could personally fish her lipstick order out of the sorting pile because she needed it for a date tonight. Like I’m some kind of postal magician.”

“Maybe she should have ordered her lipstick earlier,” I say. “Though I imagine your customer service skills involve telling people exactly where they can shove their priority packages.”

“No one actually dares complain to me in person. I think they’d know I’d run over their toes.” He flashes that familiar wolfish grin, the one that hasn’t changed since we were boys pelting each other with mud balls in the back alley of our tenement.

I chuckle, leaning back against the headboard. “The O’Connell charm at work.”

“Says the guy who told Mrs. Flannery her Christmas pudding tasted like it had been soaking since the Great Famine.”

“That pudding could’ve been classified as a biological weapon. I was performing a public service.”

The familiar back-and-forth with my brother calms me.

Malachy’s the reason I joined the police force in the first place.

I’d been breaking my back on construction sites for a year after finishing school, coming home covered in cement dust to find my brother struggling with a wheelchair held together by duct tape and prayers.

Then I saw that Police Services Northern Ireland poster at the job center:

Paid training, competitive salary, make a difference in your community.

The paid training bit caught my eye first. Making more than twenty grand while learning definitely beats earning minimum wage hauling bricks.

Of course joining the police service as a Catholic in Northern Ireland wasn’t the done thing. After the Good Friday Agreement, they changed the name of the police services to make us Catholics feel welcome. But it was hard to erase the decades of being treated like the enemy.

Many in the Protestant community saw Catholic recruits as infiltrators, while fellow Catholics saw us as traitors.

I didn’t care. Principles were a luxury when you had a brother who needed specialized physical therapy three times a week and a wheelchair that cost more than most people’s cars.

Besides, there was this na?ve, idealistic part of me that couldn’t help hoping that maybe if someone like me was on the inside, the next time someone like Malachy got hurt because the powerful didn’t care, it wouldn’t just disappear.

Malachy understood, even if the neighbors didn’t. “Just remember why you’re doing it,” he’d said. And I had, through every dirty look and “Castle Catholic” whisper.

There’s so much I can’t tell Malachy about my work, which is hard. He’s the person closest to me in the world, but out of necessity, I can’t give him any more than vague details.

“So, job tough at the moment then?” Malachy asks.

“Yeah, I’ve got a new job. It’s in protection. But the VIP I’m protecting isn’t someone I’m warming to.”