Unable to stop myself, I laughed out loud. Colm Fitzgerald was well into his seventies and yet he was still slinking around, hiding from his wife. Not that I could blame him. Maureen Fitzgerald was a formidable woman. Come to think of it, most of the women who’d lived their entire lives in Ballycurra had a certain grit about them. They’d had to, what with boys like me growing up here.
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” I assured him. “But, what’s the doc say about drinking?”
“Bah! He said I had to cut down, not stop completely.” He leaned forward as if he was going to impart a great secret only I could know. “I specifically asked about a dram here or there and he told me that would be fine provided I didn’t go overboard. I haven’t had a whiskey in over a week!”
“And Mrs. Fitzgerald knows the doctor’s assessment?”
“Oh, she knows … but she doesn’t think he’s right.”
I could imagine not, since she’d almost lost her husband less than a month ago.
When my mam first told me about Colm’s heart attack I’d done something I hadn’t done since my own da died when I was 18: I prayed. I’d been two hours out from a match and had played like shit, worried sick for the man. When she’d called back a few hours later to say it had only been a minor attack, I’d breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Colm had been a fixture in my life after my da’s passing, making a point of checking in on me from time to time, filling the gap that had been left by the absence of a male figurehead in the O’Shaughnessy family. He’d been in the stands at my matches when he’d been able to get away from the pub, and several times over the last few years he’d given me welcomed advice about how to handle situations involving my mother and sister.
And when it had become clear to anyone with a pair of eyes that I was plowing my way through what he called “young ladies of questionable moral character,” Colm had sat me down and sternly told me that not only was I wasting my time on “that sort of woman,” but I was also being a gobshite about it in the process.
Not that he thought I shouldn’t sow my wild oats or “whatever you young kids called it now.” He only took exception with the manner in which I was doing it. While he called my actions repugnant, he’d also shared a few choice words about the type of women who slept with me just because I played rugby.
Once or twice during those uncomfortable conversations I’d worked up the nerve to ask him about a different type of woman—his granddaughter Sophie.
“Oh, she’s too good for the likes of you, son,” Colm had said. “My Sophie needs a man who will worship the ground she walks on and you and I both know you’re not that type of man.” He added a soft, “At least not yet,” to lessen the sting of his rebuke.
I hadn’t been offended since he’d been right. I wasn’t the type of man who worshipped anyone but myself, and my many casual partners more than proved I wasn’t mature enough to give monogamy a try. But Colm held out hope I’d grow into the type of man he could be proud of, someone who was worthy of a woman like his granddaughter.
The scariest thing of all was that I’d silently agreed.
Not that Sophie was ever a viable option. After she’d left, she’d only returned to Ballycurra one time. I’d been at an away match and couldn’t get back in time to see her. It made absolutely no sense at all, but somehow I’d never gotten over my childhood crush. And now, all these years later, I’d built her up in my head as some sort of perfect woman.
Outside of the stories Colm and Maureen shared about Sophie, I’d stalked her for years on social media. Even without her grandparents’ urging, I’d read everything she’d ever written. From her blog, I felt like I knew her. She’d always been beautiful to me, even if I’d never told her I thought so, but the woman she’d grown into was a take-your-breath-away kind of beauty. The long frizzy hair of her childhood had been tamed into sleek, golden waves that cascaded down her back, while the roundness of her face had thinned out to reveal cheekbones that could cut glass, and her legs … she had miles and miles of tanned, toned legs. Legs I often fantasized about wrapping around my head while I feasted on her.
“Speaking of things I’m not sure are a good idea …” Colm said, interrupting my wayward thoughts.
When I pulled my focus back to our conversation, he was staring at me with a look of fierce contemplation.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked. When he didn’t answer right away, I shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his stare.
“How many girls are you seeing right now?” he barked, causing me to jump in my seat.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Don’t get me wrong. I understood what he’d asked, just not why.
He glared, unspeaking, for several tense moments.
“Alright, blunt it is,” he finally said and I swallowed, hoping he couldn’t tell how nervous he made me.
“How many of those young ladies up in Dublin currently know what sheets you’ve got on your bed?”
Taking in to account that I didn’t bring women back to my place, the answer was an honest zero. That wasn’t what he was asking though.
“None sir. Not currently.”
His silent gaze unnerved me and I found myself offering up more information than I meant to. “It’s been a couple weeks since I … ehm … you know … met someone.”
Colm brought his hand to his chin and rubbed his white whiskers thoughtfully. “None,” he repeated. “And why’s that?”
Did I tell him the truth? I respected Colm and thought of him like family, but there were some things you didn’t discuss with family. Like your sex life or how you’d begun to feel dissatisfied with it. I considered blowing the question off but the appraising look in his eyes gave me pause. What was the old man getting at?
And then a thought jumped into my head that had absolutely no business being there in the first place: did this have something to do with all those talks we’d had about Sophie?
It’d been a couple of months since I’d asked about her but Colm had to know my interest was real. Didn’t he? He must know I respected he and Maureen too damn much to disrespect their granddaughter. Didn’t he? If this line of questioning was about Sophie, honesty was the only route I could take.
“Truthfully sir, it’s …” I began but then struggled to find the words.
I’d only recently pinpointed the reason I was so dissatisfied stemmed from the string of nameless, faceless women I’d hooked up with and saying it out loud proved difficult. Exhaling, I ran my hand through my hair and dropped my eyes to the tattered carpet at my feet.
Then, taking a chance, I blurted out my ugly secret. “I’m tired of the women, sir. They’re just … bodies, not worth the time or effort.”
I looked up and met his penetrating scrutiny. “It’s left me feeling empty. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
My question came out sounding a bit more belligerent than intended, but it had been incredibly difficult to admit out loud the thing I’d kept hidden from everyone.
“Okay then,” he said, rising from of his chair and stretching his hand out in front of him.
I stood as well, confused at what I perceived as a lack of response. Had I said the wrong thing? It was hard to tell since his face gave nothing away. I reached out and took his old, weathered hand in my own. He pumped it twice and nodded.
“You should go talk to my Maureen. She’s got an errand for you to run.”
Chapter Four
Sophie
Standing in baggage claim, my luggage not yet arrived, I let my mind wander. There was a game I sometimes played whenever I landed somewhere new. I’d close my eyes and pretend I was coming home from my travels, that when I unloaded my suitcase it would be into my own dresser, in my own home. How did the thought make me feel? Was I travel weary yet? Was I ready to put down some roots, stay awhile this time? The answer was usually no but then again, I’d never traveled to deal with a family emergency either. Would this time be different? Cou
ld I imagine a slower pace of life, helping out while my gramps recovered?
I opened my eyes on a sigh. I might have been feeling a bit unsettled lately but a backwater village in Ireland was hardly the answer. No more so than Pittsburgh or Boston, at any rate. Honestly, I didn’t know there was an answer for the disconnected, disjointed way I’d felt lately. And yet, the idea of not having my next adventure lined up also made me twitchy and nervous. I couldn’t win for trying.
As I watched the carousel filled with other people’s possessions pass by, I started to feel that itchy and anxious feeling creeping in on me about being back in Ireland and I hadn’t even left the airport. I didn’t know how long I planned to visit but I’d told my mom I’d stay two weeks. Considering all I’d given up to carve out even that small amount of time, I wished I’d committed to one week instead. And that made me feel guilty because I didn’t want to put my selfish desires over the very real needs of my grandparents.
Who was I kidding? The reality was even though I’d committed to two weeks, I knew deep down I’d stay much longer. Designating that specific timeframe had been my stupid way of making myself feel better about putting my life on hold. Now on Irish soil, I begrudgingly admitted this was an open-ended trip. And that was where the itchy, twitchy nervousness came from.
I wasn’t used to having open-ended tickets. I was the type of person who made plans that had definitive start and end dates, with many checkpoints along the way. And now, for the first time in a while, I didn’t have an assignment to work on, a deadline to hit, places I absolutely had to visit and write about.
I was flying blind and it was unnerving.
When I spied my luggage making its way toward me, I pushed those thoughts aside. After adjusting my purse and laptop case on the cart to make room for my other bags, I elbowed my way through a gaggle of giggling teens blocking the path and heaved everything onto my trolley.
I’d told my Grandma Maureen I’d rent a car and drive out to Ballycurra but she had poo-pooed the idea. Emphatically, she’d told me she was sending someone to fetch me and I wasn’t to argue with her.
Now, as I maneuvered the cart out of the way of my fellow passengers, through the final customs checkpoint, and into the arrivals terminal, I scanned the crowd for my ride. My eyes slid past the large number of professional chauffeurs dressed in head-to-toe black, knowing that wasn’t an expense my grandparents would have incurred, no matter how ecstatic they’d been to learn of my visit.
There, just a bit back from the crowd, I saw my name written haphazardly in black marker across a piece of wrinkled white notebook paper. And then I saw who was holding that makeshift sign.
Yowza! Welcome to Ireland.
The man bearing the placard that bore my name wasn’t exactly my type—too pretty, too styled—but he was certainly one of the most attractive men I’d ever set eyes on. A little bit taller than everyone around him, the cut of his jeans and the fit of a Henley shirt worn tight against his skin under an open, navy wool pea coat showed off the fact that he was well muscled in all the right places.
Dragging my eyes away from his body for a moment, I realized he’d shuffled his feet and popped his collar in an effort to hide his face. Every so often he’d look around as if he was nervous of being noticed, but as far as I could tell no one paid him any mind. I watched as he scratched the back of his neck and then shoved the make-shift sign under his arm and pulled a beanie out of his pocket. When he pulled it roughly down over his head, covering that perfectly coifed strawberry blonde hair, the gesture only made his blue eyes all the more arresting.
Despite his obvious good looks and the stylish nature of his clothing, the man—who I guessed to be in his late 20s or early 30s—seemed a bit rough around the edges too. Closer now, I could see he sported a black eye and there was a red, angry gash above his eyebrow that looked gruesome enough to be a fresh wound. And while his hair before he’d covered it had been coifed into a perfect prohibition-era style undercut, he hadn’t taken the same time or care with his facial hair, sporting an extremely sexy five o’clock shadow even though it was only nine o’clock in the morning.
After sizing him up and deciding to thank my grandma for sending such a lovely specimen of manhood to pick me up, I caught his eye and smiled his way. When I lifted my hand into a wave, a look of recognition crossed his face as he sauntered over to me. When we were just feet apart, he stared at me for a few moments longer than was comfortable. As his eyes flicked over my face and he took me in, his lips hitched up in a small, satisfied smile.
Even though I’d taken my time ogling him from afar, his own perusal made me uncomfortable. Hot. Twitchy.
“Hi, Sophie. Good to see you again.”
When he clasped his much larger hand around my smaller one, I felt the presence of rough skin against my palm. A working man.
I returned his shake and nodded. From his greeting, it was obvious met before but I couldn’t place him. Did he work at my grandparents’ pub? I couldn’t remember meeting anyone the last time I’d blown through town who matched the man standing in front of me, nor did I recall my grandma having mentioned someone like him. She’d talked often enough about Cian Kelly, who she referred to as “that dark-haired devil” so I knew this guy wasn’t my old classmate, but beyond that he was a complete mystery.
“Thanks for fetching me, but I’m afraid you’ve got me at a loss. You clearly know who I am, but you are …?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Of course,” he muttered under his breath as a smirk crossed his lips.
Then he bestowed me with a full, heart-stopping smile and I felt the gesture somewhere deep inside of me. That he could make my stomach flutter in such a way with just one look was unprecedented; this type of immediate, all-encompassing attraction wasn’t normal for me. It felt both marvelous and deadly at the same time and I didn’t know if I liked it. No, that wasn’t true. I loved it and loathed it in equal measure.
That was when I realized he still held my hand. Not wanting to appear rude but needing to get my bearings, I slid it from his grasp and hitched my bag higher on my shoulder as I waited for him to tell me his name.
“Your granny didn’t say who she was sending, did she?”
“Nope,” I confirmed. “So why don’t you do the honors.”
He dropped his head and grabbed the back of his neck with one of those work-roughened hands. Glancing back up, his lips hitched in another one of those flirty smirks I was beginning to think he wielded like a weapon against unsuspecting females susceptible to his flirtatious charms. Lord knew they disarmed me easily enough. His eyes roved over my face for a few brief seconds and then he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and said five words that sent me reeling.
“Declan O’Shaughnessy at your service.”
I sputtered and gulped and basically did a piss poor job of hiding my reaction. This … this … this beautiful fucking piece of man flesh standing before me was my childhood nemesis Declan “The Turd” O’Shaughnessy? No way. No fucking way.
And yet when I looked at him again—really took the time to see beyond his enticing attractiveness—it was so obvious I was surprised that I’d missed it. If I’d paid attention when I first noticed him, the color of his hair and the twinkling of those cobalt eyes might have given it away. Then again, I’d had no reason to think this man and the boy I’d loathed were one and the same, especially since my grandma, the person who’d sent him, knew exactly how I’d felt about Declan.
He certainly wasn’t a ten-year-old little shit head anymore; that was a man’s body under all those clothes.
Ah hell.
I’d been standing there lusting after the one man in all of Ireland I hated above all others. That he could reduce me to a stammering, confused mess made me feel that much worse.
Taking a deep gulp of air, I nodded in acknowledgment. “Declan.”
His name was ice on my lips, cold and implacable.
He had the good grace to look chagri
ned. “Ah, you remember me then.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Of course I remember, you stupid jackass!” I shot back. “You made my life a living hell the two years I lived here. You don’t easily forget the boy who ruined your life.”
He winced. “I hoped you wouldn’t feel that way.”
It was ridiculous to hold a grudge after all these years, but I’d spent countless hours going over in my head what I would say to Declan if I ever saw him again. Now that he was standing directly in front of me, I wasn’t about to let that seething contemplation go to waste.
Fisting my hands on my hips and shifting my weight toward him, I whisper screamed, “You were nothing more than a big old bully who delighted in torturing me.”
He grimaced and looked away, but I kept speaking, the words tumbling from my mouth. “You tormented me, Declan O’Shaughnessy, and I’ve waited a long time to tell you to go fuck yourself.”
I settled my arms across my chest and let out a satisfied huff. While I hadn’t said anything close to resembling the eloquent speeches I’d spent long hours composing in my head, I was gratified the core of my message had been delivered.
Succinctly.
Declan
Following her outburst, our eyes met and held for a few silent heartbeats. What I saw staring back chilled me: Sophie hated me.
But of course she did. I’d been a right prick to her when we were kids. It was almost as if I hadn’t been able to help myself. The only way I’d ever been able to get her to interact with me was to tease her.
When she’d first shown up at St. Anthony’s, I’d tried talking to her but each time I spoke she stared at me, mutely, for several seconds before responding, those big green eyes of hers drilling straight into my eight-year-old soul. In retrospect, I probably hadn’t said anything worthy of her acknowledgement.
At the back of my head, something about a scavenger hunt niggled at my memory. I couldn’t recall specifically what had happened, but I remembered making that day difficult for her. If memory served, she’d ended up having to partner with the teacher’s assistant and all the kids had laughed at her for it.
Trying Sophie: A Dublin Rugby Romance Page 3