“Ah…what are we doing?” Eoin asked cautiously.
“Waiting for the goddamn rain to ease off,” Liam retorted.
Eoin flinched and averted his face.
Liam cursed, softly. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just…it pisses me off. About Mrs. D’Onofrio. It’s not your fault.”
“It’s okay.” Eoin’s voice was long-suffering. “Don’t worry about it.”
Liam felt Nancy D’Onofrio’s business card in his pocket and pulled it out. Her name was printed in bold, curvy letters that stood out sharply from the creamy paper. Just like the woman. Bold. Curvy.
He stuck the card in his pocket before Eoin could catch him fondling it. Usually he didn’t care for women who dressed in black. He found it affected. Nancy didn’t look affected. Her tight tailored black dress made her skin look pearly pale and her red-brown hair redder. That tight bun showed off every finely molded detail of her face. Only a woman with amazing bone structure could get away with a look that severe. The secretly sensual governess look. And he wanted to play her horny, unscrupulous lord of the manor. Sign him up for that.
He could have looked at her face for hours, always finding something new to admire. And her cheek looked so fine, so soft.
Not affected. Sharp, elegant, to be reckoned with. A female ninja assassin. The perfectly formed girl who undulated in the opening credits of a Bond movie. A fantasy woman.
Yeah, and paying the crew out of his own pocket for an undetermined interval, that was a fucking fantasy, too.
But he couldn’t let a chance to see her again slip away. She was so elusive. So wounded and wary. Going after her would be like catching fish with his hands. Christ, what an idiot he was. He scared himself.
He flung the car door open. “Let’s get started,” he growled.
Eoin peered up at the rain running down the windshield, started to say something, thought better of it. He sighed and followed him out.
Liam gave himself the grim mental lecture while they unloaded. Pursuing a woman like Nancy D’Onofrio would be a waste of time. He didn’t want a citified, high-strung workaholic for a lover. He’d thought long and hard about what he needed in a woman. No, a wife. Enough dicking around. He wanted someone in line with his lifestyle. He didn’t need to look further than his own parents to see what happened when you messed with that rule.
His mother’s cherished dream had been for a big, noisy family, but his father had been driven by ambition. He’d had no time to spend with Liam, was never there for meals, was always gone for holidays.
Liam’s mother had begged, schemed, and nagged for years until she realized that he would never change. She’d made him leave at last, keeping Liam with her. He hadn’t seen his father since that day. Not that he’d seen that much of him before. He’d been eleven years old.
His mother eventually did find the kind of man she wanted, but Liam never forgot her disappointment. He’d taken the lesson to heart. When it came time, he knew what to look for. He was a settled person. Ambitious, in his own small way, but he liked living in the country, running his business, keeping his own hours. He liked playing seisìun in Irish pubs with his fiddle and flutes, downing a few pints with his friends now and then. Growing his garden, tending his orchard of walnuts and apples. Someday he’d like to buy a couple of horses, when he could afford a bigger piece of land and had kids to ride them. He’d like to build his own house on that land. A big, comfortable, rambling place. Full of kids, noise, color. Life.
He’d thought a lot about the woman who would fit into his perfect life. She didn’t have to be a raving beauty. He wasn’t hung up on that. It was more important that she be kind and good-natured. Maternal and craftsy. That she like cooking, canning. Baking her own bread.
But his balls didn’t give a damn about his long-term contentment. They wanted what they wanted, and they wanted that slim, spicy ninja girl with those big, mysterious eyes behind her trendy glasses and the ridiculous high-heeled, pointy-toed boots on her tiny feet.
No way did Nancy D’Onofrio know how to make bread. He’d be surprised if she could boil an egg. Her type lived on carrot sticks and sushi. The result was nice, though. He liked how her back was so straight, head high, chin up. He liked the jut of her shoulder blades, the smart way her short jacket fit. The delicate shape of her upper lip, the lush swell of the lower. He wanted to smooth away the anxious crease between her brows. Those shadowy hazel eyes were full of sadness. Secrets.
Problems. Sadness, shadows, secrets, those equal problems. The voice of reason shouted at him from a distance, but he was too lost in his fantasy to listen. She could use more flesh on her bones. He would love to see ten more pounds on her.
Crash. Thud. He’d knocked over flower arrangements with his boot. Bruised white lilies scattered across the floorboards. He laid his boxes on the pile that was forming in the middle of the floor, gathered the flower heads up, and threw them away. The sweet, heavy smell of lilies reminded him of Mom’s funeral.
It didn’t matter how alluring Nancy D’Onofrio was. By her own mother’s admission, she was a compulsive workaholic. Genetically engineered to make him angry and miserable. But his gonads weren’t thinking about the lecture. They were too busy thinking about her ass in that tight skirt. The tits were nice, too. Small, but with a personality all their own. Nipples that poked audaciously through the fabric of her dress. No bra. Wow.
Aw, Christ, enough. He was thirty-seven years old, and he still hadn’t found his mellow earth mother. He was looking around, in a relaxed sort of way, hoping destiny would kick in. He didn’t want to force it, but time was wasting, if he wanted a big family. And he did not have the energy for a casual affair. He hated the flat, dull feeling when one of those scratch-the-itch flings had to end. Too fucking depressing.
The morning passed, in grim, sweaty, wordless silence. Two trips, back and forth to Latham, loading and unloading. It was late afternoon by the time they were through, and when they got back to his place, they were exhausted and ravenous, having skipped lunch.
He put on a kettle to make a pot of tea for himself and Eoin, who boarded in his basement. Eoin got busy cooking some hamburgers, or so it seemed. Charred as they were, it was hard to tell, but the sliced tomatoes, ketchup, cheese, and bread on the table were all clues. Liam lunged for the gas and turned it off. “Making lunch?”
“I made one for you, too, if you fancy it,” Eoin said timidly.
“Keep the flame a bit lower,” Liam advised.
Eoin’s freckled face flushed. “Sorry.”
“Speaking of stoves, I found you a secondhand electric range. After we eat, maybe you can help me haul it down into the basement.”
“Great,” Eoin said. “Now I can make myself a cup of tea without bothering you.”
Liam grunted. “It was never any bother.”
“Thanks anyway,” Eoin said earnestly. “For the place, the work, the stove.” He laid the shriveled burgers on the table. “Are you going to the seisìun at Malloy’s on Saturday night?”
“I might. You keen to go?”
“God, yes,” Eoin said. “I’ve been working on that new tune of yours all week. I want to try it out with the lads.”
“Fine, then. Malloy’s on Saturday,” Liam promised.
Malloy’s was a good seisìun, from ten until two Saturday night in an Irish pub in Queens. A motley but talented group of regulars got together every week to mainline Irish tunes. Liam almost always went with his fiddle and flutes, unless he was too worn out from work, but young Eoin was religious in his zeal. And he was damn good on his Uilleann pipes. Liam had never heard anyone better. The kid should go pro.
But people had to work, so the tunes and the Guinness had to wait. Which reminded him that Saturday followed Friday, the day he was starting work on the D’Onofrio house. He would see her tomorrow.
Maybe he would go early and help her. He could lift boxes for her. Wrap dishes in newspapers. Eoin could come later. Excitement swelled at the idea of being alone with her.