Chasing River (Burying Water 3)

And it works.

He turns and I flash him my smug smile. This American girl didn’t come to Ireland completely unprepared.

“That’s a good start, but there’s much more to that story, Miss Amber Mae Welles,” he smirks, emphasizing Welles, a well-known British surname. “You should check out the Collins Barracks Museum.” He pauses, hesitating. “And stay out of any more trouble.”

“But then you wouldn’t be able to come and save me.” Superman.

His head falls back with a burst of laughter that makes me both happy and sad. “You need saving, do you?”

I don’t know what I need, but the way he just held me gave me a taste of what I definitely want. I hold up my wallet. “I could have just stopped by your bar to get it.”

“You could have.” He hesitates. “But then I might have missed seeing you again.”

My heart flutters with excitement. So he did want to see me again, too.

“See ya, Amber.” He winks. “Don’t do anything . . . torrid.”

Oh my God. He definitely read the list. I stare after him, red-faced, as he crosses the street and disappears from my sight.

See ya? He does realize that he actually won’t, doesn’t he? We live thousands of miles apart. It’s virtually impossible that we’ll ever cross paths in this life again. Unless . . .

I go to that pub again.

I thumb my wallet between my fingers, appreciating that it was just sitting in his back pocket not long ago. It was also in the trash can, but I’m not going to focus on that. Leafing through the little compartments, I find my license and bank card just as they were. And all of my money, down to the last euro. The few receipts that I remember stuffing in there.

No travel bucket list.

The giddy smile that River put on my face slips off as I search through everything again. And frown. It’s not there. How could it not be there? Torrid isn’t a word most people use in their everyday vocabulary, which means River definitely saw it. So that means . . . he kept it? Why would he . . .

To give me an excuse to come to the bar, looking for it.

I feel the grin stretch across my face.

But showing up at that dingy bar again tonight, on a Saturday night, alone, so I can sit on the stool and watch him serve drinks and possibly be ignored . . . Ugh. I’ll look desperate. Embarrassingly desperate. Budding stalker status, maybe.

So what, I hear Alex say in my head.

So what if I show up at that bar again and he knows I’m interested in him. And his brother knows I’m interested. And everyone in there knows. I’m a tourist. I can do whatever I want here and leave it all behind when I get on that plane. I am a tadpole in an ocean.

Plus, he took my damn list. As silly as the thing is, it’s become somewhat of a guide for me.

I wander over to the rail and gaze out on the stretch of water that cuts through the heart of Dublin, watching the tiny ripples dance along the surface, and consider my next move. This is, after all, part of why I took this trip in the first place. To experience life while I’m young and unattached. To make memories that will last me a lifetime. To find out if the Amber I’ve known all these years—with an overprotective sheriff father and a practical surgeon mother looking over my shoulder—would make the same choices as the one who is free of scrutiny. Do I abide by the black-and-white limits I’ve set for myself because that’s who I truly am or because that’s who I am while being judged? And how far into that gray area might I venture before I go running back to my familiar boundaries?

Aaron was inside my familiar boundaries and look how that turned out. All of my previous boyfriends have been. If I want to test myself, River’s definitely the one to do that with.

The problem is that my comfort zone absolutely abhors the idea of being so obvious. This would be so much easier to do if I had Bonnie or Tory here to help occupy my attention and time until he makes the first move. But I’m in Ireland, and all potential wingmen are thousands of miles away.

Well . . .

Maybe not.

I guess it just depends how desperate I am.

NINE

River

“Have ya been sleeping?”

I flinch from my mother’s rough grip of my face. “I’m fine. Just a long night at work.”

She grabs my scuffed-up hand and then levels me with a stern look. “I see that, River. What happened?”

“I caught Benoit lifting a customer’s wallet.” I shrug. “So I told him not to.”

“That slimy little bastard,” Ma mutters. She brings Da in once a week, so she’s there enough to know the regulars. She’s always had a thing against Benoit that I didn’t understand, said he gave her the creeps.

“Is he going to remember?” Da sits in his seat at the kitchen table, his favorite mug in one hand full of beer, a bowl of stew and the Mirror in front of him.

“I’m guessing so.” Waking up with a black eye and a busted nose is always good for jogging the memory.

“And are the gardai going to be showing up at the doorstep for ya?”

I shake my head, though I can’t ignore the voice in my head that admits, Not for that.

He nods with approval. My father never had a problem teaching someone a lesson if he deserved it.

“Here.” I set the week’s register readings and other paperwork down next to him.

He sighs like he always does, as if it’s a great burden to count out how much money we’ve brought in. Delaney’s has kept all of us quite comfortable over the years. “Good week?”

“Busy week.” It’s always busy at Delaney’s. Through bad weather and bad times, we never lack drinking customers.

“Sit and eat.” Ma drops a bowl of her lamb stew on the table, and then her sturdy hands land on my back to push me into a chair.

I hiss when her palm presses against one of my wounds.

“What’s the matter, son?”

I shake my head, waiting for the pain to subside with gritted teeth. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.

Marion Delaney isn’t one to take a brush-off, though. “River Fintan Delaney! What is wrong with your back?” Her stubby little fingers fly to my shirt, tugging at the collar.

I swat her hand away. “Ma! Come on!”

“He’s a grown man. Leave him be,” Da mutters, but with a sternness that prompts her to listen. She turns on her heels and marches to the stove in a huff.

Da and I share a look. The fact that I’m twenty-four years old means nothing to that woman. If it were up to her, she’d still be washing my knickers. I do miss her cooking, though, I’ll admit, as I shovel a spoonful of hearty stew into my mouth. No one makes it better. One day every year, on Delaney’s anniversary, she sits at the bar with a vat of it, ladling it into bowls for customers, for free. It’s the busiest day of the year for us, Rowen and me chasing away the greedy assholes who come back for a second helping.

“So, what’s that about?” Da juts his chin toward my back.

“Nothing.” I need to change the subject and fast. “How’s your leg?”

He shifts and grimaces in his chair, as if I’ve just reminded him. “Uncomfortable. It’s this bloody heat wave.”

Heat waves, cold fronts, damp weather . . . all of it seems to bother his leg. Twenty-seven years after the bombing in Belfast that left him with severe nerve damage, there isn’t a day when he doesn’t suffer. I sure don’t remember one, anyway. The doctors say there’s nothing they can do. Not even surgery is going to fix it. I think he’s been prescribed every painkiller under the sun.