She shrugged. “Why not?” And that was a very good question. One I couldn’t find an answer to myself. So, I went.
❧
“So, this is what a food-lifestyle blogger does,” I casually mentioned, walking across the road at Emma’s side in the pouring rain. Padraig happily trotted along beside me, grinning and probably thinking he was at home.
“Usually I do a lot more eating and taking pictures of my outfits and home décor, and less traipsing around tiny towns, but yeah,” she said, her heeled boots splashing through the puddles along the cobbled road. “This would’ve been so much easier if she made her own pastries. I think I should knock a star off just for that.”
“Wow.” I snorted. “Harsh.”
“Oh, don’t talk to me about harsh, Mr. Optimism. Shall I remind you of how pleasant you were during the beginning of our flight?” she teased, leading me to the door of Patty’s Cakes. She held a hand out to the door, ready to grasp the handle, when she realized Padraig was still with me. “Oh, crap, I just remembered Pad.”
“He’s a bit hard to forget,” I replied, resting a hand over Pad’s big head. His tongue lolled out with his smile.
She sighed. “You’ll have to wait here with him. I won’t be long.” And before I could respond, she was hurrying inside and talking to a woman behind the counter. Emma pulled the iPad from her bag, offered it to the woman, and she glanced to the window, catching my eye. She smiled apologetically, and I shrugged with my own sheepish grin.
“Weird we bumped into each other, isn’t it, boy?” I mumbled to Pad, scratching him behind the ears. “Nice, though. I like her. I can’t figure out why I like her. She’s not exactly pleasant, but I—”
“Hey, Mal.” I was startled by the voice of Ryan as I turned my head to see him walking toward me with a bottle of flavored water in his hands. He caught me staring at the drink and raised it. “Snow’s got me drinkin’ this shite. It’s pretty good, I gotta be honest, even if it does seem kinda … girly.”
He took a glance into the bakery and nodded. “Never would’ve taken ya for a creep, but hey, I can get on board with that. She’s pretty hot.”
Realizing what he was implying, I shook my head. “Oh, Jesus, no. I know her.”
“Makin’ friends already?” he asked with a raised brow. “Ya work fast. I’m impressed.”
“She was sittin’ next to me on the plane,” I explained.
“Ah, that’s a little less exciting, but she is hot. Did ya initiate her into the Mile High Club?”
Laughing, I shook my head. “Too busy prayin’ for me life.”
Ryan grunted with a nod, uncapping his bottle of flavored water. He took a sip. “What’s she doin’ in River Canyon?”
“Bloggin’,” I said simply, and Ryan turned to me with a questioning look as Emma emerged from the shop.
“Ready, Malachy?” she asked, stuffing her iPad back into her bag, and she took note of the tall, black-haired man standing next to me. “Oh, you must be one of Malachy’s long-lost brothers.”
Ryan glanced at me with a pair of skeptical eyes. “Ya told her a lot for someone ya only sat next to.”
“Oh, I was distracting him,” Emma quickly explained for me. “He was absolutely terrified. You should’ve seen him. The last thing I wanted was for him to throw up all over me.”
“Can’t say I blame ya then,” Ryan replied with a kind smile and a nod. “Well, anyway, I have to head back to work. Just thought I’d say hi. I’ll see ya tonight, Mal. It was nice meetin’ ya …”
“Emma,” she offered, extending her hand.
“Emma,” he repeated, then said, “I’m Ryan,” and they shook before he winked at me and turned to leave.
When he was out of earshot, Emma looked up at me. “He winked at you.”
“He did,” I confirmed with a nod.
“Why would he wink at you?”
I looked down at her. Soft brown hair meant to be touched and emerald eyes that reminded me of home.
God, he was right; she was hot.
My mouth quirked into an uneasy smile. “I have no idea.”
CHAPTER NINE |
Pictures & Prettiness
EMMA
Black & Brewed suited Malachy Shevlin perfectly. Dark and broody, the way you’d expect a true Irishman to be. He sat across from me at the little wooden table, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and stared at me as I pulled the Canon from my bag.
“How much do ya keep in there?” he asked, his voice thick with the brogue.
“What?” I glanced up from the lemon merengue cupcake as I adjusted my camera’s lens.
“Your bag. How much is in there?”
“Uh …” I focused the lens on the swirled dollop of merengue and snapped my first picture. “A lot.”
“So, you’re tellin’ me ya are Mary Poppins?”
The comment brought me to look up from my work. “Mary Poppins?”
“Yeah, ya know, magical nanny. Flying umbrella. Talks to cartoons.”
“I know who Mary Poppins is,” I sighed, dropping my eyes back to the table.
I grabbed the frothy latte in its pristine, white mug and placed it next to the cupcake. The scene didn’t look quite right, with the shiny porcelain saucer and mug side-by-side, and so I reached for my bag again. I rifled through, pulling out doilies, a silk rose and a bottle of lemon-yellow nail polish.
“Ah, I thought surely the kitchen sink was comin’ next,” Malachy quipped from across the table.
“What?” I pushed the dessert plate out of the way, and grabbed the cupcake to put it on a doily. The nail polish bottle was placed next to the latte, and the rose was laid strategically behind the cupcake, to be faded gently into the background. “Perfect,” I mumbled to myself and pulled the camera to my eye.
“What the hell is the bloody fingernail polish for?”
“It’s there to look pretty,” I told him, and the camera snapped the picture. “People like pretty pictures.”
“What was wrong with it before? Why’d ya need that frilly thing, the flower and the nail polish?”
I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “It’s eye-catching, Malachy. When you’re scrolling through Instagram—”
“I don’t have Instagram,” he groused.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I mumbled with a roll of my eyes. “Anyway, what I was saying is, it’s the planned pictures that catch the eye. All I’m missing here is—oh, I know! Hold on!”
I stood up, gripping my hands around the camera as I ran through the café toward the shelves of old books. I ran a finger along the spines, looking for just the right texture, the right color, the right …
“Hm.” I turned toward the counter, to the purple-haired woman named Kylie and asked, “Excuse me. Do you have any white books?”
She cocked her head. “White books? Um, whatever I have is on those shelves, sorry.”
I pursed my lips. “Maybe I could Photoshop a book into the shot,” I muttered to myself, walking my disappointed self back to the table where Malachy stared at me with an incredulous expression. “What’s that look for?”
“What’s wrong with any of those books?”
“They don’t match.”
“So?”
I sighed, grabbing my bag to go digging again. “I already told you, it’s all about the aesthetics. People won’t stop and look at a picture if it doesn’t pop, and one old, black book won’t make the picture pop. It’ll look … drab.”
“Drab?” he repeated, cocking a single brow, and I sighed.
“I don’t know why I invited you to stay with me,” I grumbled under my breath as I pulled out my phone. The glittery case was pulled off and the simple white iPhone was laid on the table.
“Does a mobile that everybody else owns make the picture pop?” I glared at him and caught the lopsided curl of his lips, smiling as though he were about to laugh at me.
My fingers tensed around my camera. “It matches.” I pulled the camera to my eye
and snapped an aerial shot of the cupcake, phone and latte. “That’s perfect.”
“So,” Malachy said, reaching forward to run his finger in circles around the plate’s edge, “ya think if things aren’t perfectly presented, they’re not aesthetically pleasin’?”
I lowered the camera and sat back into the chair. “Well, I, um … I don’t know.”
“Nah, I got ya figured out, Emma Bryan.” He leaned against the table, folding his arms over its surface. “You’re one of them folks that lives their life behind a computer screen. Ya don’t want anybody knowin’ the real you, because ya can’t come to terms with who ya really are.”
My eyes stared unblinking ahead at him. “And how do you think you know so much about me? We spent a few hours on a plane together, and you think you know everything there is to know?”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s me job to know people. Some folks, they talk more to the guy pourin’ their drink than they do their doctor. I have a knack for readin’ people.” In a huff, I grabbed the rose and nail polish and stuffed them back in my bag. “Now you’re gettin’ defensive, because ya know I’m right.”
“And you wonder why you’re not married,” I spat at him.
“Oh, I don’t wonder,” Malachy said, shaking his head. “I’m not married because me Mam and Da never instilled any desire for the permanent in me. They moved me around from place to place, their relationship wasn’t the most stable, with affairs happenin’ on a regular basis and any pets they’d allow me to have would conveniently go missin’ when—what?”
My eyebrows furrowed as my body stilled. “Malachy, that’s horrible.”
“I didn’t say it was good.” He chuckled like it wasn’t anything to pity, leaning back against his chair. “I’m just sayin’, I know why I am the way I am. No denial here.”
“Is that why you’re so insufferable? How do your new family members feel about that? How are they, by the way?” I asked, suddenly remembering I hadn’t bothered to ask.
“They’re, ehm …” He hesitated, bowing his head. “Well, if I’m bein’ honest, they’re pretty incredible, actually.” His hand reached to rub Padraig behind the ears.
“Ryan seems nice. A little dark maybe, but friendly.”
Malachy nodded. “They’re all wonderful and acceptin’ and—"
“And you don’t feel that you deserve them,” and he looked up at that, noticeably startled by the assessment. I smiled. “I can read people too, you know.”
“Well, aren’t ya special,” he grumbled, but I caught the quirking of his mouth. “Are ya gonna eat that cake?”
“I have to,” I said, wrapping my fingers around the mug’s handle. “It’s my job.” I brought the mug to my lips and took a sip of the deflating foam. The smooth and creamy texture of the steamed milk infused with coffee and caramel slid down my throat, and I smiled with a nod. “Damn, that’s a good latte.”
“The coffee I had before was the best I’ve ever had,” he nodded toward the purple-haired woman behind the counter.
I put the cup down and slid my Canon across the table before removing the paper from the cupcake. My guard was down, my attention was diverted, and Malachy grabbed the camera.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, my voice shrill. “Give that to me.”
“Let me take a picture of ya.” He grinned, raising the camera to his eye. “But ya gotta take a bite first.”
“Come on,” I whined, reaching my hand over the table. He tipped his chair backward, continuing to grin like the bastard he is. “Oh my God, you’re acting like a child right now. Give it back.”
“Just one picture. Promise.”
I groaned angrily as I picked the cupcake up. “I don’t know why I invited you to hang out with me.” I took a bite, closing my eyes as the fluffy, marshmallow meringue seemed to melt on my tongue. The white cake and lemony custard filling exploded in my mouth with flavor, exciting my taste buds as I chewed and swallowed, biting my lip with excitement, and I heard the camera click.
My eyes snapped open. “What did you just take a picture of?”
He smiled. “I told ya. You,” and he held the camera out to me.
I put the cupcake back on its doily, already missing its flavor from my tongue, and snatched the Canon from his hand. I clicked through to the most recent picture taken, and the candid shot stopped my heart. My smile was evident in the creases around my eyes, and my hand now touched my lip where the crumbs had been when the shot was taken.
I looked happy.
“Do ya never take pictures of yourself?” he asked. “For your blog?”
I shook my head. “Only from the neck down.”
“Why the hell would ya do that?”
I looked up from the screen. The honest bone in my body begged me to reveal my reasons to him. That I felt old and that I didn’t feel like I looked good enough for my reader demographic. But I didn’t want to say those things out loud, not when I could barely say them to myself, and I just put the camera down.
“Because people don’t want to see that,” I said, holding my voice tight as I turned the camera off and stuffed it back into my bag.
Malachy snorted. “Lots of people want to see a pretty woman.”
I could’ve kept myself from looking at my former plane companion as anything more than a casual acquaintance. It would’ve been easy for me to flip the switch on my hormones, the way I’d been doing for five years since my divorce.
But then, he just had to call me pretty.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had called me pretty.
CHAPTER TEN |
COTTAGES & KIDS
MALACHY
“You should be careful who you compliment like that,” she warned, standing from the table to pull her coat on in a hurry.
“Careful? Why? Do all you Americans really carry guns around with ya?” I teased, crossing my arms and raising a brow.
Her eyes held a warning as she pulled the bag onto her shoulder. “I’m being serious, Malachy.”
“I can see that. You’re already runnin’ away from me.”
“Don’t you have a new family you need to spend time with?”
She began to collect the half-eaten cupcake and latte when Kylie called for her to just leave it. “I’ll get it, Emma,” she insisted. “It’s part of my job.”
“I’ll be sure to mention that in my review,” Emma replied with a tight-lipped smile over her shoulder before turning back to me with a stony glare.
“The Kinneys are all at work,” I told her. “Well, aside from Helen, but truth is, I needed to get away from them for a bit.”
“Why? I thought you liked them.” Her hard expression softened a little.
My chest puffed with my sigh. “Ya gotta understand somethin’, Emma. I spend much of me time alone. I haven’t been more than a night with anybody since me mother died. So, spendin’ this much time with this many people started to weigh on me. That’s why I went for a walk to this little shop, and then found ya.”
She hummed a reply, nodding. “That explains why you’re so grouchy.”
“Grouchy? I’m not grouchy.”
“You’re just not used to people, although I can’t understand how you manage to run a pub with that attitude.”
I shook my head. “That’s an entirely different thing. Talkin’ to people at the pub is very different than facin’ this feckin’ bizarre and emotional thing by myself, and—”
Her bag slid down her arm a bit as her shoulders drooped. “You feel alone.”
“Well, aren’t ya quite the bloody detective,” I grumbled with a smirk. “I don’t just feel alone, Emma; I am alone. These people are wonderful, but they’re not me type. They’re very tightly knit and I wasn’t raised that way. I don’t deserve them and that’s fine, because we’re so different, I’m not sure it would ever work.”
I couldn’t read her expression. Normally, I could see if someone was watering a broken heart with alcohol, or if they were nursing
a splintered ego. But her face … her pretty, green eyes, her smooth skin and her pouty lips weren’t giving away exactly what she was thinking, and I guessed she was doing it on purpose. She didn’t want me to know what was going on in that head of hers.
“So, what are your plans for the afternoon?” she finally asked hastily, hoisting her purse back up. Her voice was rasped with something heavy, and I cocked my head.
“Thought I’d wander around town some more. Why?”
She shrugged and shifted her gaze to look out the window. “I don’t know. I just thought that, um, maybe you’d want to,” she shrugged again, “I don’t know, do something.”
“What kind of somethin’?” I asked, raising a brow as my lips curled into a smirk.
She groaned something unintelligible and hurried toward the door, gesturing for me to follow. I grabbed Pad’s lead and encouraged him to stand. “Come on, boy; we’re bein’ summoned,” I mumbled as I threw a wave to Kylie behind the counter.
Stepping outside, the rain had slowed to a dreary trickle. Emma wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her chin into the collar of her jacket and avoided my eye as she said, “Look, I’ve been divorced for five years.”
“Ah, that explains the book,” I muttered, remembering her tattooed Highlander from the plane.
“The book?” Startled, her eyes lifted to mine as she shook her head.
“The sex book,” I said, nodding to myself. “You’re lonely. I get it. Don’t need to explain that to me.”
Her mouth fell open and a disgusted sound rolled through her lips. “It’s not a sex book.”
“Ah, then what would ya call it? Because judging from the cover, it certainly wasn’t a history book about life in the Highlands.”
Emma pinched her lips, shook her head and said, “It’s a romance novel.”
“Ah, like I said, because you’re lonely,” I repeated gently.
“No!” she shouted and glanced around to make sure we were alone save for the panting dog at my side. “Anyway, I wanted to ask if maybe you, um … wanted to come back to my place and have a drink or something.”
Hope to Fall (Kinney Brothers Book 4) Page 6