Page 8 of Tee’d Up For Trouble

I shrugged off the past. Maybe I did need a break if I was thinking about Dani—something I hadn’t done in a long time. She had become a reminder that love alone wasn’t always enough. You needed shared values, too. For her, it was family name, status, and money—in that order. For me, it was following my heart and doing what made me happy.

* * *

When I came downstairs around four in the evening, the pub was humming.

The crowd was lively but not exactly raucous. There was a lot of swearing, loud talking, and chants ofslainte. The brass sconces threw warm light, and surprisingly, the smell of something mouthwatering wafted from the kitchen.

Everyone knew everyone. That much was obvious. The music was pop. A young girl, a server, was taking orders.

My Wild Cat smiled and laughed as she stood behind the bar, drawing pints. I saw two empty barstools and decided to take one. Dee came from around the bar to talk to someone who’d just walked in.

I sat next to an elderly man who was also solo.

As Dee talked to someone I assumed wasanothervendor but one she liked, I saw the old man’s hand move to Dee’s well-formed ass covered in the tightest of jeans, and he…honest to fuckin’ God…pinched a cheek.

I waited with bated breath, and Dee did not disappoint. She turned and glared at the old man, who was grinning mischievously. She picked up a bottle of what looked like Irish whiskey resting on the bar, put a hand on her hip, and narrowed her eyes at the old man.

“Liam Murphy, if you so much as breathe near my arse again, I’ll take this bottle and break it over your head!”

“It wasn’t me.” Liam assumed an innocent look and then looked at me. “It washim.”

I straightened.What the fuck?

“Liam Murphy, you think I can’t pick out your gnarly fingers in a butt-pinching lineup?” Dee glowered.

A what?Butt-pinching lineup? Where the fuckwasI?

Liam Murphy smiled wide, and his teeth, or dentures, to be precise, were on full display like he was in a Colgate ad. "Ah, come on now, Dee. I’ve not long left in me—ya wouldn’t deny an old fella one of life’s simple pleasures, would ya?"

Dee went nose to nose with him. “You gonna die before your time is up if you put your hands on me again.”

“Ah, go on, Dee,” the man said, beaming guiltily like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “You know I only do it ‘cause I love ya.”

“You’ll love me without your hands.” She jabbed a finger in the air in front of his offending digits. “Sit. Behave, or I’ll have you banned for a month.” She glared at me for good measure as if saying, ‘You, Yank, you better keep your paws to yourself.’

“I’ll probably be dead in a month,” he grumbled.

Dee huffed and went back to her conversation with the vendor.

The man with the gnarly fingers Dee could pick out of a lineup offered his hand to me. “Liam Murphy, dying of lung cancer.”

I shook his hand hesitantly. “Jax Caldwell, stranded tourist.”

Dee walked back to the bar and came to us. “You settled in?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I knew thema’ampissed her off, and maybe that was why I was planning on overdoing it.

She sighed. “The special tonight is Irish beer stew with dumplings and Cadhla’s soda bread. For dessert, Ronan’s made a bread puddin’ with whiskey sauce.”

I nodded and looked around. “You got a menu?”

“No.” She tilted her chin toward a board on the wall, which listed the two items she’d mentioned. “When I said special tonight, I meant that was all we were serving tonight.”

“Right. No vegetarians in Ballybeg?” I asked.

“Oh, my Lord, are you one of them vegan people?” Dee exclaimed in mock horror and then went back to speaking dryly, “If you are, you’re gonna be one hungry puppy.”

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