Page 9 of After Indigo Irish Nights
Carrick’s father had been a beloved father figure growing up and then a mentor once Declan decided to give up boxing and settle down with Morag and have a family. Only Morag hadn’t been ready to settle down—or so it seemed from her wild actions before their wedding.
Jimmy Slavin and Declan had been well matched since they’d first faced each other in the ring at eleven years of age. Only…Jimmy was willing to fight dirty—so much so that he’d seduced Morag before their last time in the ring, knowing it would give him the edge to beat Declan. Indeed, it had—it had broken Declan clean through. Jimmy had knocked him out in the first round, ending his boxing chapter in shameful failure.
Heartbreak and humiliation were bitter pills to swallow for any man.
He felt a chill as he thought about those dark days. Many said anger was hot, but Declan’s never had been—his anger was like the ice along the shore in winter. He never wanted to experience anything like that again. With Kathleen, he felt a kind of unbalancing intensity, one he feared could lead him back to those frozen shores if he weren’t careful.
What a tangle. He looked back at the pub. Well, he might as well go inside and face the music. Going home would be the coward’s way.
He hoped Sorcha was wrong about Seamus. He wasn’t ready for his life to change again. As for Kathleen, he still felt at sea. She was the powerful riptide, and he the boat.
He gave himself another moment, seeing as one woman had made him fake a phone call for peace while the other had made him lean against the nearest vehicle in weakness. Then he strode to the front door of the pub and let himself inside, wishing to wrap himself in the sense of home it always gave him. The familiarity of the pub gave him the balance he desperately craved.
Except comfort was the last thing on his mind when Kathleen’s gusty laughter reached his ears. Something in his chest popped before a surge of warmth rose up inside him unbidden. Jesus, she had a great laugh. Sorcha’s words resounded in his mind about her being the only woman who could make him laugh. More rubbish…although he couldn’t deny he was back where he’d started, in her thrall.
“Hello, brother!” Brady cried as people he’d known all his life called out greetings to him. “’Bout time you arrived. The rippah—that’s a party in Boston speak—has begun.”
“Slainte,” a chorus of familiar faces cried out, one of which belonged to Kathleen herself, grinning as she downed her whiskey.
A bunch of tables had been pushed together to create what looked like a head table. Kathleen was sitting at the end, surrounded by his friends, with Ellie on her right and Eoghan on her left.
At the next table sat his parents and their friends. When Declan lifted a hand in greeting, his dad raised his glass. Declan’s mum, beside him, was knitting what looked to be a baby blue jumper, one of Brady’s new girly cocktails in front of her. Next to them, Betsy O’Hanlon was holding court. She looked red in the face, likely about the arts center, something she was passionate about, God knew. Donal O’Dwyer was listening to her every word, a whiskey in hand. Killian and Nicola Donovan sat at the end of the table, their heads tilted together about something, and Seamus and his wife were planted in the middle. Declan sent him a wave in greeting, hoping again that Sorcha was wrong.
From there, the cluster of tables fanned out, every one of them packed, the pub as full as Declan had ever seen it. One thing was abundantly clear—everyone was fixated on Kathleen.
He couldn’t fault them.
“Come pull up a chair,” called Liam. He sat beside Jamie, one of the two Fitzgerald boys, the other being Carrick.
Carrick, whose first wife was haunting Declan.
“The new Yank is filling our heads with tales of Boston and the promise of unveiling her design for the arts center,” Liam continued.
“I’m holding my very breath,” Eoghan said, patting down the thin strips of his gray hair.
“Don’t hold it too long or you’ll be six feet under by the moon’s rising,” called out his cousin Fergus from his perch on the other side of Ellie.
Kathleen held his gaze for a moment—yes, he could both feel and see her siren’s call—before she turned to Ellie and the two shared a laugh.
God, he was going to have to sit through this agony and pretend she didn’t affect him. There was only one thing for it. “Brady, I need a whiskey!” He grabbed a chair from the corner, scraping the floor, and brought it to the table.
Liam made room for the chair, and Carrick, leaning back to look at him, asked, “Why in the world were you working so late?”
For a moment Declan thought about telling him everything and asking him to get his first wife to leave him be, but that would only invite questions. “I was catching up with the ordering.”
“Ordering?” Jamie slapped him on the back as he sat down next to him. “Dad would never want you to work so late, especially when there’s a…what’s the Boston word again?”
“A rippah,” said their friend Kade, who sat across the table. His Yank accent was so bad it made his American wife laugh.
“That’s about as bad as my Irish accent,” Megan declared.
“What Irish accent?” Angie asked with a chuckle. “Megan, you’ve got to try and talk like the female version of Mark Wahlberg.”
“I love Mark Wahlberg!” she exclaimed, her face brightening. “He was so good inGood Will Hunting.”
Kathleen barked out a laugh as Angie groaned, saying, “That was Matt Damon, Megan.”
“It was?” her sister asked, this time prompting Kathleen and a few others to start laughing.
