by Forbes, Sara
“We’re done here,” I say to Lorcan. “Come on lad, to the showers.”
“I’ll say when it’s time for showers,” O’Shaughnessy says.
Lorcan looks between us and gets up.
Ten minutes later we’re back in the car. The raspberry aroma of Lorcan’s shampoo fills the space
“That was fun,” I say, handing him a croissant.
Lorcan takes the pastry and sighs.
“What?”
“I’m only going to have to do double punishment next week because of you.”
“No, you won’t.” I grin at him. “Cos, guess what, I’ll be there next week as well.”
He’s silent most of the trip to school, which is understandable. When I stop at the school gates, I offer to accompany him to the school door but he hisses, “No, no, no, don’t!”
“OK, don’t shoot. I’ll see you later.”
“Later?” He asks.
“Oh, yeah. Thought I’d pop around later to talk to your mom. Let her know how brilliantly you played.”
He rolls his eyes at me and runs off.
I dash back to the hotel. With any luck I’ll be there before anyone checks out.
*
I put our temp, Julia, on evening desk duty on short notice. She’s glad to do it as she gets extra pay. That settled, I head over to the Stephenson estate. It’s good to have an “excuse” to go over, namely, the de-briefing on Lorcan’s training.
My finger hovers over the doorbell. She’s not expecting me but then again, she’s not not expecting me.
After twenty long seconds, a figure appears on the other side of the frosted window pane. In something white. I hold my breath.
Cliona opens the door. She’s wearing a soft, terrycloth bathrobe cinched at the waist.
My eyes nearly fall out of my head. Her leg extends from the slit. My gaze trails down the smooth skin to her dainty toes—those toes I’ve come to love. I guess she’s not expecting me, but how I wish this is how she’d choose to dress if she were. As I look into her face all I can think is, “are you wearing something under that robe?”
“Uh, yeah, hi, thought I’d fill you in,” I say. “I mean, on the training, on Lorcan’s training.”
“Yes, I heard you had quite the picnic with all the yummy mummies and then proceeded to tell O’ Shaughnessy how to do his job.” She shakes her head in exasperation.
“Well, I—”
“Seamus, rule number one, you can’t argue with O’ Shaughnessy. Rule number two, the training ground is not the place for affiliate marketing.”
“I just—”
“How come Danny can do it for years without a single hitch and the first day you go there, all hell breaks loose? And just thirty minutes ago, I had June O’ Malley on the phone asking me if you were single.”
I smother an impulse to laugh out loud because she looks so fierce. “What did you say?
Her eyes glint even brighter and the red splotch on her cheek spreads toward her ears. “I said the truth—that I know nothing about your dating status. Nor do I care!”
Her chin is tilted defiantly up toward me which is unfortunate as it makes her lips even more irresistible. She’s ten times more attractive to me than any of those other mummies is what I would tell her, if I could. But I can’t. So I won’t.
“I should go,” I say, gripping the ornate wooden sides of the doorway.
“Oh, no, no. I didn’t mean that. Just…come on in. Lorcan’s gone up to bed. He’s shattered, as you can imagine.”
“Sure?” My eyes wander to her dressing-gown belt and my gaze lingers there.
“I just had a shower, but it’s OK,” she says.
Except it’s not OK. I’m hard as rock from just watching her sashay her way down the hall in that body-hugging gown. It’s all too easy to imagine her naked body underneath. Is this how she dressed to receive the duke every Wednesday? Why was he not affected? Were these two so friend-zoned that his natural desires were dampened? Is such a thing even physically possible?
Ten minutes. I’ll sit down for ten minutes. And when I’ve recovered, I’ll get up, walk out and make sure to never make the same mistake again.
I slump into the nearest sofa in the room we’ve entered. It’s South-facing so it gets the view over undulating Callaghan hills. I focus on it to take my mind off her curves.
“Nice,” I say, waving vaguely at the view.
She gives me a tight smile. “I’ll get some tea. Or would you prefer something stronger?”
“Tea’s good,” I say. “Thanks.”
When she leaves the room, I look around. I have been here before. As a teenager. When I was still friends with Danny and Cliona, I used to come here with Owen. This was years before Danny and Owen dated Cliona.
They were horse mad, Cliona and Danny, and they dressed preppily and talked about the private schools they attended while Owen and I spent our time taking the piss, quoting books and movies, and filling them in on the juicier Ballytirrel gossip that they always seemed to miss out on. While the Moores and the Stephenson’s weren’t any richer than us Callaghans, they still seemed to be a class apart in dress, culture, tastes, religion and history.
Now, for all her aristocratic breeding, it looks as though Cliona is just staying above the breadline. And it breaks my heart. She’s ultra-proud so it’s not a topic I can address directly. But I’ll make sure that Lorcan gets all he needs and that she doesn’t have to look to Danny for financial support anymore because that’s just not right. We’re Lorcan’s blood and family and while we may not have the trappings of aristocracy or royalty, our sum worth easily exceeds that of the Moore estate. We can provide everything he needs.
Cliona returns, carrying a tray. They used to have a maid to do this tea-duty which was an unnecessary luxury anyway if you ask me. So pretentious.
“Great tea,” I remark as I drink a cup.
Her eyes swallow me whole as she looks at me from her end of the sofa. “I’m sorry.” She lifts her delicate fingers to her forehead. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that You did me a favor this morning. I don’t know. I was just rattled.”
“That’s all right,” I say, putting the cup down. “We all have our moments.” I’m tempted to tell her to swing her legs up again so I can treat her to another foot-massage, and this time I won’t stop at her ankles.
No, not helping.
I sit forward and lean my elbows on my knees, prodding my fingertips together, thinking. “I have contacts who might be interested in the house. Of course, you’ll need to get the place up to scratch. I know some contractors—good ones. We renovated the upper story of our guesthouse a while back, as you probably know.”
She smiles. “That’s’ awfully kind of you, Seamus. I do have prospective buyers already, but more never hurt, and yes, it’s almost impossible to book good handworkers.”
“These are good. And I have ways of persuading them to come and get the job done right.”
“Legal?”
“Absolutely. You can’t build a sustainable successful business on anything shady.”
“OK, you seem to know what you’re talking about.”
“I do,” I say emphatically.
All this business talk has calmed me down below, which is good. But now I have this burning desire to help her to make things better for her. And it’s not just because she’s the mother of my nephew. I was probably better off just lusting after her. I should go now before I say something stupid.
“Well thanks for this,” I say, rising from the sofa. “If I don’t see you before then, I’ll see you when you bring Lorcan over to the hotel.”
“So soon?” The soft expression in her eyes and the disappointment in her voice speaks directly to my groin. Time goes still. A wave of attraction engulfs me. All I would have to do is walk over there, extend my had to pull her up. Clasp her into me for a hug…
No. I’m outta here.
“Say hi to Lorcan for me in the morning, won’t yo
u?” I say gruffly, heading to the door. I speed down the hall.
“I will,” she says behind me.
I spin around. As I stop by the coat-stand, she catches up with me, almost bumping into me. She puts out a steadying hand and her fingers land on my upper arm.
I go deathly still, just basking in the sensation of her standing close, touching me. Her robe ekes open another inch at the top, not completely, just enough that I can trace the beginnings of beautiful breasts that I want to take into my hands and fondle. I shove my hands in my pockets instead.
She removes her hand from me and clutches the lapels of her robe tighter across her chest, hiding her assets. “I appreciate what you’re doing, Seamus. I just want you to know that.”
Her breathless voice is the last straw. I take a step forward and smooth my palm against her jaw. When her eyes widen and meet my gaze, I quickly lean in and kiss…her cheek.
I draw back abruptly before madness takes over.
“See you, soon” I say. I sound pretty shaky.
“Yes.” She wrings her fingers.
I turn and boot it of there before it becomes obvious what my body wants. That’s no business of hers. That’s my problem, and it’s been this way for fifteen years. That’s also none of her business. Or anybody’s. I’ve managed to keep it secret for this long—why should I start letting the world know now?
8
CLIONA
When Seamus leaves, I sink my head against the wall. Oh God. I’ve been living the spinster life so long I‘d forgotten what it was like to feel the thump of desire in my bones. But that’s what I felt. I can’t deny it any longer.
When he kissed my cheek, I thought it was my lips he was going for. And in that moment, God help me, I craved it.
But he’s Lorcan’s uncle. Owens’ brother. I barely even remember Owen at this point and the irony is, I know for certain that the attraction to him was nowhere near this potent. With Owen, it was a drunken haze, typical of attachments in one’s early twenties. We had fun, yes. Owen was mad, lyrical, always pushing the boundaries. We got euphoric on a cocktail of alcohol and recreational rugs in his flat in Dublin. I thought we were being so cool. But it was stupid and I paid the price.
I can’t think of Lorcan as a “price” though. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
This is going to be an impossible month. If Seamus comes to the house again, I’m not sure I can sit in the same room as him and act like nothing’s happening. Because something is happening. All the damn time. And it’s huge.
I can’t remember a time when I can say Seamus didn’t like me—or was indifferent to me. I cast my mind back, traipsing over old memories all the way back one, two decades…back as far as I can remember.
Seamus is always there. Smiling at me. But always to one side. Always accompanying someone, either Owen, or Niall, or even Danny when they were friends. We rarely had a one-on-one conversation. Which is strange as he’s such an outgoing guy in general.
I shake my head and head to the bathroom. I need to forget about him and get some sleep to make up for my sleepless night last night. Next week I’ll be mentally better prepared. I’ll make sure Deirdre’s around.
I need to normalize this situation because I can’t have another complication in my life, especially anything that ties me closer to the town I want to leave.
9
SEAMUS
The dinner rukus has died down. Everything went perfectly. Even for the vegan-keto couple in Room 14 who’d claimed they’d starved their way across Ireland because they could never find a restaurant to cater for their dietary restrictions. My chef, Killian, looked after them just fine though. And Ted Williams, a guy in a wheelchair in Room 26, was also “pleasantly surprised” at the accessibility features—from the main entrance to the elevator buttons. It’s the little things that count on the long road to five-star hotel accreditation.
I’m sneaking a glass of whiskey from the bar when my private phone goes. I stick it to my ear as I pour the Jameson-20 into my glass. “Yeah?”
It’s not one of my brothers. It’s a woman’s voice. It’s Cliona.
I put the glass down.
“Sorry to call you, but—”
“You’d no other option?”
“Uhm, yes. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say grinning.
“It’s just that…well, I need someone to collect Lorcan from a play date and I’m stuck with a client here in Kildare and won’t get back in time especially as there’s roadworks on the M7. Normally I’d just call Danny but, um—”
“I can do it,” I say.
“Oh my God, can you? Thanks. Oh, you have no idea what this means to me.”
“Don’t mention it.”
There’s a pause that neither of us seems able to fill, then she says, “Look, I have to go…I’m so sorry Seamus. I’ll text you the address.”
“Do that. Now get back to your clients. And by the way, I hope it is clients and not just some hot date you set up on Tinder?”
“Seamus!” she says in a scandalized voice.
I click off the call with a chuckle.
My father walks in as I’m shoving the phone back in my pocket.
“Who’s that?”
“Cliona. She needs me to pick up Lorcan.”
He frowns. “You’re her lapdog now?”
I scowl at him. “I’m her lapdog if she needs help with Lorcan. You’re always saying Danny Moore does too much for them. Well now’s my chance to show that I can be equally helpful.”
He sniffs because he’s just lost that argument.
“You shouldn’t drink and drive,” he says, looking at my whiskey. Then he turns and totters out again, like he isn’t the biggest offender of drinking and driving.
I slide the glass under a bunch of cocktail menus for later.
But just as I’m getting into my jeep, I hear someone cursing.
It’s Ted Williams who needs help getting into his van because his wheelchair ramp is stuck. I go over, flex my fingers and give it a push but it’s really stuck. “I’ll get some tools from the garage, “I say.
In the meantime, Cliona has texted me the address where to pick up Lorcan plus name and phone number. I call the number Cliona gave me.
“Yeah, is that the Reilly’s?”
“Yes?” comes the snappy female voice.
“Yeah, I’m Lorcan’s uncle, Seamus Callaghan. I’m picking him up today. Cliona squared this with you?”
“Oh. Yes. That’s right.”
The voice hasn’t warmed any. Usually the motion of my family name is greeted with more enthusiasm, but I guess these folks are a little far from Ballytirrel.
“Yeah, so here’s the thing. Something came up in the hotel. I could be an hour late. What time does your son go to sleep at?”
“Well, about now.”
“Hm. Tell you what. Can you hold Lorcan for another hour? If he gets sleepy, just let him doze off on your couch or whatever.”
This suggestion is greeted with perfect silence.
“But Cliona said seven,” comes the peeved voice.
“Yes, I know, but she’s stuck on the motorway. She called me to take over but now I had my own little emergency. I could go and call a third person to take over but the way things are jinxed this evening that’d be just asking for disaster, hm?”
No laugh. No nothing. Just heavy breathing. God.
So, I go back to groveling. “I’m very sorry, it won’t happen again, but if I could leave Lorcan with you for the extra hour, it would really be doing both Cliona and myself a massive favor.”
“Hm, okay.”
By the time I’ve sorted Mr. Williams ramp problem and sent him on his way, I’m running a bit late for Lorcan, but I make up some time on the way to the Reilly’s—I’m only twenty minutes late.
A pinched-face woman in a cream twinset and skirt comes out whose demeanor matches her voice on the phone. She’s checking her watch. If
her son is anything like her, Lorcan should be forbidden from playing with him on character basis alone.
“So…where’s Danny?” she asks.
“He’s on his honeymoon in New Zealand.”
“Oh,” she says lifelessly. “He got married.”
“Yeah, ‘fraid so.”
She frowns at me like I’m a piece of dirt. “So, you’re the Callaghan side of the family. I have to say, Cliona doesn’t talk much about you.”
My grin widens. “Well, at least you’ve heard of me.”
She sniffs.
Lorcan runs out and comes up to us. He’s got all his stuff which is good because I don’t want to have to go in there.
“What a pretty house,” I say, even though it’s exceedingly ordinary.
She smirks. “Right. Well, bye, Lorcan.” She fixes me with a glare that seems more directed at the tattoos down my left arm than at my face. “I’ll talk to Cliona.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” I lie.
On the way back to Ballytirrel, I start to realize that parenting isn’t so easy after all.
*
I’m wiping the counter clean in the bar when in walks the most beautiful woman in the world, like a mirage. Fitting music to accompany this moment would be a sultry saxophone solo. But I’m not prone to seeing mirages. And the music is switched off for the night. And the look on Cliona’s face isn’t anything in the vicinity of sultry. If I’m reading her correctly, she looks annoyed.
“Everything all right? I ask as she approaches the bar. It’s always better to preempt trouble.
“Emma Reilly called me. The way she was talking, it sounded like you weren’t going to show up. I left the meeting early just in case.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say wiping faster. “I told you I’d handle it and I did. I wouldn’t leave Lorcan in the lurch.”
“Well I abandoned my client anyway. Don’t think I got that deal. It needed more schmoozing than I had time for.”