She hesitated a second more then nodded. “Aye.” We’d gone barely two steps when she turned around. “I have to get him. I knocked him unconscious.”
I blinked. Her dead husband really wasn’t dead? “I’m sure he deserved it.” She was moving quickly. I was glad the beam didn’t do any damage. I matched her pace, though I thought it foolish to stay longer.
“Aye, he did,” she murmured.
After another several feet, she stopped so abruptly I ran into her and needed to grab her to keep her from falling.
“He’s….” She looked at me, then in front of us. “He’s gone. I left him there, but now he’s gone.”
I was beginning to wonder if she bumped her head and if “Tommy” was a figment of her imagination. “He got out then. Let’s go.”
Together, we waded through the cans and boxes on the floor. As we passed through the doorway, a blur of gray sprung from some corner and rushed before us.
“Joe!” Bridey called out in delight. Then she fell into a coughing fit so bad she nearly gagged.
I held out my shirt. “Take this. Cover your mouth.”
“Killian? Bridey?” someone called from the front.
I threw an arm around her shoulders to help support her, as she was slightly wobbly now. I don’t think from injury. More from lack of oxygen. “In here.”
I urged her forward, to the door to the alley, rather than the front, as it was closer. Tag entered, his face lined with concern. “Is she all right?”
“I’m fine,” she grumbled.
He chuckled and came to her other side, though she shooed him away. While the air was still smoky, it was a million times better once we crossed the threshold and entered the alleyway. We kept moving quickly to the front of the building. We rounded the corner, and medics were wheeling a gurney to the rear of an ambulance. Flynn was stretched out on it, an oxygen mask over his mouth. They must’ve made a hell of a good time getting here from Kinsale to already have him ready to go. In the distance, a siren rang out.
With the sound of the three of us hacking our lungs out, Bre turned. “Bridey!”
Paddy and Deirdre spun as one and rushed to our side. “Is she all right?” the old man asked.
“I’m fine,” Bridey interjected before I could answer.
I glanced at Paddy. “She’s stubborn.”
Paddy took the sides of her face and lifted her head. “Aye. She is. Ain’t it beautiful?” He kissed her smudged cheek loudly.
Bre ran to our sides. “Is she shot? Like Flynn?”
I peered from her to Paddy and Deirdre. “Shot?”
“Aye,” Deir’ answered. “But they don’t think it hit any vital organs.” A second ambulance crested the hill outside of town. “Get her some first aid. And the both of yous as well.” She whirled around, hurrying over to where they were closing the door on Flynn.
“Shot?” I repeated. “Who shot him?”
Bridey spoke up. “Tommy did.”
“Tommy?” Paddy shifted his focus from her to me. I shrugged. “Which Tommy, honey?” he asked her gently.
“My Tommy.” She covered her face with her hands and cried. We looked at each other awkwardly.
Paddy took a step back. “She knocked her noggin, did she?”
“I have no earthly idea.”
She dropped her hands. “I didn’t knock my noggin. He was there! He and Flynn faked his death the first time. This—” she waved toward the pub “—is a second attempt to make those men he owes money to believe he died.”
Paddy half-turned as the other ambulance arrived. “We’ll let these fellas check her out.”
A man hopped out and hurried toward us.
The rest of the night was quite honestly a blur, but the one image which stuck in my mind was Bridey’s expression as they lifted her into the ambulance. She stared at me as if she wanted to say something, but the mask over her mouth prevented it. Her tears washed away soot as they traveled down her face, leaving her unnaturally striped.
When I finally was allowed to see her in the hospital room, she was cleaned up and looked much better. I stood by her bed. “I’m sorry for doubting ya, honey. Flynn confirmed everything ya said…although I think he’s downplaying his part in this. He’s speaking with the guards, then they’ll probably want to speak to you if you’re up for it.”
She nodded.
“That…must have been quite a shock.”
Again, her head bobbed, but she seemed so sad.
I rubbed her shoulder. In the waiting room it occurred to me, her husband being alive might make it somewhat difficult for us to date. Maybe she wasn’t even interested in us anymore. “Ya wanted to go back in the pub for him, despite what he intended to do to ya. What he did to ya, by letting ya pay for his debts. Why?”
She slid her mask off. “I couldn’t just leave him to burn after knocking him unconscious. I’d be no better than him. His death would be on my hands.”
I glanced down. “Bridey.” It would kill me to say this, but it had to be said. “He’s your husband. If you’re still in love with him, I understand. I—”
She grabbed my hand to get my attention and shook her head. “No. No! I want nothing to do with him.” Tears fell from her eyes again. “Killian, he…he….” She didn’t seem to be able to say what she wanted to, but I got a sense about something.
“Did he hurt ya, Bridget?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“Then he’ll have no need to fake his death again, because I’m going to rip him limb from limb when I find him.”
A nurse entered and observed Bridey. “Uh-uh-uh. You get that mask on.” She tapped a pen against the monitor. “Just look at these numbers,” she chided.
Bridey contritely slipped the mask back into place. I bent to kiss her forehead. “Ya get some sleep, love.”
I turned, but she grabbed me and, glancing at the nurse who was checking her IV, removed her mask again. “Promise me ya won’t go and find him,” she croaked.
The nurse frowned. “Young lady…!”
“I’m not putting this on until he promises me.”
The nurse raised her gaze to me and crossed her arms. “Well?”
I gave her a frown of my own then bent over Bridey. I gently covered the hand holding the mask then glided it toward her face. “I promise.” That doesn’t mean Tag can’t go looking for him for me. “Now sleep,” I ordered.
She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing me doubtfully but, as I stroked her hair to soothe her, she was so knackered she almost immediately fell asleep.
Chapter 21
Killian
Springtime brought with it the sweet fragrance of the flowers blanketing the meadow at the top of the cliff behind what used to be Murphey’s. The scent finally seemed to take away the lingering odor of the smoke from the fire. Though, initially, we thought the pub was saved by the firefighters who kept the flames from igniting the propane tank, it turned out there was too much damage, and the whole building needed to be razed. Paddy and Deir’ felt they were too old to start over again, but when the locals begged and pleaded with them, I stepped forward and offered to rebuild it myself.
But the scenery in town wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Over the months since the fire, Bridey’s tormentors had dropped one by one. First to go had been the one she’d beaned with the can in the grocer’s. He was sent away for murdering a couple from Liverpool. He, in turn, implicated his partner, the tall skinny one, in order to reduce his charges to a singular murder. Both were sent away for a decent amount of time. Of the two remaining, one was gunned down by the guards when his drug den was raided and the other’s body washed up on the shore of Galway Bay with a single gunshot to the head, which the guards believed to be the result of a feud with a rival gang.
However, Tommy Flatery never reared his ugly head, nor could he be found by the authorities. They had hoped he’d show when Bridey filed for divorce and ran an ad in the paper for him to appear if he desired to contest it. T
he upside was that she was granted the divorce and was no longer legally tied to the blackguard. The downside of course being that we never knew if he’d be back to bother us. But Bridey was determined to move on, so move on we did.
The construction of our new bar—What’s Your Pint?—went quickly, what with the local handymen being inspired to finish their work as speedily as possible in order to have a place to drink. It was set to open in a week, but I had other things on my mind.
First off was a call stateside. The old man answered after the first ring, as if he’d been waiting for my call all this time. Caught off guard by his quick pick up, I almost lost track of what I wanted to say. “Quinn? This is Killian Murphey.”
“Ahh. Killian Murphey, ya say? Killian Murphey…? I used to know a lad by that name.”
I could tell he was slagging me. “I know it’s been a long time since I called, but—”
“Ages. It’s been ages since ya called, actually.”
I huffed. “Ya know, the phone lines work both ways. Ya could have called me.”
“Aye. But I’m an old man. I don’t know how to work these phone thingies. Hallo? Hallo? Am I speaking in the right end?”
I could tell by the sound he was holding the phone upside down. I had to smile at his antics. “Quinn Kilmartin, you’re full of cow manure.”
“What? What’s that ya say?”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to go call someone who knows how to use a phone.”
“Oh, wait. I hear ya now. Thank ya, Rosie. You’re a love. She helped me figure this phone thing out. Now, Killian, what’s the craic?”
How to explain…. “I want ya to come see me.”
“What? In Ireland?”
“Aye. That is where I live.” I rolled my eyes. “Listen, I’ll pay for the tickets.”
He was suddenly all ears. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Killian, do ya want—” Bridey’s head cleared the floor as she neared the top of the stairs. “Oh, you’re on the phone. Sorry.” She crept off.
I smiled. “Not a thing is wrong. In fact, everything’s right.”
His voice warmed. “Ya met someone.”
Unbelievable. He guessed it. “Aye. I met someone.”
There was a pause. “Would Josephine like her?”
“Uhh…” I’d never thought about it. “I think so. They’re a lot alike in some ways. Good souls…. But, in a lot of ways, she’s the anti-Jo. Flighty. Lawd, that gal’s flighty. But she’s got this spark. Ya—”
“Is she good in bed? Because Josie thought that was important.”
I laughed. “What?”
“She said ya were a horny bastard and needed to get it on a fairly frequent basis. Then she gave me a list of things ya like to do in bed….”
For a moment, I was alarmed. I had been reclining on my bed, but I sat up. “What?”
“And, quite frankly, I don’t believe number seventy-two is even physically possible, but….”
It hit me for an instant. “I miss her.”
“Ya think you miss her? What about me?”
I laughed. Quinn never changed.
He became sober. “She was like a daughter to Rosie and me. Like the daughter we never had.”
“I know,” I murmured, laying back and rubbing my eyes. “Sweetjaysus. It hurt so damn much, Quinn. And it still does. She was my…everything.” I glanced over, and my gaze fell on the bird Bridey carved for me after I lost mine to the fire. “But Bridget’s just…opened up something inside me. Made it so I could breathe again without crying. Even laugh again.” I suddenly wanted to get off the phone and go be with her. “So come here and meet her.”
“I don’t know, Killian. I’m getting up there, ya know. I’ll be hitting seventy soon.”
My lips quirked. “Seventy? I thought ya passed that long ago.”
“Ach,” he grumbled.
“Say ya’ll come.”
“When did you need me?”
I sat again. “I don’t know. In the next several months?”
“I can be on a plane tomorrow.”
We rebuilt the pub in the same design in the front, but with a bigger kitchen in the back, with a second door to it on the other side of the bar area, so waitresses didn’t have to walk all the way around the bar to hand their orders in. We even kept Deir’ and Paddy’s room, as they still worked at What’s Your Pint? and retained partial ownership. I insisted on that.
I was stocking the shelves in the press under the stairs. Someone covered my eyes from behind.
“Guess who?”
The corners of my lips lifted. This was where it all began…sort of. “I haven’t a clue.”
She gasped. “Would ya deny me, Murphey?”
I spun, took her face in my hands, and kissed her with all I had. “Even if I could deny ya, Bridget, I’d have no desire to.”
She drew me into a hug. “Mmm. I like the sound of that.”
The skin on her arms was petal soft. “Let’s take this upstairs.”
Her eyes widened. “Now? It’s broad daylight.”
“Folks do it in the daylight, ya know.”
“I’ve heard that, but….”
“Come on. …You know ya want to.”
She tilted her head. “Don’t you be using your Jedi mind tricks on me.”
I started walking her backward. “Oh, I’ve no intention of using my mind on ya, woman.”
“Ooh.” She squirmed, getting free and making a break for the stairs. “I’ll race ya, then.”
She got there before me and held on to the bannisters on either side, effectively preventing me from passing her, the little cheat. I made love to her. The way she responded to me each time sent me into orbit. Afterward, she fell asleep and I lay next to her a happy man. Quinn would arrive tomorrow, and I was anxious for the two to meet. I knew he’d love her as much as I did.
Then I’d put him to work. He was an important part of my plan.
Bridey
It was the night before What’s Your Pint? was supposed to open, and Killian was throwing his own private christening party, so to speak. He’d gone to the airport to pick up his friend Quinn. I stayed behind to give them time to spend together, just the two of them. Quinn’s wife, Rosie, didn’t fly, so he was on his own, and I heard he could be quite a handful. But the more time that passed, the more nervous I became about meeting him. I wasn’t some proper schoolteacher like Killian’s wife, Josephine, was. I was only a bar wench. And, from what Killian told me, I knew I wasn’t as demur and put-together as she had been either. He showed me pictures of her, and she possessed a natural beauty—quite breathtaking, actually—and simply from looking at her, I could tell I would’ve loved her as much as it seemed everyone else did.
Killian told me Quinn was quite fond of “his Jo,” and since I knew I wasn’t reserved, and didn’t have all my shite together, I worried he wouldn’t like me. I could tell the older man meant a great deal to Killian, as he was a father figure as much as the Uncle Seamus he always talked about. What if Quinn disapproved of me? Saw me as the low-class, unrefined, far-from-pure gal I was? It would be like meeting Tommy’s father all over again, and discovering I was not enough. I thought of hightailing it out of the pub like I did before, when I was on the run from the thugs who beat me, but I decided I needed to be a grownup for once in my life and face my fears.
Killian’s keys jingled in the door. “They’re here,” I called to Paddy and Deir’. The door opened, and in strode this adorable older man. He wore a beige plaid, tweed jacket with a rust-orange cap to match it, and he walked with the use of a cane, slightly hunched over. He swept off his hat right away to reveal a thick shock of white hair. I hung back, pretending to finish my chore of shelving glasses. Deir’ and Paddy rushed forward to introduce themselves and shake his hand. I caught Killian’s gaze, and he looked so happy, I had to smile. Deciding there was no need to put it off, I hesitantly drew near.
“And Quinn,” Killi
an said. “This is Bridey.”
“So you’re the one,” he said with a frown. “You’re the thief.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. I thought he was referring to the money raised for my medical expenses I gave to the men Tommy owed.
“What? I’m…uh….” I sought Killian’s aid, but he had spun to hang Quinn’s coat on the table behind them.
My heart pounded in my throat, and my palms were sweating.
Then the older man took my hands in his—they were so soft—and his eyes sparkled. “The one who stole poor Killian’s heart.” He smiled, and I exhaled.
“Oh, I don’t know about that….”
“Well, I do,” he answered. “He wouldn’t’ve called me if he didn’t mean for me to meet ya.”
I glanced at Killian, who had turned back, and he nodded.
“Ya know, some folks don’t know how to work a phone proper and call their old friend from time-to-time.”
Killian rolled his eyes. “Oh, here we go again.” He went around the bar, presumably to pour his friend a drink, and Quinn released me. I returned to my spot and tried to figure out what to do to win the man over.
Quinn reviled everyone with story after story—some of them perhaps even true—while I hung about on the periphery and made drinks for others. Everyone besides myself was getting fairly cooked, even Deirdre.
“Did I tell ya about the time Killian got into a brawl at the pub?”
“Killian? In a fight?” Deirdre said in shock.
“Now, Auntie. Ya know it’s all malarkey. I’m above such tomfoolery.”
Quinn raised his eyebrows. “Ya got them all hoodwinked, have ya? Ahh. Look at him. Ya’d think butter didn’t melt in his mouth.”
“Come on, it was hardly a fight.”
Quinn tapped a finger on the bar. “Did ya clatter the man?”
Killian paused. He was enjoying the stories as much as anybody. “He had it coming.”
“Well, tell us the story,” Paddy insisted. “Why was he mad? Customer get out of hand?”
“Not ex-act-ly,” Quinn said slowly, eying Killian.
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