Loving Irish

by Katy Regnery

  “Ian,” she sobbed, sitting up and covering her breasts with a sheet as she stared at him, one hand over her mouth.

  “I held onto it, I think, because I never gave up hope of someday giving it to you.” He gulped softly, reaching for the hand covering her lips. “I love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. There will never be a day that I don’t belong to you, and I promise to spend the rest of my life making sure you know how precious you are to me. I promise to be a good dad-figure to Jenny and to any other kids we might decide to make. But most of all, I promise I’ll never give you reason to doubt me, Halcyon, my golden girl, grá gael mo chroí.”

  “I love you so much,” she whispered through tears.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said, “because I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks as she nodded at him, and Ian slipped the ring on her finger.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding and laughing and crying all at once. “Yes, Irish, I’ll marry you.”

  He climbed back into bed, pulling her into his arms, kissing her senselessly, and thinking that maybe fate wasn’t such a fickle friend after all.

  The girl he’d lost was the woman he found.

  The girl he’d adored was the woman he loved.

  The girl of his dreams was the woman who held his future in her hand.

  Amends had been made and conflict cast away.

  And all was very, very right with the world.

  EPILOGUE

  Three months later

  “I was thinking,” said Ian.

  “What were you thinking, Irish?” asked Hallie, turning to grin at him over her shoulder from where she stood on a ladder, thumbtacking shiny green shamrocks to the beams running across the ceiling of the barn.

  “I was thinking that Jenny should have a little brother or sister.”

  Hallie turned around to look at him, raising her eyebrows with a saucy grin. “I’m loving the practice, but don’t you think we should wait to get pregnant until we’re actually married?”

  “Yes,” said Ian, “which is why I think we should get married this weekend.”

  She put her hands on her hips, her eyes widening in surprise. “This weekend is the St. Patrick’s party.”

  “I know,” said Ian, stepping over to the ladder and reaching for the sides so his fiancée was trapped. He looked up at her. “And I think it’s perfect, because your parents are coming up, mine are driving over, Tate’s coming, plus the Rileys and O’Learys. Heck, Fin’s only got a few more weeks before he’s got to go back to Ireland. I thought it over. Everyone who means anything to us will be here this weekend. We should do the deed.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Baby,” he said, “it’s a second wedding for you, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And last time you wore a white merengue in a huge Catholic church and had three hundred of your parents’ closest friends at the reception, right?”

  She grimaced, remembering the wedding day of her undreams. Her mother had taken charge of the details—hiring a planner who took care of the location, flowers, catering, and favors. Even Hallie’s dress had been narrowed down to four choices, and she chose the least offensive of the bunch. It hadn’t really been about her and what she wanted; more, it had been an opportunity for her parents to network and show off for their friends.

  “Right.”

  “So this time,” said Ian, his hands landing on her waist and pulling her down from the ladder. “It can just be about us.”

  She grinned up at him. “A wedding here at Summerhaven?”

  “But not in this barn,” warned Ian.

  “In the dining hall,” she suggested, remembering the way he’d look at her from across the room when they were teenagers.

  “Yes!” He nodded. “Super simple. You and me in jeans. Ladybug in her rain boots. Whatever flowers we can find already growing…”

  “Now you’re pushing it,” she said. “There’s still snow on the ground.”

  “Okay. We’ll grab some flowers from town.”

  “We could write our own vows,” said Hallie.

  “I love that,” said Ian.

  “I, Halcyon, take thee, Irish…”

  He grinned at her. “I, Ian, take thee, mo chroi…”

  She took a deep breath, thinking it over, loving it more and more as the idea settled in her head. “Do we tell anyone first?”

  Ian shook his head. “Nah. Britt and Tier would make too big a deal.”

  Tierney. Hmm. “Tierney won’t be mad? If we get married before her and Burr? I don’t want to upstage her plans.”

  “First of all, she’d not getting married until June. Second of all, she’s having a big, Irish wedding at Moonstone Manor with Celtic dancers and bagpipes. Our Dad’s flying our cousin, Father Michael, over from Killarney to do the service. Plus, I think a whole bunch of Burr’s folks from Limerick are coming too.” He shrugged. “Ours would be nothing like that.”

  “Just a simple gathering with close friends and family, huh?”

  He nodded, pulling her closer, his emerald eyes shining. “You want the truth, Halcyon Gilbert? In my heart, we’re already married. In my soul, you’re already my wife. Saying the words in front of friends and family just makes it legal.”

  Because she felt the exact same way, her heart took flight and she reached up to cup his face between her hands. “I’m in. Let’s do it.”

  “Really?” asked Ian, dropping his lips to hers for a quick kiss. “You mean it?”

  “I mean it…and you know what else?”

  “Tell me.”

  She bit her lower lip suggestively. “I love that other idea you had.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one about giving Jenny a little brother or sister.”

  “Good idea, huh?”

  “Great idea,” she said, sliding her hands under his T-shirt. “In fact, I don’t have to pick up Jenny at nursery school for another half hour, so if you’re willing…”

  “Baby, I’m always willing,” growled Ian, grappling with her shirt and lifting it over her head.

  But suddenly his hands stilled as he looked around the old barn where they were supposed to be together for their first time, but instead, where their love story took an unwanted intermission for ten long years.

  His eyes slid back to hers. “Here? You’re sure, grá gael mo chroí?”

  “Bright love of my heart,” she whispered. “I love you.”

  He put on a heavy brogue. “Ah, and that there’s her downfall, poor lass: loving Irish.”

  “Silly man,” she said, leaning up on tiptoes to kiss him again. “Loving Irish is her greatest treasure.”

  THE END

  Don’t miss CATCHING IRISH…the final chapter of the Summerhaven Trio!

  CATCHING IRISH, The Summerhaven Trio, #4 (novella)

  From the New York Times bestselling author of the Blueberry Lane series comes the final chapter in the Summerhaven series.

  Finian Kelley and Tate Jennings met at a wedding…

  …but that doesn’t mean they had romance in mind.

  Since meeting Finian Kelley at a wedding last fall, where they agreed to be physical with no strings attached, Tate Jennings can’t get him out of her head. So when an invitation arrives at her Florida condo, inviting Tate to spend St. Patrick’s weekend back at Summerhaven, where Finian works, she can’t resist heading up to New Hampshire for the festivities.

  Having just gotten out of an awesomely bad relationship, Finian Kelley has sworn off romance, which is why it’s good that hottie Tate Jennings lives far away in the Florida Keys. They may have fooled around at Rory’s wedding, but at least they have no future together, right?

  Wrong. When an annual celebration brings Tate back to New Hampshire, will Finian be able to stay away from the woman who’s already made an unwanted impression on his heart?

  Return to Summerhaven one last time for this sweet, sul
try summer novella!

  COMING August 20, 2018

  CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER NOW ON AMAZON!

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT…

  CATCHING IRISH

  The Summerhaven Trio #4

  (Excerpt from Catching Irish, The Summerhaven Trio #4 by Katy Regnery. All rights reserved.)

  CHAPTER 1

  Tate Jennings wasn’t looking for love.

  For romance? Sure.

  For a weekend fling? Yes, please.

  But love? Blech. No. No, thank you.

  Which sort of sucked because love seemed to have it out for Tate.

  For as long as she could remember, men had declared their undying devotion for her in a very specific three-word combination. And for as long as she could remember, it had made her blood run cold to hear it.

  There was Donald “Duck” Taylor in the fourth grade, who’d surprised her at recess with a bouquet of dandelions and his promise to love her “until dead.” Tate took that as her cue to play ‘possum. She collapsed to the ground and pretended she was dead so Duck’s love would find a quick end.

  In ninth grade, there was Theodore “Tugboat” Musser, who’d asked her to the Homecoming dance by decorating a poster board with the words, “I love you, Tate! I will…Will you?” He’d stood on top of the cafeteria table beside hers, staring down at her, his eyes wide and eager, his smile uncomfortably hopeful.

  Luckily, she inhaled a bite of chicken nugget in surprise and started choking on it. Her friend, Dixie Larue, who was studying to be an EMT, had performed the Heimlich maneuver on Tate with a bit too much enthusiasm, breaking one of her ribs in the process. The chicken nugget sailed across the table and landed in a wad on Tugboat’s sneaker, and Tate spent the night in the hospital. Thankfully, he took that as a “no.”

  After screwing around with Landon “Bam Bam” Fletcher off and on for most of her junior and senior years at Marathon High School, he’d turned to her one hot, soupy night in the back of his pick-up and whispered, “Tate, darlin’, I know you don’t want to hear it, but…I love you.” She’d blinked at him in anger, sat up on the scratchy woolen blanket where they’d just had sex, and reached for her dress. She pulled it over her head, then looked into the startled eyes of her now-ex boyfriend.

  “Bam Bam, darlin’,” she’d answered, “I know you don’t want to hear it, but…we’re over.” Then she’d slipped on her flip flops, jumped out of the truck bed and walked home.

  Over the course of the past decade—since Bam Bam had rolled the dice and lost—there were countless others who had taken it upon themselves to vomit their affections all over Tate’s unwilling heart: one-night-stands who wanted more or seemingly-solid friendships that crumbled when the guy fell for her. She didn’t understand why these men couldn’t be content with what she could offer: The “Three Bs,” banging, banter, and bye. But something about her—something that she desperately wished she could identify—made them pursue “more” with her, and it had made her cagey over the years. It had made her angry. It had made her wary. It had made her tired.

  But, dang it, it hadn’t diminished her need for male attention. Her appetite for physical intimacy was as sharp as ever, and woefully unmet.

  As a charter boat captain in the Florida Keys, Tate had ample opportunity to meet men because she essentially lived in a man’s world. In addition to the boatswain, deck hands, mechanics and steward on her own boat, the other charters in the area were mostly skippered and manned by, well, men. And, by and large, her clientele was male—mostly rich men, looking for a little bit of adventure surrounded by luxury. Tate was well-known for sniffing out the best spots for big-game fishing, and a charter with her wasn’t complete until her guests had hauled a Kingfish, Swordfish or Sailfish onto the marlin deck of her seventy-five-foot Mikelson yacht and yelled “Wahoo!”

  But crapping where she ate wasn’t really Tate’s style, which meant that her guests and coworkers were off-limits. Not to mention, Uncle Zeb, her guardian and de facto parent since the death of her own when she was eight, would skin her alive if she played the whore in their own backyard.

  So when she was invited to attend the wedding of her old camp friend, Brittany Manion, in New Hampshire, Tate greeted the invitation with anticipation. Not only would she get to revisit the summer camp of her youth where Britt was getting married, but it was the perfect set-up for a much-needed fling…if only Tate could find a willing partner for a little bit of fun.

  “Y’all be good up there, now,” said Uncle Zeb, giving her a hug good-bye after parking curbside at the Marathon Airport.

  Tate squeezed her uncle tight, closing her eyes and inhaling the comforting mix of eau d’Zeb: bait, fish and saltwater, rounded out with a hint of mint-flavored chew.

  “And you take your meds.”

  “Humph,” he muttered close to her ear.

  She leaned back, fixing him with a no-nonsense glare. “Uncle Zeb, I swear by all that’s holy, you’re gonna put me in an early grave. You gotta take your meds.”

  His weathered face, complete with a white, salty-dog beard, crinkled into a smile. “Why you so mean to me, Tate Maureen?”

  Maureen had been her mother’s name too, and Tate was pretty sure her uncle used it just to remind himself of the little sister he’d lost almost twenty years ago.

  “I ain’t mean to you, y’old coot. I care about you.”

  “Aw, you love every hair on my head. Admit it.”

  Tate chuckled because this man—this grizzly, unlikely character who’d never wanted kids—had taken her in as a broken eight-year-old and done his best to be her father, her mother, her uncle and her friend. And he’d mostly succeeded, as much as a 40-year-old bachelor could’ve been expected to. Zeb’s voice was the only one on earth that could utter the word “love” without sending an unpleasant shiver down Tate’s spine…

  “Lord knows I do,” she whispered.

  …even though she’d never actually responded in kind.

  Four-letter curse words? The kind that offended the ladies at church who sang in the choir? Tate had no trouble hearing or saying those. But the other one? The “L” word? No. It simply wasn’t in her vocabulary, and something instinctual—something innate and involuntary and deeply-rooted in her soul—knew that life was much safer if it stayed that way.

  “Promise you’ll take the meds, Uncle Zeb?” she asked, yanking up the pull-handle on her rolling suitcase.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “You being sassy with me, sir?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Alright, then,” she said with a curt nod. “And don’t forget to pick me up on Sunday at five-fifteen? I’ll be waiting right here.”

  “Sunday evening, Tate Maureen,” he said, with a smile that crinkled his blue eyes. “I’ll see you here.”

  He trudged around the truck to the driver’s side and she watched him drive away until his aqua-blue Ford pick-up faded from sight.

  Then she turned around and headed into the airport.

  ***

  Finian Kelley was missing home.

  When he’d left Dublin six weeks ago to work off-season at the Summerhaven Event and Conference Center in the states, he’d thought it would be good experience that he could parlay into hospitality work when he got home. And it probably would be but being away from Ireland for so long was definitely making him homesick.

  Unlike his American-born cousins, Rory, Ian and Tierney, who’d grown up visiting Ireland every other summer, Fin had never traveled beyond the borders of his small, emerald island before now. And while he appreciated the easy camaraderie he found with his cousins, he missed his mam, dad, two sisters and brother. He missed pints pulled from a century-old Guinness tap and the hundred different kinds of rain. He missed a Sunday dinner at mam’s and laughing at the muckshites on You’re a Star. He missed the sad, lovely music coming from the door of every pub on a weekend afternoon, and even the sharp-tongued mollys who wouldn’t give a proper Guillermo the time of day.r />
  Speaking of women, his last girlfriend, Cynthia, had turned out a bleeding weapon with her high ideas about love and forever. Fin had liked her well enough to start—she was small boned with big tits, which was his personal preference—but after a month or two together, she wanted to know where he was all the time: Who’re ya’ seein’ tonight, now? Ya’ knock the hole off some loosebit later, and I’ll hear about it, Fin. And since one of the lads he went ‘round with was her cousin, she had his balls in a fucking vise. And what man—at twenty-four—wanted that?

  Coming to America, to work with his cousins on a six-month visa, seemed a godsend. He had a good and sound reason to dump clingy Cynthia, and from everything he’d ever heard, American girls were spare arse everywhere. And maybe they were…but not in small New Hampshire towns in November. He’d barely seen a girl his age since arriving, let alone touched one.

  Add to this, he’d recently checked out Cynthia’s Facebook page and learned that she was already seeing someone new: Jamie fecking Gallagher, who had a face like a painter’s radio and worked at his mam’s grocer in a pressed white shirt like every day was Sunday.

  Jaysus, he thought, staring at the screen in disbelief, I’ve been replaced by a bloody knobjockey-looking neddy.

  Seeing Cynthia and Jamie’s faces side by side, mugging for the camera, had only made Finian, who hadn’t gotten his oats off in weeks, that much more homesick. Which was crazy, because he didn’t love her. He’d dumped her. He didn’t want to be tied down, right?

  Except being “tied down,” in every possible sense of the expression, suddenly sounded fecking cla. Because that’s what sexual frustration will do, Finian was learning: make a man consider every possible option…just for the chance to throw it in.

  And so there was Fin, considering every fecking option, and damned grateful that his cousin, Rory, getting married meant that weddings guests would be coming to stay at Summerhaven for a few days. And maybe—please God, maybe—among those guests there’d be a free and single lass who was horned up by the romance of the weekend…and would let him scratch her itch while he scratched hers.