Beer and broomsticks, p.1
Beer & Broomsticks, page 1
Beer & Broomsticks Copyright © 2022 T.M. Cromer
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN: 978-1-956941-00-5 (EPUB)
ISBN: 978-1-956941-13-5 (PAPERBACK)
ISBN: 978-1-956941-11-1 (HARDBACK)
ISBN: 978-1-956941-12-8 (LARGE PRINT)
Cover Design: Deranged Doctor Designs
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This one is for my beloved Tinkerbell. You will forever hold a special place in my heart, my dearest soul puppy. Writing this story was a greatest struggle without you, my muse.
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To Dani, Tracey, and Marion:
Thank you for knowledge of all things Irish!
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
CHAPTER 1
Bridget O’Malley loved Ruairí O’Connor. She had since the day they’d accidentally met by the garden gate dividing their properties. At the time, she was four years old and didn’t understand she wasn’t supposed to love him. She was supposed to hate him with every fiber of her being as every O’Malley had hated every O’Connor since the family feud started two hundred and fifty years before.
Despite his betrayal when they were only twenty—the one she still couldn’t bear to think about some seventeen years later—she found it difficult to call up the hate. Oh, for sure she wasn’t happy with him, and she’d spend every hour of every day making him aware of the fact if she could, but she didn’t hate him. Not even a little.
“Good morning, mo ghrá.” Ruairí had a deep, raspy tone that never failed to reach in and tickle her girly parts.
Bridget cast an irritated glance toward the stone fence where that good-for-nothing O’Connor stood sipping his morning coffee. Her standard sneering response was done more out of habit these days. “I’m not your love, Ruairí. I’m not your anything.”
“Oh, but you are. Have been since the day I first set my eyes on you thirty-three years ago.”
They were of an age. Both bonded as children and spent their youth sneaking out to meet at the same time they were being taught to despise one another. They’d continually laughed at their parents’ attempts to poison their hearts and minds.
Until the day Ruairí had poisoned hers against him.
He’d done what her parents and grandparents hadn’t been able to.
Snorting her derision, she turned her attention back to the rosebush she was pruning.
“We aren’t getting any younger, Bridg. When are you going to forgive me?”
Her heart flipped in her chest, and her mouth went dry. If she faced him, she knew what she’d see. Six feet of contrite male with shaggy blond hair and a knicker-melting smile. She didn’t turn around because she couldn’t afford to lose her only clean set of drawers. Which reminded her, she needed to get the laundry on before heading to work at the pub today.
Goddess, she needed a clone.
“You’re not plannin’ on answering, mo ghrá? Can you not see your way past a wee mistake?”
That asinine comment brought her head around. “Wee mistake? Are you mad, Ruairí?” She chucked her pruning shears at his head, and lucky enough for him, he had rabbit-fast reflexes. Oh, if only she had the magic of a normal witch, she’d blast him to hell and back. And wasn’t that another blame she could lay at his door? If it hadn’t been for his bloody family, they would all be enjoying a taste of the Goddess’s gift right now, instead of just her brothers.
Sometimes she dreamed about having abilities. What wouldn’t she do with a spot of magic? Where wouldn’t she go if she could teleport from one place to another in the blink of an eye like her brothers were beginning to do?
Fecking prophecy.
And fecking O’Connors for causing all their woes!
“You got a temper on you, ya do!” Ruairí shouted as he tried to mop up the coffee he’d spilled down his shirt when he dodged the shears.
Bridget experienced a pang for the discomfort he must’ve felt from the hot liquid, but she couldn’t stop herself from running an appreciative eye over the sculpted chest displayed so nicely by the wet material clinging to each and every muscle. The blimey bastard even had beautiful nipples, small, hard, and perfectly pebbled at the moment.
With a heartfelt sigh, she turned her back, but not before calling over her shoulder, “Then feck off and don’t come back, why don’t you? It’s not like I’ve asked you to hang about like a damned wraith.”
“One day I won’t come back. What’ll ya do then, you bloody shrew? You’ll be sorry for the way you treated me. You won’t have old Ruairí O’Connor to abuse.”
“Promise?” She gave him a hope-filled look.
The flash of his wicked grin nearly did her in, and she knelt at the base of the bush on the pretense of fluffing the dirt.
Damned weak knees!
Nothing was finer than Ruairí’s face when he was amused by her. His blue eyes twinkled. Paired with that dimpled smile and the mussed white-blond hair that always seemed to need a barber, those peepers of his had the ability to melt even the steeliest of hearts. Cold, hard determination was no match for his roguish charm. And didn’t that beat all?
“What are you doing here, Ruairí? Don’t you have a job to see to?”
“It’s Saturday.”
She frowned and ripped out a weed. Her days all ran together now that her family had opened O’Malley’s Black Cat Inn. Between the pub and their bed and breakfast, Bridget was run ragged. Soon enough, her brother Cian and his new bride, Piper, would return from their honeymoon and relieve her of the burden of running two places.
“What time do you want me at the pub tonight, mo ghrá?”
Ruairí had stepped in a few months back—despite Bridget’s objections—and taken over bartending while she prepared the occasional meal and waited tables when her servers failed to show. He’d initially done it as a favor to Cian, but he’d never left.
She couldn’t say Ruairí was a terrible worker; he’d actually turned out to be a godsend. But she didn’t have to like it, and she sure as hell wouldn’t praise or thank him for his timely help.
“Three-thirty should do.” If she could stand to have him around, she’d have told him an hour earlier to help prep for the evening ahead. However, it was essential to her mental wellbeing that she avoid spending as much time with him as possible. “Now go away. I’ve things to do.”
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Ruairí stared at the rigid back Bridget presented to him. The woman was as stubborn as the day was long. She refused to listen to any apologies or explanations of the past, convinced he was in the wrong.
And maybe he had been, once. But now? Now he deserved to be heard. Having dealt with her frigid stares and scathing remarks for the better part of seventeen years, he was working up to a fine temper.
Her brothers, Cian and Carrick, were convinced she’d mellow if Ruairí remained in close proximity. They were wrong. If anything, Bridget had reinforced the walls of her heart and effectively barricaded it against him. Convincing her that he sincerely regretted his fool mistake was getting harder by the day.
She tossed back her shiny red hair with a simple flick of her wrist and cast him a withering glare. “Still here?”
For some odd reason, he found the gesture humorous, but he dare not laugh where she could see, or she’d skin him alive. He couldn’t resist saying the one thing he knew would irk her. “Aye, mo ghrá. It’s difficult to part ways with one so lovely.”
“Sure, and you didn’t have a problem movin’ on when you decided to stick your lying tongue down Molly Mae’s scrawny throat.”
Ah, finally. Bridget was ready to address the ever-present issue.
“Molly Mae kissed me, Bridg. Not the other way ‘round.”
She snorted. “From my vantage point, the kiss went on for a good day, and you weren’t shoving her away, now were you?”
“She used a spell on me.”
Her severe frown rivaled the dark clouds of the fiercest winter storm. “Spell? What kind of spell?”
He almost felt bad for Molly Mae and was glad she wasn’t standing here now. Bridget would eviscerate her, magic or no. “One designed to freeze me in plac
Bridget squinted as she weighed his words.
Ruairí did his best to look innocent.
Yes, he’d kissed Molly Mae down by the stream under the large oak where he and Bridget used to meet in secret. He’d employed a whole lot of stupid with a huge heaping of arrogance when he’d come up with the idea to make Bridget jealous and force her hand. The decidedly dumb plan to convince her she couldn’t live without him had backfired on an epic level. Seventeen torturous years later, he was still dealing with the fallout.
“Do you know your left eyebrow twitches and you grimace slightly before you lie, Ruairí?”
His hand flew to his brow, but he dropped it just as quickly when he saw the smug satisfaction on her face. Goddess, he was still three steps behind Bridget on a good day.
She stood and threw the clump of weeds in his direction. “Get away, ya fool. I’ve no time for your lies.”
“Fine, you want the truth? I’ll give it to ya. I kissed her. There. I said it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, scowling harder when the wet patch from the coffee soaked through his sleeves. He was done with lies and half-truths. The time had come to put the past to rest. “I wanted to make you jealous, Bridg. You refused to marry me and leave the pub. I thought to change your mind.”
“By kissing another woman?”
He winced at the shriek. Yeah, well, it hadn’t taken him but a minute to register and regret that folly. “I wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed back then, and—”
“You still aren’t,” she assured him with her hands planted firmly on her hips.
Ruairí ignored the dig. “And I grossly miscalculated your reaction. I thought to provoke you into admitting you loved me. Figuring if you finally realized we were meant to be, you’d agree to run away with me. Away from feuding families and cursed relics. Away where we could be happy, mo ghrá.”
Her silence made him fearful. Bridget O’Malley was never quiet. That she now was thoroughly disconcerted him, and the nerves of his belly all attacked at once.
“Well, you were a fecking eejit then, and you’re a fecking eejit now,” she finally said. Her eyes were a dark forest green, and it killed Ruairí to see them so. Once, when the two of them were happy and carefree, those eyes had shone like brightly polished emeralds of the purest quality.
“It’s the truth, Bridget,” he said in a low, serious tone. One he rarely used with her.
Her lids dropped, but not before he saw the glimmer of tears.
He wanted to go to her, yet as sure as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, she’d reject him. The tension in the way she held her luscious body said as much.
“No matter the motivation, you betrayed what we had, Ruairí.” She sighed and pressed two fingers to the area between her brows. “What do you expect from me? Forgiveness?”
“That’s a start.”
“Fine. I forgive you.”
His heart stalled and resumed at triple time. “Truly?”
“Aye.”
With a smile on his face and a song in his heart, Ruairí braced his hands on the low stone wall, ready to scale it and kiss her rosy lips until stars appeared in her brilliant eyes and the night sky grew jealous of the glow.
She held up a hand, effectively stopping him before he got started.
“Hold it right there. You’re still not welcome to set one foot on this property.”
“What’s this then?” He wanted to smash the wall with his bare fists. “Either you forgive me or you don’t.”
“You were twenty years old, Ruairí, and stupid to boot. Of course I forgive you. But it doesn’t mean I intend to take up where we left off.”
“Why the hell not? I love you, Bridget.”
She laughed in what appeared to be genuine amusement. Laughed hard enough to double over. Hard enough to have tears pour from her eyes.
Ruairí almost despised her in that moment.
“Your face!” she crowed. “You look as if I stole your favorite toy.”
“Is this about paying me back? Tit for tat?”
Bridget sobered in the blink of an eye. “Oh, no. I haven’t begun to pay you back. But I will.”
His unease was back as soon as he saw the promise of retribution in her eye. “You can’t forgive and still take revenge, Bridget O’Malley. Sure, and that’s not the way it works.”
Her smile was pure wicked intent. “Oh, but it does, Ruairí O’Connor. It most certainly does.”
CHAPTER 2
Ruairí showed up for work an hour early, and Bridget cursed her damned luck. Sure, the contrary man had to do the opposite of what he was told. Without a word of welcome, she jerked her chin toward the back room. “The front coolers need stocking since you’re here.”
He grinned, probably because he knew good and well he’d gotten the best of her by showing up before his shift, but he went to do her bidding without a word of complaint.
She heard the bottles rattle as Ruairí stacked cases on the hand truck, and her mind wandered back to his confession earlier in the day. Had he really only kissed that horrid minger, Molly Mae Murphy, to provoke her into a jealous response? Or was he lying to save face? It begged the question why he’d bother seventeen years after the fact.
He returned with the beer and began stocking. His presence was larger than she liked. Never before, when Bridget shared the space behind the bar with her brothers, had it felt so small. Ruairí hummed as he worked, and the lively tune grated on the last of her nerves. She’d favored the song when they were young lovers—and he fecking knew it.
“Shut your yap and turn on the radio if you must have music,” she grumbled.
His mouth twitched, and a small knowing smile played on those full, kissable lips of his.
Kissable? Where the hell had that thought come from? She’d be buggered if she put her lips where Molly’s had been—even if he’d scrubbed his mouth five times every day since. “You only kissed her the once?”
His body jerked, and his head whipped around to stare.
Bridget stared back, shocked the words had left her mouth.
“Aye.” He placed a hand over his heart. His sincerity couldn’t be mistaken.
She threw her towel on the dark bar. “Pfft. Get to work. I don’t pay you to gawk about, now do I?”
“You don’t pay me at all,” he replied dryly. A few heartbeats later, he asked, “And what about you, Bridg?”
“What about me?”
His jaw tightened, and a muscle ticked. “I heard you flew right into the arms of Dermot.”
Dermot Neary had been Ruairí’s best friend when they were kids. Directly after Bridget broke off her relationship with Ruairí, he and Dermot had a falling out. She’d never learned why, but the sight of him, looking as if he wanted to crush the beer bottles with his bare hands, made her wonder if Ruairí was jealous of his ex-best friend.
“Not the way you think. We were friends and had a few drinks to talk about our woes. Nothing more.”
He frowned down at the cooler and gave a single nod.
“Would it matter if I had?”
“Of course, mo ghrá. What kind of fool question is that?”
The hard clink of glass against glass made her wince. “I—”
The side door of the pub opened. The darkened entry combined with the sunlight behind the newcomer made it difficult to discern their identity. “May I help you?” she called out.
“It’s me who’d like to help you, beautiful Bridget.”
She knew that voice!
“Quentin Buchanan,” she breathed.
Ruairí’s head came up, and he glared in her direction before turning his ire on the virtual giant at the far side of the room. “Who’s—”
