Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) (6 page)

I pushed the button for the flight attendant, asking her for something to drink, then dug through my bag for a bottle of ibuprofen.

“Take some of this, too,” I said as the flight attendant came back with a glass of water. She had brought another cup with ice, as well as a wet washcloth.

“It may help,” the attendant offered. “Press this to your forehead when you’re hot, and you can cool it with the ice in between. I wish I had something else to offer you.”

“Thank you,” Fliss smiled weakly, “I appreciate it.”

The woman smiled back. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need something else,” she urged.

Fliss nodded as the attendant headed back up the aisle, then swallowed down the tablets and pressed the cool washcloth to her forehead. She gave an audible moan as she swept it down her face and then stroked it along her neck.

“Of all the times to get sick,” she murmured in a slightly dazed voice.

“We’ll land soon. Hopefully you can get some rest then.”

“I still have another flight after this,” she said as she glanced up at me. “I’m doing a thesis abroad term in Irish studies to finish up my master’s.”

My stomach lurched, both with a feeling of dread and a sense of excitement. “Irish studies?”

“Yeah,” she said, pressing the cloth up under her hair. “My thesis is about the timing of the discovery of copper in Butte and the potato famine. How those two things led to the high Irish population in that part of Montana.”

“Where are ya off to, then, to do your Irish studies?” I asked somewhat hesitantly.

“Trinity College. Dublin.”

Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph… Dublin. She was going to feckin’ Dublin.

I was utterly gobsmacked.

“Ya don’t say…” I trailed off in disbelief.

The thought that we were both going to Dublin at the same time was simply too much of a coincidence. It sort of had to be fate. Or karma for all those untoward thoughts I’d had of her in the past. It seemed to be my penance for lusting after my friend’s girl, for being a complete fuckhead to Fliss over the years, for not being a good Catholic boy and going to ask forgiveness for my sins. For all the bad shite I’d ever done in my entire feckin’ life.

“Yeah, I just hope this illness is short-lived, or I’m going to be a wreck. I’ve been fighting it off for a week and thought I was doing well, but as soon as we left Butte, it got a gazillion times worse. Like it was waiting for me to stop moving to set in.”

“Well, ya’ve got a long trip to rest up. And I can help get ya through Newark,” I offered.

She looked over at me. “I don’t want to mess things up for you. It’ll be okay.”

“You won’t mess things up,” I said with a wry twist to my lips. “We’re going to the same place.”

“You’re going to Dublin?” she gasped.

“I am,” I nodded. “My grandmother’s not well. Doesn’t look like she has long, and she wanted to see me again.”

Her eyes went soft and sad. “I’m sorry, Denny.”

“It’s life, ya know,” I shrugged, swallowing the lump in my throat. Doing my best to appear less affected than I really was, I dropped my eyes down to my hands in my lap. “People come and go.”

“Are you close?” she asked.

“She’s what I miss most about Dublin,” I replied simply.

Fliss was quiet for a moment. I could feel her eyes on me, studying me. Her hand came to rest over mine. She didn’t say anything. What can someone say when you’re faced with the death of someone you love? But the comfort from her touch meant more to me than I cared to admit.

We sat in silence for a while and her eyes began to grow heavy. The weariness caused by her illness seemed to pull her away, into herself, and she began to relax into a doze. Yet her hand stayed on mine.

In all the time I’d known her, I’d hardly touched her. But her hand on mine felt so right and real, so powerful in its own weird way. It didn’t make sense to me why this one girl affected me like that.

I only knew that nobody else had ever touched me the way she did.

Fliss slept most of the way to Newark. Fitfully. Sometimes shivering, and I pulled out my fleece jacket to tuck around her. After some time being covered, her face would become flushed and she would pull the jacket away with a barely audible moan. I’d take the washcloth and dip it into the melting ice, then would draw it across her forehead to ease the burning fever. I woke her once to take more Tylenol, and she almost immediately faded back into her uncomfortable somnolence.

We had about a two-hour layover in Newark, and I figured she could use as much rest as possible, so I made a mental note to get her some NyQuil or something that would help her sleep once we took off again. Otherwise, she’d have a horribly long, sleepless night and be completely off-kilter when we got to Dublin.

I nudged her shoulder as we came closer to landing. Still wary, but apparently too sick to really care, she followed my direction as we disembarked and made our way to the next gate.

“Are ya hungry at all? I think they’ll feed us on the next flight, but I can also about guarantee that it won’t be very good.”

“Not at all hungry, but I could go for something cold,” she murmured. “A soda or something. My throat is killing me.”

Looking around, I saw a smoothie place. “How about a smoothie? It’ll give ya a bit of nutrition, too. Any flavor you prefer?”

“Um… I don’t know… pomegranate?”

“Huh,” I nodded slowly. “Well, that’s random, but… okay,” I said, guiding her to sit on a bench at our departing gate. I propped her carry-on and mine alongside her. “One pomegranate smoothie coming up.”

I grabbed some nighttime cold medicine from a shop and a burger from McDonalds for myself on the way back to her, and we sat quietly on the bench and gazed out the large windows while we waited for our flight. Fliss finished off her smoothie, shivering as she sipped it through the straw. I grabbed my jacket and tucked it over her shoulders, ignoring the cautious glance she gave me. After a bit, she turned her head to study the view before us with a little more concentration.

“Is that the New York City skyline?”

“It is.”

“I didn’t realize I’d be able to see it.”

“Well, Newark is practically connected to the Big Apple, ya know,” I said with a teasing smile in my voice, and she looked up at me, completely unamused.

“Feck off,” she said, parroting my accent.

“Ah, see,” I grinned. “You’ll fit in very well when we get to Dublin.”

She grumbled a little, but went back to gazing out the window before she dropped her head back and closed her eyes. “How can I be tired? I slept almost the entire flight here.”

“Just rest,” I said. “I’ll make sure you’re on the plane, no matter what a pain in the arse you can be.”

She was quiet for a time, and then murmured softly. “Thank you, Denny.”

We boarded the plane a short time later for our outbound flight, and I helped get Fliss settled, then went to check with the flight attendant to see about getting a seat next to her. Chances were, she would be just fine, but I kind of liked being able to take care of her as long as I didn’t examine the why of it too closely. It helped that we were both veiling our discussion with a hefty amount of dry sarcasm, but there was an underlying emotion to it that I felt was best to ignore. The flight was fortunately far from full. Fliss actually had both seats next to hers open, so we were able to have one in between, like on the flight to Newark.

As the plane left American soil and the sun set quickly behind us, Fliss began to shiver even more. I tucked the jacket around her, asked the flight attendant for some 7-Up with no ice and stirred all the bubbles out. My nanny was pretty sure that could cure cancer. I would have settled for a break in Fliss’ fever, but she continued to shake, a cold sweat gleaming on her cheeks. Her pale skin felt raging hot to the touch, yet she could barely contain the chills that chattered her teeth.

Lifting the armrests between us, I slid a little closer to her and pulled her up against me.

“What are you doing?” she said with a worried frown, half-dopey from the NyQuil.

“You’re freezing,” I explained. “Likely to take the feckin’ plane down the way you’re shaking.”

It took a while, but her stiff posture slowly began to relax against me, tremors still coursing through her, but slowly growing less violent and less frequent. Her drowsy eyes had returned, groggy and disconnected before they closed for a long while. I thought maybe she slept, although it turned out that she’d become pensive. And apparently the NyQuil made her feel a little freer to express her thoughts, and her unfiltered, albeit slightly medicine-induced, question caught me a bit off guard.

“Why are you doing this? You don’t even like me,” her thick, feverish voice murmured in the semi-darkness as I spread a fresh cool cloth over her heated forehead.

I couldn’t answer her. Partly because I didn’t want to face the thought that I had hurt her in the past, even though I know I had. Badly. I had known it then.

Yet I clearly didn’t want to face what she still clearly meant to me after all this time, either. Someone who had never really been a part of my life, yet had so drastically colored my world.

I didn’t respond. I simply pulled her closer as her body began to tremble again with chills, goosebumps rising on her flesh.

“So cold,” she whispered as she curled towards me, unconsciously seeking the warmth of my body.

I couldn’t help it. Every nurturing instinct in me took over, and I held her close while she shook with uncontrollable tremors. Her teeth chattered and she felt so incredibly fragile.

I was not a huge guy by any means, just a hair over six feet, more lean muscle as opposed to the thick brawn of a couple of my friends back in Montana. Still, she felt so small in my arms, so tiny and frail. I wanted to shelter and protect her. Especially now, while she was so vulnerable with illness.

It was like I’d been given a free pass to treat her the way I’d always wanted to before.

February, four years ago

I couldn’t get her out of my mind after that first chance encounter. Summer came and went, the fall semester dragged on into spring, and my desire to be at school lessened even more. If I was honest with myself, the main thing that made me go to class every day was the hope that I’d run into her.

By that point, I knew she was on campus and starting her degree. Her name would come up once in a while in passing or posted on a list somewhere that proudly named honor students. She was a sharp one, in spite of the fact that she was so young. I kept mentally doing the math in my head, trying to figure out at what point she’d be legal, as creepy as that sounds.

This fixation on her didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’d only met her the one time, and we’d only had a few hours. But I couldn’t seem to stop it. She held a familiarity right out of the gate that made me feel like I’d known her all my life.

I kicked myself for not getting her cell number. I wasn’t even sure what her last name was until I’d seen it posted on the honor roll. Felicity stuck out. And Williams, like her grampa in the photograph on the wall of the mining museum.

All I knew was that I wanted to see her again. It didn’t seem to matter how much I drank or what I toked or who I shagged. I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. So I waited it out, hoping I’d run into her again. Wishing that, when I did, she’d be old enough for me to do something about it.