Page 16 of Dublin Debacle

She touched her hand to the door, the image of his naked chest seared into her memory. “Thank you.” The cool, wooden panel was a poor substitute, but it was all she would allow herself. Touching the stranger’s naked chest was not on the menu.

Pizza was.

She stripped off her clothes, turned on the water and stepped beneath the shower’s spray before it had sufficiently warmed. She needed the chill to cool her heated skin before she faced the Yank again.

Just the thought of facing him again made her hurry through the motions. She scrubbed the grit off her skin from having been flattened against the pavement beneath the hulk of a human who’d attacked her and her uncle. Had it been less than a couple of hours since that had happened? She wouldn’t be standing beneath a shower’s spray with a bare-chested man in the room beyond if he hadn’t shown up at the exact moment she’d needed him to rescue her. Stranger or not, he’d saved her life.

Still, he hadn’t told her much about himself. She’d work on that.

Over pizza.

After scrubbing her hair, face and skin, she rinsed, applied conditioner to her hair and rinsed again, eager to get back to her fact-finding mission.

Emily dried off using one of Aoife’s fluffy white towels. After scrounging around in the drawers beside the sink, she found a brush and worked her way through the tangles until her blond hair was smooth against her scalp, hanging halfway down her back.

Her father had cried when he’d met her and her brother at the airport after their mother’s death. He’d said she was the spitting image of the woman he’d fallen in love with all those years ago.

Seeing her father and brother standing side by side, she’d been struck by how much Finn resembled his black-haired, brown-eyed father. Her heart ached for her mother, who’d sacrificed so much for her children. She’d given up her life with the man of her heart to raise her babies away from the influence of their Traveller cousins.

When Emily had asked her father why he hadn’t followed her mother to live in the United States, his face had hardened. “I couldn’t,” he said. “I had my reasons.”

When she’d asked why her mother hadn’t come back to Ireland, her father had told her that she would never have been safe.

Emily found a robe hanging on a hook and debated wearing it rather than dressing in the clothes she’d worn when she arrived, finally deciding to wear her clothes. If someone tried to break into the townhouse, she wanted to be ready to stand and fight or duck and run. Either way, a robe wouldn’t be optimal.

Refreshed and dressed, she exited the bathroom and then slipped into her uncle’s bedroom for a moment to assure herself that he was still breathing and resting peacefully.

Then she followed the scent of tomato sauce and pepperoni to the small kitchen.

Jack, with a quilted potholder in his hand, pulled a tray from the oven with half a pizza on it and laid it on the stovetop.

Emily’s stomach rumbled loudly.

“When was the last time you ate?” Jack asked as he ran a pizza cutter through the melted cheese and crust.

“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. “Maybe breakfast.”

Jack shook his head, slid a slice of pizza onto a plate and handed it to her. “Eat.”

She took the plate to the small table and sank into a chair.

Jack joined her with his plate and sat across from her.

For the next few minutes, words weren’t necessary as they consumed their slices and went back for more.

After polishing off her second slice of pizza, Emily drew in a deep breath and let it out.

“Feel better?” Jack asked.

She nodded. “Much better. Thank you.”

“I’ll clean up.”

“Don’t be silly. You don’t have to wait on me.” She followed him to the sink, carrying her plate and teacup from earlier. “I’ll wash. You can dry.”

“Deal,” he said, and found a dry dish towel.

Emily filled the sink with warm, soapy water and quickly washed and rinsed their dishes.

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