Love and Shamrocks: Ballybeg, Book 5

by Zara Keane

  “Okay. I might have a lead on a decent case in Ballybeg.” A stretch, but Seán was an optimist. “Maybe I’ll get a transfer back to Dublin sooner rather than later.”

  “Yeah.” The other man sounded distracted. “Listen, I’d better go. The little one’s roaring her head off.”

  “Go play daddy. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  He rang off and slipped his phone into his pocket. Damn. He’d been looking forward to spending a couple of days with Frank. Although he’d seen his former partner several times since he’d moved to Ballybeg eleven months ago, their plans for a weekend in Cork City kept falling through. Given the date and its implications, Seán had prayed it would work out this weekend. He craved the distraction of an old friend’s company.

  He stared ahead, unseeing. What now? Stay in the hotel room they’d booked for the weekend? Go back to Ballybeg? If he went home, he’d spend the evening staring at the four walls, too wound up to sleep, too tired to concentrate on a book or TV show. Being in Ballybeg made him antsy at the best of times, brought memories to the surface that he’d rather suppress.

  Tonight was definitely not the best of times. It was the anniversary of the greatest fuckup of Seán’s life. Weird to think that this time last year, he still had a couple of hours before his career imploded. And young Alan Brennan still had a couple of hours left to live…

  A shudder of revulsion coursed through him. He didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight. Learning Helen Bloody Havelin was living in Ballybeg had been the crowning glory to what had already been a crappy Friday. It was as if all his ghosts had colluded to ambush him on the same day. If Frank wasn’t around to talk work and rugby, he’d down a few pints in splendid solitude. Maybe even pick up a woman for a night of mindless, no-strings-attached sex—the only variety of sex he was into. He didn’t do relationships. And judging by past experience, relationships didn’t do him.

  The hotel bar would do as well as any other for pints and flirtation, and it had the added advantage of not being far from Seán’s hotel room. Decision made, he moved toward the wooden doors of the bar.

  A flash of red snared his attention. A small strawberry-blond-haired woman stood beside the fountain, clad in impossibly high heels. From the red stilettos, Seán’s gaze meandered north. Slim, denim-clad legs, tiny waist, and firm breasts accentuated by a form-fitting T-shirt underneath a winter jacket. He let out a low whistle and slowed his pace. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  His eyes moved toward her face, and his breath caught. She was fine-boned with full lips, high cheekbones, and a narrow nose. Memory tugged his brain. She was familiar. Had he seen her somewhere before? Or someone who looked like her?

  At that instant, a man in an ill-fitting suit crashed into her, sending her handbag flying. Its contents spilled over the marble floor. The man bent to help her. The hairs on the nape of Seán’s neck stood as he watched the guy shove some of her things back into the bag and give it to her. At first glance, there was nothing strange in this scenario, and yet…and yet, he’d swear he saw the man slip something into his pocket.

  He stepped forward.

  “Look out!” An elderly man bore down on him, struggling to retain control over his heavily laden luggage trolley.

  Seán leaped back to avoid a collision. By the time the trolley passed, the man at the fountain was gone. He scanned the crowd, but the guy had vanished. The woman knelt on the floor, ashen-faced, shoving the last stray items into her handbag while staring into space.

  He closed the space between them. “Did he take anything?” he asked gently, crouching beside her.

  She glanced up, startled. Their gazes locked. Up close, she was a couple of years older than he’d first calculated. Maybe early thirties. Her fine features and pale skin were offset by a pair of startlingly green eyes, a trifle too close-set for beauty, but striking nonetheless. Seán’s stomach did a flip. He ventured a small smile. A red stain crept up her cheeks, and she lowered her lashes.

  “No,” she said in a low voice thick with emotion. “He didn’t take anything.”

  Her nose twitched, and her hands shook. She’s lying. And she’s afraid.

  Seán bent down to scoop up a pen that had fallen out of her bag. He handed it to her, feeling her cold fingers against his warm ones. A zing of awareness made his pulse race. “Are you sure he didn’t take anything?”

  “I…Yeah.” She shoved the pen back into her handbag. “I’m positive.”

  He took her hand and helped her to her feet. His large hand encased her small one. She was tiny, even in those ridiculous heels. They didn’t match her faded jeans and T-shirt or her makeup-free face. In comparison to every other female in the lobby, she was underdressed, but she outshone them all.

  She looped the bag over one shoulder and made an effort to steady herself. Whatever had gone down with the guy, she was visibly shaken.

  “Do you want to get a drink?” he heard himself ask. He should run. He had enough on his mind without taking on other people’s problems, and this was not the sort of woman he’d been planning on picking up tonight. A single glance sufficed to inform him that this woman came with strings—strings so tightly knotted they’d require tweezers to unravel. But Seán was a fixer, and a sucker for a damsel in distress. There was something that drew him to this particular damsel, some clue in a puzzle he had yet to solve.

  She turned those fabulous green eyes toward him and his breath caught. “I told the security guard that I’d be out of here in a few minutes.”

  He gave her a measured look, then a smile. “You here to do something illegal?” he asked in a teasing tone.

  Her laugh was broken and half hysterical. “No.”

  “In that case, let me deal with the security guard, if need be.” Seán propelled her forward, his palm burning against the small of her back. “Come on. Let’s get that drink.”

  Chapter Three

  INSIDE THE HOTEL BAR, music of the bland top-ten variety drifted from the speakers. Men in slick designer suits chatted up women accessorized with shoes and handbags that cost more than Clio earned in a month. Her gaze dropped to her ratty outfit and the ridiculous red heels. She stood out like a flickering neon sign.

  Warmth crept up her cheeks, and she crossed her arms over her breasts. Her feet itched to flee, but where could she go? Her mother was filming in Galway, and Tammy was spending a couple of days with Emma’s parents in Wexford. Neither of them was due back in Cork until tomorrow. The idea of returning to an empty house after the run-in with Ray’s minion made Clio’s stomach clench and twist. She wanted to be amongst people, to bask in their carefree Friday night revelry. Anything to distract herself from what she’d done.

  “Stools okay? There are a couple free at the bar.”

  Her rescuer’s deep voice wrenched her back to the present. She looked up at him and gave him a brief once over. A reluctant flutter tickled her abdomen. He had a Rugby player’s build—tall, broad, muscular. Laugh lines framed his bright blue eyes, giving the impression a smile was never far from his lips. He wore his dark hair close-cropped. Chiseled cheekbones and a square jaw added to the impression of classic beauty, but his face was saved from the tedium of perfection by a nose tilted slightly to the left.

  “Rugby accident?” she asked, slipping off her coat.

  “Eh?” His hand flew to the bridge of his nose. A slow smile curved his lips. “Yeah. Keep meaning to get it fixed.”

  “Don’t. It adds character.”

  He chuckled, a rich sound that sent tingles skittering over her skin. “I’m glad you like it.”

  She shouldn’t, but she did. And she rather liked him. She wasn’t in the market for a man, but a bit of harmless flirtation would take her mind off her problems, keep her from dwelling on her worries.

  Clio cocked her head to the side and stared directly into his electric blue eyes. “You in the habit of rescuing damsels in distress?”

  His grin grew wider. “Only ones wearing sexy shoes.”

 
Heat prickled her neck, and she shifted her focus to the hint of dark stubble grazing his jaw. This guy was too sexy by half. In an alternate reality—one excluding the turmoil of the past few months—she’d have been all over him. She swallowed past the stubborn lump of regret lodged in her throat.

  Mr. Sexy took her bare arm. The searing heat from the skin-to-skin contact made her breath catch. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s nab those stools while they’re still free.”

  He maneuvered a path through the crowd, past the well-dressed drinkers fumigating the atmosphere with warring designer scents. Clio’s nose itched, and she felt the familiar asthmatic catch in her chest. Given the stress of the evening, it was a wonder she hadn’t yet needed her inhaler.

  “Here we are.” Mr. Sexy stopped before two vacant stools by the bar’s chrome counter. The warmth of his palm on the small of her back was reassuring. He guided her to one of the stools, and she clambered up, her torso brushing his as she sat. Her cheeks grew even hotter.

  Gosh, she had to get a grip. She was acting like a teenager with her first crush, not the world-weary cynic life had chiseled her into. Besides, any man of sense would run if he knew the trouble she was in.

  Clio inhaled sharply and focused on the bottles behind the bar. They were arranged on frosted-glass shelves, artfully lit to draw attention to the most expensive. Her mother would love this joint. It would appeal to her delusions of grandeur.

  The thought of Helen precipitated another wave of panic. Clio’s heart pounded, and she reached for the inhaler in her jeans pocket.

  Her fist closed round the inhaler when a barman slid into view, resplendent in a crisp white shirt and black bow tie. “What can I get you?” he asked, studiously ignoring Clio’s disheveled appearance.

  “A pint of Guinness,” Mr. Sexy said. He turned to Clio. “What are you drinking?”

  She took another look at the display of bottles and exhaled wheezily. They represented a past she’d abandoned twelve years ago. Avoiding alcohol when she was stressed was one of her unwritten rules. Avoiding spirits altogether was another. Her nails dug into her palms. One drink. One drink wouldn’t plunge her back into her former lifestyle. Alcohol had been the least of her issues, after all. And her past problems faded into insignificance when compared to her current predicament.

  “I’ll have a G&T, please. With Bombay Sapphire.” The name tripped off her tongue in near reverence. She hadn’t tasted its sweet bitterness in over twelve years and had sworn never to do so again, but it wasn’t every day you put yourself beyond redemption.

  “Not going local with Cork Dry?” Mr. Sexy asked, anchoring her in the present. His voice was very deep, very masculine, and sounded like its owner gargled with the finest single-malt whiskey.

  Clio’s skin tingled in giddy anticipation. She’d always had a thing for voices. Unfortunately, that thing for voices had gotten her into trouble a time or ten. She took deep, steady breaths, but her gaze slid over the muscles rippling under her companion’s black silk shirt. Accepting his invitation had been an extremely bad idea. What was she thinking? The security guard would go ballistic if he found her in here.

  “I don’t do local,” she said in a tone sharp enough to slap.

  “Men or booze?” he asked, a glint of mischief in his intense blue eyes.

  “Both.”

  A wicked grin spread across his face. “Then it’s just as well I’m not local.”

  She’d been so distracted by the events of the evening that she hadn’t registered the absence of a Cork dialect. A Dublin accent, she guessed. The north side of the River Liffey. The wrong side, as her mother would say.

  She drummed her fingers on the counter, flexed them over a beer mat.

  “You want to shred that mat,” he said, laughing. The deep, throaty sound made her blood hum.

  She ripped the cardboard, one neat slice at a time. “You a cop, a lawyer, or a psychologist?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Not a fan of those professions?”

  “Right now, I’m not a fan of men.”

  “Yeah? Right now, I’m not a fan of humankind.” His cheeky grin softened his words. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  “Of course.” This guy was a charmer, albeit with an edge.

  She glanced up when the barman pushed their drinks across the counter. For a moment, Clio was mesmerized by the cool perfection of the drink with its glistening slice of lemon. She tapped the glass once, then twice. Her years of partying were behind her. Long before she’d moved back to Ireland, she’d made the conscious decision to focus on her daughter, to be the sort of mother she’d always wanted. And she’d failed. God, how she’d failed. A hard lump formed in her throat, forcing her to blink back tears.

  “We never introduced ourselves,” Mr. Sexy said, cutting through her thoughts. “I’m Seán Mackey.”

  “Orla O’Brien.” Orla was a good, nondescript name and so common in Ireland that it blended with the damp air. O’Brien was equally commonplace and a far cry from her cursed unusual surname. Her lip curled. The last thing she needed right now was him connecting her to Helen Havelin, Ireland’s Number One Advice Columnist. Or Ireland’s Number One Nutcase, depending on where you fell on the political spectrum. Upon hearing her name, people either reacted with revulsion or with mirth. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with either.

  Seán raised his pint glass. “Sláinte, Orla.”

  “Sláinte.” She clinked her glass against his and returned it to the counter without taking a sip.

  “What brings you to Cork?”

  “Holidays,” she lied. “You?”

  The merriment in his eyes dimmed. “I was supposed to spend a lads’ weekend with a friend from Dublin. Canceled, unfortunately.”

  A tourist. Excellent. Her resolve not to succumb to her libido was dwindling by the second. She stole a glance at his ring finger for a glint of metal or a telltale indent. He had neither.

  “I’m guessing you hail from the same part of the country as me.” He flashed a sexy half smile that made her blood hum.

  “Yeah. I’m a Dubliner, born and bred.” At least that part of her story was true.

  He leaned back on his barstool. “What do you do, Orla?”

  Discussing jobs bored Clio. Share as little information as possible was her motto. If people were persistent, fib. “It’s the weekend. Time to forget work.”

  “True,” he said, taking her cue with good cheer. The teasing twinkle in his eye bolstered her impression that Seán was a man with a sense of humor. The fluttery feeling in her stomach gathered pace.

  “Have you seen much of Cork?” she asked.

  “A fair bit. If you’re interested in history, the Old Gaol’s worth a look.”

  Clio wasn’t, but Tammy would love it. “So far, I haven’t been farther than the shopping district.”

  Strangely, the mindless small talk was a soothing distraction. There was something about Seán that relaxed her, something in his relaxed posture and easy smile that told her he wasn’t a threat. Slowly but surely, her heart rate was returning to normal.

  “I went on one of those hop-on, hop-off bus tours,” Seán said, taking another sip of his pint. “Not usually my thing, but it was great fun.”

  That did sound like fun. It was something she could do with her daughter. Try to repair the broken bridge of their relationship.

  Tammy. Dark memories surfaced with the viciousness of rubbing alcohol in an open wound. Clio shuddered. If she’d been more alert, more open to communication, she’d have guessed the truth about Tammy’s relationship with her music teacher.

  And if she’d guessed the truth, he’d never have had the opportunity to hurt her daughter. Barring the invention of a time machine, she couldn’t change the past. What she knew for certain was that she would do everything—anything—to keep her daughter safe from further harm.

  “Everything okay?” Seán asked, his tone laced with concern. “For a moment there, you looked haunted.”

>   “I’m grand,” she said with more determination than conviction. “Nothing to worry about.” She needed to shove her daughter out of her mind, at least for tonight, but if she wanted a night of mindless small talk and mild flirtation, she had to get into character. What would a generic girl named Orla do on a Saturday night, seated next to a hot guy? Clio angled her knees oh-so-subtly in Seán’s direction.

  Suddenly, her mobile phone vibrated, turning the fluttering in her stomach into a churning sensation.

  Clio’s hand flew to her pocket. A sense of foreboding made her pause. With a trembling hand, she pulled out the phone.

  Caller display confirmed her fears. Ray. Oh, shit. She’d have to take the call. If she ignored him, he’d phone the house. No one was home tonight, but Ray was persistent. He’d call tomorrow, and Helen might answer. Or, worse still, Tammy. The last thing Clio wanted to do was worry her daughter on the weekend before she started her new school.

  “Problem?” Seán asked, brow creased.

  Clio scanned the bar. It was packed. There was nowhere quiet for her to take this call. If she went back out into the lobby, she’d risk running into the security guard. Her heart thudded in her chest, and the fingers clutching her phone had pins and needles.

  The phone continued to vibrate.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  She slid off her barstool with more speed than grace. A spiky heel caught on one of the bars, causing her to stumble.

  Seán’s strong hands steadied her. “You okay?”

  He was close enough for her to smell his cologne. Something subtle and spicy, and a hell of a lot sexier than the heavy scents worn by most of the men in the bar. She drew in a breath, fought back tears. “I’m fine, but I have to take this call.”

  She turned her back on him and pressed the phone close to her ear, covering her other ear to block out the noise.

  “Clio.” Her former boss’s voice was sweetly insidious, the high-pitched tone belying the steel underneath.

  “What’s up, Ray?” She moved to the end of the bar counter, well out of Seán’s earshot. “Your man has the envelope. I consider our interaction at an end.” Keep calm, keep casual. That’s the trick.