2. Dee
It was bad enough that I had to deal with that useless whiskey supplier earlier. Now, on top of that, I’d been saddled with the human equivalent of a golden retriever in a golf cap. Sunshine charm radiating off him like heat from a fire. A smile so wide and white it probably blinded small children back in America, where he’d crawled out of.
Women probably threw themselves at the yank. Oh, I could see that. He was a charmer. All that gorgeous hair once he removed that PGA cap. Blue-blue-blue eyes and a body that said, “ I’m not your pot-bellied Uncle Don who plays golf—I’m sexy-as-sin Jax .”
What kind of name was that, really? A Yankee name, that’s what that was.
I didn’t think he was one of the resort people—oh, but he could be, couldn’t he? They may have sent him over to spy on us. That thought amused me. The resort people, those Yankees, didn’t think we were enough of a threat to mount such a stratagem.
Jax and I climbed the stairs, and they creaked, just like they’d been for the past hundred years. My mam, God rest her, had started to rent out the rooms upstairs when she and my da bought the farm—so we became The Banshee’s Rest Pub I just didn’t understand why a body would need so much of it. I mean, just enough to have a home, eat and drink, and maybe go on a vacation here and there—what else was there?
Apparently, designer shoes , I thought caustically.
And he called me ma’am, like I was somebody’s granny shuffling around in orthopedic shoes…or the fecking Queen. But he said it with an American accent, so it sounded weird, too.
I glanced over my shoulder as I shoved open the door to one of the four rooms we had. “Here we are.”
He stepped inside, looking around like he was touring a bloody museum. The room was small, sure, but it was clean. A Queen-size bed sat against the far wall, its quilt patched with a hundred shades of green and blue. A small dresser sat under the window, and a framed photo of the Cliffs of Moher hung on the wall, slightly crooked because I hadn’t gotten around to fixing it.
“This is very cozy,” he said, sounding like feckin’ Rhett Butler from Gone With The Wind .
He walked past me to the window and looked out. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he was thinking.
“Wow,” he murmured, almost reverently.
I rolled my eyes, though my heart fluttered with pride. “It’s just a view,” I remarked flippantly. But I knew that it wasn’t just anything. The room looked out over the rolling green hills of Ballybeg, dotted with dry-stone walls that zigzagged like old scars across the land. In the distance, you could just make out the edge of the cliffs, rising against the crashing waves of the Atlantic. The sea shimmered like silver in the late morning light, the kind of wild beauty that made you catch your breath no matter how many times you’d seen it. Wow, was indeed right.
“It’s stunning.” He glanced back at me.
“It’s raining.”
“And yet…I could sit here and stare out of this window for hours.”
I snorted, though warmed by his compliment. “Some of us have work to do and not just push a ball around on the green.”
I had no idea why I was being such a bitch to him. No, I knew, I groaned inwardly. I found him attractive. A Yankee? My mam was rolling in her grave.
He smiled, gazing out of the window again. “It’s wild, untamed, and beautiful.”
I softened. “Yes, it is. Our land makes you feel both small and alive at the same time.”
He set his bag down carefully and turned to face me, dimples cutting deep into his cheeks. Wicked, I thought. That was the word for them. Dimples like that should come with a warning label.
“Yes, ma’am.” His lips twitched into a smile.
There it was again. Ma’am . Like he was some kind of Southern gentleman, all manners and money. His voice was smooth, polished, and soaked in charm—the kind you didn’t trust unless you wanted to end up thoroughly disappointed. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
A man like him was off limits.
If my sister Maggie were still around, she’d roll her eyes and say, “ Deirdre Gallagher, if a man as handsome as that gives you so much as a look, you’d better hop on him before he changes his mind. ”
And let’s face it, why would a man who wore a watch more expensive than my bar—Omega like James Bond’s, I thought sullenly—would be interested in a barkeep like me?
He was well outta my league. I’d made that mistake once and got involved with Cillian O’Farrell, with his posh accent and tailored suits, always telling me he loved me but looking embarrassed when I opened my mouth in front of his family. He’d betrayed me when he went ahead and fucked whatshername on the bed where we used to sleep, and now he was working on betraying Ballybeg and what our village stood for by joining hands with those Yankee resort types. He and Jax would probably be good friends, grinning like the world was their playground.
“All right.” I stepped back into the hallway. “Bathroom is attached. Towels are in the cupboard, and the walls are thin, so try not to snore like a chainsaw.”
He raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’ve it on good authority that I don’t snore. How about you?”
Oh, this man was going to be the death of me. Everything he said was suggestive.
“I don’t snore either,” I glared at him.
“And…what about turn-down service, breakfast in bed, you offer that?” He was teasing me, and despite myself, I smiled.
I gave it right back to him with my hand on my hip. “Oh, aye, we’ll do that for you—and leave a wee chocolate on your pillow too, like it’s the feckin’ Ritz.”
His grin widened. “That’s what I thought.”
I shook my head in amusement. “We serve food from eleven to eleven. So, come on down after you’re settled in, and you can eat something. For breakfast, if you want a full Irish, Ronan—that’s our cook—makes the best in the county. There’s Cadhla’s Bakery right around the corner. She makes a mean batch of soda bread, scones, and the best apple tarts you’ve ever eaten.”
“Thank you, Dee. Does Dee stand for….”
“Deirdre,” I confirmed, walking out of the room. “But everyone calls me Dee.”
He leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, not in defense but in casual laziness. He had that way about him, like we were in one of those plantation houses in Georgia, and he was sipping mint juleps on a blue sunshine day. “Paddy said you were fierce.”
“Did he now?”
“Yes, ma’am, he certainly did.”
For a second—a stupid, fleeting second—I felt something stir in my chest. Like a flicker of heat, there and gone before I could make sense of it. But I shoved it down, locked it away.
“I think fierce is just his way of saying that I’m impossible to deal with,” I chimed airily. “I am too…impossible to deal with.”
He grinned and feckin’ hell, but the man was potent. Warn a lass, will ya?
“I don’t think so.” His eyes looked bluer, and I had to look away and act busy. Ronan and Saoirse, my server, had probably already opened the doors while I was here chatting away with Mr. Professional Golfer, so there was work to be done.
I shrugged. I didn’t care what Jax thought of me. He wasn’t staying long enough for it to matter.
I headed back to the bar, trying to shake him from my head, but the truth was, I couldn’t. His voice lingered. His face lingered. His bloody dimples lingered.
It’s just that I’d had some dry days…months…fine, it had been at least two years. Maggie had been sick, and I took care of her. After she was gone, I couldn’t be at the farm. Not in the house we grew up in. Not in the same room where I’d held her hand while she slipped away. So, I moved above the pub, where the walls weren’t so haunted, and let Ronan stay at the farm when he needed somewhere to land after his girlfriend kicked him out.
But it didn’t matter how far I ran, the grief followed me. Maggie’s laughter still echoed in my head when I was alone. Her smile lived in the back of my mind, reminding me of what I’d lost.
Now, I was afraid of losing more.
It was a struggle to keep the pub alive while dealing with whiskey suppliers who couldn’t be bothered to send decent stock and fending off greedy developers who saw Ballybeg as a blank canvas to slap their overpriced golf resort on.
“I hear you’ve got a boarder.” Saoirse pulled beer for Angus, who’d come as he always did with his dog, Finn, as soon as we opened. They were old and, as Angus liked to joke, circling the drain . He didn’t like being home, not since his wife passed, and now both, man and dog, came to The Banshee’s Rest and stayed all day until it was time for bed. He read and played cards with some others who also came as he did. What would happen to all of these people if the pub was gone? They couldn’t afford some fancy resort, and honestly, they wouldn’t go. Ballybeg would become something else, not what it was today.
“Aye.”
“Heard he’s a Yank,” Angus commented
“Aye.”
“Drives a Porsche.” Saoirse wiggled her eyebrows. “It’s sitting pretty in Paddy’s garage. Heard he’s a pro fessional golfer.” She stressed the word pro .
“Down, girl, he’s too old for ya.” The lass was only eighteen. I shook my head and went behind the bar.
“He’s rich enough to be as old as he likes,” she quipped airily, waving the dishrag she carried like a kerchief as if she were royalty.
Angus looked up from his pint. “How rich would I need to be?”
Saoirse laughed. “Ah, Angus, love, there isn’t enough money in the world for that.”