Tears of the Moon (30 page)

Bub, being the perverse creature that he was, took the opportunity to crawl all over him, then laid stinging furrows over the back of Shawn's hand when he tried to push him aside.

“Vicious bastard.” He and the cat eyed each other with mutual dislike and from a respectful distance. “I might have to take a swipe from Mick O'Toole, but I don't have to take one from you, you black-hearted spawn of Satan.” He lunged, missed as the cat streaked away, and ended up rapping his already sore jaw on the floor. “Fuck me, that's about enough.”

With his ears ringing, he managed to get to his hands and knees. The fiend of a cat was in for dire consequences. Later. He'd let the fiend believe he'd won the war, then seek revenge at an unexpected moment.

Still sulking over it, Shawn nursed his hand as he headed out of the house. As a matter of habit, he turned toward his car, then paused, balancing himself on the garden gate.

He was certain he could drive. He was a man who could hold his drink, wasn't he? For Christ's sake, his name was Gallagher. But the way things were going, he'd likely run off the road and smash his teeth out on the steering wheel.

Much better to walk, he decided. Clear his head, settle his thoughts. He started down the road, mindful of the ruts and bumps, singing to entertain himself on the journey.

He stumbled a time or two, but fell only the one time. Of course, the one time was enough to have his knee find the single sharp rock in the bloody road. He was picking himself up from that, not far from the village proper, when Betsy Clooney, with her car full of her children, stopped beside him.

“Shawn, what's happened? You've had an accident?”

He smiled at her. She had a pretty brood of children, all of them fair of hair and blue of eye. The two in the back were squabbling, but the youngest, secured in her car seat, watched Shawn like a little owl as she sucked on a red lollipop.

“Well, hello, Betsy. How's it all going, then?”

“Did you have a car crash?” She pushed open her door to hurry around to him, grinning as he was at her baby and weaving like a man who'd gone a hard round with the champ.

“I didn't, no. I've been walking.”

“Your hand's bleeding, and you're bruised on the face. Your trousers are ripped at the knee.”

“Are they?” He glanced down, saw the mud and the tear. “Shit, look at that, will you? Begging pardon,” he said quickly, remembering the children.

But she was close enough now to see, and to smell, just what the matter was. “Shawn Gallagher, you're drunk.”

“I am, I suppose, a little.” They'd gone to school together, so he patted her shoulder in a friendly manner. “You've darling children, Betsy, but your oldest girl there is trying to throttle her brother, and doing a damn fine job of it.”

Betsy merely glanced back and barked out one sharp warning. The children broke apart.

“My mother could do the same.” Sheer admiration shone on Shawn's face. “Half the time it only took a look to curdle the blood in your veins. Well, I must be going.”

“Get in the back of the car, for heaven's sake, and I'll take you home.”

“Thanks, but I'm for work.”

She rolled her eyes, jerked open the car door. “Get in all the same, and I'll drive you the rest of the way.” And let the Gallaghers deal with their own, she thought.

“That's kind of you. Thanks, Betsy.”

The children were so entertained by drunk Mr. Gallagher that they behaved themselves until their mother dropped him off behind the pub.

He waved cheerfully, then opened the door, tripped over the threshold, and as his balance was already impaired, nearly went facedown on the floor for the second time that day. He caught himself, hung on to the side of the counter, and waited for the pub kitchen to stop revolving.

With the careful steps of the drunk, he walked over to the cupboard to get out a pan for frying, a pot for boiling.

He was weaving in front of the refrigerator, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with what was inside it, when Darcy marched in. Fire in her eyes.

“You're near to an hour late, and while you're lazing in bed, we've got two bloody buses coming in full of tourists and nothing to put in their bellies but beer nuts and crisps.”

“Sure I'll be dealing with that directly.”

“And what, I'd like to know, are we to put on the daily while you—” She broke off, took a good look at him. His eyes, she noted, were all but wheeling around in his head. “Look at the sight of you. Dirty and torn up and bleeding. You've been drinking.”

“I have.” He turned, gave her the sweet, harmless smile of the very drunk. “Considerably.”

“Well, you knothead, sit down before you fall down.”

“I can stand. I'm going to make fish cakes, I'm thinking.”

“I'll bet you are.” Amused, she pulled him to the table and shoved him into a chair. She took a look at his hand, decided she'd seen worse. “Stay where you're put,” she ordered and went out to get Aidan.

“What d'you mean, drunk?” Aidan said after Darcy hissed in his ear.

“I think you're familiar with the term, but if you need refreshing on it, you've only to go into the kitchen and have a look at our brother.”

“Christ, I don't have time for this.” The pub had only a scatter of customers, as the doors had barely opened, but within thirty minutes, there would be sixty piling in, hungry from the bus trip down from Waterford City.

“Mind the bar, then,” he told her.

“Oh, no, not for a million pounds would I miss this.” So saying, she followed him into the kitchen.

Shawn was singing in his break-your-heart voice, about the cold nature of Peggy Gordon. And with one eye closed, his body swaying gently, he dripped lemon juice into a bowl.

“Oh, fuck me, Shawn, you
are
half pissed.”

“More of three-quarters if the truth be known.” He lost track of the juice and added a bit more to be safe. “And how are you today, Aidan, darling?”

“Get away from there before you poison someone.”

Insulted, Shawn swiveled around and had to brace a hand on the counter to stay upright. “I'm drunk, not a murderer. I can make a goddamn fish cake in me sleep. This is my kitchen, I'll thank you to remember, and I give the orders here.”

He poked himself in the chest with his thumb on the claim and nearly knocked himself on his ass.

Gathering dignity, he lifted his chin. “So go on with you while I go about my work.”

“What have you done to yourself?”

“The devil cat caught me hand.” Forgetting his work, Shawn lifted a hand to scowl at the red gashes. “Oh, but I've plans for him, you can be sure of that.”

“At the moment, I'd lay odds on the cat. Do you know anything about putting fish cakes together?” Aidan asked Darcy.

“Not a bloody thing,” she said cheerfully.

“Then go and call Kathy Duffy, would you, and ask if she can spare us an hour or so, as we have an emergency.”

“An emergency?” Shawn looked glassily around. “Where?”

“Come with me, boy-o.”

“Where?” Shawn asked again, and Aidan hooked an arm around his waist.

“To pay the piper.”

“If you're taking him upstairs,” Darcy called out as she reached for the phone, “I'll thank you to clean up whatever mess is made during the sobering.”

“Just call Kathy Duffy and mind the bar.” Aidan took Shawn's weight and dragged him upstairs.

“I can cook, drunk or sober,” Shawn insisted. “I don't know what you're in such a taking over. It's just fucking fish cakes.” And he pressed a noisy kiss to Aidan's cheek.

“You always were a cheerful drunk.”

“And why not?” Shawn hooked an arm around Aidan's shoulder, stumbled. “My life's in the toilet, and it looks better through the whiskey.”

Making sympathetic noises, Aidan half carried him into Darcy's tidy little bathroom. “You had words with Brenna, did you?”

“No, but with everyone else in God's creation. I spent the night making love to the woman I want to marry. I tell you, Aidan, it's a different matter altogether being inside a woman when you love her. Who knew?”

Aidan considered the trouble of getting Shawn out of his clothes, and the mess that would be made if he didn't. So he propped his brother against the wall. “Just hold this up for a bit,” he said.

“All right.” Obligingly, Shawn braced his weight against the wall. “She thinks it's just sex, you know.”

“Aye, well . . .” Working as fast as he could, Aidan crouched to take off Shawn's boots, which, he noted in disgust, had been tied into nasty little knots. “Women are the oddest of creatures.”

“I've always liked them myself. There's so many varieties. But this is like having a lightning bolt smash right into my heart so it's all hot and bright and shaky. I'm not letting her go, and that's the end of it.”

“That's the spirit.” He got the boots off, and the jeans, and working briskly as a man with experience in such matters, efficiently stripped his brother down to the skin.

Knowing what was to follow, he shrugged out of his own shirt and tugged off his pants. “In you go.”

“I can't go anywhere. I'm naked. I'll be arrested.”

“I'll post your bond, not to worry.” And not without sympathy, Aidan turned the shower on full cold and shoved his beloved brother under the heartless spray.

Oh, the scream all but peeled the skin off his face, and the curses that followed battered his ears. But Aidan held ground, dodged a fist when he had to, and clamping Shawn in a headlock, held him mercilessly under.

“You're drowning me, you bastard.”

“Not yet.” In a ruthless move, Aidan used his free hand to yank Shawn's head back by the hair so the icy spray showered his face. “Just shut your mouth and hold your breath, and you'll live through it.”

“I'll kill you dead as Abraham when I'm out of here.”

“You think I'm enjoying this, do you?” Laughter rose into his throat as he yanked Shawn's head back again. “You'd be right. Head clearing?”

Since Shawn's answer was a glug, Aidan gave it another minute, then switched off the spray. He was wise enough to move quickly out of range before tossing his brother one of Darcy's fancy towels. “Well, you're a sorry picture, but your eyes are clear. Are you going to be sick on me now?”

Though his limbs were weak as a baby's, Shawn wrapped the towel around his waist and tried for dignity. “Drowning me's one thing, insulting me's another. I ought to break your face for it.”

Crisis passed, Aidan decided, then lifted a brow. “It appears someone tried to break yours. Did Brenna put that bruise on your chin?”

“No. Her father did.”

“Mick O'Toole?” Aidan paused in the act of drying his own chest. “Mick O'Toole popped you one?”

“He did. But we've come to terms now.” Shawn stepped out of the shower, annoyed that the blissful cushion of whiskey had been washed away, so now he could hurt all over—face, hand, leg. And heart.

“At a guess I'd say you got drunk together.”

“That was part of the process.” He flipped down the lid of the toilet, sat, and as he dressed again he filled Aidan in on the morning.

“You've had a busy day.” Aidan laid a hand on his shoulder. “I can ask Kathy Duffy to do the whole of the shift.”

“No, I can work. It'll keep my hands busy while I figure out what to do next.” He stood up. “I mean to have her, Aidan, however it has to be done.”

“You gave me advice once, on matters of the heart. Now I'll return the favor. Find the words, the right ones, and give them to her. I imagine there's different ones for different women, but when it's all cleared away, it means the same.”

•    •    •

He couldn't say he was feeling his best, but he thought he could get through the day now without making a bigger muck of things.

From the look of sympathy that Kathy Duffy sent him when he entered the kitchen again, he imagined he wasn't looking his best either.

“There now, lad.” She clucked over him and had a strong cup of tea ready. “You just drink this and gather your wits. I've got things under control for now.”

“I'm grateful to you. I know I left things turned 'round here.”

“If a body can't indulge himself foolishly now and again, what's the point?” She bustled around as she talked, dealing with the fry pan and the pot she had simmering. “I've got the fish cakes doing and they're selling brisk. You had fresh cockles, so I did up the soup, and it's ready for serving now if any's a taste for it. Now most are wanting chips, but I've done up some pan boxty as well.”

“It's a treasure you are, Mrs. Duffy.”

She pinked and fluttered at that. “Oh, go on with you. It's nothing your dear mother wouldn't have done for one of mine if the need were there.” She flipped fish cakes onto plates, spooned up chips that had drained, and added bits of parsley and pickled beets.

As if timed to a turn, Darcy came in to pick up the orders. “Well, the dead have arisen,” she said with a quick study of her brother. “Though you look like you need to be buried.”

“Oh, he's just a little shaky on his pins is all. Don't poke at him, Darcy, there's a good girl.”

Shawn sent his sister a wide and sour grin behind Kathy's back as she loaded her tray. “We'll need two servings of your soup, Mrs. Duffy, and another of the fish cakes, with the boxty, and one further of fish and chips. And all would care for the green salad you were kind enough to make while my brother was indisposed.”