IN AN IDEAL WORLD, a woman would never have to go to the office on a Saturday. Of course, in an ideal world, neither would she have ended Friday night depressed and overdressed at Fraser’s Pub—which, thank God, had nothing Irish about it. There, Annie had swilled beer to top off the two pounds of scallops and bacon she’d already inhaled.
Sasha had humored her right up until the Jell-O shot challenge she’d issued to a women’s softball team. Annie had been certain she and Sasha could take them, but then again, she’d also been certain that today she’d be mapping out a franchise time line. Her judgment was clearly suspect.
After taking Annie back to her car this morning, Sasha had followed her downtown to headquarters. She was now perched on Annie’s desk, trying to provide moral support and additional calories.
“Come on, just one little bite,” Sasha wheedled, waving a doughnut under Annie’s nose. “It’s cream-filled.”
Annie took the doughnut, sucked out the guts, then handed her friend the carcass. “Happy?”
Sasha dropped it into the wastebasket beside Annie’s desk. “Now I am.”
At least someone was.
Annie settled forehead-down on her desk, her arms cradling her head. The wood felt cool and soothing—a scallop, beer and emotion overdose wasn’t easily overcome.
“This isn’t like you,” Sasha said. “You need to get a grip. Just because Gramps is distracted doesn’t mean your proposal’s dead.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t take this so hard, okay? You’re making me want to cry.”
“I’m not crying.”
“Yeah, but you have been.”
Annie turned her head just enough to peer at her friend out of one eye.
“Only in the shower and that doesn’t count. It’s like eating over the sink.”
Sasha frowned, obviously trying to work her way through Annie’s twisted logic. Annie was pleased for the distraction. She had never discussed her endgame—leaving the Donovan fold—with Sasha. It didn’t seem right to place her best friend in a position where she’d be pulled between competing loyalties.
The phone rang. Annie sent one hand venturing for it, but then heard Sasha’s crisp voice saying, “Ms. Rtherford’s office. Oh, hi, Gramps. Sure, I’ll tell her you’re ready.”
As Sasha hung up, Annie rose from her workplace version of the fetal position. Sasha stood, too, and gave her a brief hug, which seemed to draw at least some of the dejection from her bones.
“I’d better get this over with,” she said.
“Want me to stay?” Sasha offered.
“Nah… I’m fine.”
Sasha, smart girl that she was, took Annie at her word and walked her to the elevator. Annie pushed the up button and Sasha the Down, which felt ass-backward to Annie.
Before she was ready, Annie was exiting at the top floor. At the end of the thickly carpeted reception area, the door to Hal’s office was open, yet not exactly accessible. Even on a Saturday, his secretary, Mrs. D’Onfrio, sat at her post, silver hair perfectly coiffed and guardian-of-the-nest expression sharply in place. Annie knew it was improbable that Mrs. D’Onfrio lacked a first name, but she’d also never met anyone who knew it. She’d never even heard Hal use it.
“Good morning, Mrs. D.,” Annie offered.
Mrs. D. looked her up and down from over the tops of her reading glasses, and then gave a rueful shake of her head. “You go on in. I’ll bring coffee.”
Annie stepped inside. “Good morning, Hal.” He was dressed in riding garb, as if he was channeling Scarlett O’Hara’s dad. A brown-and-yellow houndstooth jacket was possibly not the best fashion statement on a man wider than he was tall, but who was she to comment?
“Annie, take a look at these.”
He rounded his desk and handed her a stack of photographs. Annie thumbed through them. Pub…pub…donkey in field…flowers…pub with old dude behind the bar…castle…pub…pub… Okay, she could see the genesis of Hal’s current fixation.
When she was done checking out the snapshots, she looked up to find Mrs. D., who took the pics, handed Annie a mug of coffee with two teaspoons of sugar, exactly as Annie liked, then disappeared.
“You’ve had a night to think about my offer,” Hal said, then eased his bulk into his worn leather chair. “What do you say?”
She sat opposite him and cupped her mug in both hands. “I was pretty sure that no wasn’t an option.”
“And if it were?”
Annie sighed. How could she explain to the man that he was offering her up for career suicide? She knew nothing about the mechanics of restaurant start-ups. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve taught me. You’ve given me huge opportunities, and—”
“I’ve given you opportunities because you’re smart. It was as much to my advantage as yours. And now I’m giving you something new to try. You’ve been in a rut, Annie, not at all yourself.”
Annie couldn’t disagree. She’d been sleepless and stressed from trying to do her day job plus find time to work on her poor, dead franchise proposal, but that wasn’t her boss’s problem.
“Hal, your idea is dangerous. Half of all restaurants fail within the first year, and very few ever hit the five-year mark. The odds get even worse when you pick a specialized niche like Irish pubs.”
He grinned. “Lies, damn lies and statistics. I’m a gambler and I know what I’m doing. Look at the years of experience we have here at Donovan’s.”
“The pizza business is different. Your restaurants get a boost off your carry-out business. There’s no synergy with a pub concept.”
Hal snorted. “Synergy. That’s one hell of a word. Save it for a fancier audience, huh?”
Annie took a diplomatic sip of her coffee. It didn’t sit well atop the doughnut guts.
“Annie, I’m not doing this blind. I have a secret weapon. He’ll be at the airport in just a few hours.”
The knot in her stomach grew tighter. “He?”
Hal pulled a cigar from his mahogany desktop humidor. As he rolled it between his fingers, he said, “His name is Daniel Flynn. He’s been in the pub business for decades.”
Great. Some old Irish coot.
“You’ll like him…everybody does. I’ve hired him on a sixty-day consulting contract. He’ll give us the authentic touch those bullsh—those, uh, other places don’t have.”
Like a drunk in every corner.
Hal’s bark of laughter rang through the posh office. “Did you just roll your eyes, Annie Rutherford?”
“No.” Something about the way he treated her seemed to bring out childish behavior, including this lie.
“I know you wanted to run with the overseas idea, and once you’ve launched my pub chain, we’ll really hash it over.”
That, at least, was a reprieve.
“I’m not asking for a lifetime,” Hal continued. “Give me three months. And in those three months, I want action, Annie. I want the first pub here in Ann Arbor and I want it open in time for the start of football season.”
If wanting to barf counted as action, she was seriously there. His schedule would have made sense if they’d begun six months earlier. Thanks to the tradition of University of Michigan football, on home game Saturdays Ann Arbor’s streets teemed with one hundred thousand additional people, all thirsty, hungry and out to have too good of a time. But it was already early June and they had no site or plan. In fact they had nothing but Hal’s faith-and-begorra fantasy. She was determined to be a one-woman intervention.
“What about a liquor license?” she asked, thankfully aware that months might pass before one would be granted.
“We’ll convert the State Street Donovan’s.”
“What?” The central campus landmark had been his first sit-down restaurant and still ranked among the company’s best performers.
“That saves us the trouble of the liquor license since we’ve already got one. We’re shaking things up, you included. This is your baby. I’ve told Richard and the boys that it’s hands-off as far as they’re concerned. We’re doing this on a need-to-know basis, and they don’t need to.”
Dandy. Now she’d been placed smack in the middle of the Donovan generational conflict. Hal might as well hand her a shovel and tell her to dig her own grave.
“If you want to try to argue me out of this, do it on Monday,” Hal said. “Right now, Flynn’s on his way from New York. I want you to head to Metro and pick him up. Mrs. D. has the flight details.”
“You want me to get him? Like a chauffeur?”
Hal chuckled. “Damn undemocratic response, Annie. This is no different than the month I had you spend in front of the pizza oven.”
“But that was about learning the business!”
“Sure was,” he replied as he stowed his cigar into a fancy leather carrying case, then tucked it into his jacket’s breast pocket. “Think of yourself as Flynn’s welcoming committee.”
“Right.” She preferred to imagine herself waving a farewell hankie and getting on with her life. When she returned to her office, she’d do both this Flynn and herself a favor and call him a limo. She stood. “I’ll see you on Monday, Hal.”
She was nearly to the door when Hal’s voice brought her up short. “No delegating.”
“But—”
“Humor me.”
So when was someone going to humor her?
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, Annie stood along the fringe of the McNamara Terminal’s baggage-claim area. Her purse was slung over her shoulder, and she held a sign labeled Flynn in one hand and the remains of a bag of pretzels in the other. As designated gofer, she’d sunk low, but what gave her an uncontrollable case of the munchies was the thought that this moment might be the high point of the next three months.
Hal Donovan’s idea of a “secret weapon” scared the hell out of her. If he had retained a top restaurant consultant…great! She would have tagged behind the demigod and learned all she could. But even decades behind the bar had nothing to do with big business.
She didn’t want to see Hal get conned or his concept fail. True, it was Hal’s money and Hal’s project and maybe she shouldn’t be taking it so much to heart. Problem was, it would be easier to stop stress eating than it would be to give less than her all.
On the drive to Metro Airport, she’d already decided to marginalize the Irishman. She’d provide him with a nice desk, a phone and lots of make-work. Then she’d do what countless other businesspeople and politicians did—she’d cloak her lack of knowledge with a top-notch team and deliver Hal’s pub chain the launch it deserved. She had no other choice.
Temporarily tucking the sign under her arm, Annie finished off the last few broken pretzel bits. As she used her fingertip to gather the coarse salt from the bottom of the bag, she speculated on what this Flynn would look like. If he was the old guy from the snapshots she’d perused, she’d have no problem spotting him. She just needed to find Hal’s secret twin, from whom he’d been separated at birth.
Activity picked up as travelers began to stream down the escalator. She quickly tossed the pretzel bag in the trash and held up her sign. Some likely suspects glanced her way, but all passed by. The crowd drifted toward the luggage carousel with the New York flight number showing on the sign above it.
Minutes passed, and traffic thinned. Annie folded the sign and tucked it into her purse, then retrieved her phone and dialed Mrs. D.
Hal’s secretary said that there had been no messages from Mr. Flynn and didn’t Annie think that she’d have contacted her if there were? Duly reprimanded, Annie settled in at one of the clusters of plastic seats and watched loving couples, weary businessmen and families with whiny kids get on with their lives.
Lucky buggers.
At the far end of the area, the escalator hummed, empty of passengers. In time, only a few stragglers, some redcaps and the lost luggage guy were there to keep Annie company. Just when she was readying to send out a Flynn search team, another group rode down the escalator. Ever hopeful, Annie stood and walked toward them, hastily pulling the crumpled Flynn sign from her purse.
The first two of the group were women in flowing robes and veils—clearly not Flynn. Next was a man with a half-dressed blonde clinging to his arm. J.Lo at an awards ceremony had nothing on this female. Annie skipped all the cleavage and focused on the guy.
He was tall…make that tall, dark-haired and arrogantly handsome. He wasn’t dressed to thrill, yet he made a pair of blue jeans and a white button-down shirt look like art. Over his free shoulder was slung a laptop computer in its black travel bag, and he held a blue jacket or sweatshirt or something in that hand.
Annie was more interested in his face. This guy was Pierce Brosnan’s kid brother, not Hal’s lost twin. For him to be Flynn, with his decades of pub wisdom, he’d have to have started behind the bar as an infant.
He said something to the blonde. She simpered in a way that Annie considered a slap in the face to all womankind. Of course, no guy this good-looking had ever found the time of day for Annie. She was damn sure that even if one did, she wouldn’t produce a heartbeat-from-an-orgasm squeal like blondie’s. The guy smiled, almost as though he considered blondie’s response his due.
The happy couple had begun to depress her on some visceral level that she was too hungover to think about. As they stepped off the escalator, then neared, she held the Flynn sign higher, practically daring Mr. Amazingly Gorgeous to be the missing Irishman.
At first, it seemed that he’d seen her and counted her as irrelevant to his perfect life. Then his gaze returned, and he smiled. He walked her way, blondie teetering along beside him in pointy shoes that had to kill her feet. As he approached, Annie heard the easy Irish cadence of his speech and felt her stiff spine begin to relax as she was drawn within his pull.
She was going to marginalize this man?
She dug deep to embrace her inner bitch, who she knew had to be in residence even on non-PMS days. After ordering the traitorous shrew within to can the sighing and mewling, Annie Rutherford got down to business. She had a man to handle.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE women generally liked Daniel, which made it lamentable that the fifth was standing before him. Even sadder was the fact that she was beautiful in a wholesome, wholly American way. Her shoulder-length hair was a shiny golden brown and her gray eyes would have been exceptionally fine had they not been narrowed with cold intent. Yes, he’d much rather have an unattractive woman hate him.
“You’re Flynn?”
He winced at the way she said the name.
“Daniel Flynn. You’d be Annie?” he asked while trying to free his right arm from its current attachment. “Mrs. D’Onfrio told me to be expecting you.” Once freed, he offered his hand for a shake.
She didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m Ms. Rutherford,” she said, stretching out the Ms. until it rode the air buzz-saw sharp. “And you’re late.”
She had that spot-on. He felt nearly dead. Even though his face already hurt from smiling, he offered another in hopes that it would force one from her.
“Abit of a problem getting off the plane is all,” he said.
April, his bit of extra baggage, cut in. “He’s a hero! I started choking, and he saved me! You should have seen it! It was—”
“Nothing,” he said. “No more than anyone else would have done.”
He’d been seated at the very back of the plane—no place for a quiet rest, which he sorely needed. Always game to renew acquaintances, Daniel had arrived in America a few days prior to the start of his new job. His Manhattan friends had done their best to murder him by sleep deprivation, and as it happened, having an aircraft engine directly behind his head today wasn’t to be the last of his suffering.
As he’d waited his turn to exit the aircraft, April had been standing in front of him, tossing down hard candies as though they’d be confiscated at the door. When she’d grabbed her throat with one hand and waved the other about, Daniel had gotten her into position and heaved the air—and sweets—right out of her.
He supposed he should be buoyed by his good deed. Instead, he was weary and feeling oddly alone. He didn’t deserve this enthusiasm from April, and though he’d been raised to be polite, his manners were wearing thin.
He needn’t have worried about undue adulation from Ms. Rutherford, though. She was now scowling at the bags lined up near the sleeping luggage carousel.
“Those are yours?”
“Not the lavender monogrammed ones.” Those, he’d wager, were vapid April’s.
“Then get them and let’s go.”
“I’ve apologized for being late. Is there something else bothering you?” Daniel watched as expressions flitted across her face. She was an easy read, this unhappy American.
“I hate airports,” she finally said, but Daniel knew his name could have just as neatly filled in that blank.
After he’d gathered his bags and said goodbye to his new friend—collecting an unwanted offer in the process—he decided to give it one more try.
“So,” he said as they walked toward the escalator, “we’ll be working together, I’ve been told. Have you known Hal long?”
“Professionally, five years.”
“And you’ve experience in the bar business?” he asked as they ascended.
“None,” she said, then strode on to the garage’s automated payment machine.
None. And he thought this was to have been an easy bit of money. He dropped the bag in his right hand and felt his jacket pocket for a pack of smokes. There were none, of course. He’d have to make do with the memory of the one he’d cadged on the drive to the airport.
“Are you coming?” his escort prodded, her voice echoing into the largely empty space around them.
He’d been a fecking idiot, second only to his brothers, when he’d said yes to Hal. Daniel should have offered to come for a quick look-see, then decided if the job suited him. But here he was, and damned if he’d serve less than his sentence because one pretty American found him inconvenient.
“I don’t suppose you smoke?” he asked, all the while knowing it was more likely that she worked in Amsterdam’s red-light district on the weekend.
“It’s unhealthy.”
Ah, but the quitting was killing him.
They were in her car—which he found to be an intriguing mine of paper and files—and driving down the freeway before she pried loose any more words. “So where, exactly, am I taking you?”
After wrestling with the seat belt, Daniel pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “Six eighty-four Cobblestone Court.”
She turned to stare at him, and the car swerved.
“Mind your lane,” he yelped, leaning away from the massive truck now within touching distance.
She yanked the wheel in the opposite direction. After both of them had drawn ragged breaths, she said, “Let me get this straight. You said Cobblestone Court?”
“I did.”
“And you’ll be living there?”
He gave his answer carefully, timing it for a gap in traffic. “Yes.”
A sweep of color rose on her cheeks. Daniel couldn’t believe that he noticed it when he’d do better minding the road for her. Last year’s Amazon trip was beginning to feel tame by comparison.
“This is some sort of joke, isn’t it? Hal put you up to this.”
He briefly closed his eyes, thinking of the bottle of aspirin just a few short feet behind him, buried in his suitcase.
“No joke,” he said. “Just a place to sleep.”
“Come on… Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”
“And here I was ready to ask the same of you,” he said.
“You first.”
“Fine, then.” Doing his best to ignore the sheer number of cars flying by—and the anger coming even closer—Daniel settled into his tale. “While he was visiting Ireland, Hal Donovan and I met up at my family’s pub in Clifden. He liked the town, liked us, and we liked him, too, so he stayed a few weeks beyond what he’d planned. When he was leaving, he asked me if I’d be willing to lend a hand in a new business venture. I was, so here I am.
“As for where I’ll be staying, since I’ve no love for sterile hotels, Mrs. D’Onfrio put me in contact with a rental agent. I looked at the files she sent me and decided to rent a town house on Cobblestone Court. It’s no grand conspiracy to muck up your life, Ms. Rutherford. And now if you don’t mind, I’ll just close my eyes until we get there. Are you needing directions?” He waved the map he’d printed off the Internet.
She laughed, not that it sounded especially cheery. “No thanks. I live two doors down.”
Aye, the Amazon and its serpents were sounding placid, indeed.
“Neighbors. Grand,” he said, then feigned death.