28. Dee
CHAPTER 28
Dee
“D arlin’ Dee, you’re giving me whiplash,” Jax told me when I glared at him because he had the temerity to suggest that he had a plan on how to save Ballybeg. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best we had.
“But we don’t need your help.” The words were out before I could stop them. He was an outsider, and this was my standard line. We could take care of our own, thank you very much.
“Whiplash, Dee,” he murmured.
The first time Jax Caldwell asked me to trust him, I scoffed. The second time, I told him to go to hell. But now, standing at the bar in The Banshee’s Rest before opening time with his blue eyes locked on mine, I realized that for the first time, I really did trust him. They weren’t mere words that I spouted out of guilt of hurting him—I did trust him.
“It’s my knee jerk,” I muttered defensively.
“Jerk being the operative word,” Jax shot back in a low voice.
“Alright then, tell me about your plan.”
He sat on a barstool and pulled me to stand between his legs. He nuzzled the opening of my shirt and placed a kiss right above my cleavage.
“Plan, Jax?”
“It’s easier for me to talk about the plan when I have your tits close to me,” he replied with aggravating calm.
He cupped my breast, and I slapped his hand away. “Go on then, unveil your super plan to save Ballybeg and my eternal soul.”
“Your soul I saved by making you fall in love with me.”
I pressed my lips into a line because I was about to burst out laughing. No one made me laugh as Jax did. With his easy way, his sense of humor, and his honesty (how on earth did I even think he’d lie to me about something as big as wanting to hurt my village and me)—he just made everything better. Aye, I was starting to sound like one of those romantic lasses from romance novels that Saoirse loved to read.
“Before I start telling you, I want you to know that it’s going to take some work, and you’re not going to like it.”
I rolled my eyes. “What a way to keep my expectations low!”
“I believe in under-promising and over-delivering.”
I arched an eyebrow as I put my hands on his shoulders. “And me not liking it sounds very promising.”
He maneuvered me to sit on his lap.
I was sitting on a man’s lap in broad daylight in my pub. Aye, the world had turned upside down.
He let out a soft laugh and kissed my hair. “Dee, I’m serious. I can save Ballybeg. I can save your land, the pub, all of it. But you’ve got to trust me.”
Trust didn’t come easily to me—it never had. But this wasn’t just about me anymore. It was about Ballybeg, the village that had shaped me, the pub that had been in my family for generations, and the land that held my memories of Maggie and my parents.
It was about all of us.
“I do trust you,” I said without an iota of hesitation.
His eyes softened. “Good girl.”
“Who’re you calling a girl?”
“Y’all call yourselves lass all the time,” he protested.
I tilted my head. “Tell me your grand plan, Jax, before I murder you.”
He turned us around so we both could look at the monitor of his shiny Apple computer. “The first thing we need to do is make the resort project too messy for the developers to push through.”
I frowned. “How?”
“By messy, I mean to put public pressure on the county.” His blue eyes were full of mischief and glee. “The council’s already made their decision, but that doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. If we can make enough noise—get people talking about what the resort will do to Ballybeg, how it’ll destroy the village’s character and hurt the locals—we can push the council to reconsider.”
“Jax, we’ve tried that,” I said, my frustration bubbling to the surface. “We’ve written letters, we’ve gone to meetings?—”
“Not like this,” he interrupted. “I’m talking about going bigger. Social media, local news, and even international coverage if we can get it. People love stories about small communities standing up to big corporations. We can turn Ballybeg into a symbol of what’s worth fighting for.”
“How will we do that? No one cares about Ballybeg.”
“They will when a two-time PGA Golf Champion asks them to save his girlfriend’s village.”
I felt everything inside me seize into a painful ball. “But you don’t ever talk to the media about your personal life.” He was militant about it. I knew that. Hell, if you did even a little bit of research on him, you’d know that.
He smiled, stroked my cheek with his finger, and, with love shining in his eyes, floored me by saying, “This is too important.”
“And you don’t think bringing the media here could ruin Ballybeg? Make it the tourist trap we’re afraid that it’ll turn into when those gobshites turn my pub into a parking lot.”
“It could,” he admitted. “But we’ll control the narrative. We’re not inviting the paparazzi in to turn this into a circus. We’re using the media to shine a light on what’s happening here. It’s a risk, I know. But it’s better than sitting back and letting the developers win without a fight.”
I chewed on my bottom lip, the weight of his words pressing down on me. “And what happens if the council doesn’t budge?”
“That’s where Plan B comes in,” he said, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Plan B?”
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “We buy land…strategically.”
I blinked, my stomach dropping. “Jax, I couldn’t even pay the taxes on my land until you helped. How the hell are we supposed to buy anything?”
“That’s where I come in.”
I stared at him. “Jax, no. You’ve already done enough—more than enough. I can’t let you?—”
“Dee, this is about saving Ballybeg,” he said, cutting me off. “If the developers get their hands on this village, they’ll destroy it. But if we can help pay everyone’s taxes—and even buy up any land I can that they’re relying on for the resort—they won’t be able to build. It’s as simple as that.”
“It’s not simple.” I was freaking out. “You’re talking about spending God knows how much money on a place you don’t even belong to. Why would you do that?”
“To repeat myself because I love you. And you love this village and your home. I’m not going to stand by and watch it get destroyed when I can do something about it.”
For a moment, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Who the hell was this man, and what had I done in a previous life to have him lay down himself and his money for me?
“Jax Caldwell, you’ve earned yourself the nastiest, dirtiest blowjob known to man,” I promised.
“Argh, can you not talk about blowjobs,” this came from Ronan, who stuck his head out from the kitchen. “You’re like a sister and I don’t need that mental image, you understand?”
“Then stop eavesdropping.”
“I wasn’t dropping no eaves.” Ronan winked at me and came into the bar, wiping his hands on the towel he kept on his shoulder while he cooked. “You gonna pay everyone’s taxes?”
“I am,” Jax confirmed. “I spoke to Paddy and Mickey, and they’re not able to pay their land taxes because Cillian increased the land value assessment to the point that it’s unaffordable.”
“It’s a waste of your money,” I whispered.
“Dee, it’s not. I have way too much of it, and I can’t imagine a better way of using it. And if you’re worried about how much we’ll have once you marry me, I can assure you, we’re not running out for a few generations to come.”
I slapped his shoulder. “I’m not interested in your blasted money.”
“Sounds like you are since you keep asking me to save it.”
Did he just say marry? Shite!
I made an exasperated sound and saw Ronan smiling at us.
“You both are a very cute couple,” he remarked.
“I’m a woman of thirty. I’m not cute ,” I dissented sharply.
“Well, woman of thirty, we need to present this to the villagers and I need to talk to Brad and get his social media people to start working on putting out some stories.” Jax looked me straight in the eyes. “So, we’re doing this?”
I looked at him and thought about how he held my hand when we went for a walk. I remembered how he made love to me, gentle and demanding. I thought about how he couldn’t cook if his life depended upon it. And I smiled. “Yes, we’re doing this.”