by Nora Roberts
Lou stroked his beard. “I’ve got a fifteen-year-old daughter, and if I caught a man looking at her the way I figure I just looked at that tasty little dish there, I’d have to kill him.”
“Your wife and daughter still planning on coming over?” Trevor asked him.
“As soon as Josie’s out of school. ’Nother couple of weeks.”
Trevor settled back while his two men talked of family. There was no one waiting for him at home, or looking forward to the day she could fly over and join him. It wasn’t something that troubled him. It was better to live alone than to make a mistake, as he’d nearly done.
Living alone meant he could come and go as he needed to, as his business demanded. And without the guilt or tension that regular travel could add to a relationship. No matter how much his mother might pine for him to settle down and give her grandchildren, the simple fact was that his life ran more efficiently solo.
He glanced at a nearby table where a young family was crowded together. The woman was doing her best to distract a fussy infant while the man frantically mopped up the soft drink their whining toddler had just managed to spill all over everything.
Nothing efficient about it, Trevor mused.
Darcy delivered their tea, apparently unaffected by the fact that the toddler had gone from whine to wail. “Your meals will be out directly, and if you’ve a need for more tea, just give me a sign.” Still smiling, she turned to the next table and handed the young father a stack of napkins, all the while waving away his apologies.
“Oh, it’s not so much of a thing, is it, little man?” She crouched down to the little boy’s level. “Wipes up, doesn’t it, but such things scare off the faeries. You might lure them back if they weren’t afraid your tears would flood them out again.”
“Where are the faeries?” he demanded in the testy voice of a child who desperately needs a nap.
“Oh, they’re hiding now, but they’ll come back when they’re sure you mean them no harm. Could be they’ll be dancing around your bed next time you lay your head on your pillow. I bet your sister’s seeing them now.” Darcy nodded toward the baby, who had drifted off to sleep. “That’s why she’s smiling.”
The boy subsided into sniffles and watched his sister sleep with both suspicion and interest.
That, Trevor thought as she moved on to the next table, was efficient.
THREE
“NOW, SINEAD, CAN we go over the things we talked about when I hired you?”
With the pub cleared between shifts, and her brothers ordered out, Darcy sat across from her new waitress. Aidan ran the pub, it was true, and Shawn ruled the kitchen, but it was understood that when it came to the serving, Darcy held the controls.
Sinead shifted her skinny butt on the stool and tried to concentrate. “Well, you said as to how I was to take the orders in a friendly manner.”
“Aye, that’s true.” Darcy sipped her soft drink and waited. “And what else do you remember?”
“Ah . . .”
Jesus God, Darcy thought, can the girl do anything faster than the pace of a turtle?
“Well.” Sinead chewed her lip and drew little patterns on the table with her fingertips. “That I was to make certain that the right food and drink was served, again in a friendly manner, to the proper customers.”
“And do you remember, Sinead, anything about the taking and serving of those orders in an efficient and timely manner as well?”
“I do, yes.” Sinead dropped her gaze to her own glass, all but pinned her eyes to it. “It’s all so confusing, Darcy, with everyone wanting something, and at the same time.”
“That may be, but you see, the thing with a pub is people tend to come in wanting something, and our job is to see they get it. You can’t do your job if you hide in the loo half your shift.”
“Jude said I was coming along.” Sinead raised her eyes now, and they brimmed with tears.
“That won’t work with me.” Darcy leaned forward. “Filling your eyes up and letting tears shimmer only works on men and soft hearts, and that’s not what you’re dealing with here. So sniff them back, girl, and listen.”
The sniff was more of a wet snuffle, but Darcy nodded. “You came to me asking for work and promising that you’d work hard. Now, it’s barely three weeks since that day, and you’re already slacking. I’m asking you straight out, and you answer in the same manner. Do you want this job?”
Sinead dabbed at her eyes. The new mascara she’d purchased out of her first week’s pay smeared. Some might have found the look pitiful and softened. Darcy only thought the girl needed to practice shedding tears with more grace.
“I do. I need the work.”
“Needing work and doing work are two different matters.” As you’re about to discover, Darcy decided. “I want you back here in two hours for the evening shift.”
Tears dried up quickly with sheer shock. “But I’ve the night off.”
“Not anymore, you don’t. You’ll come back prepared to do the job you’re paid to do if you want to keep it. I want you moving smartly from table to table, from table to kitchen and back again. If something confuses you or there’s something you don’t remember or understand, you can come to me and I’ll help you out. But . . .”
She paused, waiting until Sinead met her eyes again. “I won’t tolerate you leaving your stations. You’ve got to pee, that’s fine, but each time I note you sliding into the back and staying over five minutes at it, I’m docking you a pound.”
“I’ve . . . got a bladder problem.”
Darcy would have laughed if it hadn’t been so pathetic. “Now that’s bullshit and the both of us know it. If you had any problems with your plumbing I’d’ve heard, as your mother would have told Brenna’s mother and so it would have come to my ears.”
Trapped, Sinead shifted from apologetic to pout. “But a pound, Darcy!”
“Aye, a pound, so consider before you nip off what it’s costing you.” Which, she already decided, would go into her own wish jar, as she’d be the one taking up the slack.
“We’ve a reputation here at Gallagher’s that’s generations in the making,” she continued. “You work for us, you meet the standards we set. If you can’t or won’t, you get the boot. This is your second chance, Sinead. You won’t get a third.”
“Aidan’s not so hard as you.”
Darcy lifted a brow as Sinead’s bottom lip trembled.
“Well, now, you’re not dealing with Aidan, are you? You’ve two hours. Be on time, or I’ll assume you’ve decided this isn’t the job for you.”
“I’ll be here.” Obviously irked, Sinead got to her feet. “I can handle the work. It’s nothing but hauling trays about. Doesn’t take any brains.”
Darcy sent her the most pleasant of smiles. “There you are, then.”
“When I save enough money so I can marry Billy, I’m leaving all of this behind me.”
“That’s a fine ambition. But this is today. Go on now and walk off your temper before you say something you’ll be sorry for later.”
Darcy sat where she was as Sinead strode across the room. Since she’d expected the girl to slam the door, she only rolled her eyes at the bullet crack of it. “If she used half that energy for the job, we wouldn’t have had this pleasant little chat.”
She shrugged her shoulders to relieve some of the tension, curled her toes in her shoes to work out some of the ache, then got to her feet. Gathering the glasses, she turned to carry them to the bar. And Trevor came through the kitchen door.
That, she thought, was a fine example of what God had intended when he’d designed man. He might look a tad rough and dirty from the day’s work, but it didn’t mar the appeal.
“We’re closed at the moment,” she told him.
“The back door was unlocked.”
“We’re a friendly sort of place.” She carried the glasses to the bar. “But I’m afraid I can’t sell you a pint right now.”
“I didn’t come in for a pint.�
��
“Didn’t you now?” She knew what a man was after when he had his eyes on her that way, but the game required playing. “What are you looking for, then?”
“I wasn’t looking for anything when I got up this morning.” He leaned on the bar. They both knew what they were about, he thought. It made the dance simpler when both people knew the steps. “Then I saw you.”
“You’re a smooth one, aren’t you, Mr. New York City?”
“Trev. Since you’ve got a couple hours free, why don’t you spend them with me?”
“And how would you know I have free time?”
“I came in on the end of your employer directive. She’s wrong, you know.”
“About what?”
“It does take brains, and knowing how to use them. You do.”
It surprised her. It was a rare man who noticed she had a mind, and a rarer one who commented on it. “So you’re attracted to my brain, are you?”
“No.” At the quick humor in his eyes and a flash of grin a nice little ripple moved up her spine. “I’m attracted to the package, but I’m interested in your brain.”
“I like an honest man under most circumstances.” She considered him another moment. He wouldn’t do, of course, for more than a pleasant flirtation. No, wouldn’t do, she thought and was surprised by a very real tug of regret.
But he was right about one thing. Time she had. “I wouldn’t mind a walk on the beach. But aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“My hours are flexible.”
“Lucky for you.” She moved down the bar, lifted the pass-through. “And maybe for me as well.”
He came through the opening, then stopped so they stood close and face-to-face. “One question.”
“I’ll try to give you one answer.”
“Why isn’t there someone I have to kill before I do this?” He leaned down and brushed his lips very lightly over hers.
She dropped the pass-through back in place. “I’m choosy,” she said. She walked to the door, then sent him a level and amused look over her shoulder. “And I’ll let you know if I choose to have you try that again, Trev of New York. With a bit more enthusiasm.”
“Fair enough.” He stepped outside with her, waiting while she locked the front door.
The air smelled of sea and flowers. It was something she loved about Ardmore. The scents and sounds, and the wonderful spread of the water. There were such possibilities in that vast sea. Sooner or later it would bump into land again, another place with new people, different things. There was wonder in that.
And comfort here, she supposed, raising a hand in greeting as Kathy Duffy called out to her from her dooryard.
“Is this your first time in Ireland?” Darcy asked him as they walked toward the beach.
“No, I’ve been to Dublin several times.”
“One of my favorite cities.” She scanned the beach, noting the pockets of tourists. Automatically she angled away and toward the cliffs. “The shops and restaurants are wonderful. You can’t find that in Ardmore.”
“Why aren’t you in Dublin?”
“My family’s here—well, part of them. Our parents are settled in Boston now. And I don’t have a burning desire to live in Dublin when there are so many places in the world and I haven’t seen nearly enough of them yet.”
“What have you seen?”
She looked up at him. A rare one indeed, she thought. Most of the men of her acquaintance wanted to talk about themselves. But they’d play it his way for now. “Paris, just recently. Dublin, of course, and a great deal of my own country. But the pub hampers traveling.”
She turned, walking backward for a bit with her hand up to shield her eyes. “I wonder what it’ll look like when he’s done with it.”
Trevor stopped, studied the pub as she was. “The theater?”
“Yes. I’ve looked at the drawings, but I don’t have an eye for such things.” She lifted her face to the breeze of salt and sea. “The family’s pleased with it, and they’re very particular.”
“So is Magee Enterprise.”
“I imagine so, though it’s difficult to understand why the man would pick a small village in the south of Ireland for his project. Jude, she says part of it’s sentiment.”
It surprised and nearly disconcerted him to have the truth spoken so casually. “Does she?”
“Do you know the story of Johnnie Magee and Maude Fitzgerald?”
“I’ve heard it. They were engaged to be married, and he went off to war and was killed in France.”
“And she never married, but lived alone in her cottage on Faerie Hill all her days. Long days, as Old Maude was one hundred and one years when she passed. The boy’s mother, Johnnie Magee’s mother, grieved herself to death within a few years. They said she favored him and could find no comfort in her husband, her other children, or her faith.”
It was odd to walk here and discuss these pieces of his family, pieces he had never met, with a woman he barely knew. Odder still that he was learning more of them from her than he’d learned from anyone else.
“I’d think losing a child has to be the biggest grief.”
“I’m sure it is, but what of those who were alive yet and needed her? When you forget what you have for what you’ve lost, grieving’s an indulgence.”
“You’re right. What happened to them?”
“The story is that her husband finally took to the drink, excessively. Wallowing in whiskey’s no better or worse than wallowing in grief, I suppose. And her daughters, I think there were three, married as soon as they could and scattered. Her other son, he who was more than ten years younger than Johnnie, eventually took his wife and his little boy away from Ireland to America, where he made his fortune. Never did he come back nor, they say, contact those left here of family and friends.”
She turned and looked back at the pub again. “It takes a hard heart never to look back, even once.”
“Yeah,” Trevor murmured. “It does.”
“But so the seeds of Magee Enterprise were sowed first in Ardmore. It seems the Magee running matters now is willing to put his time and money into seeing those seeds grow here.”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, indeed. It’ll be good for us, and for him as well most likely. Business is business, but there’s room for a bit of sentiment as long as it doesn’t cloud the bottom line.”
“Which is?”
“Profit.”
“Just profit?”
She angled back, gestured out to the bay. “There’s Tim Riley’s boat coming in for the day. He’s been out with his crew since before first light. It’s a hard life, that of a fisherman. Tim and those like him go out day after day, casting their nets, fighting weather, and breaking their backs. Why do you suppose they do it?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“They love it.” She tossed her hair back, watching the boat ride a crest. “No matter how they bitch and complain, they love the life. And Tim, he cares for his boat like a mother her firstborn. He sells his catch fair so there’s no one would say Riley, he’s not to be trusted. So there’s love of the work, tradition, reputation, but at the bottom of it all is profit. Without an eye on making a living, it’s only a hobby, isn’t it?”
He caught a curl of her hair as it flew in the wind. “Maybe I’m attracted to your mind after all.”
She laughed at that and began walking again. “Do you love what you do?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“What is it appeals to you most?”
“What did you see when you looked out your window this morning?”
“Well, I saw you, didn’t I?” She was rewarded by the humor that moved warmly over his face. “And other than that, I saw a mess.”
“Exactly. I enjoy most an empty lot, or an old building in disrepair. The possibilities of what can be done about them.”
“Possibilities,” she murmured, looking out to sea again. “I understand about that. S
o you enjoy building something out of nothing, or out of what’s been neglected.”
“Yes. Changing it without damaging it. If you cut down a tree, is what you’re putting in its place worth the sacrifice? Does it matter in the long run, or it is only short-term ego?”
“Again the philosopher.” His face suited that, even while the windblown hair and little scar spoke another, less quiet side. “Are you the conscience of Magee, then?”
“I like to think so.”
An odd sentiment for a laborer, she thought, but it appealed to her. The fact was, she couldn’t at the moment find one thing about him that didn’t appeal. “Up on the cliffs there, beyond the big hotel, men once built grandly. The structures are ruins now, but the heart remains and many who go there feel that. The Irish understand sacrifice, and why and when it matters. You’ll have to find time to walk there.”
“I’ll plan on it. I’d like it better if you found time to show me the way.”
“That’s another possibility.” Judging the hour, she turned to walk back.
“Let’s build on it.” He took her hand to stop her, enjoyed the faint hint of irritation that came into her eyes. “I want to see you.”
“I know.” Because it was the simplest angle, and never failed her, she tilted her head and allowed a teasing smile to play on her lips. “I haven’t made up my mind about you as yet. A woman has to be careful when dealing with strange and handsome men.”
“Sweetheart, a woman with your arsenal uses men for target practice.”
Irritated, she tugged her hand free. “Only if they ask for it. Having a pleasing face doesn’t make me heartless.”
“No, but having a pleasing face and a sharp mind is a potent combination, and it’d be a waste if you didn’t know how to use both.”
She considered flicking him off and walking away, but damned if he didn’t intrigue her. “Sure and this is the strangest of conversations. I don’t know if I like you or not, but maybe I’m interested enough to take some time to find out. But at the moment, I have to head back into work. It wouldn’t do for me to be late after I’ve lectured Sinead.”
