Baily's Irish Dream: Baily's Irish Dream / Czech Mate

“I’m sorry for laughing,” Daniel apologized, unused to the sound of those words echoing off his own lips. “I really want to know the whole story.”

“Why? So you can make fun of me some more?” Baily was no masochist.

The long highway stretched in front of them, and Daniel felt penned in by the confines of the small car. The question and its answer was just a way to pass the time. At least that was what he told himself. “I won’t make fun. Hey, I’m not even married.”

“Big shock there,” Baily retorted.

“See, I won’t even rise to your bait. Now tell me about this guy…What’s his name?”

Sniffing past her indignation, Baily muttered, “Harry.”

“Henry?”

“Harry. His name is Harry, and I’ve known him since I was ten. We grew up together. Dated in high school. Dated in college. Everybody assumed that we were going to get married. I wanted to experience a little more of the world before I settled down. My family was adamantly against me leaving. Harry was bothered, too. I guess.”

“You guess?”

Baily winced at the implication. “You have to know Harry. He’s the supportive, sensitive type.”

Groaning, Daniel stopped her. “Oh, please, spare me the sensitive man stories. Whoever put those two words together should be shot.”

Baily ignored his sarcasm and continued with her story. “Well, he is. So when I told him I wanted to move to Seattle, he said that was fine. He said he would wait and that he loved me. My parents weren’t nearly as supportive. They made me promise that if I wasn’t married by the time I was thirty that I would come home where I belonged and marry Harry.”

“You’re kidding. And that worked?”

“My birthday is in three weeks. My thirtieth birthday.”

Daniel issued ultimatums to Sarah all the time. They never worked. He needed Sarah and Red to meet. Maybe Red would rub off on her and—Scratch that thought.

“I don’t think I need to point out to you that you are an adult. You don’t have to obey your parents. Although I do respect the fact that you are honoring your word.” Daniel couldn’t think of a woman he knew that he would have ever described as honorable, yet it was a characteristic he admired greatly.

Finally, she thought, here was someone who understood what it meant to keep one’s word. However, Baily had to admit that it wasn’t the only reason she was heading east. “I wouldn’t break my word, that’s true. But I also think it’s time for me to get married. I want a home and children. A family. Harry can provide that. The truth is, having almost reached the age of thirty, I’m beginning to believe that true romantic love doesn’t exist.”

“Damn right!” Daniel agreed readily.

“Somehow I knew you would agree with me.”

He wasn’t exactly sure how he should take that statement. He decided it was a credit to his logical way of thinking. Therefore, it was obviously a compliment, and he thanked her.

Baily chuckled. A man like him would view her comment as a compliment. Maybe it was wrong to judge him so quickly without really knowing him. But his short brown hair, his clean-shaven jaw, his green polo shirt, and his crisp new blue jeans with a brown belt that matched his casual shoes said a lot about the man. He was the bottom line, the practical choice, and the reasonable solution type.

“What I meant,” Baily clarified herself, “is that love isn’t like the storybooks. It doesn’t hit suddenly. It isn’t passionate and fiery and out of control. Sure some people say they experience that. But how long does it last? Instead I’ve decided that love is like a warm comforter. Snugly. Cuddly. Secure. Harry and I will love each other and our children. It won’t be a story for the fairy tales, but then fairy tales are fiction. Harry and I are nonfiction.” Baily nodded her head with conviction. She was definitely doing the right thing. How could being part of warm loving family, one that she would help to create, be wrong?

“Very practical,” Daniel added. Not that he understood her need to be married and have children, but at least she wasn’t one of those women who believed love would make everything all right. However, the thought of Red trapped in a loveless, lifeless marriage didn’t sit well with him. He saw Red as the fiery, passionate type. She was the throw-everything-off-the-table, toss-her-skirt-over-her-head and take-her-hard-and-long type.

Oh, hell! Where did that thought come from? It was one thing to notice a woman’s chest in a T-shirt; it was another to envision that chest naked. No, he told a certain part of his anatomy. Don’t even think about it. Don’t even twitch, you son of a bitch. Not her. She is absolutely out of the question.

That part of his body wasn’t listening. In fact the mere image of her thighs spread in front of him open and waiting for him to claim her was enough to make his sex do more than just twitch.

“Are you all right?” Baily caught a glimpse of a really pained expression on his face. “Is it your head? Is it bothering you?”

“Yes,” he replied gruffly. “It’s my head.” It was sort of the truth.

“Your problem is you’re still cranky. Why don’t you rest for a while? I’ll let you know when we get there,” Baily suggested.

Perhaps that wasn’t a bad idea. He could close his eyes and catch up on the sleep he so desperately needed. Then he would wake up refreshed and in charge of his own body. He would expunge all thoughts of Red as a sexual being while he slept and life would once again make sense. It was a wonderful idea. Closing his eyes, he yawned once then sighed deeply. One last thought occurred to him before he drifted off.

“You said you would wake me up when we got to where we were going, but Jackson Hole is hours away. I won’t sleep that long.” And there really wasn’t anything else that was noteworthy along the way.

“Oh, I meant when we get to Yellowstone, of course.”

3

“YELLOWSTONE! Yellowstone National Park? But we don’t have to go through the park to get to Jackson Hole. That’s south. We want to go east.” Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to stem the pain of his headache.

“And eventually we will. I just want to take a little detour. You certainly don’t want to miss Yellowstone, do you? Elk, bear, caribou, Old Faithful! It would be a travesty to be this close and not visit.” It made perfect sense to Baily. She was a traveler by nature. She needed to accumulate new sights and experiences to keep her senses fed. And the first time she’d driven across country Nick had been in charge. He didn’t allow for detours. This was a perfect opportunity.

“Did I mention that my sister’s life was at stake? I don’t have time for detours.”

“Maybe it’s about time that we talked about your sister. It would help if I knew exactly what kind of danger she was in. I can’t imagine that her life is truly in jeopardy or else you would have found a way to overcome your fear of flying.”

Daniel, with his severe features, intense hazel eyes, and broad shoulders, didn’t look like a man who feared much. It was hard to reconcile the man who overwhelmed the space inside her small car as someone who had fears like other normal people.

Sighing, Daniel patiently explained. “I told you, I’m not afraid to fly.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You don’t fly.” Baily attempted not to roll her eyes. She didn’t succeed, which was fortunate because when she did succeed it always made her dizzy.

“That’s right. Like you, I made a promise, and I don’t intend to break it.” His voice changed somehow, and immediately Baily knew that she had touched a vulnerable spot inside the man.

“Who made you promise not to fly?” An important person in his life, that much Baily surmised. It made her wonder how many other important people were in this man’s life. She would bet her life savings there weren’t many. Although considering that her life savings was the sum of eight hundred dollars, it wasn’t much of a bet.

It was an area of his life he didn’t think he wanted to share. He’d known this woman less than a day. She didn’t have the right to know about his personal problems. He should probably tell her to go to hell. Then he remembered how vulnerable she’d looked when she told him about her purported fiancé. It had taken both trust and hope on her part that he would tread softly on her feelings. Would she do the same?

More than likely. She had a quality about her. “My sister made me promise not to fly. My parents were killed in a plane crash many years ago. And it was our misfortune to be there when it happened.”

Tears burned Baily’s eyes, appearing so quickly they stunned her. “I’m so sorry. How old were you?”

“I was seventeen, but Sarah was only ten. Obviously, she took it harder.”

It wasn’t so obvious to Baily. She bit her tongue, but she couldn’t stop herself from silently wondering why Daniel shouldn’t be just as hurt by the loss of his parents.

“She’s been fragile, even frightened, ever since,” Daniel continued. “The next year I went to college. That first Christmas I planned to fly home, but Sarah made me promise that I wouldn’t. Then she made me promise that I would never fly…ever. It was probably wrong of me to indulge her, but if you had heard her voice trembling on the other end of the phone. She was so scared I wanted to make that fear disappear.”

“Surely she’s overcome that fear or at least would understand if you flew occasionally. You live across the country for Pete’s sake. How do you ever get home?” Baily thought about how difficult it was for her to be separated from her family for so long. Even the plane trip was long and arduous. If she didn’t have the option of flight open to her, she never would have made it home for Christmas and other family occasions.

Not easily, and not often, Daniel wanted to answer. It was just as well, too. Home only brought with it uncomfortable memories of a time long gone. Those memories and the sense of loss they brought with them were what had goaded him into leaving in the first place. That first year he had taken a summer job in Alaska, cutting wood, and seen the need to standardize the cutting and replanting process. After college, a software company recruited him, and he’d honed his skills until he was ready to venture out on his own with software designed to track the lumber business. In the ten years since he’d lived in Seattle he’d made it home only once a year, every year. Both he and Sarah accepted the fact that neither one of them would step foot on a plane again.

“Sarah hasn’t overcome her fear and I don’t want her driving by herself. I get home about once a year. Sometimes I drive, other times I take the train. Either way I’m not home as often as I would like. But my business is in the northwest, so there’s nothing I can do about that.”

It was odd that even after living in Seattle for more than ten years, he still considered Philadelphia his home despite his intentional neglect. Daniel thought about the implications of that statement. When would Seattle be home?

Since it was evident that this wasn’t his yearly trip home, Baily was still left with questions concerning his sister. “You said Sarah’s life was at stake. She’s not sick, is she?” If that were the case Baily would be willing to drive twenty-four hours a day if necessary to reach her. A sister shouldn’t be sick and without her family to comfort her.

Baily remembered breaking her ankle in a game of tag football with some of her larger students. She’d been laid up in her apartment all by herself. Friends had come to help and visit, but it wasn’t the same. No one stayed with her. No one commiserated with her when her ankle itched so bad that she wanted to scream. No one brought her ice cream with extra chocolate syrup on top. That hurt more than the ankle.

“She’s not sick.” For that he should be grateful, he supposed.

Baily waited, but no other answer was forthcoming.

“Well, is she in danger?”

Daniel thought about that. He doubted that Pierce was the violent type. Sarah was most likely physically safe. It was Pierce who was about to suffer some serious pain in the near future, as soon as Daniel got his hands on the wretched fake. “No, Sarah’s not in danger.”

Again, Baily waited. “Is she about to be run down by a heard of buffalo, uprooted from a ranch in Montana and transplanted to a farm in Pennsylvania, that somehow got loose in the city of Philadelphia and is now on a tragic course headed directly for her?” Baily smiled mischievously thinking he might laugh.

He didn’t. “No, that isn’t the problem, either.”

Frankly, Baily was out of options.

“She’s in love,” Daniel muttered, as if that were far worse than any of the before-mentioned suggestions.

Confused, Baily prompted him to elaborate. “In love? That is why her life’s at stake? Because she’s in love?”

Daniel was again reluctant to share personal information with this woman. He had a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t going to approve of his tactics.

His reticence was clear. Baily watched as he struggled over whether or not to divulge the information. She decided that she would make it easier for him. “Hey, if I don’t have a good reason to head east immediately, I might take the opportunity to stop and see the Grand Canyon. And that’s south. I mean, really south.”

Gritting his teeth, he spilled the story. “She’s in love with a man who’s going to rob her blind and leave her shattered. That is what I’m referring to when I say that her life is at stake. Okay maybe not her life, but definitely her future. As her brother, it’s my job to protect her. So I’m on my way to Philadelphia where I will proceed to stop the wedding and save her future.” Both arms crossed over his chest, Daniel stared resolutely out the windshield at the road ahead. The discussion was over as far as he was concerned.

Baily, however, was not quite ready to let the matter drop. First things first. “How do you know this guy is going to steal all her money?”

Daniel struggled to put his thoughts into words.

“He’s…he’s…”

“Yes?”

“Slick,” Daniel finally said, as if that explained everything.

“And…”

“And?”

“Yes,” Baily reiterated. “And. And. As in, what else, or in addition to, or as well as. And.”

“What?” Daniel had lost her train of thought. Not to mention his.

Exasperated, Baily screamed, “Exactly! What? Surely you’ve got more to go on than the fact that he’s slick!”

“You don’t have to shout.” Typical woman, Daniel thought, always flying off the handle at the least little thing.

Question: a woman drives a car at sixty-five miles per hour on a highway and shoves a man who weighs one hundred and eighty pounds out of the speeding car. How many years does the woman serve in prison for justifiable manslaughter? Answer: zero. She was justified. It was a trick question.

In a calm and rational voice Baily asked, “What’s his name?”

“Pierce Larson. And doesn’t that just smack of a con man. I mean really, Pierce? Pierce Larson.” Daniel repeated in what Baily believed to be an English accent.

He sounded ridiculous. Giggling, Baily asked, “Is he English?”

“No,” Daniel replied, unsure of how to react to her laughter. As a rule, people didn’t laugh at Daniel Blake. Then again Daniel didn’t often say much that would be considered humorous.

“So he’s slick and you think his name is fake. And that is the reason, the only reason, you want to stop your sister’s wedding?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to the Grand Canyon.”

“Come on. Seriously, Pierce? It sounds as if it comes from one of those silly romantic books about the English earl who falls in love with a chambermaid. Really, the name couldn’t be any sillier unless it were…”

“Baily,” Baily supplied with a mischievous grin. Somehow she knew that her name was on the tip of his tongue.

Not in least perturbed, Daniel replied, “Exactly. Baily is a silly name. So much so, I think I’m going to have to refuse to call you by such an appellation.”

“It’s going to be a while before we get to Jackson Hole. What do you plan to call me for all that time? ‘Hey, you’ might not work if we find ourselves in a crowd at the next pit stop.”

“I’ll make sure I poke your shoulder when I say, ‘Hey, you.’”

“It’s funny because you look like a rational man, but it’s becoming clear to me that you rarely make sense.”

“I don’t make sense? Miss I’m-going-home-to-marry-aman-I-haven’t-seen-in-seven-years, and I’m bringing my cat who, by the way, thinks she’s the president of the United States, is telling me I don’t make sense.”

With an affirmative nod, Baily confirmed, “Yes, you don’t make any sense.”

Maybe she did have a slight point, but Daniel certainly wasn’t about to admit that to her. “It’s more than that. He knows exactly what to say, yet he says nothing. I’ve asked him several times what he does for a living. He tells a fine story and goes into great detail, but after a fifteen-minute dissertation I still don’t know what he does. He says nothing about his family or his background. As far as I can tell, he comes from nowhere. He’s nothing more than a leech. In addition to all that, he doesn’t look at her like…”

“Like what?” Baily asked genuinely curious.

“Never mind,” Daniel said, shaking off that thought. He was going to say that he doesn’t look at his sister like a man in love. But that would have been preposterous since Daniel himself didn’t believe in love. Neither did Red, he reminded himself.

“No, tell me.” Baily didn’t know why it was important for her to know, but she couldn’t seem to stem her curiosity about the drama in which she had embroiled herself.

“When Sarah looks at him, he’s all smiles and kisses. When she turns her head, it’s as if he takes off a mask and underneath is another person. I’m convinced he’s conning her.”

Baily believed him. Although she had no doubt that Daniel was too protective for his own good, he didn’t seem the type to interfere unless he thought it was necessary. “Perhaps you don’t want to let your little sister go,” Baily suggested. She had been on the receiving end of her brothers’ protectiveness and knew from firsthand experience that it stemmed from them not wanting to let her grow up.

It was Daniel’s turn to laugh, but he wasn’t amused. “Believe me, I would be more than willing to give Sarah away to the first decent man that would have her. She needs someone to watch over her and protect her, and I am simply not there enough. Pierce Larson, however, is not a decent man. I’m sure of it.”

Daniel wanted nothing more than to relinquish his role as Sarah’s guardian. Mostly because he knew he hadn’t done the job to his own satisfaction. If she were married to a good man, a strong man, Daniel could absolve himself of the guilt that plagued him.

“Why didn’t you try to run him off the last time you saw him?” Baily wondered. For the time being she decided to believe that Daniel was probably correct in his assumptions, which meant she might as well lend her hand to the cause of ousting Pierce from Sarah’s life.

“I tried,” Daniel explained, seeing that Red was with him in his efforts. Great, now he had a partner. A female partner. In the next few hours they were sure to come up with some idea of how to get rid of Pierce without sending Sarah straight into his arms. “I thought he had gotten the message. I was mistaken.”

“Let’s rule out the obvious. Number one, you can’t bribe him. That would be the worst mistake.”

Cautiously, Daniel asked, “Why do you say that?”

Baily sighed as she realized she was dealing with an amateur in these matters. “Don’t you ever watch TV? When the rich father—or brother, as the case may be—” Baily used her hand as a pointer to indicate Daniel without actually looking at him “—offers the sleazy boyfriend money to stay away from his daughter, or sister, as the case may be, the sleazy boyfriend always tells his girlfriend. The girlfriend becomes so enraged with her father, or her brother—”

“As the case may be,” Daniel supplied. “I get the picture.”

Baily continued. “…for insulting her boyfriend and trying to interfere with her happiness, which she is convinced rests with the sleazy boyfriend that she immediately elopes with him. Simple.”

“Ha!” Daniel shouted, his finger in the air with triumph.

“What do you mean, ‘ha’?”

Wiggling his eyebrows, Daniel told her smugly, “I did offer him a bribe. That was months ago and they haven’t eloped.”

“No, they didn’t elope. They just decided to get married and only gave you…how many days’ notice was that?”

“Seven. Now I have only five days left to get there.”

“Seven,” she repeated. “Enough time for you to make it home and walk your sister down the aisle. The bribe obviously didn’t work.” If smug was a woman, she would look like Baily.

“Maybe I didn’t offer him enough,” Daniel muttered, not willing to concede total defeat.

“If this guy is as slick as you say he is, then we’re going to have to do better than a bribe.” The sound of her brain clicking into devious action seemed to emanate throughout the tiny car. Even Miss Roosevelt looked up from her pillow in the back seat.

“‘We’?” Daniel asked. When she said the word, it made it sound as if they were going to be together longer than they were. For whatever reason, the idea of them together for longer than a day didn’t sound as horrible to Daniel as it had that morning.

“Lord knows you’re going to need the help. A bribe! How cliché.” Baily ignored his mention of the word “we,” but she couldn’t help but be affected by the significance of it. We. Frightening thought.

Daniel chuckled and let his head fall back against the seat. He was content now to forget his worries and to let Red try to wrestle with the problem of how to separate Pierce from his sister. He was also long overdue for that nap he’d planned to take. “Wake me when you need a break.”

“I’ll wake you when we get to Yellowstone. You can’t miss Yellowstone,” Baily informed him, her voice as serious as stone.

“I wouldn’t think of missing Yellowstone.”

In minutes Daniel was asleep and the occasional snore filled the car. As much as she could, Baily took her eyes off the road to peek at her passenger. It was odd, but he reminded her of a new toy that was fun to play with. He challenged her, made her laugh, and also made her feel comfortable in his presence. They barely knew each other yet they had basically spilled their life stories to one another.

As a child Baily had received many toys. She would play with them nonstop, for hours on end. After a time, though, she would get bored and move on to her other toys. But every so often there came a special toy. Those toys became her best friends forever. Those toys she took to bed with her and snuggled with them under the covers to pass away the hours of the long, dark, lonely night. Those toys had become part of her life and she felt less than whole when she was without them.

In a slight whisper Baily asked, “What do you think, Miss Roosevelt? Should we keep him?”

“Meow.”

“I agree,” Baily replied.

Daniel, who woke at the sound of Baily’s voice, spent the next few hours trying to decipher what the cat had said.

“WE’RE HERE!”

Daniel felt the car jolt to a stop. Surprised that he had actually dozed off, he took a few minutes to get his bearings. There were cars in front of him, in back of him, to his right, and to his left. Either they were stuck in a really bad traffic jam or they were in a parking lot.

“Come on, sleepyhead. I let you sleep through the elk sighting, but this is Old Faithful,” Baily informed him. She pulled Miss Roosevelt from her spot with difficulty, as Theodora was also unwilling to relinquish her nap time. “I swear between the two of you you’re like a bunch of babies. There will be time to sleep later. Right now we have a national treasure to see.”

“Meow,” Theodora complained.

“I agree with the cat. Wake us when you get back,” Daniel groaned. He’d been in the middle of a wonderful sexy dream, and he wanted to return to it. A vision of Red flashed in front of his eyes, and he suddenly realized that she’d been the focal point of his dream. Since that kind of thinking had been outlawed this morning, Daniel forced himself to wake up, but his eyes wouldn’t cooperate.