Page 2 of Beer & Broomsticks

Ruairí had stepped in a few months back—despite Bridget’s objections—and taken over bartending while she prepared the occasional meal and waited tables when her servers failed to show. He’d initially done it as a favor to Cian, but he’d never left.

She couldn’t say Ruairí was a terrible worker; he’d actually turned out to be a godsend. But she didn’t have to like it, and she sure as hell wouldn’t praise or thank him for his timely help.

“Three-thirty should do.” If she could stand to have him around, she’d have told him an hour earlier to help prep for the evening ahead. However, it was essential to her mental wellbeing that she avoid spending as much time with him as possible. “Now go away. I’ve things to do.”

Ruairí staredat the rigid back Bridget presented to him. The woman was as stubborn as the day was long. She refused to listen to any apologies or explanations of the past, convinced he was in the wrong.

And maybe he had been,once. But now? Now he deserved to be heard. Having dealt with her frigid stares and scathing remarks for the better part of seventeen years, he was working up to a fine temper.

Her brothers, Cian and Carrick, were convinced she’d mellow if Ruairí remained in close proximity. They were wrong. If anything, Bridget had reinforced the walls of her heart and effectively barricaded it against him. Convincing her that he sincerely regretted his fool mistake was getting harder by the day.

She tossed back her shiny red hair with a simple flick of her wrist and cast him a withering glare. “Still here?”

For some odd reason, he found the gesture humorous, but he dare not laugh where she could see, or she’d skin him alive. He couldn’t resist saying the one thing he knew would irk her. “Aye,mo ghrá.It’s difficult to part ways with one so lovely.”

“Sure, and you didn’t have a problem movin’ on when you decided to stick your lying tongue down Molly Mae’s scrawny throat.”

Ah, finally.Bridget was ready to address the ever-present issue.

“Molly Mae kissedme, Bridg. Not the other way ‘round.”

She snorted. “From my vantage point, the kiss went on for a good day, and you weren’t shoving her away, now were you?”

“She used a spell on me.”

Her severe frown rivaled the dark clouds of the fiercest winter storm. “Spell? What kind of spell?”

He almost felt bad for Molly Mae and was glad she wasn’t standing here now. Bridget would eviscerate her, magic or no. “One designed to freeze me in place,” he improvised. “I’m telling you now, Bridg, I never knew she had magic powerful enough to control me that way.”

Bridget squinted as she weighed his words.

Ruairí did his best to look innocent.

Yes, he’d kissed Molly Mae down by the stream under the large oak where he and Bridget used to meet in secret. He’d employed a whole lot of stupid with a huge heaping of arrogance when he’d come up with the idea to make Bridget jealous and force her hand. The decidedly dumb plan to convince her she couldn’t live without him had backfired on an epic level. Seventeen torturous years later, he was still dealing with the fallout.

“Do you know your left eyebrow twitches and you grimace slightly before you lie, Ruairí?”

His hand flew to his brow, but he dropped it just as quickly when he saw the smug satisfaction on her face. Goddess, he was still three steps behind Bridget on a good day.

She stood and threw the clump of weeds in his direction. “Get away, ya fool. I’ve no time for your lies.”

“Fine, you want the truth? I’ll give it to ya. I kissed her. There. I said it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, scowling harder when the wet patch from the coffee soaked through his sleeves. He was done with lies and half-truths. The time had come to put the past to rest. “I wanted to make you jealous, Bridg. You refused to marry me and leave the pub. I thought to change your mind.”

“By kissing another woman?”

He winced at the shriek. Yeah, well, it hadn’t taken him but a minute to register and regretthatfolly. “I wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed back then, and—”

“You still aren’t,” she assured him with her hands planted firmly on her hips.

Ruairí ignored the dig. “AndI grossly miscalculated your reaction. I thought to provoke you into admitting you loved me. Figuring if you finally realized we were meant to be, you’d agree to run away with me. Away from feuding families and cursed relics. Away where we could be happy,mo ghrá.”

Her silence made him fearful. Bridget O’Malley was never quiet. That she now was thoroughly disconcerted him, and the nerves of his belly all attacked at once.

“Well, you were a fecking eejit then, and you’re a fecking eejit now,” she finally said. Her eyes were a dark forest green, and it killed Ruairí to see them so. Once, when the two of them were happy and carefree, those eyes had shone like brightly polished emeralds of the purest quality.

“It’s the truth, Bridget,” he said in a low, serious tone. One he rarely used with her.

Her lids dropped, but not before he saw the glimmer of tears.

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