Chapter 40

40

Charlie

Charlie’s Luck:

Just when I prepare to confront the old man, a different one turns up and confronts me instead.

Thursday evening Hudson and I were wrapping up final details with the contractor before a last-minute dinner meeting with Bruce when I heard a familiar voice bellow across the pub.

“What the fuck is all this?”

My phone flew out of my hands and crashed into the floorboards, bouncing against the brass foot rail before settling under a stool.

“Bloody hell,” I gasped. “Dad?”

Hudson’s mouth opened in surprise, but it was nothing compared to the shock I felt at seeing my father for the first time in almost a year.

“Charles Murray, get your arse over here.” He sounded angry, but I knew it wasn’t directed at me. It couldn’t be. I’d been following Uncle Dev’s instruction like a good soldier.

“Dad?” I repeated, shaking off my surprise enough to rush toward him. He was big like my uncle Dev, tall and broad-shouldered like a bloody Viking. Christ knew where my scrawny self came from.

I flew into his arms and squeezed him tight. How in the hell did he still smell like SPAR shaving foam after all this time in Brazil? I held him firm and tried hard not to lose my composure.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I managed to ask.

“Came to see what’s what. Seems Devlin has sold us out now, hasn’t he?”

He looked angry as a hornet. I didn’t fancy being in Dev’s shoes when Dad got hold of him.

“Well, it’s a franchise location in the middle of nowhere. Hardly selling his share of the original,” I said. The irony of my defending the decision was not lost on me. Nor on Hudson from the look of it. He’d gathered the look of the smug about him.

“Dad, this is Hudson Wilde. Hudson, this is Sean Murray, my auld man.”

Dad’s eyes turned stormy as he focused on Hudson. I opened my mouth to stop him from whatever he was going to say, but I didn’t get it out in time.

“You. This is all your fault,” he boomed. His deep voice was loud enough to startle both Hudson and me.

“Dad,” I gasped.

“How dare you come into my house and convince my brother to—”

“Dad! That’s not what happened at all. Please stop. You don’t know the story.” It took a moment for my brain to catch up, but when it did, I was the angry one. “And who the hell are you coming in after the fact to give a shit? You left! You left us. You left.”

My chest heaved in and out, and I was surprised to find I could hardly draw breath. The pressure from the pub opening, the emotion of knowing my time with Hudson was running out, and the sudden arrival of my auld man crashed together like waves on a rocky shore, crushing the air from my lungs.

I can’t breathe.

The panic of thinking something was wrong with me made it even harder to suck in air. I looked wildly to Hudson for help, but he was already rushing forward to pull me into his chest.

“Shh, it’s okay. Just slow down.” His whispered voice was like sweet honey in my ear, and I clung to it. “Shh, deep breath, sweetheart. That’s it.”

I shuddered and felt tears smart. I pushed my face into the warm skin inside his collar and clenched my fists in his shirtfront.

“Hudson,” I breathed.

“I’m here. Your dad’s here. You’re fine.” His hands made soothing runs up and down my back. “Irish tempers all up in this place, huh? Feel like you need to christen the place with spilled Murray blood instead of whiskey or Auld Best stout?”

I felt the giant familiar hand of my father on the back of my head. “I’m sorry, Charlie,” he said in a gruff voice. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe we could go somewhere to talk about things?”

I forced my fists to release the front of Hudson’s work shirt before quickly swiping fingers under my eyes. After taking a shaky breath, I leaned in to kiss Hudson lightly on the lips. The contractor had already seen Hudson comfort me and heard him call me sweetheart, so the cat was out of the bag. “Thank you,” I said softly.

“Hello? Anyone here?”

We turned around to find Darci standing in the doorway to the pub on the arm of her father. If my auld man realized who he was before I had a chance to speak to him, all hell would break loose. My eyes shot to Hudson in panic.

“It’s going to be alright, Irish.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head before meeting my eyes again with a twinkle and speaking soft enough for only me to hear. “But I have to say… my life was fairly dull before I met you, you know?”

I bit back a laugh. “And how was that working for you Mr. Wilde? Or should I say Mr. Vanilla Bean?”

He squeezed my hand before letting go. “Don’t worry about dinner. I’ll explain to Bruce. Get your dad settled at the ranch. See you later?”

I nodded.

Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.

* * *

After begginga ride to the ranch from Stevie, my dad and I made our way into the bunkhouse and sat on the old plaid sofa in the main common room.

“So,” he began with a gentle throat-clearing. “You and the Yank.”

I nodded.

“Is it serious?”

“No,” I said, breaking my own fucking heart. “He’s mostly straight.”

“The fuck?” Dad’s temper returned to his ruddy face.

“It’s a long story. What happened with Daniela? Where is she?”

Dad’s face fell. “I found her in bed with another man.”

I winced, mentally adding her name to the list of cheaters. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Me too. But not more sorry than she was when she found out we weren’t really married and she wasn’t getting any money from me.”

I blinked at him. “What? What the hell do you mean?”

“Long story,” he said, parroting me.

“Try again,” I snapped.

He sighed. “I didn’t realize we needed to get married before entering Brazil. So I went on a tourist visa, thinking we’d get married with her friends and family in Rio. And we did. We had a religious ceremony. But I never did the courthouse part because it was going to be a big mess with the visa situation.”

“How were you there for an entire year on a tourist visa?” I asked.

“They didn’t realize I’d outstayed my welcome until I was leaving. And by then I was leaving, so what did it matter?”

I leaned back into the sofa and put my feet up on the coffee table. “Are you going to be all right?”

He nodded. “Course I am. I’m going back home to kick Dev’s arse first, but then I’ll sort myself out, don’t you worry.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Think you can stay here until after St. Paddy’s?”

“If need be.”

“The chef here sucks. We need you.”

“That’s music to my ears, Charlie boy,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe he needs to learn a thing or two from auld Sean Murray.”

I smiled and nodded. “I think you’re right.”

I told him a bit more about the pub, both the one back home and the one here in Hobie. I told him that after meeting the people in town, I’d come around to accepting the little franchise location. We spoke about Dev’s poor decision-making that had led to the financial predicament in the first place, and Dad apologized again for fucking off to Brazil and leaving us all screwed arseways on a Sunday. But I realized something I hadn’t thought about before.

If he hadn’t left for Brazil, I wouldn’t have met Hudson. And I couldn’t wish that away, even if it meant keeping the pub to ourselves.

“Where’s the girl?” he asked, referring to Mama.

“Oh.” I sat up and pulled my legs off the table. “She’s in the farmhouse flirting with a coonhound. Let’s go collect her. I’d like to introduce you to Hudson’s grandfathers. If we’re in luck, we can beg supper off them while we’re at it.”

My father got along well with Doc and Grandpa the way I knew he would. Sean Murray hadn’t spent his life as a publican without being a charmer around other people after all. While they swapped stories with each other, I wondered how Hudson’s dinner with Bruce was going. I checked my phone too often and even finally sent a text against my better judgment.

All is well here. You okay?

No answer. And when the answer finally came, it was Darci sneaking into my room in the middle of the night, not Hudson.