Page 40 of After Indigo Irish Nights
When Declan arrived at the boxing club after work, his eager trainers were waiting for him…only none of them were dressed for training. No one’s hands and wrists were wrapped. No one was wearing the club’s green robes over athletic shorts.
Dammit.
The only thing that had gotten him through the endless chatter and orders at the butcher shop after that earth-shattering kiss with Kathleen yesterday was the prospect of hard training. Even that hadn’t been enough to banish her from his mind, and the anxious looks his brother had darted at him on his short stop at Summercrest hadn’t helped.
“Did you codgers finally agree you’re too old for this?” he asked, walking over to his locker.
“We need a moment, Declan,” Eoghan said, holding up a finger. “Donal, you should tell him.”
The large man led the group of volunteer trainers from where they’d been standing beside the boxing ring. “Tell me what?”
“We’ve changed the timetable for your first fight.” Donal rested against the dented metal locker beside him. “Cormac got Paul Keane’s manager to agree to move it up by two weeks.”
That would put his first bout on the third Friday in May. He glanced at his father, who gave him an encouraging smile, and then back at Donal. “Why the urgency?”
“You’re ready,” Donal continued. “You’ve been training hard, and there’s nothing like a real match.”
“You still haven’t told me why, and since it’s me who’s going to be fighting, I’d like to know.”
Donal nodded. “We want to be chatting up some people of interest a bit earlier, is all.”
Their bluster smelled of old fish. Something else was afoot. “Speak plainly.”
“A fight is a good place for chatting with people you’d like to influence on certain things,” Eoghan said, smoothing the gray wisps of hair on his head. “There’s a plan in the works regarding the arts center.”
“It’s not something you need to be concerned about,” Donal was quick to assure him. “You only need to fight.”
“You don’t even have to win,” his father said, slapping him on the back. “Just do your best.”
He narrowed his eyes at that. “Thanks, Dad. You’re all acting odd. What does this have to do with the arts center? Are there problems again?”
Did this new batch of trouble have anything to do with Kathleen? Every new artist had gone through hurdles owing to Tom MacKenna and Mary Kincaid and their lot. He’d helped as much as he could when they’d closed the center a few months ago. He wished he could ask these men for details, but if he did, it would only prompt them to raise their gray brows in a knowing way, something he didn’t want or need.
“We’re hoping to head them off,” Donal said, his tone emphatic. “Linc has some ideas, ones I agree with. All we need is for you to fight.”
“I don’t like hearing there might be trouble again,” he said. “Maybe Cormac can arrange for me to fight Tom MacKenna. I’d love to knock him out for the trouble he’s caused.”
“As if that bastard would fight fair,” Seamus said with a snarl, flexing, his arms heavy with muscle from years of hefting slabs of meat. “He’s more inclined to plot in the shadows.”
“We could challenge him,” Fergus said, holding up his fists. “Tell him Eoghan and I would give him a handicap by fighting him at our age.”
“We’d lay him flat,” Eoghan said, his usually affable face contorted with a scowl. “But there’s a plan afoot to box him into a corner thanks to Lincoln Buchanan. Saints preserve us! He’s a man to have on your side.”
They all made a sound of assent, one that had him wondering again at the details. He would chat Ellie up later when he went home. “He’s back from America?”
“As of last night,” Donal said, nodding. “Full of ideas as usual. He’s a gift to this town, he surely is. He’ll be staying at my house until he can find a better house. But sad news, boys. He doesn’t want to box.”
“That’s a right pity,” Eoghan said, hanging his head. “He’d be a fierce opponent.”
“He said he’s too old to want to be hit in the face,” Donal said with a grin. “I told him it might improve his looks.”
They all laughed at that. There was no denying the lot of them looked like a bunch of bruised jackals.
“We should start the training.” Eoghan opened Declan’s locker and gestured to the equipment inside. “We’ll be working you harder than ever. I hope you’re ready for it.”
Harder than ever? He prayed it would stop all thoughts of Kathleen’s luscious body pressed against him, their mouths tangled in a kiss he’d remember until he was in the ground, God help him. “Do your worst.”
They surely did. Brutal rounds of chin-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, along with calf-screaming sets of jumping rope. They’d all agreed to fight him for two minutes apiece save Eoghan and Fergus, who critiqued his every move in the ring.
