My Sunshine

Chapter Five
No Line On The Horizon

I know a girl who’s like the sea
I watch her changing every day for me
Oh yeah
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

One day she’s still, the next she swells
You can hear the universe in her sea shells
Oh yeah
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

No, no line on the horizon, no line

I know a girl with a hole in her heart
She said infinity is a great place to start
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
— U2, NO LINE ON THE HORIZON

Mick returned to the rooms above the pub after some time spent at Niall’s house, a friend of Brendan’s, watching his brother pack the few things he had there and offering what conversation there was, asking as casually as he could where he would go.

Brendan’s answer had been nearly the same as it was earlier. “Wherever I can get to, Mick. I want to see something of the world.”

Mick had given up and restrained himself from commenting as he watched his brother pack only the basic amenities—clothes, toothbrush, and little else—into a sturdy knapsack. “How did the talk with Beth go?”

Brendan moved his shoulders. “Well enough. She expected it.” She’d known he was restless almost before he’d known it himself, he mused, and even now gave his head a shake over it as he decided that he would never understand women.

Conversation had dwindled to casual topics—a céilí being held at the pub in the next week, a suggestion to host a seisiún sometime soon—until Brendan brought up Annie.

“So, what are you after doing about that pretty little girseach you’ve taken in?”

Mick lifted his eyes from his brother’s knapsack, met Brendan’s steady gaze. His brother seemed much more relaxed since having made the decision to go, he reluctantly admitted to himself. But that didn’t mean he would be any easier about it.

“She’s not a young girl,” he dryly informed his brother, and Brendan flashed a grin.

“That she isn’t. Now, I’m forced to conclude after that pitiful evasion that you’ve a bit of a yen for her. Would I be anywhere near the mark?” he asked, all cheerful innocence.

“I’ve known her all of three weeks.”

“And she’s been living with you,” Brendan pointed out reasonably. “One of the best ways to get to know each other, that. She’ll have learned by now that you’re a compulsive early riser and manic cleaner and should be running for the hills any day.”

In spite of himself, Mick snorted. “Oaf.”

Brendan’s easy grin flashed again. “Ah, I was right. There is something happening there, isn’t there?”

“There isn’t, no,” Mick muttered, glaring at his brother.

“But you want there to be, don’t you?” When Mick said nothing, Brendan rolled his eyes with all the disdain of a younger brother. “Sure and ignoring me gives me an answer all on its own. I wish you luck with her, Mick. She seemed a real pistol.”

Mick muttered something non-committal and changed the subject as Brendan’s friend Niall wandered in.

—

Amadán, Mick thought affectionately as he walked the short distance home. He took the back door into the kitchen and up the stairs rather than go through the pub, and shook his head when he heard a shriek of female laughter from above him.

Did they never run out of things to talk about? he wondered to himself. How on earth could they keep prattling on forever? Surely they fell silent eventually?

Since he’d seen his mother’s “chats” with Emily Devlin turn into hours spent watching Brendan hassle little Cait, he knew better than to hope, and called out a joking warning as he came through the door.

“I’ve come back, so if it’s me you’re talking about, shut it now!”

Bursts of giggling greeted him. Mick turned and saw Annie’s feet dangling over the edge of the couch.

Panic leaped up to dig its bony, clutching fingers into his throat. He was hurrying over to straighten her out—and demand what in the hell she was doing, stretched backwards on the couch with her head dangling inches above the floor and her feet swinging over the back—when Beth’s head popped up beside her and he became aware of the other pair of feet that were casually swinging back and forth. Beth, however, at least had the sense to be lying on her stomach with her feet over the side of the couch, rather than hanging foolishly upside down.

“She’s fine,” she told him with a brilliant smile. “Just a wee bit sloshed is all.”

“She looks a fair bit more than a ‘wee bit’ to me.” He narrowed his eyes on Beth’s face. “And I’m not quite sure you’re sober, either.”

“I wasn’t,” Beth agreed cheerfully with a quick snigger. “I’ve cleaned up.” Proving it, she sat up, then stood, and didn’t sway on the spot. “But this one... she’s piss-faced,” she declared on a snort of laughter as she jerked her thumb towards Annie, who’d begun to sing in a slightly slurred voice about pretty Molly Malone.

They heard a snort from Annie; then, before Mick could grab her, she was twisting herself so that she slid from the couch and crumpled into a heap on the floor. Moments later, her head popped up, the heart-shaped face red from the wine and the blood that had rushed to her head while she hung upside down; the wide, silly grin on her face seemed to be aimed at Mick, Beth, and the world in general.

“I’m ’clined to agree,” she stated happily. “I am pissed. Shitfaced, smashed, ’toxicated, falling-down, blind, deaf and dumb drunk.” She said this with an odd sort of relish Mick found just a bit bizarre, even to a publican. Her face glowed as she beamed up at them, her hand somehow going unerringly to the half-full glass of wine on the coffee table. By the time he reached her to take it away, she’d drained it and was smacking her lips in satisfaction.

“I’ve never been this drunk before,” she said giddily, and giggled until her breath was nothing more than a wheeze. “Oh, Beth, my head’s spinning in circles. At least I’m fairly near to almost certain they’re circles.” This was so funny she burst into another round of giggling. Clutching her stomach, she slid bonelessly from a sitting position into a supine one, staring up at the ceiling while tears of laughter trickled towards her ears.

Resigned that he was spending his night dealing with a drunk woman, Mick flicked a glance Beth’s way. “How much, exactly, did she have?”

Beth pursed her lips and considered, eyeing the wine glass Annie had somehow managed not to tip when she’d fallen back onto the floor. “Well, we nicked the three bottles from your cupboard,” she said contemplatively, ignoring his disgruntled muttered oath, “and I stopped drinking sometime around the second. She didn’t, though, so....”

“Are you telling me she’s the best part of two bottles of wine in her right now?” Mick couldn’t quite help the snort of laughter as he surveyed the woman now lying with her hands under her head, staring up at the ceiling with that goofy grin on her face. “Christ, she’ll have a head in the morning.”

Because the thought had struck her as well, Beth let her lips move into a wry smile. “Oh, I imagine she’ll lie in bed waiting for her poor aching to fall off and spare her the misery.”

“Aye.” For some reason that thought struck him as funny, too, and Mick chuckled. “Go on, Beth, it’s late. I’ll take care of the lush here.”

Beth laughed and shrugged into her coat. “All right then. I’ll see you in the pub tomorrow. Tell Annie she’s a wonderful friend to get completely plastered with.”

With that, she headed out, leaving Mick alone with a very drunk woman who just so happened to heat a few fires in his blood. She was propped up on one elbow, still grinning foolishly as she stared at him with overbright hazel eyes.

She lifted one hand, crooked a finger. “You. Come ’ere.”

He shook his head and moved towards her, even when his system gave a not unpleasant little jerk. “That I’ll do, but only to toss you into bed, Annie girl. Christ, you’ll have a hell of a head,” he repeated in a mutter as he knelt to gather her up into his arms.

She giggled. “Don’t care. Feels good right now. Just like you feel good. Hmm, lemme kiss you again, I didn’t have nearly enough before.” And before he could attempt to evade, she’d twisted in his arms and locked her mouth to his for a long, searing, mind-blowing kiss.

His mind went blank; his body snapped to red alert and all but screamed with the need to give her more—more than she was ready for—of what she was offering.

“Annie.” He pulled her back as gently as he could, narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re going to bed, do you hear me? Into my room with you,” he decided after watching her lick her lips—and suffering for it. “I don’t trust you enough just now to put you down and unfold the couch.”

She snickered. “’Kay. I like the sheets I have, they’re all soft and worn and smell of you. But your bed’s an even better idea.” She buried her face in his neck, inhaled deeply. And the feel of her breath on his throat as she exhaled had his body shooting straight back to red alert. He cursed under his breath and shifted her a little higher up in his arms—which, he realized, was a mistake.

Annie made a little noise of pleasure and with surprising agility swung her legs around his waist and locked them there to keep herself in place. Next thing he knew she was fisting her hands in his hair, yanking his head around and attacking his mouth again.

For a beginner, she was certainly adept, Mick thought again as his mind spun and all the blood in his body rushed to below his belt. “Annie, for Christ’s sakes.” He heard the near plea in his voice and couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed by it, not when she’d nearly reduced him to begging her not to stop.

“We can’t do this,” he said desperately when she leaned back and grinned, obviously pleased with herself. “Annie, you’re for bed, now, stop this.”

“No.” She leaned in, rubbed her mouth over his again. “Um. Want you.” She drew back, then sent his frustration level soaring when she tugged at the buttons of his simple flannel shirt, managing to undo enough that she could huff out an irritated breath when she found the undershirt beneath.

“Too many layers,” she decided, and yanked the shirt’s hem up and out of the waist of his jeans. “Help me,” she urged, and rocked against him, moving away and then bringing herself in close so that she was snug against him, wrapped around him like some sort of lethal snake that kept wriggling away and back to him to taunt him. “I won’t hurt you,” she added teasingly. “At least, not much.”

Her teeth nipped at his throat, found the quick, erratic pulse that beat there and delighted her. Her hands were streaking down, then back up, then roaming over his shoulders and back as she tasted whatever skin she could find, with those sexy little noises she was making ringing in his ears.

Mick was positive his eyes crossed. Certainly they rolled back in his head. He wasn’t quite sure how he made it through the door of his bedroom. “Stop that, Annie. Now let go of me and get into bed.”

“Will you come with me?” she asked, and on a hoot of laughter at the stunned look on his face, expertly shifted her weight back and to the side so that they both tumbled onto the bed, she still laughing, he struggling for the control that was rapidly slipping away from him.

“Annie—”

“Kiss me,” she suggested, but her voice nearly made it a dare. A teasing, playful dare that made it all the more difficult to resist. “I liked the way it felt before, nice and light at first. But then it wasn’t so gentle, and you used your teeth on me. You made me head spin when you did that. Do that again. Make my head spin, Mick. You’re so bloody good at it.”

“Christ, Annie.” But he did kiss her, because the feel of her beneath him, with her legs locked around his waist, was more than even a saint could take. And he wasn’t gentle, wasn’t nice. He fisted a hand in her hair, dragged her head back and took.

And when she gave a low, throaty hum of pleasure, when her suddenly boneless limbs slid away from him, he ruthlessly yanked himself back, rolled away and stood beside the bed to watch her. She turned onto her side, curled herself into a ball—like a child, he thought viciously—and smiled dreamily at him.

“That felt wonderful. Do it again?”

Though his body felt like one giant ache, he shook his head. “Any more than that and we’d both hate ourselves and each other come morning, mo stór.”

“I wouldn’t,” she muttered as her eyelids began to droop. “I’d be pretty happy, I’m thinking.” Then she yawned hugely, snuggled into the pillow, and passed out.

“About damn time,” Mick muttered as he stalked from the room to take as cold a shower as the temperature settings in his bath would allow.

—

He’d given up even the notion of sleep long ago, and had been up in time to see his brother off at the airport. Mick was staring out the window above the sink with a mug of coffee in his hand when he heard her feet hit the floor, then shuffle into the shower. When he heard the water rush on he allowed himself a grim smile. Trying to drown her sorrows, he imagined, and cast a look at the slightly vile-looking concoction most of the pub’s regulars simply called the Fix—a morning after cure to help the worst hangovers.

He imagined her head would be reeling, her eyes bloodshot, and her face pale, and took a fair bit of pleasure from the image. Considerably more cheerful, he began to pull out the necessities to cook a breakfast he doubted she would be interested in eating.

When he heard her footfalls behind him he turned, prepared to be magnanimous and forgive her. After all, it was hardly fair to be irritated over something he sincerely doubted she would have any recollection of.

But rather than the pale, squinting, pitifully aching figure he’d had in mind and had wanted to see, he saw Annie standing in the doorway with the robe Mick had stolen from his mother’s closet wrapped around herself, her damp hair slicked back from her face to fall down her back in curls he knew would settle into waves once they’d dried, her skin pink from the shower and her eyes sleepy but otherwise clear.

It wasn’t fair, to Mick’s mind, that she not only looked healthy, but that she looked fresh as a rose and infuriatingly appealing in the robe, with its sleeves rolled back several times and the neck gaping slightly due to the fact that his mother was considerably taller than she was.

He cocked an eyebrow as she came into the room, poured herself coffee. “You’re looking well enough this morning, all things considered.”

She paused with the cup halfway to her lips to toss him a confused look over her shoulder. “Hm? Oh, last night,” she added with a laugh as his meaning became clear. “I was terrible, wasn’t I?”

Now both eyebrows shot towards his hairline. “You remember what happened?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding slightly surprised. “Shouldn’t I?”

“Some people are prone to blackouts,” he explained as he narrowed his eyes to study her. When she sniffed the air appreciatively, then began to prepare toast—while declaring that she could eat a horse, no less—his eyebrows rose sharply, then lowered. “Are your head and stomach not aching?”

“No,” she confessed, and this time offered a slightly sheepish smile and shrug. “I’ve heard of hangovers, and I was ready to deal with one—but it didn’t come.” She shrugged again, then noticed the almost sulky expression on his face and laughed again. “You won’t hold it against me, I’m hoping.”

“I won’t,” he said wryly, “but others might. Hangovers can be a right bitch.”

“I meant what I did,” she clarified with a slightly rueful smile. “I was such a pest. I can’t believe you didn’t shoot me.”

Mick considered, tilting his head reflectively from side to side. “I won’t lie,” he said after a long moment. “I considered it, particularly once you started in on me shirt.”

She chuckled and buttered toast. “I was terrible, wasn’t I?”

When he didn’t answer immediately, she lifted her face to his, saw that his eyes were dark and intent as they’d been the day before.

“That you weren’t, muirnín,” he said slowly, letting the meaning sink in. His voice was lower and thicker than it had been moments before, and nearly had a little shudder running down her spine. He lifted a hand, reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and let his hand rest against her cheek. “You were maddening. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn you were one of the Sídhe, meant to drive the poor mortal men mad.”

Colour flowed into her cheeks, her lips curved, even as her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really?”

He laughed, lightening the mood and diffusing some of the tension that had been covering them like a blanket. “Difficult to believe, is it?”

“A bit,” she admitted, then promptly bit her tongue and glanced away.

Mick chuckled, then leaned in and kissed her. This kiss was slow, warm, and held the promise of what was to come. He drew back inch by inch, studied the colour in her cheeks and gleam in her eyes, the curve of her lips.

“Believe it,” he said firmly. Then he turned away to turn the bacon and sausages while Annie struggled to clear her mind of the lovely fog he’d misted over it.

Just where in the hell was this going? she wondered dizzily as she listened to him whistle cheerfully while he cooked.

—

True to her word, when the pub closed after the lunch rush Beth grabbed her coat, then snatched up Annie’s and threw it her way. “Let’s go, we haven’t much time,” Beth urged excitedly, eyes dancing as she anticipated spending a lovely few hours in all the wonderful shops lining Grafton Street.

“And where are the pair of you off to?” Mick drawled from the kitchen doorway. Annie and Beth turned as one to shoot him wide, innocent grins.

“Shopping,” Annie declared, and waved her paycheque at him. “I’m wanting clothes of my own.”

Personally Mick thought she looked just fine in the sweater and jeans sent along by Emily Devlin, but he could understand the desire for belongings of her own and so nodded. “Have fun blowing your cheque, then,” he said wryly and got a dazzling grin as a reward.

“Oh, I will,” she promised in a way that sounded almost like a threat—at least to the male mind. And in the next instant a snickering Beth had pulled her out the door and the pair of them were gone. He shook his head and chuckled.

“Off for their shopping spree, are they?”

He turned to look at Siobhan and nodded. “That they are. I don’t expect they’ll be back any time soon.”

“Oh, they’ll probably slide in the back door in time for the next shift,” Siobhan agreed equably, then darted a glance at Mick and bit her lip. He was her boss, after all, and what she had to say next would very probably irritate him. But the fact remained that she was twenty years his senior, and as such felt compelled to act as a sort of stand-in mother while his was travelling.

“Mick,” she began hesitantly, “have you found out anything about Annie? Where she’s from, who her people are and the like?”

For a long, tense moment, bright blue eyes were steady and unreadable on hers. Then he shrugged. “No,” he admitted, “but it’s plain to see she’s harmless.”

Siobhan wanted to protest this, wanted to insist he find out that this young woman was who she claimed to be. After all, it wasn’t every day you found a woman in the alley outside your pub, took her in—and weeks later still had her living with you, because you’d given her a job. But because Mick was her boss when all was said and done, she nodded and looked away.

For himself, Mick was surprised by how much he missed her presence in the rooms above the pub. She’d been a constant companion since moving in, and her ever-changing moods never failed to entertain and intrigue him. Not seeing her sitting on the couch, staring thoughtfully into the distance, or having her perched on the counter and chattering away, made the rooms feel more lonely to him than they ever had before, and he wasn’t pleased by it—especially not when his brother’s teasing voice came back to mind.

Foolishness, he scolded himself sternly. She was perfectly free to go shopping with Beth. It wasn’t as though she would disappear, never to return, after a simple shopping excursion.

At least, he hoped not.

Mick scowled at himself for the thought, then decided to go for a walk to cool his head. It worked for his brother; why not for him? And if he returned, and Annie didn’t... well, he wasn’t going to think about that. Not when he was so completely bewitched by her that he hated the idea of her leaving before he knew more about her.

—

Tada! Shorter than the last one, but hey, at least it’s there. Now, for the part of our program we like to call WHY MUST THE IRISH LANGUAGE MAKE NO BLOODY SENSE WHATSOEVER?!?

Amadán—“fool”; pronounced oh-ma-dawn

Céilí—a party or informal gathering; pronounced kay-lee

Girseach—Irish for a young girl; pronounced geer-shuck

Mo stór—“my darling”, literally “my treasure”; pronounced moh store

Muirnín—“sweetheart”; not entirely sure on pronunciation, but I think it’s wer-neen. Don’t quote me on it, though.

Seisiún—a more formal gathering with traditional music played; pronounced seh-shoon and short for seisiún ceol, ceol being the Irish for “music” (pronounced kee-yole).

Sídhe—The Faery Folk, Good People, etc. Pronounced shee.

Siobhan—Irish form of the name Jane; pronounced she-vawn