The Aftermath (The Hurricane, #2)(27)
“That’s good news, Heath,” Kier congratulated him. “How d’you get him to agree to it?”
“Pretty much the same way Kieran got us to shoot Tommy,” he answered, and he and Kieran smiled conspiratorially. “It’s only fair to warn you though, Con,” he told me. “You f*ck up this fight, and you won’t get another chance at Temple. His star is on the rise, and he’s telling everyone who’ll listen that he’s already knocked you out. You were just too stupid to go down.”
“That right?” I said smiling. There’s nothing like going into a fight as the underdog. Temple thought he knew me, knew my play because he’d seen me on a bad day. I was going to bring his whole world crashing down around him. Danny looked stern and not too happy at all. “What’s wrong, Danny?” I asked him.
“Not sure if your head is in the right place yet. Physically you’ll be fine but one sort of goes hand in hand with the other.”
“We’ll make sure he’s ready,” Kieran reassured him, and it was pretty obvious how much he wanted me to take on this fight.
“When’s all this meant to be going down anyway?” Liam asked.
“December tenth,” Earnshaw answered, and the whole room went quiet.
“We can’t take the fight,” I told him, my voice echoing in the silence.
“Why not?” he said, alarmed.
“The trial for Em’s stepfather Frank starts a month before,” I told him.
“Fuck,” Earnshaw muttered. “What’re the chances of Temple changing the date?” Kieran asked, knowing there was no way I could do that to Em.
“Zero. This is it. Take it or leave it. You’ll get another chance at the title again but you can kiss it good-bye for another three or four years.”
“Shit,” I added, trying to remember all the stuff that Father Pat had told me as I started losing hold of my temper. Finally, after counting to fifty in my head, I made a decision. “Then we wait three or four years. Nothing is more important than Em.”
*
Four weeks to the day that we made an offer, the run-down, ramshackle shit hole that we’d fallen in love with became officially ours. It had been torn down and beat up but I intended to rebuild it, and Em would give it a soul. The irony that the house mirrored our own situation was not lost on me.
After picking up the keys from the agent we walked toward the house through the park. When we got to the bench, Em tugged on my hand as she sat, pulling me down next to her. Without needing to be asked, she cuddled her body into mine and rested her head on my chest. Watching her as she listened to my heartbeat, I felt safe. Is that odd? For a woman to make a man feel safe?
I don’t mean to say that I was afraid of the people around me. I could take care of myself well enough that the prospect of ever getting mugged or jumped didn’t bother me. Most of the time my only fear was of losing Em. She was the beating heart of me that walked around outside my body. She was my greatest strength and my Achilles’ heel. The only way to hurt me was to hurt her.
“You know you need this fight so why are you procrastinating?” she asked me. “Procrastinating means putting it off, I take it?” I queried with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, love,” she said with a smile, “That’s exactly what it means.” She slid her fingers back and forth between mine, and I watched her tiny, pale hands, against the contrast of my own dark, callused hand. My ring was missing from her finger and she wouldn’t let me replace it, but truthfully I’d lost hope of ever getting it back. It amazed me every day that someone so small and fragile could be so strong and brave and I couldn’t find the words to explain that I wasn’t giving up. I was standing my ground to stay and protect what was mine.
“I know why you don’t want to take the fight,” she told me. “I know, but you’re making the wrong decision. This trial could be adjourned or it could be over in a couple of days, and then what? You’ve thrown away your shot at the title for nothing.”
“And what if the trial goes ahead. What kind of man am I to leave his wife to go through that alone? The fact that I couldn’t protect you once is something I have to live with for the rest of my life. But to let you stand there and face him by yourself is something I won’t ever do. So please, baby, please don’t ask.”
“But I’m not alone, O’Connell. Neither of us are. We both have enough family that I’ll practically have an army behind me. It doesn’t matter what Frank did because I will be in the front of that courtroom making sure that he never gets the chance to do it ever again. And when I’m done, I’m going to be exactly where I should have been last time. In the front row, ringside, watching my husband raise his title belt.”
A swell of pride ran through me as I imagined the look on Em’s face if I did exactly that. She was asking me to sacrifice my place at her side so that I could stand before her and lay the world at her feet. I didn’t like it. Not one little bit, but Em was the smart one. If this was what she wanted, I’d swallow the bitter pill and give it to her.
“Okay, love. You win. I’ll fight.” She squealed with excitement. “There are rules. Lots and lots of rules,” I warned her.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she said. It humbled me that she was pleased with my decision. Frank terrified her, and she was facing him alone to offer me my dream. If there was ever a bigger gesture of love than that, I couldn’t think of one, and I knew I’d change my mind about it if I thought about it long enough.