Page 25 of Forever, Maybe
Tomorrow, she’d laugh it off. Make a joke of it.
Danny, you’ll never guess! We met these two guys tonight, and one of them had a picture of his nephew on his phone. The boy looked exactly like you. It was as if I’d been transported back in time. Weird, eh?
She closed her eyes, the words ringing hollow even in her mind.
Danny would laugh. Or he might be intrigued.What, there’s this young lad in Glasgow who looks a lot like me? Mebbe I should meet him!
Then, super-casual, she could say:Do you have something you need to confess? Only joking!
What if he replied,Yes?
Would that give her the perfect opportunity to air her own secrets?
The thought flickered, sharp and unwelcome, but she cut it off with practiced precision.No. It didn’t.
A teenager with dark hair, high cheekbones, and spotty skin—hardly unique traits. Her husband was of Irish descent, like a significant portion of Glasgow’s population, whose ancestors had fled famine and poverty to settle in the city. Dark hair, pale skin and brown-black eyes were the Celtic calling card. Tadgh’s nephew could share the genes of any number of men.
And besides, she’d seen the photo through an alcoholic haze. Her eyes had played tricks on her. The whole idea was absurd. When would Danny have even had the time to meet someone else, let alone…
No, it was ridiculous.
Regardless of how uncanny the resemblance seemed, the simplest explanation was the most likely. Just as Stephanie had said:
Pure coincidence.
Pure and simple.
Chapter nine
December1995
Marry me, gorgeous...
Nell glanced at the wine she’d spilled on the bed, wondering if Danny’s tolerance was so catastrophically low that a single sip had transformed the usually sensible, rational man into the kind of lunatic who proposed marriage.
Someone hammered on a door in the corridor outside the room, yelling at the occupant to get a move on if they were to make the gig at King Tut’s on time. The door banged open and shut and the two people walked away, debating the merits of the grunge band they were going to see.
She stared at the rumpled bed—the same bed where Danny had just spent the last half hour teasing an orgasm out of her that left her trembling. If only she could rewind time, erase the last five minutes, and stay cocooned in that blissful bubble.
If she said no, there’d be no salvaging this. She couldn’t look at him, too afraid her expression—whatever the hell her face was doing right now—would hurt him.
Instead, she sat up, took another sip of wine, and tugged the green slip back into place, its straps settling on her shoulders like a flimsy shield.
“Nell… Nell?”
Oh, God. He sounded lost. This man who had swept her up, whose relentless busyness—that bloody sandwich business and how it devoured his time—drove her mad. But Danny had wormed his way under her skin from the start. The way he’d chased after her that first time they met, catching up with her in her halls. That first kiss. The mind-blowing sex. His kindness, his unwavering consideration.
Was it that ridiculous an idea?
Of course it was.
“But I’m twenty-one,” she said. “And you’re only twenty-two, sweetie. And we live in the 1990s, not the 1890s. Even my grandmother was older than I am now when she got married.”
Danny shifted onto his knees, balancing on his heels, his hands resting lightly on her thighs. His face—classic Celt, dark hair, white skin—flushed, the redness sharpening the shadows of his old acne scars. His eyes had that feverish intensity as he scanned her face.
“That just makes us a bit cool, then. Not doing what everyone else does. And you always say I know what I want, that I don’t like wasting time.”
She took another swig of wine from the mug before setting it aside. “Yes. You’re very… single-minded.”
