The Marriage Contract(26)

She shuddered. Best not to think about that, because if he was, then this whole thing was a lost cause. As things stood, she still wasn’t sure she trusted Teague. It was entirely possible he was playing her—probable, even. She certainly hadn’t told him everything over dinner, and she’d be a fool to think he hadn’t kept more back than he’d divulged. Only time would tell if she could trust him.

And time was the one thing she didn’t have.

Movement beside the car made her jump, but she took a deep breath when she recognized John. He’d been with her father since she was too young to remember otherwise and, as a result, she recognized the tightness of his jaw and the disapproval written across his face. He opened the door. “Miss Sheridan, your father is worried.” He gave her a significant look. “He expected you home an hour ago.”

Which she would have been if she’d come straight here after walking out of the restaurant with Teague. Apparently Micah hadn’t seen fit to report back exactly how long she and her fiancé had been in the backseat of the SUV. That shouldn’t matter, though. What mattered was that John was treating her as if she were still sixteen and he’d caught her sneaking out with her high school friends to meet some boys. Callie lifted her chin. “I had something to take care of.”

Something that her body was still humming with. That tangle of emotions was too messy to deal with right now, so she pushed it aside in favor of focusing on the problem at hand. “Is something happening?”

Instead of answering, he stepped back and let her pass. “If you’ll come with me.”

It was always like this with the old-timers who’d watched her grow up. The younger guys were mostly willing to follow whichever Sheridan was in charge, as long as they proved they were willing to do what it took to keep the family in power. They, at least, were willing to sit back and hold off judgment until Callie either sank or swam.

But the men who’d known her long enough to watch her play dolls and run crying to her father whenever Ronan’s playing got too rough and she ended up hurt? They couldn’t seem to acknowledge the fact that she was no longer ten, and was more than capable of leading if they’d just give her the chance.

She was the one who’d taken Moira’s, a floundering restaurant they used as a way to import some of the more sensitive illegal materials, and turned it into a raging success in its own right. At first Papa hadn’t been thrilled with the increase in clientele, but even he had to admit that the more people they had coming and going, the easier it was to cover up their people coming and going. Even better, with the expansion, it was now bringing in a good amount of clean money.

Riding high on that success, Callie had just turned her attention to another restaurant they owned when Ronan had died and she’d been thrust into the darker side of what being a Sheridan meant. She didn’t particularly like dealing with everything that it entailed, but she was more than qualified to do it.

The familiar frustration rose, but she refused to let it show on her face as she followed John through the hallway connecting the garage to the house and to her father’s office. He and another of his men, Lee, were talking intently, but broke off when she walked through the door. Her father rose, straightening to his full six feet. “Where have you been?”

She stopped short. “What’s going on?”

“We have a strike against the Hallorans tonight, but it was on hold until you got home—which you should have been over an hour ago.” He nodded at Lee, and both he and John left the room, closing the door behind them.

She turned to look, the sinking feeling in her chest telling her everything she needed to know about what kind of violence was planned tonight. “Papa, you have to call them off.”

“I have to do no such thing.”

“Victor Halloran is striking out because he just lost his son. Surely you can understand that and talk to him instead of escalating the issue?” With each strike and counterstrike, it was becoming more and more likely that this war couldn’t be stopped, no matter what Callie and Teague did.

My fault. She tried to brush the thought away, but it grew teeth and burrowed into her mind. If she’d gone along with her father’s plans to have her marry Brendan, then they wouldn’t be facing war and the deaths of people she knew and cared about. “Please, Papa.”

“You dare to compare Brendan to your brother?” His fists clenched, and her stomach dropped before she forcibly reminded herself that her father had never raised a hand to her in twenty-five years. It was unlikely he’d start now. She hoped. Papa glared at her like he knew this was truly her fault. “You must hold your brother in low esteem.”