Pride (Bareknuckle Boxing Brotherhood Book 3) (2 page)

As soon as the hot Irishman slammed the door, Camila fell to her knees and started feeling around in the shelves beneath the bar to see if there was a hiding place for money. She hunted all around the main room, then moved her fruitless search up the stairs and into the apartment.

“There, are you happy, you asshole? A secret fight club? God, why am I even surprised. I learned a long time ago that you lot are nothing but pugilistic assholes ready to beat someone’s head in. Why should my own father be any different? And hiding your money from me, too!” she growled at the cupboard containing Sammy’s ashes.

She flopped onto the couch and tried to focus on where her wastrel dad would have hidden a lot of cash. Since she never knew the man and his habits, and his dwelling spoke of no particular luxury, she was stymied. So her thoughts drifted naturally to Bronny Dolan and his perfect ass. She had followed that muscular ass up the stairs while he carried a bazillion-kilogram keg up the stairs as if it were light as a bag of flour.

His pants were thin and showed off the musculature as he’d climbed. She wanted to bite his butt. It wasn’t a dignified or useful idea, but it was exactly how she felt. That very little in the world would give her as much satisfaction as climbing astride that man and riding him until all his cocky charm fell away and he was thrusting into her, crying out hoarsely with pleasure.

She’d seen tough guys before, and had zero use for them. Camila liked the thoughtful, intellectual types with artful facial hair and skinny jeans. She had never seen an alpha male she didn’t roll her eyes at and keep her distance from, until today. Maybe it was jet lag or the godforsaken Irish cold weather that made her susceptible to his mix of cocky power and soulful eyes. God knows she’d spent enough time watching anything Jonathon Rhys-Myers or Michael Fassbender had to offer and listening to that honeyed accent. Maybe, just maybe, it was all those years of hearing nothing but the nasal Jersey twang that made every word Bronny Dolan spoke sound like a fucking sonnet. Or maybe she just wanted to get in his pants.

Camila fell asleep on the couch and woke up hours later, freezing and stinking of beer. Another cold shower convinced her that ‘call a plumber’ had just moved to the very top of her growing list of priorities, even above ‘find father’s money stash’. A few hours on, she was dressed in approximately every article of clothing she’d packed, all layered against the cold, and heading out in search of hot coffee, a sweater, and a plumber. People passing her, puffs of their breath visible in the chilly morning air, greeted her warmly. Maybe it was that warmth that let them all walk around without coats and hats. She was bundled up like a street person and still shivering.

She hopped from one foot to the other until the coffee bar opened. Then she was the first one through the door. The blast of heat, mixed with the rich elixir of coffee-smell, revived her to something like civility.

“Hi, I’d like the biggest cup of the hottest coffee you have. Please,” she said, inhaling deeply to pull all that warmth and the fragrance into her cold, miserable body.

“Very good. Will you be wanting cream or butter?”

“Butter?”

“Yeah, We do a bulletproof one for all the Paleo girls. It’s butter and coconut oil frothed up. Supposed to be aces.”

“I think I’ll pass, thanks,” she said. No way in hell was she going to drink weirdo butter coffee and pretend to be Irish or Paleo or anything like it. She was a straight up Jersey girl who knew what she wanted, and it was sugar, not butter. She didn’t need some heady, rich Irish guy—Irish
butter
, she corrected herself.

Camila sank down at a little table to drink her coffee and warm her hands around the crockery mug. It was all brown and cozy in there, with paintings of cottages hung on the walls, the street window papered with colorful fliers for things like a dance class, a motor coach trip to Dublin, and a fight tournament at the Cheeky Bowman.

She nearly spat her coffee. She seized the yellow sheet of paper and read over it three times to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. There, in bold print, was the announcement for a three-fight tournament scheduled to begin in a week’s time in her own basement. Staring at her in the middle was a picture of Bronny Dolan. She ripped the flier up and left her coffee half-finished at the table.

*****

When she reached the pub, she found Rabbie placidly counting receipts from the previous night. “What in the hell is this about?” She dumped the shreds of yellow paper on the bar in front of him.

“Lot of rubbish on a bar I just cleaned,” he observed.

“A flier for a fight tournament for HERE next week, which I have not authorized. And if you cleaned it with that filthy rag you were using last night, you can try again with Windex and a paper towel, Rabbie,” she snapped.

“It’s a tourney. Three fights in three weeks. Draws big crowds from over in Kilmuck and Graysenlock. We’ll sell more pints and more bottles of whiskey on those three nights than you would in month of regular business.”

“If it’s so profitable, where’s the take from last night?” she demanded, slapping her hand down on the bar harder than she’d intended.

“Right here,” he said, pulling out a zippered pouch from beneath the bar, a spot she sworn she’d searched before. He slid it over to her, and she counted the notes inside.

“Good. This’ll help pay for whatever’s wrong with the water heater upstairs.”

“No hot water down here either,” he remarked.

“I noticed when I was doing dishes. Isn’t that against a health code? Don’t the dishes have to be sanitized or something?”

“Shit if I know, girlie,” he grunted.

“I want the information on whoever I need to contact to cancel this tournament, and I want the number of the local plumber.”

“I’m not your secretary.”

“Then just tell me who to contact and I’ll look up the number.”

“There’s your da, who’s currently deceased, and myself, who set it up. As for a plumber, Keegan O’Malley will be your man locally, give you the best price, but now he’s up in his seventies, he don’t get around as quick as he once did.”

“Fine. I’m telling you to call off your dogs, cancel the fights. As the owner of this establishment, I doubt that we’re bonded for the liability if someone gets one too many hits to the head and turns into a vegetable during a fight.”

“Now don’t go getting your knickers in a twist. It’s nothing more than sport and the money to be made off it.”

“I know exactly what comes of fighting. I hate it, and as long as I own this shithole, there won’t be any more bloodsport. Do you understand me?”

“It’s doubtful I am that you understand me. The coin to be made on this tourney is well enough to keep the old place afloat for a while.”

“So it would cover the mortgage?”

“It would, and then some. You’d have your operating costs as well in there.”

“A new water heater?”

“Now who’s feeling grand?” Rabbie asked with a twinkle.

“I have to sell this place as fast as possible, which means I have to get rid of the fight club. The seedy, disgusting fight thing is keeping anyone from buying the pub, so it has to go, but I can’t sell it without basic facilities like hot water. So…I’m thinking I need the money to replace the water heater. Call the plumber. You can have your tournament as long as every cent goes to the mortgage and the plumbing. I’m going back out now to buy a sweater and some cleaning products. This place is vile.”

“I’ve been managing the Cheek for over a decade now, and no complaints until you and your sassy mouth came to town.”

“Well me and my sassy mouth will be out of here in a month, tops. Long enough to get through the tournament and get the repairs done and sell it to the first person who offers. Then you can clean with dirty rags and lead a long and happy life in peace.”

Rabbie stubbornly wiped the counter. “I heard you had a run-in with Bronny Dolan after hours last night. Could that account for your turn of heart on fixing up the old place?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I did not have a run-in with him. He was late for the fight.”

“Come to have a look at you, more like. And did the lad despoil you amongst the kegs?”

“No! Not that it’s any of your business. I’ll despoil whoever I please, but it won’t be that—that boxer.”

“You have to be more specific when you say ‘that boxer’ in reference to a Dolan. They’re all of them fighters from the cradle, tough and smart and overbearing as the devil himself.”

“That’s about the impression I got.”

“His kin will not be taking kindly to your attempts to sell.”

“So what? I’m not trying to fit in with the locals, Rabbie. I want out of here, and I don’t care who disapproves of my shutting down the fight club.”

“As you say, but that boy’s aunt is the only estate agent licensed in the county. So what the Dolans are thinking about your plans is more important than it seems, lass,” Rabbie warned.

Camila rolled her eyes. “Do you think I’m going to let some Irish boy and his prissy aunt stand between me and a plane back to Newark? Thirty days, and I’m out of here, free and clear of the debt and the headache.”

Rabbie harrumphed in reply, and she set back off to find warmer clothes. At the druggist’s, she got some supplies. If she was going to be there a month, she’d need tampons, and lip balm, and…little press-on shamrock tattoos. She checked out and made her way to a shop that sold long underwear, which was cheaper and more efficient than buying lots of expensive lamb’s wool sweaters for a short stay. She did invest in thick socks, though, hoping at least she wouldn’t lose a toe to frostbite during her tenure in Ireland. The woman at the shop had chuckled heartily when Camila complained of the cold.

“Must be your Italian blood, dearie. Used to warmer places and all. This is balmy for the time of year. Why, the pond’s not even frozen over yet!” she said as Camila added a woolen scarf to her purchases.

Winding the scarf around her neck and chin to leave, Camila thanked the woman, and was glad of the slightly itchy warmth of the thing when faced with the ‘balmy’ wind outside. Back at the bar, she pushed up the sleeves on her thermal and asked Rabbie very nicely to teach her to pull pints the right way.

“I watched some YouTubes this morning on how to pull a Guinness properly, but I need an expert instructor. Would you please teach me?”

“Depends. Can I drink everything you don’t spill?”

“Yes. You can drink yourself under the bar if you want. I don’t mind. I want to help man the bar and learn the business if we’re doing this for a few weeks. I want to do it right.”

“All right. First, you have to get a dry glass.” He handed the first one back to her in dismay. She polished it with her shirttail and passed it back. “Now hold it at a 45 degree angle and pull the handle slowly.” Rabbie demonstrated, straightening the glass slowly as it filled.

He stood it on the counter, then pushed back the handle to top off neatly. He held it up in a mock toast. “Here’s mud in your eye, Saunders.”

“Okay, my turn.”

As Rabbie sipped appreciatively, Camila rubbed her shirttail against another glass, eyed it critically, held it at an angle, and pulled the handle.

“Stop! You’re tilting it too much!” Rabbie protested as Guinness began to spill onto her pants.

She handed him the partly-filled glass, grimaced at the beery smell, and tried again. This time she did fine until time to top off. She topped off very enthusiastically, and didn’t stop pulling back until the foam had overrun the glass and dripped down her arm. She licked her wet hand experimentally. The stuff was bitter and peaty, and she made a face. She handed Rabbie his third and had to use the grimy bar mop to wipe her arm.

“That’s mother’s milk to me. Don’t be frowning at it,” he said expansively as she pulled another without spilling a drop. “You didn’t top it off enough.”

“You just want another.”

“Nah. I’d like to live to see you do this right, though. I learnt as a lad of ten, and it only took me twice to get it proper.”

“You were a prodigy. I’m a waitress. I pour coffee and sodas and bring people sandwiches.”

“Was a time that this joint served a fine fish and chips,” he reminisced. “Old Sammy was too tightfisted to serve food.”

“Food?” Camila perked up at the suggestion.

All of a sudden, the dim, brown interior captured her imagination. Camila had told her adoptive aunt Mattie from the time she was a kid that she wanted to have her own restaurant, with pasta, hearty soups, and all the good Italian recipes Mattie had taught her. Now, obviously this was supposed to happen in Jersey, not Ireland, but there was nothing like a dress rehearsal. She’d been logging night classes for the last six years, one a semester, and had her training in accounting, marketing, and some hospitality management. This could be her chance to try it out for a few weeks, maybe serve a nightly special.

“Do you think…anyone might eat here if we had a small menu?” she asked as nonchalantly as possible, trying not to sound excited.

“Nah. Without the fight club, no one’d come here at all. Best thing about the bloody Cheek is the fight nights. Everyone knows it. Even your bullheaded dad knew it.”