by Carly Keene
PRONE TO SHENANIGANS
Shenanigans & Malarkey Book 1
CARLY KEENE
THISTLE KNOLL PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2020 Carly Keene. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author. The only exception is that short excerpts may be quoted in a review.
Cover designed by DesignRans at Fiverr.com.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE DAUGHERTYS OF COUNTY DONEGAL
Damaging, or obstructive (in battle)
Ar nDutcas: Our heritage
Gules a stag rampant in a field argent, vert chief with three stars.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
EPILOGUE
Thank you!!
About the Author
Also by Carly Keene
ONE
Ainsley
On Tuesday afternoon I get home just as my roommate is leaving.
“You’re what?” I gasp in horror. “No. Wait. Explain again.”
Cammie sets down her suitcases on the front stoop. “One more time: Ben’s found us a place, and he wants me to join him right away. So,” she says, and spreads her hands like it’s all explained, “I’m moving out.”
“Just like that.” I’m aghast.
It’s not like she’s a friend, or even a decent roommate. I put up a message on the university rent-share board, and the only person who called was Cammie. She’s flaky, messy, and forgets to pay her share until I shake her down for it, but I can’t pay this rent by myself. Now what’s really worrying me is the very small chance of finding another roommate, or a sublet, in March. College classes end in two months. I could maybe pick up a roomie for summer session, but can I cover the rent on this place by myself for another two months? I mentally check my bank account.
No. No, I cannot. Cam still owes me for March rent, too.
As if she’s reading my mind, Cammie says, “Since I’m only here the first week in March, I’ll give you a quarter of my part of the rent. You can find somebody else.”
While I’m sputtering things about leases and roommate agreements and fairness and short notice, she shoves a key and five twenties into my hand and gets into the car that’s just pulled up behind me on the street. A hundred bucks is not enough a quarter of her half of the rent on our apartment, but I’m too late to stop her closing the rear door. She locks it and looks up at me smugly, even waggling her fingers at me in the most annoying bye-Felicia gesture I’ve ever seen.
I’ve been really careful with the stipend that comes with my teaching assistant job/grad school scholarship, but it barely covered half the rent on this place anyway, let alone food and clothing. I don’t have a car, because I couldn’t swing the insurance. If I had a boyfriend to share expenses with, I might not be this broke, but I’ve been so focused on getting through school, I just haven’t bothered to date, much less find Mr. Right.
And now I might not be able to swing my fricking rent.
I march in and dump my stuff on the tiny kitchen table. My backpack is full of management and marketing and business analysis textbooks, plus the 86 Intro to Management quizzes I’m supposed to have graded by tomorrow.
I’m too pissed off to work right now. I’m starving, so I shove a couple of Cammie’s $20 bills in my jacket pocket along with my phone and go outside. I’m not going to try to make myself face any more unpleasant things right now. Where can I can food and alcohol, fast, and in that order?
What I find, three blocks over in this blue-collar neighborhood of Baltimore, is Kelly’s Pub. It looks welcoming, with warm yellow lights shining through the windows. I go in and find a seat at the moderately crowded bar. The cute dark-haired bartender has an Irish accent that sounds real. I ask for shepherd’s pie to start with, and a shot of Jamesons for later, and get an approving nod.
While I’m eating the delicious food, I have a look around. Dark wood paneling, a big communal room near the bar with booths near the back for privacy. Pictures of blue-collar Baltimoreans and the occasional sports hero on the walls. It’s cozy, but buzzing with happy-people noise. “What’s that?” I ask the bartender, pointing at the tiny stage near the bar.
“On Tuesdays we have a little competition for folk singers. Traditional music only.” He smiles, dimples on display. “Starts in about half an hour, and the prize is $100. You want to sing?”
I can sing. I loved choir in school. I tilt my head, considering. A hundred bucks? Every little bit would help. And I do know some Irish songs.
“We really don’t have that many tonight,” he adds. “We need some more singers. I’m Mac Kelly, by the by. What’s your name, lass?”
“I’m Ainsley.”
His eyebrows go up. “English name. Sure and I thought you’d be Irish—look at ye, the dark hair and blue eyes put in with a smutty finger.” I must look confused, because he adds, “Freckles.”
Yep. Freckles on skin that could give milk a run for its money in the whiteness division, that’s me. I never tan. “My grandmother was a Daugherty,” I offer.
“That’d be it, then. Now. What d’ye want to sing?”
“Red Is the Rose. Is that Irish enough?”
“’Tis. The Scots would claim the melody, but as long as you don’t sing the words to ‘Loch Lomond,’ I think ye’d be all right.”
We get me all signed up and I review the lyrics to ‘Red Is the Rose’ on my phone, and then something makes me look up. The other guy behind the bar is talking to a bearded hipster as he pulls a pint, and he is drop-dead gorgeous. Dark blond hair, blue eyes, muscles for days under the green Kelly’s Pub t-shirt, and the same dimples as Mac.
“We need more singers,” he says quietly to Mac in that soft Irish lilt. “You get anyone?”
“One more.”
“I hope not another amateur. We need to raise the bar for entertainment.”
Mac nods toward me. He’s stopped smiling. “Ainsley’s going to sing.”
The gorgeous guy turns to look at me. What with the food and the promise of alcohol, I’d been starting to lose my fuck-you attitude, but it comes back with a vengeance. I slam my phone down on the bar. “Maybe if you paid professional musicians, you’d get professional quality.”
Mr. Gorgeous blinks. And says nothing. He’s just looking into my eyes. My heart starts pounding. Mac elbows him into speech. “Ah now,” he says, “didn’t mean you.” He’s still staring at me, but now a smile is sneaking onto his face. “Glad to have you sing.”
Embarrassed by the heat in my lonely ladyparts, I ignore this. “Mac,” I say, channeling the authority I’ve had to put on to teach undergrads, “I’ll take that Jamesons now.”
But it’s not Mac who reaches up to a higher shelf and comes back with a bottle of Black Barrel. He sets the filled glass in front of me. “On the house. And lass? Good luck.”
It’s a nice apology. I take the shot glass and hold it up. We stare at each other, and
the stare goes on a ridiculously long time before I come to myself enough to realize that my nipples have perked up under my dress and my face is hot. I tip the contents of the glass back in one go.
The whiskey is excellent, rich and smooth with a taste of butterscotch, and high enough in alcohol content to make me gasp. But I suspect that Mr. Gorgeous is even more intoxicating.
TWO
Seanan
So I’m minding my own business—literally, because I manage Kelly’s Pub—and hoping that my little brother Mac will have been able to charm a few more people into joining the Talent Night when I see her sitting at the bar.
Long ash-brown hair waving on her shoulders, eyes blue as heaven. A soft pink mouth, and a bosom that might have been made for a poor lonely boy to lay his head on. And squeeze, and strip bare, and kiss, and . . .
And I’d better stop thinking that way, or I’ll shame myself in front of all the pub customers.
I find out quick she’s got a temper, too, but I like that about her. I just hope she doesn’t decide to clout me with a pint glass.
I apologize with a shot of some higher-end whiskey, and she accepts, thank the Lord and me mam’s lessons on how to treat a lady.
“What’s her name again?” I hiss into Mac’s ear when I go to pull another pint of Guinness.
“Ainsley,” he says. And then he smirks, because he’s a wicked man and a terrible tease.
“Another one of your conquests?” Mac’s a silver tongue, and I like to keep him at the bar because he can charm any lady he chooses. It does mean, though, that he’s always in pursuit of three ladies at the same time.
Was a time that I’d have enjoyed dating three ladies at once, playing them off each other and hopping beds. But since Da decided to retire and go back home to County Derry last Christmas, leaving me and Mac to run the pub, life has suddenly got too serious for shenanigans.
“No, just met her. Looked to me like she was having a rough night, so I thought I’d ask her if she could sing,” Mac says. “She cheered right up, and I didn’t even have to do any sweet-talking.”
Ainsley is second up, after a thirtyish bloke pretty much slaughters “Whiskey in the Jar.” She looks a bit nervous, but her cheeks are pink and her blue eyes are sparkling. And sweet heaven, her body in that modest blue dress is as hot as a bonfire. I could see earlier that she had a deep chest, but her hips and arse are lush too, and I can almost feel those substantial thighs squeezing me right now. I have to put my hand in my trouser pocket to calm things down.
We don’t have musicians to accompany the singers in the competition; it’s tradition to sing alone in the old-fashioned style. You can tell a lot about a singer when there’s nothing extra to keep him or her on the tune or on the beat, and it’s a lovely tradition anyway. I admit I’m a little worried when this beautiful girl with the temper gets up on the tiny stage, because I hope she’s good. I really want her to be good.
And when she opens her mouth and sings, “Come over the hill, my bonny Irish lad,” I sigh in relief and pleasure. She’s a nightingale. Mind you, I grew up on Clannad and Cherish the Ladies as well as the Chieftains, because Mam loves the trad singing. Ainsley’s got that truly lovely, pure tone that Enya shares with Loreena McKennitt and that they both share with poor, mad Sinéad O’Connor.
I watch her sing, and look at how pretty she is, and I think about what she’d feel like in my arms. As she gets to the last chorus, she opens her eyes, and it seems she’s singing to me. Calling me her bonny Irish lad, singing I’d be her love forever. I’d like to say that I’m just admiring her angelic voice, but as my Granny Murphy would say, “Man’s an animal, and no mistake.” I feel like one. It’s not the same as when I was at school, young and carefree, appreciating every womanly shape that walked by. This feels much darker, like it’s got hooks in my guts. I want to pull this sweet-faced, sweet-voiced angel off the stage and stamp her as mine so no one else can touch her, and then find out whether, under that blue dress, she’s truly angel or devil.
I manage to get myself behind the bar before she’s done. There’s still a long shift to work. But I pour her another shot of Jamesons Black Barrel and have it ready for her when she comes back, flushed at her success and the wolf whistles that followed her song. “On the house,” I tell her again.
Mac’s startled enough to give me an astonished look, and then he’s back to being pleasant to everyone, complimenting Ainsley on her performance. I never do that, give out drinks on the house to a pretty girl just for being pretty. But this girl? The combination of invisible fluffy white angel wings and the imaginary pitchfork that goes with her fiery temper has me hooked, and I just met her.
THREE
Seanan
Mac and I don’t choose the winner of the Trad Talent night; patrons do. They write a name on a piece of paper and bring it up to the bar to put their choice in the bucket, and whichever name has the most votes gets the prize. We count the votes and hand over a fresh Benjamin to the winner. Tonight, things have gone exactly the way I’ve wished: it’s Ainsley. When Mac reads out who’s won, she gets a big cheer, and I see her blush. She’s adorable.
And when Mac gives her the $100 bill, she takes it in her hands in a way that tells me she really appreciates the money. Not in the “ooh, now I can go shopping for trinkets!” sort of way, but in the “this money’s needed” sort of way.
The pub begins to thin out, as the singing’s over and working people end their day. Things get quieter. I leave Mac and the two servers to do the washing-up, which I also never do, and I lean toward her on the bar. “What’re you going to do with that?” I ask casually, nodding toward the cash. “Holiday fund?”
She shakes her head ruefully. “Rent.” Then she sighs. “My roommate moved out today, and she pretty much stuck me with the entire rent bill. I don’t think I can find another person to share on such short notice.”
I smile at her. “You’ll work it out. Come back next week, it’s the big St. Paddy’s Day sing-off and the prize is $500.”
She smiles back. “Well, I could use that.”
“It was a lovely song,” I tell her. “Well done, lass. Really well done. I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier, but I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Seanan Kelly.”
“Ainsley Parker,” she says, and sweeps a look of hair behind her ear before holding her hand out for me to shake. The touch of her soft hand on mine makes me think what it would feel like elsewhere.
We get to talking. She’s a graduate student in business, grew up just a few towns away, gets along great with her mam and her three sisters. Doesn’t fancy her father’s second wife. Loves to sing. Is, thank the good Lord, single.
I tell her about when I was a student at U Balt, trying to get a degree in Hospitality but so distracted by wine, women, and song, as I put it, that I didn’t quite finish. And fun distracted me too. I mention some of the pranks my frat brothers and I pulled, and before long we’re laughing together.
“Grape drink powder in the swimming pool?” she asks, laughing.
“Four hundred packets. Took us ages to get them all ripped open, and then we had to get out the pool noodles and stir.” I laugh too. “Good thing we didn’t use the sweetened, because we got caught and were made to clean it up.”
She shakes her head, but she’s still smiling at me. “And why is it that you have an Irish accent? Did you grow up there?”
“Just the summers,” I explain. “Mac and I spent every summer with our Granny and Grandda Murphy or Gran Kelly. And sometimes our aunt Catriona.” I smile, remembering. “When we were there, we’d use our American accents so we’d get a pass on all the things we didn’t know. And when we were growing up here, we could choose whether to talk Baltimore or Irish, depending. In the pub, of course, it’s Irish. It’s almost like I’m there, when I’m in the pub.”
She nods. “You didn’t think about opening a pub in Ireland?”
“Pubs are a penny to the dozen there. But business is much bette
r than it was in the early 80s, when Mam and Da came here with investment money from all their families and cousins and whatnot, to start the pub.”
“It’s been a success,” she says admiringly, but I can’t keep my face from wincing a little. “What? What do you know that I don’t know?”
“Probably not much,” I say, evasive, but she grabs my hand and I give in. “Just that me da had some health problems and he wanted to retire, so he and Mam took some of the money back out of the bank, and we’re a bit short sometimes.” She looks sympathetic. “Which is why I was telling Mac earlier that we needed a better class of entertainment. But with Da pulling out, we’re squeezing our coins so tight that we really can’t afford to hire professionals.” I shrug.
Which is also why I shouldn’t be handing out second-shelf whiskey to pretty girls. I just can’t seem to help myself, with Ainsley.
She fishes in her pocket and brings out the $100 bill, but I make her put it back. “You earned that, and it was a rare time. I loved the singing tonight.” I tell her about Mam always having the traditional music playing, and how much we always loved it.
“I was thinking,” she says, “you could ask people to pay cover charge on nights when you have music.”
Before she’s done, I shake my head. “No, this is an Irish pub. It’s meant to be for the neighborhood, and if we start charging the telephone linemen and the mechanics $5 a head on Tuesdays, they’d just go home.”
Ainsley looks thoughtful. “Maybe you could get people to vote with money, and give that to the winner. Make it up to a hundred if necessary, but maybe you wouldn’t need to.”
I consider. “Is that your advice, business consultant?”
She laughs. “I said ‘maybe.’” Then she leans forward, which makes that little slice of deep cleavage all the more enticing. “I really need to go home,” she says, with regret. “I have work I have to get done by the morning, and I shouldn’t be still sitting here. I shouldn’t have gone out, really, but I was just so upset about Cammie that I couldn’t focus. Now I’ll be up late.”
