AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She prodded me. “Him.”
Following her pointed finger, Conor was the one who, spotting the boy in the family room, answered, “That’s my nephew. Seamus.”
Her cheeks turned bright pink. “How do you spell that?”
“S-E-A-M-U-S.”
She frowned. “Why isn’t it ‘S-H-A-Y-M-U-S?’”
“You thinkhisname is bad? Wait until you meet Aoife,” Conor drawled, making me snort. “But we call Seamus ‘Shay’ for short. All the vowels together is kind of an Irish thing.”
Katina absorbed that information like the sponge she was. “Who’s Aoife?”
“My sister-in-law.”
I cleared my throat and took it upon myself to do the unthinkable: “She’s family now, Kat.”
My kid arched a brow at me, looking as sassy as a seventeen-year-old and not a preteen. “Family like Alessa or family like Link?”
Pondering that a second, I answered, “Bit of both, but Aoife bakes brownies for a living and doesn’t talk about motorcycle engines all the time.”
Kat giggled. “He doesn’t talk about themallthe time.”
I grinned. “Just most of it. But she’s going to be your aunt.”
Conor’s eyes widened, but he didn’t correct me.
“When? I haven’t had an aunt in ages.”
The words drew my attention. “When did you last have an aunt?”
“When I was really little. She was super nice,” she said absently. “Do you think Aoife will give me a brownie?”
Tension filled me. “What was her name? You never mentioned an aunt before.”
Her brow puckered but not in sass this time. A strange blankness filtered into her eyes as if she were shielding her thoughts from me, but I could sense it was outside of her autonomy. Like her subconscious was protecting itself.
Fuck, what was wrong with my kid?
I’d seen her do this before, seen her just check out, but never this deeply.
Blankly, she muttered, “I-I don’t remember.”
I dropped into a crouch and reached up to cup her chin. “How come? Because you were so small?”
“I guess,” she whispered, her fear obvious. “Why can’t I remember, Star?”
My smile was easy when, deep inside, I felt anything but. “You were so little, kiddo. I don’t remember things from when I was that young. Do you, Conor?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “Aoife will definitely give you a brownie, Kat, but probably not until after we’ve eaten. Are you ready for dinner?”
She turned to reply to Conor, “I-I guess.”
A dimness had settled in Kat’s eyes, one that replaced the wall of before. It concerned me because it reminded me of the times when she woke up from a nightmare, and the idea of sending her back home with the potential for another episode—one we hadn’t had to deal with in so long—put me on edge.
“Brennan and Eoghan’s sister-in-law, Victoria, she’s here too. She’s younger than Shay. I know Shay brings a Switch with him if you want to play games?”
That seemed to perk her up some and, silently, I thanked him for easing her distress.
