Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) (11 page)

“At first,” she softly said, “when we first met at Tech, those first few times, it was like you weren’t even the same person. You were so different. And that’s the person I saw on the plane. The person who took care of me and came back to the hotel to check on me.”

My gut twisted with her words. She was right. Self-preservation had made me a complete arse. My dedication to a friend and my own helpless feelings for a girl I couldn’t have.

It was hard to talk about with her because it had affected her the most. She had affected me the most, right from the start with her sweet smile and jailbait body. Always just out of my reach.

I wondered how it might have been different, had I gotten her number that day. Told the guys about her, despite the shite they’d throw at me for it. Kept in contact. Just enough to keep Trent from laying claim.

But I hadn’t. And Trent had. He’d made her his.

And that thought shut my mind down. It was far too easy to sit with her and feel comfortable. To get lost in her eyes and her smile and all the sweetness that her simple little touch on my arm promised.

I leaned away, doing my best to ignore the pained expression that lit on her face and the uncomfortable weight that suddenly filled the air. I let my defensive indifference wash over me, making me cold and glazing over my eyes. It numbed the longing and the humanity in me.

“There he is,” she murmured sadly.

“Who?”

“That other Denny,” she said with a dejected tone. “The one I usually see. The asshole one. I was wondering when he’d show up.”

“There’s only one of me, Fliss,” I frowned. “It’s more likely you’re projecting a nice guy onto me where there’s not one.”

“No,” she shook her head and leaned forward, “I’ve seen a few glimpses of someone truly remarkable. That first Denny I met… he was remarkable. That Denny who kept me from getting busted at that party, he was remarkable.”

April, four years ago

The party…

A few weeks after seeing her at the Copperline, and I was doing my best to stay away.

I couldn’t have her, but didn’t want to sit around watching her with Trent. And seeing the look on her face when that Jillian scrubber had kissed me had sorta left a mark. It had clearly hurt her, which had hurt me.

However, it was Drew’s birthday, so it would have raised too much suspicion to skip out. I stayed, my wanting of her eating away at my resolve.

The cops had shown up, and Fliss had jumped out a window, trying to avoid a minor in possession charge. Since the drinking age in Montana was twenty-one, those of us who were legal appreciated when the minors bailed because we would get nailed with contributing to the delinquency of a minor if we were caught together.

However, when she jumped out the window, she’d twisted her ankle. It was a pretty fair drop from the top floor of the split-level house, not quite two usual stories high, but well more than a typical ground level window. I was standing by the window she leapt from and had heard a whimper of pain as she hit the ground. Without even thinking about it, I’d gone after her, almost landing right on top of her. She had scrambled into the juniper bushes alongside the house and was holding her ankle.

“You alright?” I asked in a low voice.

“I fucked up my ankle,” she whispered. “God, if I get busted, my dad’s going to kill me.”

“Hop on my back,” I said without even thinking twice, turning my back to her and kneeling. “I’ll get you out of here.”

She hesitated only a moment before I felt her slight weight and her arms wrap around my shoulders. I tucked my hands under her legs as they came around my waist and stood, keeping close to the side of the house until we were in the shadows around the back. A few quick steps across the yard, and we slipped into the alley.

“I think we’re fairly safe. I can probably walk now,” Fliss said softly, and the sound of her voice, so close to my ear, sorta sent a shiver up my back.

I clearly hadn’t thought this through. Suddenly, I became aware of her firm tits pressed against my back, the firm tone of her legs in my hands. The light, fresh scent of hers began to permeate the air around me as I stopped and allowed her to slide down to the ground. It was all I could do to suppress the moan that the feel of her body built inside me.

She took a tentative step, limping a little, and then another, a little more solid albeit still pained. My warring emotions fought the urge to pick her up and carry her, and, in the end, I lost that battle when I saw a faint glisten of tears in her eyes.

“Stubborn,” I muttered as I swept her up and cradled her against my chest.

Her body tensed, but she didn’t argue. She looped an arm around my neck as we trekked through the dark alleys and dimly lit streets until we reached a hill overlooking the housing development. I sat her on a rocky outcropping, then plopped down beside her. Below us off in the distance, we could see the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars where the party was still being broken up.

“Perfect,” I murmured, “we can hide out up here until the shades have gone.”

“The shades?”

“The peelers? The garda?”

“The police?” she grinned, the faint light from the town below us casting a warm glow on her features.

“Right, the police,” I said. “We’ll be able to see when their lights go off. Can give a little time for them to leave, and we’re grand.”

Fliss continued to smile as she looked down the hillside. She lifted her leg some and rotated her foot a little, grimacing some, but working the muscles to relieve the pain.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “Since my dad is a… what did you call it? A
peeler
?”

I nodded, allowing the amusement at her accent to show on my face.

“Right, anyway, I shudder to think what kind of shit I’d be in if I got busted. I still live at home.” She laughed. “I may be eighteen, but he’d probably still ground me.”

“I imagine he’d be rather protective. You’re his little girl, to be sure. Always will be.”

“Yeah,” she grimaced. “I’m moving out after the semester, though. I need to grow up sometime, right?”

She clearly wasn’t expecting an answer, which was for the best because I don’t think I could have given her one right then. She looked so beautiful in the moonlight with the glow of the city warming her face. For a second, when she glanced up at me, I saw a flicker of longing in her eyes. Her face softened and her breathing seemed to slow.

Then she quickly looked back down the hillside from our perch up on the hill at the edge of town. “It’s so quiet up here,” she murmured. “It seems kind of weird because we’re really not very far from town, but it’s like we’re a world away.”

“So how’s school going for ya?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the fact that she was here…
with me
. She was Trent’s girl, but that didn’t make me want her any less. I sorta began to wish I’d taken her someplace else, someplace with people where I could have just left her there. It was torture being alone with her. There was just a thickness in the air that made it sort of hard to breathe around her.

She shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s school, a means to an end.” After a long silence she looked up at me. “Why did you leave?”

Oddly, nobody had really asked me when I dropped out. Not my parents. Not my friends. The instructors probably would have, but I just sort of quit going. The more scientific and analytic things became in class, the more I heard song lyrics in my head. The more I felt a riff beating in my heart. The more I wanted to create something beautiful.

And, knowing she was Trent’s girl now, my last shred of motivation had disappeared. My fascination with her caused more of a lonely ache than alluring excitement.

Like I could tell her that, though.

“I guess I finally decided that I don’t really want to be an engineer,” I offered with a wry, sheepish twist to my lips. “I don’t really know what I do want, except that, the more the guys and I play, the more I want that… just to create things.”

“You’re very good,” she smiled, and it twisted at my heart a little bit. She was so feckin’ beautiful and it was physically painful sitting here so close to her knowing I couldn’t have her. “I’d seen you practice, but until I got to hear you at the Copperline, it had just seemed like you were messing around. Even then, though, you have a rhythm. A sound.”

“Yeah, a sound that makes dogs howl and glass break,” I laughed.

“No, really,” she giggled back, a light, cheerful sound, musical in its own right. “You know, I used to listen to you on the radio at night, when you guys did your show.” Her smile faded and her voice grew a little quieter, as though she was telling me a secret or whispering the remnants of a dream. “Your voice carried through the night, rich and strong. And the things you say in your songs…” she shook her head and gave a wistful smile, “they’re beautiful.”

For a moment, my eyes caught hers, and the sincerity of her words mesmerized me. The glimmering honesty that reflected the city lights below us.

For a long while, we were both silent, but in an oddly comfortable way. It felt almost intimate just breathing her air, quietly perched on the hillside. My mind began to wander, lulled by how easy it was to just be with her. Wishing that the shades would stay down there, lights flashing all night so I wouldn’t have to take her back to Trent.

Feckin’ hell… Trent.

“So,” I said, clearing my throat, “how are things going with Trent?” It was abrupt, but I had to bring him back into my head somehow. She was entirely too tempting sitting here beside me.

Her eyes dropped down to her hands and she shrugged. “Okay, I guess,” she replied, chewing at her lower lip, clearly not really wanting to discuss him.

Maybe a little ashamed for thoughts that might have been running through her head, thoughts similar to mine. She went from relaxed and calm to rigid in a moment, leaning forward to hug her legs.

She looked up towards the mountain peaks that bordered the edge of town, up to the Lady of the Rockies, a giant statue of the Virgin Mother who looked over the predominantly Irish Catholic city below. Glancing up at me, she nodded towards the massive, illuminated shape that appeared, from a distance, to be tiny.

“You know, my grampa helped build that,” she murmured. “The whole town had lost so much over the years. It was kind of a tough time for the miners because so much had changed since they went underground. That was their whole life. When they closed the last of the mine shafts and went solely to strip mining, they lost a sense of themselves.”

“How long ago was that?”

“The late seventies or early eighties, I think. Before I was born, but not a horribly long time. The construction of the Lady did so much to bring Butte together, to raise the spirits of the town. To renew the sense of pride in being from such a unique place.”

I chuckled. “I doubt there’s another place like Butte in all the world.”

“Not with the character, that’s for sure,” she mused. “My mom never really got it, I don’t think.” The smile that touched her lips faded some, grew a little melancholy. “I guess she always wanted to leave, to go back east where she’d grown up, right up until she died, but my dad was Butte born and bred.”

“What was your ma like?” I hadn’t heard this, didn’t realize it was just her and her da.

“I don’t remember a whole lot. I was pretty little,” she murmured, gazing back up at the white form lit up on the distant mountaintop. “But I used to be able to see the Lady out my window as a kid. I guess I sort of felt like she represented my own mother watching over me.” She gave a hoarse, dry laugh. “That sounds totally cheesy, doesn’t it?”

“Not if it gave ya comfort,” I replied. “Did your da ever remarry? Date? Anything?”

“If he dated at all, he kept it from me,” she shook her head. “He made sure, though, that I didn't feel lonely or neglected. There was a lady who used to take care of me a lot when I was younger. She kind of filled that role for me, sort of a pseudo-mother to be there when he couldn't be around.” She grinned unabashed. “Or when it was some girl thing that was outside of his comfort zone.”

I shuddered a little. “Hmm, girl things. Not many men want to take on stuff like that.”