It's in His Kiss Holiday Romance Collection

by Mary Leo

  “I thought about inviting our classmates, then the girls reminded me that you guys hated most everyone we graduated with,” Max yelled over the song.

  “Wise decision. This is insane!” Rose shouted. “You did this all for me?”

  “I thought it was about time.”

  “I love you,” she said as she turned to face him.

  “Me too, babe. I love you too.”

  Daisy and Jasmine came running over and the three women squealed just like they had when they were girls.

  And just at that moment, while everyone was hugging and squealing, Rose spotted the gypsy, sitting at a small table, watching them, nodding and smiling.

  Rose turned to Daisy, “How did you find her?”

  “Who?”

  “The gypsy.”

  “We didn’t find her,” Jasmine said.

  “But she’s sitting right over there.” Rose pointed, and sure enough, there she was, brilliant blue scarf wrapped around her head, bangles on her wrists and ears. More gold hanging around her neck. And in the palm of her hand sat the glowing red crystal heart.

  The gypsy laughed then as Rose and her friends started to walk toward her, but as they got closer she vanished in a burst of red haze.

  Rose, Daisy and Jasmine stopped in their tracks.

  After a moment, Daisy said, “Okay, I didn’t really see her. Did either of you?”

  Jasmine slowly shook her head.

  Rose said, “Probably just my over-active hormones.”

  “Yeah, that was it. Along with the haze machine,” Jasmine added.

  “Anything wrong?” Max asked from behind Rose.

  “Not a thing. Everything’s just as it should be.”

  The women all turned towards their men. “Hey,” Rose said, as loud as she could. “It’s prom night. Let’s dance.”

  And everyone did just that.

  # # #

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  The Gypsy’s Valentine

  Copyright © 2013 by Mary Leo

  Published by Pryde Multimedia, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and/or publisher.

  Irish Kiss

  Chapter One

  The phone rang just as Ronan Kelly placed his weapon on the dresser and was unbuttoning his shirt, anxious to get out of his clothes and fall into bed. He decided not to answer. Whoever it was could leave a message.

  It had been one of those tough days on patrol in South Chicago where being a cop tested his endurance. Two shot-up dead guys lying on the ground and nobody knows nothing. Not that he wanted to do anything else. He just sometimes questioned why he had to do it in the city where even some of the good guys hated the “Boys in Blue.” Certainly there was a small town somewhere that needed another Sheriff.

  Okay, so he’d been in a sour mood all day, ever since he’d heard that not only would he have to work the South Side parade on St. Patrick’s Day, but he’d have to pull a double. Not exactly his idea of celebrating his favorite holiday.

  Chicago took St. Patty’s Day seriously with two major parades, countless parties, and green beer served in almost every tavern. Everyone was Irish on St. Patty’s Day. Hell, even the river reflected the “green” attitude, with the local plumbers union pouring forty pounds of green vegetable dye in it each year before the parade. Even some of the fountains become a perfect shade of Irish green. But just once he’d like to have the time off to do a little celebrating of his own.

  One day he’d get out of this tight city, get away from the street noise and move out where his nearest neighbor was a goat.

  At least that was his dream, especially on days like he’d just had.

  Now his damn land phone wouldn’t stop ringing. He knew it wasn’t anything to do with work or he’d be getting the call on his cell. This had to be a very determined friend, an estranged family member who didn’t have his cell number or some kind of junk call. After three sets of rings, and no message on his machine, he finally picked up and gave whoever it was a curt “hello.”

  “‘Tis me,” a raspy voice answered.

  “Yeah, and who’s me?”

  “What? You don’t recognize your own cousin?”

  Damn!

  It was Tommy, a relative he’d rather not recognize. The guy always meant some kind of trouble.

  “Tommy! It’s been awhile. How the hell are you?”

  “Not so good, cuz. I think I got some guy tailin’ me arse.”

  “So why are you calling me?”

  “You’re still a cop, ain’t ya? Or did you feck that up, too?”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  His cousin’s raspy chuckle rumbled though Ronan. The man was like a recurring bad dream, popping up whenever Ronan was at his most vulnerable.

  “I hear Rourke’s gone missing again. I tried to get ‘hold of him, but ‘tis like he’s dead or turned into smoke. Nobody can pin him down.”

  “He’s not dead. Just busy.”

  Rourke was another cousin, a detective who seemed to like life better undercover, but Ronan wasn’t about to tell Tommy anything about that.

  “Feck, all you gobshites are always busy.”

  Tommy liked to think anyone who worked on the side of the law was an idiot.

  “What do you want, Tommy. It’s late and I’m beat.”

  “I be here in Chicago. Got somethin’ I gotta do tomorrow that’s gonna set me up pretty. Then tomorrow night I thought we’d go on the lash at one of them Irish Pubs in your old haunt. The Village Tap, around eight?”

  The last thing Ronan wanted to do was meet Tommy for a drink at the Village Tap, a bar he hadn’t been to in almost a year. But the guy was his cousin, and he liked to hear stories about their small village, Talamh an Óir, back in Ireland where they were all born. A town Ronan longed to return to if he ever had the chance.

  “I don’t know. That place—”

  “Cathy O’Toole will be waitin’. She says she ain’t seen your sorry arse in a while. I thought you two was gonna tie the knot? What’s up?”

  Cathy O’Toole was everything Ronan ever wanted. Unfortunately, he was everything she didn’t want. The last time he’d seen her she’d hurled her stilettos at him and told him never to come back. Those damn things could poke out an eye or kill a fella.

  They should be illegal.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Nothin’s that complicated when it’s a garl like Cathy. I’d a’given me left nut for a night with that one, I would. Hey, I best be goin’. I’m gettin’ a funny feelin’ ‘bout this here saloon. Goin’ back to my room. Meet me straight away tomorrow night for a bit of a laugh. I won’t be takin’ no excuses. Maybe you can give a good scare to the freckin’ guy who be tailin’ me. A guy like you’s gotta be worth somethin’.”

  As much as Ronan didn’t want to meet him or Cathy, who probably hated him even more now, he knew he better agree. There was no telling if Tommy was actually being followed or not, and if he was, at least Ronan could find out why.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll be there. Eight o’clock, right? And don’t keep me waiting or I’ll leave.”

  “Ah, and you’d leave a grand garl like Cathy? You must ‘ave rocks for brains, man.”

  “Just be on time.”

  “‘Tis my way.”

  They hung up and Ronan headed straight for the shower. It wasn’t bad enough he’d just made a date with a troublesome cousin, but he’d be seeing Cathy again. The one girl he couldn’t shake no matter what kind of shoes she threw at him.

  * * *r />
  It was a few minutes past nine in the evening when Cathy O’Toole considered the possibility that she’d been royally stood up. Not the best situation to find oneself in, especially since she hadn’t wanted to meet up inside the Village Tap to begin with. Now, as she worked on her second pint while sitting at the elbow-end of the mahogany bar, she felt like a complete arse.

  To hell with the two of them!

  She had better things to do with her time, like finishing the sweater she’d been knitting for her five-year-old niece’s upcoming birthday, rather than waiting around for men who obviously didn’t think enough of her to call and cancel the date. Not that this was in any way, on any level a date of any kind. She had made that quite clear to Tommy. Still, there she sat, alone in a somewhat crowded neighborhood tavern in Roscoe Village, her new hometown.

  The tavern itself brought back memories she would rather not dwell on, so getting up and leaving seemed like a smart move. Unfortunately, the beer had already intensified those memories causing her to want to wait around just a wee bit more to see if either one of them would show up. Plus, she had promised Tommy she’d be there.

  But an hour late? Who did that?

  She’d brought her knitting along with her, like she always did, but she was too mad to knit.

  It didn’t seem worth the pain the date was bound to cause if she waited around much longer only to realize that Ronan Kelly had stood her up, and he’d done it at their favorite tavern in all of Chicago. The very place they’d spent countless hours talking about their futures together. The very place where he’d proposed in front of a hundred people, some of which were there right now, watching her, glancing over at her, probably wondering where the hell she’d been for the past year.

  Cathy only lived four blocks away on Oakley Avenue, but ever since her relationship with Ronan had fallen off a cliff, she had avoided the Tap at all costs.

  Until tonight.

  She would do almost anything for Tommy, especially since he was one of the few connections to their old village in Ireland, Talamh an Óir, which she desperately missed with all her heart. She had tried to get him to meet her at any number of other taverns Chicago had to offer, but he’d insisted it be this one.

  Still, he was late or more likely had blown her off for a better offer. If she waited much longer, she’d undoubtedly be crying in her beer. She had thought about leaving for the past half-hour, then changed her mind when she reminded herself not only did Tommy say he had something important to tell her about Adhamh, the leprechaun who’d been terrorizing their village in Ireland, but that he’d invited Ronan, the one man on the entire planet she truly hadn’t wanted to see ever again. At first she’d said no to Tommy’s invitation. Then the more Tommy had insisted, saying he needed to see them both at the same time, the more he had broken her resistance down.

  Apparently, her resolve wasn’t exceptionally strong or she wouldn’t be sitting there waiting more than an hour for the two gobshites to show up.

  This deserves another pint.

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t given backing out a valiant try by spending most of the day coming up with excuses why she couldn’t show up. She must have called Tommy at least five or six times to give him her latest excuse, and texted him another ten times that she had forgotten about a previous engagement—a total lie—unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to connect, and leaving him a message didn’t seem right.

  So there she sat, watching the front door as if her life depended on it, counting the minutes, thinking about leaving and wondering if she’d ever truly get over Ronan Kelly.

  Moments later, as she finished up her second pint, and at the very moment she decided not to order the third one, and had grabbed her purse ready to pay the bill, the wooden door swung open and Ronan Kelly stepped inside, taking her breath away with just one look. It took every ounce of reason she had left not to jump his bones right then and there. The man could break her heart with a glance, but she reminded herself he could also make her want to break a bottle over his head with one word.

  As he walked closer to her, smiling, looking as delicious as he had when she’d told him to get the hell out a year ago, she knew absolutely she should’ve never, ever agreed to this, never stayed.

  And never have moved off her bar stool.

  They hugged and that same spark shot through her body just like it had the very first time they touched when they were kids. The flash soared through her as if they had an electrical connection, as if they were plugged into some sort of unearthly energy force that connected them to each other.

  She trembled.

  “Then you heard,” Ronan whispered in her ear.

  Cathy pulled back and gazed into those magnificent black eyes of his, and something inside made her want to fall back into his arms again. She didn’t. Then she took another look at his eyes, trying to figure out what else she saw there.

  “Heard why you guys are so late? No. No one’s called me. Where’s Tommy? I’m going to kill that little Irish toad.” She gazed over Ronan’s shoulder expecting the door to swing open at any moment.

  “Maybe we should sit down’”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “What’s wrong?”

  He motioned for them to sit first. Just as they did, Pete, the bartender, walked over, smiling. “What’ll it be, then?”

  “Guinness.”

  “Two,” Cathy added. Pete took her empty glass away and put down two white cocktail napkins.

  When Pete left, Cathy turned to Ronan. “Just tell me. Whatever that little rascal did, I want it straight.”

  “It’s not good, Cathy. I don’t know exactly how it happened. The details are still being verified, but he’s dead. Tommy is dead. I was called to the scene and—”

  At once her eyes stung with tears and her throat tightened. “‘Tis a tall one you be tellin’ me, Ronan Kelly. I just spoke to the lad.”

  “It’s the God’s truth, Cathy.”

  Heartfelt sobs that escaped from her lips as she thought of Tommy, dead. She’d heard the wailing of a Banshee in the middle of the night, but had decided it was part of her dreams or that a neighbor’s child was crying. Now she knew the Banshee was crying for Tommy, her childhood best friend, the very boy who had introduced her to Ronan when she was no taller than a baby lamb.

  Ronan turned back to Pete who stood pouring their beers. “We’re moving to a booth.”

  He took Cathy’s hand and led her to the back of the bar toward a row of booths along the wall across from a fifties-style photo booth. They headed for the last empty booth in the very back of the bar.

  Pete called after them that he’d bring their drinks over.

  When they settled across from each other Cathy gained some control over her emotions and wiped her eyes on the white bar napkin. There would be time for more tears and a proper mourning later. Then Ronan began telling her what had happened.

  “I interviewed the only witness who seemed to know something about what happened. I think he liked all the attention the media was giving him.”

  “Why would Tommy attract the media?”

  Ronan shrugged. “I’m guessing because of the proximity to St. Patrick’s Day and the story the witness cooked up.”

  “Cooked up? What does that mean?”

  He seemed hesitant to tell her the details, as if he anticipated her reaction.

  She waited as Pete set down their glasses.

  Then after he drank down half his beer, he said, “I’m just going to repeat the facts as I heard them. Apparently, there was a robbery along with Tommy’s death. Granted, the perp’s description sounds familiar, but I think it’s just a coincidence.”

  She leaned forward. “Tell me what the witness said, Ronan, or I’ll be leavin’ just as sure as there’s a rainbow after a rainstorm.”

  Ronan took in a deep breath. “According to the witness, who didn’t seem very reliable, the thief was a short man with red curly hair, wearing a red suit coat with shiny button
s and bright green trousers. He wore only one shoe and was heard to have said—” Ronan hesitated again.

  “What did he say? Tell me.”

  “May ye fall and never rise again.” He said it so low and fast she barely caught it.

  But she did catch it and at once her emotions took over and tears cascaded down her already damp cheeks. “‘Tis Adhamh One Shoe, the conniving, dirty leprechaun from our village that smited our Tommy.”

  Whenever she became upset, she reverted back to her Irish dialect. She couldn’t help it, even though she knew Ronan found it endearing and liked to tease her about it.

  This time he gave her that skeptical look she knew so well. Not only did he seem not to appreciate her dialect reversion, but he categorically didn’t believe in leprechauns or Banshees or anything close to Irish lore. His stubborn refusal to accept the truth was the reason they could not now or ever be together, especially since Cathy knew for a fact he was absolutely wrong.

  Cathy had seen the faeries herself when she was a child living in Talamh an Óir, Land of Gold. They’d played in her yard, washed in the bird bath, and slept around her mother’s chair whenever she sat outside. Her mom could never see them, but Cathy had even spoken to them once when she was sick with a fever.

  “You can believe that if you want to, but I’m thinking it was a heart attack. The witness testified that Tommy had fallen to the sidewalk clasping his chest. Supposedly a cloth bag he’d been carrying was stolen by the little guy spouting the Irish curse. Tommy so believed in all that lore stuff that I think it’s what killed him.”

  Cathy regained her composure. “What was supposedly in the bag?”

  Ronan leaned back and drank down more of his beer.

  Cathy asked again. “What did the dirty leprechaun take?”

  He put his glass down and leaned in closer, looking a bit sheepish. Then he sighed and said, “His own gold coins.”

  Chapter Two

  For the next hour, Ronan tried his best to sound as if there was a logical explanation for everything that had occurred. Regrettably, he came off sounding a bit lame, especially to Cathy who seemed about as impressed with his rendition as a child listening to an adult telling them why swearing was bad.