AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I blinked, dumbfounded. My father and I had always had a somewhat estranged relationship. He lost himself in the bottle every night and I went out and did what I wanted. He was never really any sort of real father to me. I don’t even remember the last time the two of us did anything together. If I had to guess, it was probably when my mother was still alive. Truth be told, I barely even remembered her. Even though he drank himself into a stupor more often than not, I hadn’t wished anything bad on him. I had hoped he’d get his act together someday, but that too had faded over time. He was who he was and so was I.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the stranger stated, although the tone in his voice was devoid of emotion.
“Who are you?”
“I’m your lawyer.”
“I didn’t hire one,” I answered, my sorrow plain as day.
“Your father called me Friday night. Your face was plastered all over the news,” he answered.
I didn’t say anything more after that. I just followed, trying not to think about that being the last thing my father saw before he died. It took everything in me not to let myself cry.
* * *
One week later
Dressed in all black, I stood with my head down. Unbeknownst to me, my father had already made all the arrangements should he pass. There was a will and systems already in place to have his body cremated and buried in a cemetery outside of the city. He’d already commissioned his own headstone and I’d had to do nothing except sign a few papers the other morning.
Today was his funeral.
The autopsy had confirmed that my father had died of a stroke in the middle of the night. While comforted by the fact that it had been painless, I was scared by all the terrible effects his years of drinking seemed to have on his body. His liver was already in the end stages of cirrhosis. His heart and lungs had begun to fail. Had it not been for the stroke, my father likely wouldn’t have survived much longer than a year or two.
Everything in his estate had been left to me, which meant I was the sole owner of our house and his car, both of which were paid off. The lawyer had temporary control of all his finances for the time being and he’d used some of it to bail me out of prison.
I dared a glance around the cemetery, seeing more than a few faces I didn’t recognize. Several were very well dressed in pressed suits and designer dresses. A man with dark hair and pale skin had a blonde woman on his arm. Both looked to be of Irish descent, or at least I thought they did.
I was Irish too, but I didn’t know much about my background before we had come to Seattle. I’d even been born in Ireland, and I’d been begging my father to let me visit Dublin ever since I was little, but he’d refused, always saying there was nothing good for me to find there.
Sighing, I looked over the rest of the strange people, wondering who they were and how they all knew my father. The longer I stood there, the more I came to recognize that maybe my father hadn’t been as open with me as I thought he was. I didn’t think he knew this many people, to be honest. Here in Seattle, he was nothing more than an accountant, but the powerful people standing all around me here at this moment told me otherwise.
One man braved my gaze. His piercing blue eyes leveled with mine and I gasped a bit under my breath, a little taken aback. The way he stared at me told me that he knew who I was. My mind raced as I tried to remember if I recognized him, but I came up blank.
Those eyes were a captivating prison, and I couldn’t force myself to look away. The dark brown hair on his head was cropped short, but messy in such a way that he might have done it that way on purpose. The trimmed beard that covered his chin would normally make a man like him appear approachable, but his jawline was tense, giving him a dangerous aura that made me want to turn around and run away as fast as I could.
I didn’t. Instead, I just kept staring into his intense gaze.
From far away, he looked like Gerard Butler from the movieP.S. I Love You, which was my comfort movie that I’d put on every time I needed a good cry after my father had forbidden me from going to Ireland once again. I glanced down at his expensive black overcoat, catching sight of a fine suit beneath it. I wasn’t as well acquainted with men’s suits as I was women’s clothing and accessories, but I could tell that it was expensive. There was a small section of his wrist that was exposed enough for me to tell that he had a tattoo there, but he pulled it down when he noticed me looking. His hands were broad, but I could tell they were rough. He didn’t appear to be a man that relied much on others when it came to hard work. I would bet that he would do whatever was necessary himself.
The priest was reading my father’s last rites and I tuned him out, watching instead to see who the stranger with the blue eyes had come with. There was a man that looked a lot like him standing next to him, maybe an older brother or close relative. There were a few others, including a set of twins and a woman with red hair standing solemnly together, all with sad eyes directed solely at my father’s gravestone.
All except for him.
Ever since he’d come, I noted that he hadn’t taken his eyes off me. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing, but I tried not to let it show how much it bothered me. Maybe he just liked what he saw or something, or maybe I looked like someone else he knew.
I was the one that looked away first. As boldly as I could, I turned my gaze to the priest and listened to everything he was saying because it took my mind off the blue-eyed stranger for a little while.
When the funeral was over, my lawyer Mr. Abernathy came to collect me and bring me home. I hadn’t looked back over my shoulder, but I knew that strange man had watched my every step. When I finally hazarded a glance back through the deeply tinted window, I caught his interested stare for a moment before I had to remind myself that the tint was too dark for him to see through.
It unsettled me anyway.
CHAPTER3
Cormac Murphy
I hadn’t laid eyes on Caitlin McCormick since she was three years old.
She stared at her father’s grave, her eyes misty with emotion and her hands wringing together at her waist. The wind whipped through her long reddish-blonde hair, swirling it around her face and hiding her delicately carved features. She had her mother’s eyes, a brilliant emerald green that sparkled with even the tiniest amount of light.
