Page 15 of Beat of Love
It should have felt like a celebration. Instead, it was a reminder of the last time he had eaten alfresco — beneath a canopy of jungle vines, not heritage oaks. No linen napkins. No clinking glassware. Just a single dented pot over coals, shared among people enslaved in one way or another to the cartel. The food had been meager, a thin stew with a little rice, and no one lingered at the fire.
Here, the plates were heaped high, and the scent of the feast curled thick through the air. It was the smell of comfort, of home-cooked excess — savory and warm, steeped in herbs, fat, and roasting juices. The kind of scent that should stir hunger.
Instead, it turned his stomach with brutal efficiency.
His body, still relearning what to trust, flinched at the richness. He tasted bile, sharp and sudden, and swallowed hard. He would not vomit. Would not give them that.
But he knew with utter certainty — he didn’t belong.
Not there in the jungle.
And certainly not here.
“Raffie!”
Ma’s voice cut through the chatter. Conversations stilled. As one, they turned to look at him.
He resisted the urge to bolt.
Because the eyes locked on him now held the same expression as those in the jungle — tight with wariness, thick with suspicion. Watching to see if he’d snap, fail, relapse.
His skin crawled, nerve endings lit with shame.
Mammy patted his arm. “You can do it,” she whispered, urging him forward before stepping aside.
He dragged in a breath.
Man the fuck up, Rafferty. Take whatever shit they throw your way. The feast isn’t for you anyway. It’s for Esther — the real prodigal. You’re just the broken black sheep she stumbled upon on her way home.
Still,fuck, how he wished things were different.
A young woman with pink-streaked dark hair dressed in a strappy white sundress and colorful tattoos covering her exposed arms and shoulders rose from her seat at the end closest to him. “Hey,” she said, smiling broadly as she moved closer. “Welcome home, Raff.”
“Josie.” He stared at the radiant woman with awe. The last time he had seen her, they had both been chasing demons. Now she glowed with happiness. “Marriage suits you.”
Brown eyes danced with mirth as she reached up to kiss his cheek. “It does.” A young boy of around ten ran up. Steppingback, Jo placed her arm around the kid’s shoulders and drew him closer. “And this is my boy, Ethan, Kurt’s youngest.”
“Nice to meet you, Ethan,” Rafferty said.
“Mama-Jo said you workedundercoverfor the DEA,” the kid gushed. “That’s so cool.”
Once, he’d thought so, too. Until it sucked him under.
The uniformed man joining Jo placed a protective arm around her waist, his demeanor watchful and suspicious, a sharp contrast to her high spirits. “Rafferty,” he said, stretching out his hand. Kurt’s badge caught the light, all business even at a family gathering.
Rafferty took hold of his brother-in-law’s hand. “Kurt.”
The handshake was firm, controlled. Not unfriendly, but not warm either. And he could feel the lawman’s gaze assessing him — not as a brother returned, but as a man with a very shady past.
“And this is my oldest son, Blake,” Kurt added as a teenage boy moved in beside Ethan.
Blake merely gave him a chin lift, his look a mix of suspicion and curiosity.
“My turn,” a woman said, stepping into the space Josie left behind. She had a toddler on her hip — a little girl in a floppy sunhat who clung to her mother like ivy.
“Good to have you home, Rafferty,” she said. The words sounded right, even kind, but the tight set of her mouth and the small dent between her brows told a different story.
“Siobhan.” He nodded, his gaze shifting to the child in her arms. He forced a smile, tamping down the stab of disappointment. “Hi, sweetie.” The little girl peeked at him, then promptly buried her face in her mother’s neck.
