Hard Irish (21 page)

Hell.  The only person a midnight confession would make feel better was him.  She was dealing with enough shit already.  He’d made his bed and he had to eat his guilt until this crap was over.  Besides, Riley’s words describing his attacker still rankled. 
Tall, dark, just like you
.  While Jared had a solid alibi, it didn’t escape his mind that he also had an identical twin.  The sabotaging of the job site could easily be blamed on a competitor, which is exactly what he and James were.

It was with a heavy heart and a knotted stomach that he went through the motions of checking the perimeter from the windows.  The moon hung bright and full, bathing the darkness in a silvery glow and he welcomed its light.  When he reached the French doors at the back of the house, he caught a shadow moving across yard. 

His body tensed as an icy bath of reality hit him.  The mystery surrounding Rocky had gone from the almost juvenile pushing of a planter to a possible murder that might have its roots in a terrorist’s organization.  This shit was real.  He went for his Glock.

Had he really thought they were safe in her house with him guarding her?

Sure, it might take ten seconds or ten minutes for the neighbors or the police to arrive, but he was beginning to realize a lot could happen in that span of time.    

He heard Rocky gasp and glanced her way.  “There’s someone in your backyard and I’m not going to wait around like sitting ducks for them to set us on fire or something.  I’m going to check it out.”  He nodded to his cell phone.  “Lock the door behind me and call Jesse.”

 “What?  Are you crazy?  You can’t go—”

Jared slid open the French door and disappeared into the night with a grim determination.  Anyone attempting to cause her harm in any way would meet his steely rage.  Using his fist or his gun, he’d stop the SOB.

Remaining in the shadows, he let his eyes adjust to the night then scanned the backyard.  He didn’t see or hear anything, so he stayed put with his back to the house and waited.

The steps leading to the roof-top garden cut away to his left.  He was fairly certain that the intruder hadn’t had time to make it to the steps yet, but Jared didn’t discount the threat.  He strained for the slightest sound.

Before him, red tile paved the way to the pool that shone like quicksilver in the moonlight.  Surrounding the pool were plenty of tall shrubs and plants for a man to hide behind.  Suddenly, a clank of metal rang through the night and Jared shifted his focus to the far right, remembering that Rocky’s natural gas tank and the lines that fed gas into the house were in that direction.

Moving a little closer, Jared watched as a shadow separated from the darkness.

Jared aimed the Glock.  “Stop or I’ll shoot.”  The man ran towards him.

Cursing, Rocky hit the redial on Jared’s phone.

Jesse answered.   “Bro?”

“It’s Rocky.  Jared’s gone outside after an intruder.  He said to call you.”

“Son of a bitch.  He’s supposed to call BEFORE he does anything.  Lock the door and stay put.  I’ll have a man there in minutes.”  Jesse hung up, leaving expletives ringing in her ears.

Minutes?  That wasn’t possible.

She wasn’t about to let Jared face an intruder alone.  She debated for a heartbeat on going back upstairs for her shotgun or running outside after Jared.  She compromised by grabbing the iron poker from her fireplace and following him.

She reached the end of her back porch and heard Jared’s shout.  “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

Jared was limping at a fast pace, chasing a man trying to escape, running toward her back fence.  The man didn’t even pause at Jared’s warning, but ran faster.

Rocky’s throat shut down, trapping her scream.  While it scared the hell out of her to have a man in her yard, she didn’t want to see that man killed, because of it. Jared paused and took aim.

“Oh God!  Don’t kill him,” Rocky yelled and ran toward Jared.  He glanced her way and the escaping intruder hit her back fence, vaulting over it.

Jared lowered his gun, cursing.  “I wasn’t going to kill him.  Damn it, now we don’t have a clue as to who he was.  What are you doing out here?  I told you to stay inside.  Go back.”

She held up the poker.  “Not without you.  Jesse says he’ll have a man here in minutes.”

“He probably has a backup man at the end of the street.  When I came out, the intruder was over by the natural gas tank.  I’m going to check it out first.  I don’t smell gas, but you had better go back inside.”  Jared moved toward the tank and she followed.  She wasn’t going to leave him out here alone.

He looked back irritated.  “Go-”

“Don’t waste your breath.  I’ll go in when you do.”

Jared bit back a few choice words, thinking he’d needed to set some bodyguard ground rules.  “I think your mother’s Warrior Princess story brainwashed you.  Your safety is more important than anything else, including your ego or my neck.” 

He’d make sure there was no damage to the natural gas tank then leave the rest up to Jesse’s backup.  His brother should have told him he had a man close by, but then Jared realized he would have gotten his Jockey’s in a wad over it.  Which made him realize his ego was the biggest block to her safety after all.

“Ego has nothing to do with it,” Rocky said.  “Two people facing an intruder are better than one.”

“Not when one of them is the target.”

Five feet away from the tank, out of the corner of his eye, Jared caught a flash of red digits glowing in the dark up by where the gas pipes attached to Rocky’s house.

His blood froze and his body exploded into action.

“Run!”  He swung around and grabbed Rocky’s hand.

The pool was just yards away to the left.  He went left.

Every split second seemed like an eternity.  Visions of them being burned alive in a ball of fire filled his mind.

His heart thundered painfully as he pumped harder to run, he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t move fast enough as if he knew deep in his gut they weren’t going to make it.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

“Dive!” Jared yelled when they were feet from the pool’s edge.  The blast wave slammed into him just as he hit the water and nearly had him plowing nose first into the cement bottom.

A quick glance at Rocky confirmed she was with him underwater and all right.  He had no trouble seeing.  The world was cast in red.  Above them, fire raged as if they were beneath hell itself.

Still holding his Glock in one hand, Jared grabbed Rocky’s hand and led her to the far end of the pool, away from the fire and the house.  Maneuvering underwater with the immobilizing boot on his leg was no picnic.  His lungs were screaming by the time they cautiously surfaced.  He sucked in hot smoky air and coughed.

Flames raged to at least fifty feet in the air, coming from the area of her natural gas tank and the left side of her house.  Everything that lay within the blast zone had been blown away or leveled—planters, lounge chairs, trees, the fence.  The glass windows and doors on the lower level to the house had been shattered.

He watched Rocky turn a three-sixty, her eyes wide with horrified shock.  The fire ball burned out as it consumed the gas from the tank.  The fire at the left side of her house still burned.  Why was the fire contained, and not house wide?   The ground around the pool smoldered with debris, some of it still burning.  Most of her privacy fence had been leveled.  He reached for her, and drew her shivering body against his, pulling her securely into his arms.  He needed to hold her, was incapable of anything else.

“Thank God.”  He shuddered.  “Thank God you are all right.”

“You too,” she whispered and buried herself into the crook of his neck.  “How did you know?”

“I didn’t know. I just got glimpse of glowing red digits on the pipes by the house.  The rest was instinct and gut reaction.”

She looked about clearly in shock.  “I lost the cell phones when I dove into the water.”

“Forget the phones.  You’ve got a bigger problem.  It’s official.”

“What?”

“Someone wants you out of the picture.”  He saw a shadow to their right, coming around the non-burning side of Rocky’s house.  Adrenaline kicked in.  He shifted Rocky behind him, aiming the Glock.  “Don’t move another inch.”

“It’s Mulligan.”  The man stepped forward, hands held up.  Jared recognized the Sheridan-Weldon Solutions employee whose office at the R&D facility he and Jesse had spoken in just this morning.   Jared lowered the 9mm.  Born in Ireland, the seasoned bodyguard known as “Black Irish” traveled all over the world into harrowing situations, but looked more rattled than Jared had ever seen him.  It was as if the gray at the man’s temples had doubled.

“Holy Mother Mary, I’m damn glad to see you two.  Jesse went off the deep end with the explosion.  Talk about shooting the messenger.”  He drew out his cell.  “They’re safe, boss.  Will report back shortly.”  He hung up and moved over to the pool steps.  “What in the bloody hell happened?  This looks like a war zone.  Fire and rescue are on the way.”

“Bomb,” Jared said.

Mulligan snapped his gaze to Jared’s, his expression as lethal as they come.  “Game changer.  You two are going in.  I’m calling Jesse.  He called me into this because there might be an old IRA connection, and maybe he was right.”  Mulligan turned away, speaking low into the phone.

Rocky moved to Jared’s side, starring at her house.

He wrapped his arm around her.  “Where’s the hose?”

“Same side that’s on fire,” she whispered.

Mulligan turned back.  “We’re heading to the R&D ASAP and Jesse, putting two guards on your father.  One inside and one outside the nursing home.”

Rocky shivered.  “Thank God you all are here.  This is unbelievable.”

Jared heard barking and Dessie yelling.  “Rocky!  Rocky!  Dear God!  Rocky!”

“I’m fine,” Rocky shouted.

“Dessie appeared, stepping cautiously around the pieces of the downed fence.  She saw Rocky, bent double and rested her hands on her knees as if she were having trouble standing.  “Thank God.  What happened?”

Jared assessed the woman’s white-faced, teary-eyed shock and concluded Dessie was not a player in this game of intrigue even she was the only one Rocky told about the “after death” deliveries.

“Duck!” Rocky cried.  She slipped from Jared’s grasp and went underwater.

Gun drawn, Jared looked for an unfriendly threat, seeing Mulligan to do same.  It took a second too long for Jared to register the fact that Pebbles, two-hundred pounds of trouble, was headed right at him.  Pebbles took a flying leap and landed in the pool not more than two feet from where Jared stood.  The belly-flop-like dive sent water flying in tidal wave that plastered Jared.

Rocky surfaced.

“You left me for the wolves,” Jared said, blinking water from his eyes.  The sound of sirens blared closer and closer.  A man appeared from the same direction Dessie had, carrying a fire extinguisher.

“The hose won’t reach, but the fire department is almost here,” the man said.  Wearing just jeans, he ran up and sprayed the area around the pool with the extinguisher, putting out the last of the fires.

Jared, with Rocky’s help, escaped from the pool and Pebbles.  He had a good idea of who the man was.  About six-six and built, his all-American good looks didn’t detract from the fact that he appeared more than capable of handling anything thrown his way or in
getting
his way for that matter.  No wonder Dessie hadn’t been able to say “no”.  The open button of the man’s jeans and bare feet told a story of their own.

 “You must be Saint,” Jared said, assessing the guy, feeling that every person he now met hat to be suspect in the growing danger to Rocky.  Was Saint on the up and up?  Could he be a player trying to get closer to Rocky through Dessie.   Dessie could have told him about the “after death” deliveries.

Jared shook his head.  How could seducing Dessie gain the man anything?  Next thing Jared was sure he’d be blaming the UPS man or mailman.

“I’m Saint to my friends.  To others Francis Frances.”  The man frowned.  “You’ve been to the Golden Bunny?”

“Not in years.”  Jared relaxed.  Spurred by his and Rocky’s encouragement, Dessie must have been putting her young suitor’s fire out.  “Thanks for the help,” Jared told the man.  “Makes us even.”

“Meaning?”

Rocky coughed.

Dessie looked as if she was about to sic Pebbles on him.  “Meaning the explosion has addled Jared’s brain.  What happened?”

“A bloody bomb,” Mulligan said stiffly.  “I hate to rain on this party, but the sooner you two are out of here, the better.  If anything else happened, Jesse would really have my head.”

“A bomb!” Dessie cried, looking at Rocky with horror and concern.  “Your ex is going that far?”

Rocky shook her head.

Saint spoke first.  “Want to tell me what in the hell is going on?”  He moved to Dessie’s side.

Mulligan handed Saint a card.  “Gladly, but after we’re on the road.  Have the fire chief and police call me when they get the fire out.  Sheridan-Weldon Solutions security team will arrive afterwards to handle this.  They are already on their way.”

“You two come with me,” Mulligan ordered.  Dessie hugged Rocky and Jared silently mouthed a “watch-out-for-her” to Saint.  Then they followed Mulligan, moving as cautiously as he did through the shadows.  A surveillance van was in the yard.

Mulligan opened the side door.  “Get in.  There are blankets in the storage boxes under the seats.”

Jared helped Rocky, then climbed in.  Mulligan shut the door and went around to the driver’s side.  The van was equipped with what appeared to be every surveillance gadget available.  Jared fished out the blankets and wrapped one around Rocky’s shoulders as they sat in two captain’s chairs.  She was shivering, likely from shock and adrenaline than from cold.

Jared had been in the same state just a few moments ago, but this van semi-pissed him off.  “It would have been nice to know that we had ears and support moments away.  How long have you been out here?”

Surveillance would have picked up his and Rocky’s every word.  Their every fuck.  Jared decided he was going to kill Jesse.