Fighting Irish

by Katy Regnery

  She sighed, reaching across the table for his hand and weaving her fingers through his. “Ben, I love it up there. So much. I spent four of the happiest summers of my life on that lake, and I just thought that it would be a great place for us to get away with our friends and loved ones for a weekend. You said we wouldn’t have time for a honeymoon until the fall, but if we stayed at Summerhaven for a couple of nights, it would be like having the wedding and honeymoon up there at the same time.”

  Ben squeezed her hand before pulling his away. “Two hours is going to be inconvenient for a lot of people.”

  “It means a lot to me.”

  He shrugged. “Fine. Whatever you want.”

  “It’s really beautiful. Cottages. A lake. A ropes course! I bet the girls love it. Speaking of the girls…” She waited to see if he’d offer up any information about his time with his daughters yesterday. When he didn’t, she gave him a nudge. “How did yesterday go? How did the girls feel about a Memorial Day weekend wedding?”

  “Oh,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I haven’t mentioned it to them yet.”

  “What? Ben, you promised. That’s why you told me I couldn’t join you.”

  “I know, babe,” he said. “But plans got changed around at the last minute, and it didn’t feel right to bring it up.”

  “Feel right? What do you mean?”

  Ben sighed, blowing out a big puff of air as he picked up his wineglass. “When the girls picked me up on Sunday morning, it just happened that Angie was getting off her shift at the same time. So, there I was, and there she was, and the girls invited her to join us.”

  Brittany sat back in her chair, staring at him in shock. “Are you saying that you, Angie, and the girls spent the whole day together?”

  He rolled his eyes before taking a sip of wine. “I knew you’d overreact.”

  “Am I overreacting? I’m just asking a question for clarification, Ben.”

  “Yes. I spent the day with my daughters and their mother,” he said, his voice annoyed. “We had some lunch, shopped for summer clothes for the girls, got some ice cream…”

  “What else?” Brittany whispered, her heart clenching at the happy-family visions in her head.

  Ben exhaled a long-suffering sigh, like Brittany was torturing him for her own pleasure. “We went back to Angie’s and I grilled some steaks for dinner while the girls took a swim, and then Sabrina wanted to watch a movie.”

  “So you stayed?”

  “Of course. Why would I say no? We watched Vacation because it was always one of our favorites.” He shrugged, taking another sip of wine. “Nothing happened, Brittany. It was no big deal. Just some standard family time.”

  Family time.

  He threw the words away like they didn’t mean anything, though they made her breath catch with longing. She imagined the four of them lined up on a couch together, big bowls of popcorn on their laps and barely room for a breath between them.

  “Family time,” she repeated, blinking against an onslaught of hot tears, which was strange because the last time she’d experienced “family time” on Saturday morning with the Havens, she’d felt envy, but not the stark, cold, terrible sadness she felt now.

  “I have no idea why this is such an issue for you, Brittany, but it’s really getting old.”

  His words made her angry, which made her tears recede a little. “You can’t figure out why it bothers me that you, my fiancé, spent a cozy day with Angie, your ex-wife?”

  “Nothing happened,” he repeated, his eyes flashing with anger as he stood up to uncork another bottle of wine. “I thought you were trying harder to understand. She’s the mother of my girls, Brittany. She’ll always be a part of my family.”

  “Your family? No, Ben. She’ll always be a part of your life, maybe, but she’s not your family anymore. You got divorced, remember?”

  “Yeah. I remember,” he growled softly, leveling her with his eyes from where he stood at the kitchen counter. “But that’s where you’re wrong. She’s still family. Always will be.”

  “Damn it!” cried Brittany, throwing her napkin on the table. “Can’t you understand how that makes me feel? I mean, you and I are getting married. Married, Ben. I’m supposed to be your family, not Angie.”

  “Jesus!” He ran a hand through his hair before picking up the open wine bottle and bringing it to the table. “This isn’t just about you, Brittany. You’re going to have to make room for Angie.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Slowly, he poured his glass to the rim, picked it up, took a sip, then looked at her. “Frankly? If the mother of my children is going to be a problem for you, then maybe—I don’t know, babe—maybe we’re moving too fast here.”

  All of the oxygen in the room was sucked into the great beyond, and Brittany could barely breathe. “W-What? What does that mean?”

  “It means that maybe we should put wedding plans on hold and slow down a little…maybe you need a little time to get your head around everything.”

  “Around what? You having cozy family dinners with your ex while I’m told not to join you? I’m never going to get my head around that, Ben!”

  Ben placed his glass back down on the table, crossing his arms over his chest. “She’s going to be at their graduations. At their weddings. God willing, someday we’ll have grandchildren together, me and Angie. Do you know how good yesterday was for our girls? Do you have any idea?” He paused, staring blankly at the half-finished bowl of pasta on the table in front of him. “It’s been years since she gave me the time of day, Brittany. Years since she didn’t look at me like garbage. This is a good thing. Believe me.”

  “For who?” asked Brittany, her voice breaking.

  “For all of us. The girls. Angie. Me.” He paused, then looked up at her quickly. “And you too. You’re too jealous to see it now, but it’ll be good for everyone if Angie and I are friends.”

  Is that what you are? Friends? After being each other’s first loves? First spouses? After sharing the highs and lows of parenthood? After the painful way that your marriage ended? Because if you were only friends, I could handle this. But I don’t see how two people who have shared what you and Angie have shared can ever just be friends.

  All of these questions and thoughts circled in her head wildly, but in the end, she didn’t ask them. Maybe because she couldn’t bear the answers she might see in his eyes.

  “I’m just not comfortable with it,” she whispered, raising her eyes to his face.

  Ben sighed, grimacing as he picked up his plate and hers. He put both in the sink, then turned to face her, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Well, I hope you can figure out how to get comfortable, babe. Because Angie’s not going anywhere.”

  “So, whether I like it or not, Angie’s in the picture,” she said.

  Ben nodded, then rolled away from the counter and headed toward the bathroom in the back hall.

  Brittany had been holding back her tears, but now they slipped down her cheeks in streams.

  The thing was? Brittany didn’t want Angie totally out of the picture. She understood that Angie was Grace and Sabrina’s mother. She respected Angie’s place and position in Ben’s history and in the girls’ present and future. Brittany would never want for those two girls to be deprived of their mother. She wanted Ben and Angie on civil terms. Hell, she’d like to be on civil terms with Angie too. But Brittany wanted to be Ben’s priority—she didn’t want to feel like she was competing with Angie for Ben’s attention. For the past couple of weeks? She did. And it hurt.

  Wiping away her tears, she picked up her wineglass and stood up from the table. Suddenly Ben was behind her, his arms around her. She was stiff against him, but he nuzzled her neck, his fingers slipping under her blouse to knead the tender skin under her breasts.

  “Come on, beautiful,” he said. “Let’s go to bed. We can hash this out in the morning.”

  But if Brittany didn’t insist on what she wanted now, how could she fault Ben
for giving her less than what she needed later? She either needed to fix what was wrong in their relationship…or—and it broke her heart to admit this to herself—she had to face the fact that maybe she and Ben just weren’t right for each other. Either way, she was too emotional to do either tonight.

  “I’m really tired,” she said.

  “Fine,” he said, a twinge of disappointment in his voice. “We’ll just go to sleep.”

  “You know,” said Brittany, untangling herself from his arms, then turning to face him, “I think I’d rather be alone tonight.”

  “What?” His head whipped back like she’d smacked him, his eyes searching hers with disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  She nodded. “You said I needed time to get my head around things, right?”

  Ben crossed his arms over his chest, clearly irritated that she was throwing his words back at him. “You’re acting like a brat.”

  She crossed her arms over her own chest and didn’t reply, staring back at him, willing him to leave so that she could cry in peace and try to figure out if sharing Ben with Angie was something she could accept in her future—a future that looked less clear and more confusing every day lately.

  “Grow up,” he said curtly. “Call me when you’re ready to be an adult.”

  He grabbed his keys and jacket off the counter and slammed the front door shut as he left.

  And Brittany stood frozen in the quiet of her kitchen, too shocked to cry, hugging her body tightly like it had just taken a beating.

  ***

  It’s a terrible thing, thought Rory, who rose at dawn after another fitful night of crappy sleep, when your mind seizes on someone and won’t let go.

  A week had passed since Britt had driven away from Summerhaven, but she was constantly on his mind. He rewound their conversations in his head, thinking about her, wondering about her, undone by her beauty, but even more captivated by her goodness.

  He liked the way she blurted out things like “Breeding?” or “Do bears poop in the woods?” He liked the way she’d jumped in to help him last Friday night, expecting nothing in return. He liked the way she gave Ian a hard time but still hugged him good-bye. And he especially liked the way she looked curled up on the couch in his living room when he came home on Friday night. That was the image his brain most loved to conjure, even though it caused a painful longing that only stopped when he reminded himself of her impending nuptials.

  He didn’t know her fiancé personally, of course, but Rory felt sick when he thought of “Dr. Douche” and the few unsavory things about him: he made Brittany feel self-conscious about her weight, he didn’t have any interest in learning to ski even though she loved it, and—worst of all—he’d cheated on his first wife. Any one of these things on its own might have bothered Rory, but added up? He didn’t care if this guy was a great doctor or a good dad to his daughters; he simply wasn’t good enough for Brittany.

  Not that it mattered.

  Britt had e-mailed him on Sunday, thanking him for showing her around and reminding him to send her a contract. He’d sent her the agreement via e-mail and she’d signed it and sent it back right away, along with a $10,000 deposit. He wrote back asking when she’d like to come back for a tasting, but his e-mail hadn’t been answered yet, and he was positive because he’d probably checked his inbox a hundred times.

  Pulling on jeans and a flannel shirt, he padded down the hallway to the kitchen, grabbing an energy bar, which he gnawed on while he pulled on socks and boots. Then he headed downstairs, through the dark, quiet office, to the ax and stump behind the office.

  Every morning this week, he’d gotten up around five, after dreams of Brittany Manion woke him in a state of painful arousal, and expended that leftover energy chopping firewood.

  He placed a log on the stump, raised the ax, and thwack!—the satisfying noise of splitting wood followed.

  “She’s getting married,” he grunted, picking up half the split log and halving it again.

  “And besides, she’s out of your league, man. Way out of your league.”

  Another thwack, another set of twin logs. He carried all four to the pile against the back of the building, then placed a new log on the stump.

  “She’s a gorgeous, rich, sophisticated woman. You run a camp-slash-conference center in the middle of nowhere.”

  Thwack.

  A bead of sweat slipped down the side of his face.

  “Not to mention, you and Britt are a serious conflict of interest. She’s an heiress with megahospitality connections, and you’re in need of capital to franchise your conference center idea. She’s already worried people will only want to be with her for her money and connections. She’d be suspicious of you from the get-go. She’d always wonder if you were with her for the right reasons or for what she could do for you.” He took another armload of logs to the pile, wiping the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. “Nah, man. Even if she was free, there’s no way it could work unless you gave up your dream.”

  Another log landed with a thud on the chopping stump, and the ax fell twice with the power needed to split it. Rory grunted with satisfaction when the halves went flying in opposite directions.

  Out of nowhere, he thought of her hips beneath his hands when he’d moved her aside, on a search for Tierney’s slippers. Just a little bit of softness, though he wouldn’t mind more if she wanted her carbs back. And as he’d sidestepped passed her, she’d smelled like sweet, warm woman—like bed, like heaven.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, bringing the ax down again.

  He needed to deal with this.

  Pulling his phone from his hip pocket, he opened his messenger app and typed “June.” When her number came up, he messaged: What are you up to tonight? Want some company?

  He leaned on the ax, staring at the screen, knowing that she was probably awake. June often got up early to photograph the sunrise, then slept for a few hours during the day before getting up again in the late afternoon.

  JUNE: Just thinking about you, lover. Did you catch the rays on the lake just now?

  RORY: Missed them.

  JUNE: Your loss. Spectacular.

  RORY: Tonight?

  JUNE: You’re an eager beaver.

  RORY: Haven’t seen you in a while.

  JUNE: I got back from Denver yesterday.

  Rory stared at his phone, waiting for her to say yes or no.

  JUNE: Sure. Tonight’s good. 8?

  RORY: It’s a date.

  JUNE: No, it’s a fuck. But you’re cute. xo

  Generally, Rory got a rush when June talked dirty. He liked it that he called their lovemaking “fucking” because, honestly, that’s exactly what it was: no-strings-attached sex. But today, the words just washed over him like noise, adding to his restlessness.

  He spent the remainder of the day in a foul mood, avoiding Mrs. Toffle, Chef Jamie, and his assistant manager, Doug, who returned to work today and to whom Rory had assigned linen and towel inventory in preparation for the busy summer season.

  They had specialty camps and conferences booked every week from June 4 through September 14 and would make more than 80 percent of their annual profits during those crucial fifteen weeks. Summerhaven needed to be a well-oiled machine to maintain its excellent reputation.

  At seven thirty, Rory showered and shaved, putting on clean jeans and a fresh polo shirt, then stopped at the Holderness Market for a bouquet of flowers and six-pack of June’s favorite IPA.

  “Right on time,” she purred, opening the screen door for him as Rory walked from his truck to her lakeside cottage.

  June lived on the other side of the lake in a house she’d inherited from her grandparents and fixed up with money she’d earned as an AP photographer in her twenties and thirties. All over June’s cottage were framed pictures of faraway places—Egypt, Thailand, Bolivia, Antarctica—interspersed around dusty trophies she’d won over the years.

  “Hey,” he said, surprised by the sharp stab of disappoin
tment he felt as he drew closer to June. He forced a smile. “How was Denver?”

  “Good late-season powder,” said June, raising one eyebrow. “How was Sandwich?”

  “Same old,” said Rory, leaning forward to kiss her cheek.

  He leaned back and offered her the flowers and beer.

  “You’re adorable,” she said, taking them from him with a smile. “Like an old-fashioned suitor coming to call on his lady friend.” She leaned in and whispered, “Except we both know I’m not a lady.”

  She walked to the kitchen, her tinkling anklet harmonizing with her low chuckle, her long multicolored skirt swirling at her feet.

  “You want one?” she asked, pulling two beers from the cardboard box and holding them up.

  “Sure,” said Rory.

  As June opened their drinks, Rory gazed out at the lake, trying to get his head in the game. He was here with June. June, who’d traveled the globe and learned a thing or two about pleasing a man. June, who offered comfort and pleasure with zero expectations. June, who was every single guy’s dream.

  She sauntered over, holding out his bottle. They clinked them together, then sipped, June grinning at him over the rim of hers.

  “So? What’s up with you? You seem…out of sorts today.”

  Rory stepped into her screened porch, which was warm from an electric heater oscillating in the corner of the room. He sat down on the worn couch, and June sat down beside him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m…” He sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do,” said June, tucking her feet under her bottom and pulling a blanket from the back of the couch. “And I wager my forty-four years on your twenty-seven that you’ll feel a lot better if you spit it out.”

  June might be right, but Rory wasn’t going to show up at her house, primarily for sexual release, only to start off the night talking about Brittany.

  “Stupid stuff.”

  “Oh, come on now. Girls aren’t stupid,” said June, as though reading his mind. “In my experience, boys are far stupider.”