Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

He kept shaking his head, amazed. “I don’t understand. This was the defining trauma of most of my life. How can it not exist? Did we just miss them?”

“I don’t know, it’s possible. We seemed to have missed my harbor.”

He laughed and turned his face against my thigh. “What am I going to do without you this week?”

My hand froze on the top of his head. “Um. What? Why will you be without me?”

He stared up at me guilelessly. “I told you. I’m going to London for a charity event this week.”

I scowled down at him. “You most certainly did not tell me.”

He looked surprised. “Oh. Well, I am.”

“Hmph.”

I wasn’t exactly pleased, but at least I had no trouble keeping busy. I had to organize the crew, and gather all my tools. One day I went with Amanda O’Rourke to a folk festival several towns over, and Maggie had me over for dinner with her and Paul. Everyone was very sweet about my boyfriend leaving me for a week. Especially when I sat in the pub and scowled at the wall. At least three different people bought me drinks. As I finished off my last, O’Malley from the restaurant, Tim O’Brien and Eamon Murphy came over, wide grins on their faces.

“We hear he’s quite the athlete, your man. He any good at hurling?”

“Don’t know.” I took a swig and widened my eyes. “He plays football, actually.”

“Does he now? And how is he then?”

They couldn’t have been genuine. I bet they thought they were laying a trap. It made me smile for the first time all day. “He’s a professional, if you’d believe it.”

“Isn’t that a surprise? Charlie, did you hear that? Mike O’Connor plays football. You should have him in your next match.”

Charlie, a young man with gleaming blue eyes, looked back at me with unintentionally complicit glee. “That so?”

I widened my eyes. “It is so.”

We parted with mutual pleasure at binding poor Mike into a soccer game.

I also went into Cork to rent a truck. I had never rented one in my life. I wasn’t even sure if it was legal. Didn’t you have to be twenty-five? Or maybe you just have to pay ridiculous fees under twenty-five? I didn’t know. I lived in the city and barely ever drove.

I needed a truck; something that would carry the archaeologists and crew around, and fit our shovels and pick axes and buckets in the back. In Ecuador, we used to cram in ten people. Our shoulders and knees overlapped while the wind slapped our faces. We clutched the sides and laughed hysterically at each bump.

Which worked great, on the Pan-American. These little Irish roads looked far too narrow for an actual truck.

I managed to make it over to the hardware store without dying. It was much cheaper to buy local than to ship supplies over, and I’d already done my research and figured out where to shop for screens and tools. By the time Jeremy arrived, I’d have everything in perfect shape.

Theoretically.

Next, I set up a meeting with the local crew hires. In the pub, of course, no surprise there. They’d already congregated in the back half of the pub when I arrived on Saturday. They laughed loudly, foam clinging to the sides of their pints. I lifted a hand and smiled, and headed first for the bar and Finn. “Can I have a dozen pints of Guinness?”

“That’s a lot of alcohol.”

Startled, I took in Anna to my left. “Hey. What are you up to?”

Anna finished off her clear liquid. “Day drinking.”

I raised my brows and examined her glass. “Sounds like a solid life choice.”

Anna frowned, like she wasn’t sure if I was teasing or not. “Why are you here?”

“I’m meeting with the crew. You want to come with?”

Anna threw a look back at Finn, and then shrugged her shoulders with studied disinterest. “Yeah, sure.”