Loe raamatut: «Her Best Laid Plans»

Chapter One

Jamie slid onto a stool and dug her wallet from her messenger bag. As the bartender approached, she mustered a smile. “Guinness, please.”

Without a word, he started her pour. He was handsome enough...for a guy her dad’s age. She stole a sidelong glance down the bar at her fellow patrons—all gray-haired old men nursing identical pints, eyes fixed on the TV mounted above the bottles.

This was so not the vacation she’d envisioned.

But it’s only the first night. And Jamie had arrived at an Irish pub just like the ones she’d been daydreaming about. Arrived by plane, bus, taxi and bicycle, though for such an epic journey...yeah, this was all wrong.

For one thing, Kate wasn’t here. At the last moment, Jamie’s best friend had snagged a summer internship, turning a girls’ trip into a solo excursion. That in itself wasn’t the end of the world. Jamie needed an adventure, badly, and she could go it alone. But since she’d landed, nothing about Ireland had matched her expectations.

She was staying at her mom’s best friend’s house, which, as it turned out, was the only structure for miles in any direction, aside from the lonely Crossroads Pub. The farmhouse was old, and too quiet, and a touch creepy. Still, free lodging was free lodging, and since Donna was away for all of June, Jamie had the use of her car. There was a pulse in County Cork—she’d just need four wheels to find it! Find the bustling stone streets of a romantic old walled city, and all the hot Irish guys who traversed them.

Only the second she’d opened the driver’s side door, she’d found tragedy in two words.

Stick shift.

Driving on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of an unfamiliar car, in a foreign land crisscrossed with narrow country roads...yeah, Jamie would’ve been down for that. She’d learned to drive just outside Boston, after all. But a stick? She was only half-confident she knew which pedal the clutch was in an American car.

In the end, she’d ridden a bicycle to the pub. Ten minutes’ bumpy journey down a rutted lane that left her favorite jeans and Chuck Taylors splattered with mud, but hey—sometimes a girl really needed a beer. Her smile turned genuine as the barman set a glass before her.

“Thanks.”

You’re here. You’re in Ireland, in a pub, with a Guinness in front of you and soccer on the telly. Authentic, if nothing else. You’re doing what you wanted this summer—winging it. No plans until the fall.

And no Noel.

No Noel, not since he’d dumped her three months ago. He’d had a plan—a ten-year plan—and Jamie had known her place in it. She’d trusted his road map enough to hit pause her own grand designs, to put her architecture education on hold in her sophomore year to follow him to Los Angeles and work her butt off to pay their bills while he attended med school. The plan was that once he’d graduated and the income was flowing, it’d be her turn to finish college.

Except two and a half years in, Noel had decided to write Jamie out of his master plan, leaving her boyfriendless, degreeless, and pretty damn near savingsless.

Plans. Noel’s plans, and the ones she’d put on ice for him. Her dad’s plans when she’d been little, the ones that had made him a stranger to her from ages three to thirteen. Everybody seemed to have some awesome plan. But Jamie never quite managed to fit into them.

She sipped her stout.

Screw plans. She was free, and happily adrift until she returned to college in September. A new job awaited her when she got back home, but she had nothing on her agenda for this trip. Maybe she’d let Google be her driving instructor out on these quiet country lanes. Why not? No witnesses. She could lurch and stall and curse all she wanted! She’d teach herself to drive well enough to reach a city, with real bars and restaurants and activities and guys. Irish guys. No med students. And no plans.

Of course, this in itself was a plan.

Shit.

Oh, well. She’d figure it out tomorrow. For tonight she had her phone to keep her occupied, and she could feign interest in the soccer. And there was a pool table—or whatever pool was called here. She was good at pool. She’d spent entire summers at her dad’s place outside Atlantic City playing at the bar and grill in the bottom floor of his apartment building, blowing time while he was working.

Still, she hadn’t traveled across an entire ocean to feel as if she was back on the Jersey Shore.

Jamie pulled out her phone, needing proof she hadn’t wandered into some cruel joke. She typed a message to Kate, her first since she’d landed in Shannon.

I think I’m at a bar.

The answer came almost immediately: You think?!

Unconfirmed. Could be a retirement home.

!!!LOL. So much for our visions of raunchy Irish flings!

I seriously won’t be shocked if somebody announces it’s bingo night. So what are y—

Her fingers froze midtext. A man had materialized behind the bar. A different man. A man born in the last three decades.

And sweet Jesus, what a man.

She deleted the message and tapped out a new one.

Hang on. An oasis just appeared. Must ascertain whether it’s a mirage or not...

???

She ignored Kate’s text but kept her phone in hand, holding it casually before her, the perfect excuse to keep her eyes aimed in the mystery guy’s general direction. The earlier barman gave him a clap on the shoulder, and she detected a resemblance—father and son? The older man bade his replacement and the regulars a good night.

Jamie watched as the new guy poured someone’s pint a few feet to her left. Holy shit. Were forearms an accepted fetish object? Because his were perfect. Muscular but lean, like the rest of him, she’d bet. He was tall, maybe six-one? A good six inches taller than she, at any rate. And long—the solidly slender sort of build she associated with swimmers, and graceful hands to match. His hair was light brown and overdue for a trim, glowing blond at the edges from the overhead light. He was in need of a shave as well—not a complaint—which, coupled with his rumpled short-sleeved button-up, open at the collar, lent him an air of supreme relaxation. As though he’d rolled out of a bed one floor above, dropped straight through the ceiling and landed behind this bar.

A customer made a joke Jamie didn’t catch, and the new bartender laughed, his smile seeming to crack his handsome face wide open and drop Jamie’s IQ fifty points.

Drink fast, a voice in her head commanded. Sooner you finish this one, the sooner you’ll have an excuse to talk to him.

She downed the pint in four gulps.

The new barman spotted her empty glass as she slid it forward, approaching with lazy, effortless steps that matched every single one of her preconceived notions about him. His gaze seemed to catch on hers, telling her he was equally surprised to have stumbled across a peer in this geriatric pub.

“Hello, stranger. How’s the form?” Oh, that voice. That accent, gentle and wicked at once. He might as well have asked her if she’d like to wake up tangled in his sheets tomorrow morning, to judge by the way her body flushed. “Another Guinness?”

“Yes, please.”

He caught her own accent in those two syllables, smiling differently now—curious. “States?” he asked as he set a glass below the tap. “Or Canada?”

“States.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Boston. I just moved back after a few years in California.” And thank goodness. Noel and his broken promises had wrecked palm trees for her permanently.

“Boston. I hear your lot stole a fair few of my ancestors,” her barman teased, crossing his arms as her stout settled. No ring. Prove there’s a God and tell me you’re single.

Jamie pursed her lips, holding in a scheme for just long enough to decide it was genius. “Would you mind if I took your picture, while you’re pouring that?”

One of his shapely eyebrows arched.

“My friend was supposed to be on this trip with me,” she explained, “but she ditched me at the last minute. I’m dying to show off that I’m drinking a Guinness in Ireland while she’s stuck in an office back home.”

He smiled at that and nodded to her phone, waiting as she opened the camera app. “Far be it from me to deny a lady her revenge. Just say when.”

Jamie scooted back to frame the shot, making sure those forearms were front and center, and that gorgeous face.

She snapped a series as he finished her pour, and on the very last shot, his eyes rose to meet hers through the screen. Her heart stopped, every cell frozen for an eternal breath, until he looked away.

She prayed the phone’s glow was camouflaging her blush as she flipped through the photos. Every one did his good looks justice, but that final shot...shiver. And some silly part of her couldn’t help but think, That glance was meant for me. A message from one man to one woman, the most intimate look two complete strangers could exchange. She picked one of the photos with his eyes averted and typed a message to Kate.

Holy HOLY. Seriously.

He delivered her glass and a coaster, then turned to fill someone else’s order. Kate’s reply buzzed in Jamie’s hand.

OH MY OHHH.

No Photoshop involved I swear. Totally real. I can smell him.

What’s he smell like???

Limes. And linen. And Irishness.

Kate’s text came after a pause: I hate you. All I can smell is my cube mate’s nasty body spray.

Jamie smiled.

That’s what you get for putting professional development over our friendship. I’ll let you know what happens. For now, I have some hardcore flirting to do.

She set her phone aside.

She glanced over, seeking that handsome face, and was embarrassed to find his eyes already on her. Busted. She lifted her glass in a little toast and took a sip. It tasted so right. So much better than her first round somehow.

She shed her zip-up and shoved it in her bag. She was wearing her favorite top, a slouchy green scoop-neck tee that looked good with her with her dark hair and eyes and performed true miracles with her modest cleavage. No sense stifling its powers. Plus she suddenly felt rather warm.

Jamie’s barman sidled up after delivering a whiskey to her neighbor. “She jealous, your friend?”

“Very.”

For a long moment he held her eyes, one corner of his lips curled with unmistakable mischief. She expected some offhand remark, but when he spoke, all that came was, “What’s your name?” Three simple words, but loaded somehow in his hushed, conspiring tone, warmed by that melodic accent.

She swallowed. “Jamie. What’s yours?”

“Connor.” He offered the silliest of gestures, miming a curtsy with an invisible skirt. She laughed.

“And what brings you to the dullest pub in all of Country Cork, Jamie?” Connor asked, organizing lemon wedges in their bin, forearms flexing. Down, girl.

“I’m staying at my mom’s best friend’s house for a week and a half.” Best to not say she was house-sitting, solo. Gorgeous or not, this guy was a complete stranger.

Connor bopped his fist against his palm, squinting in concentration. “Donna,” he declared, snapping his fingers. “Donna Jameson. She’s your ma’s mate?”

Jamie laughed. “Yes. How did you know that?”

“Only American I know of who lives round here.”

“Oh, of course. Yeah, she and my mom grew up together.” Jeez. A realization struck. Jamie had packed up and moved cross-country for a man, but Donna had moved across an entire ocean for her husband. Not me, no, thank you. No more following anybody’s map but my own. Then again, an Irish accent did mess with a woman’s good sense...

“What about you?” she asked. “Are you from around here?”

“Grew up here, but I live in the city now.”

A city! Swoon. Take me there. She needed it like a grounded fish needed water.

“When did you land?” he asked.

Jamie pretended to check an invisible watch. “Five hours ago?”

“Ah, very fresh then.”

She eyed him. “So you live in Cork?”

“I do.”

“That must be quite a commute, just to come bartend.”

He shrugged. “Only a half hour’s drive, plus it’s the family business.”

“Was that your dad who served me my first round?”

Connor nodded.

“I could tell. You have the same eyes.” Blue, she guessed, though it was hard to confirm in this lighting. Pale, at any rate, and bright as a river sparkling under the summer sun. Fucking dreamy.

“I tend a bit of bar in Cork, too. And I fix up cars and motorbikes on the side.”

“Busy boy.”

“Saving up,” he said, lifting her glass to run a bar towel across the wood.

“What for?”

“College. Engineering.” He strung the towel through his belt loop.

“I thought college was free here. For citizens.”

“Tuition is, but registration fees and rent and petrol add up.” He pursed his lips, something guilty in the gesture, then told her, “I had a bit of a squandered youth. I’m playing catch-up these days.”

Aha. A formerly delinquent hot Irish bartender looking to make good. He probably picked up some tricks in his so-called squandered youth. Sex tricks. Jamie wouldn’t mind making those tricks’ acquaintance.

“Squandered how?” she asked, and sipped her stout.

“The usual rubbish. Drinking, trouble, spending too much time underneath fast cars...and trying to get underneath fast girls.”

She laughed.

Connor smiled, reflecting that funny mix of humble and shameless she’d expected of Irish guys. “Can’t say I was always so successful with the latter, but no one could fault my efforts.”

“Sounds like a youth well squandered to me,” Jamie said. “I just wasted over two years of mine playing house with a guy who didn’t pan out, so irresponsibility sounds pretty attractive.”

“If you’re going to make mistakes, I suppose you may as well make fun ones,” Connor offered.

She lifted her drink in a toast to this wisdom. After a pause, she found the balls to say, “So you’re trying to make good now—does that mean you traded in all the fast girls for one nice, slow one?”

“Nah, not yet. I may be through chasing women, but I’m not ready to stand still with one either. I’d be quite happy to find the right lass to just walk alongside for a while.”

“Good plan,” Jamie said, liking that image—the natural, easy pace of it. “I pretty much signed up to play housewife for my ex way too young. Put everything I had in mind for myself on hold. I probably need to find some momentum while you’re busy cooling your jets.”

Any reply Connor might’ve volleyed was cut off by a patron’s request for a refill. After delivering it, he busied himself running the glass washer and organizing the bar and register. Jamie watched him with stolen glances, and twice their eyes met. Even wordless, the flirtation buzzed—excitement mixed up with nerves and shyness, shaken until it fizzed.

When his tidying brought him back into Jamie’s orbit, Connor asked, far too innocently, “So, how long since you and this bastard ex of yours split up, then?”

“Three months or so.”

“I, em, I hope you at least made up for lost time.”

“Not really.” Not remotely. “I was in too much of a panic, figuring out how to get myself moved back to Boston and enrolled for classes again, and finding a job to pay for it all.”

His smile was tight, impossible to read. “That’s a shame.”

“It is.”

“Well, I hope you’ll find the young men of Ireland sympathetic to your plight.”

She laughed. “I hope I’ll be able to find any young men on this trip, period.”

Connor looked demonstrably to either side and then down at his own chest, and held his arms out in mock surprise to say, Behold, a young man, at your service!

She smiled, though the sheer openness of his flirtation made her shy. Determined as Jamie was to make the most of her vacation, she was thoroughly out of practice at this stuff. She turned to eye the pool table—still free. The distraction would give her a few minutes to collect herself, with the added benefit of allowing her to play it a touch coy. No need to toss herself gift-wrapped at the very first hot guy she’d come across, her very first night here.

She fished out her wallet. “Could I get change for the...the thing that I want to call a pool table but I know isn’t called that here?”

Connor’s turn to laugh. “Snooker. And sure. What’ve you got to break?”

She traded him a bill for five one-euro coins, then left another bill on the bar for her pint. He slid it back over.

“Damages,” he explained. “On behalf of all men, for whatever injury your ex’s done to my gender’s already suspect reputation.”

She laughed, liking the way he spoke—the effortless way he strung words into lofty declarations. “I see.”

“Cues are on the wall, there,” he said, pointing.

“Thanks.”

She took her glass and change and bag and made herself at home in the corner, with a good view of her bartender. Things went smoothly enough at first—she selected a cue and located the coin tray, but as the balls rattled and rolled and filled the well at the end of the table...

Red, black, red, red, green...pink?

This learning curve clearly went beyond a lack of stripes and numbers. There was always Wikipedia, but why waste a perfectly good excuse to flirt? She marched back to the bar and caught Connor’s eye.

“I don’t suppose you have a rule book for this game?”

Grinning, he stooped to rummage beneath the counter. “If we didn’t, the fights would turn ugly fast.” He brushed the dust from a surprisingly thick paperback and handed it over.

“Thanks.” Her smile faded as she paged through the book, registering precisely how different this was from pool. “‘In the event that a cue ball is touched with the tip while in-hand,’” she read aloud, “‘for example, when breaking off or playing from the D upon being potted...’” She looked up at Connor. “Do you have an English translation of this?”

Another grin. “You need a lesson?”

She glanced down the bar, the dwindling assembly of drinkers seeming content to nurse their current rounds. She set the book on the counter. “If you can spare one, sure.”

“Right you are.” He flipped up the hinged panel of the bar and followed her to the snooker table, bathed in the bright glow of a hanging billiard lamp.

Confirmed—blue eyes. Clear and blue as a Bombay Sapphire bottle. Accordingly, they made Jamie tipsy.

“I’ll walk you through a frame,” he offered. “Just don’t cheat when I run back to pour a pint.”

“Deal. So, is this just like pool, except instead of stripes versus solids it’s red versus...” She trailed off, studying the balls as he set them on the green baize. All those reds, plus a pink, a green, blue, brown...

“I’ve never played pool, so I couldn’t say.” Connor locked the ten reds into a triangle—so far, so similar—then positioned the pink ball at its apex, a black a few inches below its base, a blue one midway along the table, then green, brown and yellow in a short row in front of the blessedly familiar white cue ball.

“Right,” he said, leaning against the table, holding Jamie’s gaze. “Each ball you pot is worth points—different amounts, depending on the color. At the start of a turn you always shoot from the D.” He pointed to the half circle marked on one end of the table, framing the cue ball. The rules he enumerated were dizzying, but the mechanics were basically the same as billiards.

“Got all that?” Connor asked.

“No, but I can fake it.”

Another familiar sight—Connor grabbed a blue cube from the ledge that ran along the wall, chalking his cue. Jamie did the same, and she felt her eyes narrow as an ages-old infusion of competitive adrenaline snaked through her bloodstream.

“Who breaks?” she asked.

He waved to say, Ladies first. Jamie hadn’t played in months, but she nailed the cue ball and broke the pyramid of reds apart with a smart crack, sinking one into a side pocket. It earned her a raised eyebrow from her coach.

As Jamie got the green ball in her sights, Connor asked, “Would you fancy making this a bit more interesting?”

“How so?”

“Friendly wager?” Flirtatious wager, to judge by his tone.

“How much?”

“Name your prize.”

She thought a moment. “If I win, a glass of your finest whiskey. On the rocks.”

“Fair play.”

“And if you win?” She leaned in, cocking the cue along her thumb and knuckle.

“If I win...if I win...”

His fingers drummed the table’s ledge until Jamie raised her eyes.

“Your finest kiss,” he said with a devil’s smile. “On the mouth.”

She lowered her elbow and stood up straight, countering his smug smirk with a skeptical show of blinking.

“Don’t look too scandalized,” he said. “A kiss is free, whereas your whiskey comes out of my wages.”

From another man, one she didn’t feel any chemistry for, this would’ve been pushy. But she did feel something for Connor, and she wouldn’t mind kissing him at all. Though she’d prefer to do it on her own terms—giving her the perfect motivation to win.

“You’re on.”

They shook, and he held her small hand in his strong one for a good beat longer than was innocent. She took a deep breath to clear her head enough to line up her next shot. When she sank the green, she beamed him a triumphant smile. “Four points now, right? I can taste my winnings already.”

“Wish I could say the same,” he sighed, and ticked her score on a chalkboard mounted by the cues.

She potted another red but scratched—or whatever scratching was called in snooker—and Connor enjoyed a brief run. He wasn’t bad, but once Jamie found her rhythm, there was no stopping her. She trounced him inside ten minutes.

They shook on her victory.

“I hope you didn’t let me win.”

He held her hand. “If you knew how much I wanted my prize, you wouldn’t believe that for a second.”

Pleasure flushed from her hair down to her feet. Connor let her hand go and she set her cue on the table.

“I’ll claim my winnings here,” she said haughtily, hoping to cover how giddy and warm she suddenly felt. Earlier she’d thought herself doomed to a pathetic consolation of a first evening at the local pub, but this was just perfect. Guinness, whiskey, snooker and a flirtation with a hot local. What could be more Irish?

She fed the table another coin, and Connor delivered her glass after tending to a couple customers. From the first stinging taste, the whiskey lit a glow in her chest—like a hearth, warm and comforting.

“Good?” he asked.

“Perfect, thank you. Another game?”

He eyed the bar. “I better not. I’ve been rather neglectful already.”

“Thank goodness you don’t work for tips.”

“Indeed.”

He lingered for a bit, attention divided between the patrons and Jamie’s one-woman snooker match.

“You really are quite good. You sure you’re not a shark?”

She sank the blue ball. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She caught him smiling again, his eyes squinched in the most adorably sinister way. “I wouldn’t mind knowing rather a lot of things about you,” he said casually.

“Like what?”

“Oh, nosy things.”

She liked how he said that—tings.

“Like what exactly your ex did to get himself dumped...?”

She bit her lip. “He dumped me, actually.”

His eyes widened, the drama overdone but not unwelcome. “No.”

“Oh, yes. I was as surprised as you are.”

He cocked his head. “He must’ve been a right spanner, then.”

“Does that mean idiot?”

“It does.”

Jamie grinned. “Cheers to that.” A right spanner. She could hug him. In fact...

“You deserve a taste of this yourself, for saying so.”

He eyed the bar, finding his customers placated. “You’re a bad influence.”

She shrugged and took another sip. The whiskey was making her feel bold in the most natural, essential way.

Connor nodded his surrender. “Fine. That’s top-shelf—I won’t say no.”

With a smile, she took one more generous taste, then rose on her tiptoes. He caught on just in time, leaning in to bridge the gap. Their noses brushed first, then their lips. She held the glass between them, one of his shirt buttons teasing her knuckles—a strange and perfect little intimacy. A different sort of buzz arrived as their lips met, the contact rocking through her with a sharp, hot bolt.

All at once woozy, she kept it brief—just enough of a kiss to let him taste her winnings, then she dropped back on her heels. Her cheeks were flushed, lips tingling. From the whiskey, or from Connor? Both. And from her own desire, a well that had gone untapped for far too long.

His blue eyes were half-closed, lids looking heavy. Languid. Lips parted. If sex were a season, it had settled over him in full bloom.

He smiled. “It would seem perhaps we’ve both won.”