Hot Whispers of an Irishman Read online

  “Did you happen to stop by the pub, Da?”

  He shook his head. “No, we were straight here. James wanted to show me the fine job Brian and his crew did on renovating Liam’s house.”

  Vi worked up a regretful sigh for the elder Rafferty. “Ah, well, much as I’d like us to stay and visit more, I’ve left Roger at the pub with Jamie. We’d best be moving on. A bit of a pest, he can be.”

  “Roger or Jamie?” Liam asked, humor dancing in his blue eyes.

  “Apparently, both,” Vi replied. “Liam, I’ll be out to Nan’s tomorrow, getting in my first day of real work, and with no interruptions, if you please.”

  He frowned. “Then I’ll be seeing you…?”

  “When I arrive,” she said simply.

  Vi linked her arm through her father’s. “Slán,” she said to the Raffertys junior and senior and gave a glance up the stairs to see the shade of Meghan slip round the corner. “Slán to you, too,” she called, then made good on her escape.

  “You needn’t have rushed so,” Da complained as they walked in the direction of the pub. “It was inhospitable of you.”

  “I had my reasons,” she replied, skirting past a mother carrying a fractious toddler, his legs kicking as though he meant serious harm. “Did Nan ever talk to you of Rafferty’s gold?” she asked her da.

  “She did,” Da said. “Though she made it clear that as a mere male of her blood, it could never be mine.” He smiled. “The sting was lessened by the knowledge that it was imaginary.”

  “And you’re sure of that?”

  “Of course I am. With my father so long dead, we were always wanting for something in that little house. If not for an inheritance, I’d never have made it out of Duncarraig and to university. If only some distant relative would up and die and do the same for Danny.”

  Vi slowed. “Who did Nan inherit from?”

  Da tucked his hands into his suit jacket pockets and ducked his head to fight the biting wind that had begun pushing through town. “A second cousin from County Laois. I think I might have seen her once at a family Christmas.”

  Miraculous, Vi thought. Miraculously convenient.

  And how very like Nan.

  Liam’s da was trolling for a chat when Liam wanted none. He’d managed to avoid conversation alone with Da for three whole weeks, which was perhaps the sole advantage of being part of a large family.

  Da watched all and managed the Rafferty children with a quiet sort of authority. The time had come to draw Liam back into the fold, and there was no escape. His father pulled out a chair from the dining table and motioned for Liam to do the same.

  “So have you had a fine day?” his father asked once they’d sat.

  “Fine enough, for we’ve had little rain,” he replied. It seemed a decent answer to give a publican well accustomed to chat about weather and sport. Da remained unsatisfied, though.

  “Grand, then,” he said in a distracted way, then brushed an imaginary speck of whatever off the table’s glass top. After a moment, he gave up the pretense of casual behavior and fixed Liam with a level look. “I don’t want you to think that I’m not pleased to have you home, son, because I am. Still, it’s time to tell me why you’re here.”

  Liam damn well refused to let his family have a hint of his crisis. He’d been the one to break free of the Rafferty mandate of shoulder-to-shoulder life in Duncarraig. He’d been the one to work from Aberdeen to Auckland. Knowing that after all of his successes, he’d come home this time a nearly bankrupt business partner to a modern-day pirate was something he chose to keep private, and for obvious reasons.

  “There’s nothing wrong with a visit now and again, is there?” he asked.

  “Not a thing,” Da agreed, “but visits don’t usually include enrolling a child in school and developing a sudden deafness when asked how long you might be staying.”

  “I needed a change, that’s all.”

  “You’ve not spoken of your work once since you arrived. No tales of deep-diving or of oil tankers pushed up on rocks and cargoes shifted in typhoons. And in three weeks, I have yet to see you take a phone call from Alex or call your secretary in Boston. I’ve not missed this, Liam.”

  Liam shrugged. “I’m a bit burned out is all. A decade working without time to even stop and think can do that to a man.”

  “It can, but three weeks is a long time to be smelling the roses, and with them not even in bloom.”

  “Long, but needed,” Liam said, thinking to himself, and likely permanent unless I find the means to start again.

  “You’re the best judge of what you need,” Da replied. “Just remember to get moving before you forget how. Cullen already has the job of lazy Rafferty quite well covered.”

  Cullen did conserve effort better than anyone Liam had met. “His job is safe, Da.”

  “So you’ve nothing else bothering you?” Da asked. “No reason you’d be working that jaw muscle? You’ve always done it when vexed, you know.”

  Liam relaxed the best he could. “The aftereffects of Vi Kilbride, I’m sure.”

  “She’s a challenge, that one,” his father agreed. “But the jaw-flexing has been going on longer than she’s been in town.”

  Liam made a mental note to rid himself of the habit. It wouldn’t do to be perpetually transparent.

  “Fatherhood, then,” he offered.

  Da rubbed at his forehead with one hand. “No easy job,” he agreed, “but I’m thinking that’s not it, either. Liam, I can’t make you talk, and you’re far too old to be sent to your room for refusing to do so. The best I can do is tell you that my ears still work, even if my knees are going bad.”

  “And I thank you for that,” Liam said. “But really, it’s nothing more than the usual grief, and nothing I can’t work my way around.”

  Da smiled. “Spoken like a Rafferty.” He pushed back from the table and winced a bit as he stood. Liam hated to see this, for he still thought of his father as he’d been fifteen years ago, not now, with his bad knees and hair a solid silver-gray where it had then been a mix of light and dark.

  “Now, then,” his da said, “it’s back to the pub for me before your mother misses me too much. And you might go chase wee Miss Meghan from the stairway where she’s been listening and tell her that there will be no more avoiding school, eh?”

  Aye, the knees were bad and the ears just fine.

  Liam saw his da off, feeling less put out by the attempted meddling than he thought he would. Perhaps he was mellowing, he thought. Or more likely, Da had hit on the proper degree of subtlety this time about.

  Liam walked the stairs to Meghan’s room, contemplating his best course of action. She was hurting and had to be deeply missing her mother, whom she e-mailed many times daily. And Liam hurt for her. But Meghan was here for five months yet and would have to adjust. Perhaps it was time to reward good behavior not yet arrived. Which, Liam admitted, was a convoluted way to think of a bribe.

  He stopped in front of his daughter’s door and raised his fist to knock. He’d rather face down the legion of claimants and attorneys assembling in America than he would one unhappy girl.

  He rapped on the door. “Meghan?”

  No answer.

  He gave one more try and with a louder call.

  Still nothing.

  Knowing he’d likely get his head bitten off for doing it, he swung open the door. The room was chaos—girl-style. Clothing and disemboweled CD cases lay on the floor like so many victims of adolescent angst. The creator of the mess sat on her unmade bed, headphones plugged into her ears and eyes closed as her head bounced to a tune playing loudly enough that headphones and all, he could hear it across the room.

  “Meghan?” This time he’d nearly bellowed.

  She opened her eyes. “You calling me?” Her voice was equally loud, competing with the music in her head.

  “Take off the headphones,” he said while pantomiming the same.

  His daughter gave him an eye roll, but did so.<
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  “Headache’s improved, I see,” Liam commented.

  The momentary blankness in her expression told him that she’d forgotten her excuse of the day, but she quickly recovered. “All better. I’ve been listening to music ever since Grandda got here with that other man.”

  She was a poor liar, thank God.

  “Right,” he said, but spared her another eavesdropping lecture. “I was thinking just a few minutes ago that for having been to Ireland four times now, you’ve seen precious little, except for the drive from the airport to here.”

  She shrugged. “It all looks the same to me. Green and rainy and people in stupid clothes.”

  She was testing him well, but Liam held fast to his temper. Someone had to be an adult in this room, and it was his poor job.

  “Yes, well, it’s the weekend coming up, and I think we could both use some time away from Duncarraig. What do you say to a trip to Dublin the day after tomorrow? We could stop by that gold exhibit Vi was talking about—”

  “Wow.” Her deadpan delivery was spot-on perfect, and Liam was almost amused.

  “Fine, then, so museums aren’t your first choice. Would it help to know there’s fast food on Grafton Street and even some shopping malls to be found?”

  She jumped from the bed, limbs quivering the way a hunting dog’s might when catching the scent of prey. “Malls?”

  “Malls, though perhaps not as large as what you’re used to,” he affirmed, knowing he’d just consigned himself to shopping hell. “And all you have to do is go to school tomorrow and promise me that you’ll do the same every school day while you’re here.”

  Meghan narrowed her eyes and placed her hands on her hips. “So, can I shop, or are you just going to let me look at stuff?”

  “We’ll settle on a fair budget.”

  “What kind of fast food?”

  “I’m not so sure there’s a Taco Bell,” he said, naming her favorite. “But I’ve seen golden arches and fried chicken for certain.”

  “So money and shopping and American food?”

  “And a museum trip.”

  “Cool, except the museum thing.” With that, she stuck on her headphones once again.

  “The museum is non-negotiable,” he warned, and got a false smile and a “whatever” in response. He’d scarcely cleared her door when it slammed behind him.

  Liam chose to take the encounter as a success, though a small one. He had one wee female lured and a far more complex redhead to go.

  Friday morning, Vi was determined to stop drifting and actually get work done. She’d agreed to give Da a lift to Duncarraig again and earned sharp words from her mother for the effort. It seemed that Mam had grown accustomed to having Da home and didn’t appreciate having her errand-runner freed for the day. As for Vi, the sooner she had Nan’s belongings sorted, the sooner she could retreat to Ballymuir and reassemble her Mam-armor to the point where jabs about selfishness and such no longer hurt.

  Soon after Da was dropped at James Rafferty’s house, Vi nipped into the work. Box after box of trash landed in the tip until the interior of Nan’s house was almost familiar again. Her painted furniture stood out bright and cheery in each room. Vi segregated random items still fine enough for charity but without any memory attached to them into the house’s small second bedroom. The rest—and there was much, for she was no expert at letting go—sat in the front room.

  It was a cool enough day that Vi had started a fire in the fireplace, using as fuel a collection of scrap wood that Da’s friend had left behind. Bags of Nan’s financial records sat near the blaze, waiting to join those Vi had already consigned to the flames. She was, though, hanging onto all check registers and correspondence, for there she might find some proof of Nan’s timely inheritance…or gold-peddling.

  Overheated, Vi moved from the hearth. She stripped off the worn men’s flannel shirt she’d filched from her brother Pat and pulled the damp fabric of the black silk camisole beneath it away from her skin. The camisole had been a gift from one of her lovers, lasting far longer than he had. She’d just reknotted her hair, cooling the nape of her neck, when a knock sounded at the door.

  Roger moved from the fireplace and stood in the entry, tail wagging and bark sounding.

  “Who’s there?” Vi called.

  “It’s Liam.”

  “Inconstant hound,” she said to her dog. “I thought you didn’t like the man.”

  She glanced at her discarded shirt, still draped over a chair back, but decided against shrugging it on.

  Last night, she’d done much thinking. She knew that Liam would seek the gold with or without her. She’d decided that in order to protect her interests, she must at all costs do two things: keep him off-balance and in sight.

  Vi pulled open the door and took pleasure in watching him mask his surprise at her skimpy dress.

  “I thought I’d told you I’d come find you when I was ready,” she said.

  “I, ah…” He looked over her shoulder. “I see you have a fire burning. Might I come in?”

  “Of course,” she said, ushering him over the threshold. She closed the door and smiled at the way he shot straight to the flames, not once glancing her way. Liam off-balance was proving a pitifully easy goal to achieve.

  “Speaking of welcomes,” she said, “I’ve decided to let you walk Nan’s fields, though I’m not sure what good it will do you.”

  “Grand,” he replied, then added in a casual sort of way, “It is warm in here, is it not?”

  Without saying more, he pulled off the creamy-colored turtleneck he’d been wearing, then tossed it to the chair that held her shirt. Before turning back to her, he pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and placed it atop his shirt. When he’d finished, Vi was presented a view she’d not had in years. That, she supposed, was her punishment for being smug. And a fine punishment it was.

  Liam was a man grown, not the lean boy/man who lingered in her memory. He was sun-kissed, muscled, glorious…and he knew it. She hungered to set her mouth against the warm skin at the base of his throat and to let her fingertips trace the unfamiliar scar that now ran along his left bicep. And after that, she’d trail her hand across his chest and then follow the thin line of dark hair arrowing to his navel…which of course would lead her even further down to the wonderfully gripping fit of his denims.

  Liam was equally occupied looking at her, and she knew the changes were marked. She was no longer a girl of seventeen, but had a woman’s breasts and rich curves.

  “I had two thoughts,” he said quite calmly, as though they weren’t busy cataloguing each other’s bodies.

  “Ah, a good day for you, then,” she replied, at least letting her words nip at him.

  He raised a brow as if inquiring about her need to spar. “The first thought was that this house isn’t the original,” he said, prowling closer.

  She didn’t back down, and never would.

  He ran one index finger along the camisole’s black ribbon strap, and she shivered beneath his touch.

  “In fact, I’d wager the original house didn’t even stand here, or someone would have reused at least part of it,” he said, then followed the lace curve of the black fabric to the V between her breasts.

  Fine game, indeed, she thought. It had been madness to underestimate Liam Rafferty. Her nipples were rising even before a direct caress.

  “Really?” she commented, also ignoring the heat between her legs, for it was beginning to make her too aware of how long it had been since her body had accepted a man.

  “I’m almost certain.” He lightly pressed his fingertips against one plump curve.

  “So you’re looking in the field for the original house because you think the treasure might be beneath it?” she asked, knowing the question was shallow at best, as was her breathing.

  He withdrew his fingers and brushed his nails against each of her raised nipples. “Aye, and if I don’t find the remnants of a house beneath ground, a cistern or other hiding place
would surprise me none.”

  Vi’s limbs were growing languorous and her will wobbly, but she was not quite ready to cede victory.

  “Interesting,” she said, then permitted her hand to move as she’d imagined. It was a slow journey, his muscles tightening beneath her touch. His skin was hot—wonderfully so. She watched as his eyes grew darker and the set of his mouth more tense. He wore no belt, and when she reached the closure to his denims, she worked the top snap without ever letting her gaze break from his. Only his quick intake of breath gave evidence of his surprise.

  “Quite interesting,” he agreed, still sounding dry as a professor giving a mathematics lecture.

  “I’ll let you look,” she said, winnowing two fingers beneath the loosened fabric, “but only if you promise to share. What you learn, that is,” she added. Pulling off an innocent smile was dicey, indeed, but she managed.

  “Generous,” he replied, then swallowed hard as she withdrew her fingers only to trace them over the outline of what was a finely burgeoning erection. She had to stop after a moment, though, for she feared she was losing her control before he would lose his.

  “You’ll share, then?” she asked.

  “For a bit of gold, I can be persuaded,” Liam said in a voice that had grown raspy. He came closer yet and moved his hands behind her head, freeing her hair from its knot. To Vi, the sound of her hairclip hitting the tile floor was as loud as if Nan’s iron pot had tumbled to the hearth. She didn’t let herself jump, though.

  “You’re kissed with it among all this fire,” he finished, drawing her hair forward over her shoulders, then weaving his fingers through it where it flowed to her breasts.

  “Gold’s a fine sight,” she agreed. In truth she didn’t care what shades he might find in her hair, so long as he kept touching her.

  “Glorious,” he said, his blue eyes intent with the same passion that was making her tremble. He ran his thumbs across her cheekbones, then cupped the back of her head, tilting his own as though regarding a painting. “The most beautiful ever.”

  He was stealing the moment from her, and she was glad he was a thief.

  “I want to know all your secrets, Vi,” he said low into her ear.