Page 41 of Beside Golden Irish Fields
“Go out with me then.” He followed her to her car in his towel, not caring that people were walking on the road, their eyes locked on the spectacle they were making. The village was going to be clucking for days.
“I won’t go out with you. Certainly not after today. Not for all the tea in China!”
“I’ll ask you when I see you next,” he said, reaching her car first and opening the door. “I can be patient.”
The easy way he said it conveyed his resolve, and it made her belly quiver. She’d always wished for patience in a man. The last man she’d expected it from was Donal O’Dwyer.
“I don’t want you to be patient. I want to forget we ever had this conversation.” That she’d ever seen his naked body. How was she to forgetthatwhen they ran into each other at the pub or a store in town?
“Instead of forgetting, you might ask yourself why you’re so opposed to the idea.”
“You have some cheek telling me what to do!”
“You already said that,” he told her, an amused smile hovering on his mouth.
She got into her car and glared at him. “I don’t like you like that.”
He planted his feet, but thankfully the towel didn’t fall. “Your eyes tell me something different. I might have been married for thirty years, but I still know when a woman wants me, and Bets, you surely do.”
“Maybe I’m just horny,” she shot back.
His laughter came from deep in his chest, an engaging sound that called to something inside her very heart. Oh, she didn’t want to feel like this. She had plans. A man would only get in the way.
“I’m horny too,” he said, gesturing to the area wrapped in the white towel. “But that’s not the reason I want to go out with you. Of course, I’d like to have sex with you when the time is right for us. I have a feeling we’ll both be surprised by how good it is. I mean what I said—I’m not interested in you because I want someone to keep house for me. I can do that for myself. We can just enjoy each other.”
She didn’t want to think about having sex with him, and she certainly didn’t want him to tempt her by not tying the privilege of it to washing and ironing his clothes like some of the idiots from the pub. “I’m leaving now.”
“I’ll be seeing you later on,” he said, closing her door carefully. “Put your belt on.”
“You put some clothes on!”
His hand went to where the towel was secured, threatening a mischief that made her heart bounce in her chest. She turned on the car and jammed the gear into reverse, almost running off his driveway and onto the lawn like a drunkard. How embarrassing.
If she went out with him, she would be going backward for sure. Tied down to another man who couldn’t travel or didn’t want to. Who was content to stay at home, watching the telly after dinner or going to the pub with his friends.
She’d loved Bruce—she had. But their relationship had changed after the move to Ireland. They’d been adventurous once. Wild. But living on O’Hanlon land had changed him. He’d fallen back into the routine of working with his dad’s cattle, taking care of his parents, and attending family events with people he didn’t like, Mary Kincaid topping the list. She’d hated spending Sunday after Sunday like that.
Raising the boys had kept her from noticing how many things she’d given up. Sometimes she’d even used them as an excuse to opt out of something she didn’t want to do. She knew she’d babied Liam because of it, and at times she felt ashamed of that. No question: marriage had changed her and restrained her spirit some, even though she’d had the Lucky Charms.
That’s why she understood Angie’s struggles. She was determined to help her with this new project, as much as be helped by it. And Megan… Hadn’t her cousin settled into a predictable life? Only she wasn’t sure if Megan wanted to change, especially given how adamant she’d been in turning down the offer to live on her own and teach ceramics.
Betswanted to change. This was her chance to start living large again. Making and contributing to something more.
A man would try to stifle that, certainly a man from this village. Donal might have said he wanted something else from her, but hadn’t Bruce said the same in the beginning? He hadn’t expected her to become a farmer’s wife, and yet she had.
She rolled down the window to cool down her heated face. She couldn’t show up at the pub like this.
But as she drove past Donal’s sheep in the pasture on the way back to her house, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said.
Especially the part about liking her brand of trouble. Bruce had found the Lucky Charms amusing, but he’d been more of a bystander to their shenanigans than an instigator.
No, she couldn’t forget that, and of all the things Donal had said, that was the one she needed to forget the most.
Chapter Twelve
The Brazen Donkey had the allure of intense hops, heated conversation, and loud music, alongside a cluster of amusing paintings and caricatures of donkeys, apparently an animal many Irish were nostalgic about.
Angie loved it from the moment she stepped inside.
