Page 70 of After Indigo Irish Nights
When they finally got out of bed, she made coffee and showed him a video Robbie had sent her. Ever since he’d entered the police academy, years ago now, he’d started sending everyone in the family videos of “stupid criminals” caught in the act. Her brothers loved them, and she had to admit, some of them were pretty funny. This one had been particularly epic—a bystander had witnessed a man trying to steal a car, ineptly, and called the cops. While he was waiting for them, he’d gotten a video of the would-be thief. The man had shocked himself repeatedly while trying to hot-wire the old Honda, yelling in fits, his body jerking from the current as he kept trying. Total moron.
Declan had laughed so hard he’d clutched his gorgeous abs. Then he’d done a search for stupid Irish criminal videos, suspecting they existed. Sure enough, Ireland had them. Kathleen pointed out to Declan every criminal was a guy. He’d snorted, saying women were the smarter sex, which had made her laugh as she poured cream in his coffee.
After watching a few more videos in her front parlor, she’d sent a gem to Robbie. It had been of a drunk Irishman dressed as a leprechaun on St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin. He’d stolen a horse from the parade and taken off singing “Wild Rover” for three blocks before being arrested. Kathleen’s favorite part was of him hiccupping on camera while telling the officers that the fairies had made him do it. Robbie had sent back four crazy laughing faces, which was a slew of emojis for him.
After she and Declan had wiped their eyes from laughing so hard, she’d kissed him on the cheek and said, “You’ve been inducted into the stupid criminal video club.”
“I can’t wait for more of them,” he’d replied in a tender tone, caressing her cheek and gazing into her eyes—something that always made her get all mushy inside.
While she hadn’t told her brother the video was from Declan, she planned to mention it soon…but first she’d need to tell them about him. She wanted to share her family with him, she was coming to realize. This would help them like him. Axl hadn’t cared for the video tradition, and her brothers would remember that. The O’Connors were a weird lot, but they liked people who shared their sick sense of humor. Declan fit the bill. She couldn’t wait for them to hear his butcher jokes.
She dropped her hammer, letting her hand rest. The repeated strokes made her fingers buzz. God, she was in deep with Declan. Her stomach turned into a ball of nerves again. She went back to working on the design model for her pirate ship and let her thoughts wander to the larger design.
She would need a strong frame to hold her ship up with the Irish wind being so tempestuous. She’d decided to use COR-TEN steel as much for its durability and weather resistance as the copper addition that would give her sculpture a beautiful patina as it aged. She surveyed the frame for the ship’s bow and brought up her schematic for the larger design in her head. She was going to need an engineer to check the land around the museum to make sure the ground wasn’t too damp underneath.
No doubt about it, she’d need a good team to bring this together. Eoghan had told her he had a friend who’d worked for a local American steel company, who also had other welder friends. She couldn’t interview them before they got planning permission, but it made her feel better to know Eoghan and Liam were both looking out for her interests. They knew the local scene.
“Hiya,” she heard a male voice behind her. “I heard all the pounding and had to come and see what it was about. Everyone in the village has heard about your sculpture. You must be the artist.”
She turned and studied the younger man in front of her. He was in his early to mid-thirties with sallow skin and a leached thinness she ascribed to someone who used drugs. Her gut immediately went on alert.
Robbie had urged her to always listen to her instincts, even when she didn’t know why—he’d seen the worth of gut reactions a million times as a police officer. She drew herself up to make herself project as someone taller, something she’d learned in the self-defense classes her brother had given her.
“Yes, I’m the artist,” she said casually. “But because of all my tools and the like, we don’t allow visitors in here.”
She pointed to the Danger Arc Welding sign prominently displayed inside the shed. He’d obviously ignored the one on the outside.
His eyes narrowed and he shifted on his feet before he came toward her. “You’re not welding now.”
She didn’t step back. To do so would give him the edge he was hoping for. Intimidation. Little did he know she was used to confronting bigger and scarier men in her old neighborhood. “Actually, I’m going to have to insist. It’s a rule for a reason. Besides, I was also wrapping up and getting ready to leave.” She wasn’t but she was going to move him along.
“You’re a rude one, aren’t you?” he commented, walking closer to her. “Yanks usually are. They think they own the world.”
His nastiness only raised her concern. “Your opinion, of course. Like I said, I’m heading out now.”
He walked over to her worktable, ignoring her. “Is this your design?”
Dammit. She liked to unroll her larger design and look at it while she worked on the model. It helped her visualize the bigger sculpture in her head. But she didn’t want him to see it. She walked over to the fully rendered design and rolled it up crisply and returned it to the architectural tube she’d bought.
“Yes,” she replied, tucking it into her satchel and lifting it over her shoulder. Then she grabbed her phone but kept it in her hand. “I’ll see you out—”
“I like pirates.” He gave a leering grin. “The ladies seem to like them too.”
Creep! That was it.
She walked to the door of the shed. “Let’s go.”
His mouth thinned, anger pinching his lips. “You’re not very friendly.”
He had no idea just how nice she was being. “I need to be somewhere. There’s the fight—”
“Yeah, I plan to be there.” He strolled some more through her workshop. “Plenty of time until it starts. Maybe we can even sit together.”
Not on your life. “You really need to leave.”
He only smiled, and that insolence had her going still. He wasn’t only annoying. He was dangerous.
“Always in a rush, you Yanks. Lot of fine steel in here. You should really lock it up. The travelers like to steal, you know. And the tinkers. They’re sometimes the same and sometimes different.”
