Page 66 of After Indigo Irish Nights
Her mention of her family changed the look on her face again, making it soft and sad. He didn’t like it. “Have you thought about going home to visit them? Do you have the money for it? I’d like to give you some from the purse for my first fight, if I win.”
Being a newbie again, he’d have to win his fights to make money, unlike an established boxer—like he’d once been. Back then, his manager and the opponent’s manager would negotiate purses for the loser and the winner, with the winner making more, as was fair.
He wanted to win his first fight even more now.
She glanced up, her fingers arrested on the laces. “That’s… You don’t need to do that. You’re saving up to buy the butcher shop. I have a stipend for my artist residency, and I imagine I’ll have a lot more money coming in once the new statue is approved.”
That wasn’t what he’d meant, and she knew it. “Still, I’d like to help. You miss them. You should go visit.”
“It might only make me miss them more.” She started yanking at the laces. “We all need some time to get used to this new way of things.”
“Have you told them about us?” he decided to ask, trying to look casual by leaning against the door.
“Ah… No. I’m staying in the moment, Ace, as we agreed, and making up my own opinions.”
Ace again. His diaphragm tightened. He wanted to knock down the distance he heard in her voice, but he wasn’t sure how. “Probably a good thing, and yet, you’re staying here tonight. At my house. Soon the village will know about us. Which means my parents will know too. They’ll want to have you over for Sunday dinner at some point.”
Her eyes narrowed and she peeled off her boot, which thudded to the floor in the silence. “How about we cross one bridge at a time, Ace?”
He couldn’t make himself nod. Not when she’d called him that, putting up a wall again. “We’re getting close to that bridge, I’m thinking.”
She gave her attention to removing her other boot, but it was a slow process to his mind. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”
His breath seemed to burst from his chest. “Yes. I can’t seem to help myself with you calling me ‘Ace’ four times tonight.”
Earlier he’d been thinking about love. Didn’t she understand what she meant to him?
“Old habits die hard, Declan.” She lifted her knees and wrapped her arms around them, looking young and vulnerable.
“Don’t I know it.” He’d been the one to introduce this mistrust. He needed to be the one to fix it. “I haven’t had anyone spend the night with me—since Morag. I haven’t given anyone a drawer since then either. These are big steps for me too. I want to continue making them. With you.” And he sure as hell was going to give her money from his first purse when he won, because that was what he wanted. What she used it on was up to her.
Her mouth parted and she was still for a long moment before saying, “Noted. And…thanks for saying that. That means a lot, honestly. I know this is big for you. It’s big for me too.”
“Hence your joke about knotting bedsheets and leaving by the window?” His throat had a sliver in it. “Mo chroí, I love the teasing between us, but I never want you to feel like you have to think about leaving me like that.” Or ever, he thought to himself.
“Consider all thoughts of knotted bedsheets gone from my head.” Her entire soul was in her eyes. “Declan… We haven’t spent a night apart since we’ve started. I want you to know, I might joke—it’s my way—but I know we’re close to that bridge. Okay?”
She wasn’t much better with this new language than he was, he realized. His heart pressed against its confines, wanting more. He breathed through the tension like he did when boxing, and it shifted. He made himself say, “Okay,” because he knew their talk had reached an end for the night.
But he still had another way to speak to her.
He crossed to her, kneeling at the foot of the bed. He took her hand loosely as she gazed at him with wide, searching eyes. When she leaned in to kiss him, he thought he heard them both sigh in wonder at that first touch.
That night, in his bed, as the wind traced the panes of glass, they reached a new level of intimacy. There was love as their eyes held, and there were promises as their arms held each other.
After their cries washed through the room, she laid her head against his chest. He stroked her back and let his mind imagine a time in which the moonlit scene outside his window might instead be the city lights from her bustling neighborhood in Boston. In that imagined future, he had just met her family, and they’d accepted him.
He was amazed to discover how much he looked forward to crossing that bridge.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Mary Kincaid had the audacity to apply to be her assistant.
Bets carved the damp soil under her roses to unearth another thistle. Spring brought budding roses and her other nemeses: thistle and nettle. They stung even through her gardening gloves.
Much like her sister-in-law.
With their prize roses starting to flourish, both Bets’ and Mary’s mind would be on the annual rose competition in August. Mary had obviously just been poking at her when she sent in her pathetic one-page resume of charity and county events. Bottom line: she wanted to get into her head.
