Page 17 of Dublin Debacle

Jack stood beside her, drying and stacking.

Though she’d washed hundreds of glasses and snack bowls every night at the pub, she found working beside Jack to be different. Relaxing and... intimate. It was nice to share such a mundane task with someone who didn’t feel like it was beneath him.

Once they’d placed the clean dishes in the cabinets, Emily led the way into the sitting room. “You can have the couch. I’ll take the chair.”

“No way,” Jack said. “You take the couch. I’m perfectly comfortable on the floor. I’ve slept in worse places.”

She stopped and turned to face him, not realizing how close he was. She had to tip her head back to look up into his face.

He smiled and softly pressed a finger to her lips. “Please, just go with it,” he said, his tone rich, resonant and sexy as hell. “I’m too tired to argue.”

Too affected by the feel of his finger against her lips, Emily nodded.

Jack stared down into her eyes for a long moment.

Emily wondered what his lips would feel like in place of his finger. For a wild, irrational moment, she imagined rising on her toes and kissing him to satisfy her curiosity.

Fortunately, Jack stepped back before Emily lost her mind.

She ducked her head to hide her face and her flushed cheeks. Taking more time than was necessary, she spread out the blanket and fluffed the pillow, all the while with her back to the man moving about behind her. When she stretched out on the couch, she discovered he’d spread his blanket across the floor, not far from the sofa, and lay with his hands laced behind his neck, staring up at the ceiling.

Emily reached for the lamp on the end table and twisted the knob, casting them into the anonymity of darkness.

Though exhausted, she lay for a long time, her eyes adjusting to the limited glow of the streetlight finding its way around the curtains covering the picture window.

She turned on her side, tucked her hand beneath her cheek and stared at the silhouette of the man lying so close.

“Jack,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded without hesitation.

“You’re not a journalist, are you?”

“What makes you think otherwise?” he countered.

“You don’t strike me as someone who sits at a computer, typing articles about folklore,” she said.

“How do I strike you?”

“As more physical than cerebral.”

He laughed. “You make me sound like a chest-pounding caveman.”

She smiled into the darkness. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Emily let the silence stretch between them for a moment before she asked, “Why did you come to the pub tonight?”

CHAPTER4

Jack staredup at the light fixture mounted on the ceiling, considering Emily’s question. He was supposed to be working undercover to find the source of online propaganda being spewed across the city of Dublin and all of Ireland.

Now that he’d become involved in what could possibly be the result of that propaganda, he’d, by his actions, chosen sides. However, he wasn’t completely clear whichsidePaddy and Emily O’Brien claimed.

While Emily had been in the shower, Jack had contacted his lead, Ace Hammerson, in the Zurich office, bringing him up to date on what had happened that night. Ace promised to send an agent to protect Paddy and the doctor, and to expect that he would arrive by mid-morning. He had also suggested Jack touch bases with their computer guru, aka hacker, Lucie Monroe, and get her working on the dark web to find anything she could about the warring factions present in Dublin and how the gypsy Travellers fit into the picture.

He was just in the information-gathering phase of this mission and hesitant to bring anyone else into his confidence. Thus, his reluctance to give Emily O’Brien what she wanted.

The truth.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in the moment between her asking and his ultimate response.

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