Chapter Nineteen
Keeley
I find myself impatiently tapping my foot as Beckett and I wait for Sissy, who is currently giving a mortified-looking middle-aged woman a full run-down of the bodice-ripper romance novel she’s trying to subtly check out.
“Oh, my days, I couldn’t put this one down. Duke Rufus is the swooniest rogue I’ve ever read. Those pantaloons of his had me all hot and bothered,” Sissy says with excitement.
The woman trying to borrow the book goes crimson from head to toe. Next to me, a muscle in Beckett’s jaw tics as he clearly struggles to keep a straight face.
“Wait until you get to the chapter where the duke smuggles Lady Penelope onto a cargo ship. The captain weds them at sea, and then the duke has his wicked way with her in the galley!” Sissy’s voice projects around the entire reception area.
I bite down on my bottom lip, and Beckett ducks his head, a lock of that bronze-tinted hair falling over his forehead as he (badly) disguises his laugh as a cough.
I forget my jitters for a moment as my fingers itch with the urge to reach up and push that piece of hair back into position. Sweep it back and feel it under my fingers—the way his thumb traced over the sensitive skin on my lip a few minutes ago.
All I wanted to do in that moment was lean into his touch, hold onto that feeling for as long as possible. But I had to remind myself that he wasn’t touching me to be sensual and was instead cleaning Miracle Whip off my face like I often have to do with Everett. Which was embarrassing enough to begin with, never mind the way I reacted to his touch.
I tried to play it as cool as possible. Although, I have to wonder if my current state of nervous impatience has more to do with the lingering memory of Becks’s touch than it does with finding answers from Sissy.
At that moment, Sissy pauses her verbal book review long enough for the romance-reading woman to swipe her book with impressively quick reflexes. She chucks it in her bag and practically flees the scene.
“Now, I wonder why Renee was in such a rush,” Sissy mutters to herself as she pats her fresh blowout with nails that are metallic silver with rhinestone tips.
Claudia at the salon has clearly upped her nail game this week.
The elderly librarian looks around in bewilderment, and that’s when she finally spots Becks and me standing near the counter.
“Keeley, darlin,” she greets me warmly, but her eyes are already roaming all over Beckett with undisguised interest. “Pray tell me, who is this devastatingly handsome young man accompanying you?”
“Handsome young man? Where?” I ask, making a big show of looking around in confusion.
Becks catches the smug grin on my face and grins right back at me. A sly grin that says challenge accepted .
He goes on to flash that charming, dimpled smile at Sissy and extends a hand to her. “Pleasure to meet you, Sissy,” he says, and her heavily-made-up eyes fly wide open in surprise. “I’m Beckett McCarthy.”
“An Irishman,” she says, her startled tone matching her expression. “Honey, that accent of yours brings back some wonderful memories.” The librarian shakes her head as if in wonder. “Been a long time since I heard an accent like that.”
Becks and I share a look, and I’m pleased when he cuts straight to the point. No B.S.
“I’m Noeleen Quinn’s grandson,” he tells Sissy with a pleasant smile.
Her eyes widen even further. “Well, I never!” she breathes, pressing one wrinkled hand to her heart. “Of course, you are. I see it now—you look so much like her.”
Exactly what I thought when I saw Noeleen’s picture.
“I believe you two were friends?” Becks asks.
Sissy claps her hands, bangles jangling on her wrists. “Friends? Please, we were soul sisters , your grandmother and me. Born worlds apart but cut from the exact same cloth.”
My heart starts to thump excitedly. Beckett smiles wide but his eyes are soft as they focus on Sissy, clearly hanging onto her every word.
“How is she?” Sissy goes on. “I always wondered what became of her. Haven’t heard from her for, gosh, sixty-odd years now.”
Beckett’s smile falters. “Um, she died. Last year.”
Sissy looks stricken as she reaches for Beckett’s hand. “I’m sorry to hear that, honey. Your grandmother was one of the good ones.”
“She was my favorite person,” Becks says, and Sissy smiles sadly.
“Mine too, at one point.” She winks. “Don’t tell my husband that, though.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Beckett promises solemnly.
“We were thick as thieves, lived in the same dorm during college. We did everything together.”
“Did Noeleen know my Gramps, too?” I pipe up, unable to keep my question quiet any longer.
Sissy nods. “She did.”
Becks touches the ring on his neck, and I can tell the motion is totally reflexive, unconscious. “Were they… together?”
I lean forward eagerly.
Sissy pauses, her shrewd eyes noting Becks’s gesture. “They were, for a short time. In our last year of college.” Her eyes get a little misty, like she’s plucking memories from deep inside her mind. “Wow, it’s been a long, long while since I’ve thought about that. Noeleen was so in love with Douglas, and he was head-over-heels for her. In fact…”
She frowns at us both, then nods at my right hand. “They got each other matching rings back then from an Irish guy in Boston who owned a jewelers’ store there. If I’m not mistaken, the very same rings you’re both wearing today.”
I twirl Gramps’s ring around my finger, processing all of this information.
I figured Douglas and Noeleen were once an item ever since we found out yesterday that the inscriptions on our rings match. But hearing Sissy confirm it as fact—alongside the fact they were very much in love, and the matching rings were, indeed, theirs during their relationship—makes my head spin. “Whoa.”
“Ah, the double dates we had! She and Douglas, me and Roger. We were the talk of the town back then. Noeleen was so magnetic, drawing people in without even trying.”
Sounds just like her grandson. I shoot a surreptitious look at Beckett.
“I was so upset when she went back to Ireland,” Sissy continues. “I missed her every day for a long time. We wrote for a few years—last I heard from her was a good few years after she left. She’d married and just had a baby. Bridget, I think her name was.”
“My mam,” Beckett says with a smile.
Sissy looks at Becks fondly. “I was happy Noeleen had finally found love in her life again and had started a family. But we eventually lost touch. It was harder to stay in contact back then, as you can imagine. Snail mail was our main form of communication.”
Becks shoves his hands in his pockets, looking genuinely sorry. “Do you know why she left Serendipity Springs?”
Sissy shoots a little look in my direction, then looks back at Beckett. Shifts on her chair. “She had a life back in Ireland…”
She hesitates, looks like she wants to say more but is debating what to say.
“And?” I ask, unable to help myself.
“Well, right before graduation, she and Douglas broke up, right out of the blue.” Sissy frowns. “It was totally unexpected—the two seemed so happy together. To this day, I’m not sure why they broke up, exactly. She never told me.”
“Would Estelle, or maybe Margot, know what happened?” Becks ventures, and Sissy gives him a smile.
“You’ve really done your research, young man. But unfortunately, Noeleen told us nothing, never even a hint of a whiff of what might have happened between them. And then, one day, she told me she was going home to Ireland.”
I’m instantly empathetic, seeing a mental picture of a young Noeleen heartbroken and wanting to escape having to see her ex all the time. Did she, like me, climb out onto the fire escape after her breakup, unable to sleep as she gazed up at the stars and wondered what on earth to do next with her life?
“Next thing I knew, she was packing up her things and getting on a plane,” Sissy goes on with a sniff. “She never came back. A while after that, your grandfather met and wed your grandmother, Keeley. And the romance between Noeleen and Douglas was never mentioned again.”
“Did my Gramps break Noeleen’s heart?” My question comes out way more loud and demanding than I mean it to, and I lower my voice before adding, “Sorry.”
Sissy apparently doesn’t even notice that I’ve practically yelled in her library—something that she’s usually unbelievably precious about.
“Yes, I think he did.” She swallows. “And when she left, I believe she broke his, too.”