Hot Whispers of an Irishman (11 page)

“Leave it,” she said, trying to ignore its shrill, demanding tones.

He slipped his hand away from her. “Can’t,” he said. “It might be business.”

She would have chided him a bit, except for his grim voice. Business was evidently no source of pleasure in Liam’s life. And her pleasure had begun to ease, and her common sense return. What had she been thinking, in any case? She’d made some progress removing clutter, but there wasn’t a surface in the cottage that’d she actually call fit for bare skin.

While she began to refasten her khakis, Liam flipped open his phone and answered it, shooting her an apologetic look at the same time.

“What is it?” she heard him say to the caller.

Vi thought of reaching for the shirt she’d left on the chair, but she’d then be in his range, and the urge to touch him would grow too strong again.

“No, Meghan,” Liam said, “we don’t have the money to be opening a Taco Bell in Dublin.”

Vi didn’t even bother to hide her smile. Business, indeed.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said. “But you’re twelve…a child. You don’t have any idea—” He walked to the fireplace, his usual smooth strides replaced by a choppier, impatient gait. “Well, I’m sorry if you didn’t like the way that sounded, but…Meghan?” He snapped his phone shut and frowned in Vi’s direction. “She hung up on me.”

“I’d gathered,” she said. “I also gather that she has a business enterprise in mind?”

“Not one I’m wanting. A Dublin Taco Bell?” He shook his head in apparent disbelief, then tucked his phone into the right back pocket of his still-open denims.

Vi tried to pull her focus away from what might have been. “Not what every city needs, eh?” she asked.

“If you’re twelve and can eat endlessly, I’m thinking it might be. But I’m neither twelve nor looking for a career change.” After he’d spoken, his expression darkened for an instant. Intrigued, Vi watched as he erased the frown.

He took his shirt from the chair and pulled it over his head. Once he’d pushed his arms through the sleeves, he spoke again. “Grand timing the child had.”

Vi looked around the room. “It wasn’t all that bad. I’m not quite sure where we’d have ended up in all this mess.”

“I’d have improvised.” He nearly smiled while tucking in his shirt and refastening his denims. “And you’d not have complained, either.”

“Nor would have you,” she replied, doing what she could to keep his mood running in a lighter direction.

“True enough,” he said. “But Meghan’s call also puts back in mind why I’d come here in the first place. I’m taking her for an overnight in Dublin tomorrow. I thought she might like to see the Mooghaun gold. Would you like to come?”

Vi hid a smile at his unintended double entendre. He could hardly know that all these minutes later, her body still craved his touch.

“Very much,” she replied.

He prowled closer, and she could smell the slightly woodsy scent of his skin.

“We are talking about Dublin, are we not?” he asked.

“That,” she said with decent authority, considering the other thoughts now elbowing their way to the front of her mind. Aye, that and more…

He grinned, and she could no more fight back her own smile than she could tame her hunger for him.

“I’m glad to see we’re understanding each other,” he said, before cupping the back of her head and kissing her. “I’ll be to your parents’ house at seven, then. Will you be ready?”

“More than you can imagine.”

“I’ve an idea how ready,” he replied, his fingers still woven beneath her hair.

She tipped back her head, relishing his touch, and he settled a kiss against her throat, where her pulse already beat as strongly as a
bodhrán
in an expert drummer’s hands.

Vi pulled her thoughts together, no easy thing with the kisses he still feathered downward. “So…you know where they live?”

Liam paused and brought his gaze level with hers. “Your mam and da? Your da’s with mine. He’ll draw me a map…unless you’d like to just now,” he said before putting his mouth against hers.

“Maybe in a minute,” she whispered against his lips.

Liam chuckled, then kissed her hard and fast.

“I’m thinking it will prove to be an educational weekend,” he said as he stepped away from her.

“Quite,” Vi said, damning the man for being a wee bit of a tease, bringing her nearly back to full fire, then leaving her to burn alone.

“Seven, then,” he said and was gone.

Vi walked the few paces to the front door he’d just closed, leaned against the cool wood, and laughed with joy. It seemed forever since she’d felt this vital, blood rushing from head to toes and mind whirling.

“Well met, Rafferty,” she murmured, still smiling. He remained her best challenge, adversary…and match. “Well met, indeed.”

There’s no stopping the force of a going wheel.

—I
RISH
P
ROVERB

“M
eet the mother before you marry the girl,” had been advice once offered up by Liam’s grandda. Now Liam had no intention of marrying Vi or anyone else, as one failed marriage was more than sufficient. Still, at a few minutes past seven on a fine Saturday morning, as Vi’s da introduced his wife to Liam, Grandda’s words resounded loudly.

If Liam were intending to marry, he would make damn sure he didn’t meet this mother too very often. Maeve Kilbride was one of those women who exuded disapproval from the very pores of her skin.

“You’re from Duncarraig, then?” she asked as they waited for Vi to make her way downstairs.

Liam sat very still in the armchair offered, for the small round table next to it was crowded with fussy porcelain figurines of women in frilly dresses. He hated to think what she’d do if one were accidentally sent floor-bound.

“I am,” he said.

“And what do you do there?”

He wished he could give the first smart-arsed answer that had struck him—
little as possible
—simply to see if she could look any less pleased. He knew one thing for certain, he’d done the right thing in having Meghan wait in the car.

“Actually, I live in America now,” he diplomatically replied, as he’d been raised to be more polite than naturally inclined.

Maeve brightened. “Ah, grand!”

Perhaps she was one of those deluded souls who thought that all who lived in America were rich. Hell, he’d once believed it.

“And you do…?” she prompted.

“This and that,” he replied in lieu of offering up his financial particulars. “I’m somewhat between projects at the moment.”

“I see.”

Heredity hadn’t played at all true. It would take much practice, indeed, for Vi to perfect the squint-down-from-bridge-of-the-nose look that Maeve Kilbride specialized in.

Just then, Vi came downstairs, fat overnight bag in one hand and a russet-colored wool jacket of some sort in the other. She wore a long-sleeved dress made of sleek fabric. The subtle hues and pattern were unusual, making Liam think of oak leaves readying to fall—a far too poetic thought for him. Of course, the way it caressed her breasts and waist made him think of getting her out of it—an idea more within his normal realm.

Liam rose. “Your dress suits you,” he said when she’d made the landing.

She smiled. “It should. I recycled some of my old painted silks to make it.”

“Efficient,” her da said.

Vi laughed. “Lack of money will do that to a person.”

Her mother muttered something to herself and began rearranging figurines that hadn’t moved.

“Ready, then?” Liam asked Vi.

“Almost,” she replied before turning to her da. “Now, you’ll keep an eye on Roger, right?”

He nodded. “I will.”

“And no table scraps, if you please. He’s too spoilt already.”

“I’ll do my best to keep him away from them.” Her father’s smile made Liam suspect that he meant otherwise.

Liam watched as Vi hugged her da with her freest arm and gave her mother a lightning-quick peck on the cheek.

“We’ll be seeing you tomorrow night, then,” she said.

Liam said his goodbyes and opened the door for Vi, who fairly shot through it. He knew nothing of the way she and her parents got along. In his experience, it had always been Vi and Nan, and the rest of the world be damned. When he offered to carry her bag, she assured him that she was well capable. He’d had no doubt. He was merely exercising his manners and at the same time finding an excuse to touch at least her hand.

“She wasn’t too rough on you, was she?” Vi asked once they were walking to the car, which he’d pried into a tight spot on the other side of the street.

“Your mother? Not at all,” he said, knowing that Vi had faced far worse in dinner with Una. At least Maeve Kilbride carried no preconceived notions.

Vi laughed. “Liar. Anything associated with me displeases her. I’m too unconventional…making my own clothes, living as an artist, not cooking worth a damn, and now, horror of horrors, taking a night in Dublin with a man.”

“You didn’t mention our chaperone?” Liam asked, nodding toward Meghan who sat in the car perfecting her sulk.

“Mam would just accuse me of corrupting more youth. As it is, she’s convinced I put a spell on Pat and Danny to have them move in with me.”

They arrived at the car, and Liam opened the passenger door. “Adults in the front, which means you’ll have to move on into the back,” he said to his daughter.

Meghan glared at Vi. “I still don’t know why you have
her
coming.”

He hadn’t imagined this would be such a beast of a problem. “I thought you might like a shopping partner.”

Beside him, Vi shuddered. “We’re shopping? You didn’t tell me that.”

Liam was beginning to sense that he’d made a series of tactical errors.

“This sucks,” Meghan muttered just loudly enough for Vi to hear.

Liam drew a deep breath, preparing for a blistering parental-type lecture, but Vi set her overnight bag on the curb and grabbed hold of the tweed of his jacket.

“Time for a chat,” she said, drawing him away from the car. “Did you not tell Meghan I was coming?” she asked once they were out of earshot.

“On the way here, I did.”

“On the way
here?
So she’s had twenty minutes to adjust?” Vi finished by muttering something in Irish that sounded to Liam as though it addressed the utility of asses’ tails and stupid men. His Irish was beyond rusty, so he took comfort in the thought that he’d misheard.

“I didn’t think Meghan would mind you coming along,” he said in self-defense. “Anything to help her avoid speaking to me directly seems to please her well enough.”

“Have you been living in a monastery since I last saw you? Have you no insight into a female’s mind?”

Now was likely not the time to note his insight into a certain redheaded female’s body, he decided. “Not bloody much, it seems.”

She tapped him on the chest with two fingers. “She wanted this to be the two of you, just a girl and her da, you eejit.”

“And when was I to grasp this? Yesterday when she jammed on her headphones and ignored me, or when she hung up on me because I won’t open a bloody Taco Bell?”

“Which has nothing to do with what’s really going on. She’s in a land not hers, her mother’s in another part of the world, and she’s frightened. She’s pretending she’s tough enough to take what’s been thrown at her, is all.”

“And this requires her to behave like a shrew? Why can’t females just always say what they’re thinking?”

Vi smiled. “For fear of terrifying the men. We’ve been raised to care for the weak, after all.”

“Grand joke.”

“No joke at all. Now you wait here while I try to unravel this mess,” Vi said before returning to the car.

“Right,” Liam muttered.

When she seemed deep enough in talk with Meghan, he edged closer. If this exchange was to be an entrée into the female psyche, he’d not be down-curb whistling to the morning sun.

“Your da means well,” Vi was saying by the time he’d gotten close enough. “He’s just, well…unpracticed.”

Fat joke, there, too. God knew he’d gotten practice aplenty in the past weeks, and it wasn’t as though Vi had any experience at all.

“I’ll give you the choice,” she said to Meghan. “You can carry on with your da and I’ll stay here, or you can let me come to Dublin with you. I’ll not be hurt either way, though I’d like the chance to see the city with you.”

“Why?”

Vi shrugged. “Why not? I might learn something.”

“From me? Yeah, right.”

“Why not from you? You’ve lived places and seen things I never will.”

“I guess.”

“So, shall I go back in the house or come along?”

Meghan was silent so long that Liam itched to step in and reassert himself. A pointed look from Vi slowed him. Without another word, Meghan exited the car, opened the rear door, and climbed back in.

It was a tenuous peace, but Liam recognized it as the best he’d get. He loaded Vi’s bag and got behind the wheel, thankful that the weekend was short and his patience long.

As the traffic grew thicker, and they neared Dublin, Vi asked herself yet again why she had felt capable to act as intermediary between the warring nations Rafferty. Having no stake in the ultimate outcome did give her a measure of objectivity, but it also had her thinking that while Liam’s child dragged him through shopping malls—places lauding despicable plastic conformity, not that Vi had a firm opinion—she would retreat to a long, hot shower and a glass of wine. Surely she deserved that much.

Vi shifted ever so slightly in her seat to see if Meghan had altered her cocooned state, headphones in place and eyes closed. She had opted for frozen silence soon after her father told her they’d first be visiting the museum. If the girl didn’t move soon, Vi would have to crawl in back and check for a pulse.

Beside her, Liam said, “Nearly nine-fifteen. The traffic had best get moving if I’m to make my ten o’clock appointment.”

Vi turned back about. “Appointment?”

He nodded. “With the curator who’s been helping me out a bit. She has something she thought I’d like to see.”

“And no word of what?”

“Not a one,” Liam said, sounding not especially curious. Vi considered that another essential difference between the sexes. A woman in the same conversation wouldn’t have been off the phone without the mystery solved.

Soon, they pulled into the city’s center, which Liam navigated while Vi called off directions to the hotel from the information he’d printed off the Internet. Branley’s Hotel sat on a stretch of Molesworth Street otherwise occupied by Georgian brick town houses, their self-important facades lightened by front doors painted bright shades of yellow, blue, and red. Vi smiled at the whimsy of the sight, and that of the round and quite elderly doorman in black tailcoat with shiny gold trim making his way to the car. Liam pressed a button on his keychain that made the car’s boot pop open.

While the doorman and Liam shared a jocular man-moment, Vi took her bag from the car’s boot and prompted Meghan to do the same. She’d not hasten the doorman’s retirement with too much heavy lifting. They climbed the steep stairs to the small hotel, built of adjacent converted town houses, and waited for Liam.

In a matter of minutes they were checked in and their bags stored until their rooms were ready. Rafferty father and daughter were to share a small family suite while Vi had a room nearby. Liam apologized that another suite hadn’t been available for her, but as Vi pointed out, that would be mad extravagance as there was just one of her, and she’d be needing just one bed. An
en suite
bath and a quiet bar were all she needed at that moment, both of which the hotel provided. She glanced longingly into the currently closed pub room as Liam herded them back to the door.

When they made the sidewalk again, Meghan looked one way, then the other. “Where’s the car?” she asked her father.

“In a parking garage,” Liam replied.

“Then a cab?”

“We’re a matter of a few blocks from Kildare Street. One foot in front of the other, if you please,” her father replied.

By the time they’d arrived at the museum, Vi made a mental note that when dealing with Meghan, every detail must be considered. She’d put one foot in front of the other, all right, but at a pace that would be foot-dragging even among snails. Now, headphones in place, she’d roamed off and sat on a bench at the perimeter of the room while Liam and Vi headed to the information desk.

“I’m looking for Nuala Manion,” he said to the woman behind the desk. “I’m Liam Rafferty, and we have an appointment.”

“I’ll ring her,” the woman replied, then began a chase-by-phone that didn’t want to end.

Standing next to Liam, Vi waited as patiently as she knew how, which admittedly was saying little this morning. She glanced toward Meghan to see what the girl was doing. She was no longer seated and appeared to be making a nonchalant wander toward the door.

Vi touched Liam’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back,” she said when she had his attention.

Meghan was three steps from the exit when Vi snared her. “Taking a stroll?” she asked the girl.

“This place gives me the creeps. It’s like a church.”

Vi looked about the grand rotunda with its marble columns and mosaic-decorated floor. It was so far removed from tiny St. Brendan’s waiting for her back in Ballymuir that she had to smile.

“You must have some grand churches in Atlanta to be thinking this looks like one,” she said. As for churches upsetting the girl, that was another matter an objective outsider could simply leave for a professional. “And creeps or none, you should have a look with us. This is your heritage, too.”

“Whatever,” Meghan said with that roll of the eyes that Vi was beginning to weary of.

“No, that specifically. Now it looks as though the curator your father’s been waiting for is here. Let’s go have a chat.” She stepped behind Meghan and guided her much as a Kerry sheepdog would a stubborn lamb, except the dog would be showing sharp teeth where Vi was fighting hard not to bare hers.