Читать книгу Kiss Me, I'm Irish - Jill Shalvis - Страница 12

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.”

“Well, we do.” She entered the house and held the door for him.

He followed her, but his mind was whirring. Was he expected to back off the bar entirely? His family name was still on the door, damn it. The only name that ever had been on that particular door, with or without capital letters.

“Maybe there’s a compromise somewhere,” he suggested. “Maybe we could keep a few computers in one corner of the bar—you know, for the people who aren’t watching games? And you could find some nearby property for your gallery or whatever.”

Instead of brightening, her scowl deepened. She opened her mouth to say something, then slammed it shut again.

“What?” he asked. “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing.”

He dug his hands deeper. “You won’t even consider a compromise?”

Inhaling unevenly, she closed her eyes. “I’ve already compromised enough where you’re concerned.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She held up both hands as though to stop everything. “Never mind.” She turned away, toward a small hallway behind her. “Excuse me for a minute.”

She turned to stalk down the hallway, but he seized her elbow in one quick grab. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” she spat the word, shaking him off. “Forget I said that.”

He let her go.

What had she compromised for him?

In the tiny living room, he dropped onto a sofa and stared at the serene water of the Sound through a sliding glass door, remembering again the incredible night they’d spent together.

He’d never forgotten that night. Maybe because he knew he shouldn’t have seduced Jack’s sister…but maybe because her response to him was so real and strong. So real, that he couldn’t understand where “compromise” came into play. There were two very, very consenting adults during that beach-blanket bingo.

He’d come home after his mother had died of an aneurysm, too old at twenty-four to feel as though his mommy had left him, but brokenhearted anyway. Kendra had been about twenty, maybe twenty-one, and smack between her sophomore and junior years at Harvard. A business major, he recalled.

He remembered how impressed he’d been—she was smart, and quick-witted, and had grown up into a complete knock-out. Even in the chaos and sadness of his mother’s passing, he’d noticed that Kendra Locke had spent every minute at the bar, calmly taking care of things he and his father were not even thinking about.

His last night in town, he’d gone to the bar and ended up staying until it closed, drinking soda and watching Kendra work. That’s when he officially stopped thinking of her as Ken-doll.

The name just wasn’t feminine enough for a woman that attractive. They’d talked and flirted. She made him laugh for the first time that week.

When her shift ended, they’d gone for a ride. He still could remember pulling her toward him in his dad’s car and their first, heated kiss.

He leaned forward and raked his fingers through his hair. He’d felt guilty, and a little remorseful at seducing a girl he’d always considered a little sister. But she’d been willing.

No, no. That was an understatement. She’d been more than willing. Sweet, tender and innocent, he remembered with a cringe. Certainly a virgin. Was that the compromise she’d made?

Probably. And he’d been a world-class jerk for not calling afterwards. It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten her. He just…couldn’t. He looked down the hallway expectantly. No wonder she still hated him. Especially now that she had what he wanted.

He muttered a curse. Wasn’t it unspoken that he’d always be back? Sure it had happened a little sooner than they all thought, but Dad always knew it. Didn’t she realize that when she bought forty-nine percent—not fifty—of the bar that she was essentially buying into his inheritance?

He heard her footsteps in the hall and looked up to see her walking toward him, looking as calm as the waters beyond the glass doors. Game face on.

“How much time do you think we should give them?” she asked.

“Not too much. Evidently, they get easily distracted by each other.”

She laughed a little and put both hands on the backrest of a bentwood chair, her casual indifference back in place. “We can go back. I got what I needed.”

“What was that?”

“My wits.” She deepened those dimples with a disarming grin.

Was she offering a truce? He was game. “I’m sure we’ll work something out.” He gave her a friendly wink. “You never know. I bet we work well together.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I bet we don’t.”

“How can you say that?” He stood slowly, his gaze locked on her as he moved closer. “Don’t tell me you forgot—”

“Newman!” She snapped her fingers in the air, a warning look flashing in those sky-blue eyes. The message was silent…but clear.

There would be no discussing that night.

The dog came tripping down the hallway with a bark, surprising Deuce by sidling up to his leg instead of that of the woman snapping for him.

Kendra rolled her eyes as Newman rubbed Deuce’s pantleg.

“He likes me,” Deuce noted.

“He’s easily impressed. Let’s go back to Diana’s.”

Laughing, he held the door for her. “I don’t know. Think the jury’s back already, Ken-doll?”

“We’re about to find out, Seamus.”

DIANA LOOKED HAPPIER than usual. Kendra noticed the diamond-like sparkle in her eyes, which usually meant she’d gotten what she wanted. Please God, let it be so. Diana would back Kendra and push Seamus to move on with their plans. She was always in favor of progress and change.

As Diana puttered in the kitchen, straightening an already neat counter, Seamus sat on the sofa, elbows resting on his knees and knuckles supporting his chin. He only moved his eyes, looking up as Kendra and Deuce entered the family room. Unlike his fiancée, Seamus looked anything but pleased with the turn of events.

All of the papers and sketches had been neatly piled on the coffee table. Would those documents be making the trip into banks and venture-capital firms this week…or going home with Kendra?

Kendra stood to one side, but Deuce took a seat across from his father. “So, Dad. Whad’ya think?”

For a long moment, Seamus said nothing, staring first at Deuce, then at the papers on the table. Kendra’s throat tightened and she dared another look at Diana, who had paused in her counter-wiping and turned to watch the drama unfolding in her family room.

“I think I have quite a dilemma.”

No one said a word in response. Kendra willed her heart to slow, certain that the thumping could be heard in the silence. Even Newman lifted his head from the floor, his classic King Charles spaniel face looking expectantly at the humans around him.

“Deuce, you need to understand something,” Seamus began. “This Internet café and artist’s gallery is something we’ve been working on for almost two years. I really like the idea of bringing Monroe’s into the next century.”

Deuce leaned forward and opened his mouth to speak, but Seamus silenced him with one look. Kendra wished she’d taken a seat when they walked in, because her legs felt shaky as she waited for Seamus’s next words.

“And Kennie, you know that my father opened Monroe’s in 1933, the year I was born. He ran it until he died, more than thirty years later, in 1965. Then I took over, at—” he looked at Deuce “—thirty-three years of age.”

Kendra bit her lip as she listened. Did Seamus see this as poetic justice? As history repeating itself? As some etched-in-stone prediction from on high? As the Monroe Man turneth thirty-three, so shall he inherit the bar.

Sheez. Her gaze shifted to Deuce and she could have sworn his lip curled upward. Was he thinking the same thing? Or was he just so damn sure of himself that he could afford to be cocky?

Instead of a snide remark, though, Deuce leaned forward again. “Dad,” he said, forcefully enough that he wouldn’t be stopped by his father’s glare. “Isn’t there some way we can compromise? Some way to keep Monroe’s in the family, as a bar, and find another property for this…other stuff.”

“That’s not feasible,” Kendra argued before Seamus could respond. “These blueprints have been drawn up by an architect—an expensive one, by the way—expressly for that property and the other buildings on the block.”

“So use one of the other buildings,” Deuce countered.

“We are. As soon as we rip out the bar altogether and push that whole wall fifty feet in another direction for an art gallery.”

“An art gallery? In that space?” Deuce looked as though she’d suggested turning it into a nursery school. “That’s perfect for a pool hall and twenty TV screens, each tuned to a different football game on Sunday. They have these satellite dishes—”

“Sunday? That’s one of our biggest days. We do so much Internet business—”

“Not from football fans.”

“You two need to work this out,” Seamus said.

“Precisely!” Diana slammed her hands hard on the kitchen counter. Kendra, like the men and the dog, turned to stare at her. “You need to work side by side, together.”

“What?” Kendra and Deuce responded in unison.

“She’s right,” Seamus acknowledged. “I can’t make a choice without hurting someone I care about. We’ll go on our trip, and you two run the place together.”

“What do you mean—together?” Deuce asked.

Diana came around the breakfast bar into the family room, her gaze on Seamus, a shared, secret arcing between them, but Kendra had no idea what it was. “Why doesn’t Kendra run the Internet café in the day, and Deuce run the bar at night? Let the customers decide where and when they want to spend their money.”

“Run a bar at night?” Kendra almost sputtered in shock. “And lose all my nighttime business?”

“That’s been a tiny percentage of the profits,” Seamus responded. “You’ve been shutting down by nine o’clock lately.”

“But it’s April now. The warm weather is starting, more tourists are coming.” She worked to modulate her voice, refusing to whine. “Those are the people who need Internet access, who bring their laptops so they can work on vacation.”

“People drink on vacation,” Deuce corrected her. “At least at night.” He slapped his hands on his thighs and slid them over his khaki pants, a smug smile in place. “I think it’s a great idea.”

They all looked at her expectantly. Was she going to back down? Let Deuce appear more willing to take the challenge than she was?

No one came in that bar looking for a drink anymore. What remained of the liquor bottles had to be regularly dusted. She’d been running Monroe’s as though it were a coffee shop and Internet café for a long time; her customers were loyal online users. The people looking for a neighborhood bar went to the bigger chains that had come into town.

“Okay. Fine. Whatever you want, Seamus.”

“I want you both to have a chance.” He stood slowly, his gaze moving between them. “I’d like to see the decision be made by you, not me.”

“We’ll let the people of Rockingham decide,” Deuce said, looking at Diana as he echoed her thoughts. Sure, now they were allies.

But Deuce had no idea what he was up against, getting between a woman and her dream. Twice.

Her Internet café was significantly more profitable than a bar, and Diana and Seamus’s trip was only two weeks long. There was no way Deuce could turn a profit in less than a month.

Seamus stepped toward Diana and slid his arm around her again. “Tomorrow, Diana and I are leaving for Boston, New York and San Francisco for meetings arranged with investors and banks.” He paused and pulled Diana closer, sharing that secret smile again. “And we’ve decided to tack on an early honeymoon.”

“What do you mean?” Kendra asked.

“We were going to tell you this morning, honey,” Diana said, “but we were so surprised by Deuce’s visit.”

“Tell us what?” Deuce looked horrified. “Did you already get married?”

Diana laughed lightly. “No. But I found the most amazing timeshare in Hawaii. A gorgeous house in Kauai, on the water. We couldn’t resist.”

“How long will you be gone?” Kendra asked, a sinking sensation tugging at her stomach.

Seamus grinned. “A month in Hawaii, plus the two weeks of business trip.”

“A month?” Kendra looked from one to the other. “You’ll be gone for six weeks?”

“Great,” Deuce said, standing up. “Diana, do you think you can find me a place to rent until I sell my house in Vegas?”

Kendra glared at him. “Why don’t you wait to sell your place until we see who…what happens.”

“You can stay here,” Diana offered. “Newman seems to have taken a liking to you.”

“I take care of Newman,” Kendra said. Good Lord, she didn’t want Deuce a hundred yards away from her for six weeks.

“You can handle him in the evenings,” Deuce said, his gaze on her. “I’ll be at the bar.”

“There’s no way you’re going to be there, in charge and alone,” she said quickly. “I’ll do my paperwork at night.”

“Then I’ll do mine during the day.”

Kendra hadn’t noticed that Seamus and Diana had slipped into the kitchen, until she heard their soft laughter. They stood with their heads close to each other, slowly walking toward the hallway.

“I kind of hate to leave,” Seamus whispered. “Just when it’s getting interesting.”

Deuce grinned at Kendra. She glared at him.

“This is so not interesting,” she mumbled, turning to retrieve her papers and put them back in order.

“I disagree,” he said, suddenly way too close to her back. “This could be very interesting. Remember the night we—”

She spun around and stuck her finger right in his face. “Don’t go there, Deuce Monroe.”

With a playful smile, he put both hands over his heart, feigning pain. “Was that night so horrible that you can’t even think about it?”

If only he knew. If only. But he wouldn’t, Kendra swore silently. He would never know.

She gave him a blank stare. “What night, Deuce? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Is that right?” His voice was silky smooth, and the dark glimmer in his eyes sent firecrackers right down to her toes. “I bet I can make you remember.”

“One bet’s enough for me today,” she said, seizing one of the sketches of the new Monroe’s layout and holding it in front of her face. “And I bet I get this.”

He slid the paper out of her hand, and leaned so close to her mouth she could just about feel that Hollywood stubble as it threatened to graze her.

“Let’s play ball,” he whispered.