by Jo McNally
“And what an adorable couple they are,” Vickie added. “Tall, dark and rugged Logan with sweet little blonde, blue-eyed Piper. Although there’s nothing sweet about the looks she gives him sometimes. Yowza! I think they’re keeping each other very happy, if you know what I mean.”
Rick leaned forward. “Our track record is pretty good, Maura. Don’t you still have some single grandchildren? Like Bridget? We might be able to help...”
“Pretty good?” Helen scoffed. “Vickie tried to hook my Whitney up with Mark Hudson and you tried to fix her up with some old fart professor! We didn’t see she was falling for Luke until they were already head-over-heels.”
Cecile lifted her hand. “But we did help them patch things up when Luke got cold feet.” She grinned. “Maybe we’re not perfect at the matchmaking part, but we’re two-for-two with the keep-them-together business.”
“Whatever happened to being a book club?” Maura laughed. “You all got bored and started being busybodies instead?”
“No...” Rick paused. “Well, sort of. We got into a book rut and decided to...diversify. So, about your grandchildren...?”
“Forget it.” Maura’s voice was firm. Her family had enough turmoil. “Mary and Timothy are happily married. Michael’s not recovered from losing his wife. And Bridget is...well...Bridget. She’s married to the Purple Shamrock.”
Vickie ran her finger slowly around the top of her wineglass. “And to running the McKinnon family?”
Maura sighed. It was true—Bridget was the heir apparent to Maura’s role of family matriarch.
“What about the young girl who waits tables?” Cecile asked. “Kelly? She’s single, right? We could find her a nice guy...”
Rick spoke before Maura could. “That would be a waste of time. Kelly plays on my team, and she’s in a relationship.”
“On your team? Like...your billiards team?” Cecile seemed perplexed. Maura smiled. The woman had a heart of gold, but sometimes she wondered if all that hair bleach had affected Cecile’s brain. Rick lowered his head and stared at Cecile from beneath his heavy eyebrows.
“She’s on the rainbow team, honey. She has a girlfriend.”
Cecile frowned, then her mouth fell open as the message got through.
“Oh! She’s gay. Well...” She looked at Maura. “That’s...wonderful, right?”
“I don’t know if it’s any more wonderful than being straight. It’s just who Kelly is. She’s known since ninth grade, and it didn’t change anything for the people who love her the most.” Sadly, it changed something for her parents, especially her mother, who still hadn’t accepted it as anything other than a phase Kelly must be going through.
Cecile’s face reddened. “I didn’t mean anything...you know I believe love is love, right?”
Rick put his large hand over Cecile’s on the table. “That’s a fact, hon. That’s a fact.” He glanced at his watch. “And speaking of love, did everyone else figure out the wife was the killer in the first twenty pages of this book, or was it just me?”
“I don’t think it took me that long,” Lena answered. “Sorry, guys. This was my pick, but it’s becoming more and more obvious this writer is relying on his team to write the books. He’s become a business instead of an author.”
“And seriously—” Vickie tapped her e-reader “—did you read those sex scenes? Why the hell can’t men write about women without sounding like idiots?” She slid her reading glasses onto her nose and scowled at the screen. “‘Her breasts pulsed with need’? Any of you ladies ever had a breast pulse with...” Her voice trailed off when she saw everyone was looking around the room and trying to avoid looking at Maura. “Oh, crap, Maura. I’m an idiot...”
But Maura laughed, waving her hand for Vickie to continue. “I just reamed my granddaughter for only seeing me as her sick Nana. If my best friend starts seeing me that way, too, I’ll be really upset. There are no off-limit words around me. So do tell me more about these pulsing boobs, because I didn’t have time to read the book. What else did the magic boobs do? Tell time?”
Vickie snorted. “No, but apparently they can see things, because it was his...um...member...that made them start pulsing in the first place. Because you know when men write sex scenes, it’s all about how the hero affects the woman. They make us pulse and gasp and quiver.”
Lena flipped through more pages. “And don’t forget those boobs can point, too! The hero notices several times that her nipples are always pointing at him.”
Rick nodded. “Didn’t he refer to them as being like heat-seeking missiles taking aim or something stupid like that?”
“Yup!” Cecile pushed her bosom out and tried to aim her ample breasts in Rick’s direction. “See? My boobs want you!”
At that point, everyone dissolved into hysterical laughter, including Maura. Good God, she’d needed this. Vickie had been a champ since the diagnosis, but Maura had spent most of her time with her family. She understood their fears, but it was nice to be with people who could forget the illness and treat her like Maura. Not Maura-who-has-cancer.
Rick wiped tears from his eyes, gasping as he replied to Cecile. “Go home and point those things at Charlie, woman. Your missiles are wasted on me.”
Cecile cupped her hands lightly under her breasts. “Trust me, my husband conquers these mountains on a regular basis.”
There was more laughter as the meeting broke up and everyone headed out, after helping Helen clear the table and reset the room for wine tasting tomorrow. Even in the dead of winter, dedicated wine lovers would be driving the Seneca Lake wine trail over the weekend to sample the region’s award-winning wines.
Vickie pulled into the driveway of Maura’s green-and-yellow Victorian home. She set her hand on Maura’s arm before she could open the door.
“Are you and Bridget going to be okay after your little blowup today?”
Maura sat back, soaking up the feel of the heated seat through her heavy coat.
“Oh, I think so. Bridget’s a good girl...” She thought of the way Finn had come to her granddaughter’s defense. “I mean, a good woman. She’s just so on edge all the time. Like she’s trying to prove something to someone, but I’ll be damned if I know who or what. She’s always been a control freak, but the gir...woman knows what she wants and how she wants it. She honestly is right a lot of the time, but her communication...”
“Sucks?” Vickie asked with a short laugh. Maura chuckled. It was always funny when prim and proper Victoria Pendergast spoke so directly. She wasn’t the woman a lot of people thought she was. And neither was Bridget.
“I know Bridget has a reputation for being difficult, but people forget the fighting spirit she has is the reason that pub is still in business.” Maura straightened. “And who do you think planned my treatment schedule and coordinated with the doctors and treatment centers after I was diagnosed? She’s passionate because she cares.”
“Hey, you don’t have to sell it to me, girlfriend. I know Bridget and I butt heads once in a while, but that’s because we’re both so sure of ourselves. I like that in her, even if she hasn’t figured out if she likes me yet.”
“Sure of herself.” Maura nodded. “That’s a good way to put it. Although I think my illness has her feeling a lot less sure of herself. It’s something she can’t control, and she’s not handling it well.” She opened the car door. “But that’s something she has to figure out for herself. I’m navigating my own journey. I can’t navigate hers for her.”
“Maybe that hot Irishman will help her navigate a path or two.”
Finn O’Hearn was a charmer, but despite his defense of Bridget, he’d been none too pleased at the way she’d barged into his place and thrown a hissy fit. Poor guy. She got out of the car, but leaned over to respond to Vickie.
“The only path that man will be navigating is one that’s nowhere near his grumpy landlord.”
* * *
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re actually sitting here.” Kareema Justice took a bite of her powdered donut and laughed out a cloud of powdered sugar in Bridget’s direction. They were sitting at the Spot Diner in downtown Rendezvous Falls.
Bridget sipped her coffee. “I don’t know why you’re surprised, since you physically dragged me here.” She’d badgered Bridget until she finally agreed to an early morning coffee and bagel at the diner.
She and Kareema had been best friends since grade school. Bridget had told the little black girl that Kareema Justice sounded like a superhero name and asked what her superpower was. Kareema answered that she could eat two double scoop ice cream cones in one sitting. Bridget told her to prove it. That afternoon she did, and a friendship was born. People called them the Odd Couple, with Bridget’s freckled pale face and red hair, and Kareema’s dark skin and poofy pigtails. They’d bonded in the back corner of the library over Harry Potter books. These days Kareema was the school librarian with a full and bouncy head of natural hair, and Bridget was trying to keep her head above water at the pub.
“I didn’t have any choice but to drag you here after you started ignoring my calls and texts.” Kareema shrugged, dabbing her lips with her napkin. “You know I don’t put up with that for long. I couldn’t physically grab you when you ghosted me when you lived in California, but now that you’re back here, you’re mine, girl.” She leveled a firm gaze at her. It was a gaze Bridget called The Librarian Look, and Kareema had perfected it.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t ghost you. I’ve just been busy...”
Kareema made a talking motion with her hand. “Wah wah wah. You were born busy. Too busy. Now spill it. What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Her face heated. Kareema was impossible to lie to. “Okay, there’s a lot going on. You know Nana’s going through chemo...”
“How’s she doing?”
Bridget shook her head. “Not great, but she’s a trooper. Enough of a trooper to bite my head off the other day.”
She told Kareema about the scene at Finn’s apartment when she’d made such a fool of herself. When she’d hurt her grandmother’s feelings. When Finn had been nice to her. Again.
“So tell me about this Irishman.”
She sat back. “Seriously? I tell you about an argument with my grandmother, who has cancer, and you want to know about the Irish guy who just happened to be there?”
“Uh...yeah. He happened to be there because you let yourself into his apartment. You never rent to men, especially after that kid...” She was referring to the guy who was standing next to Bridget’s bed one night. He’d scared her nearly to death. To be fair, her scream had scared him half to death. She didn’t sleep well for weeks after that, and still had the occasional nightmare about it. Kareema cupped her chin in her hand. “And he’s Irish? Accent and all?”
“Accent and all.”
“And you hired him to bartend at the Shamrock? Just like that?”
Bridget rolled her eyes. “I didn’t hire him. He offered to trade his services in exchange for using Dad’s old office. Until I can actually hire someone, it will give Luke and Timothy a break. It made sense.”
Kareema’s mouth twisted as she tried not to laugh. “Uh-huh. Perfect sense. When’s he going to be there, because I need to see this guy who got you to trust him just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “It’s not like you, so he must be something special.”
He kinda was, but she wasn’t ready to admit that yet. Not to her best friend or to herself. Finn was settled. Steady. At peace with himself somehow. And that seemed to rub off on her when she was with him. When she wasn’t trying to fight it, he settled her, too. He got her to talk about stuff that she normally kept bottled inside. It was like flipping a release valve, and it felt good.
“Ooh, girl, he is special!” Kareema laughed and playfully swatted Bridget’s hand. “He’s got you going all dreamy-eyed. Are you two—” she winked “—getting it on or something? ’Cuz God knows you need some.”
“Need some what?” Bridget waved to Evelyn Rosario behind the counter for her tab. Evelyn and her daughter Evie ran the Spot, but Evie was traveling with her husband, Mark, that week. “And no, I’m not getting it on with Finn O’Hearn. Get real. Like I need that kind of complication in my life.”
Her friend watched her over the rim of her coffee cup. “If you ask me, that’s exactly the kind of complication you need.” They paid up and walked outside together. It was a little warmer today, and the sun was bright, making downtown Rendezvous Falls look like a sparkly Christmas card. Kareema gave her a hug. “Make things right with your grandmother, hon. I don’t like the idea of you two fighting. And stop ignoring my calls. If you aren’t gonna get it on with McIrish, then you need to spend time with your friends. You know what they say about all work and no play.”
Bridget nodded, ignoring the suggestion that she should pursue some...adventure...with Finn. Not a chance. Totally bad idea. She made the short drive back home, trying to remember exactly why it was such a bad idea. He was her tenant...awkward. He was older...but not by that much. She had too much happening in her life...but a diversion might be fun. And he was tempting... She slammed her car door. She was really bad at coming up with reasons not to think about being with Finn.
I like the feel of a real book in my hands...
She wondered what else he liked in his hands. She shook off that fantasy as she went upstairs. Focus, Bridget. She had stuff to do. Vacuum and dust. Put together a liquor order for the bar. Do laundry. Avoid Finn.
She started sorting her clothes to wash. She couldn’t believe she’d used her key to go into his apartment. She’d knocked first...but barely. She came in hot, and Finn had rightly been angry about it. Then she’d hurt Nana’s feelings. She could see it in the way Nana had physically recoiled, then come in for the attack before storming out. Bridget had been an idiot. It seemed to be her new fallback position. She was a bundle of rage these days, and she’d crossed a line. A whole bunch of lines.
Including baring a bit of her soul to Finn O’Hearn after Nana left. Of course, he’d shared a bit of himself, too, with all his talk of Indiana Jones and his books.
She looked around her home as she sorted her laundry. The upstairs apartment was spacious and bright, painted a sunny yellow that Nana had picked out. She’d told Bridget she spent so much time in a dark, noisy pub that she needed her home to be the opposite. Light, peaceful, open. And she was right. It was easier to breathe here, away from the pressures of her life.
She’d pulled her long hair into a braided knot that morning. She was always threatening to cut it short, but she never quite got there. The dark red hair was a reminder of her father. Flawed though he may have been, she’d loved him. And he’d left far too soon. It hardly seemed fair that he’d worked so hard to beat his alcoholism, then died just a few years later. She got his red hair. And the bar.
She changed into a pair of leopard-print leggings—a joke gift from Kelly last Christmas—and a bright orange T-shirt before slipping her feet into an old pair of canvas flats by the door. Nice, comfortable housework attire.
Dad made more than a few decisions in this old house that really could have used a woman’s input. Like...leaving the laundry hookups in the basement. And not adding a light switch at the top of the stairs. To his credit, he’d cleaned up that corner by the cellar stairs and painted the floor a silver-gray. The walls, though, were the dark, rounded stones of the hundred-and-some-year-old foundation. Despite her father’s efforts, the basement always felt a little creepy to her.
She got to the bottom of the cellar stairs, then balanced the clothes basket on one hip while reaching up for the string to turn on the light. That’s when her fingers came in contact with a warm hand that did not belong to her already on the light string.
She let out a scream, throwing t
he basket to fend off whoever, or whatever, was hiding down there waiting for her. Then she started swinging her fists.
Through her panic, it started to register that a male voice was speaking.
“Sorry. Shit. Sorry. Ow! Sorry. Bridget, it’s me...it’s Finn!”
She stopped hitting him, her chest rising and falling as she fought for breath.
“Finn?”
The light came on, making her blink. She hardly recognized him in his basketball shorts and ragged T-shirt, hair tousled and on end. And oh good Lord, he was wearing glasses. Dark-rimmed, studious, sexy glasses. He’d grabbed one of her hands and was holding it just inches from his face. His eyes were dark with regret.
“Oi, I’m so sorry, Bridget. I swear I wasn’t trying t’ spook you.”
She pulled her hand back and placed it over her heart, which was threatening to leap out of her chest.
“I’d hate to see what you could do if you were actually trying. What the hell are you doing down here in the pitch dark?”
“It’s not that dark once your eyes adjust. I’d forgotten to get my last load of laundry out of the dryer last night, so I just ran down to grab it. I heard you on the stairs and reached for the light. Maybe I should have spoken first, but I thought a voice from the dark would scare you.”
It probably would have terrified her. The guy had been in a no-win situation. Her heart rate began to settle.
“Okay, yeah...that probably would have been worse.” There was a pile of socks and...men’s underwear...on the dryer. He ran his fingers through his dark hair, and she realized he was sweaty. Not nervous sweaty. Workout sweaty. His arms were sinewed and lean, with that Celtic knot tattoo she’d spied before, as well as another tat peeking out from under the sleeve of his tee. Was that a dragon tail? If only she could push up that sleeve and see... Bridget took a step back. Whoa. It must be the adrenaline from her scare making her think so crazy.