Page 9 of Trying Sophie

Chapter Four

Sophie

Standing in baggage claim, my luggage not yet arrived, I let my mind wander. There was a game I sometimes played whenever I landed somewhere new. I’d close my eyes and pretend I was coming home from my travels, that when I unloaded my suitcase it would be into my own dresser, in my own home. How did the thought make me feel? Was I travel weary yet? Was I ready to put down some roots, stay awhile this time? The answer was usually no but then again, I’d never traveled to deal with a family emergency either. Would this time be different? Could I imagine a slower pace of life, helping out while my gramps recovered?

I opened my eyes on a sigh. I might have been feeling a bit unsettled lately but a backwater village in Ireland was hardly the answer. No more so than Pittsburgh or Boston, at any rate. Honestly, I didn’t know there was an answer for the disconnected, disjointed way I’d felt lately. And yet, the idea of not having my next adventure lined up also made me twitchy and nervous. I couldn’t win for trying.

As I watched the carousel filled with other people’s possessions pass by, I started to feel that itchy and anxious feeling creeping in on me about being back in Ireland and I hadn’t even left the airport. I didn’t know how long I planned to visit but I’d told my mom I’d stay two weeks. Considering all I’d given up to carve out even that small amount of time, I wished I’d committed to one week instead. And that made me feel guilty because I didn’t want to put my selfish desires over the very real needs of my grandparents.

Who was I kidding? The reality was even though I’d committed to two weeks, I knew deep down I’d stay much longer. Designating that specific timeframe had been my stupid way of making myself feel better about putting my life on hold. Now on Irish soil, I begrudgingly admitted this was an open-ended trip. And that was where the itchy, twitchy nervousness came from.

I wasn’t used to having open-ended tickets. I was the type of person who made plans that had definitive start and end dates, with many checkpoints along the way. And now, for the first time in a while, I didn’t have an assignment to work on, a deadline to hit, places I absolutely had to visit and write about.

I was flying blind and it was unnerving.

When I spied my luggage making its way toward me, I pushed those thoughts aside. After adjusting my purse and laptop case on the cart to make room for my other bags, I elbowed my way through a gaggle of giggling teens blocking the path and heaved everything onto my trolley.

I’d told my Grandma Maureen I’d rent a car and drive out to Ballycurra but she had poo-pooed the idea. Emphatically, she’d told me she was sending someone to fetch me and I wasn’t to argue with her.

Now, as I maneuvered the cart out of the way of my fellow passengers, through the final customs checkpoint, and into the arrivals terminal, I scanned the crowd for my ride. My eyes slid past the large number of professional chauffeurs dressed in head-to-toe black, knowing that wasn’t an expense my grandparents would have incurred, no matter how ecstatic they’d been to learn of my visit.

There, just a bit back from the crowd, I saw my name written haphazardly in black marker across a piece of wrinkled white notebook paper. And then I saw who was holding that makeshift sign.

Yowza! Welcome to Ireland.

The man bearing the placard that bore my name wasn’t exactly my type—too pretty, too styled—but he was certainly one of the most attractive men I’d ever set eyes on. A little bit taller than everyone around him, the cut of his jeans and the fit of a Henley shirt worn tight against his skin under an open, navy wool pea coat showed off the fact that he was well muscled in all the right places.

Dragging my eyes away from his body for a moment, I realized he’d shuffled his feet and popped his collar in an effort to hide his face. Every so often he’d look around as if he was nervous of being noticed, but as far as I could tell no one paid him any mind. I watched as he scratched the back of his neck and then shoved the make-shift sign under his arm and pulled a beanie out of his pocket. When he pulled it roughly down over his head, covering that perfectly coifed strawberry blonde hair, the gesture only made his blue eyes all the more arresting.

Despite his obvious good looks and the stylish nature of his clothing, the man—who I guessed to be in his late 20s or early 30s—seemed a bit rough around the edges too. Closer now, I could see he sported a black eye and there was a red, angry gash above his eyebrow that looked gruesome enough to be a fresh wound. And while his hair before he’d covered it had been coifed into a perfect prohibition-era style undercut, he hadn’t taken the same time or care with his facial hair, sporting an extremely sexy five o’clock shadow even though it was only nine o’clock in the morning.

After sizing him up and deciding to thank my grandma for sending such a lovely specimen of manhood to pick me up, I caught his eye and smiled his way. When I lifted my hand into a wave, a look of recognition crossed his face as he sauntered over to me. When we were just feet apart, he stared at me for a few moments longer than was comfortable. As his eyes flicked over my face and he took me in, his lips hitched up in a small, satisfied smile.

Even though I’d taken my time ogling him from afar, his own perusal made me uncomfortable. Hot. Twitchy.

“Hi, Sophie. Good to see you again.”

When he clasped his much larger hand around my smaller one, I felt the presence of rough skin against my palm. A working man.

I returned his shake and nodded. From his greeting, it was obvious met before but I couldn’t place him. Did he work at my grandparents’ pub? I couldn’t remember meeting anyone the last time I’d blown through town who matched the man standing in front of me, nor did I recall my grandma having mentioned someone like him. She’d talked often enough about Cian Kelly, who she referred to as “that dark-haired devil” so I knew this guy wasn’t my old classmate, but beyond that he was a complete mystery.

“Thanks for fetching me, but I’m afraid you’ve got me at a loss. You clearly know who I am, but you are …?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Of course,” he muttered under his breath as a smirk crossed his lips.

Then he bestowed me with a full, heart-stopping smile and I felt the gesture somewhere deep inside of me. That he could make my stomach flutter in such a way with just one look was unprecedented; this type of immediate, all-encompassing attraction wasn’t normal for me. It felt both marvelous and deadly at the same time and I didn’t know if I liked it. No, that wasn’t true. I loved it and loathed it in equal measure.

That was when I realized he still held my hand. Not wanting to appear rude but needing to get my bearings, I slid it from his grasp and hitched my bag higher on my shoulder as I waited for him to tell me his name.

“Your granny didn’t say who she was sending, did she?”

“Nope,” I confirmed. “So why don’t you do the honors.”

He dropped his head and grabbed the back of his neck with one of those work-roughened hands. Glancing back up, his lips hitched in another one of those flirty smirks I was beginning to think he wielded like a weapon against unsuspecting females susceptible to his flirtatious charms. Lord knew they disarmed me easily enough.His eyes roved over my face for a few brief seconds and then he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and said five words that sent me reeling.

“Declan O’Shaughnessy at your service.”

I sputtered and gulped and basically did a piss poor job of hiding my reaction. This … this … this beautiful fucking piece of man flesh standing before me was my childhood nemesis Declan “The Turd” O’Shaughnessy? No way. No fucking way.

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