Now she wanted to slap his smug face, and instead grasped her large glass of Guinness. Maybe she could tip it over him? No, that would be a criminal waste. She swallowed some of the black brew instead, wiping the creamy foam off her mouth with the back of her hand. Taking a deep breath, she hung onto the last tattered threads of her temper.
“Either hear me out or forget it,” she warned. “Wallace was the target but he wouldn't leave it alone. I was staying at Grace Muldoon's bed and breakfast place, and she was worried about me so she went to the hotel where the jewelry convention was being held and heard me scream. You heard me, too, and you... you rescued me. I'm sorry, I never did properly thank you.”
“I seem to remember getting whacked over the head for my troubles,” Winters prompted.
“Well, Grace came in the direction of the scream. Wallace had already taken off but she saw you there and jumped to the wrong conclusion – it’s a bit of a habit of hers, I'm afraid. So she thumped you with her umbrella.”
“Does Wallace know who you are?”
“I think so, but I think he's keeping quiet because of my relationship to the Henleys.”
“Which it seems everyone knew about but me,” he said, taking a deep drink and wiping the creamy foam off his upper lip with the back of his hand.
“Look, there's a bad history going back a long way. I haven't exactly bragged about being related to them, because I thought they were responsible for some bad things in my life. But after listening to them the other night, I think maybe the whole feud has gone on too long and there really are two sides to every story.”
“My goodness, Cíara Somers, could it be you're growing up at last?”
“Go to Hell, Winters.” They sat in almost companionable silence for a while, and then she said “I suppose we should go back to the office.”
“Do you think the Three Stooges will be gone?” Anxiety laced his voice.
“It's okay, Winters, they scare me, too. I think they'll be gone, although there may be blood on the carpet.”
“Just so long as the new furniture is okay…”
“God, you're all heart, aren't you?”
* * *
They'd almost made it back to the office building when they were hailed from the window of a pub. Cíara needed another stiff drink herself when she saw Granny Somers, Grace Muldoon, and Margaret Henley all hanging out of the window of McCluskey's Bar. Their cheeks were already getting that red hue that only the demon drink can give.
Maybe she should call the President of Ireland; she could call out the army and put a stop to whatever the three old witches were brewing up.
“I just wanted you to know we'd brought that poor scrap of a mutt with us. It seemed a shame to leave him fastened up in that office, all alone,” Margaret Henley said, making it sound as if Cíara had been abusing a child.
“He's a nice old thing, too, if you don't mind the fleas,” Granny Somers said, patting the dog's head.
“And a thirst on him that reminds me of my auld one, God rest his soul,” Grace Muldoon chimed in. The three ladies all crossed themselves and muttered a quick reverence for the late departed Mr. Muldoon.
Watching the way The Dog was slurping down Guinness, Cíara reckoned he didn’t have much of a life expectancy, either.
“I've just thought, now, we can't sit here all afternoon. Why don't you all come over to my house? My husband's away and there's lots of room. Besides, it gets lonely….” Margaret Henley held out the invitation like a surrendering army colonel.
Cíara held her breath. She knew that if there were to be a new alliance formed between her grandmothers, it would be made or broken on the rock of mutual hospitality.
“Nah, too far and all with my arthritis. Why don’t you both come and stay at my place, I'm only a spit away on the Dublin bus.” Granny Somers, who'd vowed the Henleys would never darken her door, was trumping Margaret's gesture with one of her own.
The two women stared at each other, with Grace Muldoon watching the stand-off with knowing eyes but wisely not getting involved.
There is about as much chance of my receiving a visit from the Pope as there is Margaret Henley being seen dead or alive in Granny Somers little council flat, Cíara was thinking. And had to revise the thought when her paternal grandmother nodded. “Sure, that sounds like a good plan. Give us more time to relax,” she declared. “How about we get fish and chips and pick up a bottle on the way over?”
“Cíara, what are you standing there with your jaw on the carpet for? Think we old women can't have a bit of a good time?” Granny Somers eyed her severely. “Pity you and your man have so much work to do, or I'd invite you to join us.”
“Yeah, well – if you're sure you're all right?” She wasn't at all sure her Granny was all right. Not in the head, at least.
“Of course we're all right. But just tell me – what does that man of yours drive?”
“He's not my man,” she snapped, walking off towards her office with a bemused Winters in her wake.
“Why does everyone want to know what I drive?” he asked.
“It's a long story, and people around here have long memories and like to poke their noses in where they don’t belong!”
Hearing her tone of voice, he decided to drop the subject – for now.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was a message on the answering machine for Cíara when they arrived back at the office. A distraught sounding woman, calling herself only Mary, asked her to return her call.
Ignoring Winters' quizzical look, she waited until he went out for coffee before dialing the number.
“I got your name from a friend, who says you did a job for her. You have to help me,” Mary said straightaway. “I'm sure my man's cheating on me. He comes home smelling of perfume, late every evening, and just falls into bed like a dead thing. It's just not like him…”
“Yes, I can understand the perfume would be worrying..”
“Not that, you eejit! We've been married ten years and he's never, never, turned his back on me and gone to sleep. Sometimes I've wished he would. But now…now I wish he'd just touch me like…”
Cíara issued a brief prayer of thanks that Mary's next words, whatever they might have been, were drowned out in a hiccupping sob. “All right, just give me some details. Can you drop off a photograph of him, and where he's likely to be?”
“If I knew where the lying scoundrel was, don't you think I'd be there myself, and with the kitchen knife in my hand? I'd cut his bollocks off, I would. Oh, and he bought me such a lovely set of knives for Christmas – how can a man change so much in such a short time?” Mary wailed.
Cíara, who didn't figure a set of knives to be the most romantic of Christmas gifts, wisely kept her mouth shut. Mary said she'd drop a photograph of the 'philandering beast' over to the office, and finished with a plea to her to 'please, prove me wrong!'.
Not wanting to upset the woman further – coming home late smelling of perfume and not wanting sex with the missus didn't sound very promising – Cíara made non-committal soothing sounds and promised to report back as soon as she could. She was just replacing the phone when Winters returned with fresh coffee in take-out cups and a small white bakery box.
“Bagels?” She asked, examining the contents of the box.
“Yeah, bagels. Had to go half-way across this damned city to find them,” he told her grumpily, flopping down in his office chair and taking a massive bite. After chomping for a few moments, he gulped down a swig of coffee. “Not exactly up to New York standards, but at least they're bagels. How do people here eat so much sweet pastry? Seems like everywhere I go, there’s cakes and teacakes and dainties…the per capita sugar consumption must be off the dial. And if you don’t eat, everyone takes offence!”
Cíara, busy munching a bagel, thought perhaps it was an acquired taste – maybe the round bits of bread would be nice toasted hot with melting butter and good strawberry jam. She glanced up guiltily at his complaints.
“Well, you see, it all goes back to the famine. People were starving to death all over the place – more than two million of them. At least that number left the country on famine ships and who knows how many died?”
He rolled his eyes. “Not you, too – how come a simple question ends up with a history lecture?”
“If you don't like the country, there's plenty of flights out,” she snapped. “I'm just saying that after the famine, it was considered bad manners not to offer someone food with hospitality, because you never knew whether they were starving or not. And it was equally bad manners not to show a bit of appreciation – after all, your host was maybe offering you the last bit of food in the house. So you had to eat something and be grateful.
“And anyway, why are you so damned grumpy?”
He snorted. He knew why he was grumpy. He was grumpy because his hormones were nearly eating him alive. He didn't exactly sleep around, but neither was he exactly used to a state of total celibacy, either. And being around Cíara had him in a state of constant wanting. But of course, he couldn't tell her that. So he chose another subject on which to vent.
“I'm waiting for my partner to share the information about our new client,” he snapped.
Cíara drew a deep breath. If she told him it was another of her 'hunt and seduce' cases, he'd hit the roof. If she didn't tell him, he'd hit the roof. “It was just a friend of a friend, wanting some advice,” she tried, and was relieved when a tap sounded at the door. She hadn't liked the cynical way he'd been looking at her, one black eyebrow raised in a disbelieving arch. Something like a snake watching a mouse. She bolted for the door.
A little boy of about eight, wearing a green and white Ireland football shirt, stood in the hall. “You Somers?” he asked in a broad Tallaght brogue.
When she admitted she was, he thrust a brown envelope at her. “Me Mam said to give you this. She couldn't manage the stairs, you see. I'm going to have a little brother or sister, soon. Another one.” He rolled his eyes.
“Well, congratulations,” she said, taking the envelope. “Yeah, whatever,” the eight year
old going on fifty-something kid said, turning and loping off down the stairs.
“Kids today,” she said, turning back into the room and coming nose to chest with Winters, who deftly reached for the envelope. He had the photograph out in lightning time.
“So who is this?”
“That's my target for this evening. Why don’t you just let me get on with my work and you go off and find something to do yourself? Seeing has how you're so intent on building this business? Aside from the fancy office chairs, I don’t see you bringing too much else in.”
“We're supposed to be investigating the Diamond Darling – as your grandfather hired us to do.” He spoke between clenched teeth. Much more of this nonsense and he'd be banging his head against the wall. Which he supposed was better than banging Cíara's head against the wall.
“Look, this is a client who needs my help. I've been thinking of getting out of this line of work, as soon as I could get something better going. But this is something like an emergency, and I can't just turn my back.” Her voice dripped reasonableness.
He still looked about a nanosecond from an explosion.
But she was well-versed in distract and conquer. She flung her arms around his neck and captured his mouth with hers. Fireworks went off more brightly than on any civic holiday. She could hear her hormones singing the Halleluiah Chorus as his strong arms wrapped around her, his low groan of need lost in her mouth as his tongue accepted her invitation to dance with hers.
There was only one way to go from here – down to the carpet where his strong body made a comfortable perch as she lay along his length, their mouths still caught together and his fingers already playing with the hem of her t-shirt. Her fingers disobeyed her warnings and deftly opened a button on his shirt, gaining entry to the hard, smooth flesh of his stomach and eliciting more gentle growls of need from him. It was her turn to gasp when his thumb stroked her pebble hard nipple through the silk of her bra.
And just as that Halleluiah Chorus reached a crescendo, the whole hormone choir singing in urgent harmony, his hands were gone and so was he. Winters set her gently aside and struggled to his feet. Granted, his face was definitely flushed, but he'd moved out of reach. Cíara, fortunately, had had the presence of mind to snatch back her envelope and photograph.
“What – why?” she asked through lips bruised with passion. “I thought this was what you wanted – a few minutes more and you'd have won your bet.”
“Minutes? You don’t have much respect for my staying power, do you?” he grumbled. “Or maybe your experience hasn't been so good.”
She had to resist throwing the envelope at him. He reached down and caught her hands, pulling her to her feet.
“So? Explain yourself.”
He did that little pant crease-adjusting thing, and she wished just this one time that women could have a gesture equally as effective in smoothing down their lust. Maybe a cold bath would help, but right now she wanted an answer to her question.
“Because…” God, how could he tell her that he wanted her properly, wanted to enjoy every moment in comfort, not just a brief – and no doubt very enjoyable – coupling on the office floor? That maybe, just maybe, he wanted her more than that. Wanted more from her than that.
“Oh, Hell!” He slammed his hand, palm flat against the wall.
Cíara grinned nastily, but stayed silent.
“When I take you to bed, Cíara, and I most certainly will, it won't be just a quickie on the office floor. Oh, no, it'll be a lot more memorable than that.” Then he grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
“I think just a quickie on the office floor would have been pretty memorable.” With a sigh she checked her watch and went to change into her alter-ego working clothes. One of them had better get some work done.
Four inch stiletto heels weren't made for rushing, but she managed to park in front of the office building where Mary's husband, Sean O'Flaherty, worked, just as the staff was leaving for the day. She'd no problem identifying him, either – the man came tearing out of the building and literally ran across the road and into a small arcade.
Cursing softly, she tore off across the road after him. The arcade had several small and rather exclusive stores as well as some eclectic artsy stalls where local craftspeople touted everything from paintings to silver jewelry. But there was no sight of the broad frame of Sean O'Flaherty.
There was nothing else for it – Cíara had to force herself to enter each and every one of the small shops, drooling over merchandise as she went by, crooning: “I'm working now, my dears, but I'll come back for you” to the most gorgeous pair of real leather court shoes she had ever had the pleasure to meet. The strange looks she received from the sales staff made her hurry back outside and into the next store – a small perfumery and cosmetics outlet.
Bingo! There was her man. Only Sean was obviously not buying perfume for a high-maintenance mistress. He was behind the counter, serving a toffee-nosed Dublin 4 matron. Obviously, poor Mary O'Flaherty had her wires crossed somewhere.
When the matron had paid for her purchase, Cíara sidled over to the counter where Sean was working and, while pretending to be examining a display of cosmetics that cost more than her rent, she pushed her business card over to him and asked if they could talk for a few moments.
“What about?” he grumbled behind a bright sales smile.
“Your wife asked me to see you.”
There was no mistaking the fear that flitted across his face. “I've a coffee break in half an hour – I'll meet you outside,” he muttered, spritzing her wrist with Euro-rich perfume from a trial dispenser.
“Uhmm, that's gorgeous,” she said, rolling her eyes in pleasure, “But I'll have to think about it.”
Thirty-five minutes later Sean flopped onto a street bench beside her. “So what the Hell's going
on? What’s this about Mary?” he demanded.
“First of all, tell me what you're doing in a fancy cosmetics store after work?”
“What am I…? What the feck does that have to do with you?”
“Just answer the question, you know, like we played at school – you show me yours and I'll show you mine. You first.”
Sean sat in sulky silence for a minute or two. “Look, Mary's pregnant again,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“I don’t think she got that way herself, so it shouldn't be a surprise.”
“Oh, you're a real smart mouth, aren't you?” Sean mocked.
After a few minutes silence he went on in a calmer tone. “When we got married, I promised her the sun, the moon and the stars. And all I've given her in ten years is a council flat, three and a half kids, and a lot of worry. She's always wanted to go abroad, Spain and France, and we've never had the money.
“Well, a friend of mine owns this store, see, and he's doing all right. One of his staff's out on maternity leave and he asked if I needed some extra cash. My mother said she'll take the kids for a couple of weeks while Mary and I go away. So I'm putting in extra hours in the evening and saving to take my wife on holiday before the baby comes.”
It was so sweet. She felt tears prickle behind her eyes. In fact, it was so sweet she almost didn't believe him. But there was no mistaking the look in his eyes when he talked. This was a man with a severe case of love.
“So, now, this is where I come into it, Sean. You see, your wife is really concerned about you. You coming home every night, dog tired and smelling of perfume, and claiming to be doing overtime. Especially when the office is closed and no-one answers the phone on the desk you're supposed to be working at.”
Sean uttered a curse. “I never thought of that. Never thought she'd ring me.”
“Can you imagine what she's thinking? Your poor wife thinks you've got a bit on the side while she's turning into the Goodyear Blimp with your kid.” Cíara gave it to him straight. Love was all very well, but not when it was causing inadvertent hurt. Wake up and smell the coffee, Sean!
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