32. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
Maeve
Ishould be nervous, I really should.
“You’re very quiet.”
I glance at Aidan as we drive back to Lynch Farm. “I think I’m blissed out, to be honest.”
He chuckles and reaches across our seat to catch my hand in his. “Blissed out, eh?”
“Yes. From all the orgasms.”
“Is that what women call it?”
“I don’t know about other women, but that’s what I call it.”
He squeezes my hand. “Makes me happy.”
The soft timbre of his voice sends my heart jumping in my chest. I’m going to take the biggest leap of faith tonight, and I need to do it now while we’re alone.
“It’s more than that, though.” I take a deep breath, watching his profile carefully. “Being with you has calmed me, somehow. That even though you know exactly how to set my pulse racing and do it a lot, you also know how to quiet my mind. I feel that I can be myself with you.”
“You can.” He takes his eyes off the road to look at me. “I swear you can.”
“I’ve not had that with anyone before, Aidan. Most of my life, I’ve never been enough to someone. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.”
He jerks the wheel to the side and stops the car, making me brace my feet to the floor.
He puts the gear in park and reaches across our seats, unbuckling my seatbelt and pulling me close to his chest. His nostrils flare, and I arch into his possessive embrace, needing to get as close to him as I can get.
“What did I tell you before?”
“I know, and I heard you.”
“Then when are you going to start believing it, Mae?”
“I’m trying.” I rest my hands on his chest and search his eyes, needing him to see it from my perspective. “But you have to understand that it’s going to take me some time to get it.”
He shakes his head and then kisses my forehead. “Get it through that thick skull of yours.”
I let out a laugh at the manly annoyance that vibrates onto my skin. When his arms squeeze around me, I know he’s not really mad at me. I flick the button on his shirt, my eyes catching on the sun-kissed skin at his throat.
“Anyway, before you started manhandling me…”
“I don’t manhandle you.”
“Hush.” I put my hand up to cover his mouth. “I just want you to know that…I mean, since the lines have already been crossed between us more than once, it seems only fair that I tell you that…”
“Tell me what?”
“That I might have started developing some very non-friendly feelings towards you, even when I said I wouldn’t. Despite all my best intentions, I care deeply for you, Aidan.”
His gaze turns so soft that my breath hitches. “Are you sure?” he whispers, his voice a mere rasp.
“I’m sure. I want this…whatever it is…with you.”
Slowly, I remove my hand from his mouth, and as his lips stretch wide, dimples on full display, warmth spreads in my chest.
“Are you saying you’re sweet on me, Mae?”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t know, but I more than like you, and…”
He bends his head, burying his face in my neck, breathing me in. “And what? Tell me.”
I bite down on my lip and then decide to throw caution to the wind. “I want more than our Tuesday fling dates. I’d like to take you and Katie out on a date.”
He grows quiet in my arms, but I push through the insecurity.
“Yes, I want Katie to go with us. It doesn’t have to be something big, but we can go to the cinema in Kinsale or Cork. Do you think she’d like that?”
He lifts his head and slowly moves his hands to rest on the back of my neck, fingers splayed. His thumbs move gently up and down my skin, but even though his touch is gentle, my skin breaks out in goosebumps.
“She loves movies.”
I smile, more at ease now that I can see his face. “Good. Would it be okay with you to bring her along with us?” I run my hands up and down his chest. Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop touching him. “I don’t know the rules here. I’ve never dated a sexy, single dad farmer before.”
“It’s more than okay, Mae. Especially since this sexy, single dad farmer is just as smitten with the sassy and sweet detective sergeant as she is with him. I know your heart already. And I know that, whatever happens, you’ll guard Katie’s even harder than your own.”
“Oh, my gosh,” I whisper. “I can’t believe you just said something so romantic like that.”
He kisses the tip of my nose. “Just wait and see. I may be rusty, but I can get even more romantic.”
“I don’t think I can handle more tonight. I just want to know everything about you, Aidan.” A thought strikes me then. “I don’t even know when your birthday is.”
“The eighth of May.”
I deflate in his arms. “I missed it.”
He shakes his head. “No, you didn’t. One of our Tuesday fling dates was on my birthday.”
My insides turn to jelly, and I melt a little further into his arms. “Aww.” I move closer and nibble on his full bottom lip. “In that case, were you happy with your present?”
“Deliriously so.” He groans into my lips, his tongue swiping against mine, and I open for him, but before we get carried away, I end the kiss.
“Good. Now, let’s get home to Katie. I’m famished.”
He licks his lips once, eyes like molten lava, and I shudder from the heat.
“Scoot back, or we’ll be late.”
Quickly, I do as he says, and once I’ve safely returned to my seat and buckled up, I can’t help but grin at him.
“This was easier than I thought it’d be.”
“What, opening up to me?”
“Mmhm.”
“Your heart’s safe with me. I won’t break it. I’ll cherish it.”
My heart skips a beat, my nose prickles, and I take a deep breath to hold the tears at bay. I can’t start bawling like a baby. Not when I’m about to have dinner with him and his precious girl.
“Aidan…”
He reaches for my hand again, but before he can take it in his much larger one, I lay mine flat on his thigh, palm up, and as he threads his fingers through mine, a little broken shard of my heart finds its way back to its spot.
Aidan
I watch Maeve and Katie as they work side by side in my kitchen, grinning at each other, and I don’t know how we got here.
A couple of months ago, I’d have sworn I’d stay single for the rest of my life, needing a simple life with my daughter and avoiding any romantic relationships, but here I am, watching my wee girl peeling potatoes by the kitchen sink with the woman I’m utterly besotted with.
How the fuck did it happen?
“Are you sure I can’t help you?” I call out softly from my perch at my new kitchen island that finally arrived earlier in the week.
Maeve nods. “Positive. Katie’s teaching me to make cottage pie, and men aren’t allowed in the kitchen.”
“Technically, it’s my kitchen.” I drum my fingers on the wooden countertop, out of my depth.
“Not tonight, Dad.” Katie grins and flips her long braid over her back.
Maeve turns around and blows at one of her curls that’s flipped down over her eyes.
“If you’re restless, you can always do laundry.”
Did she just…
I make a face.
“Dad hates doing the laundry.”
“Really?” Maeve leans her hip on the counter, and I narrow my eyes at the cheeky grin plastered on her lips.
“Yes,” I grit out. “The fudging socks always disappear in the machine. I swear the wretched thing swallows them whole.”
She raises her eyes at me. “You do know that it’s an inanimate object, Aidan?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
I open my mouth to defend myself again, but I draw a blank. What is there to say?
“Dad leaves his dirty socks everywhere.”
Maeve giggles, but the sound stops abruptly when I don’t deny it. Her face falls.
“Oh, no. Is it true?”
I raise my eyes to the ceiling, quietly asking for my daughter to stop oversharing.
“Thanks so much for that, Katie.”
“You’re welcome, Dad,” she sings.
Cheeky girl.
“Fine, fine. Nobody’s perfect, right?” I raise a hand and make a sweeping motion in front of me. “And that’s apparently one of my weaknesses.”
“You should see him whenever he runs out of socks, Maeve. He’s like a hoover around the house, looking everywhere for them.”
Maeve glances back at me, her eyes dancing with such irresistible light that it’s impossible to stay annoyed with her, and I sigh good-naturedly.
“It sounds funny. I hope I get to see it for myself some time.”
The soft promise in her words sends an arrow straight through my gut.
“I hope so, too,” I murmur.
For a long moment, I get caught in her moss-green eyes, relishing the way they soften towards me. I’m falling harder for her by the minute, unable to resist the pull of her heart that sings to mine. I can’t tear my gaze away from her or the way the glow in her cheeks deepens.
“Why don’t you set the table?”
I nod at Katie, push off my chair and move to the cabinet next to Maeve to find the plates. I can’t resist running my hand down her back in a feather-light touch. She clears her throat and looks down at the potato, and in brisk movements gets back to peeling.
“While I do, why don’t you share with us one of the things you hate to do?” I ask her.
Maeve stops mid-peel and purses her lips. I wait for her reply, mesmerised by the trio of freckles at the corner of her mouth.
“Heights.”
I nod slowly. “How high up are we talking here? Bungee-jumping heights or less?”
She raises the peeler and shakes it at me in warning. “Oh, you’d never even get me near one of those death traps.”
“What about sitting on a horse?” Katie joins in, craning her neck to catch my eyes. “Do you think that’s too high up?”
Maeve shrugs. “I don’t think so, but I’m not used to horses. I’ve never been on one.”
Katie drops a potato in the sink. “Never?” she breathes. “Really?”
“Really. I think I was afraid of them when I was a child, so I got used to keeping my distance.” Maeve bumps her hip playfully at Katie. “But I’d love to see you ride.”
Katie beams up at her. “I’d love that, too.”
As I move to and from our long, wooden dining table to make myself useful, I let their quiet laughter and low murmurs settle, and it almost feels like the house sighs with me. I wait for the pain to strike me again, but it doesn’t. There’s only a hint of regret mixed with hope now.
Not sorrow or despair.
I take a shaky breath, letting the realisation settle in my heart that for the first time in a decade, I’m not in pain anymore.
I move about the room, my eyes catching on all the photos hanging on the walls or framed on the large mantelpiece atop the fireplace in our living room.
Everywhere I turn, Tierney’s there, either with a much younger me or with our parents.
Out in the stables, with the chicken, back when we still had sheep and cows.
Each memory I have with her assaults me in a way they haven’t done in years, and they hit me in the gut, each one offering a soft goodbye to my first love.
I feel more than hear Maeve approach me from behind.
“Katie’s taking care of the carrots in the kitchen.”
“Right.”
“That’s Tierney, isn’t it?”
I nod once and keep staring at a photo of the two of us on our wedding day, sharing a glass of champagne on the beach, our arms linked, and Tierney looking up at me with stars in her eyes. I’d almost forgotten that photo.
“I put them up mostly for Katie’s sake. I didn’t want to see them, but I also knew how important they would be for her as she grew up.
” I look down at Maeve when she puts a steady hand on my back.
“I taught myself not to seek them out whenever I came into this room. Eventually, I stopped seeing them completely.” I blink, feeling as if a veil has been lifted from my eyes.
She presses closer into my side, resting her mouth briefly on my arm.
I take the strength she offers me.
“From what I can see, she knew how deeply you loved her. She felt it every day, in every way. And she gave the same to you, I think. I’m glad you had that.”
That surprises me. “Are you?”
She nods. “Yes. We need to feel loved, Aidan. It’s an ingrained part of our DNA, and it helps shape us as we walk through life. I’d hate it if you’d never had it.”
Her compassion almost knocks me to my feet.
“But I’m also glad because it means you’ll recognise great love when you see it again.”
I raise my hand and swipe her curls behind her ear. “You sound so sure.”
She gives me a crooked smile.
“All those romance novels had to rub off on me someday. Even my latest obsession shares a lot of wisdom.”
My lips twitch. I marvel at her ability to take me away from the sadness with such care. “And what’s that?”
She waggles her eyebrows, releasing the tension in the room at once. “Monster romance.”
I bark out a laugh and wrap my arms around her, pulling her into my arms. I need to feel her warmth.
“Monster romance is a thing, is it?”
“Absolutely.”
I push my tongue into my cheek, trying to hold back a smile.
“Sounds like I’ll have to build your very own library one day.”
One day soon, but I don’t tell her that.
Instead, I watch her eyes warm even more. “I wouldn’t say no to such a precious gift.”
I save the information for later, but for now, we’re needed back with Katie. I squeeze her waist once and step away from her.
“Thank you.”
She tilts her head, eyes flickering between mine. “For what?”
“For being here with me and my daughter. It means a lot.”
“Thank you for wanting me here.”
The word always is on the tip of my tongue, but I manage to put a lid on it before I go ahead and declare my love to her.
Neither of us is ready for it.
Not yet.