Chasing River (Burying Water #3) (20 page)

He chuckles, watching me closely.

“I just need ten minutes, if you don’t mind.” My bare feet are slipping one behind the other, in an attempt to escape up the stairs.

He grabs my hand, stopping me. “How about I give you an hour. I’m going to fit in a quick run, but I have a bit of time after that, if you wanted to go out.”

My hangover is suddenly forgotten. “What’d you have in mind?”

He shrugs. “I figured I’d teach you how to drive on the right side of the road, maybe?” We share a chuckle. “Then maybe see an artist about some ink.” A pause. “Unless you’d rather get that sleep.”

“Yeah. No . . . I mean . . .” I stumble over my words with excitement. “That all sounds great.”
Any time with you is good.
“When do you have to be at work?”

He glances at his watch. “In three hours. So I’ll pick you up in an hour? Is that enough time?”

I nod, holding my breath as he leans in to kiss me on the cheek.

I watch his easy movements as he runs down my path. Much like he did last night. Only the dread I felt before is gone, replaced with anticipation.

I tear up my stairs toward the shower, peeling my clothes off as I go, the throb in my head forgotten.

My chest heaves with relief as I park.

“That wasn’t so bad, right?” River sits in the passenger seat of his car, his legs splayed, his elbow resting on the armrest. The picture of calm. As if I didn’t go the wrong way down a roundabout and almost crash his car and put us in the hospital.

“I’m actually a good driver,” I promise, peeling my white-knuckled fingers off the steering wheel to open my driver’s-side door and climb out. His car is just like my car at home, only backwards. And everything about driving these streets feels wrong. Except having River here, beside me.

“I believe you. It’s not your fault.” He meets me at the front of the car and entwines his fingers within mine, a sly smirk turning his lip. “You’re just used to driving on the wrong side of the road.”

I smile, his harmless teasing so much more appealing because of the way he says it. I’ve had to ask some of the locals I’ve met to repeat themselves, their accents are so thick. “What part of Ireland are you from?”

“Northern. We grew up in County Louth, just south of the border.” He leads me past the heavy yellow door of The Fine Needle. “Why?”

“Because I can actually understand you. It’s nice.”

His laughter fills the quiet cave-like shop that I’ve now been in twice in twenty-four hours. Somehow it feels different this time.

Ivy is standing at the computer, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, highlighting the shaved sides of her head. Her gaze bores into the forehead of a heavyset woman with a dozen rings through her left ear—much like Ivy’s piercings—who is busy scribbling her signature across the bottom of a sheet of paper. “First room on the left. I’ll be there in five minutes,” she instructs the woman with a light tone that I assume is reserved for clients. She even flashes a polite close-mouthed smile her way as she points in the direction. Urging the woman to move.

As soon as the customer is out of sight, Ivy tosses the clipboard with the signed waiver to the side, that professional smile replaced with a scowl.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

She rounds the desk, her knee-high boots exchanged for low ones and black leggings. The giant plum-colored shirt that reaches mid-thigh looks more like a potato sack than an article of clothing. “Like I want to stab myself in the eye with my needle,” she says, deadpan. “Seriously, I probably should cancel my appointments for the day and just throw myself into a well.”

“So you would recommend that I wait to get this done?” River grins, pulling a tucked sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolding it for her. It’s the same stag that’s on the Delaney T-shirts.

“If you want me to do it, then yeah. That woman back there?” She drops her voice and thumbs back toward where her customer left. “She’s so screwed. My cousin, Ian, could maybe do it for you today, though. If you don’t want to wait.”

“You said he’s not as good as you, though.”

“Not even close.”

“I’ll wait for you, then. If you think you can do a good job of this.”

“Oh, I can do a
great
job of that.”

River smiles, reaching out to pinch my elbow. “What about you? You want Ivy to mark that perfect skin of yours?”

“Are you kidding?” Now Ivy’s brows spike. “I’m not putting a tattoo on Miss Sheriff’s Daughter. She’ll have something to hang over my head until the day I die. I’ll never be able to go back to Oregon. Not that I’m missing much.”

I glare at her.

“I take it you two didn’t just meet yesterday.”

“You actually believed that?” Ivy snorts. “Alright, I’ve got to get back there now, before I kill myself.” She drags her feet as she turns to leave.

“So I guess you wouldn’t be interested in going out with us tonight, then?” River asks.

And my heart rate skips a few beats. This is new.

Ivy stops and turns, that owl-like gaze of hers shuttering between the two of us. “The three of us?”

“Four. My brother, Rowen, will come out, too. You remember him from last night?”

“The grinning Irishman. Yeah.”

I don’t even have to ask to know that Rowen isn’t her type, despite his being charming and hot. Her type is broody and dark. Basically, my brother.

“So you’ll come? We’d love for you to come.” He ropes an arm around my waist, pulling me to him. “Right, Amber?”

“Yeah, definitely. Just maybe no shots.” I’d like to be in control of myself this time around.

Ivy’s gaze hovers over River’s arm. I’d pay to know what’s going on inside that head of hers right now. “Sure. I’m in. If I’m not dead by then. Amber has my number.”

The second she disappears, he pulls me into him, our chests pressed against each other. It’s the first overt move on his part since he picked me up today. “You okay with spending tonight with me, Miss Sheriff’s Daughter?”

I groan but then laugh. “Don’t you start that now, too.”

“That’s the second time she’s called you that. I’m guessing your father’s a sheriff?”

I nod.

“And I take it Ivy doesn’t like paying taxes?”

Taxes?
I frown. “Uh . . . I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me, though.” She seems like she could walk a fine line between right and wrong.

His one eye narrows in question. “Wait . . . What exactly does a sheriff do in America?”

“Arrests people? Keeps the peace?” Wreaks havoc on a teenage girl’s love life? “My dad was the county sheriff. He ran the entire police department. But he’s retired now.”

“Oh.” A strange look passes over his face that I can’t read. “That’s definitely different from sheriffs in Ireland. They just collect taxes from delinquents.”

“Like the Sheriff of Nottingham?”

He chuckles softly. “Kind of.” A pause. “So, what’s your father like?”

My gaze scans the black ceiling above as I ponder that question. How do I describe Gabe Welles? “Serious, more than he’s not. Difficult to please. A believer in the rule of law. Thrives on having control of the situation. Overprotective of his daughter.” It took him a while to warm up to Neil as my boyfriend, even though he knew him as Neil, the kid who ate sand at the playground, for fifteen-odd years before that. Neil was about as innocuous as a teenage boy can get, and the sheriff still felt it was necessary to be cleaning his rifle on the front porch when the guy arrived to pick me up for our first date.

He was never a big fan of Brody, though he admitted the guy was decent as far as men go. And, even though my mom knew and could vouch for Aaron, I’m pretty sure my dad ran a background check on him before grunting his approval.

I don’t even have to wonder what he’d think of River. He wouldn’t like him at all, for the simple fact that he lives in Ireland.

“And what kind of daughter were you?” River plays with one of my gold hoop earrings. “The kind who listened to her serious, controlling, difficult-to-please father? Or the one who didn’t?”

“What do you think?”

His eyes glance over my mouth. “I’m thinking you made him very proud.”

Am I that obvious?
By his suddenly serious expression, I’m beginning to think this is unpleasant news for River. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” He chuckles. “Not at all. Believe me.”

I smile. “I didn’t really have a choice. I had to balance out my troublemaker brother.”

“I know something about that.” He sighs. “I should head to the pub now. Do you want me to drop you off at home?”

I’m guessing he’s not talking about Rowen. It must be this mysterious older brother of his, who he mentioned the other day. The one whose very name made tension cord in his jaw and his back. “No. I can walk. It’s sunny out now. Bizarre Irish weather.”

“It’s bipolar,” he jokes. “Okay. I’ll pick you up at your house around eight?”

“Sounds good.” That’s five hours from now. Enough time to hit up the overpriced stores on Grafton Street because, suddenly, I don’t have anything in my suitcase suitable for a night out with River.

He simply smiles at me. Not moving closer. Not pulling away.

Waiting for me to make the first move, I think.

I do, leaning in to steal a kiss and elicit a soft groan from him. His grip around me tightens, his fist clenching the back of my shirt as he pulls me into his body, his erection pressing against my stomach.

Really? He wants me that much? Knowing that excites me.

And then he breaks free suddenly. “See ya.”

I grin, parroting him. “See ya.”

“We’re going out tonight.”

Rowen peers up from the liquor inventory. “Can’t. I need to catch up from the work I missed last Wednesday, when I covered for you.”

“On our night off?” It’s customary that we arrange for Nuala and another bartender to cover the bar for us on Sunday nights so we can take off at seven and have a few hours to relax. “No. You’re coming out.”

He groans. “With who?”

“Amber and her friend, Ivy.”

That sparks his interest. “That hot, mean little one with all the ink?”

“That’s the one. She asked about you.” There was nothing about Ivy’s face today that said she’s interested in Rowen, but I still owe him for that gag with the work shirt yesterday.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Eight o’clock at Nosey Flynn’s.” I know he’s in.

I’ll never forget my first love. I was sixteen. Her name was Katie Byrne and she was a year younger than me. I’d known her and her family for years—they were members of the same small parish on the outskirts of Dundalk, and they lived about two minutes’ drive away, in a small cottage with tomato-red framing and a thatched roof—but I only
really
noticed her that September, after she and her family returned from a summer in Edinburgh. Her body was suddenly full of curves, her face missing the baby fat, and her innocent hazel doe eyes were soulful enough to entrap most any boy.

I wasn’t the only one to notice the changes. But she stayed unavailable to everyone, thanks to her father’s strict rules about dating.

Her father was my rugby coach.

That November, I was riding my bike home after school one afternoon when I found Katie standing beneath a tall tree, her arms stretched high in the air, crying over the kitten that dangled from a limb, mewling. I climbed the tree—not an easy feat—and rescued her pet, earning myself plenty of scratches and nearly falling on the way down. But I also earned Katie’s adoration, those doe eyes glued to me during mass the following Sunday.

I loved the way she looked at me, as if I could do no wrong. I would have rescued that mangy cat a hundred times over again if it meant she’d always look at me that way.

Her father’s rules hadn’t changed but something had for Katie, because she started seeking me out between classes and during lunch hour. We’d see each other in the library. I started walking her home from school. She’d hold my hand until we got closer to her house, in case either of her parents were home. It was months before she let me kiss her. The horny teenager that I was, I wanted more, but I held back, not wanting to risk chasing her away.