When Patrick had left over a year ago, he’d been livid. I understood it, and as time went on, I’d forgiven him for it. Therapy had helped me let go of the anger I felt toward my husband—the resentment and the blame. The things that had happened to me were not his fault, and I knew in my heart that he would have done anything he could to stop it. It was just… life. I’d been targeted by a psychopath, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault but Malcolm’s.

That didn’t mean that I agreed with Patrick completely cutting Peg out of his life. Me, I understood. He didn’t know the situation and he believed that I’d betrayed him in the worst possible way. For a long time, I hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, either. But Peg loved him and she missed him, and I thought he was acting like an asshole for refusing to answer her letters and phone calls.

“He’ll come around,” she answered me sadly. “He just needs some more time.”

“He’s being an idiot,” I commented stubbornly, moving Nix to the other breast. “A stubborn idiot.”

“Well, he isn’t the only one,” she replied.

“He has a family, Peg.”

“When the hell are ye goin’ to start callin’ me Mum?”

“He has a family, Mum.”

“Yer his family,” she argued. “He’d be back here in an instant and ye know it.”

I looked down and smoothed back Nix’s wild black hair, ignoring her words. Perhaps Patrick would come running if I told him the whole story. Maybe he’d even move to be near us… maybe he’d raise Nix as his own. But as I gazed at my son, I knew I’d never be the reason that Patrick left his child. I couldn’t do that to him and I couldn’t do that to his daughter that Doc had mentioned one of the times Peg had called their garage.

“We’re just fine without him,” I announced, ignoring the pang in my chest that the words invoked. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“Yer both a couple of stubborn eejits,” she grumbled as she stood up and walked away.

God, I was so grateful for her.

Chapter 42

Patrick

“A toast!” I slurred, a goofy smile on my face. “To loyal women and babbies who look just like dere das!”

“Hear, hear!” Slider called back from across the room.

I’d been making that exact toast and several similar ones all night long. I knew I was probably past the point of being annoying at that point, but I didn’t give a fuck.

Moira had given birth just two days before, and I had a beautiful daughter with a head of bright red hair.

Mine. No doubt about it.

Becoming a father was like nothing I’d ever known before. It was terrifying and exhilarating and exhausting all at once, and I couldn’t contain my joy. I wanted to tell everyone I came across about this beautiful creature that I’d made, and more than one woman at the grocery store had nodded in amusement as I’d told them all about her.

My Brenna. The smartest and most gorgeous baby that had ever been born.

I was pissed, completely and utterly drunk.

My mum had called again that day, and I’d refused to answer even though I’d been dying to tell her about Brenna. Dear God, I missed my mum—but speaking to her, even briefly, would open back up a chapter in my life that I was trying very hard to forget. I couldn’t have one without the other, and though I tried to tell myself that I’d moved past Amy’s betrayal, the drunken stupor that had started at three in the afternoon was a clear indication I hadn’t.

Instead, I was making toasts to women who were loyal and babes who looked like their fathers. I was a bloody idiot.

I stumbled against a table, and braced my hand on the top of it, looking up to meet Ham’s serious face.

“Might want to slow down, Poet,” he warned oddly.

Poet, a name that I’d seemed to have fallen into within my first few months at the club and had followed me as I patched in. The name was fine, a lot better than some of the others. But I hated the memories it evoked.

“De night is young,” I said back cheerily. “A toast—”

I stopped speaking when a large body stood up next to me abruptly.

“If I hear one more word come out of your mouth, I’ll lay ya out,” Doc said quietly, his body tight with anger.

He was staring at me, really staring, and the menace rolling of his body was unbelievable.

“De fuck?” I asked stupidly before snapping my mouth shut.

I remembered the day in North Carolina when Charlie had warned me about Doc, and since then I’d seen his expertise in handling the human body on more than one occasion. He was a fucking walking textbook on anatomy, and I knew even in my clouded brain that if I didn’t take his warning, there was a very likely chance he’d make good on his threat.

“You have no idea—”

“Doc,” Ham growled warningly.

“No,” Doc snapped back, not even bothering to glance in the President’s direction. “You have no fuckin’ idea what you’re talking about, boy. None. Your head is so far up your ass it’s a wonder you know night from day.”

“What are ye goin’ on about?” I asked, taking an unsteady step backward. His tone and the sureness of his words were making me nervous, and I felt my palms begin to sweat. What the fuck was he talking about?

“You left your wife in Ireland to take off with the woman you had on the side,” he hissed. “You want to talk about loyalty?” The veins in his neck were throbbing.