Page 50 of Trying Sophie

“I don’t think my gramps has come to terms with how his heart attack impacts the rest of their life, much as I’ve tried to get him to.”

“Maureen’s always going on about your travels.”

The non-sequitur had me scratching my head and wondering what she was about. Then again, if you spent any time at all with Siobhan you had to learn to roll with her stream-of-consciousness way of communicating. As far as I could tell, if she had a thought, she shared it … regardless of whether it logically fit in with the current conversation.

“Yes?”

“And you’re here.”

“I am,” I answered, wondering where this was going.

“For how long?”

I shrugged. Sharing time was over. I’d already revealed too much by telling her I agreed with her assessment; I didn’t need her digging her nose into my particulars as well.

“It doesn’t bother you being here instead of out there?” She flung her arms wide, as if to indicate the rest of the world beyond the doors of Fitzgerald’s Pub.

“It’s only been a handful of weeks,” I remarked.

Except I’d already been saying that for a handful of weeks. At this rate, it’d be months before I was gone.

“Would you stay here long term?” She tilted her head and squinted her eyes, as if she was trying to figure out what I was really all about.

I’m not going to lie; her question surprised me. Not so much that she’d asked it, but that no one had done so before now. For as many people as I’d spoken with, they’d all avoid discussing my future plans. Almost as if every day I was here was a gift to my grandparents they didn’t want to jinx.

“Define long term,” I shot back.

When she continued sizing me up, I stared back unblinking. If my Grandmother Newport had taught me anything, it was how to bear up under silent scrutiny. In this game of possum, I was well trained.

“Fine,” she said, slamming her palms on the bar between us. “Forever.”

That was a pretty sizable gauntlet to have thrown down. I tried not to balk.

“Forever’s a very long time,” I answered slowly.

“It is. And this place is your family legacy.”

“You say that like it’s been in my family for generations. My grandpa’s the first Fitzgerald to own it.”

“True.” She backed away and tossed her rag over her shoulder. “But you’ve got the means to buy it off them,” she added as she sauntered away.

As if she hadn’t just rocked my world.

Up until this moment I hadn’t known the extent to which most people here understood my family over there. Then again, I should have guessed my mother “marrying up” all those years ago would have been a major point of gossip, especially when she refused to return.

The thing was, I wasn’t rich. At least not in the way they assumed. The trust I’d received at 18 had paid for college and then funded my career when I struck out on my own. I’d been working steadily for the past five years, making a good living, but I didn’t have as much money as people seemed to think. Not enough, anyway, to buy a pub.

You will, when you turn thirty. Or when you get married, I reminded myself with a sneer. I didn’t begrudge my grandparents holding my money in trust until I was older; what I was offended by was the marriage provision. As if a young bride was somehow more deserving of her legacy than a slightly older, single woman. Not surprisingly, a few of my cousins had married their college boyfriends in order to get their hands on that cash, only to divorce less than five years later. Thank goodness an iron-clad pre-nup was also part of the trust.

Personally, I hoped no one ever learned about the money because if I ever met someone I was serious about, I didn’t want to wonder if they were with me for my inheritance or not. I’d already been through that once, and once was enough.

But there was no point in even thinking about it since I wasn’t getting married anytime soon and my 30th birthday was still three-and-a-half years away. So no, I didn’t have the means to buy the pub. Nor did I have the means to keep it in their name and simply fix what was wrong with the building. My hands were completely tied with some very strong red tape.

And so I spent the next couple of hours in a foul mood, bemoaning my Grandparents Newport for their high-handed manipulation and my Grandparents Fitzgerald for their less-than-stellar business acumen. I loved all of them, of course, but right now they were all making my life more difficult than it needed to be … and I didn’t like difficult. There was a reason I was always on the road, avoiding family drama after all.

I was so focused on not messing up a large order that I jumped when Cian grabbed the beer I’d just poured for Seamus Kennedy. He’d been saving a booth for a party of eight since noon and had only ordered two drinks the entire time. I just hoped his group was coming soon because Declan’s match started in 45 minutes and a handful of angry customers were eyeing the empty booth with avarice.

“I’ll take it over to Mr. Kennedy,” I huffed.

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