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

At eleven o’clock, only two stragglers sipped beers and watched the end of a Celtics game at one end of the bar. The medieval game-playing twins had abandoned their jousting to work a couple of girls at a table, but they’d already closed their tab. A few other tables were ready to call it a night.

Very soon, he could close up and collect on his bet. At the sound of the great door creaking open, he turned to see Martin Hatcher pulling off a bright-green trucker cap as he entered.

His eyes lit up at the sight of Deuce. “There’s my favorite knuckleball man,” he said, ambling over to the bar.

“Kind of late for you, isn’t it, sir?” Would the Hatchet Man settle in for a few hours? Not that Deuce wouldn’t enjoy the conversation, but tonight he wanted to close as early as possible.

Martin slipped onto a barstool and crossed his arms. “I’m retired, son. So it’s no longer a school night for me. How about a draft?”

“Coming right up.” Deuce poured the golden liquid, tilting the glass to create the perfect head. “Here you go, sir.”

Martin raised the glass in salute. “Lose the sir, Deuce.”

Deuce laughed and leaned on the bar. “You’ll always be the voice of authority to me, Martin.”

The glass halted halfway to his mouth as his lips twitched. “I’ve never been the voice of authority to you, Deuce. You always marched to your own…authority.”

Then he drank. One of the bar patrons held up a twenty and Deuce cashed them out and said good night. Two down, a few to go. He moved back down to where the ex-principal sat.

“Been to any more practices?” Martin asked.

Deuce shook his head, but Martin’s look stopped him. He could never fudge the truth with the Hatchet Man. “All right. One. Well, two.”

Martin released a soft, knowing chuckle. “How’s the elbow doing?”

“Not bad, actually.” He rubbed the tender spot, and blessed the workouts he’d been secretly doing every day. “I can actually throw a knuckleball again. But man cannot live by knuckleballs alone.”

“Keep working out and you can play again.”

“I can play now,” Deuce said defensively. “It’s the lawyers who blackballed me from baseball, not the doctors. I’d need more P.T., but…” his voice drifted away. “Anyway, I’m a barkeep now.”

“You can’t stay away from a ball field,” Martin said with a wry smile. “I remember that was the only way I could really get to you. Detention, suspension, parental call-ins, nothing worked but keeping you off the field.”

“That was where I wanted to be,” Deuce agreed. “Although detention had its side benefits. That’s where you find the cute bad girls.”

Martin laughed at that and sipped some more draft, then glanced around. “But not your business partner,” he mused. “She never did anything bad.”

But she would. In an hour or two.

“Where is Kendra?” Martin asked.

Hopefully, slipping into something…easy to slip out of. “She only works days. I cover the nights.”

“Interesting arrangement,” Martin mused. “How’s that going?”

“We’re working on some changes.” Deuce flipped on the water to wash the last of the glasses as a burst of laughter erupted from the Gibbons’s table. Maybe they were getting ready to take the ladies home for a wild night of medieval sportsmanship.

“As I understand it, Kendra was already working on some changes for Monroe’s. Did she tell you about them?”

Deuce looked up from the sink. “Of course. I’ve seen all the plans.”

“What do you think?”

The truth was, he thought that her plans were great. But he also could make a sports bar profitable. Deep inside, he hoped for a compromise, but couldn’t imagine her agreeing to it. “Jury’s out.”

Martin sipped. “She’s been working on the whole cyber café and artists’ space for a long time.”

“Two years,” Deuce noted. “That’s how long she’s been part-owner of this place.”

“Oh, no, Deuce. She’s really been at Monroe’s for nearly ten or more.” Martin’s gray eyes looked particularly sharp. “Since she was first in college.”

Why did Deuce get the idea he was being worked by the principal? “I remember,” he said, turning to stack the clean glasses.

“But then she dropped out.”

Deuce froze at the odd tone in Martin’s voice. Was he accusing him of something…or was that just residual fear of the principal teasing Deuce. He reached for more glasses, clearing his throat. “She said she had a bad break-up.”

When Martin didn’t respond, Deuce looked up. The man wore the oddest expression.

“You know women,” Deuce said, the old awkwardness of sitting in the principal’s office sluicing through him. “They get…weird.”

Martin just nodded, then slid his glass to make room for his elbows as he leaned toward Deuce. “I’d hate to see her unhappy again.”

What was he saying? “Do you think my being here is making her unhappy?”

Martin frowned. “Did I say that?”

“Well, what are you saying?” Deuce demanded.

“I’m saying that she has—or had—big plans for this place and I happen to know they don’t include a sports bar.”

Staring at the man, Deuce searched his mind for a reasonable explanation for Martin’s strange message. Then the truth dawned on him. He started laughing, which made the old Hatchet Man’s eyes spark like cinders.

“Martin, I’m not going to coach the high-school baseball team. You can’t psyche me into it with guilt over Kendra’s café plans, sir.”

“You call me sir again and I’ll write you up, son.” He winked and pushed his empty glass forward. “What do I owe you?”

Deuce shook his head. “Truth is, I owe you, Martin. That one’s on the house.”

“Maybe I’ll see you at practice this week. I’m working the grounds.”

They both knew he would.

When the last glass was clean, the register was cashed out and the night’s draw was tucked into the pouch, Deuce locked the drawer in Kendra’s office and pocketed the keys. As he pushed the chair back from the desk, his foot bumped into something soft.

Bending over, he spied the nylon tote bag Kendra carried between work and home. She must have left it when they went to Fall River and forgotten to pick it up before she’d gone home.

Well, she had been distracted. He grinned at the thought, reaching for the bag. Did she really need it tonight? With one finger, he inched the zippered opening to see what it contained. A laptop, a calculator, some folders, a red spiral notebook.