In the Arms of the Wind (24 page)

“Like it matters.”

Face turning red at the waspish remark, Kathleen looked away from him and to the mess around her. “You could have been killed, Danny.”

“What do you care?” he snapped. “Don’t you still have two rather hefty life insurance policies on my shanty Irish ass?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “You’re just as much a bastard today as you were yesterday. I don’t guess even a near-death experience is going to change that!” She looked past him. “Was Kaycee hurt?”

Danny came over to her, crowding her back through the demolished doorway. “I don’t even want to hear her name coming out of your lying mouth,” he snarled.

“I happen to like her!” Kathleen defended as she stumbled back into the hallway.

“Go home, Kathleen,” he said. “And don’t come back up here again. I wouldn’t put it past you to have been the one to put the bomb at my door.”

His ex-wife slapped him as hard as she could, the force of her hit snapping his head to the side. The workers in the hall froze, watching the spectacle.

“You go to hell, you goddamn prick!” she shouted at him. “I wish they had killed you!”

Danny slowly turned his face back to her and the rage glinting in his amber eyes was enough to make the closest worker step back, putting distance between himself and the livid man.

“Maybe you’ll get your wish one of these days, Kathleen,” he said then walked past to the stairwell door, shoving it open with brute force. The sound of his boot heels striking the metal stairs was shut off as the door closed again.

* * * * *

“For the love of God, Kaycee, wake up and smell the coffee!” Maire groused. “The man is connected!”

“No one says connected anymore, dear,” her mother said softly. “That’s so 80s.”

“He’s a mob enforcer, Mama,” Maire defended her statement. “What else would you call him?”

“And you know this because…?” Kaycee snapped.

Maire held up her hand to tick off her reasons. “According to Jonee, he has a brand-new BMW convertible worth well over seventy thousand dollars.”

“Actually it’s closer to ninety thousand, dear,” her mother corrected.

“And a condo at Rampart Villas that’s probably worth at least a cool mill,” Maire continued.

“More like two, three if you count the furnishings,” her mother stated. She took a sip of iced tea, smiled apologetically at Kaycee.

“He also paid for his ex-wife’s condo at the Villas,” Jonee said. “That’s worth around half a million. Not to mention he furnished it for her and paid for her new car.”

“How do you know that?” Kaycee demanded, shocked that her sister had gathered information she knew Danny didn’t want her having.

“You don’t make that kind of money on a cop’s salary,” Maire declared. “What do they pull down? Thirty a year at the most?”

“About forty,” her mother said.

“He also owns three diners,” Kaycee defended her lover, “and inherited money from his father’s estate.”

“Give me a break,” Jonee said. “Are you really that blind, Kace, or just in denial?”

“It’s none of your business what I am!” Kaycee shouted. “I’m a grown woman and I’m entitled to do whatever the hell I like!”

“A desperate woman enamored of a gangster and in love with the danger,” Maire suggested.

“The bad-boy syndrome,” Jonee said, and she and Maire nodded firmly in agreement.

“Jay-Jay, why don’t you and May go sit on the patio for a while so I can talk to your sister,” their mother said softly.

“But Mama…!” the two women cried out in unison.

“Please?”

With thinned lips and huffs of annoyance, the sisters excused themselves, casting Kaycee a warning look as they left.

“It’s none of their business what I do, Mama,” Kaycee stated.

Mona Farrant Connor heaved a deep sigh. “No, but your sisters love you so they believe it is their right to protect you.”

“From what?” Kaycee demanded. “They don’t know Danny. Maire has never even met him!”

“They are going by what Kevin found out,” her mother reported, speaking of Maire’s lawyer husband. “They know your beau is part of an Irish mob family.”

“He’s a cop for goodness sake, Mama!” Kaycee protested.

Her mother nodded. “Yes, dear, I know.”

“And I love him!” her daughter declared. “And he loves me!” She raised her chin. “And we’re going to be married whether Frick and Frack approve or not!”

Mona’s lips twitched with amusement for only that morning she had called her two oldest daughters the same silly names when speaking to her next-door neighbor.

“They mean well,” her mother said.

Kaycee covered her face with her hands and scrubbed savagely then growled with frustration. “They don’t know him!” she repeated.

“Then call him and ask him to come to supper with us this evening. Give me a chance to meet him. Kevin will be here after work and he’s bringing the girls with him. Trish can baby-sit for us while we talk,” her mother suggested. “You haven’t seen your nieces in months and Trish is dying to show off her newly pierced ears. Drake will be here as well, so your beau won’t feel as though he is being surrounded by estrogen.”

“My beau’s name is Danny, Mama,” Kaycee said.

Her mother smiled but did not reply.

“You guys are going to interrogate the poor man,” Kaycee complained. “You’ll grill him like he’s a candidate for one of your political offices, Jonee will insult him, Maire will glare at him, Drake will pipe up every once in a while to make some asinine remark, and Kevin will act like a television lawyer!” She wagged her finger at her mother. “I know how you people work! He’ll run screaming into the night and I’ll never see him again.” She narrowed her eyes. “I won’t let my family ruin this relationship, Mama!”

“Call him, Kace,” her mother coaxed. “I really want to meet the man who has finally given my baby daughter some backbone!”

* * * * *

Danny felt exactly as he did the first time he served Mass as an altar boy for his Uncle Liam. His stomach was tied in knots, rumbling with butterflies, and his heart was pounding a mile a minute. His palms were sweaty and he kept taking them from the steering wheel and wiping them on his pants legs. He did something he rarely did—mumbling to himself—as he carried on a make-believe conversation with Kaycee’s family, striving for a normalcy he sure as hell didn’t feel.

“They are going to tell me I can’t have her,” he said to himself and the thought terrified him more than if he were standing in front of a homicidal perp who was pointing a loaded .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson with hollow points at his gut. “They are going to throw me out of the house and tell her she can never see me again.”

By the time he pulled into Jonee’s driveway and turned the engine off, he was so nervous he felt as though he were ready to crawl out of his own skin. Opening the door, he stood there a moment assessing what he was wearing. Everything on his body was brand new. The white shirt was buttoned at the wrists and accompanied by a conservative silk tie—which he’d been forced to have the salesman tie into a Windsor knot for him because it had been so long since he’d worn one he’d forgotten how to tie the damned thing. He usually slapped on a clip-on for work. His black slacks had a new leather belt. Despite the supple leather, the new black loafers pinched his toes. Resisting the urge to lift his arms and take a whiff of his armpits to make sure the deodorant was working and the Halston Z-12 cologne masked what the deodorant didn’t, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, exhaled slowly and started up the brick walkway.

“They’re going to hate my shanty Irish ass,” he mumbled as he climbed the three steps up to the porch, “and I’ll have to eat my fucking gun.”

He rang the doorbell.

Chapter Ten

“I need a drink.”

Kaycee smiled as she slid into the passenger seat of his BMW and he shut the door behind her. She watched him skirt the front of the car, thinking that he did indeed need a drink after what he’d just endured with her family. When he got behind the wheel and reached over to switch on the ignition, she put a gentle hand on his arm.

“You did good, sweetie,” she told him.

“They hate me.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek then settled back in her seat. “They don’t hate you.”

“I hate me,” he said as he turned on the car.

Waiting until he had backed the car out of the driveway and started down the street before she spoke again, Kaycee shifted around in her seat so she could face him. As they passed a car parked on the opposite side of the street, she realized the man in the driver’s seat was one of the Gallagher bodyguards. The car had been there all day but now did a U-turn and began following them.

“Dermot’s brother Duncan,” Danny mumbled as he glanced in the rearview mirror.

“He’s been there since you dropped me off this morning, hasn’t he?” she asked.

“That’s his job.”

Kaycee sighed then changed the subject.

“Kevin was very impressed with you.”

“Kevin thought I was a fucking jerk.” He glanced at her. “His wife thought I was a moron. Your other sister wanted to castrate me and her husband looked like he wanted to unhinge my jaw.”

Kaycee knew she had never loved this man more than at that moment when all his insecurities and uncertainties had risen to the surface. He was a strong, capable man but right then he needed her to boost his confidence.

“Well, telling Jonee that you didn’t give a rat’s ass whether or not she liked you wasn’t exactly a statement geared toward bonding with her husband,” she observed.

“Your sister is a bitch.”

“I won’t debate you on that one. She certainly can be.”

“The other one is a ball-breaker.”

“I won’t debate that either.”

“Your brothers-in-law are pussy whipped but I like your mom.”

“She liked you.”

“But she doesn’t want you marrying me.”

“Too bad. I’m going to whenever you get around to asking me,” she told him.

Danny’s head snapped toward her. “Shit! I haven’t asked you yet, have I?”

“Nope.”

“Let’s remedy that right now,” he said, and flipped on the turn signal just a second before whipping into a Wal-Mart parking lot. The blare of a horn behind him didn’t faze him in the least.

“Your car insurance rates must be astronomical,” Kaycee mumbled, twisting around to see Duncan pulling into the parking lot as well but stopping a respectful distance away. She realized there was another man in the car with him and wondered if it was Dermot.

Danny slanted the car into an outlying parking slot, turned off the engine and opened his door.

“Where are you going?” she asked—afraid he was going to yell at Duncan—but he came around the front of the car to her door. When he opened it, she looked up at him with confusion.

“It’s not where I wanted it to be, but I’m not going to let another minute go by without making damned sure this is official.”

Before she could say anything, he shoved his hand into his pocket, withdrew a small burgundy velvet box then dropped to one knee.

“Danny, no! You’ll ruin your pants!” she admonished.

He reached for her hand and gripped it firmly in his. “Kaycee Bree Connor,” he said, his eyes holding hers, “I love you with all my being, but do you love me?”

“Baby, you know I do, but for the love of God, get up before you get an oil stain on…”

He opened the box and her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Kaycee stared down at the huge diamond twinkling under the overhead parking lot light. Slowly her gaze lifted to Danny’s.

“Oh Danny,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful.” Tears gathered in her eyes.

“You like it?” His voice was like that of a little boy wanting to please his mother.

“Very much,” she said, lips trembling.

“Then would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

No words would come. She simply nodded and he withdrew the ring from its velvet nest and slid it onto her finger, his own hand shaking. He stood, leaned into the car, put his arms around her and kissed her. When the kiss became so steamy the windshield was in danger of fogging, he broke off, stepped back, shut the door and practically ran around the front of the car.

Lifting her hand to look at the huge rock that now sparkled there, Kaycee was unaware of the tears flowing down her cheeks. Danny cranking the car and pulling out of the parking lot didn’t register with her. All she could do was stare down at the ring, feeling numb and more than a little intimidated by its size.

“Do you want a big fancy wedding?” he asked. “If you do, that’s okay. Personally, I’d just as soon find a JP and then fly somewhere for our honeymoon.”

Kaycee looked over at him. “JP?” she questioned.

“Justice of the Peace,” he replied. “But if you want the white dress, tuxedo, five-tier cake…”

“Just immediate family,” she said, “and I don’t qualify for the white dress.”