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

“What is she? A one-man construction company?”

Kendra laughed softly, a sound so damn girly that it caused an unexpected twist in his gut. “She didn’t build the walls or houses, but she brought in the builders, convinced the Board of Selectmen to influence the Planning Commission, then started her own real estate company and marketed the daylights out of Rockingham, Mass.”

“Why?”

“For a number of reasons.” She held up her index finger. “One, because Cape Cod is booming as a Hamptons-type destination and we want Rockingham to get a piece of the action instead of just being a stop en route to more interesting places.” She raised a second finger. “Two, because the town coffers were almost empty and the schools were using outdated books and the stoplights needed to be computerized and the one policeman in town was about to retire and we had no money to attract a new force.” Before point number three, he closed his fist around her fingers and gently pushed her hand down.

“I get the idea. Progress.” He reluctantly let go of her silky-smooth skin. “So Diana Lynn isn’t a gold digger.”

She let out a quick laugh. “She’s a gold digger all right. She’s dug the gold right out of Rockingham and put it back in those empty coffers.”

He was silent for a minute as he turned onto Beachline Road and caught the reflection of April sunshine on the deep, blue waters of Nantucket Sound. Instead of the unbroken vista he remembered, the waterfront now featured an enclave of shops, which had to be brand-new even though they sported that salt-weathered look of New England. Fake salt-weathered, he realized. Like when they banged nicks into perfectly good furniture and called it “distressed.”

He didn’t like Diana Lynn Turner. Period. “So, just how far into him are her claws?”

“Her claws?” Kendra’s voice rose in an amused question. “She doesn’t have claws, Deuce. And if you’d bothered to come home once in a while to see your father in the past few years, you’d know that.”

He tapped the brakes at a light he could have sworn was not on the road when he was learning to drive. “That didn’t take long.”

“What?”

“The guilt trip.”

She blew out a little breath. “You’ll get no guilt from me, Deuce.”

Not even for not calling after a marathon of unforgettable sex? He didn’t believe her. “No guilt? What would you call that last comment?”

As she shifted in her seat, he noticed her back had straightened and the body language of detachment she was trying so hard to project was rapidly disappearing. “Just a fact, Deuce. You haven’t seen your dad for a long, long—”

“Correction. I haven’t been in Rockingham for a long, long time. Dad came to every game the Snakes played in Boston. And he came out to Vegas a few times, too.”

“And you barely had time to have dinner with him.”

This time he exhaled, long and slow. He didn’t expect her to understand. He didn’t expect anyone to understand. Especially the man he was about to go see. Dinner with Dad was about all the motivational speaking he could stand. The endless coaching, the pushing, the drive. Deuce liked to do things his way. And that was rarely the way his father wanted them done.

Staying away was just easier.

“I talk to your brother Jack every once in a while,” he said, as though that connection to Rockingham showed he wasn’t quite the Missing Person she was making him out to be.

“Really?” She seemed surprised. “He never mentions that.”

“He seems to like his job.” It was the first thing he could think of to prove he really did talk to Jack.

She nodded. “He was born to be in advertising, that’s for sure. He’s married to that company, I swear.”

How could he resist that opening? Besides, he was dying to know. “What about you?” He remembered the hostess calling her Ms. Locke. But these days, that didn’t mean anything. “Got a husband, house and two-point-five kids yet, Ken-doll?”

Her silence was just a beat too long. Did she still hate the nickname he’d bestowed on her when she was a skinny little ten-year-old spying on the big boys in the basement?

“No, I don’t, Seamus.”

He grinned at the comeback. “So why aren’t you in New York or Boston? Don’t tell me that Hahvahd education landed you right back in the old Rockeroo.”

He saw her swallow. “Actually, I never graduated from Harvard.”

He glanced at her, noticing the firm set of her jaw. “No kidding? You were halfway through last time…” He let his voice drift a little. “When my mother passed away.”

A whisper of color darkened her cheeks as she was no doubt wondering what else he recalled about his last visit to Rockingham. Surprisingly, everything. Every little detail remained sharp in his memory.

“I got very involved in business here,” she said curtly.

Something in her voice said “don’t go there” so he sucked in the salty air through the open windows of his rental car, immediately punched with memories.

“Smells like baseball,” he said, almost to himself.

“Excuse me?”

“April in New England. It smells like spring, and spring means baseball.” At least, it had for the past twenty-seven years of his life. Since he’d first picked up a bat and his father had started Rockingham’s Little League just so Deuce could play T-ball, spring had meant “hit the field.”

“You miss it?” she asked, her gentle tone actually more painful than the question.

“Nah,” he said quickly. “I was about to retire anyway.” A total lie. He was thirty-three and threw knuckleballs half the time. His elbow might be aching, but he could still pitch. But his taste for fast cars had lured him to a race track just for fun.

Fun that was most definitely not welcomed by the owners of the Nevada Snake Eyes, or the lawyers who wrote the fine print in his contract. He rubbed his right elbow, a move that he’d made so many times in his life, it was like breathing.

“You had a good year last year,” she noted.

He couldn’t help smiling, thinking of her little speech back at the bar. “You think anybody in Rockingham slowed down from all that surviving long enough to notice?”

Her return smile revealed a hint of dimples against creamy skin. “Yeah. We noticed.”

The Swain mansion was around the corner. Instinctively, he slowed the car, unwilling to face his father, and wanting to extend the encounter with Kendra a little longer.

“I see my great season didn’t stop someone from redecorating the walls of Monroe’s.” With mountains, instead of…memories.

Her smile grew wistful. “Things change, Deuce.”

Evidently, they did. But if he had his way, he could change things right back again. Maybe not the pink houses and antique shops. But he sure as hell could make Monroe’s a happening bar and recapture some of his celebrated youth in the meantime.

And while he was at it, maybe he could recapture some of those vivid memories of one night with Kendra. “Then I’ll need someone to help me get reacquainted with the new Rockingham,” he said, his voice rich with invitation.

She folded her hands on top of the envelope she’d been clinging to and stared straight ahead. “I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

His gaze drifted over her again. He’d found someone. “I’m sure I will.”

CHAPTER TWO

DEUCE DID A CLASSIC double take as they rounded the last corner to where a rambling, dilapidated mansion built by the heir to a sausage-casing fortune once stood.

“Whoa.” He blew out a surprised breath. “I bet old Elizabeth Swain would roll over in her grave.”

Kendra tried to see the place through his eyes. Instead of the missing shingles, broken windows and overgrown foliage he must remember, there stood a rambling three-story New England cape home with gray shake siding and a black roof, trimmed with decks and columns and walls of glass that overlooked Nantucket Sound. The driveway was lined with stately maples sprouting spring-green leaves. The carpet of grass in the front looked ready for one of Diana’s lively games of croquet.

“Dad lives here?” Before she could, he corrected himself. “I mean, his…his friend does?”

Kendra laughed softly. “He almost lives here. But he’s old-fashioned, you know. He won’t officially move in until they get married.”

Deuce tore his gaze from the house to give her a look of horror. “Which will be…?”

As soon as the expansion of Monroe’s was financed and finalized. “They’re not in a hurry, really. They’re both busy with their careers and—”

“Careers?” He sounded as though he didn’t think owning Monroe’s was a career. Well too bad for that misconception. It was her career. “Not that I think they should rush into anything,” he added.

He pulled into the driveway that no longer kicked up gravel since Diana had repaved it in gray-and-white brick. As he stopped the car, he rubbed his elbow again and peered up at the impressive structure.

“I can’t believe this is the old Swain place. We used to break in and have keg parties in there.”

Oh, yes. She remembered hearing about those. At three years younger than Jack and his Rock High friends, Kendra had never participated in a “Swain Brain Drain,” but she’d certainly heard the details the next day.

Her information had come courtesy of the heating duct between her bedroom and the basement in the Locke home. When the heat was off, Kendra could lie on her bedroom floor, her ear pressed against the metal grate, and listen to boy talk, punctuated by much laughter and the crack of billiard balls.

It was her special secret. She knew more about Deuce than all the girls who adored him at Rock High. Jackson Locke’s little sister knew everything. At least, as long as the heat wasn’t turned on.

“You won’t recognize the inside of this house,” she told him. “Diana’s got a magical touch with decor. And she’s an amazing photographer. All the art in Monroe’s is her work. And look at this place. She’s never met a fixer-upper she couldn’t—”

He jerked the car door open. “Let’s go.”

She sat still for a moment, the rest of her sentence still in her mouth. What did he have against this woman he’d never even bothered to meet? It was almost ten years since his mother had died. Didn’t he think Seamus deserved some happiness?

She hustled out of the car to catch up with him as he walked toward the front door. “We can just go in through the kitchen,” she told him.

He paused in mid step, then redirected himself to where she pointed. “You’re a regular here, huh?”

A regular? She lived in the unattached guest house a hundred yards away on the beach. “I come over with the sales reports every day.” She jiggled the handle of a sliding glass door and opened it. “Diana! Seamus? Anybody home?”

In the distance a dog barked.

“I have a surprise for you,” she called. Did she ever.

“We’re upstairs, Kennie!” A woman’s voice called. “Get some coffee, hon. We’ll be down as soon as we get dressed.”

She felt Deuce stiffen next to her.

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “They’re always…well, they’re in love.” She didn’t have to look at him to get his reaction. She could feel the distaste rolling off him. As if he’d never spent the night at a woman’s house.

“Have a seat.” She touched one of the high-back chairs at the table under a bay window. “Want a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks.” He folded his long frame into a chair, his gaze moving around the large country kitchen, to the cozy Wedgewood-blue family room on the other side of a long granite counter, and the formal dining room across the hall. “You’re right. I can’t believe this is the same old wreck.”

She decided not to sing Diana’s praises again. Taking a seat across from him, she set a mug of steaming coffee on the table, and carefully placed the envelope in front of her.

With one long look at Deuce, she took a deep breath. Before Diana swooped in here and charmed him, before Seamus barreled in and coached him, before the rest of Rockingham discovered him, she had to know. She just had to know for herself.

“Why did you come back?”

He leaned the chair on two legs and folded his arms across the breadth of his powerful chest, the sleeves of his polo shirt tightening over his muscular arms. She willed her gaze to stay on his face and not devour every heart-stopping ripple and cut.

“Well, I’m retired now, as you know.”

The whole world knew he wasn’t retired. His contract had been terminated after he blatantly disregarded the fine print and took to a race track—and wrecked a car—with a couple of famous NASCAR drivers. But, she let it go.

“Are you planning to…” Oh, God. Ask it. “…live here?” Please say no. Please say no. Could her heart and head take it if he said yes?

“Yes.”

She sipped her coffee with remarkable nonchalance.

“I’m sick of living in Vegas,” he added, coming down hard on the front two legs of the delicate chair.

“I thought you lived outside of Las Vegas.”

He lifted one shoulder. “Same difference. I have no reason to stay there if I’m not playing ball for the Snake Eyes.”

“What about coaching? Don’t a lot of major leaguers do that after they…after they quit?”

He massaged his right arm again, a gesture she knew so well she could close her eyes and see it. But this time, his features tightened with a grimace.

“I don’t know. We’ll see. I’ll need to find a good PT. You know any?”

A physical therapist who worked on professional athletes? On Cape Cod? “You’ll have to go to Boston.”

“That’s over an hour from here.”

Then go live there. “Two, now, with traffic.” She sipped the coffee again and tried for the most noncommittal voice she could find. “So, what are you going to do here?”

Instead of answering, he snagged the envelope. She lunged for it, but he was too fast. “What is this?”

She wasn’t ready to reveal her plans to Deuce. His dad would probably tell him all about their grandiose scheme, but she didn’t want to. She’d shared her dreams with him a long time ago, and here she was, nine years later, and she still hadn’t realized them. And he was the reason why.

“Just some paperwork on the café.”

“It’s a bar,” he corrected, dropping the packet back on the table. “Not a café.”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh my God.” Diana Lynn’s gravelly tone seized their attention.

They both turned to where she stood in the kitchen doorway, a vision in white from head to toe, her precious Newman in her arms. “I recognize you from your pictures, Deuce.” At the sight of a stranger, Newman yelped and squiggled for freedom.

Deuce stared at Diana for a moment, then stood. “That’s what they call me,” he said.

Diana breezed in, releasing the jittery little spaniel who leaped on Kendra’s lap and barked at Deuce.

“I’m Diana Lynn Turner.” She held out her hand to him. “And thank God for that pacemaker, because otherwise your father would have a heart attack when he comes downstairs.”

Diana beamed at him as they shook hands, sweeping him up and down with the look of keen appraisal she was known to give a smart investment property. Her mouth widened into an appreciative smile that she directed to Kendra.

“No wonder you’ve had a crush on him your whole life. He is simply delicious.”

Diana was nothing if not blunt. Kendra willed her color not to rise as she conjured up a look of utter disinterest and a shrug. “Guess that depends on how you define delicious.”

DEUCE FILED THE lifelong crush comment for later, and turned his attention back to the most unlikely maternal replacement he could imagine.

Her smile was as blinding as the sun in his eyes when he squinted for a pop fly. Jet-black hair pulled straight back offset wide, copper-brown eyes, and she had so few wrinkles she’d either been born with magnificent genes or had her own personal plastic surgeon. While she was certainly not his father’s age of seventy-one, something about her bearing told him she’d passed through her fifties already. And enjoyed every minute of the journey.

He released her power grip. “You’ve done quite a number on this house.”

She arched one shapely eyebrow and toyed with a strand of pearls that hung around her neck. “That’s what I do. Numbers. What on earth made you decide to finally come home?”

No bush-beating for this one, he noted. “I retired.”

She choked out a quick laugh. “Hardly. But your father will be over the moon to see you. How long are you staying?”

He casually scratched his face. He’d already admitted his plans. “A while.”

“How long is a while?” Diana asked.

“For good.”

“Good?” Her bronze eyes widened. “You’re staying here in Rockingham for good?”

“Who is staying for good?” The booming voice of Seamus Monroe accompanied his heavy footsteps on a staircase. He came around the corner and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Good God in Heaven,” he muttered, putting one of his mighty hands over his chest. For a moment Deuce’s gut tightened, thinking he had given his father a heart attack. He barely had time to take in the fact that Dad’s classic black-Irish dark hair had now fully transformed to a distinguished gray, but his eyebrows hadn’t seemed to catch up yet. Then the older man lunged toward him with both arms open and squeezed until neither man could breathe.

Deuce thought his own chest would explode with relief as they embraced. Although his father had been the most demanding human who ever raised a son, he’d also loved that son to distraction. Deuce was counting on that. That and the fact that age might have mellowed the old man.

They slapped each other’s backs and Dad pulled back and took Deuce’s face in his hands, shaking it with only slightly more force than the hug. “What the hell were you thinking getting in that race car, son?”

Maybe mellowed would be pushing it.

Deuce laughed as he pulled away. “I was thinking I wouldn’t get caught.”

“You could have been killed!” his father said, his eyes glinting with a fury Deuce had seen a million times. And those words. How many times had Seamus Monroe uttered “you could have been killed” after Deuce had “gotten caught”?

There was only one answer. Deuce had used it a few times, too. “I wasn’t killed, Dad.”

“But your career was.”

Deuce extended his right arm and shook it out. “Hey, I’m thirty-three. Time to let the young dudes take the mound.”

Seamus made a harumphing noise that usually translated into “baloney” or something harder if ladies weren’t present. Then he brightened and reached out for one of the ladies who was present. “And you’ve met the love of—Diana.”

His life.

Mom couldn’t be the love of his life forever, and the mature man in Deuce knew that. It was that temperamental little boy in him who wanted to punch a wall at the thought.

“Sure did. And I’m impressed with this house. Doesn’t look anything like the old Swain place.”

“Have you seen Monroe’s?” Dad said, throwing a proud look at Kendra.

She still sat at the kitchen table, the brown-and-white dog sizing him up from her lap. The almost-blush that Diana had caused had faded, but Kendra’s eyes were still unnaturally bright.

“Yep,” Deuce said, his gaze still on her. “I saw the bar. Big changes there, too.” He dug his hands into his pockets and leaned against one of the high-gloss countertops. “In fact this whole town looks completely different.”

Dad squeezed Diana a little closer to his side. “This is the reason, Deuce. This lady right here has done it all. She’s a one-woman growth curve.” He slid his hand over her waist and patted her hip, then glanced back at Kendra. “And so’s our little firestorm, Kennie.”

“So what’s going on down there, Dad? Kendra tells me you’re sticking your toes into the Internet waters.”

“We’ve been testing the waters for over a year and we haven’t drowned yet.” Dad laughed softly. “And if everything goes like we think it might, we’re going in deeper. Right, Kennie?”

She leaned forward and slid her mysterious envelope across the table. “And here’s the boat we’re taking out.”

“Oh!” Diana squealed and grabbed the envelope hungrily. “Let me see! How wonderful that Deuce is here for the final unveiling. Have some coffee, everyone. We’ll go into the family room and have a look at Kennie’s masterpiece.”

Kennie’s masterpiece? Not exactly just some paperwork. Deuce gave her another hard look, but she gathered up the dog and her mug and turned her back to him.

As the women moved to the other room, Deuce sidled up to his dad. “So, how you feeling? That, uh, thing working okay?”

The older man gave him a sly smile. “My thing works fine. I don’t even take that little blue pill.”

Deuce closed his eyes for a moment. “I meant the pacemaker.”

Dad laughed. “I know what you meant. It’s fine. I’ve never been healthier in my life.” He looked to the family room at Diana, his classic Irish eyes softening to a clear blue. “And I haven’t been happier in a long time, either.”

Things had changed, all right. And some things weren’t meant to change back.

“I can tell,” Deuce responded. He purposely kept the note of resignation out of his voice.

He couldn’t argue. Dad looked as vibrant as Deuce could remember him in the past nine years. Not that he’d seen him very often.

In the family room, Kendra had spread computer printouts of bar charts and graphs over a large coffee table. Alongside were architectural blueprints, and hand-drawn sketches of tables and computers. He took a deep breath and let his attention fall on an architect’s drawing of some kind of stage and auditorium. What the hell was a stage doing in Monroe’s?

He could try to deal with Dad’s romance, but messing with the bar he grew up in might be too much.

“So what’s this all about?” he asked.

“This, son, is the future of Monroe’s.” Dad squeezed into a loveseat next to Diana and curled his arm around her shoulder, beaming as he continued. “We’ve tested the concept, made it work profitably and now we’re ready to expand it.”

Deuce dropped onto the sofa across from them, close to where Kendra knelt on the floor organizing the papers. “It already looked pretty expanded to me,” he said.

“Well, we did buy out the card shop next door and added some space,” Diana said. “But Kennie’s plans are much, much bigger than that.”

“Is that so?” He looked at her and waited for an explanation. “How big?”

She met his gaze, and held it, a challenge in her wide blue eyes. “We’re hoping to buy the rest of the block, so we can eventually add a small theater for performance art, a gallery for local artists and a full DVD rental business.”

He worked to keep his jaw from hitting his chest.

“Tell him about the learning center,” his father coaxed.

“Well,” she said, shifting on her hips, “We’re going to add an area just for people who are not technically savvy. They can make appointments with our employees for hands-on Internet training.”

He just stared at her. All he wanted to do was run a sports bar with TVs playing ESPN and beer flowing freely. It sure as hell didn’t take place on the information highway and karaoke night was as close to performance art as he wanted his customers to get.

But Deuce stayed quiet. He’d figure out a strategy. As soon as Dad found out that Deuce planned to buy the place, surely he’d change his mind. And Deuce would buy out Kendra’s fifty percent if he had to. She could open her theater and gallery and learning center somewhere else in Rockingham.

He’d make his father understand that he had a plan for the future and it made sense. It didn’t include baseball for the first time in his life, but that was okay.

His only option was coaching and with his track record for breaking rules, he doubted too many teams would be lined up to have him as a role model for younger players. He had no interest in television, or working an insurance company, or being the spokesperson for allergy medicine, like the rest of the has-been ballplayers of the world.