Kiss Me, I'm Irish: The Sins of His Past / Tangling With Ty / Whatever Reilly Wants...

She backed up farther and gave him a dubious look. “What are you up to, Deuce Monroe?”

“You don’t trust me at all, do you?”

Her eyes suddenly widened. “Do you think seducing me is going to win you the bar? You think I’ll just back down from this fight because you swept me off my feet and into bed?”

The words punched him. “No.” Truthfully, the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. “I just…like you.”

Nothing on her face said she believed him.

“Why don’t you stay until I close up?” he suggested. “We can talk about the business, about how we can…figure this out.”

“You don’t want to talk.”

No, he didn’t. But he would. “Come on, Kendra. Stay. I can take you home later.”

Newman skittered toward the street, suddenly impatient with the conversation, and Kendra went with him as though she felt exactly the same. “Just lock all the doors when you leave. And put the cash in the green zipper case in the bottom drawer of the office.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll put the cash in the office that doesn’t lock.”

“The desk does,” she said, reaching into her pocket. “Here.” She held up a key chain. “The little gold one locks the cash drawer. Leave it on Diana’s kitchen table and I’ll stop in and walk Newman in the morning.”

Maybe he’d leave them on his dresser so she’d have to come in his bedroom to get them. Maybe, if he hadn’t lost his touch, she’d be right there in the bed next to him in the morning.

He reached for her hand. “I’d really like if you’d stay.”

She shook her head in warning. “My car’s right there,” she said. “Bye.”

Before he could get a grip on her arm, she’d taken off with the dog in tow, hustling down the street. Guess he had lost his touch.

He let his arousal subside as he waited in the street to see her get into a car and drive away. Pocketing the keys, he watched until the taillights disappeared at the bend away from the beach.

He touched his mouth, the feel of her lips still fresh. He was not done with her. Not by a long shot.

The front door of the bar flung open and two of his old teammates came bounding out, their laughter loud, their guts showing that beer consumption had replaced batting practice as their favorite pastime.

“Man, Deuce, it’s good to have you back.” Charlie Lotane pounded Deuce’s back. “This is going to be an awesome bar. You got the touch, man.”

“Ya think, C-Lo?” The old nicknames came back easily. “I was just wondering if I’d lost it.”

“Deuce, you are the man!” Charlie assured him over his shoulder. “We really needed a place like this in the Rock. Way to go, bro.”

“Thank God you came back, Deuce.”

Deuce watched them disappear down High Castle and suddenly wondered just what the hell he’d come back to prove. That he was still “the man” who could pack Monroe’s? That he was still the main event in town? That he could still see adoration in Jack’s little sister’s eyes?

Was he that shallow and insecure?

The door burst open again and he welcomed the distraction.

NEWMAN CURLED INTO the corner of Kendra’s living room, as at home in this beach bungalow as he was in Diana’s mansion. He was sound asleep by the time Kendra realized exactly what she needed to do in order get her head back on straight.

She needed to read her notebook.

She’d never been one to buy a diary, with a pretty filigree lock, or an embroidered design on the cover. It seemed so planned and pathetic, as though a formal diary somehow legitimized her longings. Plus, she’d known at a very young age that such a girlish item would be too tempting to Jack…and the thought of him sharing her diary with the boys in the basement still sent a rush of heat to her cheeks.

So she’d kept a simple spiral notebook, college-ruled and ragged at the edges. It never drew anyone’s attention; instead it blended in with her many schoolbooks, another tool of a brainiac child bound and determined to get to the Ivy League.

But this was no ordinary notebook. The dates of the entries were far apart, but over the course of about a dozen years, it was just about full. Written on both sides of every page, in a script that had started out awkward, moved to a girlish flourish, and ended up as scratchy as a doctor’s prescription.

She hadn’t looked at the book in at least four years. But tonight, her body still humming from the electrical charge of that kiss, she’d gone to the bottom of a box of rarely worn sweaters to find a piece of her heart that had never quite healed. Sliding her nail into one of the curled corners, she wet her lips, still warm from the taste of Deuce.

The man could kiss and that was a fact.

In truth, it had been right in the middle of that heart-tripping lip-lock that the notebook had flashed in her mind like a big red flag. Warning. Warning. Serious, severe discontentment and disappointment ahead.

She lifted the cover. “Perhaps we need a little history lesson,” she whispered to herself.

She opened it randomly, to about the fifth or sixth page.

The words “Mrs. Deuce Monroe” decorated the margins. The O’s in Monroe were hearts. Kendra laughed softly. She had to. Otherwise, she’d cry. The penmanship was classic third-grade, early cursive.

Tomorrow, my family is driving all the way to Fall River for my brother’s baseball tournament. And guess what???? Deuce is coming too!!! In our car!!! His parents said he could drive with Jack!!! I will be in the car with him for hours and hours!!! I’m excited and happy tonight.

Kendra smiled, shaking her head. She remembered the trip vividly. Jack and Deuce had traded baseball cards and listened to the Red Sox game the entire time and never once said a word to her. Except when they rolled in laughter because she had to stop and go to the bathroom so often. And they’d lost the tournament on one of Deuce’s classic out-of-control pitches, so the trip home was real quiet.

She flipped to the middle. Her handwriting had matured, and the date told her the entry was made when she was fourteen years old.

I hate Anne Keppler. I just hate her and her black hair and her perfect cheerleader’s body. He calls her “Annie”—I heard him. She’s down there right now, playing pool and giggling like a hyena along with that completely dumb Dawn Hallet(osis) who runs after Jack like a puppy-dog. Oh, God. He likes her. Deuce likes Anne Keppler. I heard him tell Jack last night after everyone left their noisy party. He kissed her! I heard him tell Jack he got tongue. How gross is that?

Her limbs grew heavy at the memory of Deuce’s tongue. Not gross at all, as a matter of fact.

A series of broken-heart sketches followed that entry, but many months passed before she wrote again. A few words about entering high school, taking difficult courses, then…

Oh, lovely little piece of paper…I’m holding my driver’s license. Yes! The State of Massachusetts and some really obnoxious old lady with orange hair agreed that I could drive (they were mercifully understanding about the parallel parking problem—the parallel parking that Jack swore I wouldn’t have to do). Mom said I could go to Star Market this afternoon for some groceries. Guess I’ll have to take a quick spin past Rock Field…there’s baseball practice tonight....

She’d taken that drive about a million times. And she’d made up another million excuses to wander over to the stands, to give something to Jack, to watch Deuce out in the field, throwing pitches, getting chewed out by Coach Delacorte. Rarely, if ever, did Deuce notice her. Still, she was certain that if she just waited, if she just grew up a little more, if she just got rid of the braces, if she just could fill a C-cup, he would realize that he’d loved her all along.

By the time she grew up and the braces came off and the bra size increased, Deuce had ditched Rockingham for the major leagues. She tried to forget him and, for the most part, with her focus on getting into Harvard, and staying there, she succeeded. It was even possible to work at Monroe’s in the summers and not think too much about him.

Until Leah Monroe died, and Deuce came home, in need of comfort and love.

She didn’t bother to look for a passage in the journal that described the night she lost her virginity on the beach. She’d never written about it, trusting her memory to keep every single detail crystal-clear in her memory.

But as time passed, she did turn to her red notebook to write about the pain. The first entry was made when it began to dawn on her that she’d never hear from him again.

Deuce has been gone for nine days. Like a fool, I check my messages every hour. I pick up the phone to see if it’s working. I run to the mailbox for a card, a note, a letter.

The closest I can get to him is the box scores in the paper. He pitched last night. Lost. Does he think about me when he goes back to his hotel? Does he think it’s too late to call? Or does he have a girl in Chicago, in Detroit, in Baltimore…wherever he is right now.