Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) (23 page)

“We should probably leave for the airport before too long,” she said. “Our flight leaves in just over two hours.”

We barely spoke on the train to the airport. We barely spoke as we waited to board. We barely spoke as we took off and left Scotland behind us.

About halfway back to Dublin, I couldn’t take it anymore. The silence between us was killing me, so I nudged Fliss gently with my elbow.

“Are ya up to meeting my family tonight? We’ve got a few days before we leave, so if you’re too knackered we could wait until tomorrow.”

“Tonight’s fine,” she replied, although the prospect had her looking a little peaked. “Best to just get it over with, right?”

“That’s right,” I nodded.

“Let the charade begin,” she murmured and looked out the window of the little plane, watching the coastal islands of Ireland come into view.

Now, here we were at my parents’ front door.

Me and my wife.

Feckin’ Jaysus, I was going to hell.

Fliss glanced up at me just as the door opened before us.

“Bloody hell,” my sister said, her mouth dropping at the sight of Fliss standing there beside me, “you brought your girl with you.”

“Shh, quiet yourself,” I murmured, nudging Fliss inside past my flabbergasted sister. “Who all’s here?”

“The old man’s in front of the telly, and ma’s in fixing dinner with nanny.”

I gave a quick nod in Fliss’ direction. “Ciara, meet Fliss. Fliss, this is my baby sister, Ciara.”

“Fliss?” Ciara parroted. “That’s an odd name.”

“It’s actually Felicity,” Fliss offered. “Denny’s the only one who calls me Fliss.”

My sister’s eyes shot up to mine, narrowing with an unspoken question, but I ignored her and pulled Fliss behind me into the living room.

“Hey, da,” I said.

“Hey, Denny,” my da replied, “you wouldn’t believe this game of footie…” His voice trailed off as he noticed Fliss standing behind me. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph. You’ve got your girl with ya.”

I sighed and looked over at Ciara who still seemed to be grasping onto the very same concept. “Would you go get ma and nanny?” I asked.

She nodded dumbly and started into the other room hollering “Ma! Denny brought his girl with him!”

“Not like that, ya eejit,” I groaned, then stopped short as my ma and nanny practically ran into the room, staring at Fliss as though she had two heads. “Ya may want to have a seat for what we’ve got to tell ya.”

“Oh, feckin’ hell, is she knocked up?” my da moaned.

Jaysus, could she be?
I stupidly realized that it was a likely possibility. We hadn’t used condoms either time we’d been together, and, like a complete nob, I’d not even thought to ask if she was on birth control. I sharply looked down at Fliss, and she shook her head.

“No, I get shots so… no… not that,” she murmured.

I gave an uncontrollable sigh of relief as I looked back over to the others only to see that every one of them was aware that I had suddenly become frantically concerned about that very thing. My actions had just told them all that Fliss and I had knocked knickers as if I’d blurted it out myself.

Everything about the moment was awkward, bordering on mortifying. So I took a deep breath and told them what we’d come to tell them.

“Ma, da, nanny…” I looked over at my sister, “brat… this is Felicity.”

“But,” piped up my sister, “Denny calls her Fliss.” She made a face to display pure and utter shock, a look that both my da and ma mirrored.

“Shut your gob, will ya?” I frowned at my sister, but she just smiled back, all wide-eyed and innocent.

My nanny, unlike everyone else in the room, just sort of gave Fliss an odd, dreamy smile, one that sorta made me a wee bit nervous. She didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised, only very pleased. Either she had really gone off her nut, or she had possibly…
expected this?

“Well, Felicity,” my mother began when she recovered the ability to speak, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Fliss replied, a little breathless with nerves. “It’s very nice to meet you, too.”

“You’re American,” my da blurted out.

“Well, actually,” I shrugged, aiming for nonchalance, but likely coming off more spastic than anything, “she’s sort of Irish now, too. She’s my wife.”

My mother gasped. “What?”

My nanny smiled even wider.

My da lost what little verbal filter he ever had.

“She
is
knocked up!” he gasped.

“She’s not knocked up, da,” I said.

“When did this happen?” Ciara asked.

“Yes, Denny,” my mother nodded towards my sister, “when did this happen? Have you been married this whole time? You’ve not been home long enough to get married here.”

“We just got back from Edinburgh this morning,” I explained, clearing my throat. “We didn’t want to wait.”

“Jaysus,” my dad said. “And it’s not because she’s knocked up?”

“Da, stop,” I sighed. “She’s not knocked up.”

I looked back down to Fliss to see that my grandmother had stepped up to her. Studying her carefully, my nanny reached out to cup Fliss’ cheek. It should have been weird, but there was something in that meeting, something that I couldn’t really grasp.

The old eyes met the younger ones of Fliss, and the gnarled, frail hand of my nanny touched Fliss’ smooth cheek. With a smile in her eyes, my nanny’s voice was barely audible.

“I had a dream about you,” she murmured.

I watched as Fliss’ lower lip trembled ever so slightly, and her eyebrows furrowed in question. And for a second, they just stared at each other as everyone just sort of watched the weird interaction in silence.

“Well, Felicity,” my nanny finally said, “you come with me, and we’ll let my gossún finish explaining this to his parents. Ciara,” she nodded to the kitchen, “you come, too.”

Fliss looked up at me warily, and I gave her a nod.

“Probably best that ya don’t see my da kick me arse,” I said with a wry twist to my mouth, making a hint of an uncertain smile come to her lips.

As the door closed behind them, I turned back to my parents’ shocked faces.

“And she’s not knocked up?” my da inferred…
again
.

I couldn’t even answer that time. I just glared at him in exasperation, and he straightened.

“It’s just… I’m gobsmacked,” he muttered.

“Denny,” my ma began, “if she’s not pregnant, what was the rush?”

“We just know, ya know?” I replied, like that was any kind of answer. Fliss and I had sort of decided to be as vague as possible in an effort to not get caught lying by details.

“Still an’ all, Denny,” she shook her head, “to do it all so quickly?”

“We want to be together,” I tried again, “and her study abroad term is up, so she has to head back to Montana.”

My da opened his mouth, then shut it, then opened it again to speak.

“And she’s not—”

“No, da,” I interrupted, “she’s not knocked up.”

Dinner was awkward, to be sure, but it got a little easier as we sat around the table. My family spent most of the time asking Fliss questions about her family, growing up… how we met.

“I met him when I was touring the campus at Montana Tech right before I graduated from high school.” Her lips turned up in a slight smile at the memory of that day, and her blue eyes turned to meet mine.

“That was a while back if Denny was still in school then,” my da snorted. “Lazy dosser hasn’t done anything constructive in years.”

“Bog off,” I scowled back at him.

“How long
have
you been together?” my mother asked.

“Not really very… uh…” Fliss began, but then trailed off, not really seeming to know what to say.

“We’ve known each other for years,” I said, putting my hand over hers on the table, toying with the woven silver band on her finger, “but we didn’t really get together until we came here.”

Ciara giggled to my family, then looked back over at me. “I knew she was your girlfriend.”

I frowned and looked down at Fliss’ questioning gaze.

“I, um,” I said, “I may have mentioned something about you when I first got here.”

“And when you stayed out all night,” Ciara added, “well, that just verified it for me.”

“Ciara,” my ma sharply warned.

“Oh, ma,” my sister scoffed, “like you weren’t thinking it too.”

“Maybe so,” my da cut in, “but show a little tact for Christ’s sake.”

Ciara rolled her eyes, but did manage to cool it a bit for the remainder of dinner. The meal was not the most relaxed we’d ever had, but it somehow became more and more like the family dinners I was used to. And Fliss was now a part of it.

Shortly after dinner, the last couple days began to catch up to me. And the rich, warm Irish stew my nanny had cooked was making me drowsy. Fliss was suffering in a similar manner, I noted, as she unsuccessfully attempted to hold back a deep yawn.

“Will you be staying here?” my da asked.

“We have a hotel room,” I caught myself saying. We had figured on Fliss staying there alone, but it occurred to me how odd that would look. At my words, she glanced over at me, and I gave her a reassuring smile. “One we should maybe get back to pretty soon. I’m half asleep just sitting here.”

My ma packed up a few things for us to take back to the hotel with us. Being a ma and all, she seemed to think we’d starve without her sending food with us, so she packed a bag full of things like floury baps, smoked salmon, and a bag of Taytos.

As Fliss and I turned towards the gate, my nanny touched her arm, once again with that weird dreamy expression on her face.

“I’m so glad to have finally met you,” she said softly. “Take care of my gossún.”

Then she gave Fliss a hug, winking at me with a smile over my wife’s shoulder.

My nanny
was
off her nut.

A little over a week later, we were back on a plane across the Atlantic.

Fliss and I had more or less tiptoed around each other in the small room at the Grafton Capital, both wary of touching each other. It was an odd sort of strain, that familiar longing I’d fought ever since I’d met her. Yet, at the same time, I felt a bit of contentment that she was tied to me.