“You were no good at it?” Mason asked bluntly.

  I turned to smile at him thinly. “I’m good at everything I do. Excuse me.”

  I handed him my mug and left without another word, heading inside. The room was unbearably warm compared to the crisp cold of the garden. It felt stuffy and nauseatingly hot the closer I got to the fire and Jenna and the elderly woman sitting in the high backed chair.

  She saw me coming but she didn’t react. She kept her focus on Jenna, on their conversation that looked more intense the closer I got.

  “It’s not that easy,” Jenna protested mildly.

  “Have ya made yer apologies to her?”

  “Several times.”

  “Fair focks,” the old woman said plainly. “Move on.”

  “But it’s—“

  “Have ya not forgiven yerself yet?”

  Jenna fell silent, her body going eerily still.

  The old woman nodded. “If ya don’t move on from it, how will she?”

  Laney, I thought bitterly.

  Jenna struggled with guilt over us every day, all because of Laney. Laney who never gave a shit about me. Laney who wouldn’t have cared if she married me or a machine that looked like me and made the same amount of money. Laney who drew out punishment for pleasure.

  I put my hand gently on Jenna’s rigid back. “Are you doing okay?”

  “No,” she muttered numbly. “I’m not.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, knowing exactly what was wrong.

  “I’m a focking eejit.”

  I blinked. Okay, maybe I didn’t know what was wrong?

  “You’re a what?”

  “An eejit,” the old woman clarified for me. “A fool.”

  Jenna ran her hand through her hair, tugging at the strands at the base of her neck before turning to look up at me with a wan smile. “Kellen, this is Grania. Granny for us if we can’t pronounce the Gaelic, but you probably can.” She looked at the woman. “He’s wicked smart. Great with languages.”

  I nodded to the woman. “It’s a pleasure.”

  She smiled in reply, her crinkled eyes scouring my face.

  I ignored her, looking down at Jenna and rubbing small circles between her shoulders. “Why are you a fool?”

  She sighed against my palm. “Because I am my own problem.”

  “Most are,” Granny agreed kindly.

  “Well not today. Not about this.” Jenna stood abruptly and stepped away toward the stairs. “I’m calling my parents and Laney. I’m telling them the news.”

  I took a step to follow her. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “I’m sure. I’m so incredibly sure. I need to do it now because if I don’t make it okay then it will never happen and I…” she took a breath, a glance at Granny, and a smile played across her full lips, “I don’t want to wait for other people to tell me it’s okay to be happy. This is my joy and I’m claiming it.”

  Granny smiled at her approvingly, pride in her eyes that pushed Jenna on. That sent her up the stairs to her bag and presumably to her phone to call her family.

  “What did you say to her?” I asked Granny slowly.

  She shrugged, downshifting her smile to a smug grin. “Only everythin’ she needed to hear.”

  “I’m worried it’s too soon to thank you.”

  “No need to.”

  “It could blow up in her face,” I warned her. “Laney isn’t the forgiving kind.”

  “Maybe no, but Jenna is, an’ that’s what I told her. To forgive herself.”

  “That’s great, but when she comes back down those stairs with tears on her face, that’s on you.”

  Granny shook her head, unperturbed. “A few tears never killed a person. If ya make it through this life without cryin’, ya did’na live. ya did’na love anythin’ worth achin’ for an’ that’s the saddest thing I could ever dream of.”

  I looked from her to the stairs, suddenly feeling anxious. I was worried about Jenna, worried about what her family would think and say to her, but most of all I was worried about what one word from Laney could do to my world.

  “Yer a big one, aren’t ya?” Grania asked conversationally.

  I glanced down at her. “I’m tall, yeah. From the looks of it I didn’t get that from my grandfather’s side of the family.”

  “Oisin was a stout man. Built like an ox but short as a goat. Whatever height ya have ya did’na get it from him. Yer girl tells me yer a fighter.”

  “A boxer,” I corrected.

  “A boxer, then. Do you win?”

  “Almost exclusively.”

  She grinned. “Ya did’na get that from him either.”

  I sat down slowly, hesitantly. I didn’t take the stool Jenna had been perched on. I sat farther back, across from her with the fire crackling bright between us and our eyes on par.

  “What did I get from him?” I asked.

  She paused, looking me over again but her heart wasn’t in it. Her mind wasn’t behind it. It was somewhere else entirely.

  “Ya asked her to marry ya,” she stated by way of answer.

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Because I love her.”

  She hummed thoughtfully. It sounded like a song. “There are two types of men in the world. Men who want to be loved an’ men who love. Beautiful boys like yerself, like Oisin was an’ Mason is, ya want to be loved. Ya want to be looked at an’ adored, an’ that’s all well an’ fine, but it doesn’t keep a woman. If ya don’t ask yerself at the end of each night an’ the start of each day how ya can love her better, then ya have no business getting married at all.”

  I chewed on that, pensively staring at her hands that sat weathered and still in her lap. I took my time, her time, probably something she didn’t have much of left, but still I took it. I considered her words and my answer carefully.

  I sat forward slowly. “I don’t like people. In fact, I hate them. As far as I’ve seen the vast majority of them are liars and thieves who want one thing from you and they’ll do everything they can to get it, and they’ll leave you broken and alone once they have it. Some people are exceptions. Jenna is an exception, and still I have trouble. Still I have to work to love her every day because I’m fighting against a conditioning that tells me that she’ll ruin me in the end. But still I do it. I do it like I need it to breathe. Like I need it to live, because I do. Because when I’m not loving her, I’m not living. So you can spare me your Old World wisdom and folkish advice because there’s not a person alive or dead that’s walked this earth who could possibly begin to tell me how to love that woman better than I already do.”

  I rose purposefully from the chair and strode across the suddenly silent room. I took the stairs at an even pace, one foot in front of the other in a walk, not a retreat. Not a run.

  I was done with running.

  Once I was upstairs I paused outside our bedroom door, listening for the sound of her voice. I didn’t hear it. I knocked once, opening the door slowly.

  Jenna sat on the edge of the bed, the phone hanging loosely in her hand. Her face was calm and coated in tears that shone like diamonds on her cheeks, cutting me clean through to the bone. She looked up when I came in, a shaky smile bursting over her lips.

  “My parents wanted me to send you their love,” she laughed roughly. “They said congratulations. Dad said ‘it’s about time’.”

  “What did Laney say?” I asked point blank.

  Her smile crumbled as her chin shook tremulously. She took a thin breath. “Uh, she didn’t say anything. She… yeah, she hung up on me. And that…” she laughed unevenly, fresh tears streaming down her face. “That hurts worse than if she’d yelled at me.”

  I closed the door and went to kneel on the floor in front of her. She looked down at me, her eyes lost as I took her hands.

  “Why is that worse, Kel?” she whispered.

  “Because Laney never misses a chance to be indignant.”

  She nodded, pinching her lips together and sniffing sharply. “Yeah.”

  I rubbed her hands briskly between my own. “What can I do?”

  “Marry me,” she answered immediately.

  “Let’s go.”

  “What?”

  “Right now. I’ll marry you today. Let’s go.”

  She smiled, this one smaller but more genuine. Sturdier. “We can’t. It wouldn’t be legal back home. You were a big, fancy lawyer. You should know that.”

  I grinned. “I wasn’t a very good lawyer.”

  “You’re a very good everything.”

  “I’m not a very good guest.”

  “Oh God,” she groaned theatrically. “What’d you do? Did you get weird?”

  “A little.”

  “Should I pack?”

  “Probably not yet.”

  “I’ll keep my shoes on.”

  “Smart.”

  Jenna took her hands from me and wiped at her cheeks, looking up at the ceiling the way she did when she was trying to stop the tears. I’d never seen it work.

  “I mean it,” I told her.

  “Mean what?”

  “I’d marry you today.”

  She grinned sadly, dropping her hands to her lap. “I’d marry you yesterday.”

  “I’d marry you last week.”

  “Last month.”

  “Last year.”

  “Five years ago.”

  “Six.”

  “Seven.”

  I held up my hand. “Whoa. That’s far enough. Seven years ago you were fifteen. It’s getting creepy.”

  She slipped down off the edge of the bed into my arms, her long legs tangling with mine until we were wrapped up in each other, our faces inches apart.

  “I’m marrying you right now,” she whispered. “I’ll marry you again tonight and tomorrow and every day after.” She kissed me softly. “I’ll marry you every moment of my life until the day I die.” Another kiss. “Because ring or no ring, laws or not, you are my joy, Kellen Riley Coulter. You are my whole heart.”

  I loved her breathlessly then. More fully than I’d ever imagined possible. Deep as the color blue. Weightless as purple.

  Not a person alive or dead that ever walked the earth could possibly begin to tell me how to love that woman better than I already did.

  No one but her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jenna

  I didn’t ask what happened between Granny and Kellen. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was he thought he did to upset the house went over without notice. When I went downstairs everyone was all smiles, laughter, and hugs. Kellen followed me down a minute later as Grania was making her way out the door and they shared the oddest of farewells. A curt nod from him and a sly smile from her.

  No one asked and neither of them was telling.

  When Owen’s wife Meagan left to take Grania home the guys busted out the booze again. Dark beer and strong liquor were passed around the house, the lights outside fading as we were getting lit inside. Bridgette and Donal left with the kids and the celebration moved from the house to the backyard where strands of white lights that weaved back and forth over the garden came alive above us like lost stars. Lost or drunk, who could be sure anymore.

  We bundled up in our thickest jackets, our breath a burst of fog on every exhale until the entire yard was encased in a low cloud that hugged us tightly. Mason produced a guitar and a singing voice that no doubt served him well at Trinity. He sang songs in Gaelic that made me sway in my seat and smile stupidly as I clenched my cold mug of whiskey to my chest. I tried to remember how many I’d had but the second it was empty someone was quick to fill it again, rousing a toast to Kellen and I and family and Skittles – anything we felt a little love for.

  The love quickly formed around sports teams and I tapped out, sitting back on a bench beside Sorcha and watching the men shout at each other about players and positions and rankings and who knows what else. Kellen looked at a loss, soccer not being his sport in the slightest, but he stood with the men in a semi-circle, cup in hand and a smile on his face, and I couldn’t remember him ever looking more relaxed.

  I lifted my phone and quickly snapped a picture, drawing their attention with the flash.

  “Did ya get my good side, love?” Mason asked playfully.

  I laughed, shaking my head and raising my phone again. “Get in together for another one?”

  They obliged, closing their ranks, raising their mugs, and smiling for me. Even Kellen.

  “I feel like a stereotype,” he joked after the camera flashed. “Drunk in Ireland.”

  “Is it not why ya came here?” Owen asked, feigning confusion. “To get langers?”

  “What’s langers?” I asked.

  Mason smiled. “Drunk. Go on the lash. Locked.”

  “Buckled,” Sean added. “Stocious.”

  “Ossified.”

  “Plastered.”

  “Jesus,” I laughed in awe. “The Irish have more words for drunk than Eskimos have for snow.”

  “We take it very, very, very seriously, lass,” Owen explained solemnly.

  “Almost as seriously as soccer,” Kellen muttered.

  Sorcha threw her hands up. “No more football!”

  “That’s not football.”

  “Ooh,” I cried with a smile, watching the men surrounding Kellen glare at him, outraged.

  “What is it yer sayin’, boy?” Sean asked menacingly.

  Kellen held his ground. “It’s soccer. It’s cute, but it’s still soccer. American football’s a real man’s game.”

  They tackled him. The locked lot of them.

  And just like that Kellen was drunk and fighting in Ireland. He wasn’t a stereotype anymore. He was a caricature.

  He was also not someone to be trifled with.

  They took him down easily, a dark mass of laughter and limbs that tumbled to the ground and disappeared into the darkest corner of the yard. Sorcha and I heard grunts and shouts, happy hollers.

  “Get hold of him!”

  “Ya get hold of him! He’s slippery as a snake!”

  “Who the hell has got my leg?!”

  “My cup!” someone shouted mournfully.

  “Fock your cup, get off my leg!”

  They wrestled and shouted for a good five minutes before finally emerging from the dark, panting and disheveled but all smiles.

  “You’re a quick one, Kellen, I’ll give ya that,” Sean told him admiringly.

  Kellen grinned. “It’s all that good old American football.”

  “It’s not the football,” I scolded with a wide smile. “It’s the boxing.”

  Owen’s eyes lit up. “Oh you’re a boxer, are ya?”

  “Sometimes,” Kellen deflected.

  “All the time. All day. Every day,” I told them proudly.

  “What ‘bout tonight?” Owen asked.

  Kellen shook his head. “Nah.”

  “Yes!” I shouted.

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  I shrugged, smiling. “I like watching you fight.”

  “Box.”

  “It’s beautiful. Whatever you want to call it, I like it. It’s hot.”

  “Ya canna say no to that, mate,” Mason told him. “When ya girl wants to see you foit, ya foit. Else ya don’t go rounds with her later, if ya catch my meanin’.”

  “He’s not wrong,” I confirmed.

  Kellen chuckled, dropping his chin and thinking it through. Finally he lifted his face, a gleam in his eye and that impossibly sexy smile on his lips.

  “If that’s what the lady wants, then that’s what the lady gets,” he said, affecting a flawless Irish accent that sent heat through my cold bones. “I’ll foit. I’ll foit for you, A mhuirnín.”

  I gaped at him. “You show off! What does that mean and how the hell did you learn Gaelic already?”

  He came to stand in front of me, leaned down until his hands were on either side of me on the bench, and kissed the tip of my nose. “I learned one word. It means darling.”

  I looked up into his deep, dark eyes over his flushed red cheeks, his hair a mess in the cold wind, and his lips curved into an unending smile, and I wondered if I’d ever seen him more handsome. If he’d every looked more content in the ten years I’d known him because tonight he was absolutely breathtaking.

  “I like you in Ireland,” I whispered.

  “I like being in Ireland.”

  “Because you like being home?”

  He paused, his smile tightening before he leaned in and kissed my lips briefly. He stood up tall, shrugging out of his coat and draping it over my shoulders. “Because I like being with you.”

  Kellen stretched out his cold muscles while Sean went inside to get boxing gloves. I found that very telling – the fact that they had two sets of boxing gloves on hand. This wasn’t a family with a casual interest in the sport. They may not have lived it like a religion the way Kellen did, but they loved it. They practiced.

  “Does the entire family box?” I asked Sorcha.

  She smiled into her mug. “Not all.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Me.”

  Out on the patio near Kellen, Owen was fitting his hands into one set of the gloves. They weren’t Velcro on the wrist like the ones I’d seen at home. These had laces like tennis shoes and I watched as Owen silently put his hand out to Mason who took the laces and expertly tightened and tied them in a blur that I could barely follow. With a speed and precision that smacked of years of experience.

  “Well,” I sighed resignedly, “this just got real.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kellen

  The gloves Sean pushed on my hands were a shade too small. The bottom of my palm didn’t fit entirely inside the padding, pulling the cuff up high on my wrist. Reminding me again that I was an odd fit in the family.

  “How many rounds ya wanna go, Kellen?” Owen asked me.

  “Until somebody gives?”

  He laughed. “I’ve more’na pint in me. I could go all night. Ya’ll want to be more precise.”

  “One round,” Jenna said, pulling out her phone again. “Timed. Sorcha and I will keep score.”

  “Ya know how to score a foit, do ya?”