PROLOGUE

THOR

Feannag 1978

As soon as I walked into the kitchen and saw Maggie and Kate’s faces, I knew something was wrong. I also knew it could only be about my children’s mother because that’s all she was, and I use the term mother loosely. Kate and Maggie looked after Noni and Marcus more than she did. It’s only because of them that I could relax and do my job as a pilot in the Royal Air Force. At least with them at home, I knew the children weren’t being neglected.

Tilting my head back, I inhaled a deep breath and counted to ten trying to lower my temper. Silvie and I’d always had a volatile relationship from before she’d fallen pregnant with Marcus. Our arguments were legendary. Maggie was convinced it was because we were both redheads; I didn’t agree. I wasn’t a man that was quick to anger, but Silvie was the exception to the rule. She’d drive a saint to drink.

“Where is she?”

Kate pointed upstairs. I nodded before asking, “And the children?”

“Dog took the boys out and the girls are napping in Kate and Shep’s wing,” Maggie answered.

“Thanks.” With a tired sigh I trudged upstairs wondering what I was going to be walking into this time. The one good thing about us living here was that Silvie couldn’t bring random men around. It’s not like I didn’t know that she messed around on me. I did. But my children were more important to me than who she was sleeping with, and I knew if I made waves she’d take them from me and I’d not have a leg to stand on, especially with Noni. Marcus was biologically mine, but my baby girl wasn’t. I don’t even know if Silvie knew who Noni’s father was. I didn’t care that she didn’t carry my blood; she’d been my baby girl from the instant they put her still covered in goo and blood in my arms. Marcus, at four, was getting old enough to realise that his parents weren’t the same as his friends. Noni, at two, was too young to know; added to the fact that she spent most of her time with Avy in Kate and Shep’s wing when I was gone, I don’t think she noticed that her mother was never around.

Coming to a stop in our bedroom doorway, my eyebrows rose in surprise, it looked like a tornado had come through it. There were clothes and shoes strewn everywhere, a half-packed suitcase on the bed and Silvie was hurriedly throwing more clothes in, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth.

There was no denying that she was a beautiful woman and that was what had initially drawn me to her. She was tall, nearly five foot ten, with curves that made a man want to take hold and not let go. She had miles of curly, bright red hair that hung down her back to halfway down her backside. It was only when you got closer and got a look at her eyes that you saw the discontent.

Leaning against the doorframe, my arms crossed against my chest, I casually asked, “Going somewhere, Silvie?”

She didn’t pause in her packing just threw a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder at me, taking her cigarette out of her mouth she stubbed it out in the ashtray next to the bed, knowing how much I hated it that she smoked in the bedroom. It was just another thing that got on my wick, but I’d learned to pick my battles.

“I’m leaving,” she snapped.

Raising a brow at her tone, “Oh, for how long?”

Silvie closed up the suitcase she’d been packing, turning to me she stood hands on her hips, “I’m leaving, Thor, and I’m not coming back. I didn’t sign up for this.”

“Sign up for what, exactly?” I questioned, puzzled.

“This,” Silvie waved her arms around the room, “Being a mother, a partner, tied to this godforsaken place by those brats and constantly being judged by the two bitches downstairs. I’m done. I’m leaving.”

Straightening from the doorframe, “What exactly do you mean, Silvie, lay it out for me. Is this just one of your flights of fancy, or are you leaving for good?”

Rolling her eyes at me, she pulled her suitcase off the bed, grabbed her handbag, slipping it over her head as she looked around at the mess she’d left.

“I’m leaving, Thor, as in not coming back. Is that clear enough for your thick skull?”

“Crystal clear, Silvie. What about Marcus and Noni?”

She shrugged and continued to walk towards me, “You can keep them, I don’t want them. If you don’t want to keep the girl because she’s not yours, then get rid of her.”

My blood was boiling at her callous words. “Jesus, Silvie, you’re a fucking cunt.”

“Fuck you, Thor,” she spat at me and went to walk past.

Grabbing her arm, I pulled her to a stop, “Hear me, Sil, you walk out those doors, do not come back. Understand that the minute you leave, then you leave for good. If you come anywhere near here again, it won’t end well for you.”

She didn’t reply, just went to walk away, but I wasn’t having that. I needed to know that she understood.

As I was still holding her arm, I jerked her to a hard stop and swung her around until she faced me, her green eyes wide with surprise. Not once in all the time we’d been together had I ever been physical with her, not even when she was throwing shit at me or the time she’d stabbed me with a letter opener had I put my hands on her. So, I guess me being a little rough was enough to get her attention.

“Do you get me, Silvie?” I ground out harshly, my temper close to boiling point.

She stared at me for a moment before nodding, “I get you, Thor, I won’t be back.”

Letting her go, I watched as the mother of my children walked away, not once looking back. It was the last we saw of her.

For the next few years, I muddled through with the help of all the Crows.

Then the Falklands happened, but once the war was over, we all resigned. We’d done our time and as I was a single parent, I couldn’t leave the children with no parents if something happened to me.

I swore off women and relationships. Silvie had soured them for me. That’s not to say I didn’t find company when I needed to, I’d been twenty-nine when Silvie left, and I was fifty-five when I again met a woman that knocked me on my arse. All four foot eleven of her, but fuck me, what a woman she was.