February Stars: Wilder Irish, book two

by Mari Carr

  February Stars

  Wilder Irish, book two

  Mari Carr

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Other books in the Wild Irish series

  About the Author

  Other books by Mari Carr

  Copyright © 2017 by Mari Carr

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  This book is dedicated to Lila Dubois.

  The queen of Top Chef-style writing sprints.

  “Time’s up! Hands off the keyboard!”

  Without her tireless spirit, intense bullying, and inspirational lake house music,

  February Stars quite simply wouldn’t be the same story.

  It’s better…because of her…and her insanity.

  * * *

  Also—extra thanks to Lila for allowing me to use a version of

  her daughter’s name for my heroine.

  Pronunciation is A-LISH

  Prologue

  “Ailis, love. Are you okay?”

  Patrick’s tiny redheaded granddaughter stood by the side of his bed, tears in her big blue eyes.

  “I had a bad dream. Mommy and Daddy aren’t back yet.”

  Patrick’s daughter Teagan and her husband, Sky, were performing tonight at the Royal Farms Arena. Because they were so close to home, they’d decided to take a break from the tour bus to sleep in a house that didn’t move. Pat was delighted by their decision. Most of his children and grandchildren lived in Baltimore, which meant it was rare for him not to see them all at least once a day.

  Ailis, however, lived on the bus with her parents, traveling the world. As such, it was special whenever Patrick got to steal some alone time with the sweet child. Teagan assured him that once Ailis hit school age, they’d put down some roots, but Patrick wondered if that plan was changing. Just tonight over dinner, Teagan had been telling Keira about some homeschooling program she’d been looking into.

  “Och, you poor child. You just crawl in here with Pop Pop tonight. I’ll keep the bad dreams away so you can sleep.”

  Ailis’s tears evaporated as a grin covered her face. She climbed onto his tall bed and he tucked her beneath the covers. She was only four, and the spitting image of her mother. Patrick had to catch himself time and again before he called Ailis by Teagan’s name.

  And the resemblance between the mother and daughter didn’t end with looks. Their personalities and dispositions were just as similar.

  Ailis had inherited her mother’s whimsical ways—often wearing brightly colored clothing. That fact was driven home to him as he looked down at her neon-rainbow footie pajamas.

  She also had a quietness to her nature, uncomfortable whenever attention was thrown in her direction. Ailis was extremely bashful, and it had taken him the better part of yesterday to get her to say more than a few words to him.

  Teagan had shed some of her shyness over the past few years—with the help of Sky and about a million and twelve adoring fans. He hoped Ailis would manage to do the same. She was such a bright, funny little thing when she finally started talking.

  “How about a story?” Patrick asked.

  Ailis nodded her head enthusiastically. He’d read her no less than six picture books just a couple of hours earlier when he’d put her in bed, but he didn’t want to turn the lights on and go down the hall in search of her favorite Dr. Seuss story.

  “I’m going to tell you a story about a woman whose name is Ailis.”

  Ailis’s eyes widened. “Like me?”

  Patrick nodded.

  “Nobody has a name like me.”

  “Well, this woman did. She lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago in Kilkenny.”

  “Is that in Ireland? Where you’re from?”

  Patrick nodded, always so impressed with the young child’s memory. “It certainly is. This Ailis was so beautiful she had to hide her face with a veil.” Patrick lifted the sheet over Ailis’s face. “Like this.”

  Ailis giggled as she pulled the sheet back down. “Why did she have to hide her face?”

  “Because she was so beautiful, people would faint whenever they saw her.” Patrick put his hand on his head and pretended to be dizzy. “In fact, you’re so pretty…”

  Ailis tugged the covers back over her face, laughing with delight. “There. Now you’re safe,” she said from beneath the sheet. But then, because she was a little minx, she pulled the covers down quickly, saying, “Boo!”

  Patrick pretended to pass out, much to Ailis’s delight. They continued to play peek-a-boo, Ailis hiding and then reemerging, causing him to faint. After a few minutes, she tired of the game.

  “So she never got to show anyone her face?” she asked.

  Patrick shook his head. “No. She didn’t. And I think that’s a shame.”

  “Why?”

  “Because beauty should never be hidden.” Patrick considered Ailis’s shyness. He worried about the little girl, living on a bus, surrounded only by adults most days. Teagan remarked that Ailis came alive whenever she was around her cousins. That comment had stuck in the back of his mind and bothered him a bit. While Teagan had been happy that her daughter was so close to and fond of her cousins, Patrick worried about the fact the little girl wasn’t alive the rest of the time. Teagan said she was an avid reader, tackling books that were well beyond her age range, and that Ailis could spend hours reading so quietly in a corner of the bus that they’d forget she was there. “I want you to promise me something, Ailis.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t do what the other Ailis did.”

  Ailis frowned, clearly confused.

  He hastened to explain. “Don’t hide yourself away. You’re too beautiful—inside and out. I don’t ever want you to be afraid to show people who you really are.” Patrick grimaced. This lesson was going right over her head. She was too young to understand, and he was forcing the issue because his time with her was always so short. Even this visit was nearly over. Teagan, Sky and Ailis would be boarding the bus again tomorrow, despite the fact they’d only arrived yesterday, and it would be months before he’d see her again.

  “I won’t,” she said so solemnly, Patrick wondered if he’d been mistaken about her understanding.

  “I know you get shy around strangers.”

  Her brow creased. “Mommy tells me not to talk to them.”

  Yeah, he was messing this up. Teagan never let Ailis out of her sight, for good reason. They were always in different cities, surrounded by people they didn’t know. Teagan’s overprotectiveness had manifested itself in Ailis, which meant the child was constantly clinging to her mother’s leg, hiding her face whenever anyone talked to her. She was particularly uncomfortable with the paparazzi and the cameras constantly flashing in her face.

  While that was not a bad thing, he hated to think of any of his grandchildren cowering from life, dimming the lights that shone so brightly from them.

  How many times had he wished Sunday had lived to see this incredible family they’d made?

  “Your mommy is right. You shouldn’t talk to strangers, but, Ailis, you shouldn’t be a
fraid to talk to people that you know.”

  “They’re all grownups,” she said, by way of explanation.

  “Doesn’t matter. I want you to stop hiding behind your mom and start talking to people more. This beautiful mind,” he touched her head, “and this beautiful heart,” he touched her chest, “are too special to hide.”

  “Okay. I can talk to Mr. Les. He’s nice.”

  Les Fossie was Sky’s manager. And he was indeed a very nice man. “He’d be a fine one to talk to.”

  “And there’s Bobby and Roxanne and Oliver.”

  He grinned as she named the members of Sky’s band. “Maybe they can teach you how to play an instrument.”

  Ailis crinkled her nose and shook her head. “I don’t want to do that.”

  Her quick response caught him off guard, especially considering both her parents were talented musicians. “Why not?”

  “Because I want to live here one day, so I can play with Caitie and Lochlan and Paddy and Colm all the time, and you can’t do that if you’re in a band.”

  Of course, for Ailis, music was synonymous with travel and buses and a life lived in constant motion. “I see.”

  “When I’m bigger, I’m gonna come live here with you, Pop Pop.”

  Patrick tapped her on the tip of her nose. “I would like that very much.” And then, because he worried, he asked, “Don’t you like life on the bus?”

  Her eyes widened with excitement. “Yeah. We went to this one place where they had a real Thomas the Tank Engine train and we got to ride in it, and then in this other place we got to go in an egg up to the top of this McDonald’s M thing and look down. And then…” Ailis continued listing all the wondrous things she’d seen in her journeys, and Pat calmed down. She was an inquisitive, lively child who was doing just fine where she was.

  Finally, after several minutes, Ailis yawned.

  “But for now, I think we better try to sleep. If we’re awake when your mommy gets home, we’ll both be in trouble.”

  Ailis giggled. “She can’t yell at you. You’re her daddy.”

  Patrick made a horrified face. “You don’t know your mommy.”

  Ailis settled beneath the covers and within seconds, she was asleep.

  Oh, to have that ability, Patrick thought. The older he got, the harder sleep was to come by. Unless, of course, it was in the middle of the afternoon and he was in his recliner. That was probably his problem now. His ninety-minute nap earlier.

  He lay in bed and thought about the sweet little girl sound asleep next to him. He sent up a brief prayer of thanks that he was still here and able to watch these little ones, his beloved grandchildren, grow up. He’d been blessed with his children and then again, with his grandchildren. He didn’t take one second of his time with them for granted.

  Then, as he always did, he sent up a special prayer to their guardian angel.

  “Watch over this one, Sunday,” he whispered. “She has so much more to offer than she knows.”

  1

  Ailis sat on the couch and stared at the wall in front of her. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d gotten home, found the letter and assumed this zombie-like pose. Minutes? Hours? Days?

  Her gaze dropped slightly, catching sight of the letter on the coffee table. She closed her eyes rapidly before any of the words formed in her brain. When she opened them again, she made certain she was looking up. At the wall. Only the wall. The wall was safe.

  Part of her was waiting for tears. That was the natural response, the one most women would have succumbed to.

  She’d just been dumped. Big time. In a horrible fucking letter.

  However, instead of crying her heart out, screaming curses into the empty room, beating her fists against the couch cushions, all she could manage was this numb silence.

  Typical. Even alone with her broken heart, she couldn’t find a way to express the pain with any semblance of noise or passion.

  No wonder Paul had left.

  The thought of his name worked. Triggered an emotion. Though it wasn’t sadness. It was resignation. She was an intelligent woman. If she looked back on the last six years reasonably, with a detached eye, she would have seen that they were a mismatch. It was obvious now.

  Paul was driven, a climber. He was never going to be happy until he’d achieved every single goal he had set for himself. She knew that because she’d been there as he’d knocked a few off his list. He’d graduated top of his class at University of Maryland, where they’d met. He’d been accepted to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Then he’d gotten his residency at Hopkins, his dream job.

  Ailis had been there beside him, either as a friend or a girlfriend, for nearly every part of that. She had been the perfect match for him during the college years because she’d enjoyed learning, and even though she wasn’t studying medicine, she’d helped Paul with his coursework. She was a stronger student, something Paul took advantage of as she basically co-wrote all his papers and helped him memorize countless facts about the body and diseases. The two of them joked that she had a medical degree without the diploma.

  He craved attention, the limelight. When he was in the room, his sheer dominant presence ensured that all eyes were on him as he discussed politics or offered medical advice or told some funny story about the antics of the doctors at the hospital. He’d been president of every club he had ever joined.

  And she’d been lingering in the background like some creepy shadow. He’d referred to her as his silent rock on more than one occasion. Like a stupid fool, she had considered that a compliment, thinking he needed her somehow.

  Probably because the political and social views he espoused were the ones she’d discussed with him. She was the one watching the news, reading the papers, forming opinions. They’d talk at length about countless topics when they were alone at night. Then, in social settings, he’d use her lines, her comments, professing them as his own, and his equally shallow friends would be totally impressed by his insight.

  Before tonight, she’d actually bragged about how lucky she was to find a man whose personal beliefs aligned so closely to hers.

  Now, the blinders were off. And she didn’t like what she saw. She’d been a doormat.

  Six years they’d been together. Eight, if she counted the two years prior to dating when they had simply been friends, hanging out in similar circles.

  With Rhonda.

  That name fired its own shots in her brain, evoked a different but just as powerful emotion. Rhonda had been her best friend since their freshman year of college when they’d been placed together as roommates in the dorm. That friendship had persevered and continued as they’d shared the same major and then, after graduation, been hired at the same marketing firm.

  Rhonda was everything Ailis was not. Vivacious, lively, pretty. The life of every party. The fun one. She had been a solid C student, but she had the personality to overcome what she lacked in intelligence. How many times had she listened to friends and colleagues tease the two of them about opposites attracting? As loud and bubbly as Rhonda was, Ailis was the polar opposite. Quiet, introspective, calm.

  People thought she was shy, but Ailis had never considered herself timid. In truth, she just didn’t feel the need to be the center of attention. She was perfectly capable of carrying on conversations one-on-one with strangers and business clients. But in larger social settings, she preferred to find a quiet corner to observe and analyze. People-watching was one of her favorite things to do. She always felt like she learned more about people by watching them than she did by talking to them.

  Obviously, she’d been watching the wrong people. Or, perhaps, she’d been observing the right people, but interpreting what she’d seen incorrectly.

  Because Paul hadn’t just left her. He’d left her for Rhonda.

  Somewhere over the past few years, her boyfriend had fallen for her best friend. And she’d missed the signs. Completely.

  That thought sent her gaze back to the let
ter. This time she forced herself to look at it. To let some of the words sink in.

  You have no idea how difficult it is for me to write this letter to you, Ailis.

  Yeah. Well. He should try it from her perspective. Because she was pretty sure reading it was way harder.

  She glanced away again, taking in the living room of the apartment she shared with Paul. His departure had been deliberate, planned, well thought out. There were things missing. A lot of things. Though she hadn’t looked, she was willing to bet she would discover his dresser drawers and his half of the closet empty, his toiletries gone.

  He’d been a very busy boy today while she was at work. Paul had quickly and efficiently erased himself from her life. In less than ten hours.

  She resumed her study of the wall in front of her, too tired to think about this right now. Maybe she’d pull that bottle of wine out of the fridge and drink her way into oblivion. She could figure out the rest of her life tomorrow.

  Unfortunately, standing up and walking to the kitchen required more energy than she could muster.

  Then the silence was interrupted viciously by a loud banging on the front door. Ailis jerked at the unexpected sound, her heart racing at the sudden noise. “Shit,” she muttered, placing her trembling hand on her chest.

  “Open the fucking door, Paul! Come out here, you goddamn prick!”

  Ailis leaned back against the couch with a long sigh. Her day sucked enough. Adding Hunter Maxwell to it was like tossing salt into a gaping wound.

  She didn’t move to answer the door. Maybe he’d think no one was home and go away.

  “You have five seconds to open this door before I kick the motherfucker in, you son of a bitch!”

  Ailis groaned as she rose. She didn’t doubt for a second he’d do exactly as he threatened. Which meant she’d be trying to figure out how to repair a doorframe at—she glanced at the clock—nine o’clock at night.