“Actually,” Marty said, strolling into the room with two cans of soda in her hands, “she’s making it for me, because the crust upsets my stomach and later tonight she’s baking me an apple pie.”

“If ye weren’t knocked up ye know that I’d be the favorite,” Shayne said, accepting the can of soda that Marty held out to him.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Marty said smugly, earning a smile from him as she placed his soda on the nightstand and leaned down to kiss Tristan.

“Enough of that now,” Liam said as he appeared in the room. Fergus appeared a few seconds later. “We have some things that we need to discuss.”

Marty brushed her lips against his one more time before she carefully climbed over him so that she could sit between him and Shayne. If any other man had thrown his arm around Marty’s shoulders the way that Shayne did he probably would have killed him, but he didn’t have any worries. He knew exactly how Shayne felt about Marty, because he remembered everything, absolutely everything.

It was a bit frightening at times to have so many memories swimming around in his head, but it was also a blessing. Now he knew exactly how much his brothers loved him and what they’d been through for him. For the first time in his life, lives, he felt truly whole. He had his wife, a child on the way and he had his brothers. He didn’t know how long this would last, but he planned on enjoying it while it did.

The only thing that marred his happiness was this f**king curse. Things had changed and he didn’t know just how much or how it would affect them. He also wasn’t sure if he’d escaped the curse. Marty believed it and for now, to keep her happy he kept his thoughts to himself. He didn’t think the curse was done with them yet.

“Quinn, ye need to keep watch over Shayne,” Liam announced, earning a snarl from Shayne and a shit eating grin from Quinn.

“I don’t need a guard.”

Liam simply ignored him the way that he normally did when he wanted to piss him off, which was often. “We need to figure out why Shayne’s soul mate is trying to contact ye,” Liam said, reminding him that he had a few phone calls that he needed to return. Now that he was back on full medical, that shouldn’t be a problem, he thought miserably.

He f**king hated full medical.

“She’s a private investigator,” he said, grabbing the ice pack on his shoulder and readjusting it before it could fall off. “She’s looking into a cold case for a client that I’m investigating.”

Liam nodded, looking thoughtful. “Aye, that might just work.”

“What might work?” Marty asked, snuggling into Shayne’s side since she couldn’t touch his left shoulder or arm without him passing out. Stupid f**king infection and separated shoulder, he thought bitterly as Shayne wagged his eyebrows in his direction.

“We need an excuse to get these two together,” Liam explained, doing a great job of erasing all signs of humor off of Shayne’s face.

“Hell no!”

“Doesn’t she think that he’s a mental patient?” Marty asked, obviously trying not to laugh, but his brothers didn’t seem to care enough to try and hide their amusement.

“Aye,” Quinn said, chuckling. “Shayne always did have a way with the lasses.”

“I’m not doing it,” Shayne said firmly.

“It’s the only way we can find out how this curse is working. If ye can get the lass and break the curse on yer end, it might allow one of us the chance to do the same,” Liam said, knowing that Shayne would do anything to help his brothers break this curse.

“I hate her,” he said evenly, but not refusing, Tristan noted.

“I’m not asking ye to fall in love with the lass.”

But he was asking Shayne to make her fall in love with him. He didn’t say that and wouldn’t, not with Marty in the room. She wouldn’t like it and, if she hadn’t fallen asleep on Shayne’s shoulder, she’d probably be ripping Shayne a new one.

“Fine, I’ll do it, but as soon as this thing passes off to one of ye, I’m done with her.”

Tristan chuckled, he couldn’t help it. The idea of Shayne trying to court a woman and getting a chance at a little payback for all the bullshit that Shayne had put him through over the years was just too much. This was going to be fun.

“What’s so funny, lad?” Shayne demanded.

“Remember what I told you about payback being a bitch? Well pucker up, ass**le, because here it comes.”

Shayne closed his eyes and let out a pained groan as he dropped his head back against the headboard. “I really f**king hate being human.”

Chapter 42

One month later……

A noise woke Marty up. She sat up in bed and looked around the room, frowning when she didn’t see anything. After a quick glance at the alarm clock on Tristan’s side, she realized that it was a little past three o’clock in the morning and the other half of her bed was still empty.

She still had another night left without him, she remembered with a sigh as she looked around the room again, this time searching for his brothers. When she didn’t see Declean or Finn, she quietly whispered their names, hoping that they’d hear her.

They didn’t.

After a minute, she considered yelling for them, but she didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention if she could help it. She’d only experienced cold dread once and once was more than enough for her. She wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to herself if there was a ghost in the house.

When she heard another loud noise it occurred to her that perhaps it wasn’t a ghost roaming the house. It was probably just Denny or one of their parents dropping by, she realized, letting out a sigh of relief that was quickly halted when something really important occurred to her.

It was after three in the morning and no one in her family would be foolish enough to let themselves in and take the chance of Tristan mistaking them for a burglar. Then again, after Beth had walked in on the two of them ha**ng s*x in the foyer two weeks ago, no one in their family came over without calling first anymore.

“Shit!” she hissed softly as she crawled out of bed and grabbed the baseball bat that she kept beneath her side of the bed. For all of about ten seconds she considered going downstairs and taking care of this problem herself and if wasn’t pregnant, and concerned about the baby getting hurt, she would have done just that.

Cursing Declean and Finn to hell, she grabbed her cell phone and quickly made her way to the walk-in closet. As quietly as she could, she opened the door and stepped inside. The walk-in closet hadn’t been a big deal to her when she’d moved in with Tristan, but right now she was glad that it was so large. There would be plenty of room to swing the bat if an intruder found her.

She opened her phone and called Tristan, hoping that he’d pick up.

“Hey, sweetheart, I-“

“Tristan, there’s someone in the house,” she whispered, cutting him off so that she could quickly get to the point and he could get his ass home where it belonged so that he could beat the shit out of anyone crazy enough to break into their house.

“Where are you?” he asked casually, too casually, she thought. Tristan was extremely overprotective of her. Something like this should have him flipping out and promising to send every cop on duty her way.