Jim slowly smiled. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
“What about you? Where in Scotland are you from? Do you live with your parents? What do they do? What do you want to do with your life?”
“We work construction in Edinburgh.” Jim gestured to Roddy, who was staring sleepily out at the water, seeming happy to enjoy the peace and the gentle heat of the morning sun. “I live in a place called Sighthill in Edinburgh, with my mum and sister.” He paused. “My dad passed away a few months ago. Heart attack.”
Sympathy panged in my chest at the little catch his voice. And then Roddy changed my entire perception of him by reaching back to pat his friend’s knee in consolation. Jim patted his friend’s shoulder in thanks.
“I’m so sorry.”
Jim nodded.
Awkwardness fell over the boat as I tried to think of an appropriate new topic. I didn’t want to feel like I was blowing past his pain, but I got the impression he didn’t want to talk about it any further.
“So, why a road trip?”
He threw me a grateful smile. “I got some money from my dad’s pension, Roddy and I turned twenty-one, and we decided to blow it all on a US road trip. We’ve talked about doing it since we were kids.”
“You’re twenty-one?”
“Aye.” He narrowed his eyes. “Please tell me ye’er legal.”
I laughed, blushing. “I’m eighteen.”
“Thank fuck,” he said, smiling. “Ye would have broken my heart if ye’d said no.”
“Yer chat-up lines are gettin’ worse, mate,” Roddy grumbled.
“It’s not a chat-up line.” Jim smacked him playfully across the back of the head again, but Roddy didn’t flinch this time. Jim looked back at me. “It’s not.”
I studied him. “Why are you being so charming? You don’t know me at all.”
“Exactly what I said last night. And this morning.”
Jim rolled his eyes. “Roddy. Shut up.”
Roddy grunted.
“Well?” I persisted.
“I don’t know.” He stared at me in that intense way of his. “There’s something about ye.”
His friend turned to me, shading his eyes from the sun with his hand. “What he’s really sayin’ is that he fancies the fuck out of ye, he’s thinkin’ only with his dick, and if ye dinnae dae somethin’ to make him see ye’er just a lassie like any other lassie, I’m stuck in Eerie-fuckin’-Indiana for the rest of the summer.”
I caught most of what he’d said. And blushed even harder.
“Roddy, if ye dinnae shut up, I’m throwing ye overboard, mate.”
“Well, it’s the truth. Ye dinnae even ken each other.”
“Which is why we’re sitting in a boat gettin’ to know each other.”
“I’m just sayin’… move it along a bit so we can get oot eh’ here.”
“I’ve got a better plan.” Jim started to row the boat back to dock.
“What ye doin’?” Roddy complained. “I was enjoyin’ the lake.”
“Really? I couldnae tell with all the bloody complaining ye were doin’.”
“Oh, c’mon, I was only jokin’.”
But Jim kept rowing us back. He dumped the oars, stood up, and held his hands out to me. I let him pull me up onto the dock. And then he turned around and pushed the boat away with Roddy still inside it.
Roddy scrambled for the oars. “What ye doin’!”
To my surprise, I suddenly found my hand gripped in Jim’s large, stronger one. “I’m going with Nora somewhere I can get to know her in peace. And you can fish. We’ll come back and get ye in a bit.”
“Aw, aye, nice!” Roddy called, drawing attention from several people. “Dump me, yer long-time friend, for a lassie ye just met.”
“Temporarily, Roddy. And only cause ye’er a pain in the arse.”
I snorted as Jim grinned down at me. And then he tugged me along after him. “Are you sure he’ll be okay out there?”
“He’s fine.” Jim laughed. “I’m giving him what he wants. All that pissing and moaning was so we’d bugger off and leave him alone. Trust me.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“So, where to?”
“This way.” I led him off the dock and onto the gravel pathway that wound around the woods edging the lake. To my surprise, we walked in comfortable silence until I found what I was looking for. An empty bench at the edge of the lake, a few minutes from any trailer or other boats. Some privacy. “This way we still get to enjoy the lake.”
Jim grinned and took a seat. “It’s stunnin’ here.”
“Yeah, I like it.” I sat down and because I was wearing shorts, I could feel the warmth the wood had soaked up from the morning sun. In the height of summer, around two, three o’clock, you couldn’t sit on these benches without burning the skin off your thighs. This time in the morning, the heat was as pleasant on my skin as the low sun in the sky was. “I don’t get here often enough.”
“Why not?”
“I work a lot.”
“So…” Jim relaxed, one leg bent, the other straight, his arms along the back of the bench. He squinted at me in the sun as he sat sprawled out and twice my size. “Will ye answer any of my questions now?”
I tilted my head in consideration. “Depends on the question.”
“Let’s start with the easy stuff. Favorite color?”
“Whoa, there,” I teased. “That’s a little personal.”
Jim chuckled. It was a nice sound. “My favorite color is Hibs green.”
“I don’t know what color that is.”
“Hibernian green. Hibs are an Edinburgh football team. Soccer.”
“I don’t know a lot about soccer. My dad is a huge Colts fan, though.”
“I love American football.”
“Really?” I was surprised. “I thought you guys had rugby?”
“We do… but American football is more exciting to me. Don’t get me wrong, rugby’s hardcore. But your football is so strategic. My sister hates sports but even she will sit and watch an NFL game. I’m a Patriots fan.”
“Shhh,” I teased, glancing around us. “Don’t say that too loudly around here.”
Jim grinned. “I won’t.” He tugged playfully on my ponytail. “Tell me something else about ye. What’s yer favorite song?”
Instantly, a memory of my dad and a few guys on his crew jamming to Bon Jovi flitted through my mind, causing a wave of nostalgia and an ache in my chest. I was ten, and Cory Trent, for some reason I’d yet to discover, had told everyone in our class that my mom had told his mom I wet the bed. Which was a total lie. I had my best friend’s mom drop me off at the house Dad was fixing up a mile from our own. It was unusual for him to get work in town—his crew was usually booked out somewhere else in the county. I’d thanked God for him being so close that day because I’d been devastated by everyone treating me like a pariah at school.
He’d emerged from the house when one of the guys called out to let him know I was there. As soon as I saw him I burst into tears, and he swept me up into his arms. After I told him what had happened, he was really mad at Cory. Then Dan, his foreman, had turned up the radio and a few of the guys and my dad cheered me up by doing an awful impression of Bon Jovi.
I’d known then I had the best dad in the world.
Which made it worse that I’d lost him not long after that.
“‘Livin’ on a Prayer.’”
At his silence, I sneaked a peek at Jim—he was shaking with laughter. I narrowed my eyes. “Okay, I’m not answering any more questions if you’re going to mock me.”
“No, no!” He laughed, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting Bon Jovi.”
“Oh? What’s your favorite song, cool guy?”
“‘All These Things That I’ve Done,’ by the Killers.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Okay. That is cool.”
The bench shook as he laughed again and suddenly, he reached up to take hold of an arm of my
sunglasses. He gently pushed them up and settled them on top of my head so he could see my eyes. “You are so adorable.”
It was a compliment I’d heard before, and in the past, it had bugged me. I was only five three and, although in the last couple of years I’d finally developed curves, I was petite. I had large dark eyes with really long lashes that made them look even bigger. Whenever anyone described me, it was as “cute” or “adorable.” I didn’t want to be cute or adorable. I wanted to be more.
But Jim made “adorable” sound like more. I blushed. “I’m not really.”
“You are,” he insisted.
I peeked at him again and blushed harder under his intense scrutiny. “You’re looking at me.”
“Aye. It’s hard not tae.”
I squirmed, not sure how to respond. I’d never been in a position where I was supposed to flirt back. “Are all Scottish guys as flirty as you?”
Jim shrugged. “I didn’t think I was being flirty. I was just saying what I was thinking.”
“Obviously, it’s one and the same when it comes to you,” I teased.
He slid closer to me, and I sucked in a breath, feeling nervous butterflies wake in my belly at his nearness. “Favorite movie?”
Realizing he wasn’t going in for a kiss, I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. “I don’t know… Moulin Rouge.”
“Another surprise.” He raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen it, but it’s not what I would have guessed.”
“What would you have guessed?”
“Actually, I have no idea.” He grinned. “My favorite movie is Red.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen that.”
“It’s fucking hilario—shit, sorry.” His cheeks flushed. “I’m trying no’ tae swear around ye.”
Making an effort to be a gentleman was sweet—very sweet—but I also wanted Jim to be himself. The red in his cheeks gave him a vulnerability I hadn’t expected, and I realized that maybe underneath the bravado, I made him nervous too. The thought was a little exhilarating. “You said you work construction?”
He nodded.
“I’ll bet you curse a lot, huh? My dad used to own a construction company. As much as he tried not to, he cursed all the time. So did his crew. It doesn’t bother me. Sometimes…” I dropped my voice an octave, “I even curse. The horror.”
He pushed me playfully. “So much for trying to be a gentleman.”
I grinned. “Just be you.” And before he could start asking me questions I wasn’t sure I was ready to answer, I said, “Why did you and Roddy come to Donovan of all places?”
Jim stared at me, as if trying to decide something. Finally, he relaxed against the bench and turned to look out at the lake. His attention to it brought mine to the fact there was a man and two little boys in a boat, laughing and carrying on as they rowed past. I hadn’t even been aware of the noise I was so lost in our conversation.
“My dad,” Jim suddenly said. “His name was Donovan.”
I sensed like I had before, that it was hard for Jim to talk about him. “You don’t have to…”
He glanced back at me. “Roddy avoids the topic completely. Mum starts crying if I mention him. And the truth is talking about him to people who knew him is hard.”
Compassion for this boy engulfed me, and I smashed through my usual reserve and placed a hand on his knee in comfort. He looked down at it, seeming surprised and more than a little lost.
“Sometimes…” I heaved a sigh around the sudden constriction in my chest, “it’s easier to talk about it with someone who didn’t know him or love him because you don’t have to worry or deal with their grief, just your own. You can talk about him without having to think about how it’ll affect the person you’re talking to.” I lifted my hand off his knee but turned to face him, my left knee almost touching his hip. “You can talk to me about him. If you’d like…”
Jim seemed half unsure, half in wonder. “It’s a little heavy for a first date.”
“This is a date?”
“Aye, it’s a date.”
I laughed at his insistent tone. “Then I guess we get to decide how we want that date to go. I’m a really good listener, Jim. But we don’t have to talk.”
He raised an eyebrow, a smirk curling the corners of his lips, and I shoved him for his indecent thoughts. “You know what I meant. God,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. “Men.”
His laughter settled and he shimmied closer to me on the bench, so my knee was touching his hip. Seriousness came down over his gaze like a theater curtain, slow and steady, as he studied what felt like the entirety of my face. Before he lowered his eyes to my hair, I realized we had almost the same color of eyes. Almost black in low lighting but when the sun captured them, they glowed warmer, like dark mahogany.
Jim curled a finger around a strand in my ponytail and played with it as he began to talk. “My dad’s mum was Irish, my grandfather Scottish, and as my dad would tell it, they were both fiercely proud of their heritage. They passed away when I was four. Car crash.” His eyes flicked to mine for a second, as if to check my reaction, before they drifted back to watching his fingers play with my hair. “When my dad was born, my grandad suggested to my gran that they call him Donovan McAlister. Donovan was my gran’s maiden name.
“So, Roddy and I were on the I-70, heading toward Route 66 in Illinois. From there we were going to drive the whole thing. We stopped for gas, and I saw a help-wanted ad on a bulletin board there. For a supermarket in Donovan.” He gave the lake a sheepish smile. “Fuckin’ stupid, I know…It…I felt like we needed tae come here.”
“That’s not stupid,” I reassured him.
Jim turned to give me another one of those searching looks of his. “No…I’m starting to think it wasn’t.”
I squirmed under his intensity, unable to hold his gaze because he overwhelmed me. As cool as he was, as much as I liked his accent and thought he was cute, I wasn’t prepared for Jim McAlister or the way he looked at me like he’d been struck by lightning.
“What was your dad like?”
“He was the funniest guy I knew.” Jim’s voice was filled with a mix of humor and grief that made my chest ache for him. “And he had time for nearly everybody. If someone needed help, it was never a problem, it was never too much. I was his best pal.”
His smile trembled, and a bright sheen appeared in his eyes. I reached for his hand and held it between both of mine, and it seemed to strengthen Jim, the sheen disappearing, his smile relaxing. “He taught me that family always comes first. That family is more important than how much money I make or fame or any of that shite. He made me feel like it was awright no’ tae be ambitious about career but tae be ambitious about life. About finding the right girl and startin’ a family.”
I had never heard a boy talk of those things before, or at least prioritize those things. I also noticed his accent thickening as he reminisced about his dad. Like he was relaxing with me. “He sounds like a good man.”
“Aye.” He nodded but something cooled in his expression. “But he wasnae perfect, and everyone seems to have swept that under the rug.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mum, specifically. Don’t get me wrong. He loved her but he was a bit of a selfish bastard when it came to her. He never took her anywhere or spent much time wi’ her. He always went out tae the pub wi’ his mates but left Mum at home. Then he got pissed off if she wasnae there when he got home. Like she wasnae supposed tae have a life without him…” He shot me a quiet look I didn’t understand until he spoke again. “And he cheated on her and from what I heard, it wasnae just sex. He fell in love wi’ someone else. My parents nearly split up. In the end he chose Mum, but I don’t think she ever really forgave him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But she acts now like he was a saint.” Anger had edged into his words. “I… just… I loved my dad, and I forgive him for no’ being perfect because none of us are… but I want tae remember my dad, no�
� the glossed-over version of him, ye know?”
I nodded, squeezing his hand.
“Does that make me a bad person?”
“God, no.”
Jim exhaled slowly and looked back out at the water. I studied his profile, noting the tension had eased from his jaw, from his shoulders. As he watched a bird skirt low over the water and fly off into the trees, he said, “I’m glad I met ye, Nora O’Brien.”
“Yeah?”
He looked at me again and then gently removed his hand from between mine but only so he could slide it around my shoulder. “I’d like to stay a little longer, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, I still have a few hours before I need to get back for work.”
“No,” he laughed softly, shaking his head. “No, I meant… I’d like to stay in Donovan a little longer. Beyond today.”
Suddenly, I knew what he was asking, and despite feeling intimidated by the desire in Jim’s eyes, I was also intrigued by his foreignness. He came from a place so different from Donovan. I’d seen it on TV and in movies, but I still couldn’t imagine what life was like in the city he’d grown up in. Part of me didn’t even care. What I mostly cared about was that it was so far away from Indiana, so mysterious and tantalizing, like an adventure waiting to happen an ocean away from my plain little life. And Jim was a part of that.
I nodded, not quite ready to let go of him, either.
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Villain: A Hero Novella Page 17
