The Good Chase (9 page)

“That?” Erik pointed to a corner restaurant with a large Now Open sign hanging in one of its wide front windows. “Or there?”

The second place was a stand-alone building set a little ways off the main street, tucked between the quaint, two-pump gas station and the narrow lane that stretched back into a residential area lined with eighteen-hundreds-era houses. It was low and squat, with thick walls and small, stained glass windows. A stunning thatched roof stolen from another time and country swept up to a high peak and created deep eaves that sheltered a row of dry benches. The sign that swung over the door read
The Stone Pub
.

Byrne said, “That has bagpipes written all over it.”

Erik jutted a thumb back at the newly opened restaurant. “And that has sixty-year-old men and Pinot Grigio written all over that. Don't we get enough of that in the city?”

Just then, a couple exited the Stone, and when the heavy wood door yawned wide, a wave of beautiful, live fiddle music streamed out, underlaid by the gentle sounds of conversation and laughter.

The Stone it was.

The interior was warm and cramped, exactly like Byrne had expected it to be. What he hadn't expected was to feel so instantly comfortable in such a foreign place. Every clunky wood table in the front half of the pub was full, plates of steaming stew and lamb chops and sausages making his stomach grumble, even though he'd inhaled food only an hour ago.

He and Erik wedged and apologized their way into the back half of the pub, where a long, gorgeous bar that reminded him of the one in Yellin's apartment lined the whole far wall. People gathered around tall tables, and on a small, triangular stage in the corner stood a lone fiddler. The guy, whose brown hair grazed his chin, barely looked old enough to drink. He tapped his foot and played with his eyes closed, and seemed to be as lost in the music as most of the people in the pub.

Erik tapped Byrne's shoulder with a twenty. “What do you want?”

“Something cold and wet and alcoholic.”

“Bartender's cute.”

Byrne looked behind the bar that gleamed with old wood and rows of polished brass taps and laughed at the sight of the old man drawing a black stout. “What got you? The yellowed teeth, the hunched back, or the fact that his balls probably hang down to midthigh?”

“Not that one. Her.”

An adorable brunette with a pencil stuck behind her ear was chatting up two old ladies at the far end of the bar, one of whom had her silver hair pulled into pigtails and had quite possibly the largest boobs he'd ever seen. Byrne felt it appropriate to call the bartender adorable because she didn't look much older than the fiddle player.

As Erik moved in, preparing to turn on the foreigner's charm, Byrne went to the side of the room near the dartboard, where there was an open table. The table, however, had a hand-scrawled sign sitting on it. “Reserved for the Most Important People in Gleann,” it read.

So Byrne instead claimed an empty spot along the wall where there was a ledge for drinks, and waited for Erik.

And then Shea walked in.

The Stone was a dark place, its shadowed corners filled with the ghosts of old cigars and pipes, but when Shea stepped into the bar, it was like someone had taken a spotlight and magically transformed it into a woman.

A fucking gorgeous woman.

She'd pulled out the ponytail, and the rain had clumped together pieces of her long hair, making it look darker. The tartan still hung over one shoulder, tied down at the opposite hip, but she'd rolled the sleeves of her plain, white button-down shirt to her elbows.

A man and a woman flanked her: a classically pretty woman with thick, dark hair and a really big guy in a Red Sox cap, both of whom Byrne vaguely recognized. The guy knocked his forehead on the low, heavy ceiling crossbeam that divided the back bar from the front restaurant area, and the three of them laughed.

Many people called out to them, specifically to the guy, as they made their way over to the “reserved” table. Red Sox snatched the table sign and pointed at the old man bartender, who winked in return. Shea was chatting animatedly with the dark-haired woman as she pulled out a chair to sit. Who knows what drew her attention to the specific part of the wall that Byrne was currently holding up, but she paused with her hand on the back of the chair and found him. Caught him staring at her the way he'd caught her staring at him after he'd bought those strangers the whisky-tasting tickets.

With his eyes alone, he told her he thought she was beautiful. He told her he didn't want to stop what they'd started.

So of course Erik chose that exact moment to stumble back to Byrne and spill the Stone's inky porter down Byrne's arm.

“Sorry,” Erik said, pushing the sloshing pint glass into Byrne's hand. “Here. I'm going back in. Forecast is looking really good.”

Byrne looked down at the wasted teaspoons of fine beer sliding over his forearm. If it weren't for the layer of tug-of-war mud slathered on his skin, he might've licked the porter off.

“Forecast for what?” Byrne asked, but Erik just clinked glasses with him, gave him a vague thumbs-up, and then pushed back toward the bar. And the young bartender.

In the far corner, the fiddler ended his song with a flourish and the bar applauded.

Shea's friend cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Yeah, Chris!” while Red Sox put two fingers between his lips and released an earsplitting whistle. It was then Byrne remembered where he'd seen that guy before. He'd been in the whisky tent last year, hanging out with Shea, and then the next day he'd been one of the competitors in the throwing events in the games.

Onstage, Chris lowered the fiddle and shot a shy smile out to the crowd. He looped his hair behind his ear, gave a shallow bow, then tucked the instrument back under his chin and started a new song. Something slow and lovely and full of the history Shea had talked about in the campground.

At that moment, Shea turned sideways in her seat and shifted her brilliant blue eyes to him. As though she was thinking the exact same thing.

And then all of a sudden the spotlight was shining right on him, because she'd gotten up from her chair and came to stand not two feet away.

“Hi,” she said.

That's what he found most fascinating he supposed, that there was never any shyness about her. No hunch of the shoulders or awkward shuffling of her feet. She said what she meant and she acted because she wanted to.

“Hey, I know you.” He leaned his elbows on the drink ledge behind him.

“Did you guys drink all that whisky already?”

“It's somewhere over in Westbury,” he responded, “with the rest of the team.”

“Congratulations on winning. I don't think I said that. Earlier.”

“You didn't. You didn't last year either, as I recall.”

Her head tilted to one side as she gave him a lightning-fast once-over. “You're all muddy again.”

He remembered how he'd looked on Long Island. “That I am.” He took a long drink of his porter, as an excuse to look but not speak, because, strangely, he had no idea what to say.
She'd
approached
him
for once. This was uncharted territory.

She sucked in her cheeks, then said, “We seem to have better luck when you're covered in muck.”

He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Seems like we do.”

The couple who made up the “Most Important People in Gleann” sat at their table, engrossed in each other. The woman was talking and gesturing wildly, and Red Sox eyed her with a hungry expression that only another man might appreciate. When she was done, all he did was grab her chin, pull her in for a kiss, then say something against her mouth. Byrne had to look away. When he glanced back, the couple was moving toward the dartboard, leaving their important table vacant.

“Who are they?” he asked, to fill the hole. “They look familiar.”

“I know Jen from the city. She's an event planner and she organizes the games here. Last year was her first, and she asked me to come here as a favor.”

“And you came back this year for the camping.” He hid a smile behind his porter.

“Exactly. Just the camping.” She glanced at Red Sox. “His name is Leith. He grew up here and he competes in the heavy athletic events. The caber and the hammer and such.”

“Oh, right, right.” Now he remembered. Leith was the name of George's friend from Gleann, the one who'd called last year and begged Manhattan Rugby to come up to compete.

“Do you want to sit?” Shea asked.

He almost choked on his beer. “Sorry?”

She gestured to the empty table. “It took a lot for me to ask, J.P. Byrne. Please don't make me say it again.”

Hell yes.
He grabbed the back of one chair and sat, before she could change her mind. As she took the seat next to him, he had to ask, “What's changed, Shea?”

The cool thing was, he didn't have to clarify. She knew exactly what he meant. Sweeping a long look around the Stone, with the drifting notes of the fiddle twining around them, she replied, “Being here. Feeling comfortable.” Then she looked right at him and said, “Seeing you again.”

“Well, I'm glad.” It went a little deeper than that, but he couldn't show all his cards at once.

At the dartboard, Jen and Leith finished arguing about something or other, and Leith looked over at his now-occupied table. Byrne raised his glass, and Leith smiled and nodded. An understanding between two men who'd never met, like a ribbon tied around a dorm room doorknob.

He pointed to the plaid Shea wore. “Is that your family's?”

She fingered the edge of the sash. “It is. My granddad moved back to his homeland after my grandma died when I was a little girl, and he gave this to me when I was over there visiting.”

“When was that?”

“Five summers running, starting after high school. He died the winter after I was last there.” An old pain crossed her face, but then a wistful smile erased it.

“Still miss him?”

“He changed my life. Made me who I am.”

People didn't say things like that unless they wanted to talk about it, so he bit. “How so?”

The rigid way she'd been perched on the edge of her chair broke, and she angled her legs toward him. “He gave me whisky, of course. He started it all.”

“Plying young, impressionable girls with alcohol. I like him already.”

“Hee, yes, you would've liked him. So my first summer there, after I graduated high school, I turned eighteen. He brings me to a pub, and not to have dinner.”

“Wait, you graduated high school at seventeen?”

“I did.”

Byrne whistled. “Smart cookie.”

Shea let out a little snort. “Not really. Strict parents.”

“But they didn't do your homework for you, and you went to college, and now you own your own highly successful business, so if I want to call you a brainiac, I believe I'm in my right.”

“We're getting off topic. Do you want to know about my granddad and the whisky or not?”

More than anything
. “Absolutely. Sorry.”

“Okay, so Granddad thinks he's going to get me innocently wasted on Speyside whisky on my eighteenth birthday, but the moment they gave me my first taste, I was completely in love.”

“Who was ‘they'?”

“Granddad and the bartender, this twenty-year-old guy who asked me out a few weeks later. I ended up dating him that whole summer.”

“I hate him. Continue.”

She laughed. “So they thought I was just going to toss the thing back, and cough and gag, and then I'd have to be carried home. But I was so utterly fascinated by the drink. It was like my whole head had been awakened after being asleep for eighteen years. The bartender worked part-time in a distillery, and he showed me how to nose the whisky and then properly taste it. And I could smell and taste
everything
. The two of them just kept pushing little samples of all these different whiskies in front of me. I remember them staring at me as I described what I was experiencing, and Corey, that was my ex-boyfriend, told me everything he'd learned working at the distillery. By the time we'd tasted all the bottles in the pub, he'd exhausted his knowledge and told me he wanted to introduce me to his bosses.” She shrugged. “And that's how it all began.”

“So the bottom line was, you did end up getting drunk that night after all.”

She giggled. Actually giggled, with her hand over her mouth and everything. “I did. I was eighteen and I'd never had a drink before that.”

The beer, which was halfway to his mouth, came back down with a slam to the table. “How is that possible? You said you went to high school.”

“Freshman year only. But my parents pulled me out because they said it was a bad influence. Homeschooled me.”

Well, there went his horribly wrong judgment about homeschooled kids, out the window. “No way.”

She seemed to enjoy his shock. “Yes way.”

He had to throw back the last of his beer at that. He wanted another, but didn't want the slightest break in this conversation. Just then, another glass slid in front of him.

“Just passing through,” Erik said, as he set a pint in front of Shea, too. “You didn't see me.”

Byrne laughed. “Then thanks for the invisible beer.”

Erik melted back into the crowd, heading for the cute bartender again.

“One of yours?” Shea asked.

Byrne nodded. “The best of mine.”

Shea flashed him an uninhibited smile. “I have one of those, too. Makes you fear for life without them.”

The new beer felt welcomingly cool between his palms. “So. Strict parents. Homeschooling. So they must have
loved
that you went over to Scotland and drank with Grandpa.”

“Oh, yes. They
loved
it.” Sarcastic eye roll.