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And then he saw it.
“What’s this?” he asked, his voice cold and harsh, holding up my hand with the big ring on it.
“My engagement ring,” I said, my voice almost a whisper. “I’m engaged.”
With one quick motion, my brother ripped the ring off my finger.
“Torin,” I cried, trying to grab it back from him, but he was too strong for me, trapping my chin in one hard hand.
“You don’t belong to him, Laoise,” he said. “You belong to me.”
I let out a little shriek of rage, shoving his chest.
“I don’t belong to you, Torin! I’m not a child!”
He trapped my wrists with his other hand, stepping closer so that he loomed over me. “I know you aren’t. You still belong to me.”
My cheeks flamed. “That’s not how it works anymore, Torin. We aren’t in the mountains anymore. I don’t need you to protect me.”
His eyes flashed, flicking over my face.
“Laoise Reilly, you know you belong to me. You’re not engaged to anyone else as long as I’m goddamn alive. Besides, baby girl, the mountains are always a part of you. I know you’re too mountain for the city.”
This close I could smell him, cigarette smoke and some kind of motor oil and something sharp and wild.
“No, I’m not,” I insisted, still struggling against his grip. “It’s civilized here. I live in a nice house with a nice man.”
And my brother would never be civilized.
“You won’t for much longer,” he said. “I’m taking you back home with me when this week is over.”
“I won’t!” I cried. “Let me go, Torin.”
“No,” he said, his fingers of his other hand biting down on my chin. He took a step closer to me so that our bodies were flush together, and I felt the angry heat of his long thighs on my belly.
“Oh, you are such a stubborn asshole!” I retorted hotly.
This was not how it was supposed to go when I saw my brother again.
His lips only twisted up as he looked down at me. Then I heard the bakery phone ring, loud and harsh in the tense silence. It was getting closer to opening and I didn’t even have anything in the oven!
“I’ve got to open and I’ve gotten nothing done!” I cried.
My brother glanced around the kitchen as if seeing it for the first time.
“You need more help,” he said in his abrupt, harsh way. “Why are you doing this all by yourself? Where is this man you used to be engaged to?”
“He has another job,” I said hastily, wringing my hands, and ignoring what he said. He didn’t have the power to break off my engagement! “But I’ve got to get in these blackberry tarts and chocolate muffins and almond pastries or they’ll never be ready!”
“OK, sister,” he said. “What do we need to do?”
I wanted to grind my teeth at his casually proprietary use of “we.” My brother had always been an atrocious cook, and I didn’t think being in a maximum-security prison for 10 years would have improved his skills.
“You don’t have to help,” I said. “I appreciate you coming by to visit me, though.”
His midnight-blue eyes gleamed at me, and I thought I saw something flash in them.
“I’m not going anywhere, Laoise,” he said evenly. “And you will be coming back home with me whether I have to hog-tie you or not.”
