Wedding at King's Convenience / Bedding the Secret Heiress: Wedding at King's Convenience

“Not yet,” he said, putting thoughts of seduction to one side for the moment. Cara Donohue was taller and thinner than Maura, with a short cap of dark curls and blue eyes that shone with eagerness to be doing. Seeing. Experiencing. She was four years younger than her sister and twice as outgoing, and yet Jefferson felt no deep stirring for her.

She was a nice kid with a bright future ahead of her, but Maura was a woman to make a man stop for a second and even a third look.

“You will,” Cara said with a bright, musical laugh. “You Americans are all stubborn, aren’t you? And besides, Maura thinks you’re gorgeous.”

“Cara!”

“Well, it’s true and all,” her sister said with another laugh as she finished Maura’s soup, then reached for her sister’s beer. She had a sip, then winked at Jefferson. “It does no harm to let you know she enjoys looking at you, for what breathing woman wouldn’t? And I’ve seen you giving her a look or two yourself.”

“Cara, if you don’t shut your mouth this minute…”

Maura’s threat died unuttered, but Jefferson couldn’t help smiling at the sisters. He and his brothers were just the same, teasing each other no matter who happened to be around to listen. Besides, he liked hearing that Maura had been talking about him.

“There’s no harm in it, is there?” Cara was saying, with a glance at first her sister, then Jefferson. “Why shouldn’t you take a good look at each other?”

“Pay no attention to my sister,” Maura told him with a shake of her head.

“Why?” he asked. “She’s not wrong.”

“Maybe not, but she doesn’t have to be so loud about it, does she?”

“Ah Maura, you worry too much,” her sister told her and patted her arm.

The music suddenly shifted, jumping into a wild, frenetic song with a beat that seemed to thrum against the walls and batter its way into a man’s soul. Jefferson found himself tapping his fingers on the tabletop in time with the quickening rhythm.

“Oh, they’re playing ‘Whiskey in the Jar!’ Come on, Maura, dance with me.”

She shook her head and resisted when Cara tried to pull her to her feet. “I’ve worked all day and I’m in no mood for step dancing. Most especially not with my big-mouthed sister.”

“But you love me and you know it. Besides, it’ll do you good and you know you adore this song.” Cara grinned again and gave her sister’s arm a good yank.

On her feet, Maura looked at him, almost embarrassed, Jefferson thought, then with a shrug she followed her sister into the cleared-away area in front of the tables. A few people applauded as Cara and Maura took their places beside each other, then, laughing together, the Donohue sisters leaped into action. Their backs were arrow straight, their arms pinned to their sides and their feet were flying.

Jefferson, like most everyone else in the world, had seen the Broadway show with the Irish dancers and he’d come away impressed. But here, in this tiny pub in a small village on the coast of Ireland, he was swept into a kind of magic.

Music thundered, people applauded and the two sisters danced as if they had wings on their feet. He couldn’t tear his eyes off Maura. She’d worked hard all day at a job that would have exhausted most of the men he knew. Yet there she was, dancing and laughing, as graceful as a leaf on the wind. She was tireless. And spirited. And so damned beautiful, he could hardly draw a breath for wanting her.

Without warning, Jefferson’s mind turned instantly to the stories he’d heard about his great-grandfather and how he’d fallen in love at first sight with an Irish girl in a pub just like this, on one magical night.

For the first time in his life, he completely understood how it had happened.

Cara left the pub soon after, claiming she was going to drive into Westport, a bustling harbor city not five miles from the village of Craic.

“I’ll be at Mary Dooley’s place if you need me,” she said as she left, giving Jefferson a wink and her sister a kiss and a smile. “Otherwise, I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”

When her sister was gone in a blur of motion, Maura looked at Jefferson and laughed shortly. “She’s a force of nature,” she said. “Always has been. The only thing that came close to slowing her down was our mother’s death four years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I know what it’s like to lose your parents. It’s never easy no matter how old you are.”

“No, it’s not,” Maura admitted, feeling the sting of remembrance and how hard it had been for her and her sister in those long silent weeks after their mother had passed away. Smiles had been hard to come by and they’d clung to each other to ease their pain.

Eventually though, life had crowded in, insisting it be lived.

“But my mother had been lonely for my father for years. Now that she’s joined him, she’s happy again, I know.”

“You believe that.”

A statement, not a question, she thought. “Aye, I do.”

“Are you born with that kind of faith, I wonder, or do you have to work to earn it?”

“It just…is,” Maura said simply. “Haven’t you ever sensed the presence of one you lost and felt better for knowing it?”

“I have,” he admitted quietly. “Though it’s not something I’ve ever talked about before.”

“Why should you?” She smiled at him again. “It’s a private thing, after all.”

Jefferson looked at her for a long moment and she tried to read what thoughts might be rushing through his mind. But his eyes were cool, shadowed with old pain, so she was forced to wait until he spoke.

“Ten years ago, my parents died together in a car accident that nearly killed one of my brothers, too.” He finished the last of his beer in one swallow, set the glass down and said, “Later, once my three brothers and I had lived through the grief, we all realized that if they’d had a choice, our folks would have elected to go together. Neither of them would have been complete without the other.”

“I know just what you mean.” Maura sighed through a sad smile. Music played on in the background and dozens of voices rose and fell in waves of conversation. Yet here in the shadow-filled booth, she felt as if she and Jefferson were alone in the room. “My father died when Cara was small and my mother was never the same without him. She tried, for our sakes of course, but for her, there was always something missing. A love like that, I think, is both blessing and curse.”

He lifted his beer glass in a toast. “You might be right about that.”

He smiled, too, and she thought how odd it was that they would find this mutual understanding in memories of pain. But somehow, sitting in the near dark with Jefferson, sharing stories of loss made her feel closer to him than she had to anyone in a long time.

“Still,” she said, her voice soft and low, “even knowing your parents were together, it must have been hard on you and your brothers.”

“It was.” A slight frown creased his features briefly. “I’d finally recovered from…” He stopped, caught himself and said instead, “Doesn’t matter. The point is, when we needed it the most, my brothers and I had each other. And we had to help Justice recover.”

She wondered what he’d been about to say. What he’d thought better of sharing with her. And wondered why, if it was so many years ago, that thought could have left a shadow of pain flashing in his eyes. His secret, whatever it was, had hit him deeply, cutting him in his heart and soul. So much so that even now, he didn’t talk about it.

Maura buried her curiosity for the moment and said only, “Justice? An interesting name.”

“Interesting man,” Jefferson told her with a quick smile that was filled, she thought, with a bit of gratitude for her ignoring his earlier slip of the tongue. “He runs the family ranch.”

Delighted by the image, she smiled. “So he’s a cowboy, then?”

“Yeah, he is.” He grinned suddenly, though sorrow still glittered in his eyes. “And he’s married now, with a son and another baby on the way.”

“Lovely,” she said, envying him his large family. “And your other brothers?”

“The youngest, Jesse, is married, too. His wife just had a baby boy a few months back.” He stopped and grinned. “Jesse passed out during the delivery. We love to remind him of that.”

“What a wonderful story,” Maura said. “His love and worry for his wife making him faint. He must be a lovely man.”

“Lovely?” Jefferson thought about it and shrugged. “I’m sure his wife Bella thinks so.”