Loving Irish

by Katy Regnery

  CHAPTER 4

  Well, fuck.

  Yesterday sure hadn’t gone too well.

  Ian stared at the pad of yellow paper sitting in front of him on the kitchen table, which listed everything that needed fixing at Colby Cottage.

  It was way worse than he and Rory had originally thought.

  Plumbing.

  Her water was a brownish color, which either meant that her well was running dry, and therefore dredging up mud, or her pipes were completely rusted. Either way, it would need to be dealt with sooner than later or she and her daughter would be buying bottled water and trying to bathe in a freezing lake.

  Glass.

  Ian and Rory had counted six broken windowpanes upstairs and two downstairs. All would need to be replaced, especially before the first snow, which would arrive in four to six weeks.

  Roof.

  While the roof was surprisingly sound over most of the cottage, a large limb had crashed through the roof into one of the upstairs bedrooms at some point, and it would need to be removed so that the roof could be patched and reshingled.

  Wildlife.

  Rory had almost lost his shit when they entered one of the bedrooms to find a family of raccoons living there. While Ian had hooted with laughter at the time, the fact remained that the animals needed to be trapped and returned to the woods as soon as possible. They’d also found a bird’s nest in the upstairs bathtub and mice droppings just about everywhere, which meant a trip to the hardware store in Moultonborough for traps.

  Trees.

  The trees around the cottage were too close and way overgrown. One had already fallen through the roof in a storm, and if she didn’t remove some of the others, or at least cut them back, it was going to happen again.

  The dock and boathouse, unfortunately, were unsalvageable. When she was ready, Ian could recommend a local carpenter to rebuild one or both. But the existing structures would need to be pulled out, broken down into manageable pieces and carried to a dumpster.

  He picked up the pencil and made a note: Rent dumpster.

  The front garden, with its vines, branches and thorny roses, was a hazard, though one that could—mostly—wait until spring. For now, he’d clear the front path with a chainsaw and rake, and deal with making it pretty at a later date.

  And if that stubborn woman intended to spend all winter in that goddamned deathtrap, it needed to be winterized. That meant a shit ton of new insulation and a chimney sweep to clean out and inspect the hundred-year-old chimney. Not to mention, he’d noticed a funny odor when they’d tested the baseboard heat. Could be a family of mice living—or dead—inside of it. That might need some maintenance too.

  Honestly? She’d be better off knocking the whole thing over and rebuilding, but it didn’t appear that option was available to her.

  Nor did it appear she was at all interested in free help.

  At least…not if it was coming from him.

  He put down his pencil and raised a cup of coffee to his lips, taking a sip of the hot, bitter brew.

  Hot and bitter.

  Much like Halcyon.

  With her dirty-blonde hair and bright-blue eyes, he’d have known her anywhere, and his heart had leapt with something that felt very much like joy when he’d laid eyes on her again. Beautiful? Absolutely. But ten years and one child later? Scorching hot to boot. She’d only gotten more stunning with time, losing her slightly coltish gait and moving her body like she was used to it now.

  Damn, but he’d like to feel that body moving beside his.

  No. Fuck, Ian. No. She can barely look at you.

  Thoughts like that weren’t much use when the object of them still hated your guts.

  After she’d freaked out at him on the dock, she hadn’t come out of the house again, so Brittany had acted as intermediary between them to arrange for Ian to help her. Unfortunately, Rory wouldn’t have a lot of time to help out with his wedding fast approaching and his new business just getting off the ground. But Ian could make time. With Doug and Finian handling the off-season maintenance at Summerhaven, he could concentrate on Colby Cottage for the next few weeks and get it in some sort of livable shape before winter set in.

  That is, if she’d let him.

  Brittany had disappeared inside the house for a good half hour, emerging only to say that Hallie would accept Ian’s help if—and only if—he agreed to two conditions:

  Hallie insisted on paying him. She couldn’t afford much, and frankly, Ian didn’t want a dime, but she said she wouldn’t accept his help unless the relationship between them was strictly business.

  Along the same lines, she asked that they avoid each other as much as possible. If he’d leave weekly invoices in her mailbox, she’d pay them. Otherwise, she hoped they’d have little cause for interaction.

  He’d had half a mind to barge back into her shithole cottage and tell her to shove her conditions where the sun didn’t shine.

  However, he’d remembered her eyes when she’d told him he couldn’t make her promises.

  Fuck his life, but she’d looked beautiful, blazing with anger.

  But she’d also looked…broken.

  And man, but Ian hated to see it.

  Reminding himself that she’d just been through a horrible divorce, lost her home, moved herself to an almost-uninhabitable summer cottage, and been duped out of her deposit by a piece-of-shit con man, the last thing she needed was shit from him. So he’d swallowed his comments, and pride, and nodded at Brittany, saying that she’d have a “damned invoice” in her mailbox on Friday.

  “Mornin’.”

  Ian looked up to see Finian standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing boxers and a T-shirt and scratching his balls like it was a medal-round event.

  “Do you mind?” Ian asked, grimacing.

  Finian gave him a look. “What? Yer balls don’t itch in the mornin’?”

  “Might be you should get that checked out,” said Ian.

  “Dúil mo bod,” said Finian. Suck my dick.

  “Dún do bheal,” answered Ian. Shut up.

  Fin sauntered over to the counter, took a cup from the cupboard over the sink and poured himself a cup of black coffee. “I really prefer tea.”

  “Then bloody well make some,” said Ian.

  He hadn’t seen Finian in a couple of years, and his cousin seemed more coarse and bullish than he’d been as a teenager. But then, he’d skipped college to make money, and he’d been working at a garage in Dublin over the past five or six years. By all accounts, he knew his way around every nook and cranny of an engine, but it was manual work with only other men for company. And it hadn’t done a thing to soften his manners.

  He took a loud sip of coffee, smacking his lips before belching.

  “What a shock no girl’s snapped you up yet.”

  “Eh. Girls is trouble,” said Finian. “Had a mot. Broke it off before I come here.”

  “Bet the tides wouldn’t take her out,” said Ian.

  “Lick me bag,” suggested Fin, clutching at his crotch.

  Ian chuckled, because crudity aside, his cousin was pretty damn amusing. “So this girl. She had a name?”

  “Yeah. Cindy.”

  “Cindy?”

  “Cynthia.”

  “Okay. And what happened with Cynthia?”

  “Bleedin’ weapon.” Finian sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his unruly light-brown hair. “Nothin’. D’ye have anythin’ for breakfast?”

  Ian knew that a “weapon” was slang for a woman who was disagreeable, but how or why this Cynthia turned out to be a weapon was for Fin to tell. It didn’t appear that he planned to, and frankly, Ian was too preoccupied with a woman of his own to pursue the matter.

  “Cereal in the cabinet over the microwave. Milk, eggs, and bread in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  Finian got up to inspect Ian’s cereal options, looking over his shoulder to ask, “What are we up to today?”

  “You and Doug are going to get the rest
of the docks out of the lake. Haul ’em up on the shore, into the brush, then cover ’em with plastic tarps.”

  “Great,” said Fin, pouring Cheerios into a bowl. “Hangin’ out in a freezin’ lake all day. My balls thank you.”

  “Your balls aren’t my concern.”

  “Right,” said Fin, opening the fridge and bending over to look for milk. “Your concern is some slag and her git over on the—”

  Ian reached for the saltshaker and launched it at his cousin, hitting him squarely in the ass.

  “What the fuck?” demanded Fin with a yelp, turning around to look at Ian with narrowed eyes.

  “You won’t talk about them like that.”

  “Christ!”

  Ian lifted the peppershaker, aiming it at Finian’s precious balls. “I mean it.”

  His cousin covered his crotch with his hands. “Fine. Jaysus, but you’re feckin’ touchy, Ian.”

  “Nah. Just making a point. You’ll talk about her with respect or not at all.” He rolled the glass shaker back and forth between his fingers. “We good?”

  “Yeah. Fine,” said Fin, pouring the milk and adding, “Craiceáilte.”

  Ian took a deep breath and sighed as his cousin rejoined him at the table with his bowl of cereal.

  “No, I’m not crazy. And yeah, I’ll be looking after Hallie’s cottage for the next few weeks. You, me, and Doug will meet in the mornings to go over what I need you two to do, and we’ll touch base again at the end of the day.”

  “With all due respect,” said Fin, his voice thick with sarcasm, “what’s the deal with you and the—Hallie?”

  Ian blew out a long breath. “I knew her a long time ago.”

  “She fucked you over, then?”

  Ian picked up the peppershaker and threw it at his cousin’s head, trying not to laugh when it bounced off Finian’s temple and elicited a yelp from his cousin. “Damnú air!”

  “I warned you.”

  Finian rubbed the side of his head, frowning at Ian before taking a bite of Cheerios. “Please, sir, Mr. Haven, sir. What happened with you and the honorable Miss Hallie once upon a time?”

  Ian flashed back to an evening—one of many—they’d spent together long ago. He’d rowed her out to the raft at Loon Island in a canoe. Once there, they’d tied the boat to a raft and laid down on their backs, side by side, staring up at the dark sky, at the millions of stars overhead.

  It was one of their earlier dates, and he’d reached down for her hand, touching her fingers gingerly, waiting for a sign that holding them would be okay. Her fingers had entwined with his, and happiness had sluiced through his body like liquid fire, warming him from the inside out.

  “Halcyon,” he’d whispered into the darkness.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m crazy about you,” he’d said softly, the words sacred because they’d never been said.

  “Me too,” she said, her fingers adjusting so that their palms were flush. “Me too, Irish.”

  Suddenly his mind changed gears without warning and the sound of her words from yesterday echoed in his mind like a slap across his cheek:

  Stay. Away. From. Me.

  He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “Nothing good.”

  “So why do you want to help her so bad?”

  “Because…” He drank the last of his coffee, then stood up to place the mug in the sink. “You know I’m an alcoholic, right?”

  “Everyone’s an alcoholic,” said his Irish cousin matter-of-factly. “Just different degrees.”

  “Well, I’m a bad one.”

  “Yeah. Okay. So?”

  “So part of AA is making amends.”

  “Amends.”

  “Righting past wrongs.”

  “I’m not a bloody eejit. I know what ‘amends’ is.”

  “You asked why I want to help her, and that’s the best answer I can give you.” Ian leaned against the sink. “I’m making amends.”

  “By fixin’ her shit-heap house?”

  Ian nodded. “Yep. By fixing her shit-heap house.”

  “Musta been bad…whatever you did to her.”

  “Yeah. It was,” said Ian, reaching up to grab his chin with his thumb and forefinger, and rubbing his beard. He winced at the memory of her face yesterday. It was bad enough, in fact, to make her hate me for life.

  “Well…go then,” said Finian. “My balls’ll thank ya kindly for leavin’.”

  “Mrs. Toffle downstairs has a to-do list for you and Doug. Touch base with her by eight o’clock, okay?”

  Finian nodded before plunging his spoon back into his cereal. “Yeah. We’ll be grand. Go, now.”

  Ian headed out of the room, but at the last minute, he turned around. “Hey. What happened between you and…Cynthia?”

  “Go fuck yourself. That’s what happened,” said Finian amicably, before giving Ian the finger and continuing his breakfast.

  ***

  Since the incident on the dock with Ian yesterday, Jenny had doubled down on not speaking to her mother. No matter what Hallie had said or done for the rest of the day, Jenny wouldn’t utter a word—just looked at Hallie with mistrust and fury, which hurt Hallie to the quick.

  You’re yelling! Like you yelled at my papa and made him leave! I hate you! I hate you!

  As Hallie lay awake for hours last night, forbidding herself from thinking about the broad, muscular wall of Ian Haven’s chest, she made an effort to see things through her daughter’s eyes.

  Jenny was too young to understand that charming Sergio had cheated on her mother. Too young to understand that he’d run up unimaginable debts that had killed their comfortable lifestyle. She was too little to see that once things had gotten really bad, Sergio had left them. Voluntarily. Of his own free, cowardly will.

  That first, terrible evening in February, after Hallie had picked up the antibiotics she needed to remedy the STD she’d been given, yes, she’d screamed at Sergio. She’d called him names and yelled terrible things, and eventually demanded that he leave.

  That’s what Jenny had seen and heard: her mother driving her father away. Cause and effect. Hallie had yelled. Sergio had left. It was black and white to a four-year-old child. No room for gray.

  Seeing Hallie yell at Ian had triggered something in Jenny: a flashback to that awful night. But it made Hallie wonder if there wasn’t room—here and now—to help Jenny understand the entire picture, just a little better. She wanted Jenny to understand so goddamned much, in fact, she was willing to allow Ian Haven—a man she swore she’d never speak to again as long as she lived—near her, if he could help further Hallie’s cause.

  It wasn’t Brittany’s cajoling that had made Hallie give in to Ian’s help. It was the fact that if Jenny never saw Ian again, it would mean she was right: Mommy drove Mr. Haven away, just like Papa. But if Ian came back today to work on Colby Cottage? Maybe it would plant a seed of doubt in Jenny’s mind. Mommy yelling at Mr. Haven didn’t drive him away. He came back.

  Flicking a glance at the clock on the kitchen wall, she realized it was seven fifty-five and her heart skipped a beat, stuttering before resuming a faster pace. Part of that reaction was due to the fact that she was still affected by Ian, no matter how much she despised him…but the other part was excited, that maybe—with Ian’s unwitting help—Hallie could reconnect with her daughter today.

  As she rinsed their cereal bowls in copper-colored water that, frankly, troubled her a little, Hallie glanced over at Jenny, who was watching Doc McStuffins on Hallie’s iPad at the kitchen table.

  “Hey, Jenny,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Did I tell you that Mr. Haven is coming over this morning? Yep. He is. He should be here any minute.”

  She watched Jenny’s face whip up, her eyes wide and animated, a smile about to spread across her face before she purposely stopped it and switched gears to scowl at her mother instead. Hallie could almost hear her daughter’s inner thoughts: We’ll see about that, you homewrecker.

  “We made a r
eally good dent in the cleaning yesterday, didn’t we? The living room has no more spiders, the floors down here have all been swept and scrubbed, and we’re ready for our furniture to arrive later today. But we need help with some of the bigger stuff, don’t we? Yep. We do. I don’t know how to fix windows or roofs. So Mr. Haven said he’d help us. Nice, right? Even though Mommy yelled at him, he’s still coming back. He knows that mommies get mad sometimes. He’s tough enough that it won’t make him run away.” …unlike other people we both know.

  Part of her hated that she was singing Ian’s praises like this, but in fairness, she really wasn’t. She was using him for her own means, the same way he’d probably used her that whole summer.

  As if on cue, she heard the hum of an engine drawing closer, the crunch of tires over a gravel-and-dirt road, and ignoring the pitter-patter of her own traitorous heart, she slid a glance to Jenny, who reached forward to shut off her show. She stood up at the table, looking at her mother without scowling, then grabbed Luna and ran to the front door.

  “Jenny, wait!” said Hallie, drying her hands on a paper towel and following her daughter.

  But Jenny had already opened it and was standing in the doorway, waving at Ian, who parked his truck and waved back through the open passenger-side window.

  “Morning, Jenny.”

  “Mr. Haven!” she cried, jumping up and down. “You came back!”

  Hallie’s heart clutched.

  And as much as she hated to admit it, in that moment, something happened that she never, ever could have anticipated: in that split second, she was grateful to Ian Haven. Grateful to the boy who’d broken her heart. Grateful for his shaggy black hair and big body pulling up in front of her cottage. She shook her head in bemusement. Life never ceases to amaze.

  Ian stepped from the truck, walking around the hood and stopping in front of the one-hinged gate. “Morning, Halcyon.”

  She tightened her lips.

  Gratitude or not, this was Ian Haven.

  But just as she was about to turn and march back into the house without greeting him, Jenny’s head turned, her eyes locking with her mother’s and her expression begging her mother to welcome Ian.

  Hallie sighed. “Good morning, Ian.”

  The sides of Ian’s mouth twitched in a tiny victory as he looked at the cottage before glancing back to the mother-and-daughter pair.