Loving Irish

by Katy Regnery

  She watched through the window as he trudged back to the house. He hauled the bag onto his shoulder, locked the door, then returned to the truck. A moment later, they were on their way back to Summerhaven.

  “Fin usually stays in Tierney’s old room, but he got caught in Boston. I’m in the room Rory and I used to share. That leaves my parent’s old room for you and the ladybug, okay?”

  “That’s great,” she said, rubbing her cold hands in front of the heater. “I’m so grateful.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jenny was snuggled under a down comforter in the Havens’ old queen-sized bed, and Hallie was sitting on the couch in the living room with her slippered feet resting on the coffee table. Ian had offered to make them each a cup of warm milk before bed, and she was only too happy to accept his kindness. After the craziness of the last hour, she needed to unwind a little before going back to sleep.

  The microwave beeped, and a moment later, Ian stepped into the room with two steaming mugs. He set them on the coffee table, then sat down next to Hallie. And the first thing she thought was: Closer. Sit closer to me, Irish.

  He was dressed in jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt that looked like he’d plucked them from the floor in his haste to rescue her, and suddenly she wondered if there had been underwear lying on the floor too or if he’d ignored them in his rush to pull on some clothes and get to her. Her eyes dropped to his lap, and she stared at his crotch, weirdly turned-on by the notion that the only thing between her eyes and his skin was a brass zipper.

  Her cheeks flushed as she remembered long summer nights, half-naked in each other’s arms. Ian was big. Everywhere. And her body tingled with the sensory memory of his erection in her hand, wanting it in her—

  “So uh…” Ian cleared his throat, and she snapped her neck up to find his eyes wide and lips twitching as he held back a smile. “Was there something you, um…needed?”

  She blinked at him, caught between sharp embarrassment and a fit of giggles. And whether it was the way he was looking at her, or the sheer absurdity of her thoughts, or the burst of rightness she’d felt to find a snowy Ian at her door ready to save her, there was something wonderful about giggles winning the draw. As they subsided, she turned her head slightly to look at Ian, who was grinning at her, a question still lingering in his dilated eyes.

  “No,” she said. “Not right now anyway.”

  “Another time,” he suggested.

  “When I’m not delirious with exhaustion,” she teased.

  He leaned forward to grab their mugs, offering her one. She sat up, taking it from him and cheers-ing his with a soft clank.

  “I haven’t had warmed milk since I was little.”

  Ian took a sip. “Sometimes when I wake up in the middle night and want a drink, I make some.”

  “Does it help?”

  “Not really,” he said, chuckling ruefully before lowering the cup. “Maybe a little. But it’s probably just doing something that helps.”

  She looked at him over the rim of her mug. “I was an ER nurse in Boston, and I can’t count the number of alcoholics I met during my work there. It broke my heart every time. It’s so hard to break free from addiction.”

  “It is.” Ian nodded, then nailed her with an earnest look. “But I have.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Two hundred and forty-two days sober as of tomorrow—er, today.”

  “That’s amazing, Ian. Congratulations.”

  He nodded, taking another sip of milk but otherwise remaining silent.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?” she prodded gently.

  If discussing his sobriety was important to him, she wanted him to know that he could talk to her about it any time. He didn’t need to keep it to himself or protect her from it.

  “I was an alcoholic. Now I’m recovering. I’ll never go back.” He shrugged. “That’s my past, present, and future right there, Halcyon. Nothing more to it.”

  “Well, I’m here if you ever need to talk,” she said. “I’m proud of you, and I support you, and this milk is better than any other drink I ever had.”

  “You were always a bad liar,” he said, grinning at her. He stared at her for a moment before cocking his head to the side. “I missed you at the brunch yesterday.”

  She winced, looking away from him.

  “Fuck,” he whispered. “I know that look.”

  “What look?”

  “Rejection,” he grunted softly.

  Hallie leaned forward, placing her mug on the coffee table and shifting on the couch to face him. “Ian, look at me.”

  He did, and around his eyes, she could see the wear and tear of the last decade etched into his face. She reached out, gently tracing the lines that spoke of his struggles and demons and everything else he’d fought in order to get here today.

  “You’re wrong,” she said softly, caressing the face she loved so well. “That look was confusion. That look was fear. That look was shame from cowardice. But nowhere in that look was there rejection, Ian. I promise you.”

  Somehow her hands had ended up cradling the scruff on his jaw, and she held his face steady as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. His mug landed on the table with a loud clunk, and suddenly his hands were under her arms, lifting her onto his lap. She straddled him, and he pulled her closer—as close as possible, so that the only thing between her unbound breasts and the hard wall of his chest were their T-shirts, and his erection throbbed at the apex of her thighs.

  He growled into her mouth, his hands trailing down her back to the hem of her shirt, then underneath, sliding up the bare skin of her back. She rubbed her breasts against him, her nipples hardening into tight points as a delicious heat pooled into her stomach. And lower, her muscles tightened and released in anticipation, and a rush of wetness soaked her panties.

  Moaning softly, she dug her hands into his hair as his tongue tangled with hers. She rolled her hips against him experimentally, then with more purpose when his hands clutched her waist, urging her to do it again.

  His lips skated down the column of her throat, pressing and licking, sucking lightly and nipping at the sensitive skin as her breathing grew quick and shallow. She leaned her neck to the side to give him better access, whimpering softly when he sucked so hard she knew she’d have a mark in the morning.

  Mark me, she thought, dragging her fingers through his hair. I’m yours.

  “I’ve waited for you so long,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, with love and longing. His lips continued their journey to her collarbone, and he reached up, shoving her shirt aside so that he could lean his forehead against her shoulder. His arms tightened around her body. “I never thought I’d hold you like this again.”

  Wrapping her arms around him, she closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his head. “Me neither.”

  “Don’t go away again,” he implored her, his voice gravelly and deep.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, gently stroking the hair on the back of his neck as tears welled in her eyes.

  “I can’t lose you again,” he whispered so softly, she wondered if he meant to say it aloud, but then he added, “I wouldn’t survive it,” and she knew that he was speaking to her, that he was expressing his most honest and painful truth: that losing her had almost broken him.

  It had almost broken her too.

  “On Saturday, you asked me for a second chance,” she said, her heart fluttering and racing as she spoke. He didn’t say anything, but every breath he took pushed his chest into hers, and she could feel the pounding of his heart against her own. “Ian…I want that too.”

  His hands, which had been flat and rigid on her back, trembled lightly as his fingers curled into her skin. “You mean it?”

  “I mean it.” She let her hands trail from the back of his neck to under his ears, drawing his head up so she could look into his eyes. “And there’s something else I need to tell you: Ian, you didn’t sleep with Vicky.”

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nbsp; He flinched, looking into her eyes with confusion. “What?”

  Hallie shook her head, ignoring the tear that slid down her cheek. “You didn’t have sex with her. You didn’t even kiss her. You passed out before anything could happen.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, still holding her but leaning away a little, his body rigid and shocked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

  “There’s a new beauty salon in Meredith, and it turns out she owns it. I saw her there on Saturday, and—God, I don’t know what made me confront her, but I wanted answers about what had happened that night and—”

  “That’s why,” said Ian in a breathless voice. “That’s why you were so distant on Saturday morning. That’s why you asked me if I thought we’d still be together.”

  “Yes.” She nodded, sniffling as more tears flooded her eyes. “I made assumptions that morning. The morning I found you two asleep. I—I decided you’d betrayed me, but you…you didn’t. You didn’t have sex with her, Ian.”

  He winced, closing his eyes and keeping them shut for several minutes before opening them again, his chest heaving as he put all of the pieces together. “I still lost you.”

  “We lost each other.”

  “But we didn’t…I mean, I didn’t…” He reached up and covered her hands with his, his eyes wide and vulnerable as they searched hers for the truth. “I didn’t cheat on you?”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t. You got drunk and—well, I guess she got there to tell you I wasn’t coming, and you were upset…and she said that she was hoping something would happen between you two, but you passed out before anything could.”

  “Why’d she let everyone think—”

  “I think her feelings were hurt,” said Hallie. “I think she felt rejected by you.”

  He winced again, his face contorting with pain and anger, “Fuuuuuuuck!”

  “Ian,” said Hallie, hurting for his hurt, knowing what he’d suffered, because she’d suffered it too. “Ian, look at me.”

  He looked at her, but she could tell he was about to explode with anger, with the intense frustration of lost chances and the fierce cruelty of being split apart when they had been so fucking in love.

  “Listen to me.”

  His lips were pursed, and his nostrils flared with every breath he took.

  “Listen!” she demanded.

  “What?” he yelled, blinking at her like he was trying to break out of a trance.

  “I’m. Here. Now.” She searched his eyes frantically, waiting for her words to sink in. “I’m here now. I’m here with you.”

  “But we lost—Jesus, we lost years, Hallie, we lost…we lost…”

  “No, Irish. We win,” she said, increasing the pressure on his cheeks so he’d stop cycling through his anger and hear her. “Don’t you see? Nothing could keep us apart. Not really. Not forever. It took a while, but we found each other again.”

  Finally, his eyes met hers, saw hers, and understood what she was saying: that despite years apart that included a bad marriage and a battle with alcoholism, what they had, what they shared—the love they still shared—was stronger than anything else.

  “I love you,” he breathed, pressing his forehead against hers. “I never stopped loving you, baby. I love you so much.”

  And Halcyon Gilbert, who hadn’t said those words to anyone but Jenny in over ten years, took a deep breath and said,

  “I love you too.”

  “You do?”

  “I never stopped either,” she said.

  “What? You hated me.”

  “I sure did,” she said, leaning forward to nip at his lips and loving that they were hers again. “But hate is so close to love, Ian.”

  He chuckled softly, the rumble welcome after such an intense conversation. “That’s what Fin said.”

  He kissed her back, his hands sliding under her shirt to rest flat against her skin and hold her against him. When he drew away, his eyes were smiling.

  “You love me?”

  “I love you, Irish,” she said.

  “I love you, Halcyon, my golden girl, grá gael mo chroí.”

  “Bright love of your heart,” she said, nuzzling his nose with hers.

  “Always,” he whispered.

  She licked her lips, then caught his lower lip between hers, tugging lightly before shifting her head so that her mouth fit perfectly over his. Gently, Ian changed their position, lowering her onto the couch and lying down on top of her. She held his face in her hands as they made out like the teenagers they’d once been…until the first light of dawn brightened the room and the clouds that bore hours of angry snow cleared to make way for the sun.

  And in those first beams of morning light, they shifted onto their sides, Hallie’s back to Ian’s front, and entangled in one another’s arms, they slept.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next morning Ian went over to her house and came back with his verdict:

  “It’s a mess, baby.”

  “How bad?” Hallie asked, taking two pieces of toast out of the toaster and buttering them.

  Ian sighed, shrugging out of his parka and hanging it on the back of a kitchen chair. Really fucking bad. “Well, that tree needs to be removed. Then the windows, walls and siding on that side of the house need to be repaired. The roof is fragile at best. We’ll need to fix that too.”

  “Let me give this to Jenny,” she said, “and then you can tell me the rest.”

  Jenny was sitting on the couch in Ian’s living room watching TV, and as Hallie handed her the plate, Ian overheard her say, “Mommy, I love it here with Mr. Haven. Can we stay here forever?”

  Hallie shushed her daughter, whispering something he couldn’t hear, but all he could think was, I hope so, ladybug. I sure hope so.

  When she came back into the kitchen, her cheeks were pink, and he grinned at her. “You can stay as long as you need to.”

  “I know,” she said, sliding onto his lap in her pajamas and winding her arms around his neck. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. “Thank you.”

  A miracle.

  That’s what it felt like to have her in his apartment, to hold her in his arms, to know that she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her.

  After a decade of hell, she was his very own slice of heaven.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered back, nuzzling her warm nose against his cold one before standing up. “Coffee?”

  I’d rather have you back on my lap, he thought, but after being outside in the cold for over an hour, coffee sounded mighty good too. Besides, it felt so fucking good to have her here—to watch her move around his kitchen like it was hers too. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  She poured him a cup and sat down across from him at the table. “What else?”

  “Windows. Walls. Siding. Roof. Upstairs ceiling.” He took a sip of coffee. “And the other tree? It hit a transformer—blew it out and burnt the wires. That’s why you lost power. And unfortunately, it’s not owned by the utility company. It’s private—owned by the lake association where your cottage is located. It’s going to be out for a while before they get someone out to fix it, Hallie. A week at least. Maybe two.”

  “Two weeks?” she asked, her eyes widening as she started understanding the damage last night’s storm had wrought. “Oh, my God.”

  “I took a chainsaw and some tarps over to your place this morning. I cut through the trunk by the house, but I can’t move it on my own. Got the window and wall sealed up in your room, so no animals will get in. We need for the snow to melt off a bit, and then I can start fixing the rest. But it’s New Hampshire. Could be a few months before there isn’t snow on the ground.”

  She clenched her eyes shut, folding her hands together so tightly on the tabletop that he could see the whites of her knuckles.

  “Tell me what’s going on in your head,” he said.

  “I don’t know what to do. We can’t liv
e there. I’m getting low on money. I only had so much when I moved here. The roof and the basement cost so much and even with you doing so much for me, it’s…well, I—I was going to wait to find a job until after the holidays, but I think I’m going to need to start looking sooner rather than la—”

  “Hallie.” Ian reached across the table, covering her hands with his. “Your turn to look at me.”

  She looked up, and he could see the glistening in her worried eyes, which made his heart ache. She’d been through so much this year. He wanted to spare her as much heartache and sorrow as he could. “Your place is rent-free, and you won’t have much of a utility bill next month, I’m guessing. I’ll get Rory, Fin, and Burr to help me move the tree, and as soon as it’s warm enough, I’ll get started on the walls, siding, and windows.”

  “I don’t know how much I can afford.”

  “Then let me help.”

  “You’re already helping. I can’t let you pay for all of the supplies too. A new window? Double-sized? That’s six or seven hundred dollars, not including the—”

  “Then stay here,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Just stay. Get the rest of your stuff and move in here with me for as long as you need to. Get a job when you’re ready. And when you’re able to buy what you need to restore the cottage, I’ll get started on the labor. Free of charge.”

  “I can’t do that to you. I can’t—”

  “Please do that to me,” he said, his voice low and fervent. “Please lean on me. Please let me help you. Please let me take care of you two.”

  Her eyes were weary as she searched his face, trying to determine his sincerity.

  “Grá gael mo chroí,” he said. “If I could have anything in the world, it would be for you to stay.”

  Her smile started small, but grew steadily, brightening her eyes with happiness until they shone with so much love, it would have blinded him if he didn’t need it, want it, so badly. “You’re sure?”

  “Never been more sure about anything,” he said. “Stay.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. We’ll stay awhile. Thank you.”

  “Stop thanking me,” he said gruffly, squeezing her hand before letting it go. “You have no idea how much I want you here. I’m being selfish.”