Spanish Nights

by Anna Vaughn

  Spanish Nights

  by Anna Vaughn

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Copyright © 2017

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  March 9th

  “Emma, you have a ‘Nicole’ on line one,” Sharon said with a slight smile.

  Emma Murray glanced up from the report she was reading to meet her secretary’s eyes as she momentarily leaned against the door frame to give her the news.

  How did she know?

  Yes, she’d been friends with Sharon for years but she somehow always knew when a call was business, a friend, or like this time, a potential love interest.

  “Thanks,” Emma said, keeping her expression neutral, refusing to give anything away.

  She waited until Sharon had left to pick up the phone. “Hello,” she said into the phone as she leaned back into her black leather office chair and swiveled so that she was facing the windows that took up most of the wall on her right.

  There was a misty rain that was blanketing the Docklands and her view of the River Liffey below.

  “Hey. I was just ringing to let you know that I really enjoyed last night.”

  Emma rarely went out on a Sunday night but there was a charity event on that she wanted to support. She had no intention of meeting anyone but Nicole had been persistent so she’d let her guard down for the night and let her take her home.

  “I did too…” Emma wasn’t one for one night stands but somehow last night had just happened. Now she wasn’t sure how to handle this situation. “I’m sorry I left without saying ‘Goodbye’ this morning but you were fast asleep…”

  “It’s okay. I knew you had to get to work early and that you weren’t doing a runner.”

  Emma stretched her legs out in front of her, recalling how easy things were last night.

  Maybe I should be more of a player. Except I have no idea how to deal with this next day phone call thing. Why did I give her my business card?

  I won’t make that mistake the next time.

  Wait? Is there going to be a next time? Have I just decided that I’m going to be a player now?

  “Emma? Are you still there?”

  “Yes. Sorry. I have a meeting that I need to get to,” Emma lied.

  “Okay. I’ll let you go then.”

  “Sorry…”

  This is the part where you’re supposed to ask her out again… If you’re going to do it… Or you could just be a shit-bag and say nothing…

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Emma could hear the disappointment in Nicole’s voice. When did I become this person?

  “Okay. Thanks for last night,” Emma said, cringing immediately.

  “Sure…”

  “Are you going out next weekend?” Emma asked, desperately trying to salvage this conversation.

  “I should be. Same place.”

  “Sunday night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll look out for you,” Emma said quickly.

  “Alright. I’ll see you there.”

  Emma said ‘Goodbye’ before she could embarrass herself any further. The gay scene in Dublin was so small.

  How long is it going to take for that disaster to get around?

  She should probably lie low for a week or two and hope that it would be forgotten.

  Emma covered her face with her hands. What am I doing with my life?

  “Hey, you okay?”

  Emma looked up to meet her brother’s light blue eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?” He stepped inside her office to get a closer look. “You look pretty awful if I’m being honest.”

  Emma sighed. She loved her brother and knew he meant well but sometimes he just pissed her off.

  Damien had it all figured out. He was two years younger than Emma but he was married to a beautiful woman named Catherine and somehow had time to captain his local football team as well as run their business that they’d started together.

  “I’m fine… Really,” Emma said meeting his eyes. They looked a lot alike, both with jet black hair and blue eyes.

  “Okay. Just checking,” he said with his hands raised in mock surrender. “I’ll be in my office if you want to talk.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

  Emma knew she wouldn’t take him up on his offer. They were close but she wasn’t going to bother him with the boring details of her love life or lack of one.

  She’d been so busy setting up their marketing firm that she’d left little room for romance.

  She’d just turned forty and although their business was thriving, she couldn’t seem to stay in a relationship for more than two years. She always got bored at that stage. She never thought of herself as someone who had commitment issues but there was definitely a pattern emerging.

  Just as she was about to get back to work her mobile phone rang. It was her mother.

  “Hello,” Emma answered.

  “Hello to you too stranger.”

  “You know how busy we are…”

  “I know but it wouldn’t kill you to ring every once in a while.”

  Emma sighed and tried not to let her mother get to her.

  “How’s everything there?” Emma’s parents had moved to the south of Spain fifteen years ago to escape the dreary Irish weather and open up a pub on the Costa Del Sol.

  “Good… Well, they could be better.”

  “Why what’s wrong? Is Dad okay?” Emma couldn’t help jumping to that conclusion. Her father had had a string of heart problems over the years even though he was only seventy years old.

  “He’s fine. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Are you getting divorced?”

  “No. We’re not getting divorced. We’re just having some business problems…”

  “Okay... Can you be more specific?” Emma asked.

  “Things are slow… I’m not sure if we’re going to survive the year.”

  The news hit her like a sucker punch. “What?” She knew how hard they’d worked to put aside the money to get the pub started and how much they’ve enjoyed living there.

  “It’s just been a difficult few months. It’s always slow in the winter but this year has been the worst by far.”

  “I’m coming out
there. I’m sure there’s something we can do to turn this around pretty quickly.”

  “Emma, are you sure? I know how busy you and your brother are.”

  “Of course, I’m sure. Damien can manage things here and I can work on any ongoing projects I have from there.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “I’ll book a flight when I get home tonight.”

  “Emma… Your father is somewhat in denial. He doesn’t know I’m ringing you.”

  “Right,” Emma said, taking a deep breath. That was typical Dad behavior. He was always stubborn. “I’ll deal with it when I get there. He’ll have to put his pride aside this time.”

  “Thank you. Send me a text when you know what flight you’re getting.”

  “I will. Thanks for ringing,” Emma said honestly, still trying to process what her mother had told her.

  When she hung up, she immediately opened up a new tab on her computer screen and checked Aer Lingus’s website for flights to Malaga.

  There was a flight going at seven tomorrow morning that would have her there at eleven. She booked it and started creating a mental checklist of all of the things she needed to sort out before she left.

  She stood up and walked down the hall to Damien’s office.

  “I knew you had something on your mind,” Damien said with a warm smile when she knocked on his open door.

  “It’s not that. I just talked to Mum.”

  “Oh yeah? I talked to her last week. The weather’s already getting warm.”

  Emma closed his office door and sat down across from him at his desk. “Has she said anything to you about the pub?”

  “Just that things are slow but it’s the low season still,” Damien said, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the desk.

  “She’s worried about the business. It sounds like they’re in serious danger of closing if things don’t turn around soon.”

  “What?”

  Emma nodded. “I couldn’t believe it either. I mean, I know the economy hasn’t been great there but I didn’t think it could be that bad.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I’m going out there tomorrow morning. I don’t know how long I’ll be but you’ll manage here, won’t you?”

  “Sure,” Damien said, leaning back into his chair and running a hand through his thick black hair. “Of course. Take as long as you need.”

  “I can work from there. They’re only an hour ahead. I need to see what’s going on. If there’s anything they’re doing that could be easily improved… I don’t know. I hope they can get through this.”

  “It’ll kill Dad if they have to come back here,” Damien said, his steel blue eyes locking onto hers. “We have to help them turn this around.”

  “We will. Thankfully they didn’t wait until the last minute to tell us.”

  “I’m sure Dad’s not happy about giving in and asking for help.”

  “He doesn’t know that’s why I’m going over…”

  Damien laughed softly. “Of course not. You said you’re going in the morning?”

  Emma nodded.

  “Let me know if you need me to keep an eye on your apartment or feed your cat,” he offered.

  “Thanks, but I think my neighbor should be able to do it,” Emma said as she stood up. “I better get back to my office and get as much sorted out as I can before I leave.”

  “Tell Mum and Dad I said ‘Hello’ and that I’m here if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I will.”

  “Safe trip,” he called after her as she left his office.

  Chapter 2

  As much as Emma wanted to throw herself down on the couch in her sitting room she resisted the urge and continued into her bedroom. She pulled her medium sized navy suitcase out from under the bed and left it down on the white feather duvet.

  She’d checked the weather earlier and it looked like it was going to be nice for the middle of March with highs reaching twenty-three degrees Celsius or about seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit.

  Emma packed some shorts and tank tops because twenty-three degrees would feel like desert heat to her and she might as well enjoy it because the chances of getting a nice summer in Ireland were almost always slim to none.

  She threw in some professional looking clothes as well, just in case she was meeting with any suppliers or local business people.

  She glanced over at the DSLR camera that was sitting on the chest of drawers against the far wall. She hadn’t been taking many photos lately.

  The last time she brought it with her anywhere was when she had a stay-cation with her ex, Megan. They’d spent a long weekend in Galway, where Emma had grown up, in the west of Ireland.

  She pushed those memories aside. That was almost three years ago which she found hard to believe. She’d been so busy at work that she’d hardly noticed the time go by.

  Emma padded over to retrieve the camera and packed it between her clothes, wrapping it up in a hoody for extra protection.

  She folded a few more items of clothing and then set her pair of black flip flops on top before she zipped up the case. She thought she had everything that she could possibly need. There was little room for anything else anyway.

  She’d bring her laptop in its case as her carry-on bag. Now that she was packed, all she had to do was print out her boarding pass and find out if her neighbour across the hall, Mary, would be up for some cat sitting.

  Still in her work clothes, Emma left her apartment to go knock on Mary’s door.

  “Hey, Emma. Do you want to come in?” Mary asked as she opened her door.

  “Hey, I won’t now. I only have a few minutes and a favor to ask…”

  “Sure.”

  “I have to go to Malaga to see my parents.”

  “Are they okay?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah they just need some help with their pub. I’m not sure how long I’m going to be gone for though. I just booked a one-way ticket.”

  “Well aren’t you lucky?” Mary joked. “Do you want me to mind Banjo?”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Of course not. Is it alright if he stays here?”

  “Sure, if that would make things easier for you. I’ll bring over his litter and food,” Emma said, relieved that she didn’t mind looking after her cat for an undetermined length of time.

  She was actually starting to look forward to her trip tomorrow. Everything was sorted out and she’d be able to get started straight away with helping her parents.

  Chapter 3

  March 10th

  At 10:30AM the next morning, Emma strolled out of Malaga airport and got into one of the many taxis that were outside. The sun that nearly always greeted her when she arrived in this part of the world instantly lifted her spirits.

  She gave the taxi driver the address of her parent’s pub in Benalmadena in her best Spanish and reached into her bag for her shades.

  Twenty minutes later and she was nearly there, the ocean in sight. She took in the familiar streets as the taxi turned down towards the beach.

  She’d always loved coming here when she was younger. Almost every year the four of them came to a different village or seaside town in Andalusia in the south of Spain.

  Emma wished she’d kept up with her Spanish. It was so much easier when she was younger and she met up with friends here every year. She’d studied it in school but that seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Now she gave the language little thought unless she was here and she hadn’t been here in four years.

  She paid the driver as he pulled up a block away from Murray’s and he got out of the car to get her suitcase. She strolled down to the promenade, wheeling her suitcase behind her, noticing that not much had changed in the last four years.

  Her mother was outside a few seconds later, wrapping her arms around her in a warm embrace.

  “Emma,” her mother, Patricia, said as she squeezed her. “How long has it been?”

  Emma pulled back and realized that she
wasn’t being dramatic. She couldn’t think of the last time she saw her parents.

  Work had been so busy the last few years now that the economy was picking up again in Dublin.

  She’d been too busy at Christmas to fly over. Damien and Catherine had, of course.

  Her brother’s wedding was probably the last time she saw them and that was almost two years ago.

  “Too long,” Emma said honestly. “Far too long.”