Chasing River: A Novel

“Just gave her back her wallet, did ya?”

Rowen elbows me in the ribs but I ignore him, pouring pints and watching Amber giggle at something her friend said. And pretend she doesn’t know I’m watching her. After five whiskeys, she’s doing such a piss-poor job of it, I want to walk over there and tease her.

And kiss her.

Whatever good intentions I may have had have poured down the drain along with the tap runoff.

“So? Is that why you’ve been wearing that dopey look all night?” Rowen pushes.

“What are ya going on about, now?” I give the bar area a quick scan. Everyone’s got their hands wrapped around a pint and the printer is staying quiet for the moment. Finally. I’ve been waiting for this break.

He leans in to ask, “What’s her friend like?”

“Borderline hostile.”

“Really . . .” Rowen’s face lights up and I roll my eyes.

Pouring myself a Guinness, and a couple of tall glasses of ice water, I announce, “Taking five,” and round the bar with my hands and my smile full. Amber jumps when I set the drinks down on the table.

“Drink these so your heads don’t split tomorrow.” Now that the first round of drunken fools have called it a night and staggered out of here, there are a few vacant stools around. I grab one nearby and drag it over. “Are you ladies enjoying yourselves tonight?”

They share a secret look that I don’t understand. Then again, most women baffle me.

“I am,” Amber says. “How about you, Ivy?”

“I’m having a great time, actually,” her friend admits with a furrowed brow, as if she’s surprised by that.

“How do you two know each other, anyway?” Both beautiful women in their own right, but they couldn’t look more opposite if they tried. Amber’s got that girl-next-door-who-bakes-cookies-in-high-heels look. Ivy looks like she could star in the next Kill Bill film.

“We actually just met today,” Amber says, winking at Ivy, who, after a short delay, responds with a smirk.

“Making friends everywhere you go, are ya?” I lift my pint to my mouth at the same time that someone bumps me from behind, sloshing my beer up my nose. “Fuck!” I wave off his apology—after all, I’m the arse who’s sitting in the middle of a throughway—and shift my stool closer to Amber.

“So, you said this is your family’s pub?” Amber asks, twirling her hair between her fingertips as she stares at me with those translucent eyes, unabashed. The liquor must be giving her some courage.

“It is. Going on two hundred years now.”

Both their mouths drop open.

I like that reaction, when I tell tourists. I’ve never been to America, but I’ve heard everything is new there, and one family owning the same pub for two hundred years is unheard of. With a smile, I move to take another sip, only to get bumped from behind again.

Another curse, another apology, another wipe across my face.

“Move out of the bleedin’ way!” Rowen bellows from somewhere behind. I respond with a middle finger.

“Here.” Amber makes an effort to shift her stool, but it’s already as close to the wall as possible.

I drag myself over until my stool is butted against hers, resting my foot on the rung and the inside of my leg against her backside. Bloody hell. Just a bit closer and my cock will be pressing against her bare thigh.

I sigh as the cool, delicious beer slides down my throat, uninterrupted.

“Long night?” Amber asks.

“Yeah. And it’s not over yet. I’m just taking a quick break.” I check the far side, where a table of brazen Londoners holler and laugh, one of them ogling Nuala as she passes by with a tray. She warned me that they’d be a problem before the end of the night. There’s always at least one here, every Saturday. We have a doorman for that reason, but sometimes Rowen and I end up giving someone a forceful hand out.

For now, though, I want to find out as much as I can about the American girl looking for a torrid affair. “So tell me, what brings both of you to my country?”

“Your country?” Amber mocks.

I grin. “My country.”

“Well . . .” She rests her chin on her palm. “I’m actually on this big trip around the world. I just finished traveling across Canada, and Ireland is my first stop on this side of the ocean. I’m going to England and then Spain, France, Italy . . .” Her eyes search the ceiling as she recites all the countries I saw on the list now safely tucked into my wallet.

“Don’t forget Greece,” I add, struggling to keep my face deadpan.

She snaps her fingers. “Yes! Of course, Greece and—” She cuts off and her eyes narrow as they dart to me.

Naked on a beach. Oh yeah. I remember. I hide my smile behind a sip of my pint as her cheeks burn, waiting for her to ask about it. “That’s a lot of traveling.” And a shit ton of money. The girl must be rich. She certainly carries herself like she is.

“That’s two years of cleaning vomit and sticking thermometers up rectums,” Amber says, as if reading my mind.

I choke on my pint and she starts laughing. “I’m a nurse.”

“Really . . .” Beautiful and caring. “I could have used you a few days ago . . .” I mutter under my breath. To mother me after Eamon tortured me on his dining table.

I guess I said it too loud. Recognition flashes across Amber’s face, followed quickly by a wince.

I brush her worries off with a smile and, “I’m just kidding.”

“So . . . what’s with the lady’s outfit?” Ivy asks, changing the topic, to my relief.

I smirk. “I accidently tore my shirt earlier and had to change. It was either this or shirtless.”

“Shirtless. That would have been unfortunate. Right, Amber?” Ivy murmurs dryly.

Amber hides her answer behind a long sip of her water. Liquid courage or not, I still seem to make this bird nervous, and I don’t want her to be. So I drape my arm loosely around her back, settling my hand on her bare shoulder. Her skin is so soft, her body so slender. “What are you implying? That I don’t have the goods to pull this look off?”

Amber’s smile stretches wide. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?

Angry voices rise over Collin’s melodic one somewhere in the bar, saving her from answering.

“River!” Rowen is already rounding the bar. Brennan, the hulk of a bouncer who guards our door on weekends, has his giant paw on one of the offenders’ forearms, his other arm hanging over his shoulders like a trunk. Ready to drag him out by the neck if he doesn’t go willingly, no doubt. Most times they’re smart enough to leave. Sometimes they’re not.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Wait.” Her hand lands on my thigh, gripping it tight. “You’re not going to get into a fight, are you?” There’s no missing the disapproval in her gaze.

“I’m going to stop one,” I promise. A promise that I may have a hard time keeping.

She drops her eyes to where her hand rests, and they widen. At least she slides rather than yanks it away. I know she’s attracted to me.

I head for the front, silently cursing myself. Really, this can’t turn into anything because I don’t think I can handle it tonight. My back is still killing me. Rowen and I cut past customers; the dueling guitars haven’t stopped strumming. Collin has sat on that stool and watched this happen so many times over the years that it doesn’t even faze him. In fact, he usually breaks into one of a few tunes he refers to as “fight songs.”

“Have they paid the bill?” I ask Nuala on my way past her.

“Yeah. Right before the arse grabbed my tit,” she snaps back. “If you don’t hit him, I will.” And she will, too. That’s the difference between the birds I’m used to and a girl like Amber, who I can already tell wouldn’t raise a hand to anyone, no matter how much that person may deserve it. She’s so much more refined and even-tempered. I’m honestly not even sure that the two of us would mix well together. Amber flirts with those pretty eyes and smile, and blushing cheeks. But, plans for a torrid affair or not, I’m guessing she’s never just gone home with a fella for a night and expected nothing the next day. She seems too proper for that.

She definitely isn’t the kind of bird to hit the lights on the bar and then grab my cock through my jeans, announcing she’s in the mood, which is exactly what Nuala did.

Rowen and I converge at the table and the telltale first notes of Collin’s favorite brawling song fill the pub. Normally I’d be cracking my knuckles right now.

My brother pushes in front of me. He’s always the more level-headed of us two. “Thank you for your patronage, fellas. Let us help you on your way out.”

Brennan’s already guiding the loudmouth through the door. The rest of his friends climb to their feet, two of them swaying like they’re five steps from doing face plants. “We were going anyway.” The one to my right turns and spits on the floor.

Spits on the floor of my family’s property.

I close my eyes and count to three. Normally, my fist would already be making contact with his nose. Normally, my back wouldn’t be torn up by shrapnel.

Normally, I wouldn’t have a girl watching me who I’d like to impress with my nonviolent ways.

Shoving aside my urge to clock him, I lock the spitter’s arms behind his back and drag him out. The guy’s bigger than me and drunk, twisting and turning and fighting me as we weave around tables and patrons. But I’m stronger and more hardened, and my growing anger only fuels me on when the struggle strains my muscles and my grip. I shove him free of me and watch the group stumble away.

Rowen’s face is a mask of bewilderment. “What was that?”

I shrug. “You’re always telling me to take it easy.” I finally allow myself to flinch, the pain in my lower back searing.

“Your stitches again?”

I nod. I know without looking that the tape Aengus patched me together with has loosened.

“It’s a good thing I stuck a few men’s large shirts in the top left drawer of the desk,” Rowen says casually.

I stop to glare at him. “You mean to tell me . . .”

He shrugs. “Oops. I forgot.”

“You didn’t,” I mutter, shaking my head at my little brother as I chuckle all the way back toward Amber.

She’s standing now, and I can’t stop staring at her legs. I wonder how she keeps so fit. I wonder what they’d feel like wrapped around my hips.

My adrenaline is running too high after that little scuffle.

“Are you okay?” Her smile is tinged with worry. If she’s upset, she doesn’t let on.

“You should be proud of me. No fists, see?” I hold my hands up, the bruises from last night on display.

She rolls her eyes but she’s smiling.

“Actually, I could use your help in the back.” Where I’ll get at least a few moments alone with her. “Do you mind if I borrow her for a minute?” I ask her friend.

Ivy dismisses us with a bored wave.

“Are you sure?” Amber asks her.

“With another shot of Jameson . . . sure.” For such a tiny person, she should be falling off her stool by now. But she’s not, so I assume she’s a seasoned pro.

“My brother will gladly pour you one.” I slip my hand into Amber’s, so slight within my grasp. She lets me lead her back behind the bar and through the door without a word, following me past the dishwasher and storage closet and into the office. I kick the door shut behind her and throw open the lid of the medic kit, still sitting on the desk.

“Alright, nurse.” With a wince, I peel my shirt up and over my head and toss it into the rubbish to settle on my other one. When I look over my shoulder, I find Amber with her hands covering her mouth and a look of horror in her eyes.

“It’s nothing. Just a torn stitch.” I pause, surprised by her reaction. “I thought this would be nothing for you?”

“No . . . I know . . . It’s just . . .” She purses her lips tight. “Those are shrapnel wounds from the bomb, aren’t they?”

“Just a few little ones that didn’t get in too deep.” I reach out to take her hand in mine. It’s trembling. “I was lucky. Some of those things are loaded with nails. This was just a little, empty thing.”

A frown furrows her brow. “How do you know that?”

Because my brother—the muppet who set it—told me. Shit. “Because then I would have had nails in my back, wouldn’t I?”

“Right.” She shudders. “I keep thinking about what would have happened if you weren’t there. If I’d just been a few feet closer and that thing went off, I could have been—”

“But I was. And you weren’t.” I push her long hair back off of her face. “You can’t think about that.” I’ve thought about it plenty for her. She would have been dead. Or maimed. Her beautiful face riddled with plastic, one of these strong, smooth legs blown off. I’ve seen what my da’s leg looks like beneath his jeans, the skin discolored and dimpled, his flesh permanently mangled. It’s not pretty.

She nods, and then sets her jaw. “I need a sink to wash my hands. And fresh water.”

“Just out there and to the left.”

While she’s doing that, I dig out a new shirt—that bastard, Rowen—and clear a corner on the desk so I can sit.

“Okay.” She strolls back in with more confidence, pushing the door closed with her hip, her eyes skittering over my bare chest briefly before meeting my face. “I’m kind of drunk, so I can’t promise that I won’t hurt you.”

I tense at the first touch of her cool fingers against my skin, sparking goose bumps. Slowly, she peels back the gauze. “This is taped.” She pauses. “When did you tear these stitches?”

“A couple hours ago.”

“In another fight?”

“You could say that.”

She rifles through the medic kit quietly, and I can feel the disapproval radiating off her. Suddenly I feel like I need to defend myself. “I don’t go looking for fights, Amber. It just comes with . . . this life.” And not just the Dublin bar life. Life with Aengus. Life as a Delaney.

I hiss as she presses something cold against the wound.

“I need to stop the bleeding before I can clean and close it,” she explains quietly.

“Right. Okay.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t get these done at a hospital?”

Clever bird.

“And you really didn’t think you could have just explained what happened?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense to a girl like you.”

“You’d be surprised what makes sense to a girl like me,” she murmurs. “Who stitched it for you?”

When I don’t answer, her fingers slip around my side to give me a slight, almost hesitant, squeeze. A surge of blood starts flowing. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“A family friend. He’s a doctor,” I finally admit.

“I figured as much. They’re well done. You may want to go back to him and get this fixed, if you’re going to keep getting into fights before it fully heals.”

I shudder with the memories of the pain on that table. “The fighting’s done for now.” Sundays and weekdays are tame around here. And Aengus usually spaces his fuck-ups apart by a few days, so we won’t be bickering anytime soon. I glance over my shoulder at her. “I promise.”

Her eyes skate over my face, slowing on my mouth for a moment before dropping to my back again. “If I had a needle and thread, I could stitch it for you.”

“You know how to do that?”

She smiles. “I stay away from serious wounds, but this one’s not too bad. My mom taught me. She’s a surgeon.”

“That’s . . . impressive.” I stare at the wall ahead as Amber’s nimble fingers smooth a wet cloth around the cut, cleaning it. “Ma can darn socks and jeans. Not humans.” What a different childhood I’m sure we’ve both had. Back in the day, when we were little, Ma worked here. She had to, after Da’s injury. Rumor has it she was no stranger to getting into it with a customer if he misbehaved, giving him a good wallop before one of the men working here jumped in to “escort” the ornery patron out.

I’m guessing Amber gets her soft temper from her mother.

“Does she work?” she asks.

“No. Well, she does, if you count raising three of us and keeping my da fed and watered. Once in a while she’ll help out here. She’d beat me with a plank of wood if she heard me say she doesn’t work.”

She giggles. “Three boys? So, you have another brother?”

“Yeah. Aengus.” I can hear the lack of enthusiasm in my own voice.

“Does he work here too?”

“He doesn’t.”

I don’t know if she can sense my hesitation in talking about the guy who almost blew her up, but she switches topics, to my relief. “Do you all still live at home?”

“No. My brothers and I own a house, here in Dublin. I moved there when I was eighteen. I love my parents, but . . .” I shake my head, chuckling. “I needed some peace. You?”

“Still at home. It’s not too bad. We live in the mountains, near a small town. It’s nice, quiet. Just my family and the horses on a lot of land.” She tears apart packaging behind me. “Hold still. This butterfly bandage should keep it together nicely.”

I wince as she pulls the skin together again. “Have you been out of Dublin at all yet?”

“No. I was booked for a day tour to Wicklow Mountains, the day of the bomb. So . . . that obviously didn’t happen.”

I peer over my shoulder at her face again, because I can’t help myself. “You’re here for another week, only? That’s what your friend said?”

Her chest rises with a deep inhale, and her cheeks burn, her eyes flickering back and forth between my back and my face. She’s likely replaying the rest of Ivy’s words too. “Yeah.”

Silence fills the tiny office. I don’t have any interest in going back out to that loud, boisterous bar right now.

Another week.

Enough time for a torrid affair with a foreigner?

“What are you smiling about?” she asks, wariness in her gaze.

I clear my throat. “Nothing.”

“Fine.” She shoots me an exasperated look. “How about I clean these other ones.” She peels the bandages back so gently that I barely feel it. “You should probably give them some air.”

I watch her face, the lip she bites and then, as if realizing, releases. “How do they look?” I haven’t even seen the wounds yet, though I imagine they can’t be pretty. They’ve been itching, which is a good thing. Eamon warned me to keep an eye out for signs of infection. Maybe I should have been doing that.

Water trickles down my back as she cleans the areas. “They look like they must have hurt.” Cool air dances over my skin, her breathing shallow and quick.

“It’s nothing.”

“Shrapnel wounds aren’t nothing, River.” Tentative fingers drag over my forearm, as if testing my response to the affection. “You have those because of me,” she says so softly that I barely hear her, before fingers find their way up my arm to my jaw, to rub against the stubble on my cheek.

Dissolving whatever self-control I promised myself I’d have. I hook my finger around the belt loop of her shorts and tug her closer, until she’s in front of me. Her eyes dip down over my chest, slowing on the tattoo over the left side—a black-and-red phoenix. I got it when I was eighteen, the same day Aengus got his.

If she knows what it stands for, she doesn’t let on, her attention shifting to the finger I’ve curled under the top of her one sleeve, slipping the material down over her shoulder, until the spots of purple and green bruising appears. “This looks like it hurts, too.”

“It’s not so . . .” Her words falter as I lean in to kiss the ball of her slender shoulder, her skin carrying a hint of coconut. “ . . . bad.”

I shift my body closer to her, waiting for her to ask me to stop.

Instead, her mouth finds mine in a swoop, landing without any hesitation, and it’s pretty obvious that I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about this all night. Her lips are surprisingly fervent and her hands brave for a girl so seemingly nervous around me. Maybe it’s only the Jameson, which I can taste with each swipe of her tongue, but I don’t mind her fingers skimming over my neck, my shoulders, my chest . . . as if memorizing me. Torturing me.

The throb from my ripped stitches vanishes as another one forms in my groin. I pull her trim body in to fit between my thighs, while I gently coax her mouth closer with my fingers curled around the back of her neck. A slight moan from her lips promises me that she doesn’t mind. The problem is I’ve never been shy or patient, and that little sound spurs me on. My hands find their way down to grip the backs of those thighs with a tight squeeze before sliding up under her shorts, getting palmfuls of that smooth, rock-hard arse I’ve been admiring.

She bumps against the corner of the desk as she tries to get closer, her arms wrapping around my head, enclosing our faces in our own little cocoon of hot breath. Not saying a word to slow me down.

“All good in—” Rowen barges in, his words cut off mid-sentence.

Amber breaks free, smoothing her hair back in place, her lips red and puffy, her breathing ragged.

His eyes dart between the two of us. “So you found the shirts?”

I spear him with a glare that promises retribution later.

“I should get back to Ivy.” Amber steps back, creating some distance between us. “I promised I wouldn’t ditch her tonight.”

Her eyes skitter over my bare chest once more before ducking past Rowen. Mine trail her all the way to the door. “Hey, you said you had horses. Do you ride?”

Her curls bounce as she half-turns, her chin resting on her shoulder. “Two-time State Championship winner. Yeah, why?”

I smile. “No reason.”

As soon as she’s gone, I punch Rowen in the stomach.