Page 49 of Craving Chaos
“Like meetups for retrieving gun shipments?” I raise a brow.
“Precisely.”
“You enjoy working with him?”
“Sometimes he gets a stick up his ass, but I’m pretty good at keeping him humble. He likes to pretend I make him crazy.” She smirks. “It works for us.”
I can picture her giving him hell, and it makes me smile.
“What about your brother Oran? Any reason you don’t work with him instead?”
“He’s entirely too overprotective. If he had his way, my role would be limited to bookkeeping or something equally mundane to keep me out of danger.”
“Conner isn’t like that?”
Her eyes lift as though her thoughts have taken her back to another time and place. “You know, there’s something different about Conner. I don’t know if it’s because he’s adopted or just his personality, or something entirely unrelated, but he’s always been more open about giving someone a shot. He manages to be a surly bastard while also being open-minded and fair.”
“What about the older generation? I can’t imagine they made it easy for you to join the ranks.”
Her gaze drops to her hands, and I can almost sense her walls trying to rebuild.
“My dad was never an issue. He accepted me just as I was, but my uncles were harder to convince. They refused to let me in the fold for quite a while.” She’s somber, but when her eyes flick up to mine, a mischievous spark melts those barriers. “That is, until my nana got ahold of them. She got fed up with their ridiculous misogyny and put them in their place. After that, no one stood in my way of being a part of the family business.”
“Really?” I’m intrigued. I had no idea the family was matriarchal. “Did she run things when she was younger?”
“Depends on who you ask. Never officially, but if there is a head of our family, it’s Nana Byrne. She keeps everyone in line and never takes shit from anyone.”
“My mother and grandmothers always took a more supporting role than leadership. I think that’s why it’s been so hard on Mom since Dad passed. She’s lost without him.”
Shae’s smile falls. “Yeah, my mom’s the same. Losing Dad destroyed her. Oran and Cael have been looking after her, though.”
“You two not have a good relationship?”
The smile that now tugs on her lips is a sad, paltry shadow of the joy that overtook her talking about her grandmother. “She’s never understood me. I know she doesn’t mean to make me feel like a disappointment, but it’s there in the fine print. She’d hoped to have a mini-me to do girly stuff with, and I’ve never come close to being that person.”
“I saw those stilettos you wore the first time we met. You can’t tell me you don’t enjoy any feminine pursuits.”
“You noticed.” She bites back a grin.
“There’s very little I don’t notice about you.”
She sucks her lips between her teeth and drops her gaze. “Well, what isn’t as easy to discern is that my interest in clothes and hair and accessories is all about functionality. When I look for heels, I select them based on how well they’d double as a weapon, not whether they’re runway-worthy. If I went dress shopping with Mom, I’d get excited to find something that hid my thigh holster well.”
“You were still out shopping together. Was that not enough for her?”
“Not her. She’d get so frustrated about why I couldn’t buy things that were pretty but impractical. Time together hurt our relationship more than it helped. I found it’s best to keep things superficial and brief.”
“Her loss,” I say as I lift my hand and trail a fingertip along the neckline of her shirt. The pulse point at the base of her neck doubles its fluttering motion. As my hand pulls away, I detour to the pendant on her necklace, lifting it for a better look.
“This from your family?” The inlaid woven border is obviously Celtic. She could have bought it herself, but a gift seems more likely.
“Um, no. It’s not.” The odd hitch in her voice draws my gaze from the pendant back to her face. Her eyes stay averted, and her spine stiff. “Guess it’s probably time to call it a night. I’m pretty wiped out.”
She couldn’t have shut down faster if she’d had an off switch.
What the hell is up with that?
The pendant clearly has meaning to her—a sentimentality that she’s not comfortable discussing. Why? I consider who might have given it to her but realize its importance could come from a million different reasons. Grasping at straws is pointless and will only rile me up for no reason. I reluctantly let it go and get ready for bed.