“Compare me to your ex.”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t.” She met his steel-blue gaze. “I just meant—”
“That guy almost broke you. If you want to insult me, you’re at the top of your game.”
She heard the Dublin in Danny’s voice—that hard, previous life he kept firmly under wraps. Attempting to avoid a heated conversation, she started for the door. “Let’s ride the lift down to the kitchen. I noticed a couple slices of Guinness cake in the cooler.”
He rubbed a hand across his temples. “Forgive me, Clara, if I sounded harsh. This Jack Connor thing has me so frustrated and worried for you.”
“No bother.”
“You’ve become very important to me.”
She took a half-step back. No, forward. “I’m still hungry. Are you … hungry?”
His voice deepened. “Only for dessert.”
Off-balance, she contemplated how best to resist him. He’d mentioned his flat on the third floor. Did he expect her to sleep with him in exchange for a trip to Dublin and a ham sandwich?
She gave herself a firm mental shake. If he assumed she’d be another one of his conquests, a brief fling after their briefer time together, he’d be sadly mistaken. He’d offered no commitment, only the assurance that he’d be leaving.
She tossed him a guarded look.
“Do you know how beautiful you are, luv? Clara, you are so damn beautiful.”
His gaze caressed her with gentleness.
That was good, right? No demands. Although she’d learned from her ex that gentle words were a façade to reeling a woman in. And gentleness didn’t last. Gentleness made a woman weak and pliable and trusting.
She wrenched her gaze from his and studied the philodendrons.
“Did you hear me, Clara?”
His voice warned that he would persist until he’d gotten an answer. She turned her head slightly and watched him. Danny’s molten gaze offered another layer far more dangerous than gentleness. Desire simmered in his eyes, deepening them to a dark, rich blue with flecks of navy.
She grabbed her water bottle from the table and finished it off.
She couldn’t afford to be hurt again, to rely on someone other than herself. Soon, when Danny was gone, she’d be left alone, the dreaded constant in her existence. And she’d manage, just like always.
Which was better—gentleness or desire? Neither. Both. The question with no answer lodged in her throat.
She stifled an urge to find a dust cloth and begin dusting the room.
Instead, she went over to the window and watched the lively atmosphere of the rooftop pubs, the patrons soaking up the sun. She heard Danny, his stride sure and steady as he came behind her.
“I can take away those bad memories,” he said. “The ones that are frightening you.” Lightly, he rubbed his hand against her cheek. “If you’ll let me …”
Her mouth went dry. She could resist him. A nonchalant comment swirled in her brain, the word no on her tongue, a knee-jerk reaction, protection for her heart.
She pasted on an expression devoid of emotion and swung around to face him.
Chapter Thirteen
Danny stared into Clara’s fathomless eyes. The way she was looking at him filled him with the agonizing longing to hold her tight and never let go. Grimly, he reminded himself that Jack had hurt her deeply and her earlier life had been ridden with hardships.
“No one can make me forget the awfulness of the orphanage,” she said. “We were hungry and cold and always dirty. The caretakers tried, although there were too many of us and too few of them. Remembering those times … It makes me so sad.”
He suppressed a shudder at the deprivation she must have suffered. No one had held her. No one had loved her. Everyone needed love and acceptance, especially when they were children, especially when they were adults.
“Can you teach me how to break into a place?” He attempted to disrupt her solemn remembrances with levity. “There’s a competitor’s coffee shop down the street I’ve intended to visit. Unfortunately, they’re closed on Sunday.”
She rewarded his levity with a small smile. “I’ve never broken into a coffee shop.”
His mouth quirked. “A new career path for you, perhaps?”
“That particular career path was a small part of my long-ago past.”
She shook her hair with an impatient shake, and he longed to loosen her waves from their loose ponytail and run his hands through them. Did she have to be so perfectly shaped, so slim and willowy, her mouth so curved and inviting? He stroked his hands over her shoulders. Her fitted paisley blouse made her look small, fragile, defenseless.
“Someday,” he promised, “you will own your own dancing school.”
“It’ll take me a year to dig out from Seamus’s debt and then there’ll probably be other bills I didn’t anticipate. Maybe I’m a fool for suppressing horrific experiences, but if I dwell on them … I should look to the future, yeh?”
He felt himself becoming lost in her glorious eyes, the dark recesses pulling him in. Lightly, his thumbs stroked her cheekbones. “You’re smart and you’ve accomplished so much since you left Italy.”
She rolled her cheek against his palm. “And yet, somehow, Jack has reappeared in my life. Once, I was dependent on him to fill a void. Not anymore.” She seemed to dwell on the thought, seemed to search for the right words. “Now it’s up to me to make him go away—not you, nor Ian, nor Seamus. Nor a justice system that can’t be counted on.”
Her response brought a deluge of his own remembrances—his uninterested parents and Glenna, his beloved spit of a sister. Was he, in his effort to move forward and succeed, putting off dealing with his heartache from long ago, just like Clara? Would the past forever be nipping at his heels? No matter what he’d accomplished, he’d always label himself a poor chiseler, a child born to suicidal parents, a weak sibling who hadn’t saved his younger sister. No amount of wealth would ever change that.
He bent his head and lightly rubbed his lips over Clara’s.
She kept her hands at her sides.
Rather than intensifying his efforts, he reasoned that it was necessary to meet her where she was in her life. Her feelings were raw and vulnerable.
The older boys in the orphanage said I was so good, I could’ve stolen the sugar out of your punch.
She’d joked to hide her mortification for stealing. She was too proud to beg, aye, and too stubborn to accept the fact that Seamus’s recovery required more than her love and support.
Danny slid his arms around her, relishing her nearness, the scent of freshly squeezed lemons on a warm spring’s eve.
“Have I told you how much I admire your thievery skills?” he murmured with a laugh.
“Unfortunately, being a thief isn’t a talent I can list on a resume. However, your achievements are amazing.”
The sincere compliment and admiration in her gaze was his undoing. “Thank you. I’m truly happy when I’m with you.”
She smiled.
His heart exploded. Their growing relationship was brilliant, delicate. Delightful.
He touched his lips to hers again. He felt her resist, her indecision, knew the exact second when she yielded. His heart raced madly when she allowed him to lock his statement with a scintillating kiss. Blood pounded in his ears as he savored the sweetness of her mouth. For a fleeting second, he considered taking her to his flat, just down the hallway. In his reckless past, he hadn’t been one to let an opportunity slide by.
He lifted his head and she took a guarded retreat. “Danny, I won’t sleep with you.”
He rested his chin on her hair until his breathing slowed. “I know, luv.”
And he wouldn’t ask, because he respected her too much.
Because Clara meant more to him than an insignificant tryst. And if he was honest with himself, he’d admit that as sure as the hills of Ireland were a lush, emerald green, he was falling in love with her.
An hour later, Clara and D
anny headed to his Town Car. The chauffeur opened the door, and Clara and Danny slid into the backseat.
The sedan merged onto the highway. An early evening sun shone through the windows and cast a golden glow on Clara’s features. With his legs stretched out, Danny wrapped an arm around her. She’d pulled out her ponytail, and her tumbling waves fell past her shoulders. Leisurely, he ran his fingers through her glossy hair.
As the sedan took the Dublin airport exit, traffic picked up, then it calmed again when they passed the National Botanic Gardens.
“Are we headed to Farthing?” Clara asked. “Seamus is waiting.”
“Your brother will survive brilliantly without you.” Danny fiddled with the CD player, deciding on silence. “I’ve instructed the chauffeur to stop at Glasnevin Cemetery since I haven’t visited in several months. My parents are buried there, along with …” He paused, staring out the window at a curving brook running alongside the roadway.
“Along with?” Clara tipped her head to one side.
“Along with my young sister,” he continued softly. “Her name is Glenna.”
Clara’s eyes widened. “Glenna is your sister?”
“Aye. Didn’t I mention her to you?”
“Not by name.” Clara gazed past him. “I assumed Glenna was one of your past wives.”
“I’ve only been married once, to Kyla.” He thought about glossing over the details before forging ahead with the truth. “I was young and married her for the wrong reasons. Her wealthy family invested a large sum of money in my fledgling coffee company, assuming they’d reap a huge profit. They did. And I repaid her parents the money they loaned me. Soon afterward, Kyla and I divorced.”
“What happened?”
He tapped his foot to a silent beat. “We were never suited. I tried to make the marriage work, but in the end, I was the one who filed for divorce. Kyla was furious. Nevertheless, she was well-compensated. She called me a money-monger and informed every tabloid who’d listen to her that I’d used her family’s wealth for my business venture, then cast her aside. I didn’t refute her claims.” He shrugged. “A month later, I discovered that she’d stolen a great deal of money from my business. I confronted her and she said I owed her the money because I’d been such a disinterested husband throughout our marriage.”
“Although I don’t condone Kyla for what she did, she must have loved you and was probably hurt when you filed for divorce.”
He answered with a derisive snort. “She didn’t love me. She loved my money.”
They soon reached Glasnevin in the northern section of Dublin, and the car chauffeured quickly past the trademark high walls and round watchtowers of Glasnevin Cemetery.
Danny directed Clara’s gaze to the watchtowers. “Those were erected to scare away the body snatchers in the eighteenth century.”
She shivered. “Body snatchers?”
“Aye. Body snatchers stole corpses for money, usually selling the bodies to medical schools.”
They passed simple stone gravestones covered in a jumble of ivy, and elaborate gravestones topped by Celtic crosses. On the street near his parents’ marble tombstone and Glenna’s grave, Danny asked the chauffeur to park the car.
Clara leaned on the door, her gaze on the rows and rows of headstones. “Glasnevin Cemetery is massive.”
“One and a half million people are buried here.” Danny stepped from the sedan and strode around to open her door. He took her hand, and they walked slowly on the path leading to the tombstone and Glenna’s grave.
Danny breathed in the cool, damp breeze and eyed the clovers dancing along the path. As he’d directed, shrubs and evergreens, offset by red begonias and silvery dusty miller, had been carefully tended at both Glenna’s grave and his parents’ tombstone. A field of violet and sugary-pink wildflowers bloomed nearby, the uncommonly warm winter beckoning the flowers open. So much promise blooming so close to so much sadness.
Paying no heed to the damp grass, he knelt by Glenna’s grave, keeping his focus on the granite headstone. Clara knelt beside him and bent her head. When they were finished praying at Glenna’s gravesite, then his parents’ tomb, he brushed the grass clinging to Clara’s pants as they stood.
“We’ll be going back to Farthing with green knees,” she said. “Though kneeling to pay our respects is more important than any grass stains.”
“Infinitely more,” was all he could manage. Tears he’d bottled swam precariously close to the surface.
“You live in Dublin. Why haven’t you visited the gravesites more often?” she asked.
He took a deep breath. His chest ached. “Busy with work,” he murmured. In truth, he’d found one excuse after another for not visiting, when the reality was he couldn’t manage the grief.
A cold sadness clogged the late afternoon air. The space where they stood was fragrant with the scent of pine needles. Nearby, a liver-colored tree sparrow perched on the branch of an elm tree, greeting them with a nasally chu-wit.
“Glenna’s gravestone is strong and erect, just like she must have been. So beautiful.”
“Sorry. What did you say?” He looked at Clara. He’d gotten caught up in staring at the intricately carved Celtic cross topping Glenna’s polished headstone.
“The gravestone is beautiful.” Clara pointed to the brilliant rainbow etched on one side of the somber stone, the pot of gold and flaming-orange-bearded leprechaun on the other.
Danny focused blindly ahead, concentrating on the scarlet sunset tucking itself behind rolling hills. In the pressing weight of the bleak graveyard, he could almost feel Glenna’s childlike presence.
“I used to call Glenna my little leprechaun. She was so mischievous and innocent.”
A poignant memory rose unbidden.
“Leprechauns are real, Danny,” Glenna said, crossing her thin, freckled arms. “And I’m gonna catch one and he’ll lead me to a pot of gold so we won’t be poor anymore.’
Danny tousled her flaming-red hair. “Aye. Well, if I find that wee man smokin’ a pipe, I’ll take off his buckled shoes and carry him to you myself.”
And Glenna had giggled with delight.
For one heart-stopping beat, Danny thought he could hear her trusting voice calling out to him.
She had enjoyed every moment of life with the pure unworldliness of a child. If she were alive, she would’ve been in the middle of the wildflower field performing cartwheels and chasing butterflies, rather than gazing somberly at a frost-grey headstone.
“How did she die?” Clara asked gently.
He looked off toward the watchtowers. Dusk was creeping in, the cemetery becoming deserted, the other mourners returning to their cars. Soon it would be pitch-dark. The chauffeur got out of the sedan and motioned Danny with a slight wave. Danny nodded, delaying, the memories nudging him.
He shifted. “Glenna was always searching for a pot of gold. Sometimes we’d spend hours in the hedgerows adjoining our land, playing, making up games. She loved cow parsley. We used the stalks as pea-shooters while we chewed on the leaves.”
Clara nodded, her expression encouraging him to continue.
“And then one afternoon in late September, Glenna was poisoned by the leaves of a hemlock bush she’d apparently found growing at the edge of our yard. I found her lying on the cold grass, limp, unresponsive. Did you know that cow parsley and hemlock look very similar?”
“No, I didn’t.” Clara hesitated. “Was she alone in the yard?”
“Aye. And if you’re thinking she was too young to be out wandering alone you’d be right. My parents had been inside our house, passed out drunk on the couch. The judge ruled Glenna’s death an accidental poisoning.”
A kind understatement. Glenna’s death was partly the result of his alcoholic parents’ inadequate supervision and neglect, and partly because he hadn’t been with Glenna when she had needed him most.
He kept his tone carefully controlled. “My little sister never lived long enough to find her pot of gold. I blam
e my parents. I blame myself.”
He glanced around. Had he said the words aloud? Judging by Clara’s expression, her fingers that had somehow become laced tightly with his, he assumed he had.
All his life he’d tried to save what inevitably couldn’t be saved. He’d talked, he’d argued, he’d shed tears. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t seem to control other people’s actions.
“Absolutely not your fault,” Clara said adamantly. “You were a kid too. You were probably at school right then.”
“I’d skipped school that day. I’d decided to get drunk with my friends. If I had come directly home, Glenna might still be alive.” He pushed a hand through his hair, attempting to push away the inevitable self-disgust swelling like poison in his veins. “At the burial, I begged my parents to add a pot of gold to Glenna’s headstone. They refused. They were hardhearted bastards. I told them that it was their fault Glenna had died—they were neglectful drunks. They shouted that I should slither back to the streets where I belonged, because I was the drunk who would never make anything of himself. My brother Eamon was the smart one.”
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. They were probably lashing out at you to cover their own grief.”
He pulled his hand from hers. “You don’t understand. It was their fault, and they wouldn’t accept the blame.”
She stiffened at the dangerous edge in his tone, but then sympathy and support flooded her beautiful eyes. “You’re not justifying their negligence. You are strong and brave. Forgive so that your own healing can begin.”
“I can’t be disloyal to Glenna and forget what happened.”
“You’re not forgetting.” She lifted her gaze to his. “You’re finding your own happiness. Otherwise, these resentments will gnaw at you and you’ll never be at peace.”
He ran his fingers across the stony Celtic cross, the faded etching of Glenna’s name, the absolute finality of her death. Bottled rage at his parent’s neglect simmered beneath his own fury at himself. He didn’t want to deal with it. The subject was too painful. Work was the answer, the only alternative, immersing himself so that he could prove his worth.
Oh Danny Boy: A Sweet Contemporary Romance Page 12