Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) (36 page)

“I didn’t even think about it at the time, but it was right after my appointment, so the shot… well, I guess it wasn’t effective yet.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a long, purple pregnancy test.

“I’m gonna be a da,” I breathed.

Fliss looked over at Frank and Larry. “So don’t take him away from me. I need him.”

“Jaysus, Fliss, is this real?” I whispered it. Truthfully, I don’t think I could have actually spoken aloud around the huge lump in my throat, but I also meant this to be for her ears only. “You’re not slaggin’ me are ya?”

“No,” she smiled slightly, “I’m not
slaggin’ ya.
” Then she suddenly looked completely freaked, her eyes teared up, and her brow furrowed with sudden apprehension. “Oh my God, you don’t want kids. We’ve never talked about it… Oh God.”

She was about to go off her nut. So I stopped her the best way I knew how.

I kissed her.

Deep. Thorough. Putting every ounce of love I felt into touching my lips to hers. Her arms slowly crept up my shoulders until she was clutching me to her, pressing her sexy little body up against me. The world around us disappeared for a moment as she kissed me back.

Her eyes fluttered open as I lifted my head. “Are you okay with this?” she asked.

“More than okay,” I said back, my voice cracking with a hoarse emotion. “Feckin’ hell… a baby… yours and mine. Really?”

She began to nod, and I kissed her again.

Somewhere around us, I faintly heard Larry mention something about DNA testing. A thick growl from Fliss’ dad, followed by the lawyer going on and on and
on
, finally seemed to shut him up.

I couldn’t focus on anything, though, but my wife in my arms and knowing the two of us had inadvertently created something spectacular. Together. Knowing the love which had sprouted all those years ago, sometimes frail but always true, had been tested and denied for too long. It was finally going to bloom.

The ghosts of the past had faded. Our guilt and pain had run its course, always to be a part of us but no longer dictating our life together.

“Frank,” I heard Larry say as I held Fliss tightly in my arms, “take Mr. Byrne’s passport and stamp the son-of-a-bitch. I give up. I’ll approve the damn green card.”

“You know, you’ve met them before,” I said as Fliss fidgeted in her seat.

“I know,” she replied, “but that was sort of under false pretense.”

“False pretenses? You say that like you didn’t plan on staying married to me.”

“Okay, so maybe I met them while I had you under false pretenses, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell you I wanted to stay married.”

“Well, I can pretty much guarantee my nanny, who already thinks you hung the moon, will love you even more because you gave her this little guy.”

Fliss looked over at me and caressed the little dark head that rest on my shoulder. Our son. Just over a year old in his little baby Bangin’ Mofos t-shirt. Brown hair and green eyes, just like me.

Even Larry the fuckhead at immigration had said so when we went in to file paperwork to remove the ‘
conditional’
from my permanent residency. A couple more months, and I would be golden.

Fliss and I had moved out of the Mofo house, something we both kinda felt was necessary since Eoghan was on the way. All the guys agreed… a baby might be a chick magnet, but it could also be one hell of a cock blocker. While they were all about being great ‘
uncles,’
none of them wanted to hear a snapper crying while they were knocking knickers in the other room.

Didn’t seem to slow things down much for Fliss and I, though. Eoghan was a right heavy sleeper.

We found a place that had a big shop out back, just outside of Ophir towards Butte. It made Fliss’ commute just a little easier, and it had a good-sized shop behind it for my welding.

Being legal had its perks. Without having to fly under the radar, my small business really began to take off. I was contracted to do a fair amount of sheet metal work for Brannon, and through a combination of word-of-mouth and a little advertising, I kept very busy.

But I made sure I wasn’t too busy to let my artistic side out. More customers in my welding shop proved to bring more attention to my metal sculpture. Before long, I was being commissioned to do things in the community, and then even a little farther – a fountain in front of the First Bank of Ophir led to a gate for a botanical garden on the way to Helena. The gate led to a memorial for the last wave of miners who went underground before they were all sent to Berkeley Pit.

One of which was Eoghan Williams, Fliss’ grampa.

And, even though things were busy and crazy, I still had my Mofos. We still played at the Copperline on weekends, leaving little Eoghan with Fliss’ dad so she could join me. Like a weekly date night… every Friday and Saturday.

Fliss played the groupie right amazing. She was just wild enough yet to polish me off out behind the bar during a break. Or to tease me and rile me up throughout the night where I could barely sing, wanting only to drag her out to the truck for a savage ride.

The only problem there was I wanted to go all sappy and sing about love and fidelity after a quick and torrid release during a show. But I had a way of doing just that, yet keeping the Bangin’ Mofos bangin.’

Much to the chagrin of Fliss, who was pure mortified the first time I played it, it sort of became known as the
Denny-just-got-some-out-back-during-the-break
song. Because I couldn’t help it. As cheesy and corny and ridiculous as it seemed, it was the first song to come to my mind every single time.

So after finding sheer heaven on the break, led to it by my wife’s hands and mouth and sweet little pussy, I’d put on my best
I’m-man-enough-for-this-shit
face, and the guys and I would totally bang out
Top Of the World
.

And we rocked the feckin’ song.

The first time, Fliss about died. As I began to sing, she looked utterly gobsmacked, then went pure scarlet and laughed all at once as I pointed her out in the crowd. And by the end of the song, she had climbed up on stage to lay one on me.

After which, we very quickly took another break.

So, for the most part, life was going well. I had my very own personal groupie who was also an incredible wife to me and mother to our child. It was fascinating, too, watching Eoghan pass all those little baby milestones.

Watching him was endlessly entertaining. His smile. His laugh. They way he’d studiously pick up crisps with his little thumb and forefinger. He was even calling me ‘
da’
which damn near brought me to tears when I realized he was doing it intentionally, in no small part due to Fliss’ encouragement.

As he got mobile and started crawling and then running around (the little snapper seemed to totally skip that whole walking stage), I started to feel somewhat melancholy about being so far away from Dublin. I constantly shared everything with my family through Skype, texting photos, Facebook… just about every social media I could get my hands on. My nanny even got a Facebook profile of her very own. And her comments and responses to my photos always made my heart ache just a little.

Fliss did what she could to keep the Irish in our home. She made bacon and cabbage, coddle, and seafood chowder (although she was never happy with the chowder because seafood in Montana was not anywhere close to seafood in Ireland). She played Irish folk music, which Eoghan seemed to really get into, almost as much as when the Mofos played.

Almost. My kid was a rocker at heart like his da.

But, eventually, around the time of our second anniversary, Fliss suggested that we go back to Dublin.

For a second, I was elated.

And then I was terrified. That old fear still harbored inside me that, if I went back to Ireland, I wouldn’t be able to come home to Montana.

“Denny,” Fliss laughed at the look of panic on my face. “You’re legal now. In a few more years, you can even go through naturalization. They’re not going to make you stay.”

So, I mentioned to my da on Skype that we were thinking of flying over for a visit.

“Probably better to do it sooner than later. Your nanny has been making a few comments about not feeling well.”

“Oh jeez,” I murmured.

“Personally, though,” he added, “I think the old wan is just setting the stage for another near-death situation to get you back here.”

And after talking to my nanny, I kind of agreed.

“Hey, nanny,” I said over the phone, “da says you’ve not been feeling too great.”

“Ooh, gossún,” she sadly replied, “I’m just getting up there. The cold is starting to settle into me bones.”

She sounded right ragged. Not entirely believable, but she was definitely putting on a good show. “Well, Fliss and I were thinking of bringing Eoghan over to ya for a visit.”

“Well, ya better hurry,” she replied without missing a beat. “Who knows how much longer I’ve got left in me.”

So, here we were, halfway over the Atlantic.

Eoghan was crashed on my lap, Fliss was curled up to my side with her head on my shoulder.

“So, what all are ya wanting to go do while we’re in Dublin?” I asked quietly.

I felt her smile, then she lifted her head to reveal a fierce naughty glint in her eye. I looked at her suspiciously.

“You’re makin’ me nervous looking at me like that,” I mused.

“There is one thing I really want to do in Ireland.”

“Only one?” I grinned.

“Okay, a few things,” she replied. “Most are innocent. One… not so much.”

She watched as her fingertips traced along the tats on my arm, then looked up at me through her lashes. The way she gazed up at me, the way she touched me, was making my mouth go dry. Making my body temperature rise. Making my jeans feel a bit too tight.

“So, what’s that one thing?”

“One thing… with one man.” Her fingertips moved from my arm to my stomach, scraping down the soft cotton of my t-shirt.

“Well, it bloody hell better be me,” I growled quietly, suddenly wishing I wasn’t holding our son. Her hand reached the rough denim of my jeans, and everything in me wanted to bend her over and shag her like there was no tomorrow. To slap her fine arse while she exploded around my cock.

Cupping my junk with a gentle squeeze, she whispered up to me. “I want you to take me dogging.”

“Feckin’ hell…” I trailed off with a breathless gasp.

“Windows up,” she continued. “Nobody touches me but you.”

“Ya better believe it,” I replied into her hair.

She turned her face up towards mine, her eyes liquid with desire, her lips soft and tempting. “I want you to fuck me into next week, right there for all those other tossers to see.”

My mouth was beginning to water, and my cock throbbed.

“Jaysus, Fliss,” I groaned, my lips a breath away from hers. “You’ve about got me ripping right out of my jeans.”

She faintly touched her mouth to mine, a breathless little feathery sensation that tingled throughout my body until I was ragin’ hard.

Right about then, Eoghan shifted and lifted his sleepy little head. Fliss shifted back into mother mode, getting him settled, while I tried to talk my dick down. Not an easy task, mind you. That flight seemed bleedin’ eternal.

But Fliss made it all worthwhile in the end.

We landed in Dublin where my family met us at the airport. My ma, da, nanny, and sister barely spared us a glance as they fussed over Eoghan. We arrived at my folks’ place, and they took turns carrying him around, feeding him, taking him for walks down the footpath where they could show him off to the neighbors. They barely noticed when I asked me da if I could use his car to take Fliss out for a bit. He just kind of waved me off and continued to speak gibberish to my son.

While Fliss had been busy with Eoghan during the flight, I had combed the internet (thank God for wifi on the plane, although it did nothing to help ease the rock on I had going) until I managed to connect with some fellas on the Dublin dogging scene. When I got a text later that evening, I couldn’t get her out the door fast enough.