Page 39 of Sins of Innocence

And Maureen has drawn the conclusion that I wouldn't be here, having spent the afternoon and evening with the girls, if Áine and I hadn't already made a serious commitment to each other.

Conveniently for us and the necessity of making them my family, she's right.

"My gran was Irish and my grandfather Albanian, so I am part Slavic. But mom was assaulted by her employer while my stepfather was out of town." His prison was in upstate New York, so not a lie.

"I take it the miscreant wasn't Albanian?" Disgust fills Maureen's tone.

"No, ma'am. He was not." He was Cosa Nostra scum.

Now, he's worm food.

"Your mother chose to keep you."

"At great cost to herself," I agree. "But she loved me."

Mom had no way of knowing just how big a price she would pay for keeping and loving the child conceived from rape.

Maureen's hostile attitude drains away. "She's a good woman."

"She was." No matter what my stepfather tried to make her into, ma was a good woman and mom.

"She's gone? Oh, I'm that sorry, son. Too many of the good die young."

From Mr. Lleshi to son? I don't like revealing my past, but it was worth it to mitigate additional questioning like this of Áine. She doesn't like lying to her family and I'll do what I have to in order to make that as unnecessary as possible.

"Thank you. I still miss her." The woman she was before my stepfather got out of prison and turned her life into a miserable hell of existence.

"I'm sure you do. It's the way of things. I swear it was missing her dad that had my Áine jumping into marriage at the young age of eighteen." Maureen shakes her head. "Not that we can be anything but grateful to be blessed by my granddaughters. So, something good came from that marriage."

"You weren't a fan?"

"I don't speak ill of the dead, young man."

But if she did, she'd have nothing good to say about her daughter's dead husband. We've got that in common then.

"I'll do my best by them and your daughter, Mrs. Dougal," I vow.

"Oh, call me Maureen, Kieran. None of this ma'am or Mrs. Dougal business. We don't stand on ceremony in this family." She busies herself pouring the now boiled water over the teabags in three mugs.

Which is why she called me Mr. Lleshi when we first met, to point out that I was not yet a part of their family.

"Thank you."

She turns back to face me, blue gray eyes as expressive as her daughter's, but without the heterochromatic brown circle, narrow on me. "That doesn't mean you've got my blessing to marry my daughter just yet."

"You need to get to know me first."

"I'm glad you understand that."

"As long as you understand that whether or not I marry Kieran is my decision and not yours, mom," Áine says from the doorway.

"Of course it is, child," Maureen agrees readily. "I didn't raise a daughter willing to let anyone else make her decisions for her, but that doesn't mean I won't have my say."

Áine's lips form a flat line at her mother's words.

Maureen probably thinks that it's in reaction to her determination to have her say. But I know it's about Áine's belief she was railroaded into this marriage, her choices taken from her.

It would be a lot easier if she'd been raised in the culture I was, or as part of the mob. Arranged marriages are pretty common in both.