Kiss Me, I'm Irish: The Sins of His Past / Tangling With Ty / Whatever Reilly Wants...

Martin sipped. “She’s been working on the whole cyber café and artists’ space for a long time.”

“Two years,” Deuce noted. “That’s how long she’s been part-owner of this place.”

“Oh, no, Deuce. She’s really been at Monroe’s for nearly ten or more.” Martin’s gray eyes looked particularly sharp. “Since she was first in college.”

Why did Deuce get the idea he was being worked by the principal? “I remember,” he said, turning to stack the clean glasses.

“But then she dropped out.”

Deuce froze at the odd tone in Martin’s voice. Was he accusing him of something…or was that just residual fear of the principal teasing Deuce. He reached for more glasses, clearing his throat. “She said she had a bad break-up.”

When Martin didn’t respond, Deuce looked up. The man wore the oddest expression.

“You know women,” Deuce said, the old awkwardness of sitting in the principal’s office sluicing through him. “They get…weird.”

Martin just nodded, then slid his glass to make room for his elbows as he leaned toward Deuce. “I’d hate to see her unhappy again.”

What was he saying? “Do you think my being here is making her unhappy?”

Martin frowned. “Did I say that?”

“Well, what are you saying?” Deuce demanded.

“I’m saying that she has—or had—big plans for this place and I happen to know they don’t include a sports bar.”

Staring at the man, Deuce searched his mind for a reasonable explanation for Martin’s strange message. Then the truth dawned on him. He started laughing, which made the old Hatchet Man’s eyes spark like cinders.

“Martin, I’m not going to coach the high-school baseball team. You can’t psyche me into it with guilt over Kendra’s café plans, sir.”

“You call me sir again and I’ll write you up, son.” He winked and pushed his empty glass forward. “What do I owe you?”

Deuce shook his head. “Truth is, I owe you, Martin. That one’s on the house.”

“Maybe I’ll see you at practice this week. I’m working the grounds.”

They both knew he would.

When the last glass was clean, the register was cashed out and the night’s draw was tucked into the pouch, Deuce locked the drawer in Kendra’s office and pocketed the keys. As he pushed the chair back from the desk, his foot bumped into something soft.

Bending over, he spied the nylon tote bag Kendra carried between work and home. She must have left it when they went to Fall River and forgotten to pick it up before she’d gone home.

Well, she had been distracted. He grinned at the thought, reaching for the bag. Did she really need it tonight? With one finger, he inched the zippered opening to see what it contained. A laptop, a calculator, some folders, a red spiral notebook.

Nothing earth-shattering.

Deuce took the bag with him to his car, sliding it behind the passenger seat and made a mental note to leave it with the keys on Diana’s table for her to find when she came over to walk Newman.

Correction. Tomorrow morning, Kendra would wake up in his bed. Then he could give her the bag in person.

He gunned the Mercedes’s engine and pulled onto High Castle with a sense of anticipation he hadn’t felt since his last opening day.

FROM BEHIND THE TWO-FOOT protection of a sand dune, in the nearly moonless night, Kendra heard the rumble of the Mercedes’s engine. Blue halogen headlights sliced into the night.

A trickle of guilt wound its way through her chest. Hiding out on the beach was a chicken thing to do, but if Deuce knocked on her door and melted her with that smile and annihilated her with that mouth…she’d be dead. She’d had all night to think about the “reenactment” he proposed, knowing full well he was basically asking her to sleep with him.

And, Lord have mercy, she wanted to say yes. Her skin practically ignited at the thought of giving in to the full-body ache he caused. She’d never say no if he had her out on West Rock Beach. Or in a bedroom. Or a car. Or the kitchen. Or…

The lights faded and she heard a car door. Kendra sank deeper into the sand.

She just had to keep avoiding him, and when Seamus and Diana returned, she’d tell them…what? She wasn’t sure yet. The bar was profitable, no doubt. But the cyber café revenues were up as well. She was no closer to “working it out” with Deuce—as Seamus had instructed—than the day this all started.

She was, however, closer to giving in to that toe-curling attraction that had blinded and stupefied her for, oh, twenty-odd years now.

She imagined Deuce rounding the side of the house, peering at her darkened, quiet beach bungalow. Would he give up then, or would he knock?

He’d assume she was dead asleep…or out for the night. Then he’d surely go back to Diana’s and slide the kitchen door open.

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