Page 114 of After Indigo Irish Nights
That was going to be hard. They would be in the same village while she worked on her sculpture. He’d feared the agony and longing of wanting her before. This would be interminable. But it was fair, and he knew it. “Done.”
“And last thing… My brothers Billie and Danny insisted on this one.”
He wasn’t a fearful man, but he knew this one was going to be mad.
“You make her cry, they’re going to knock out your teeth and rip your limbs off. Break some bones.” Robbie grinned like a jackal. “You ready to go or what?”
He nodded.
He didn’t plan to fail.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
Her brothers were acting weird.
Kathleen wondered if there was a full moon. Or maybe Billie was hooking up with his ex again and didn’t want her to know.
Not that she could get on her high horse. She hadn’t even told them about Declan yet. The arts center news had them upset enough.
Robbie had asked police questions. The rest of her brothers had offered to head to Ireland and rough Owen Kincaid up. Pop had wrapped her in one of her mother’s crochet blankets as if it wasn’t a whopping eighty degrees outside.
Then they gave Ellie the same treatment, which had made her friend cry a little. She was one of them, after all.
Her brothers had watched them like hawks and made run after run to their favorite take-out places. She’d drunk so much Dunks coffee she could slosh. She’d had a lobster roll, of course, and she and Ellie had split the quart of clam chowder. Food. It was what the O’Connors used to scuttle away troubles. She was okay with that. It was home.
If she missed the quiet countryside or the lilting cadence of the people she’d come to care about, she didn’t say.
She hadn’t imagined missing Ireland so much.
She’dknownshe’d miss Declan, of course, but she’d just have to get over that.
“Kathleen!” Danny yelled. “I told you girls to sit in that back booth.”
She exchanged another glance with Ellie. “We’re fine at the bar, Danny.” She hated being by the kitchen door. It was a good way to get run over when the servers burst from the kitchen with orders.
“We always sit at the bar,” Ellie whispered. “What’s gotten into your brothers anyway? It’s not like Billie to ask us to cancel our plans.”
They’d planned on having dinner at one of their favorite seafood places on Cape Ann, but he’d asked them to come to the pub for dinner instead. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ve really missed us. I mean, they all showed up tonight. Usually a few of them have dates. It’s weird.”
Billie appeared beside their seats at the bar. “Go to the booth, will you? Please, for the love of Christ, just this once, listen to your brothers.”
She glared at him. “Why?”
“Kathleen Mary O’Connor, get your scrawny backside over to that booth.” Billie pulled her gently from the seat.
“Hey!”
“Hey nothing.” He picked her up and carried her over, her feet dangling, as people started laughing.
She thought about kicking him, but that wouldn’t be nice. “I’m just going to walk back to the bar the second you put me down.”
He snorted. “I’m beginning to have pity for the man—I swear, I’m gonna tell Robbie you’re acting like a baby.”
“Am not!” She pushed at him when he deposited her onto the booth’s wooden bench. “You’re the ones acting nutters.”
“Nutters! This is the thanks I get for canceling my date. You stay put. I mean it, Kathleen.”
She stuck her tongue out and looked around for Ellie. Danny had her by the hand at the bar, and he was talking animatedly. What the hell?
