“Talia will be right out with some dinner for ye,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied, before adding, “It’s Bernard, right?”
“Aye, that it is. And if ye don’t mind me easedroppin, yer name is Catrina.”
“Guilty as charged,” I told him with a smile. “Say, Bernard, could you tell me anything about those bikers who were in here last night – the Druids?”
He lowered his eyes from me for a moment before shaking his head. “I thought ye might be asking ‘round about them. I saw ye were getting mighty close with Ronan las’ night.”
I blushed slightly. Bernard hadn’t seen the full extent of what had transpired between Ronan and I, so I wasn’t too ashamed to sit before him, but I’m sure he could guess what had happened to me over the past 24 hours.
“Th’ Druids are a rough bunch of lads, I won’t lie to ye. That Ronan, he’s their leader, as much as a crowd like that has a leader. His pappy, Donald, he was the one that founded their gang, but he died years back and Ronan’s been at the helm ever since. Donald and I knew each other from way back, and I was always glad to have the Druids around the place, back in the old days.”
I inferred his meaning easily. To confirm my suspicions, I asked, “But not these days?”
He shook his head again. “Back when Ronan was just a wee baby, his da formed th’ Druids as a way to spend time wit his mates and see th’ countryside, nothing more. Over the years, they mostly decided that having regular jobs like us plain folks was no good, and so they stuck to just riding. Ye have to pay the bills somehow though, and when ye look like th’ Druids do, that means trouble.”
“What kind of trouble? What is it that they do, exactly?”
“I’m not sure it’s my place to be tellin’ you their business, lass, but I’ve got a feeling that you need a push in the right direction.”
I began to get concerned. If even an old friend of the Druids was trying to steer me away from them, they must be tied up in some really nasty business.
“Th’ Druids ain’t criminals like you might think of them. They don’t go around robbin’ banks and stealin’ purses. So whatever you might think of them, know that you’ll never have to fear that sort of ‘ting from ‘em. Still, when things that shouldn’t be sold move into our corner o’ Dublin, it’s the Druids who do the movin’. When one gang needs some muscle to take on another, th’ Druids do the flexin’. They’re a rowdy bunch, and they’re fighters – each and every one o’ them.”
I sat back on my stool and considered my beer for a long while. “Thank you, Bernard, I’ll keep it in mind,” I told him, and he returned to polishing glasses behind the bar. I had learned a lot, but somehow my feelings on the matter hadn’t changed. I knew that Ronan was a dangerous man already. I had seen his scars and knew that he wasn’t one to stay out of a fight. The one thought I kept returning to in my mind was that these were men of honor. Sure, they might be mixed up in all manner of illegal business, but they lived by a code. They weren’t out to hurt anyone, so far as I could tell. Violence was never the goal, it was simply the tool that was used to achieve other ends. Maybe I was deluding myself with such a broad rationalization of their behavior. Maybe I should have headed out of the pub right away, grabbed my bags from my house and spent the rest of my stay in Ireland in a hotel. Instead, I sipped my beer and waited for my dinner to arrive.
After another heaping plate of roast, potatoes and a few odd vegetables, I was feeling much fuller and even more enthusiastic about my new companion. Whatever else he might be, Ronan was charming and I considered myself thoroughly charmed. I contented myself with that thought and enjoyed the last of my beer. I listened closely to the street outside the pub, waiting for the sound that I knew would come at any minute.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle engine roared into earshot. I silently prayed that it wouldn’t drive right by – that it was Ronan, here to whisk me away. When I heard the bike pull up outside, I had to hold my hands in my lap to stop from endlessly fidgeting. The door of the pub swung open, but I kept myself facing straight ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him as he strolled into the bar. Ronan was finally here.
He waved to Bernard who was reaching for a glass and said, “Not tonight, Bernard, I’m on my way out.” My heart sank in my chest. Maybe he was just here to tell me that he had something more important to do. He wasn’t going to stay for a beer, and that shot my idea of our second perfect evening together straight to pieces. He walked over and I turned to him with a smile.
“Hello, Ronan,” I said in a steady voice.
“Hello, yourself, Cat,” he responded, his face breaking into his trademark grin. I might be the one being called cat, but he was practically Cheshire in his predictable facial expressions. “Finished with your dinner? I hope you got a good bit o’ rest today.”
“Yes, thank you,” I told him, “I hope you got a bit yourself.”
“Never enough, it seems, but I’m fit to ride. Will you come with me? I’ve got something I’d like to show ye.”
My heart sprang in my chest once again. I had been so worried that Ronan was going to be riding off without me that I hadn’t considered the reason for his short visit to the Bleeding Hart was that he was taking me along! I grabbed my purse without a word and stood. He grinned and waved to Bernard as we walked out.
It was another cool summer night in Dublin. The streets were shining and slick with a brief rain that had come and gone in the evening. An aura of heat was still rising from Ronan’s bike as he mounted it to ride once more. I hopped on the back like I’d done it a thousand times and hugged my thighs around him. This felt comfortable and familiar now. Without waiting for him to ask it of me, I put my hands around his chest and held tight.
“Don’t ye want to ask where we’re going?” he said.
I smiled. “It doesn’t matter,” I told him, “wherever we go, I’m just glad to be along for the ride.”
He laughed a little and revved the engine. Without another word, the streets of Dublin were flying beneath the bike once more. This time we rode out of the city in the opposite direction from where we’d gone the night before. We went by my house even, and I strained my neck for a moment to stare at it. Nearby I could see old couples staring out the windows at the loud motorcycle as it went by. I had my cottage in the suburbs, but did I really want the life that went with it? Ronan would never settle down in a place like that with me. More and more I was realizing that I never wanted to settle for that kind of life either. There was excitement in the open road – more than I’d ever known in my sleepy life in Baltimore.
Soon the houses gave way to more and more farmland. While my first trip out of Dublin had given me a sight of the hills surrounding the area, here things were flat as far as the eye could see. It was strange to think that this exciting and dangerous man was also responsible for showing me such pastoral beauty. The quiet calm of the Irish countryside was as much as part of him as the bike and the jacket, but it was a great contrast to those trappings of crime and violence.
We rode for close to an hour before he pointed off ahead of us, presumably to our destination. It was a farmhouse that looked much like the other dozens of farmhouses we’d passed since leaving Dublin. Even at a distance, lights were visible in the windows. It looked large and old. I saw a glint of something shiny out front, but couldn’t make it out at first. As we got closer, I realized it was a long line of motorcycles. It appears I’d finally been invited to see the club house. This was where the Druids spend their time together.
We pulled up and Ronan parked the bike in a vacant spot just in front of the door of the house. I supposed that must be one of the perks of being the leader. Now that I saw it up close, the house was much larger than others along the road. Its size was somewhat hidden by the trees that lay about the property. Still, it retained some of the charm of a small Irish cottage. It may not have been decorated with doili
es, but there are some similarities that even an Irish biker gang wouldn’t want to shake away.
He opened the door wide and held it for me. I stepped inside and was presented with a scene very different from the small cottage exterior that the farmhouse suggested. Just inside the door was the end of a long bar. Scattered around the room were tables and chairs with bikers in them. It was a wonder that they bothered to stop in at the Bleeding Hart when they had what seems to be a fully functional bar waiting for them at home. I suppose sometimes you just have to stop for a drink on the road.
Behind the bar, a thin man with a thick mustache raised a glass to Ronan as we walked in. Around the room a couple of other bikers said something in greeting, though the words were indecipherable.
“Welcome to the clubhouse,” Ronan said. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
“Is it – I mean, do you live here?” I asked.
“I have a flat in town, but I keep a room here as well. Most of us do.” He kicked at an easy chair with a man sleeping in it as we walked past on the way to the bar, saying, “Some of us just never seem to leave.” I didn’t pretend to understand the reference, but smiled all the same.
We stepped up to the bar and he patted a stool next to him. I sat down and he went around the bar to get us some drinks. The mustachioed man wasn’t a bartender, it seems, but just another Druid who happened to be back there when we came in. Without asking my preference, Ronan poured me a pint and another one for himself.
“You look good back there. Ever consider a career as a bartender?” I asked with a wink.
“Hah, never,” he said, “The bartender’s life is a wee bit too dangerous for me!”
With a laugh we drank our pints and relaxed a bit after the ride. My body was still unused to being on a bike all the time, and my muscles were sore after only an hour of riding. The atmosphere in the clubhouse was relaxing and pleasant and despite being somewhere new and far from home, I wasn’t feeling the same anxiety that had been my constant companion since arriving in Dublin.
Ronan set his pint down on the bar and said, “I have to go check on something. I’ll be back shortly. Don’t let the boys scare you, they’re harmless.” He winked and knocked once on the bar before stepping away and going through a door. I just smiled at him as he went and took another sip of my beer.
I spent a minute examining the pictures that were taped to the wall behind the bar. There were dozens of photographs, mostly of Druids but some were of men and women who were clearly not bikers. I wondered at all of the people whose lives the Druids had touched. Surely some of them had come away with only good feelings and memories of the gang.
“So, you’re the American,” a decidedly female voice said behind me. I turned to see who it was. She was a little shorter than me with tightly cropped blonde hair. She was wearing a grey t-shirt that was a bit too large for her and a tight pair of black jeans with a studded belt. All down her arm was an intricate black tattoo of some kind of insect, with its many legs spread out to the sides. She had the look of a woman who had spent quite a bit of time in places like this.
I raised my pint in greeting to her and said, “Catrina Flynn. And you are?”
“I’m Daisy. Everybody’s been talking about you today. Seems that Ronan’s found himself a new girl from America and he’s quite taken with her.”
I blushed. I should have known that Ronan would tell his friends about me, but all the same I was nervous to be presented with someone who knew far more about me than I knew of her. Daisy was a bit older than I was, and behaved like a mother cat defending her territory from interlopers.
“So you’re a Flynn,” she continued, “I have to admit, when I heard Ronan had found himself an American, I didn’t expect you to have quite the look o’ Ireland that you have.” I brushed my hair out of my face and smiled politely.
She took the stool next to me and put her elbow on the bar, staring at me. “Listen here, little cat,” she said, “I hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t have any faith that ye do, but I hope for your sake that you’ve got the sense to know what kind of place this is and what kind of men you’re dealing with.”
“I know,” was my only response. I didn’t want to get into specifics as I hadn’t been told much of anything by Ronan himself and I didn’t want to be caught repeating stories that might not have a lot of truth to them, told to me by Bernard at the Bleeding Hart.
“I doubt that very much, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” she told me. “If that’s the case, then you know what it means to be an old lady.”
I decided I might have overstepped my knowledge slightly. I’d heard the term before, but I was clearly wading into the deep end here, and I thought that Daisy was leading me there intentionally. “And just what should an old lady know?”
“First of all, you should know that you’re not Ronan’s old lady. You’re just a girl he met in a pub. If he brought you here, that means he’s taken an interest, but it doesn’t mean he’s yours. I can’t see the future, and I don’t know how it’ll turn out between the two of you, but for now, he’s just a man and you’re just a woman. Nothin’ more.”
I took another long drink of my beer and nodded at her. I hadn’t imagined anything else, but it was nice to be reminded that things weren’t serious here. Part of me was glad that I wasn’t being somehow claimed by Ronan, or at least that there was no biker code demanding me to remain his. I cared for him a great deal and I was intoxicated by his presence, but I had to remain grounded.
About that time, Ronan came back through the door he’d exited before and went behind the bar to retrieve his pint.
“Oi, Daisy, you fillin’ Cat’s head with nonsense?” he asked.
“I’m telling her like it is, Ronan. I never do more than that and you know it,” she responded, pulling herself off of the barstool and getting to her feet. Without another word to either of us, she walked across the room and sat down on the lap of a large biker with a thick beard and gave him a quick kiss.
“Daisy’s a handful,” Ronan told me, drawing my eyes back to him. “She an’ Garret o’er there have been together a long time.”
“She seems nice,” told him.
“That’s polite of ye to say, but we both know it’s nothin’ of the truth,” he said and we both laughed. We finished our beer and he took my empty glass beneath the bar. “Come on, I want to show ye around a bit.”
I hopped off the stool and followed him around the bar to the door he’d gone through before. It led to a long hallway that was covered with framed photographs. If I had thought the wall behind the bar was full of memories, this place was absolutely packed. Ronan stopped a couple of times on the walk down the hall to point out pictures of himself. Some were recent, but others were of a much younger version of the man who stood before me. One was even of him as a child of no more than five years, sitting on the back of a motorcycle while a proud looking man stood next to him, holding him steady on the big bike.
“Is that your Dad?” I asked.
“Aye, that’s him. That bike’s a bit busted up now, but I’ve still got it in the garage here, too.”
I noted carefully the way he dropped the subject of his father and focused instead on the bike that was pictured. I’d known plenty of men who had issues with their dads, but I couldn’t help but feel that there was a deeper mystery to be explored here. Taking over your father’s business is a bit different when the business is a motorcycle club.
He led me to a door at the back end of the hallway and opened it with a key. He stepped in and flipped a light switch and we stepped inside. I realized at once that this must be the room he kept here at the farmhouse. There was a large comfortable bed stacked with flannel blankets and a small desk with a laptop out on it. A small bookshelf was mostly filled with bike magazines, but there were a few well-worn old classics on the shelves as well. A few pictures hung on the walls here as well, but nothing like the hallway. It was spa
rse, but obviously well loved.
“Home sweet home,” he said.
“It’s lovely,” I responded.
“Not half so lovely as you,” he said, approaching me. I closed the door behind me and stepped to meet him in the center of the room. I had missed the touch of him, even though we’d only been off of the bike for perhaps twenty minutes. Somehow, every time I came close to him, I became more and more addicted to the feeling of his hard muscles pressed up against my body. His smell infiltrated my nose and I breathed deeply, trying to permanently lock the scent of him into my memory.
I extended my arms and put them around his neck. He put his hands on my waist and lifted me slightly, spinning me in a short semi-circle around the room. My hair spun out behind me like a red wave and we both smiled. He set me back down on the floor and bent in close to kiss me. My lips met his hungrily and with a longing that had building since he’d ridden away this morning. I closed my eyes and kissed him deeply, further absorbing the powerful scent of him.
As we kissed he released my waist and shrugged himself out of his jacket. It hit the floor behind him with a loud sound. All that leather made for a heavy impact. I moved my hands to the zipper of my own jacket but he broke away from our kiss and said, “Please, let me.”
I dropped my hands to my sides, more than happy to let him undress me. Feeling his hands moving across my clothing like that was exhilarating. More and more I wanted to feel like I was in his power and under his influence. I wanted him to feel that he had complete control of the situation and of me. He reached forward and unzipped my jacket, letting it fall open. I pushed my arms back and he pulled the tight sleeves away from my body. He dropped it to the floor with a soft sound, so much unlike his own jacket.
He stood back for a moment, staring at me. My small black t-shirt stretched over my body, and my black jeans were remarkably tight. I’d felt a little silly dressing myself up like this, but after meeting Daisy I realized that I’d done a good job of picking the right outfit. I fit in fine here. He pulled me close to him again. With our jackets off, I could feel the heat that he constantly seemed to radiate pressing against me. He was always warm, as though he had an invisible energy hiding in his body that was always ready to explode.
Riding Irish Page 5