Tuesday nights were usually slow at Pat’s Irish Pub. Wednesday would bring the hump day drinkers—those grateful to have made it to midweek without a huge crisis and those still staving one off. And most weekends would bring entertainment to the tiny stage in the corner. But unless there was a sporting event on television that people could get raucous about, Tuesdays were fairly quiet.
Tonight had been no exception. Mary McCoy had spent more time polishing glasses, wiping the bar, and straightening bottles than she had serving customers. At the moment, there were two couples, one huddled in a corner booth and the other at a table to the side. And Frank Eglington, a regular at the pub. Mary guessed his age to be about forty. Although he was friendly with everyone, he always seemed to come in alone and preferred to sit by himself at the bar. Sometimes she wondered what his story was.
He had just carried his beer down to the end of the bar where she was rubbing a spot on the counter, and hitched himself up onto a stool. She swallowed a sigh, expecting he was getting ready to make his usual pitch.
“So, tell me, you sweet thing.” He leaned toward her a bit. “When are you going to break down and have a night out with me?”
In the three months she’d been working at the pub, Mary had learned the man was mostly all show and no go. That he loved to tease the ladies, as he said.
“Now, Frankie.” She gave him her practiced bartender’s wink. “I’d be the most boring date you ever had. Really.”
“Maybe I’d spice up your life.” He put his hand on top of hers and stilled its movement. “The ladies say I’m a real charmer.”
Pat Collins, the patriarch of the Collins family whom they called Pop, and the man for whom the pub was named, was in his usual seat at the center of the long, polished mahogany bar, where he could hear everything and chat with his cronies. He’d assured her, not only was Frank Eglington harmless but he, Pat, would keep an eye on him. Just in case. She was grateful the patriarch of the Collins family had taken her under his wing that way, so to speak.
Now he let out a hearty laugh. “Snake charmer, maybe. Leave the lass alone, Frankie. You’ve already got too many women on the string.”
“You’re just jealous.” Frank winked at Mary. “He knows the ladies fall all over themselves for me, right, lass?”
Mary laughed. “We’re beating them off with a big stick, Pat.”
She considered herself extremely lucky to have scored this job. In college, she’d worked as a bartender, managing to get herself hired in places where the tips were really good. When she walked away from her job at Tyndal Marketing and Communications she’d wanted a complete change from the high-stress job she’d worked her way up to.
She lived her life for clients and worried constantly about deadlines. Her goal in college had been to get a job in the Big Apple, work her way up in a high-profile communications and marketing firm, and enjoy life. As one of the most high-profile account executives, she had lived her job twenty-four/seven. It left her with no free time, no love life, and a possible case of ulcers. She’d also experienced something she’d never thought possible—a case of New York burnout.
Well, she’d gotten two out of three. She supposed that was better than most.
Maybe it was the large poster leaning against the wall in her office that finally made the decision for her. She’d been working up a campaign for a manufacturer of motorcycle jackets, and the poster was one of the items she’d created. The hunk of all hunks straddled the biggest motorcycle she’d ever seen, a Yamaha VMax, to be exact. The photographer who did the shoot had rented one, telling her it was the ultimate symbol of masculinity and sex. She could believe it. One look at it and all she could think of was being stretched naked over the seat while a sexy biker screwed her brains out. The model himself just added to the fantasy. The sun was shining behind him, his slightly long hair and scruff of a beard adding to his very sexy romantic mystique.
She realized with a shock she hadn’t had a fantasy like that in way too long. Instead, she dreamed about sales figures and something called a Fan Quotient. If she kept going the way she was, the only motorcycle she might ride was if they carried her to her grave on one. And the only man she’d fuck would be in her dreams, which were getting more and more boring. She wanted what the poster promised, or something close to it. The freedom to ride with the wind, to make only simple decisions, and not worry about anything except if the milk in her fridge was sour.
And a guy who looked like the model wouldn’t hurt, either. Along with everything else, she had to face the fact her love life was woefully lacking. She hadn’t had sex with a man who interested her in forever, and the best orgasms were the ones she gave herself. But even they left her barely satisfied. She wanted a man who demanded everything of her, who took her over the edge again and again until she was nothing but a limp mass of muscle. She was thirty years old, and the last time she’d had sex her partner told her she needed to stop checking things off in her head like his performance was being graded.
David Tyndal had been shocked when she handed in her resignation.
“Don’t do this,” he begged. “You’re one of my best.”
“I have to. I am so burned out I’m actually fried.”
“Take a leave of absence, then,” he suggested. “Three months. Six. A year.” He gave a short laugh. “Do I sound desperate? I am.”
“You have good people here, David. You’ll do just fine.”
“But—”
“I can’t do the leave of absence thing,” she told him. “It would always be hanging over me in the back of my mind. I have to do this, David. If you respect me, then please let me do this while I still have it together.”
In the end, he’d given in and given her his blessing, along with a very large bonus check from the last account she’d handled. Finances would not be a problem, fortunately. In addition to the check, she had a money market account and her 401K she severed from the Tyndal bookkeeping.
Karen Haywood, her closest friend, wasn’t quite so easily put off.
“You can’t do this.” She stared across the restaurant table at Mary. “I forbid it.”
Mary burst out laughing. “Forbid? Are you my keeper or something?”
“If I have to be.” Karen took a sip of wine. “You worked your ass off to get where you are with Tyndal and now you want to just walk away from it all? That’s insane.”
“What’s insane would be my staying.” She leaned across the table. “I hope you can understand, but I feel like I have no life except work. My social life is scheduled like my work life, with no room for anything spontaneous. If it’s not on my calendar with at least three alerts, I don’t do it.”
“Then, just loosen up a little,” Karen urged. “Take a day to just go and play or something.”
“Please.” She flapped her hand. “That doesn’t work. The office hunts me down and bingo! Another twenty-hour day. Listen. You remember that poster in my office?”
“The one with the motorcycle hunk?” Karen licked her lips.
“Uh-huh.” Mary grinned. “That’s the one. I want to find someone like that and go for the ride of my life.” She sighed. “Maybe even have sex on the motorcycle.”
“Mary!” Her eyes opened even wider in shock. “You wouldn’t.”
“I might. Or not. Whatever. Listen, Karen. It may be the only one, just one wild ride, but if I don’t do it now, I never will.”
“Well.” Karen chuckled. “I will say I’d be tempted myself. But, Mary. To throw away a career you’ve worked so hard for?”
Mary shrugged. “Maybe this is a sign I need to change the entire direction of my life. If it isn’t, at least I’ll have however long it takes me to get this out of my system. And then? Who knows?”
“Just as long as you make sure to keep in touch with me. I’ll go nuts if I don’t hear from you.”
“That’s a promise.” She drained her wine and set the goblet on the table. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll find a Mr. Motorcycle for you.”
Karen snorted. “Yeah. Well. We’ll see how it works out for you first.”
In the next week, she listed her condo for lease and was hardly surprised when it was snapped up in twenty-four hours. Prime real estate was scarce in New York, especially when it was leased furnished. She had the tenants checked out to be sure she wasn’t renting to some well-dressed lowlifes, executed the lease, and, two days later, she was ready to set out on her adventure.
It was barely six o’clock in the morning, but she had an itch to get going. Every inch of her brand new SUV, a car she’d always wanted, was loaded with her clothes and other personal belongings. She had absolutely no idea where she was going except someplace south of New York. She figured she’d just get on the turnpike and stop when the mood struck her.
That turned out to be Baltimore, and the Inner Harbor a client had told her so much about, a major tourist attraction and place for cruise ships to dock. Parking her vehicle, she wandered around for a while until she came to an interesting looking restaurant that advertised “the best breakfast you’ll ever eat.” She decided to see if there was truth in advertising and discovered it was better than advertised. Good for them, she thought. While she was eating, she’d try to figure out where she thought her next stop might be.
As it turned out, as with many other things in her life, Fate stuck its nose in her business. There was a newspaper kiosk right by the door, so she snagged a paper to read while she ate. Out of idle curiosity, she turned to the classifieds and checked the Help Wanted section, thinking to see what was happening in her field in the city. But as she skimmed the ads, one unexpectedly caught her eye.
Bartender wanted. Afternoons and four evenings a week. Friendly neighborhood pub. Pat’s Irish Pub.
It gave an address and a phone number.
Mary burst out laughing. She’d worked her way through college tending bar and become very proficient at it. Maybe this was a signal to go back to her roots. It was certainly a job she could do blindfolded. She took out her cell phone to call then decided she’d better check the place out first. If it was a dump, she had no interest in working there.
She signaled for the check and hurried out to the SUV. Her GPS directed her to Pat’s Irish Pub in a neighborhood of middle class homes and apartments as well as commercial streets featuring a mixture of stores and eateries. Through the big plate glass window, she saw the place was full, a good sign it did a nice business. And from what she could see, everyone appeared relaxed and happy.
The moment she walked in, she had a feeling of coming home. The bustle of feeding and watering the noon crowd. The thrum of conversation, the counterpoint of laughter, and the air laden with the rich scents of good beer and hamburgers calmed her jittery nerves as nothing else could have.
A huge bear of a man stood behind the bar, filling drink orders with high-speed efficiency while chatting with the customers, a big smile creasing his face. A younger man and a woman bustled around taking and delivering the lunch orders. Every seat was taken, and the place was filled with laughter as well as the buzz of conversation.
Mary finally scored an empty stool at the bar and ordered a soft drink and a hamburger. While she ate, she studied the place, watching everyone at work, listening to the customers. Right in the middle of the row of barstools sat a man with a thick head of gray hair, a smile on his face. As customers came in, they made it a point to stop by and say hello. Maybe chat a minute.
This had to be the owner, Patrick Collins, the founder of the pub’s dynasty, so to speak. Using her phone, she’d searched the Internet for anything she could find about the pub before checking it out in person. It turned out to have quite the local reputation, and not just because Teagan Collins had married famous singer Sky Adams and they treated the bar to impromptu performances when they could. She’d also discovered there was a restaurant attached to the pub, Sunday’s Side, named for Pat Collins’ late wife.
So she’d been armed with those tidbits and a few others when she’d walked into Pat’s Irish Pub to begin the next phase of her life. And so far, it had worked out very well.
She loved working at the pub. She could put everything that had happened at Tyndal, not to mention the high stress level it had pushed her to, out of her mind. No one here was looking to cut her throat or make her life miserable. Now and then, Pat would ask her why someone as smart as she was worked as a bartender for a living. She always smiled and told him she was here because she was smart and recognized a great place to work. She knew he didn’t believe her, but he never pushed for a better answer.
Frank’s sigh brought her attention back to the present. “Well, Mary my love, since you won’t agree to give me the pleasure of your company on a date, I’ll just take my single self home to my lonely little place. Probably have to drink myself to sleep I’m so sad to be without you.”
Mary burst out laughing. “Frank, you’ve got that routine down so tight you could market it.”
“Yeah?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Is it working?”
“Not a chance.” She grinned. “But your presentation keeps getting better. You should try it on some of the lovelies who come in on the weekends.”
“They’ve already given him the brushoff,” Pat said, and laughed. “Come on, drink up. Let the lady go home.”
“I can give you a ride.” Frank offered her a hopeful look.
“Thanks, but I’m good.”
Frank sighed. “Well, then. I guess I’ll finish my beer and toddle out of here.”
Pat turned to look at him. “I suppose we’ll see you again tomorrow night?”
“I need to keep pitching myself to this gorgeous beauty here.” He slapped a twenty on the bar. “Good night, gorgeous. See you tomorrow.”
In a moment, he was gone, the couple at the table following on his heels.
Mary opened the register to slide the bill into the drawer and took out the change. She always put most of it in the tip jar, to share with the others. But tonight, Pat shook his head.
“Those tips are for you,” he pointed out. “You can slip a little in there if you want, but you work hard back there, Mary. On your feet, putting up with the bullshit, filling the drink orders. You don’t keep near enough for yourself.”
“I do okay, Pat. You pay me a decent salary, and I don’t need a lot to live on.”
He cocked one of his thick gray eyebrows at her. “I don’t know a lot about you, Mary. Tris said he’s satisfied, and that’s enough for me. But what’s a classy lady like you, sharp, smart, doing tending bar in a neighborhood pub?”
She smiled at him. “You ask me that all the time, and the answer is always the same. I needed a change of direction in my life. Besides, this isn’t just any neighborhood pub. It’s Pat’s Irish Pub. Practically an institution. I should be paying you to let me work here.”
He winked at her. “One day I’ll get the answer out of you. Meanwhile, you go on home. Here’s my grandson to close up, so you scoot.”
Padraig Collins—“Little Pat”—Tristan’s son, walked into the bar from the office where he’d been doing paperwork.
“He’s right, Mary. I’m locking the door right now. Come let me watch you into the parking lot.”
Someone always insisted on waiting at the back door until she got into her car and drove away. It gave her a good feeling, the same way being included in some of their family gatherings did. Just like becoming friendly with a couple of women who came in here regularly gave her a sense of belonging. More and more she believed applying for this job was a smart decision for her.
The drive to her place was only about twenty minutes. The moment Tristan Collins had hired her, she’d taken the newspaper still in her hand, seated herself at a table in the pub with a cup of coffee, and gone through the real estate ads. How lucky was it she managed to find a duplex for rent in a nice enough neighborhood close to the pub, at way less than she was paying for her old place.
Her landlord, a man named Carl Mitchell, lived in the other half of the duplex, a situation that gave her pause at first. He wasn’t bad looking. She judged him to be about fifty, tall and bulky but not muscular. Not someone you’d give a lot of thought to if you ran into him on the street. Although he was very courteous when she contacted him about the duplex, when she learned he lived in the unit next door, she was a little leery of renting from him. She wondered if he had an ulterior motive in renting to a single female.
But the place was clean, well maintained, on a quiet side street. And truthfully, he didn’t give off the vibe of a predator.
“I’m not around a whole lot,” he told her, as if aware of what she was thinking. “My cell number is on the lease if you need anything, and I’ll get to it as quick as I can.”
She decided to take a chance, and, so far, it had worked out well.
Just as he’d predicted, she only saw him occasionally, and while he’d never win a charm school medal, he was always polite. Respectful. He was also quiet and seemed to be gone a lot at night. He told her he owned a couple of small businesses in town which were probably what took up his evening hours. Two businesses could be time consuming. Nine times out of ten, his truck was missing when she got home, and she wondered what kind of business he was in that had so many late hours. Or maybe he had an overactive social life.
But he took care of the outside maintenance, didn’t make much noise, and never tried to cross a line with her. She guessed she couldn’t ask for much more.
The driveway on his side was empty as usual when she pulled up to her side of the duplex. She got out, pressed the fob to lock the doors, and was just heading up the little walkway to the front door when a voice called to her.
“Excuse me. Miss?”
She turned to see a big, black double-cab pickup truck with jacked-up wheels at the curb. A man leaned out the window on the passenger side, smiling at her. Mary edged closer to her door and threaded her keys through her fingers the way she’d seen in a self-defense video.
“Yes?” Damn! She probably shouldn’t have answered him.
“Do you happen to know where Carl is?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I almost never see him.”
“When you do, would you please tell him to call Bruno?”
“You’d probably do better to leave a note on his door.” Then she could have kicked herself. Why offer him the opportunity to get out of the truck.
He shrugged and gave her an ingratiating smile. “No paper. Perhaps I could impose on you to do it for me.”
Oh, well. Anything, if it would get rid of him.
Just don’t get too close. Too bad I don’t have a baseball bat.
“I’ll write the note as soon as I get inside. I promise.”
Then, deliberately, she turned, unlocked the door, and scurried inside, double locking the door and hooking the safety chain for good measure. The blinds in the front window were closed so she opened them just a touch to peer out at the street. The truck was still there, idling at the curb.
She hurried to the little desk in the corner of the living room and dug out paper, pen, and scotch tape. She probably should just wait until he got tired of waiting and drove off. This way, though, he’d probably leave sooner. She scribbled the words on a piece of paper, unlocked her door, and crossed over to tape it to her landlord’s front door. Then she raced back into her house, waving at the truck as she did.
The man on the passenger side gave her a thumbs-up and a smile and drove off.
Once she secured all the locks on the door, she leaned against it, deep breathing.
I’m probably imagining things. This is just some friend of his. If he meant me any harm, he’d have gotten out of the truck.
But her common sense and emotions collided on this one. It was a long few minutes before she could peel herself away from the door. She grabbed her laptop from the desk, a big meat knife from the kitchen, and raced up the stairs to her bedroom. She placed her cell phone on her nightstand along with the knife, both at the ready if she needed them. Then, after a quick change into pajama shorts and tank top, she sat on her bed cross-legged and opened the laptop.
With her complete change of lifestyle, Mary discovered not only was she more relaxed and enjoying life, she finally had the time to pursue a secret dream of hers. The motorcycle ride was probably farfetched, but she had one that might be more attainable.
She was going to write a book.