Page 91 of Tee’d Up For Trouble

“You got a minute? I want to run something by you.” I leaned against the doorway.

“Sure.” She set her peeler down.

“I’ve been thinking.” I stepped closer.

“That’s never a good sign,” she muttered, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Funny.” I pulled her into a loose hug.

She went on tiptoe and dropped a kiss on my lips. “Tell me what you’ve been thinkin’, Yank.”

“So, the farm, I have an idea,” I said and added in warning, “I haven’t thought it through though, so have patience.”

“With you? Always,” she mocked.

“I can’t keep going away to train, Dee. I need a place here,” I explained and then gave her the highlights of mynewplan.

She seemed to think about it for a bit too long, and I worried she thought it would be a shit idea.

“You can have maybe a summer camp for children who want to learn from a pro golfer…you know, kids who can’t afford it,” she suggested.

“Aye, I can do that.” I brushed a curl off her forehead and gazed at her perfect beauty.

“We can…I don’t know, build cabins for people to stay. You know, at the far end of the property, by the lake?”

“That won’t be touristy for you?”

“No, not if we’re helping people.”

“So, what you’re sayin’, darlin’ Dee is that you’re all in.”

She laughed. “Yeah, Jax, I’m all in.”

And I knew she was saying she was all in with me, not just the golf course that I’d have to build and probably wouldn’t have ready until the next season, so this season was still going to be shite unless I convinced Dee to leave the pub and travel with me.

That evening, I brought it up at the pub, and everyone had an opinion and a whole hell of a lot of questions. But this was how things were done at Ballybeg. You brought the entire village on board.

“You know, Jax, I heard that they do these things called charity golf things,” Paddy mused. “Can we do that? I mean, bring people in for a short time, and that would help the whole village, wouldn’t it?”

“But where would people stay, Paddy?” Noreen asked.

“We all have places,” Eileen Nolan suggested. “I have a barn I can convert.”

Everyone thought they could host celebrity golfers in their homes. I wasn’t sure how that would go over with some of my colleagues, but hell, then they could stay in Cork or Ennis.

“Like Ballybeg’s own Airbnb.” Saoirse nodded approvingly.

“Just a minute here.” Mickey raised his hand. “And we’re talkin’ real golf, not one of those fancy places with virtual screens and robots?”

“How would you even know of such a fancy place, Mickey Byrne?” Mrs. O’Leary chided. She’d started coming out more often since the protest march.

“I have lived a life outside of Ballybeg, Muriel,” Mickey shot back.

I raised both hands. “No robots, Mickey. Just real golf.”

“Good.” He let out a long, dramatic breath. “Robots give me the creeps.”

A ripple of laughter spread through the room, and I felt the tension ease.

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