Nancy Warren - Aftershocks

“I can handle the potato salad,” she said, entering the house. She handed him the presents and started pulling off her sweater. “But the ten demons from hell are your department.”

He shot her a grateful grin.

“Thanks. I owe you.”

Since she knew her way around his kitchen, she went straight in, trying to ignore the howls and yells of the boys currently stampeding through the house. Demons from hell wasn’t so far off, she decided.

The potatoes were boiling merrily in the pot. Patrick hadn’t peeled them before putting them on to cook, but she could deal with that. She opened the cutlery drawer, found a fork and pushed it into a random potato. Still hard. Good.

“How do you know where Patrick keeps his cutlery?” a sharp voice from the sliding doors leading into the backyard made her jump and almost drop the fork.

Swinging round, she saw Shannon, Patrick’s younger sister-you could never call her little-staring at her with an expression that was far from benign.

Why shouldn’t she know where Patrick kept his cutlery? There was an innocent enough explanation, but she hadn’t seen Shannon since the night she’d helped rescue Patrick and Briana from the elevator, and the same suspicious gaze was riveted on her now.

Briana noticed then that the adults she’d heard out in the yard weren’t just parents of the other boys. There were a lot of O’Sheas out on the lawn, laughing and talking. In fact, Briana realized with a stab of panic that the birthday party was as much a family gathering as a kids’ affair.

Shannon slid the door closed and came closer.

“Lucky guess,” Briana told her. “Patrick’s having potato salad angst. Since you’re obviously more familiar with his kitchen, why don’t you make the salad?” She stepped back and made a graceful gesture toward the pot.

Shannon shrugged and sent her a wry smile. “Potato salad’s not my specialty.”

“Wash your hands and grab a knife. You can be my sous-chef.”

While Shannon did just that, she said, “I’m surprised Patrick invited you.”

“Patrick didn’t invite me,” Briana assured Patrick’s nosy sister. “Dylan did.”

“Oh. He’s a nice kid. More sensitive than he looks.”

“I wasn’t sure what to wear,” Briana said, only half-teasing. “The last time I was at a ten-year-old’s birthday party, I think I wore pigtails and a Cabbage Patch doll T-shirt.”

This sally didn’t receive so much as a smidgen of a grin in return. “Why are you here?”

“I told you, Dylan invited me.”

“Yeah. But you didn’t have to say yes. You look like a woman who gets a lot of weekend invitations.”

Briana understood that Shannon was protective of her brother and her niece and nephew. She respected that, so instead of getting snippy, she was honest. Letting out a breath, she turned to lean against the kitchen counter. “I planned to say no, but it’s harder than you’d think to say no to Dylan.”

Shannon emitted a surprisingly musical laugh. “Don’t I know it. All the O’Shea men inherited the Irish charm.”

Briana nodded and turned back to recheck the potatoes. Patrick sure had charm, and it had worked on her all right. She turned off the stove burner.

“You probably think I’m being pushy and sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Shannon remarked.

Briana didn’t answer.

Behind her, Shannon snorted. “Okay, I am being pushy and sticking my nose in, but I love Patrick and Dylan and Fiona and I don’t want to see them hurt.”

“Patrick and I aren’t-”

“Save it. I’ve seen the way you look at each other. I’m not stupid.” She pushed her hair away from her face. “You didn’t know Patrick when Janie was alive.”

This got Briana’s attention. She turned and gazed at Shannon. “No. I didn’t.”

Shannon ’s gaze clouded. “It broke us all up when it happened. Janie wasn’t even sick. One day, everything’s fine. Patrick’s got this perfect life. He’s married to the girl he started dating in high school. He’s got these two great kids. He’s the fire chief. Life can’t get any better. And then poof. It’s over.”

“Tell me about it,” Briana suggested gently. It was obvious this was tough on Shannon, but she was the one who’d opened the subject, and Briana really wanted to know more.

The usually tough firefighter rubbed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Janie woke up that morning and said she wasn’t feeling well. She had a headache. So Patrick told her to stay in bed. He got the kids up and gave them their breakfast. Dylan was in first grade. Fiona was only two. Patrick dropped Dylan off at school, and to give Janie a break, he took Fiona to our mom’s for a few hours.”

Shannon shook her head. “Thank God he did. Janie died that morning. Patrick had run home to check on her and he found her on the floor. She had the phone in her hand. She must have been trying to call for help.” Her gaze sharpened on Briana. “You think he’s ever forgiven himself for leaving her that morning?”

“But she only said she had a headache.” Briana shrugged. “Most people would take a pill and not think anything of it. Why would he worry? I mean, it’s a terrible, terrible tragedy, but I don’t see how Patrick can blame himself.”

Shannon looked at her steadily for a moment. “I’m going to tell you something not very many people know. No one outside the family knows. Janie couldn’t take a pain reliever. She was pregnant.” She swallowed noisily, and Briana thought that as formidable a foe as Shannon could obviously be, she was also the kind who loved, and deeply. It was clearly painful for her to talk about her sister-in-law’s death.

“Oh, no.”

“She was only three months along, but Patrick blames himself for that, too. He was the one who wanted more kids. I don’t think Janie minded either way, but he’d come from this big loud family, and that’s what he wanted. And he ended up losing his wife, as well as the baby she carried.”

“But that wasn’t his fault!” Briana cried, moved almost to tears by the story.

“Tell him that.”

She drained the potatoes and filled the pot with cold water, letting this new information seep in. “Of course he blames himself. I guess I would in the same situation.”

“So maybe now you can see why I won’t have him hurt. I’ll tell you right now, and it’s not to minister to your vanity, but in the three years since Janie’s been gone, I’ve never seen him look at another woman the way he looks at you. And that scares me.”

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Briana said softly. And it was the truth, but not the whole truth. She’d come to Courage Bay to hurt him. To revenge her family. She felt sick inside.

“If you do, if you hurt him or those kids, I promise I will take you apart.”

This was not a promise Briana took lightly. One glance at those fierce blue eyes, and she knew she’d never want to cross Patrick’s sister.

She nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I’m not stupid, you know. He won’t tell me anything, but I know you two weren’t playing charades inside that elevator. He’s got it bad.” She shook her head, hair falling around her face. “Besides, you look at him the same way he looks at you.”

Briana blinked, startled. She did? She thought her feelings for Patrick were her secret, and here she was broadcasting them every time she looked his way?

Not good.

“Don’t worry,” Shannon said, relaxing once more. “I don’t think anyone but me has noticed.” She chuckled. “It was pretty hard not to notice when you came out of that elevator with your blouse hanging open and the pair of you looking like…well, I don’t think the earthquake was the only thing that made the earth move.”