Love and Shenanigans (Ballybeg, Book 1) (The Ballybeg Series)

by Zara Keane

A chortle resounded in Bridie’s throat. “Blubber? Why, I’ll give you blubber!” She pulled up her plus-size blouse and grabbed a substantial handful of flesh from around her midriff. “This, here, is what a genuine Irish woman looks like. If you two had eaten a decent meal of meat and potatoes every day when you were growing up, you wouldn’t be the scrawny beanpoles you are today.”

  A strangled gasp sounded from behind them. A man—and potential customer—hovered on the doorstep. He gaped in horror at the sight of Bridie’s bare belly before beating a hasty retreat.

  Fiona and Olivia erupted into laughter.

  Bridie let the hem of her blouse drop. “Well!” she said indignantly. “He’s obviously not a real Irish man if he’s overcome by the sight of bare female flesh. Sure, he’s a scrawny little fella. He could do with a good feeding—and perhaps a slice of brack.”

  Fiona cocked an eyebrow. “Subtle as ever, Bridie. Fine, I’ll cut us a couple of slices.” She squeezed past her friend and filled up the kettle at the small sink in the café’s minute kitchen. “Anyone for a cup of tea?”

  “As long as it’s Barry’s and not those shite PG Tips. The Brits might think they’ve got a monopoly on tea, but none of their weak-kneed stuff beats a good, strong cup of Barry’s.”

  She smothered a laugh. “You do realize tea doesn’t grow in Ireland? I’m sure Barry’s get their tea in places like India and Sri Lanka—just as PGs do.”

  “Harrumph! Those Brits can’t make decent tea-in-a-bag. And I won’t touch those leaves. If I wanted bits of foliage floating round in my tea, I’d grab a bunch off a bush and be done with.”

  Olivia lowered her magazine and looked at Bridie with a wicked glint in her eyes. “In case you’ve forgotten, ‘those Brits’ include my grandfather. Who, as I recall, is your particular friend.”

  Bridie blushed an unbecoming puce. “There’s nothing untoward between me and The Major,” she said primly. “He’s merely an unattached gentleman with whom I occasionally play a round of cards.”

  Fiona exchanged an amused glance with Olivia. Until recently, she’d have said her sixty-four-year-old aunt’s love life was more interesting than her own. She wasn’t sure if this was amusing, pathetic, or both.

  She deposited three slices of Olivia’s homemade brack on a platter. “Speaking of the men of Ballybeg, how’s Aidan? For a woman whose husband was recently savaged by Chihuahuas, you’re remarkably chipper.”

  “He’s in a foul mood,” said Olivia with a scowl. “His face is a fright. He’s already looking up plastic surgeons.”

  Fiona cocked an eyebrow. “Would his foul mood be the reason you’re hiding out here?”

  Her friend laughed. “Perhaps. Frankly, all the men in my life are giving me grief at the moment. I’m on the verge of packing my bags and heading off to a female-only commune.”

  Fiona poured tea into three cups and handed one to her aunt and another to Olivia. “You sound stressed. Have your brothers been up to mischief again?”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “They’ve been suspended for a week for spraying graffiti on the walls of their school gym. Seriously, what sort of eejits do that to their own school?”

  “Any time you want to escape, you’re always welcome at ours.”

  “Thanks, Fee. I might just take you up on that offer.”

  Fiona took a sip of her hot tea, liberally laced with sugar. “I’m more of a coffee than a tea drinker, but I must admit this hits the spot.”

  “I don’t know how you can drink that awful black stuff,” Bridie said with a shudder. “It’s like putting tar through your bowels.”

  Fiona laughed. “You must admit there’s been an upturn in business since I embraced the twenty-first century on your behalf and got a functioning coffee machine.”

  “Harrumph! The stuff coming out of the machine is no better than instant—just a lot more expensive. I don’t know what people are at today. They come in here looking for frothy milk and tiny cups of coffee that don’t hold a thimbleful of liquid.” She shifted her substantial weight to her good hip. “Well, you know what they say about a fool and his money. At least I’m benefitting from their frumduddery.”

  Olivia looked at Fiona questioningly. Fiona simply smiled. Bridie was renowned for her original vocabulary. Her theory was that if the Oxford dictionary was allowed to add new words to the official English language on a regular basis, then she was entitled to invent a few herself. Most people dared not contradict her, and thus Bridie’s speech was peppered with words of her own creation.

  The Major—who studied English at Cambridge before embarking upon his army career—was one of the few souls brave enough to call her on it. Not that Bridie paid him the slightest heed.

  “This definitely hits the spot.” Olivia took a generous mouthful of brack. “I don’t want to think about the amount of calories it contains.”

  “As if you need to worry about your weight.” Fiona gave a scornful laugh. “It never ceases to annoy me that you can eat the most incredible amounts of junk and stay slim. If I so much as look at a piece of chocolate, my arse expands.”

  “Personally, I think being thin is overrated,” Bridie said. “What real man wants to roll around with a bag of bones?”

  “To be frank, Ballybeg is short of real men,” Fiona said with a grin. “I don’t think we need to worry about being too skinny to attract them.”

  “Fiona’s right,” Olivia said. “There’s no decent talent in this town. We’ll have to go to Cork City one of these nights and hit the clubs. I wouldn’t say the men there are much better than they are here, but at least there’s less of a chance you went to primary school with them, shagged them, or have assessed them and dismissed them as wanting.”

  Fiona laughed. Bridie made an unconvincing attempt to look scandalized but quickly gave it up as a lost cause.

  “Hello, ladies.” Fiona jerked around at the sound of the familiar deep voice. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  GAVIN’S HEART PERFORMED a slow thump and roll. Fiona had crumbs on her chin. She looked adorable. Flushed, awkward, and utterly kissable.

  He’d barely seen her over the past few days. After spending Monday in bed with a cold, he’d been working double shifts at the pub, leaving Wiggly Poo to be dog-sat by the O’Mahonys. With Fiona equally busy at the Book Mark, they hadn’t had a chance to spend more than a few minutes in each other’s company.

  He’d missed her. Missed her warm smile and dirty laugh, missed her kisses and the little sound she made in the recesses of her throat when he nibbled her earlobe.

  After much soul-searching, he’d reached a decision. He was going to tell her how he felt. Yeah, it was utterly mad, what with the divorce proceedings underway and his ex-fiancée living in the same town. But if he didn’t take the chance before she left Ballybeg, he’d never know what might have been.

  He nodded to Olivia and Bridie and took a seat at James Joyce, his preferred table at the Book Mark Café.

  “Well now, and if it isn’t Mr. Maguire.” Bridie greeted him cheerfully, her trademark tight gray curls enlivened by a pink rinse. Bridie changed her hair color about three times per year, alternating between peach, pink, and purple. “Still on for painting the shop?”

  “I’ll be as good as my word.” His grin was wide. Painting the shop would be an excellent excuse to spend one-on-one time with Fiona. “How about after Christmas? Say, from the twenty-sixth? We’ll need at least a day to pack up the books, then another day or two to paint. Will that give you enough time to get sorted?”

  Bridie nodded. “I think we can manage.” She turned toward Fiona. “What’s wrong with you, missy? Have you lost your manners? I’m sure Gavin would like a cup of tea.”

  “Yeah, sure. Milk or sugar?” Fiona’s was worrying her lip ring. He’d noticed she fiddled with it whenever she was flustered.

  “Actually…” He cast a rueful glance at Bridie. “I’d prefer a coffee.” He winked at Fiona.

/>   She dropped her gaze to the coffee machine. “Regular? Espresso? Cappuccino?”

  “An espresso will do fine.”

  She was looking pale and tense. Damn. Had he given her his cold? He hoped not.

  “I’ll never understand why young people today are mad for coffee.”

  Bridie regarded the new coffee machine with suspicion. He wondered if she expected it to jump up from the counter and launch an attack. “I’m surprised to see you in here, Bridie. Aren’t you supposed to be resting at home?”

  “Yes,” Fiona said with emphasis, placing his espresso in front of him. “She is.”

  He smiled at her, their fingers brushing. She flushed and pulled her hand away. “Why don’t I give Bridie a lift home after I’ve finished my coffee? I need to shower and change before my shift at the pub.”

  “I don’t need mollycoddling,” snapped Bridie.

  “Yes, she does,” Fiona and Olivia said in unison.

  “What can we do for you, Gavin?” Bridie asked. “Are you here for the coffee or have you come to buy a few Christmas presents?”

  “I was hoping Fiona could recommend more books to me. My library’s a little sparse at the moment, and I flew through the last batch she gave me.”

  “Anything in particular you’re in the mood for?” Fiona asked.

  He drained his espresso. “Crime fiction. I’ve finished Jonas’s latest mystery, and I’d like something in a similar vein.”

  She moved into the book room behind the café and pulled a box out from underneath one of the book display tables. “If you’re not set on buying a brand-new book, we’ve had a few people bring in used mysteries and thrillers. I haven’t had a chance to sort through and price tag this box yet. Do you want to have a root through it?”

  “Yeah, fantastic.”

  “Speaking of books, will you bag me up a few Mills and Boon?” Bridie heaved her heavy frame into the book room, wincing as she did so.

  “Do you need another painkiller, Bridie?” Fiona asked in concern.

  “Ah, no. I don’t want to get addicted to those things like Nessy O’Flaherty. Ended up in a loony bin, she did.”

  “I think Mrs. O’Flaherty’s problems were a little more serious than taking a few painkillers after a major operation,” he said wryly.

  Fiona smiled at him, displaying her adorable dimples. He’d always been indifferent to dimples, but somehow, she made them the most attractive sight he’d ever seen.

  He rooted through the box of books, selecting a few Agatha Christie mysteries he hadn’t read as well as a popular thriller by a Swedish author.

  Bridie had selected an armful of romance novels. “There’s no point in running a bookshop if I don’t get to sample the wares every now and again.”

  “Why don’t I carry those out to my car? Seeing as I’m driving you home.”

  “You’re as stubborn as Fiona. I think I can manage to heft a few M&B, lad.”

  He carried his books to the counter.

  “On the house,” Fiona said. “Especially as you’re painting the place.”

  He shook his head and placed a twenty-euro note on the counter. “Don’t turn down trade, Fiona.”

  “Can I have a word with you before you take off?” she said, lowering her voice.

  “Sure. Let’s get Bridie settled in the car first.”

  Once Bridie was ensconced in the passenger seat of the SUV, he closed the car door and turned to Fiona. “What’s up?”

  She was fiddling with her fingers now, twisting them to and fro. “I’ve had time to think over the past few days…”

  He broke into a smile. Excellent. She’d reached the same conclusion he had. Happiness swelled his chest.

  “…and I’ve decided this needs to stop.”

  His smile faded. “Eh?”

  “Us. You and me and whatever it is we have between us.” There was a tremor in her voice. “Bridie’s on the mend, and I’ll be leaving Ballybeg soon. When Bridie’s doctor gives her the all clear, I’m booking my ticket to Australia. The trip won’t be as long as I’d planned, obviously, but I intend to spend the last weeks of my sabbatical traveling.”

  “And after?”

  “And after I’ll return to Dublin and my real life.”

  Her real life. The sentence hit him like a kick to the kidneys. He reeled backward and opened his mouth to object. The words never made it from his brain to his vocal chords.

  “If you two are finished flirting,” Bridie yelled through the car window in a voice loud enough to carry down the street, “I’d like to go home and read a romance.”

  After Bridie left with Gavin, Fiona wandered into the shop in a daze. She felt wretched, but it had to be done. What choice had she had? It wasn’t like they had a future together. Unlike the couples in Bridie’s romance novels, she and Gavin would not live happily ever after.

  Olivia was packing her stuff. “Fee,” she said in a low voice, “now Bridie’s gone, I have the info you asked for.”

  A woman entered the shop and waved to them before heading into the back room to browse through the books.

  “Well,” she whispered in response. “Don’t leave me in suspense.”

  “The file contained copies of both your grandmother’s last will and the one she made soon after your dad died. The earlier one divided her estate evenly among you, Bridie, and Bernard. It was witnessed by Aidan’s former secretary and a friend of your grandmother’s named Marie Taylor. The later will was made roughly two months before she died. It left everything to Bernard and was witnessed by Deirdre and Ann Dunne.”

  “Pretty much as we’d expected.”

  “Yeah, but there’s one thing that bothers me—” Olivia stiffened as the customer browsing the books walked through the café to the front entrance.

  When the door clanged shut, Fiona asked, “What bothers you?”

  “According to the first will, the land you would have inherited is the plot on which Bernard is building the new shopping center.”

  Chapter Thirty

  ON THE MORNING of Christmas Eve, Fiona awoke to the smell of freshly baked mince pies. She lay in her bed for a few minutes before emerging from under her duvet, staring at the ceiling and turning over the thoughts that had been troubling her for days.

  Was she imagining something odd about her grandmother’s last will? Were her niggling suspicions down to jealousy because Bernard and his family had so much in comparison to her and Bridie?

  It wasn’t like either one of them was starving. Bridie owned the cottage and the building on Patrick Street. If the Book Mark went belly-up, she had those assets to cushion the blow. Fiona’s teaching job paid enough for her to afford the mortgage on a small apartment in Dublin, and she was renting it out for the months she was supposed to be in Australia.

  But the suspicions remained. Her grandmother wouldn’t have cut her and Bridie out of the will. It didn’t ring true. The most obvious explanation was the least palatable—Bernard had engineered a forgery. Her blood boiled at the notion, rage rising like molten lava. If she could prove he’d done it, she’d make him pay—for Bridie’s sake as well as her own.

  Thanks to the Internet and a few phone calls, she’d narrowed the search for the mysterious Ann Dunne down to a likely candidate in County Clare. If she wanted to prove the will was a forgery, she’d need to pay her a visit. But that, alas, would have to wait until after the holidays.

  Blinking with the sleepiness borne of a restless night, she got up and wandered toward the kitchen.

  Bridie was sitting at the kitchen table, flicking through the TV listings in the newspaper. A batch of mince pies was cooling on a wire rack on the kitchen counter.

  “Mmm…” Fiona moaned in appreciation and reached out a hand. “Those smell divine. Can I have one for breakfast?”

  “Get away with you, missy,” replied Bridie, swatting her with the business section. “Of course they’re not for breakfast. I’ve invited a couple of people over for Christmas dinner. I’ll
serve them with mulled wine as a snack.”

  “Hey, I’m not complaining. I love both mince pies and mulled wine.” Fiona fixed a cup of strong black tea and poured cereal into a bowl. “So who’s coming?”

  “Harrumph.” Her aunt looked decidedly shifty.

  Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who did you invite?”

  Bridie shoved a poorly wrapped package across the kitchen table. “Your Philip fella called round about a half hour ago. He left a Christmas present for you.”

  Fiona regarded it as one would a venomous snake. She opened it gingerly. It contained a playbill and a couple of free tickets to Philip’s pantomime. “I’ll pass these on to Liam O’Mahony as a thank-you for his help the night of the vandalism. He can take his grandson to the panto.”

  Across the table, her aunt was still looking nervous. A sneaking suspicion slithered down Fiona’s spine. “What does Philip’s visit have to do with your Christmas Eve drinks party?”

  Her aunt shifted in her chair.

  “Bridie, what did you do?”

  “It was him, not me.” Bridie crossed her arms across her chest in a defensive gesture. “The fecker invited himself for Christmas Dinner. He laid the guilt trip on me. Said his father had turfed him out, that he had to stay in Cork for the panto and would have to spend Christmas all alone.”

  “You could have said no.”

  “I did say no, but I was so stunned it took me a minute to react, and he was already halfway down the street.”

  “Ah, Bridie. The only person whose company I’d enjoy less is Bernard’s.”

  “Come on. Where’s your sense of Christmas spirit? Why don’t we do the lad a good turn?”

  “Oh, no. Don’t shove this off on me. This is your fault, and I’m leaving it to you to sort out.”

  “Sure, it’ll be grand,” Bridie said with determined cheer. “We’ll get him drunk and let him pass out in the living room. We’ll feel we’ve done our bit for mankind, and he’ll—”

  “Have a hangover?” Fiona cleared the table and packed her bag for work. “You pretend to be an absolute dragon, but at the end of the day, you’re a total mush.”