Love and Shenanigans (Ballybeg, Book 1) (The Ballybeg Series) (16 page)

When the piercing doorbell rang, he jumped, almost spilling his coffee. Frowning, he set the cup on the smooth granite counter. He wasn’t expecting any callers.

In the hallway, his visitor’s feminine form was visible through the door’s stained glass inlay.

Fiona stood on his doorstep. She had flour on her nose. He had a sudden urge to lick it off. What the flip was wrong with him? Was he losing what was left of his mind?

“Hello, Gavin.”

“Hey, Fiona. What’s up?”

She was wearing one of Bridie’s old aprons, floral with a lace trim. “Olivia and I are trying out recipes, but my aunt’s kitchen scales are broken. Can we borrow yours?”

The words came out in an unpunctuated rush. She blushed and teased her lip ring with her tongue, sending an unexpected surge of longing to his loins.

“Uh, sure,” he said slowly, doing a mental inventory of the contents of his kitchen cupboards. “I think I have scales somewhere. Tell you what, I’ll have a rummage and call over when I’ve found them.”

“Thanks. I’ll be…” She jerked a thumb over the hedge dividing his front garden from Bridie’s, then legged it.

“Right,” he said into the empty air. “I’ll be right over.”

He rooted through several kitchen cupboards before he found an ancient pair of kitchen scales. He blew dust off them. “I think a quick scrub is called for, don’t you, Wiggly Poo?”

The puppy woofed his enthusiastic agreement.

When the scales were clean and dried, Gavin slipped out his front door. The dog squeezed between his legs and shot out into the garden and out the gate.

“Steady on, mate,” Gavin said, racing after him. “I doubt you’re welcome next door after the porcelain-smashing fiasco.”

“I’d say he’s smashed all there is to smash,” said Fiona, opening Bridie’s front door. She’d tied her curly hair up in a bun now, but the sexy streak of flour on her nose remained.

His eyes met hers and held them for a second. A soft patter began in his chest. Had she always had eyes that shade of green-blue, or was it the light?

His gaze dropped to the flour on her nose. He should tell her…
Nah
. She’d only go and rub it off.

She caught him staring. “What? Oh!” Her hand flew to her face and rubbed off the flour, revealing a smattering of freckles underneath. She smiled, drawing his attention once again to her platinum lip ring.

He’d never kissed a woman with piercings before. She hadn’t had them when they’d slept together in Vegas. Did she also have a…
Jaysus. Get a grip, Maguire.

He hauled his thoughts out of the gutter and shoved the scales at her. “Here you go. They’re clean and everything.”

“Thanks. We need to get the measurements accurate for the fairy cakes.”

“I haven’t had fairy cakes in years,” he said, still fixated on the lip ring. They’d barely spoken since the day he’d dropped the coffee machine round to the café. He’d reneged on his promise to call by each morning for a coffee fix, somehow sensing his presence unsettled both of them. Yet when she’d sent Sharon to return his machine to him, he’d been disappointed.

“The scales might be banjaxed. I haven’t used them in ages.” He was babbling, hovering on her doorstep for no rational reason.

He’d messed up her life, all because he’d not had his wits about him that morning in Vegas, not made sure Draper had shredded the documents in front of him before forking over the money. He’d screwed up, and now they were all paying for it.

Wiggly Poo chose that moment to charge at Fiona, squeeze past her legs, and bound into Bridie’s house.

Oh, shite.

A screech from the kitchen indicated Wiggly Poo was up to his old tricks.

“The sticky buns,” Fiona cried and ran to the kitchen.

Olivia stood in the middle of the kitchen, an expression of horror on her face. Wiggly Poo had leaped onto the table and was helping himself to a cooling tray of freshly baked buns.

Stunned silence reigned until Fiona let out a crack of laughter. “There goes an hour of hard work.”

“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. “The dog is a menace. I’ve signed us up for obedience school, but it doesn’t start for another couple of weeks.”

“Naughty dog,” Fiona said, scooping him up and lifting him far away from the tray of buns. “I’m no expert, but I’d wager those are not part of your puppy diet plan.”

Wiggly Poo licked her face.

Gavin’s loins tightened. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to think of ice-cold plunge pools.
Aw, man.
He was a hopeless case. How could he be envious of a dog?

Olivia picked through the remaining sticky buns. “We can salvage a few,” she said dubiously.

“No, we cannot,” Fiona said. “I’m not serving puppy-slobbered-on buns to my customers.”

“Sure, how will they know?”

“Olivia, business is tight enough without an outbreak of food poisoning on the premises.” Fiona laughed and extracted butter from the fridge. “No, I’ll start from scratch. It’ll give me a chance to practice for when you’re not available to help me bake.”

“You’re planning on baking your own stuff to sell in the Book Mark café?” Gavin asked.

“Yeah.” She tipped flour onto the scales. “I’m not impressed by Gillespie’s.”

“Gillespie’s buns are bland,” Gavin said. “I’m not a fan.”

“You should call by and try out our wares. I’ll give you a bun on the house as a thank-you for lending me your coffee machine.” Her apron fit snugly around her backside. The same splendid backside he’d seen bared in all its glory a couple of weeks before.

His focus on ice-cold water deserted him, and the swell of his arousal strained the zipper of his jeans. Bloody hell. He had to get out of here before he disgraced himself. “Come on, Wiggly Poo. Let’s get you home before you cause more mayhem.”

The little dog wriggled in Fiona’s arms until she set him free. He bounded up to Gavin with the enthusiasm of a dog that hadn’t seen his master in a month.

Gavin picked him up and settled him under his arm. “I’ll come by the Book Mark with Luca at the weekend. He’s always up for a new book and a sticky bun.”

“You’re babysitting him again?” Olivia asked in a caustic tone. “Does Jonas actually live in Dublin? He seems to spend most of his time plaguing us with his presence.”

Gavin swallowed a laugh. Olivia and Jonas irritated the hell out of one another and had done from the time they’d been spotty teenagers. Time and alleged maturity had done nothing to change the situation. “Jonas and Luca are coming to keep me company in my splendid isolation.”

Fiona snorted with laughter. “Join the club. I suspect my tainted presence is part of the reason trade is slow at the Book Mark. My aunt and uncle aren’t speaking to me, and neither are their friends and acolytes.”

“It’ll pass,” Olivia said with confidence. “Once people find something new to trigger their outrage radar.”

Fiona packed a couple of fairy cakes into a paper bag and handed it to Gavin. “You can be my taste tester. Just keep them away from Wiggly Poo.”

“Thanks,” he said, careful not to touch her when he took the bag. “See you Saturday.”

He waved good-bye and took Wiggly Poo back to his cottage, trying hard to eradicate visions of Fiona’s luscious arse from his mind.

IT WAS SATURDAY and the bookshop was hopping. Thanks to Sharon and Olivia, word of the new coffee machine and edible baked goods had spread.

Fiona mopped sweat from her forehead. The fickle Irish weather had turned from mild to frigid in a matter of days. Which was to say the temperature was hovering around four degrees Celsius—low enough to give the Irish hypothermia.

Unfortunately for the staff of the Book Mark, the heating was on the blink. It recognized two settings: off or on at a level fit to give heatstroke.

And no, the bookshop was not equipped with air-conditioning.

“It’s bleeding savage out there,” Sharon said, lugging a box of books into the small stockroom. “But it’s worse in here. I ought to get danger pay for working in this heat.”

She suppressed a smile. “How does a glass of iced tea sound?”

“It won’t buy me a one-way ticket to Ibiza, but I’ll take it all the same.”

Fiona poured two large glasses of iced tea and added a slice of lemon. “The electrician’s coming by on Monday. We’ll have to put up with the heat until then. In the meantime, keeping the windows open is the best we can do.”

Mrs. Keogh heaped her pile of books on the counter.

“How are ya, Missus K.?” Sharon asked in a voice that projected around the shop. “More romances, I see. Did you ever try that
Fifty Shades of Whatsit
? There’s loads of sex in that one. I’m sure you’d love it.”

Poor Mrs. Keogh blushed to the roots of her snowy white hair.

Fiona shot her assistant a warning look. “Here, Mrs. Keogh. Let me help you load up your trolley. Would you like a sticky bun to enjoy at home? It’s on the house.”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you, dear.” Mrs. Keogh examined the glass display on the café counter, her hands aflutter. “May I have one with sprinkles on top? They remind me of the buns my mother baked when I was a child.”

“No problem.” Fiona put the bun in a paper bag and placed it at the top of Mrs. Keogh’s trolley. “Happy reading.” When Mrs. Keogh had left, Fiona faced her cheeky assistant. “Seriously, Sharon. You can’t speak to the customers like that.”

“Missus K.’s well used to me,” Sharon said, shoveling a fairy cake into her face. “She’ll be grand.”

“The next time she’s in here, I want you to make a point of being nice to her.”

“Huh?” Sharon’s heavily made-up eyes widened. “Aren’t I always friendly?”

“There’s friendly, and there’s cheeky, and you don’t appear to know the difference.”

“Do you think I offended her?”

Fiona gave a mental eye roll. “Sharon, the poor woman was scarlet. You embarrassed her.”

Her assistant chewed on her cake thoughtfully. “Yeah, all right. I’ll tone it down. She’s a nice old biddy, actually.”

“When you’re done eating the stock, I want you to unload the dishwasher. We’re out of cups.”

With Sharon occupied and the café patrons served, Fiona seized the opportunity to slip into the tiny stockroom at the back of the shop where two boxes of used books required sorting and price-tagging.

She’d barely begun tackling the contents of the first box when the familiar jangle of the door indicated the arrival of another customer. The second she heard his deep, rumbling voice, she knew who it was. Unfortunately, her body was also acutely aware of his presence. A rush of heat coursed through her, and her hands flew to her wild hair.

It was Gavin. And he wasn’t alone. A high child’s voice accompanied him. Her heart hammered in her chest. She was daft to have this reaction to his presence. Besides, she was still pissed with him over his idiocy in Vegas. Although, truth be told, she was more annoyed with herself for not checking.

Flustered, she smoothed down her creased shirt and fiddled with her hair in an effort to put it in some semblance of order. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the small bathroom mirror at the back of the stockroom.
Holy hell.
The heat was making her curls even frizzier than usual. Giving her hair up as a lost cause, she took a deep breath and ventured out into the shop.

She spotted him immediately—not that it would be difficult, given his size and the smallness of the shop. “Hey.”

The top of his shamrock tattoo peeked out from beneath his shirt collar. Before he turned around to face her, the back of his neck stiffened.

God, he was gorgeous. Her knees turned to jelly. She’d avoided staring at him since she’d gotten back to Ballybeg and was making up for lost time now. Despite his height, he carried himself well and gave the impression of speed as well as bulk. His dark blond hair shone in the autumn sunlight streaming through the shop window. When he was a teenager, his face had been angelic-looking. Age and experience had made it rugged, lending it a comfortable, lived-in appearance.

His sensual mouth curved into a smile. Fiona was sure she was blushing from head to toe. “Hey, yourself.”

His deep voice did things to the lower part of her anatomy she was sure weren’t appropriate in a public place.

Fiona shifted her attention to the small, dark-haired boy at Gavin’s side who was examining a book on dinosaurs with a stern expression on his tanned face. “You must be Luca.”

“Luca,” Gavin prompted.

The little boy wrenched his attention away from the dinosaur book. “You’re the pretty lady who lives in Bridie’s house.”

“He takes after his dad,” Gavin said, grinning. “Has an eye for the ladies.”

Luca squinted at Fiona. “Did that hurt?” he asked, pointing to her lip ring.

“At first, but not anymore. My tattoos hurt more.” Fiona shoved a stray curl behind her ear. “Can I offer you two something to eat?”

Luca made a dash for the W.B. Yeats table.

Fiona and Gavin exchanged smiles. “I’ll take that to be a yes,” she said. “What’ll you have?”

“An espresso for me and a lemonade for Luca.” He went over to examine the display of sweet treats. “And two berry scones.”

Fiona placed two scones on a large plate. She added two small ramekins, one filled with clotted cream and the other with Bridie’s homemade strawberry jam, and set the plate on their table.

“Say, Fiona…”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Yeah?”

“You always had great taste in books. I find myself… lacking a library at present.”

“Muireann chucked his books in the pond,” said Luca through a mouthful of scone, “but she’s not pregnant.”

The customers at the next table ceased their conversation and swiveled in their chairs to gawk at Gavin.

He turned the color of Bridie’s jam.

“Yes,” Fiona said, scrambling for something—anything—appropriate to say. “Under the circumstances, that would have been awkward.”

Gavin shot her a look from beneath his lashes.

Her tummy muscles began to spasm.

“Oh, go on,” he said dryly. “You know you want to laugh.”

“Out of the mouths of babes,” she said with a giggle.

“Ah, yes. Luca can be relied upon for his attention to detail. Now, about those books…”