Hot Whispers of an Irishman (17 page)

“That summer we had,” he said, “I used to dream of this…of being in a real bed with you, of holding you close and watching you sleep.”

“You did?”

He smiled at the surprise in her voice. “Hard to believe, considering the way I couldn’t keep my hands off you, but yes.”

“Let’s stay this way for a while, then.”

He nodded. “Let’s.”

The room was hushed, and the night was still. Vi sighed once, deeply, and he held her closer. In time he felt the tension leave her and true restfulness set in.

“Should always be this way,” she murmured, words soft and slurred as sleep took hold.

An uncharacteristic tightness seized Liam’s throat. “It should,” he managed to say, then kissed the top of her head.

Long after Vi slept, Liam lingered, trying to understand why this one woman, tart and wise, stubborn and so shielding of her own pain, should again matter so much to him. In the end, he smiled at his folly, for a philosopher he wasn’t, and answering the “why?” of Vi Kilbride would take experts, indeed.

Liam would just savor this moment, for he knew that life would never be this easy again.

Time brings the sweetest memories.

—I
RISH
P
ROVERB

V
i woke with a canine standing foursquare on her chest and stomach, and no man beside her.

“Doggie breath spray for you,” she advised Rog while picking him up and depositing him to her left. “And a shower for me.”

She rolled from bed and stretched, feeling very rested considering she’d had company at least part of the night. She’d never been much for sleeping with a man in her bed, as she was far too active a dreamer. Even wee Rog had learned from hard tumbles to the floor that low beneath her feet was the sole nighttime safe haven. Her final memories of last night, though, were of Liam’s arms about her and his heartbeat marching with hers, both of which had brought a sense of comfort she had long lacked.

With Roger at her side, Vi ventured out of the larger of the carriage house’s two miniscule second-floor bedrooms and toward the bath. Last night, she’d hardly noticed the details of her new surroundings. Both the night and her mood had been dark. In the light of day, though, she saw a place much like Liam’s house. It had lofty ceilings with skylights, soft white stuccoed walls, and thick buff-colored carpet underfoot. Also like his house, it cried out for a splash of color. Pausing at the landing, Vi envisioned a Mediterranean blue on the sitting room wall, and three large abstracts, simply framed.

“Aye,” she murmured, wishing for canvas and paints.

Beside her, Roger whined, reminding her that there were more immediate needs to be addressed.

“Walkies, eh?” she said to her hound, then swung open the door to let him out. He immediately trotted to the far side of the courtyard, where a well-tended patch of green awaited his attention. Vi smiled, noting that Liam’s car was still parked next to hers. She was beyond ready to see him again.

Once Rog was back inside, Vi showered, brushed her teeth, and dressed for the day. A quick trip to her car yielded more of her possessions, including the bagsful of yellowed notes and frayed journals she’d culled from Nan’s collection the prior week. She dumped the lot in the carriage house’s small sitting room, promising herself that she’d sort it all tonight. She hadn’t even brought the bags into Mam’s house, knowing that if she did, Mam would have pitched a fit over the additional mess.

Fairly starving for both food and Liam’s company, Vi herded Rog to Liam’s back door. She rapped twice, which she considered fair warning. Then she swung the door open and yelped in startled alarm, for two women were just the other side of it.

“Ah, we were just on our way out to find you,” said Nora, giving Vi a friendly smile. “Liam popped over to see Cullen at the dry cleaner’s. He should be back straightaway. Did you sleep well?”

“Are you hungry?” Catherine asked almost simultaneously. “I’m at that point where I could eat all day long, except my boyos, here,” she said, patting her large tummy, “seem to have shifted my stomach to my throat. No matter, though. You can eat for me. Toast and marmalade, at least?”

Vi couldn’t figure out how to float a word in the river of chat streaming at her. Even Pat and Danny, twins and thus not subject to the normal rules of human communication, didn’t talk over each other quite this much.

“Toast is good,” she managed to get in before Nora took control.

“Then come inside,” she said, ushering Vi into Liam’s house. “You’re most welcome. And your dog, too,” she added with a nod to Roger.

“Marmalade or strawberry preserves? Liam seems to have both,” Catherine offered over her shoulder, already poking about in the refrigerator.

“Strawberry, please,” Vi said absently. “So Liam will be back soon?”

Nora began pouring out tea for Vi. “We’re thinking he will. We saw him with Cullen, but it’s not as though we actually talked to him. He’s of a foul mood most mornings, you know? You still take it with sugar and no milk?”

“I do.” She tried to start some toast for herself, but Catherine shooed her away, saying she’d do it. Vi retreated to the kitchen table and watched the show.

“Do you still sing?” Nora asked.

“Whenever and wherever,” she said, just then realizing that Saturday night had actually been the first time she’d sung in public since Jenna and Dev’s wedding, all those months ago.

“Grand, then,” Nora said. “Da and Jamie have a
sessiun
down to the pub each Monday night. Tonight, you can come with me and share a song. What do you say?”

Vi’s answer was immediate. “I’d love to.” She’d had little chance for female companionship as of late.

Nora put a mug of tea in front of Vi, then sat opposite her, a speculative expression lighting those eyes so much like her brother’s.

“So,” she said, “all these years gone and within days you and Liam are back to where you last left off.”

Vi tipped a fat spoonful of sugar into her tea and began to stir. “I wouldn’t say that.” At least not aloud.

“But you’re living in his house,” Catherine pointed out.

“More nearby since she came in from the carriage house,” Nora corrected. “Still, the point’s the same. He had you to dinner, and he’s not done that before.”

“Except with Beth,” Catherine said.

“True,” agreed Nora, “but they were married and he could hardly have left her on the curb.”

“What’s she like?” Vi asked, then wished back the question. Beth should be none of her concern.

“Nervous and kind of sharp-like,” Catherine said. “But Mam adores her.”

Nora nodded. “I think she’d trade the whole lot of us for Beth.”

“Well,” Vi said, “you’re safe enough from trade when I’m about.”

“And will you be…about, that is?” Nora asked.

Vi sipped her tea. “A few more days, at least.”

“So you have no plans with Liam?”

“Plans? Such as what?”

“Finally marrying him?” Nora suggested.

Vi nearly choked on her tea. “Marriage? We’ve been fifteen years apart and six days back in each other’s company.”

“Six days is time enough. I knew I’d marry Tadgh the day I met him,” Catherine said, setting toast and preserves in front of Vi.

Nora laughed. “And it didn’t hurt that you turned up pregnant ten weeks later.”

“Now don’t be sharing with Vi just how easy I was for the man.”

Vi nibbled at her toast thinking this was how family should be—adversities conquered seen as positives, not creating anger simmered to a bitter brew.

“So has Liam improved with age?” Nora asked, a bold smile lighting her face.

It was Vi’s turn to laugh. “Improved? Are you suggesting that I might have means of comparison?”

“Ah, well, there was the night years ago I went to borrow Liam’s car. Coming closer, I noted that it was otherwise occupied. It didn’t look very comfortable, the two of you being so tall.”

“You
watched?
”

“Only for moment, and then only out of an interest in space-planning.”

“Grand,” Vi said, then finished off a triangle of toast.

“And as for now,” Nora said, “I saw the two of you at dinner the other night.”

Catherine nodded in agreement. “I was surprised Mam didn’t try to cover Annie’s virgin eyes, the way Liam was looking at you. And if he hadn’t had you by now, he’d be up in flames.”

And Vi, who scarcely ever blushed, wondered if her face wasn’t much the same.

Liam came through his front door, distracted with thoughts of telephones and time zones—three hours later than Duncarraig where Beth was and five hours earlier at his attorney’s Boston office. He pulled up short at the sound of a female voice coming from his kitchen.

“Aren’t you overstating things?”

Liam smiled. That, he knew was Vi.

“Not at all. Vi, did you ever think about why there are so many Raffertys?”

He gave a resigned sigh, for those had been Catherine’s dry tones. Extraneous Raffertys were in residence.

“Catherine’s belly being case in point,” Nora said. “We’re all flat-out wild for sex.”

Vi’s laughter rang out, and Liam lost all thoughts of clocks.

“You’re telling me it’s genetic, then?” she asked.

“Our fatal flaw…or best aspect, depending on how one views it,” Catherine said.

“So don’t be trying to tell us that you two haven’t found a private corner,” Nora added, laughter in her voice.

Liam pushed through the kitchen door and came to stand behind Vi. “A private corner? Impossible. I can’t seem to get one even in my own house.”

“Or car,” Vi said.

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later.” She smiled up at him so gloriously that he had to drop a kiss on her cheek, despite his prying sisters.

“I’m understanding it now,” Liam said to Nora after she reached over and took a piece of toast from a plate sitting in front of Vi. “You raid my food so that I’m forced to go buy more at your store, is that it?”

She snorted. “Right. I’ll conquer the town one empty kitchen at a time. We came to see Vi, you fool. Mam told us she’d seen her car out back.”

Liam preferred not to consider why his mother might have been lurking behind his house. “Right, then. Now you’ve seen Vi and shared the family’s dark and awful secret…such as it is,” he said with a shake of his head. “How about being on your way and giving us that private moment?”

Catherine held a hand to her heart. “You’d not put a pregnant woman on the street, would you?”

“Not most,” he replied, “but you for certain.”

Nora filched another piece of toast for the road, leaving Vi with an empty plate and a hungry look about her.

“You don’t have a bit of Rafferty hospitality about you,” Nora said to him. “Come, Catherine, we’ll stop to see Jamie at the pub. He’s always been the nicest brother.”

Liam waited until his sister had cleared the door to draw Vi to her feet and kiss her properly. Her lips were sweet with a hint of strawberry, and her feel was wonderfully solid in his arms.

“Better this morning?” he asked.

She nodded her head. “Much, though both Rog and I could use a full meal.”

“I’ve some eggs if my sisters didn’t steal them.”

She smiled at him. “That would be perfect. And I’ve got Rog’s kibble yet out in my car.”

“You feed the beast and I’ll get your eggs cooking. Is fried all right? You should be warned that I can’t poach or do anything else too grand.”

“You have your hereditary compensating talents,” she said, then kissed him quickly before dancing out of his grip when he would have held her longer. “Fried is fine, and I’ll be right back.”

Liam pulled a pan from the cabinet next to the stove, then butter and two eggs from the fridge. He had the pan on and the butter was beginning to melt when the telephone rang.

“Don’t burn,” he ordered the butter, then strode to the front room and the phone. He grabbed the handset and headed back to his butter.

“Hello?” he said as he entered the kitchen.

“Liam? It’s Beth.”

If nothing else, this saved him the call he’d planned to make later. Along with daily e-mail, he’d also been trying to check in with Beth by phone at least once a week.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “I’d just been planning to ring you up.”

Silence reigned, and it wasn’t the comfortable sort, either.

“Meghan e-mailed me,” Beth finally said. “And I don’t know how to approach this, except just to say it…. Do you have some woman living with the two of you?”

Quick at the keyboard, his daughter was. She must have gotten off a message just after breakfast, when she’d quizzed him about Vi’s car and the voices she’d heard the prior evening, no doubt at approximately the same time she’d feigned sleep for his benefit. Liam turned down the heat beneath the pan and rocked it to spread the melted butter.

“A friend staying in the carriage house is all.”

“A female friend, though?”

He answered with as much patience as he could find. “Yes, Beth, a female friend.”

“Meghan’s at a sensitive age, Liam,” Beth was saying as he propped the phone between shoulder and ear and began to crack two eggs. “You can’t have a stream of women—”

“It’s one woman, for god’s sake. One old friend. No orgies in the living room or…or…” Flaming dog’s bollix but he led a dull life. He couldn’t even think of an image lurid enough to set off his ex-wife. “One woman, Beth. Have you not dated since our divorce?”

“Only when Meghan is at a friend’s for the night, and I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same,” she said primly.

Just then, Vi came in the back door. When she spotted him on the phone, she pointed outdoors and pantomimed the question, should she leave? Liam shook his head an emphatic no.

“So what you’re saying is having her parents sneak about is healthier for Meghan than having her see respect and admiration between a man and woman?” he asked Beth.

“I’m saying she’s upset. She wouldn’t have told me about this if she weren’t.”

Liam dug through the utensil drawer for a spatula. “Of course she’s upset. Her whole life has gone arse over elbows in the past month, and it has nothing to do with my guest. She’s just an easier target for blame than we are.”