Jill Shalvis - Kiss Me, I'm Irish

She met his gaze, and held it, a challenge in her wide blue eyes. “We’re hoping to buy the rest of the block, so we can eventually add a small theater for performance art, a gallery for local artists and a full DVD rental business.”

He worked to keep his jaw from hitting his chest.

“Tell him about the learning center,” his father coaxed.

“Well,” she said, shifting on her hips, “We’re going to add an area just for people who are not technically savvy. They can make appointments with our employees for hands-on Internet training.”

He just stared at her. All he wanted to do was run a sports bar with TVs playing ESPN and beer flowing freely. It sure as hell didn’t take place on the information highway and karaoke night was as close to performance art as he wanted his customers to get.

But Deuce stayed quiet. He’d figure out a strategy. As soon as Dad found out that Deuce planned to buy the place, surely he’d change his mind. And Deuce would buy out Kendra’s fifty percent if he had to. She could open her theater and gallery and learning center somewhere else in Rockingham.

He’d make his father understand that he had a plan for the future and it made sense. It didn’t include baseball for the first time in his life, but that was okay.

His only option was coaching and with his track record for breaking rules, he doubted too many teams would be lined up to have him as a role model for younger players. He had no interest in television, or working an insurance company, or being the spokesperson for allergy medicine, like the rest of the has-been ballplayers of the world.

He just wanted to be home. Maybe he couldn’t be the King of the Rock anymore, but this is where he grew up. And where he wanted to grow old.

But not in a flippin’ Internet café.

That was one compromise he couldn’t make.

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to concentrate with Deuce’s long, hard, masculine body taking up half the sofa, his unspoken distaste for her plans hanging in the air. Not to mention the fact that his father now sought his opinion on everything.

Kendra hadn’t counted on this kind of distraction.

“This chart emphasizes the growth of the Internet café business,” she said, but for a moment, she lost her place.

The bar graphs and colored circles swam in front of her. And Deuce’s long, khaki-clad legs were just inches away from her. Her gaze slid to the muscle of his thigh. Newman, the little brat, had actually taken up residence next to him and was staring at him like some kind of star-struck baseball fan. Even dogs were in awe of Deuce.

“You showed us that one, honey,” Diana said quietly, leaning forward to pull another chart. “I think you wanted the research about how Internet cafés are the social centers of this century. How people don’t want to be isolated while they are in cyber-space. Remember? The findings are here.”

Oh, cripes. Of course she remembered. She’d written the analysis of the research. She’d used it to convince Seamus to launch the overhaul of Monroe’s. She’d based her whole future on that trend.

And all she could think about was…thigh muscles.

“What do you think, Deuce?” Seamus asked for the twentieth time. “You see these cafés out in Vegas?”

“Never saw one in my life.”

Kendra gave him an incredulous look, then remembered what his life was like. On the road, in hotels. “But surely you have a computer, a laptop or a PDA, and an email address.”

He nodded. “I told you I got an email from Jack. And some of my friends’ kids taught me a cool game called Backyard Baseball.” He ignored her eye-roll and looked at his father. “Frankly, I don’t know what’s going on here in Cape Cod, but the rest of the world still expects to go into a bar and drink. They can’t smoke, thank God, but I haven’t been in a bar where keyboards replaced cocktails. At least not until today.”

Seamus leaned back and regarded his son. “Well, our bar profits were sinking fast, son. Two years ago, we were as close to the red as I’ve been in many years. Big-name chains have come into this place in droves, squeezing our business with national advertising.”

“Monroe’s has been through tough times before, Dad,” Deuce argued. “It always survives.”

“The demographics of Rockingham have changed,” Diana interjected. “This isn’t the sleepy vacation town it used to be. Our population has skyrocketed, and the town is full of young, savvy, hip residents.”

“And young, hip residents don’t go to bars anymore?” Deuce asked. “They do in every other city I’ve ever been in.”

An uncomfortable silence was his only answer.

Finally, Seamus asked, “What don’t you like about this, Deuce?”

Deuce leaned forward, flexing the thigh muscle Kendra shouldn’t have been watching. “I came home so I could take over Monroe’s and run it as a first-rate sports bar.”

Kendra closed her eyes and took the punch in her stomach. She knew it. She’d known this the minute he’d walked in the door.

Was Deuce Monroe put on this earth for the sole reason of ruining her life? He didn’t know what he’d done last time—the result of their recklessness was her burden, and, ultimately, her loss. But this time, he could see what it meant to her.

And so could Seamus. She looked up at the man who’d been like a father to her ever since her own parents had distanced themselves physically and emotionally. But Seamus’s gaze remained locked on his son, an expression of astonishment, joy and worry mixed in the lines on his face.

How could she let herself forget for one moment that Seamus loved Deuce above all and everything? No matter how many times Deuce had gone against his wishes, his love for his only child was constant.

“I had no idea, son.”

Kendra just knew what was coming next. There was no way to avoid what was about to be said.

“Dad, the bar’s been in the family for more than seventy years.”

Bingo. There was the bomb she’d been waiting for him to drop. Monroe’s belonged to Monroes. Always had…always will.

Diana leaned forward and snagged Deuce with one of those riveting stares that withered opponents at the negotiating table. “When, exactly, were you planning to tell your father that you intended to carry on that tradition?”

“Today,” he replied without missing a beat. “I wanted to talk in person, not over the phone. My house in Vegas is on the market. I’m planning to move here as soon as we…settle things.”

Seamus took a long, slow breath and pulled Diana back into his side with a gentle tug. “I wish you had told me sooner,” he said to Deuce.

Why? Would that have changed things? Kendra had to bite her lip from shouting out her question. If Seamus had known Deuce wanted to take over the bar, would he have stopped her expansion plans from the beginning? Even when profits were so low they almost had to sell?

“I think Kendra has a say on all this,” Diana finally commented. “She owns forty-nine percent of the business.”

She felt Deuce’s gaze and had no doubt he remembered she’d told him “fifty” percent. Lies. They always come back to bite you.

Kendra shifted again, wishing she weren’t the only one sitting on the floor. “I’m sure you all know how I feel. The expansion is the business I’ve always dreamed of owning.”

“But Monroe’s,” Seamus said quietly, “is my blood.”

And so was Deuce.

Deuce, who hadn’t come home from a road trip when his father had a pacemaker put in. Deuce, who’d refused to go to college on a baseball scholarship as his father had begged him, instead going straight into the minor leagues. Deuce, who had never called her after they’d made love, so therefore had never even found out that she’d gotten pregnant…and lost that child.