Free About Face (Wolf Within) by Amy Lee Burgess Page A

in Belfast, and now he’d sold the cottage. It shouldn’t have hurt because the man walked out on me four months ago, but it still did. Now I’d never see it. Of course, it could be cover for his investigation into the whereabouts of Mick Shaughnessy, but I could not blurt that question in case Paddy didn’t know about the conspiracy.
    Besides, Murphy wouldn’t have to put the cottage up for sale to support his investigation of Grandfather Mick. If anything, he’d want to keep it as a base away from home as he traveled around the UK. My stomach soured, and I wished I hadn’t wolfed my food so fast.
    “Well, I guess he’s not planning to leave the pack and grow vegetables this time around,” I remarked, chin jutted.
    After Sorcha died he’d left Mac Tire, bought the cottage, and escaped. After he left me, he’d sold the cottage and apparently planned to say in the pack. Which meant…
    “Who is she? He’s got someone new, hasn’t he?” My heart beat painfully in my chest, and I wanted to rip it out and stomp on it to make it stop.
    “Don’t be daft,” Paddy advised. “Sure and he’ll have to bond with somebody if you don’t figure out a way to get back with him, but you heard Alannah, didn’t you? He’s been scowling and moody the whole bloody time he’s been here. Snapping at people or more likely ignoring the crap out of them. If he’s got somebody new, she’s a masochist for sure.” Then a grin spread across his attractive face. “You’re jealous.”
    “You’re fucked in the head,” I snapped, and he laughed, the bastard.
    “You do want him back,” he crowed.
    I scowled at him. “Well, duh, that’s why I’m here. But you don’t have to get all smirky about it. So I admit it. I want him back. But since I wasn’t the one who walked out, I don’t see how what I want means shit.”
    “Then why are you here?”
    Because of you, mostly , I thought to myself but didn’t say since Paddy didn’t know that part. Ask him , Stanzie . Ask him if Murphy’s in bad trouble. But I wasn’t sure it was the right time. I wasn’t even sure that’s what the dream meant. I wasn’t sure of any goddamn thing.
    “I’m tired. Do you know any good hotels? Since Murphy’s not here, there’s no sense in me sticking around here tonight.” I yawned and stretched my arms over my head.
    An affronted expression made Paddy look like a mule.
    “A hotel now? You’ll be traveling all this way, and you being Mac Tire and asking me if I know any good hotels? You rude little bitch.”
    “What?” I glared. “What did I do now?”
    “Mac Tire don’t stay in hotels in Dublin, woman,” Paddy roared, and if they didn’t hear him downstairs in the pub, it was only because everyone had gone deaf.
    “Where would you suggest I stay?” I made my voice as sweet as I could, but he still grimaced as if I sounded like nails down a chalkboard.
    “Not a hotel,” he barked. He fished in his pocket and came up with a set of keys. He extracted one from the main keychain. It had its own keychain, one with a small Eiffel Tower dangling from it. My heart gave a lurch in my chest.
    “Here,” he tossed it to me, and I caught it automatically. My mind flashed back to a windy afternoon in Paris when Murphy and I had sat together on a bench on the first level of the Eiffel Tower and drank coffee while we read case files Jason had given us.
    I’d bought the keychain in the gift shop, and somehow he’d ended up with it. I’d forgotten all about it until I saw it in Paddy’s hand.
    “I’ll give you a lift to Liam’s place. You’ll stay there.”
    “What if he comes home?” I said, panicked.
    “Oh, the horror,” Paddy screamed in a girlish voice. “The man you want to get back with comes home and finds you sleeping in his bed. Whatever would you do?”
    “Shut up,” I snapped. “You’re such a bastard, Paddy.”
    “If you continue to hurt my feelings, I’ll make Alannah give you that lift,” he threatened,