9781618853158SpecialKindofWomanBergman (13 page)

Alannah snapped her
fingers. “Bobby dear, go look on top of the stove and put the colcannon in a
bowl and bring it out here, please.”

Regina saw Bobby go
into the kitchen only to appear a couple of minutes later with a big bowl of
the concoction and set it right in front of her. “Thank you Bobby.”

“You’re very welcome,
hope you like it Regina.” Bobby said as she helped herself to a heaping
spoonful.

Randy Sr. handed her
the butter plate. “You need to make a little well in the middle and put the
butter in it like so.” Regina watched as he talked and put a pat of butter into
the well, then let it slowly melt. Using her fork, she took a bite while the
rest of the men and Alannah looked on.

Regina had never had anything
so good in her life as the taste of cabbage, ham, potatoes and butter filled
her mouth. She looked over and smiled at Alannah. “Amazing, Collin was right. I
know he’s been waiting for this all weekend long, but I think he won’t be
seeing this bowl at all.” The entire table erupted with laughter as they all
continued eating their dinner that evening.

After all the dishes
were put up, she found herself sitting on the front porch. She couldn’t believe
she’d eaten so much food at dinner. Leaning back in one of the rockers, she
looked around while a cool breeze passed by her. She was honestly happier than
she had ever been in her life at that moment.

“How are you doing
baby?” Looking over her shoulder, she smiled seeing Collin grabbing a chair to
sit down right next to her. “So how do you like my family so far?”

He gave her a kiss on
the cheek as she sighed softly while nudging him. “Your family is so much fun,
so loving and caring and they just accepted me like I was part of it. It’s been
a long time since I’ve felt like part of a family,” Regina told him as he took
her hand and kissed it.

“My dad is totally in
love with you. I honestly haven’t seen him lit up like that since Mackenzie
brought in his wife, who was his fiancé at the time, to introduce her to
everybody. I know my brothers adore you as well as my mom. I think she’s
writing down her colcannon recipe for you right now.” Collin chuckled as Regina
laughed as well.

“Thank you for bringing
me here Collin and thank you for the most wonderful weekend I’ve ever had.”
Giving him a hug, she felt someone staring and looked over his shoulder. Some
of the brothers were peeking from the front door. Regina smiled and whispered,
“Go away.”

“Are my brothers at the
door?” Collin asked as Regina couldn’t help but laugh at their antics.

“Do you guys constantly
do this to each other when you bring girls over?”

They all started coming
out of the house and sitting on the porch or getting some of the chairs.

“Yes,” they all answered
and Regina still couldn’t help but laugh while Collin rolled his eyes.

“So are you going to
question me because it feels like you’re going to interrogate me or something?”

The brothers looked at
each other as Collin got up from his chair and smiled. “Good luck sweetie.” He
walked off the porch and back inside as Randall took his spot.

“Don’t worry Gina, we
don’t plan on biting your head off or anything like that, it’s just a bit of a
tradition us brothers have. Whenever one of us brings over a girl, we like to
get to know more about her for ourselves. So who wants to go first?” asked
Gerard.

“Me first, where did
you meet our brother?” asked Bobby.

“At work, I work in the
mailroom. I was picking up mail on his floor and was headed back but the
elevator broke. I was going to carry all the packages down the stairwell by
myself but he offered to help me. After that he invited me to lunch and it’s
been fun ever since then.”

“Yeah that’s our
brother, always helping a damsel in distress.” Kendrick chuckled as did the rest.
“All right my turn, do you like our brother and if so why?”

Regina was taken aback
by his question but of course she understood that these were his brothers and
they were only looking out for him. “Actually when your brother started giving
me attention, I was shocked because I honestly never had a man like him give me
the second look he did. I’ve always been the shy girl who kept to herself and
didn’t talk with guys like you, who were handsome and sweet and had all the
girls falling over them. So when your brother began talking to me, I froze up
so bad I was shaking. But then I decided to give it a try and as we talked, I
slowly started to like him and now I have to say I love your brother very much.
I’ve never met anyone like him and I honestly hope not too because I know he’s
the one for me.” Tearing up, she wiped her eyes and was surprised when five handkerchiefs
appeared in front of her. She took the one from Jordan. “Thank you.”

“All right another
question, what’s your favorite ice cream?” Jordan said lightening the mood.

Regina cackled at his
question and tried to keep from crying even more.

“Oh my, I like Ben and
Jerry’s Butter Pecan and Baskin-Robbins Pralines and Cream.”

“I’m going to have to
try those.” Jordan smiled as some of the others agreed.

“What do you think of
us, his brothers, and our parents?” asked Randall.

“I think you’re a bunch
of wonderful guys, like the brothers I never had and your parents are amazing
people. They’ve treated me with such love and kindness. I’ve wanted that for a
very long time…since my parents passed away.”

“Your parents have
passed away?” Mackenzie asked.

Nodding, Regina gave
him a small smile as some of them coughed a bit. “If you don’t mind me asking
but which one of you guys live in Ireland now?”

“That be me and Bobby,”
Mackenzie chimed in with a smile. She had noticed both brothers had a bit of an
accent like their parents.

“How long have you guys
lived there?”

“I was the first to
move there, I wanted to go back to where our parents were born and raised. The
rest of these guys thought I was nuts to want to. But when we were kids we
would go visit our family and I fell in love with the town, which is called
Fethard-on Sea, because it was right by the sea. The town was very nice and we
would have lots of fun there. So I told our parents that when I graduated from
high school, I wanted to move back to Ireland. We had some very long talks the
couple of months before I graduated. They warned me I would have some
hardships, which I did. After I moved back, I stayed with our cousins and I got
a job. It all took time, but I never looked back. Now I run a resort that a lot
of people come to visit to go fishing. I have a wife named Moira and three
kids, let me show you.” Going into his pocket, he pulled out his wallet and
flipped through some of the pictures he had before handing it to her. “Those
are my kids, Connor, Hugh and Meara and of course Moira.” The kids, who were actually
teenagers, all wore smiles like their mother but looked more like Mackenzie and
the rest of the Noonan clan.

“You have a beautiful
family Mack.” Regina smiled as Mackenzie’s grin grew even broader with pride.
“And what about you Bobby, why did you decide to move back?”

“Probably because I
wanted change too, some kind of excitement or something that you can’t get
here. So after I graduated from college, I headed back to Ireland too. I think
I was like Mack. We always had fun there when we were kids so I wanted to go
and relive all of that nostalgia. I stayed with Mack for a couple of months,
but then I decided to move to Dublin, where it was a bit more my pace. I ended
up getting a little apartment for a couple of months while I was trying to find
another job, a lot of jobs mind you, until I met up with some friends who were
in the music business. After a couple of years of figuring things out and
making a few records for some local bands, I’ve become pretty successful.” As
he smiled a big grin, the rest of the brothers nodded in agreement.

Regina sat back
impressed by the two. “And the rest of you, what do you do?”

“Lawyer,” said Randall

“Ad executive,” said
Randy Jr.

“Artist,” said Timothy

“Police officer,” said Kendrick

“Police officer,” Kenny
said with a smile

“Chef and I own my own
restaurant,” said Jordan

“Owner of my own courier
business,” said Gerard

“Well, now you know a
little bit about me and I know all of you, I do have just one…more…question to
ask. Do you guys do this to every girlfriend Collin brings home?”

The expressions on the
brothers’ faces made her wonder if she should have asked that question or not.
They all looked at each other so puzzled and perplexed.

Randy Jr. finally told
her, “My dear, you’re the first one he’s brought over for us to see. Honestly,
Collin has never ever brought a girlfriend home. Most of the time, if he got
involved with a girl, it was, well for, I don’t want to say really but you get
the picture.”

“Yeah, I pretty much
get what you’re saying. Wow, I can’t believe he never brought a girl to meet
you, except for me though. That is amazing to hear,” Regina said with a smile and
the rest of the men smiled too.

“He must really care
about you to bring you over to visit us and our parents.” Bobby told her. The
thought made her blush a bit.

“Well, we better let
him come back out here, Collin come on back out man!” Tim shouted. The men got
up as he came out to the porch.

Regina had never seen Collin
as white as he stared at her. She took pity on him, giving him a smile as the
brothers give him slugs on the shoulder and winks as they left the porch.
Eventually he sat down, took a deep breath and smiled,

“I see you made it
through the Irish firing squad.”

“Yup, I sure did. Now,
before we got interrupted, what were we doing?” Regina questioned him.

He looked like he
trying to remember but then that sparkle in his eyes looked over her as he slowly
leaned in to kiss her lips. He pulled her to his lap and held her close as they
enjoyed on his parent’s porch.

Chapter Seven

“Now make sure you give
me a call whenever you like. It’s so boring here sometimes and even though my
sons are supposed to call their mother, they normally don’t. Besides, it would
be nice if you did give me a call once in a while,” Alannah said, as Regina
gave her a hug the following day before she and Collin headed back to go to
work.

“I promise and thank
you for the colcannon recipe,” Regina said with a smile. She went over and gave
Randy Sr. a hug as well but being that he was such a big man, his hug was
almost as powerfully as he was. Regina almost lost her breath as he told her,
“You take care dearie and come visit us whenever you like.”

Nodding her head, she walked
over to the brothers who all looked at her with smiles on their faces. “All right
now, group hug. Come on, might as well get this over with all at once.”

As the brothers looked
at each other, Bobby stepped right up and gave her a hug. Soon the rest of the guys
joined in and hugged as well. Regina thought it was funny how they all ended up
until Collin shouted, “Hey guys, we got to go and Bobby, I hope you weren’t copping
a feel over there while you’re hugging up on my girl.”

Groaning, they all let
go of Regina but as she found herself still in Bobby’s arms, she started
laughing.

“Bobby, let her go
now.” Timothy laughed as he did.

Regina got into the car
as Collin started the engine up. They all waved as she did and soon she and
Collin were on their way back home.

“I think it would be
best instead of us going back to our homes to drop our stuff off that we just
leave it in my car and then I’ll take you home after work.” Collin said, as she
looked out the window at the traffic whizzing by them while they went into the
express lane.

“Your family…” Regina
laughed for a moment before smiling at him. “I swear, your family is amazing
Collin. Thank you for this weekend.”

Collin grabbed her hand
and kissed it while he continued driving.

Back in town, Collin drove
up the office’s upper level parking garage. Knowing the daily grind waited for
no person, Regina got out and stretched for a bit getting herself together. Collin
surprised her coming up behind and taking her in his arms.

“I’ll call you for
lunch all right?”

Nodding, she turned
around and rested her arms around his neck while running her fingers through
the back of his hair. Softly he kissed her.

Pulling away, he told
her, “Have a good day baby.”

“You too Collin, I’ll
see you for lunch.” Regina kissed him on the cheek before they walked over to
the stairs and onto work.

As Regina entered the
mailroom, she didn’t see Linda. When she asked Patrick where Linda was, he said,
“She called in sick today, said that she would probably be out for the rest of
the week. So we’ll have more to do this week.” Regina started to get to work.