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Chapter 16

16

Charlie

Charlie’s Words To Live By:

Never trust a bloody Yank.

“Fuck him! No seriously. Fuck. Him,” I bit out. “I hate him. Just another corporate wanker who’s out to make rich people richer on the backs of small business. I should have known.”

Cait’s eyes were wide as saucers as she joined me on my little sofa with two mugs of tea. We’d just retreated to my cottage after a horrific and enlightening meeting with Uncle Devlin in which we’d been told about some changes happening around here. I’d have been throwing back shots of something stronger if Cait hadn’t announced her pregnancy a few days before. She’d made me promise not to tempt her with the good stuff.

“Shh, you’re making my headache worse, and you’re scaring Mama.”

I reached my hand down to soothe my pup. “Sorry, sweetie,” I cooed to my best girl. “Next time you see Uncle Dev, feel free to nip at his man candy to make up for ever giving Hudson Wilde the time of fucking day.” I looked up at my sister with narrowed eyes. “And so help me, if I ever see that arsehole around here again, don’t be surprised if you hear a scream come from over the edge of the cliffs.”

I was desperate for this new anger to overtake the heartsick feeling that had been gnawing at me since I’d left Hudson in Cork the month before. Since I was a bloody idiot who couldn’t help but fall for all the wrong people, I’d allowed the man to steal my heart and leave me gasping with loneliness since his absence. Finding out he was responsible for some American investor to cheapen my family’s history by trying to franchise Fig and Bramble… well, that was just the icing on the bloody cake. Typical. Just my fucking luck.

My sister rolled her eyes. “Drama queen,” she muttered. “It could be worse. Dev could have lost the whole damned business instead of just franchising it out. If Dad knew what a mess he’d made of the company since he left…”

I blinked at her. “It’s practically the same thing,” I insisted. “Some rich American wanting to copycat hundreds of years of authentic Irish history in Shithole, Texas, for fuck’s sake? And you don’t think that cheapens what our ancestors have spent centuries building here? Look around you, Cait. How the hell is some brand-new prefab building in goddamned small-town Texas going to come anywhere close to capturing the magic of what makes Fig and Bramble unique? It’s impossible.”

“What do we care? We’re never going to see it. We can just take their money and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“Wrong. So wrong. Uncle Dev promised that corporate fat cat he’d come oversee ‘quality control’ or some shit. They’re making him bring the ‘special Murray touch of authenticity to the tiny-town heart of Texas.’ I’m pretty sure I threw up a little bit when I heard that bullshit,” I griped, making generous use of finger quotes. “But I’ll bet fifty quid he bails and sends you or me.”

“Well, he can’t send me now that I’m expecting. Donny would never let me go so far away.” Cait’s eyes lit up. “Oooh! You’ll get to see Hudson again. Maybe you can convince him to go for round two.”

Technically it would’ve been round four, but I wasn’t about to tell my sister that. It was bad enough she’d weaseled the hookup out of me in the first place. “No, thanks. Plus, he lives in Dallas. This disaster project is happening in bumblefuck.”

“Maybe you can go to Dallas at the weekend,” she suggested with a saucy smirk. “Bring him over to the dark side again.”

I ignored her. “Maybe I can use one of those hookup apps and find all the gay cowboys in Texas. Surely they’d love a round with a girly Irishman with an accent, yeah? Make it my fuck tour of America trip? I mean, if I have to fly over there anyway, might as well treat it like a gap year or something.”

“Twenty-eight’s a bit old for a gap year. Just saying,” Cait muttered before taking another sip of tea. “Plus, you’re not the fuck-around type. Remember?”

I winked at her. “I am now. I hardly knew what I was missing before. After my night with the American, I’m all for fucking around with one-offs. They’re hot as shit. Who knew?”

I was a liar and we both knew it.

With a straight face, my sister looked up at me. “Everyone you’ve ever dated.”

My jaw dropped before I tossed a cushion at her face. She got her hand up just in time to block it. “You are bloody awful! Besides, there’s no chance Uncle Dev is stuffing me in a flying steel coffin. I’d rather quit the family business and panhandle my way to Waterford and throw myself at Pat’s feet.”

* * *

Luckily,by the time I had to board that plane, I’d been able to spend the holidays with my family and say my final goodbyes in case I died in a fiery crash into the Atlantic.

Ames’s process of finalizing the business plan, finding the right retail space, getting the appropriate permits, and whatever the hell else was involved in starting a pub from scratch took a couple of months. It was long enough for me to wrap things up with my dog training clients and reach out to the Texas Sheepdog Association to find out about upcoming trials on the off chance I made it safely to Texas.

In the end, I was barely speaking to Uncle Devlin. The man had admitted to fucking up and finding himself desperate for cash. He’d been relieved when Bruce Ames had requested Texas franchise rights rather than acquiring shares of F&B. He’d made a botch-up of the whole thing, and my father wouldn’t even entertain a discussion about it. As far as he was concerned, he was living la vida loca with his new love on the sunny shores of Rio and the rest of us could fuck the fuck off.

Needless to say, my resentment was as big as the same ocean that was going to swallow me whole any minute. I’d felt so betrayed by Hudson, but it had been made ten times worse by the fact the stupid man held my heart. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him even after several months. The loss of him was crushing me. For some reason, I simply couldn’t get over it. Cait had accused me of being moody, had even told me the regulars at the pub were avoiding me for being snappish.

And it was all bloody Hudson’s fault.

“Ma’am, are you feeling okay?” the man sitting next to me asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him. I was in no mood to be misidentified for the millionth time. “Must be getting my period,” I shot back in the deepest voice I could manage without sounding like a cartoon character.

The man’s eyes widened when he realized his mistake. “Oh, uh, sorry, dude. All I saw was your long hair. But are you okay? You look a bit green.”

I appreciated him not mentioning the hot-pink hoodie I wore. I hated the thing, but it was the closest I had to a good-luck charm, and I figured I needed all the help I could get.

“Never flown before. Pretty sure we’re all going to die.” The plane made a thunk sound somewhere below us and toward the back. I clutched the armrest between us. “That was clearly a bird strike.”

The man leaned forward to look around me out the window. “You know we haven’t taken off yet, right?”

I rolled my eyes until they were closed and my head was leaning back against the headrest. “Semantics,” I muttered. “Most airplane accidents happen on the runway anyway. We’re doomed either way.”

“You sound pretty chill for someone who thinks we’re going down,” he said with a chuckle.

“I’m high. Really very high.”

There was a beat of silence. “Well, this should be fun,” the man said.

“Should be fine,” I slurred. “I took two instead of halfsies, so I’m sure I’ll drift off and sleep the whole way.”

I did not drift off and sleep the whole way. I was awake enough to take two more pills midway through the flight, which only ratcheted up my chill factor to a most-excellent level.

When we landed in Dallas, I was half-surprised there weren’t police officers waiting to board the plane in search of the passenger the flight attendants kept referring to as “the drunk woman in 34A who won’t stop singing Irish pub songs.” Or, as my seatmate called me, “the best thing since sliced bread.” It could have been worse, I guess. He could have had to sit next to a toddler or newborn.

I was so grateful to be on the blessed earth again, I suddenly wanted everyone to know how much I loved them.

“Cheers, welcome to America,” I said to the young mother behind me. “This your first time? You’ll love it. Almost as much as I love all of you and the pilots for all this.” I waved my arms around, unsure of what I was referring to.

“I’m from here,” she said in a thick Texan accent. “Born and raised in the Lonestar State. Honey, I bleed red, white, and blue.”

“Sounds messy,” I admitted. “But maybe you’re the right person to ask about this. Are gay cowboys easy to find? I heard there’s some kind of hankie code, but I don’t have a hankie and I think you need a hankie for the code. Think they use Grindr too just in case for people who don’t have their own hankies? Hankie. Hankie… wait. How do you spell that? With a y or an i-e? Hankie. Hankie-pankie… oh! Do you think that’s where the phrase came fr—”

The next thing I remembered was waking up in a luxuriously soft bed in a small dim room. I was toasty warm under a thick pile of blankets, but the comfortable feeling was ruined by the steel band cinched around the top of my head.

“Oh fuck,” I breathed, nearly knocking myself out with morning breath. I moved slowly to sit up. The first thing I noticed was the simplicity of the room. It was furnished with only the double bed flanked by basic side tables and a high-backed wooden chair in one corner. Opposite the bed was a narrow door I hoped led to the toilet.

I gingerly made my way to the edge of the bed and noticed a half-full bottle of water on the bedside table next to a full bottle. I grabbed the full one and heaved a sigh of relief when I heard the telltale sound of a new seal breaking. I took a few sips carefully before realizing my stomach was fine. Apparently the headache was the only problem.

That and not having any idea where the fuck I was.

Oh, and only being in my underwear.

I wondered if this was normal for Texas… if this was, in fact, the actual origination story for the famous phrase “Houston, we have a problem.”

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