Jill Shalvis - Kiss Me, I'm Irish

“Are you serious about this?” Seamus asked his son. “Are you absolutely committed or are you just screwing around here until some better job offer comes along?”

“I’m dead serious, Dad.”

Well. There went that dream.

“And you aren’t serious very often,” Seamus said with a soft laugh of understatement. “I guess this is something for me to consider.”

“I came home to run the bar,” Deuce said, his baritone voice oddly soft. “I can’t play ball. I don’t want to coach. I’m not interested in TV or business or anything else I can think of. I want to be home, Dad. I want to run Monroe’s. I want to buy it outright, to free you from the day-to-day operations.” He looked at Kendra. “Of course, I didn’t know you’d already had such great help. I’m sure we can work something out. That is,” he looked back at his father, his face sincere, “if you’ll consider me.”

Without a word, Kendra started to scoop up graphs and presentation pages. She’d have to take her idea elsewhere. It was still viable. She’d figure something out.

She’d spent every dime to buy out half of Seamus’s business, but she’d been in worse places before. Worse financial, emotional and physical places. She would survive. She always did.

“What are you doing, Kennie?” Seamus’s sharp tone stopped her cold.

“We don’t need to go through this presentation. Not now, anyway,” she said, wishing like mad that she’d driven her own car so she could escape.

She looked up to see a pained expression in the older man’s eyes. They’d never discussed it, but in that moment, that look in his eyes confirmed what she’d always suspected. He knew who’d put an end to Harvard for her. He knew.

“Not so fast,” Seamus said.

Could that mean he wasn’t sure yet?

“Well, until you decide what to do…” She continued to gather papers, and Deuce reached forward to help, his arm brushing hers. She jerked away from him and cursed the reaction to the most casual touch.

Her mouth went bone-dry, and she realized with a sickening horror that a huge lump had formed in her throat. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to stand.

“I’m going to get something at home,” she managed to say. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Where’s home?” Deuce asked.

“Kendra lives in the guest house on the beach,” Diana Lynn said. “Go ahead, dear. We’ll be here.”

Kendra shot her a grateful look. No doubt she’d picked up the near-tears vibe.

“Why don’t you walk over there with her, Deuce?” Seamus asked. Clearly he had not picked up that same vibe. “I need a few minutes alone with Diana.”

Kendra resisted the urge to spear Seamus with a dirty look. Couldn’t she get a break today? But Deuce stood and gestured toward the door. “Show me the way,” he said.

Kendra stole one more pleading look at Diana, who gave a nearly imperceptible nod. Go, her eyes said. Let me talk to him.

“All right,” Kendra said. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Take your time,” Seamus responded. “We have some serious thinking to do here.”

But Kendra knew that, for Seamus, there was no thinking where Deuce was involved. The old Irishman ran on pure heart, and nothing filled his heart more than the love for his son. No matter how many errors—on the field or in judgment—Deuce made. He was Seamus’s weakness.

And how could she blame him? He’d been her weakness, too.

Without another word, she headed toward the sliding door, with Deuce behind her, and Newman at his heels.

She’d barely stepped into the sunshine when Deuce leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Your whole life, huh? That’s some wicked crush.”

CHAPTER THREE

KENDRA NEVER MISSED a beat. At his comment, she reached down for the little brown-and-white dog, who leaped into her arms.

“Do you hear anything, Newman? I don’t hear anything.”

Newman barked and nuzzled into her neck. And licked her.

Lucky puppy.

“Oh, you’re ignoring me?” Deuce asked with a laugh as he trotted down a set of wooden steps to catch up with her. “That’s really mature.”

“This from the poster boy of maturity.” She set the dog down when they reached a stone path that paralleled the beach. “Or have you stopped setting firecrackers inside basketballs in the teachers’ parking lot?”

He chuckled. “That was your brother’s idea. Anyway, I’ve grown up.”

“Oh, yes. I noticed in all the coverage about that racing stunt just how much you’ve grown up.”

He considered a few comebacks, but there was nothing to combat the truth.

“Well, you certainly have,” he said. At her confused look, he added, “Grown up, that is.”

Her face softened momentarily, but then she squared her shoulders and she strode toward the house. He couldn’t help smiling. Torturing Jack’s little sister had always been fun. Even when she was ten and scrawny and folded into giggles, and tears. But it was even more fun now, when she was not ten and scrawny, but older and curvy.

“I live right here,” she announced as they neared a gray shake-covered beach cottage at the end of the path. “You can come in, or, if you prefer, go down to the water and gaze at your reflection for a while.”

He snorted at the comment. “I’ll come in. Cute place. How long have you lived here?”

“About a year and a half. After Diana finished renovating the property, I was her first renter.” She gave him a smug smile. “I introduced her to Seamus.”

“I can’t believe he’s never even told me he was involved with someone.”

“It’s not like you actually talked to him a whole lot in the past year.”

Past decade, is what she meant, and he knew it. “Not that I owe you an explanation, but I have been pretty busy playing ball.”

“From October to March?”

“I played in Japan.”

“The season you were out injured for four weeks?”

She knew that? “I was in physical therapy every day.”

“During All Star breaks?” She moved ahead of him as they reached the back door, tugging a set of keys from her pocket. “Every single minute, you were busy?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I? And you don’t seem too happy about it.”

She spun around to face him and pointed a key toward his chest. “Do you really expect me to jump for joy because you imploded your own career and now you want to come and horn in on mine?”

“I didn’t know about this Internet café stuff. Dad never mentioned it, he never mentioned a—a girlfriend, and he never mentioned you.”

She stared at him for a minute, no doubt a thousand smart-aleck retorts spinning through her head. Instead she snapped her fingers to call the dog who’d meandered toward the beach, and pivoted back to the door.

Which gave him a really nice view of her hips and backside in worn jeans.

A flash of those taut legs wrapped around him on a blanket in the sand danced through his mind. She’d worn jeans that night, too. He remembered sliding down her zipper, dipping his hand into her soft, feminine flesh, then peeling the denim down her legs.

A rush of blood through his body didn’t surprise him. In the years that had passed, he’d never remembered that night without a natural, instinctive and powerful response. For some reason, that sandy, sexy encounter had never felt like a one-night stand. Probably because it involved a girl who he should have been able to resist—his best friend’s little sister.

“Look,” he said, stabbing his hands in his pants pockets, which really just helped him resist the urge to reach out and touch her. “I had no idea things had changed this much, or that you and Dad had plans for something entirely different.”