A chubby hand yanked down the hood of her raincoat and a throaty giggle followed.
“How old is the kid?”
Her eyes widened, then she blinked rapidly. He gave an internal sigh. Yet another starstruck female. It happened all the time. When the band first hit it big, he’d reveled in the attention. Back then, he’d been a horny twenty-two-year-old, so why the hell not? Eight years later, the novelty had long since worn off, replaced by irritated resignation at never being able to go anywhere without being recognized.
“He’s almost eighteen months old,” she said in a voice so low he had to strain to catch the words.
She was petite. In her flat shoes, she barely came up to his chest. A jolt of lust struck him out of left field.
And then the kid peeked over her shoulder and beamed at him.
He grinned back, and the baby laughed. “He doesn’t seem bothered by the walk.”
“He’s dry.” The woman held his gaze, the surprise of earlier replaced by steely reserve.
He sighed and ran a hand through his collar-length hair. “Look, I’m sorry for not stopping to help. I wasn’t expecting to encounter a car going that slow and I nearly ran into you. I took you for a tourist, not a driver in distress.”
She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. “Why would you assume I was from out of town?”
“The County Clare registration plate for a start.” He smiled at her rueful expression. “And the speed of the car. I thought you’d slowed down to take photos of the landscape.”
“In this weather? Hardly.”
“Can I help you?” said a voice behind them. A man wearing grease-stained overalls emerged from the garage shop and ambled over. His eyes roved from the woman to Darko and back again.
The woman smiled at the mechanic. “Hi, Billy. Long time, no see.” She dangled her car key. “My car broke down on the road into town. Can you see if you can fix it? It’s a couple of kilometers back at the side of the road.”
The small man opened and shut his mouth, fishlike. His eyes darted to Darko before focusing on the woman. “I’ll need a cash deposit up front.”
Her pale cheeks developed a rosy flush. “Forget it. I’ll ask my aunt to help.”
The mechanic shrugged. “Suit yourself. Your Aunt Bridie has my number.” He turned and started to walk back toward the garage.
Darko swore beneath his breath. He was a total sucker for a damsel in distress. Given his history, a broke woman with a baby triggered all his buttons. “Hang on a sec.”
The mechanic turned and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Mr. Dunne?”
Typical. Even though they’d never exchanged a word, the man knew his name. Darko pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket and extracted three hundred-euro notes. “Fix the lady’s car. You can send the invoice to me.”
The man looked from Darko to Muireann and back again. With a wink and a smirk, he took the money. “Right-o.”
The woman’s face morphed from flushed to scarlet. “There’s no need to do this,” she said in a low voice. “I can manage.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m happy to help.” He snagged the car key out of her grasp and tossed it to Billy.
The mechanic caught the key and pocketed it. “I’ll send Tom out to collect the car. Give me a call this afternoon, Mr. Dunne. That’ll give us a chance to see what’s wrong with it.”
The woman’s jaw jutted and her rosebud lips formed a hard line. “I’ll give you a call this afternoon.”
Billy shrugged. “As long as I get paid, I don’t care who calls me.”
After the man had gone, an awkward silence descended. Each strained second seemed to stretch to a minute. Darko ran a hand through his rain-dampened hair and regarded his companion. Underneath the dirt and bravado, she was a sexy little thing. And judging by his suddenly too-tight trousers, his body agreed. Man, he needed to get a grip. “Listen, I have to get moving. Can I offer you a lift? You can show me how to get to the new police station, and I can drop you and the baby wherever you need to go.”
She eyed him warily. “You could have asked Billy for proper directions.”
“True, but this way I can give you and your son a lift and make up for being an arsehole earlier.”
She opened her mouth as though she were about to protest.
“Or do you have someone to call to come and collect you?”
Her mouth slammed shut and her cheeks turned a gorgeous shade of pink. This woman did a great line in expressive blushes.
Inside the sling, the baby began to protest. “Mama. Ood.”
The woman sighed and stroked the baby’s blond hair. “All right. I’ll point you toward the temporary station if you drop me off at my aunt’s house. I intend to pay you back for the car repairs.”
He smiled and slid his car key from the pocket of his raincoat. “We can discuss that later.”
“Will we fit the baby seat in your car?” she asked, regarding the vehicle with a dubious expression.
“It’ll be no problem. If you take the rear seat, we can put the baby seat in the front.”
Darko opened the passenger door and let the seat down.
She hesitated, looking from him to the baby and back again. Then she glanced up at the dark clouds. It had rained relentlessly all day, the driving rain accompanied by a strong wind guaranteed to put all but the most intrepid shopper off the idea of an afternoon stroll through the town.
“I don’t bite,” he said, observing her dubious expression. “And the mechanic knows you’re with me.”
With a sigh, she unclipped the fasteners of the baby sling and took the kid out. “Do you know how to get a baby seat into a car?”
“No, but how hard can it be?”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “It took me a while to get the hang of it. You’ll need to loop the seat belt through here and here—” she indicated the relevant spots, “—and then clip it into the fastener.”
“Doesn’t sound too complicated.”
The small smile widened into a knowing grin. “Okay, then. I’ll hop in the back and leave you to it.”
“Uh…” He stared at the squirming child in his arms. “Do I need to support his neck or something?”
That elicited a laugh. “He’s eighteen months old. Hardly a newborn.”
Right. And here he’d been proud of himself for remembering the part about the neck. “Okay, little lad. Let’s get you into your seat.” He glanced at the mother. She’d pulled her hood down, revealing a messy copper ponytail. “It’s a boy, right?”
“Yes.”
After a brief struggle with the seat, Darko had the baby safely secured. “So,” he said, slipping behind the wheel, “where to?”
“Beach Road. Do you know it?”
“I think so.” He took a left out of the garage and headed toward the town center. “Just off the harbor, right?”
“Yes.”
Beside him, the baby grinned and laughed, seemingly delighted with a ride in the Porsche. The kid had good taste. “Is this your first time in a sports car, little guy? What’s your name?”
“His name is James-David.”
He glanced at the baby’s mother in the rearview mirror. “Quite a mouthful for such a little person.”
She glared at him, and her lips formed a hard line.
“Wrong thing to say? I seem to have quite a talent for pissing you off.”
“I’d imagine you have a talent for pissing a lot of people off.”
“I’m usually quite popular. Or so people tell me.” His acolytes and employees, at any rate.
The woman gave a derisive snort. “The whole revving-engine thing, combined with the swagger and shades, screams arrogance.”
“I said I was sorry about the car business. It’s been one of those days.” What a fucking understatement.
“In my case, it’s been one of those years. Today was the crowning glory.”
She leaned forward to retie one of the baby’s shoelaces. This close, he could sm
ell her perfume—something light and floral. The almost-forgotten electric jolt of lust hit him in the solar plexus. Jaysus. What a moment for his dormant libido to erupt back into action.
As if reading his thoughts, she asked, “Why do you need to go by the police station, anyway? Did they send you a speeding ticket, and you want to sweet talk your way out of paying?”
“It’s a long story.” How could he tell her the crazy tale of finding a dead stranger in his guest hot tub? She’d think he was off his rocker. Hell, now that he was away from the island, the situation seemed so surreal that he wondered if they’d all lost their minds and imagined the whole scenario.
A memory of the dead man’s stiff limbs and awkward sprawl shuffled into focus. A wave of nausea threatened to reacquaint him with his breakfast. He swallowed hard. No, they hadn’t imagined the body. A man had been murdered on his island. A man who must have family and friends somewhere, wondering where he was. Whatever had happened in that tub, no one deserved to die like that.
“Slow down for a sec,” the woman said, interrupting his macabre thoughts. “See that newspaper shop on the corner? If you drive up that street, the temporary police buildings are in a parking lot to the left, between a betting shop and a chippy.”
Darko gave a dry laugh. “The perfect location for a cop shop: chips and dodgy bets.” He flipped on the turn signal and took the next right into Beach Road. “Which one is your aunt’s house?”
“The pink cottage. You can’t miss it.”
She was right on that score. Even in the context of colorful Ballybeg, the house was an eyesore. The lurid pink walls were accompanied by a purple door painted with psychedelic flowers. “Wow.”
“Oh my God,” said his passenger. “What’s she done to the door? That, at least, used to be plain white.”
Darko pulled into the free space outside the house. Unclipping the baby seat proved to be a lot faster than putting it in. When he’d unpacked mother, child, and baby bag, they stood on the pavement staring at one another.
“Goo,” the baby said and followed up this profound statement with another demand for “Ood.”
“I know you’re hungry, little man. I’m on the case.” His mother shoved a stray lock of copper hair behind her ear and looked at Darko. A hint of pink stained her cheeks again. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Thanks for the directions.” Again, the sensation that they’d met before strained his memory. He extended his hand. “We didn’t exchange names. I’m Damian Dunne.”
She hesitated for a moment, then placed her hand in his. It felt small, warm, and smooth. “My name’s Muireann Byrne.”
The church bells rang down the road, announcing the hour with eleven heavy clangs that muffled all peripheral noise. Fuck. If he didn’t get his arse in gear, this little detour would make him late meeting the others on the pier.
With reluctance, he let the woman’s hand drop. “You’d better go, Mary. Thanks for the directions.”
“No, my n—”
He turned back to look at her. “What?”
She stood stock-still on the pavement with the baby tugging on her coat. “Never mind.”
Darko climbed back into his Porsche and rolled down the automatic window. “Please don’t worry about paying me back for the car repairs. Consider it an apology for me being a wanker.”
“Anker,” the baby repeated cheerfully.
His mother flushed again, but a defiant twinkle livened her sky-blue eyes. “Thanks, but I prefer to pay my own way. Where do you live?”
“On Inish Glas.”
Her pale face turned chalky white. “No way,” she whispered. “That’s not possible.”
“It is, actually. I bought the island at auction last year from the local council. I moved in six months ago.”
“I thought a Mr. Saunders owned it.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
He shot her a curious glance. Why did she care who owned the island? Was she one of the conservationists who’d objected to the sale? “Alan Saunders is my personal assistant. Why did you think he owned it?”
She took a step back. “Forget it. I…I must have misunderstood.”
“You’d better get in out of the cold,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. “And I’d better get to the station. Take care now.”
Her grip around the baby tightened. “You, too.”
Watching them recede in his rear view mirror, he once again experienced the nagging sensation that he knew her from somewhere. Man. He usually had a better memory than this. The meds must be dulling his senses, but he’d figure it out, most likely during a three a.m. epiphany.
He took a deep breath. Right now, he had to deal with the not-insignificant matter of a dead stranger on his island.
FOUR
When the Porsche disappeared into the distance, Muireann’s legs buckled. Thoughts spun in her head in a wild kaleidoscope of colors. He hadn’t recognized her. They’d spent forty-eight hours screwing on an Australian beach two years ago, and he had no idea who she was. To add to the catalog of disasters that comprised her life, she’d accepted a job working on his island.
Hot tears stung her eyes, and a lump of humiliation lodged in her throat. Mary…seriously?
Her baby tugged on her hood. “Ood!”
“I’m on it, little man,” she whispered. “Just a minute.”
She shifted James-David from one hip to the other and bent to pick up her bag and the baby seat from the pavement. Her hood slid down but she had no free hand to fix it. Just as she was straightening, a car sped through the partially flooded road and sent an arc of water whooshing over her.
Muireann screamed and sprang back. Too late. Water splashed up into her face and hair and all over James-David.
“Feck,” she spluttered.
The baby squealed, delighted by his unexpected shower.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. The entire day was turning into a farce. Hell, her entire life had entailed one blow after another over the last two years. Arriving at her aunt’s house soaked as well as impoverished was just the icing on the cake.
Cradling her son, she opened the gate and walked up the short path to her aunt’s wild front door. She pressed the bell and plastered a smile across her face. Regardless of how the rest of Ballybeg felt about her family, Bridie had always been kind. Although Muireann’s father had cheated her aunt out of her inheritance, Bridie was still willing to offer his daughter and grandson a roof over their heads.
The purple door swung open. At the sight of the person standing in the doorway, her smile froze and her heart sank. Her cousin Fiona stared over Muireann’s shoulder. “Damn. I missed him. I’d even freshened up my makeup.”
“Missed who?” She peered past her cousin’s enormous baby bump into the dim hall of the cottage. “Where’s Aunt Bridie? She said she’d be here to meet us.”
“At the Book Mark. The new part-timer didn’t show for work this morning.” Fiona focused on her face. “What happened to you? You look like hell. And you’re crying.”
Muireann managed a wobbly smile. “Let’s just say this hasn’t been my morning.”
Fiona’s gaze dropped to James-David, and a smile suffused her face. “The little man has grown. You’d better get him in out of the rain.”
In the narrow hallway, Muireann removed her dripping raincoat and stripped off James-David’s outer layer. Underneath his jacket he was dry, but his face and hair were wet. Until that idiot in the car had soaked them both, she’d done a good job of keeping him safe from the rain. She mopped his face with a clean tissue and put him on the floor.
He made a beeline for Fiona and used her leg to steady himself. Her cousin looked radiant. Pregnancy suited her a lot better than it had suited Muireann, but then Fiona had a man to love and support her. A man she had been meant to marry. The sting of envy made her breath catch. While she didn’t miss Gavin, the memory of being humiliated at the altar still burned.
Fiona regarded James-David with wide
-eyed alarm before cautiously picking him up. The baby squealed with delight and pulled on her dark curls. Fiona shifted him to her other hip and angled him away from her hair and baby bump. “Why are you crying, Muireann? What happened?”
She exhaled a sigh. “My car broke down on the way to Ballybeg, and I had to trudge through the mud to Driscoll’s Garage. My day’s only gone downhill since then.”
“Is that why Darko gave you a lift? I saw him through the front room window.”
“Darko?” She frowned. Why did that name sound familiar? “Don’t you mean Damian?”
Her cousin’s jaw dropped and then she began to laugh. “Are you serious? Didn’t you recognize who that was in the Porsche?”
Yes, but probably not in the way Fiona meant. “Am I supposed to recognize him?”
Her cousin’s eyes bugged. “You are serious. This is what you get for listening to crappy seventies pop music. Darko Dunne is the lead guitarist of Confetti Underground.”
Muireann’s heart performed a slow thump and roll. “No way. They’re famous.”
“Quite the understatement, cuz. Confetti Underground is Ireland’s most successful export since U2.”
“Oh, fuck.” Then the tears came in earnest, streaming down her muddy face. “This has got to be a joke.”
“It’s no joke. Darko Dunne bought Inish Glas last year from the council and built a fancy house out there. He moved in a few months ago, but he’s barely been seen in Ballybeg. In fact, this was my first sighting of him.” A bewildered expression flickered across Fiona’s pretty face. She reached out and placed a tentative hand on Muireann’s arm. “What’s wrong? This has to be about more than a broken-down car.”
“I thought he was a backpacker,” Muireann said between sniffles. “He mentioned being a musician, but in such an offhand way that I assumed it was a hobby, or busking at the very most. When I saw the sports car today, it threw me for a loop. I never imagined he was a fucking rock star.”
“Okay, slow down. I’m totally confused. Why would you think Darko Dunne was a backpacker? It’s the wrong time of year for backpacking. Besides, they don’t tend to drive expensive cars.”
BANGED: Rock Stars, Bad Boys & Dirty Deeds Page 11
