“Forget it. Stitches mean an emergency room, and I can’t—”

  “Not necessarily,” she interrupted. She sat down on the chair beside the bed. “I’ll make you a deal. You agree to trust me to bring someone discreet to help you, and I’ll tell you a secret. A really good one.”

  A secret? Why would he want to know one of her secrets? What kind of leverage was that?

  And yet…staring at her pretty face, which held an expression of worry mixed with anticipation, he found he did want to know a secret of Tierney Haven’s.

  He reached for the pills and swallowed them back, chasing them with a sip of water. “Fine. What?”

  Was it his imagination or did her lips tilt up in the smallest smile? It disappeared so quickly, he couldn’t be sure.

  “Say you’ll trust me,” she said.

  “What choice do I have?”

  “Please say it,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “There’s a way of doing this, and we both know it.”

  The English welshed.

  The Scots welshed.

  The Welsh certainly welshed.

  But the Irish bloody well did not welsh on each other. Once a deal was struck, it was dyed in the wool.

  “Fine,” he said. “I trust you. Now, what’s your damned secret?”

  She spoke quickly, the words tumbling from her lips like she couldn’t bear to keep them inside for a second longer. “Your sister was in surgery last night, but she was moved to a regular room an hour ago. Her hip was fractured by the bullet, but not shattered, and it missed her artery. She should make a full recovery.”

  He was staring at her face, clenching his jaw so hard, it was starting to ache.

  He blinked his eyes furiously, refusing to cry. He hadn’t cried in three years—not since the day his father had hung up on him, after calling him a “corrupt, rotten, good-for-nothing addict. You’re a disgrace to the name O’Leary and you’re not my son anymore.” But he wanted to cry now. Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, he wanted to sob, he wanted to bawl, he wanted this strange woman to put her arms around him and let him cry for hours because he’d never known relief so sharp and so blessedly overwhelming.

  He cleared his throat. “How do you know?”

  “I called Mass General.”

  “And they told you all that?”

  “I might have said I was Suzanne’s little sister…and I might have pretended to cry a little. So yeah.” She nodded, that very slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth again. “It sounds like she’s going to be okay. I thought you should know.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” he said, knowing full and well that his mumbled words were inadequate, but he hadn’t felt real gratitude in so long, he was out of practice at expressing it.

  In fact, the sensation of deeply feeling anything was foreign to him. For years, he’d been hiding his real feelings; he was a little out of practice at recognizing, processing, and expressing them.

  He was beyond relieved that Suzanne was going to be okay, but now that he’d been reassured, an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion was kicking in. He was sick to death of the life he’d been living for the past three years. He was finished being one of Sean Shanahan’s collection goon squad. He wanted his parents and his sister and his niece back in his life. He wanted to be normal again.

  But unfortunately, he didn’t know how to make that happen.

  Now that his cover was blown, he wouldn’t be undercover anymore…but unless what he’d given to Sergeant Gunn, via Ray, was enough to put Sean and his associates away for life, Burr would be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life—and no one standing next to him would be safe. Fuck, even if Sean went to jail, it probably didn’t matter. He had a network of men working for him, and one of them would be tasked with making sure Burr didn’t live long.

  What a fucking mess.

  Closing his eyes, he took a ragged breath, holding it, even though it made his shoulder hurt more.

  “Are you bad or good?” whispered Tierney, more to herself, perhaps, than to him.

  “I don’t know anymore,” said Burr, opening his eyes to find Tierney Haven staring at him thoughtfully.

  Her steady green gaze scanned his eyes, his face, something deep and strong swirling in the mossy, emerald depths. What are you thinking? he wondered. What’s happening behind those eyes?

  “Good, I think.” She nodded slowly, then pulled out her phone and typed a quick message.

  “Don’t be so sure,” he muttered, looking away.

  Something about staring into her eyes hurt, almost; it was the same way he used to feel when he saw rich Harvard kids driving around Boston in their BMWs when all he could afford was a shitty secondhand Toyota. Something he couldn’t afford. Something he couldn’t have.

  “Well, anyway…thank you for trusting me,” she said as she stood up from her chair. “Someone’s coming to help you. I just texted him. I’ll bring him up when he gets here, okay?”

  “Tierney, wait…” he started.

  “Don’t go welshing, now,” she said, stopping at the bedroom door and turning around. “You promised to trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” he said, surprised by the words, surprised that he meant them. But then, this woman, whom he’d only known for a handful of hours, had already proven herself extraordinary.

  “Then…what?”

  Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything.

  “Nothing,” he said softly, pursing his lips together to keep from saying any more.

  “Okay, then,” she said, her face softening just a touch as she nodded at him and slipped out the door.

  CHAPTER 4

  Tierney arrived downstairs just in time to answer the doorbell, offering a polite smile to the man on her doorstep.

  “Hi John.”

  “Tierney!” he said, a broad smile lighting up his homely face. “What a nice surprise to hear from you today!”

  John Stuart, DVM, was the Holderness-based veterinarian of the German shepherd that Ian had adopted earlier in the summer. He was also a frequent “surprise” dinner guest at the Wednesday and Sunday family suppers that Tierney hosted, leading her to believe that her brothers were not-so-subtly trying to set her up with the well-meaning, good-intentioned thirtysomething doctor.

  A few inches taller than Tierney, John was so slight, she guessed that they probably weighed about the same. With reddish-blond hair, freckles, and brown eyes hidden behind thick glasses, John didn’t exactly scream “dream lover.” Her wild imaginings ran much more toward tall, dark, and dangerous than small, ginger, and chipper.

  “Thanks for coming by, John. I really appreciate it. Come on in.”

  “Your mysterious text sure got my attention!”

  With his hopeful smile and enthusiastic inflection, he reminded her of one of the golden retrievers he looked after.

  Be nice, she thought. You’re about to ask for a big favor.

  “I’ve been meaning to call you and thank you for dinner on Sunday. That was some ham!”

  “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “With my family all in Maine, it means a lot that I get to share yours.”

  Since she didn’t want to encourage him to think of ways to “officially” join her family, she didn’t smile at this comment. Keeping her face impassive, she just stared at him.

  He laughed nervously, his cheeks reddening. “Rory and Brittany sure look happy lately, huh?”

  “They do.”

  “Love will do that, I guess,” theorized John, clearing his throat. “It actually got me to thinking, Tierney…I mean, well, maybe you and I could, um—”

  Oh, God, no. “John, I need your help with something.”

  “Right. Yes. Sorry. We can talk about other things, um, later.” He looked around her tidy living room. “Where’s the patient? In the kitchen?”

  She glanced at the ceiling. “Upstairs.”

  “You said it was a hunting accident. Did you find the poor fellow in a snare?” he asked, following her across the living room and up the stairs.

  “Not exactly. He came to my door.”

  “Really? My!” John gasped dramatically. “It’s very unusual for animals to seek help from humans in such situations, but it has been known to happen. You have such a gentle manner, Tierney, I just bet he—”

  “He banged on my door,” she clarified.

  “Oh? How odd. Banged, huh? Are we talking about a larger animal? How in the world did you get it up the stairs—”

  She paused at her bedroom door, standing back and gesturing to Burr, who sat up in the bed, bare-chested with his “Destroyer” tattoo on full display and a wary expression that would frighten any normal human out of his skin.

  John blanched, turning to Tierney.

  “That is not an animal.”

  “You haven’t met him yet.”

  She stepped into the room.

  “John, this is Brian. Brian, this is John. John is a, um, well, he’s a veterinarian who treats my brother’s dog. Juniper. I mean—Juniper is the dog. Ian is my brother. Obviously. Brian is, um…well, he’s an old college friend from, um, from Dartmouth, where I went to college, and, um, well…anyway, Brian was out…last night, um…hunting. Yes, hunting! With, um—he was with some—some buddies,” she said, crossing her room to stand beside Burr and shoot him a disapproving look, “…and—and this happened.”

  There, she thought with satisfaction. I’m getting the hang of this lying thing, aren’t I?

  She shot a triumphant look at Burr, expecting to see admiration on his face, but he was looking up at her like she’d lost her mind, while John still hovered in the doorway of her room looking bewildered. His glance slid to the white bandage that Tierney was pointing to, then back to Tierney.

  John cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “This…being?”

  “A bullet wound,” said Tierney. “It went straight through, as far as I can tell, but it needs care. Stitches, for sure. I think it’s infected.”

  “I see,” said John, still frozen by the doorway. “May I—May I please speak to you in the hallway, Tierney?”

  “Yes,” she said, turning to Burr. “We’ll be right back…Brian.”

  Burr, who appeared to be waffling between annoyed and amused answered, “You got it…Millie.”

  Her lips twitched as she turned and followed John out into the hall.

  “Am I to understand that that man has been shot?”

  “Yes,” said Tierney.

  “While hunting?”

  “Correct.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know.” She blinked at him. “Um. He won’t tell me.”

  “It’s irrelevant to us anyway. He needs to go to a hospital and file a police report.”

  “John,” she said, reaching out and placing a hand on his arm, “if he does that, he’ll get his friend in trouble.”

  John pursed his lips, his expression sour. “As well he should! His friend shot him! And I suspect—from the looks of him…he wasn’t an entirely innocent party in this debacle.”

  “John, please.” She sighed, curling her fingers around John’s thin arm and feeling a small sense of satisfaction when he flicked his eyes to where she touched him. “I need your help.”

  John scanned her face with a sigh. “Who—erm, who is he to you? This…Brian?”

  “A friend,” she said.

  “An…ex-boyfriend?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I think it does.” John lifted his chin. “Downstairs, I was about to ask if you’d like to go out on a date with me.”

  Oh, Lord.

  “And frankly, Tierney, it would be awkward for me to have the feelings I have for you and to help your friend, only to find out later that you and he…well, that you’re romantically involved with him.”

  “I see,” she said. “Well, we’re not. Romantically involved.”

  John visibly relaxed. “Okay. So about that date…?”

  Tierney removed her hand, cocking her head to the side. “Are you coercing me into a date with you in exchange for helping my friend?”

  That wiped the overconfident smirk off his face. “No! No, no, no! Coercing? Please. That’s the wrong word, Tierney. Trading would be better: something I want for something you want.”

  Yuck. This was a side of John Stuart she hadn’t seen yet, and she didn’t like it one bit. He wasn’t a golden retriever, after all. He was a fox…or a rat.

  “If the cost of stitching up Brian is to go on a date with you, John, then yes, I’ll join you for dinner some evening.”

  John took a deep breath, obviously not completely satisfied with her answer, but somehow recognizing that pushing her further would be unwise. “Well, that would be—just terrific. Does Friday work?”

  “It does,” she said, without a hint of warmth.

  “Then I will pick you up at seven,” said John.

  She gestured to her bedroom door. “Now that payment’s been sorted out, can we get back to…?”

  “Uh, yes,” he said. “I’ll need some clean cloths and hot water.”

  “I’m on it,” she said. “Let me just talk to, um…Brian. For a second, huh?”

  John pursed his lips, looking annoyed. “Sure.”

  “Be right back.”

  She slipped back into her room and closed the door behind her, then turned to face Burr, who stared at her with wide eyes. “Your old friend from Dartmouth? A hunting accident? Brian?”

  “You seem dead set on protecting your identity.”

  “I am.”

  “So? I’m helping.”

  “Helping?” he clarified. “You’re the worst liar I ever saw in my whole life. I mean, you bring bad lying to an art form. They could write odes to how badly you lie.”

  “Not even!” she said. “That time was far smoother than usual.”

  “It gets worse than that?” He pretended to shudder. “Amazing.”

  She decided to ignore him. “John’s a vet. He’s going to stitch you up and give you antibiotics.”

  Burr’s eyes narrowed just a little. “…in exchange for a date with you.”

  “You heard?”

  “You didn’t shut the door,” said Burr. His lips turned down. “He’s a weasel.”

  Yes! He was exactly right—John wasn’t a fox or a rat. He was a weasel!

  “Seemed like a small price to pay.”

  “For what?”

  “For you to be well,” she said. “For you…to be safe.”

  His icy-blue eyes bored into hers. “Is my wellness important to you, Tierney? My safety?”

  Her cheeks flushed with sudden heat, and she crossed her arms over her chest protectively. Did his safety matter to her? The answer came quickly: yes. Why? Hmm. Because of Suzanne? Partly, yes. But helping Burr solely for his sister’s sake wasn’t totally accurate either, which bothered her because she had no further answers as to why she kept sticking her neck out for this virtual stranger.

  “Why do you care?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t,” she lied, flashing her eyes to his.

  “Then how come…?”

  “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph at the manger! Didn’t anyone ever teach you to just say thank you?” she barked, turning on her heel and opening her bedroom door. “He’s ready, John. I’ll go get the water.”

  She hurried downstairs, pressing her cool palms to her flaming cheeks as she sped into the kitchen, pulled out a pot, and filled it with water before placing it on the stove.

  Why do you care? Why do you care? Why do you care?

  The words circled round and round in her head as she leaned against the kitchen counter.

  I don’t, she thought…but it was a lie. She did.

  He’s injured, she reasoned. Any Christian person with an ounce of charity would care.

  Fine, responded her conscience, then why are your cheeks red? Christian charity shouldn’t make you as red as a tomato.

  Her cell phone buzzed in her back pocket, and she retrieved it quickly, grateful for the reprieve from her puzzling thoughts…until she saw the text.

  RORY: Ian said you were being weird.

  TIERNEY: Ian doesn’t know weird from last Tuesday.

  RORY: What’s going on?

  TIERNEY: Mind your business.

  RORY: Dinner on Wednesday?

  TIERNEY: Of course.

  She stared at the screen for a moment, wondering if she should tell Rory about “Brian” before Wednesday, which was tomorrow. If she didn’t, and John mentioned him to Ian sometime today or tomorrow before dinner, her brothers might overreact.

  TIERNEY: BTW, I have a friend from college staying.

  RORY: What friend?

  TIERNEY: You don’t know him.

  RORY: Him?

  TIERNEY: I have to go.

  Suddenly her phone buzzed in her hand with an incoming call from Rory. Oh, for fuck’s sake!

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Who is he?” asked Rory.

  “Brian.”

  “Brian what?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “So you said. Who is he? Was he there this morning? Why didn’t you introduce him to Ian? Damn it! He knew something was off with you.”

  “Nothing was off,” Tierney insisted. “He was upstairs sleeping. That’s all.”

  “Where upstairs?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Tierney—”

  “I’m an adult, Rory. I’m not answering your nosy-parker questions.”

  “I thought I knew all of your college friends,” her brother grumbled. “I’ve never heard of a Brian from Dartmouth.”

  “Just because I didn’t mention every friend I ever had doesn’t mean I didn’t have them.”

  “So where was he when Mom had her stroke?”

  “In…Ireland.”

  “He’s Irish?”

  That’s when Tierney heard it—just the slightest relaxation in her brother’s voice. And since Burr was Irish, she didn’t have to lie, thank God.

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh. Does he speak it? Irish?”

  He certainly understood what she said to him this morning when he patronizingly asked her for a smile. “As well as us.”