by Laura Drewry
“I don’t know,” she said. “But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? You need to be prepared for anything.”
They walked up to the lake before turning around and heading back, JD trotting ahead of them as if on guard. As if a bear wouldn’t make mincemeat out of him in a second.
“Can I ask you something?” Hope tugged Ronan’s arm up around her neck, but, unlike him, she waited until he answered.
“Oh shit,” he muttered. “Is this one of those quid-pro-quo things?”
“Sort of.”
“Can it stay off the record?”
“Of course.”
He wasn’t entirely sure he was ready, but he nodded anyway. “Shoot.”
“Are you—” She stopped, twisted her mouth up a little, and started over. “Do you have a drinking problem?”
“Do I what?” The shock of the question made him trip over his own foot. “No!”
“Okay,” she said, nodding quickly. “It’s just that you never drink. Alcohol, I mean. It’s always coffee or water, and I noticed you had a coin that looked like a sobriety coin, so I wondered.”
Fuck.
The old Ronan, the man he was even three weeks ago, wouldn’t have thought twice: He’d have stopped everything right there and walked away; he’d never even consider trusting her with something personal like this. The man he was slowly turning into, though, the man he actually wanted to be, that guy wanted to trust her, wanted to sit her down right there at the fire pit and tell her everything.
But it wasn’t only his story to tell.
“I can’t—” he started, but that was as far as he got.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “You don’t have to say anything. Forget I brought it up.”
Right, like that would happen. Even after he walked her down to her room and kissed her until her knees buckled, it was still picking at the back of his brain, so instead of heading to his own room, he did something he never did. He knocked on Finn and Jessie’s door.
—
Hope had just finished making the bed up in the County Clare room when Ronan appeared, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. She’d seen him at breakfast, but this was the first time there wasn’t someone else around them, and maybe she was wrong, but he didn’t look entirely comfortable about that.
“So about last night,” he said. “What you asked.”
“It’s okay.” She punched up the pillow, then set it in place next to the other one. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Ronan.”
She wished he would, wished he’d trust her a little, but she couldn’t force it.
“I know,” he said. “But you have to understand, what you asked me—about the drinking—it’s something we…What I mean is, it’s not something I can tell you about without talking to the others first.”
That’s right, she mused. Because it wasn’t just Ronan who needed to trust her, it was all of them.
“Look, Ronan, if they don’t—”
“It was Da.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the same coin he’d had that night on the porch. “He started drinking after Maggie left and probably would have drunk himself into the grave if Jessie hadn’t finally got him to join AA.”
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I didn’t…It wasn’t in my notes.”
Oh, for the love of God, did she really just say that? She must have, because Ronan chuckled.
“Yeah, when your people came to us the first time, asking for history, we only told them what they needed to know, and they didn’t need to know that.” He rubbed his free hand up and down his cheek and leaned against the doorframe. “Truth is, when there were guests here, the old man was sober as a judge, but from the day fishing season ended to the day the next one started…yeah.”
She knew she was pushing it, knew she might even be risking the trust he’d already shown her, but she couldn’t help herself, not when he kept rubbing his cheek like that, as if there was a phantom pain there.
“How bad was it?” she whispered.
He immediately stopped rubbing his cheek and tried to shrug it off.
“Bad.” After a moment, he held the coin up between his first and middle fingertips. “But he was twelve years sober when he died.”
The pride he felt in his dad’s accomplishment shone in his eyes, but there was something else there, too. Regret? Remorse? She couldn’t be sure, but there was definitely something he wasn’t telling her.
Oh, who was she kidding? There was more than one thing he wasn’t telling her, and he’d obviously read her expression, because he was already shaking his head.
“You don’t want to know,” he said.
She started toward him, watching as every step she took seemed to pain him more. His eyes clouded, his jaw clenched, and no matter how tightly he folded his arms across his chest, he couldn’t seem to get them tight enough.
“Yes, actually, I do want to know.” She curled her fingers around his crossed arms and squeezed gently. “Because whatever it is, it still hurts you, and maybe talking about it will help.”
It took a few seconds, but eventually his jaw unclenched and his eyes cleared a little as he snorted quietly.
“Damn that Oprah.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothin’.”
He looked away from her for a second, staring over her head—at what, she didn’t know—then finally brought his eyes down to meet hers. Beneath her palms, the muscles in his forearms continued to flex and relax as he struggled against what must be an excruciating memory.
“It’s just…” That was as far as he got before he stopped, seemingly unable to find the words he wanted.
Hope couldn’t watch it anymore, didn’t want to be the one making him so uncomfortable, so she patted his arm and smiled up at him.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You’re not good at this shit.”
His mouth twitched, his eyes softened, and then he chuckled, quiet and low. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, all right, then.” Pushing him out into the hall, she turned off the light and closed the door behind them. “When you’re ready, just remember—it doesn’t have to be flowery; it doesn’t even have to be complete sentences. Hell, use flash cards if you want, I don’t care.”
“Flash cards?”
“It’s a legit way of communicating,” she said, her voice losing all its momentum when he nudged her back against the door.
“So’s this.” As hard and fast as his first kiss was, the next ones were equally soft and slow; he wrapped his arm around her lower back and held her so beautifully tight.
Hope twisted her fingers around the fabric of his T-shirt and held on in case he thought they were done. Because, Lord have mercy, she wasn’t done. She needed more of him, to know what it felt like to be under him when he kissed her liked that and to feel the heat of his skin pressed tight against her own.
“Hey, Ro!”
Liam’s bellow brought the kiss to a screeching halt, but he was already halfway up the stairs by that time and Hope was still tangled in Ronan’s arms.
“Oh shit.” Snorting and laughing, Liam turned his face away and used his hand as a kind of shield between them. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Hope pinched her mouth tight to stop from laughing, but Ronan clearly didn’t think it was funny at all. In fact, he looked about ready to throttle his brother. But instead of moving away from Hope, he fisted his hands against the wall on either side of her and stared down at the floor.
“What do you want?” Each word came out like its own tight sentence.
“Um…” Still snickering, Liam kept his face turned away. “Lunch? You know what, never mind; we’ll just eat the leftover pizza. It’s fine.”
He started to walk away, then lifted his hand in an awkward backward wave. “Sorry, Hope. As you were.”
A second later, they heard his feet hit the lobby floor, and he called out, “Hey, Jessie, can you add a hockey stick to the shopping
list? Looks like Satan’s gonna need one.”
Hope had no idea what that meant, but it made Ronan laugh, so that was good.
“Go,” she said. “Before he finds out Finn ate most of the pizza this morning.”
He didn’t move right away, just stayed where he was, his gaze seeming to study every inch of her face before he leaned in and breathed a soft kiss against the corner of her mouth.
“I’ll see what I can do about those flash cards,” he murmured. And before she could even wrap her mind around what he said, he was gone.
Whew. How could she still feel his hands in her hair when he was all the way down in the kitchen? And how in blue blazes could she still taste his kiss hours later when she was walking through the great room, getting to know the new batch of guests?
It didn’t help that every time she happened to make eye contact with Ronan’s brothers or Kate or Jessie, they all gave her that nodding, knowing smile that made her blush clear up to her scalp. So much for not broadcasting it to the family; but, really, if Ronan was going to kiss her like that in the hallways, there was no way they could have kept it under wraps for long.
And she sure hoped there were plenty more hallway kisses like that one.
Focus, Hope.
She was focused.
On the show.
Right—the show. It was great that most of the new guests had not only watched the premiere episode of Hooked last night but were excited to talk about it and to meet the O’Donnells in person. The problem was that Luka didn’t want to use any footage that included talk of previous episodes or of guests being crazy fan-people, because it didn’t fit with what the show was about.
That meant Hope and her crew had to make sure they got plenty of tape that could be used, and, according to Luka’s last email, that meant more Ronan. The show overall had been very well received, with viewers saying they liked the family dynamic, loved learning about Kate and Liam’s rekindled romance and how Jessie and Finn had known each other for so long before anything happened between them. They enjoyed the “homey” feel of the Buoys and asked all sorts of questions about fishing techniques and what the O’Donnells thought of the regulations and limitations.
More than half of the feedback mentioned Ronan specifically, and according to the report Luka sent, the most popular words used were “hot,” “sexy,” and “wow.” There were questions about his age. Was he single? Gay? Straight? Why couldn’t they find him on social media? Did he like animals? What about kids?
This was all great—really great. It meant viewers wanted more, and that was definitely what they were going to get in the next episode, all thanks to Kevin’s quick thinking. The fixed cameras around the Buoys were programmed to record between certain hours of the day, starting when the guests arrived midafternoon Sunday through to Wednesday night; that was the agreement.
But last week, while Ronan had his head stuck in the Cessna’s hold, trying to coax JD out, Kevin had hightailed it up to the lodge and turned on the cameras. Since the guests hadn’t started to arrive yet, it wasn’t part of the scheduled recording time, but the footage they got was exactly what Luka was asking for. Not only was it all Ronan, but it was Ronan and a dog.
Sure, it would take some creative editing to erase Hope from some of the shots, but she had no doubt they could do it.
What would Ronan think about it, though? They’d already bent one rule by filming outside of the agreed schedule, and if they used this bit—or, rather, when Luka used this bit—it would mean him having a lot more screen time than he’d had in the first episode, and Hope didn’t think he’d be happy about either one of those things.
He didn’t want the cameras up in his space all the time, and when he had to be in shots, he preferred to be in the background, a trait that Hope rather expected was one of the things that intrigued the viewers. It was, after all, one of the things that intrigued Hope.
If she told him, it might well piss him off that they’d recorded him when they shouldn’t have. If she didn’t tell him, it would most definitely piss him off when it came out in the next episode, and Hope had no reason to believe Luka wouldn’t put it in the episode. Anytime you had a hot guy saving a dog, it was network gold.
Not surprisingly, though, Ronan didn’t see it the same way.
“We had an agreement,” he said. “And your crew can’t just fuck around with that whenever they want to.”
They were up at the lake with JD, and although Ronan didn’t seem too concerned about possible wildlife attacking them, Hope was constantly on guard for snapping twigs or any other sound that might give away an approaching grizzly or cougar.
“You’re right,” she said. “And I’m sorry, but I’m sure he didn’t do it for any reason other than pure instinct. He thought something great might be about to happen and we needed to get it on film. As it turned out, we now have footage that’ll not only make viewers love you more but it’ll also explain why all of a sudden there’s a dog in some of the shots when there was no mention of him before.”
“Okay, I get that, but this is how it starts, Hope. Today it’s Kevin filming outside the schedule—not a huge deal this time, but if he doesn’t think twice about it now, what’s to stop him from doing it next week with something that is a huge deal?”
“Like what?”
“Like…like I don’t know!”
No one else in the family had a problem with it; in fact, they thought it would be a great bit to add to the next episode. But Ronan…Well, Hope had a pretty good idea why he wasn’t keen on it.
“Letting people see your soft side will only make them love you more.”
“I don’t have a soft side,” he grumbled. “And I’m not looking for ways to make viewers love me.”
“I know,” she said, trying not to sound too condescending. “And that’s exactly why they do.”
Chapter 12
“Being part of a family means smiling for photos.”
Harry Morgan, Dexter
It wasn’t that Ronan didn’t like the dog episode, because it was just as good, if not better, than the first episode of Hooked, but he hated that it gave the guests more reason to seek him and JD out.
The social part of the Buoys had never been something he was good at. Where Liam and Finn were easygoing and had no trouble making conversation with anyone, Ro tended to stumble and falter, so it was just easier for him to keep in the background, and it no doubt made Hope’s job easier, because her team was saved from having to bleep out things he said.
Easier or not, it was only a couple of weeks later, after they’d watched the fourth episode, that Hope sat them all down and broke the news.
“You’re not going to want to hear this, Ronan,” she said, “but you’re going to have to stop hiding in the kitchen so much.”
“I’m not hiding,” he said. “It’s my job to keep them fed.”
“Funny,” Finn snorted. “Olivia always had time to come out and chat up the guests.”
“Yeah, well, she wasn’t feeding as many people, was she?” It was a pathetic excuse, one that no one in the room was buying. “Did anyone talk to her this week?”
“Yes,” Jessie said. “She’s hating rehab and thinks her nurses are trying to kill her; now, stop trying to change the subject.”
“I’m not.” He absolutely was. “Fine. What the hell am I supposed to talk about? It’s easy out on the boats, ’cause they all want to talk about fishing and shit, but standing out there in the lobby, I got nothin’.”
“Ask them about themselves,” Hope said. “People love talking about themselves. And then tell them a few things about you.”
“Ha! Like what? Liam can talk baseball, tell them all about what it’s like to sit in the dugout next to Verlander, and Finn’s got all that fish-whisperer magic shit that he does, but I’m a divorced ex-farmer who spent the last ten years digging ditches and cleaning out drains. Not exactly riveting stuff.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Liam said, nodding. �
��You’re boring as hell.”
“Liam!” Kate gave him a soft shove, but she was laughing with the rest of them. “Talk about JD—people love talking about their pets, haven’t you noticed that? Last week that woman from the orange cabin, Evelyn, bawled like a baby when she told me about her cat dying last year. Last year! Then she tells me her husband died four months ago—nothing. Not a single tear. I’m tellin’ you, Ro, you need to use that dog. He’s your ticket to stardom.”
“I don’t want stardom.”
“We know.” The only one who didn’t groan that out was Hope, who sat in the chair across from Ronan, her mouth twisted to the side, trying not to laugh.
“Ronan,” she said, “like it or not, you and JD are what the viewers want. I’m not saying we make full episodes of the two of you, but if you could maybe pop out of the kitchen once in a while to interact with the guests, that’d be great.”
“You said you wanted us to be who we are,” he said. “Well, this is who I am.”
“The token miserable old shit,” Liam snorted. “Every family has one.”
“I’m not miserable,” Ro said, maybe a little louder than he meant to. “I’m perfectly fine.”
Hope leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “Ronan.”
That’s all she said, but it was enough.
“Fine. I’ll come out of the kitchen once in a while, I’ll be friendly, but I don’t want to hear any bitchin’ when your dinners are late.”
“Thank you.” She took a deep breath, then looked at everyone in turn. “We’ve aired four episodes and the editors are putting together the fifth as we speak, so I need to ask you guys what your plans are going forward. Have you given any thought to the rest of the season?”
As one, they turned to Jessie, who was tucked up next to Finn.
“We have,” she said. “But we wanted to wait to see this episode before we made our final decision.”
“Fair enough.” Hope sat up a little and nodded. “I don’t expect you to have an answer right away, so if you’d like to talk about it, I’ll give you some privacy.”
“That’d be great, thanks.”