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“You’ll think clearer when you’re head’s not aching. Shall I bring you some tea and toast?”
“No, but thanks. I love you so much.”
“There, now, don’t start crying again. Any more tears today and I’ll need an oar. Let’s have off your boots and tuck you in.”
As she had with Mary Kate, Mollie fussed and stroked and settled Brenna under the covers. She sat a little while, and when Brenna was quiet, she rose to let sleep do a bit of healing.
As she passed the window, she stopped, stepped back, stared down at the sight of her husband weaving and stumbling his way home.
“Saints in heaven, the man’s drunk and it’s not yet noon.” She pushed at her hair. “What a family this is.”
SIXTEEN
GETTING READY TO go to work was quite an undertaking. He was dressed already, which was a fortunate thing. Shaving was out of the question. Even if he’d wanted to deal with scraping a razor over his tender jaw, he was just sober enough to fear cutting his face to ribbons in the process. So he left it as it was, and stumbling over his shoes, he thought it might be a fine idea to put them on.
Bub, being the perverse creature that he was, took the opportunity to crawl all over him, then laid stinging furrows over the back of Shawn’s hand when he tried to push him aside.
“Vicious bastard.” He and the cat eyed each other with mutual dislike and from a respectful distance. “I might have to take a swipe from Mick O’Toole, but I don’t have to take one from you, you black-hearted spawn of Satan.” He lunged, missed as the cat streaked away, and ended up rapping his already sore jaw on the floor. “Fuck me, that’s about enough.”
With his ears ringing, he managed to get to his hands and knees. The fiend of a cat was in for dire consequences. Later. He’d let the fiend believe he’d won the war, then seek revenge at an unexpected moment.
Still sulking over it, Shawn nursed his hand as he headed out of the house. As a matter of habit, he turned toward his car, then paused, balancing himself on the garden gate.
He was certain he could drive. He was a man who could hold his drink, wasn’t he? For Christ’s sake, his name was Gallagher. But the way things were going, he’d likely run off the road and smash his teeth out on the steering wheel.
Much better to walk, he decided. Clear his head, settle his thoughts. He started down the road, mindful of the ruts and bumps, singing to entertain himself on the journey.
He stumbled a time or two, but fell only the one time. Of course, the one time was enough to have his knee find the single sharp rock in the bloody road. He was picking himself up from that, not far from the village proper, when Betsy Clooney, with her car full of her children, stopped beside him.
“Shawn, what’s happened? You’ve had an accident?”
He smiled at her. She had a pretty brood of children, all of them fair of hair and blue of eye. The two in the back were squabbling, but the youngest, secured in her car seat, watched Shawn like a little owl as she sucked on a red lollipop.
“Well, hello, Betsy. How’s it all going, then?”
“Did you have a car crash?” She pushed open her door to hurry around to him, grinning as he was at her baby and weaving like a man who’d gone a hard round with the champ.
“I didn’t, no. I’ve been walking.”
“Your hand’s bleeding, and you’re bruised on the face. Your trousers are ripped at the knee.”
“Are they?” He glanced down, saw the mud and the tear. “Shit, look at that, will you? Begging pardon,” he said quickly, remembering the children.
But she was close enough now to see, and to smell, just what the matter was. “Shawn Gallagher, you’re drunk.”
“I am, I suppose, a little.” They’d gone to school together, so he patted her shoulder in a friendly manner. “You’ve darling children, Betsy, but your oldest girl there is trying to throttle her brother, and doing a damn fine job of it.”
Betsy merely glanced back and barked out one sharp warning. The children broke apart.
“My mother could do the same.” Sheer admiration shone on Shawn’s face. “Half the time it only took a look to curdle the blood in your veins. Well, I must be going.”
“Get in the back of the car, for heaven’s sake, and I’ll take you home.”
“Thanks, but I’m for work.”
She rolled her eyes, jerked open the car door. “Get in all the same, and I’ll drive you the rest of the way.” And let the Gallaghers deal with their own, she thought.
“That’s kind of you. Thanks, Betsy.”
The children were so entertained by drunk Mr. Gallagher that they behaved themselves until their mother dropped him off behind the pub.
He waved cheerfully, then opened the door, tripped over the threshold, and as his balance was already impaired, nearly went facedown on the floor for the second time that day. He caught himself, hung on to the side of the counter, and waited for the pub kitchen to stop revolving.
With the careful steps of the drunk, he walked over to the cupboard to get out a pan for frying, a pot for boiling.
He was weaving in front of the refrigerator, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with what was inside it, when Darcy marched in. Fire in her eyes.
“You’re near to an hour late, and while you’re lazing in bed, we’ve got two bloody buses coming in full of tourists and nothing to put in their bellies but beer nuts and crisps.”
“Sure I’ll be dealing with that directly.”
“And what, I’d like to know, are we to put on the daily while you—” She broke off, took a good look at him. His eyes, she noted, were all but wheeling around in his head. “Look at the sight of you. Dirty and torn up and bleeding. You’ve been drinking.”
“I have.” He turned, gave her the sweet, harmless smile of the very drunk. “Considerably.”
“Well, you knothead, sit down before you fall down.”
“I can stand. I’m going to make fish cakes, I’m thinking.”
“I’ll bet you are.” Amused, she pulled him to the table and shoved him into a chair. She took a look at his hand, decided she’d seen worse. “Stay where you’re put,” she ordered and went out to get Aidan.
“What d’you mean, drunk?” Aidan said after Darcy hissed in his ear.
“I think you’re familiar with the term, but if you need refreshing on it, you’ve only to go into the kitchen and have a look at our brother.”
“Christ, I don’t have time for this.” The pub had only a scatter of customers, as the doors had barely opened, but within thirty minutes, there would be sixty piling in, hungry from the bus trip down from Waterford City.
“Mind the bar, then,” he told her.
“Oh, no, not for a million pounds would I miss this.” So saying, she followed him into the kitchen.
Shawn was singing in his break-your-heart voice, about the cold nature of Peggy Gordon. And with one eye closed, his body swaying gently, he dripped lemon juice into a bowl.
“Oh, fuck me, Shawn, you are half pissed.”
“More of three-quarters if the truth be known.” He lost track of the juice and added a bit more to be safe. “And how are you today, Aidan, darling?”
“Get away from there before you poison someone.”
Insulted, Shawn swiveled around and had to brace a hand on the counter to stay upright. “I’m drunk, not a murderer. I can make a goddamn fish cake in me sleep. This is my kitchen, I’ll thank you to remember, and I give the orders here.”
He poked himself in the chest with his thumb on the claim and nearly knocked himself on his ass.
Gathering dignity, he lifted his chin. “So go on with you while I go about my work.”
“What have you done to yourself?”
“The devil cat caught me hand.” Forgetting his work, Shawn lifted a hand to scowl at the red gashes. “Oh, but I’ve plans for him, you can be sure of that.”
“At the moment, I’d lay odds on the cat. Do you know anything about putting fi
sh cakes together?” Aidan asked Darcy.
“Not a bloody thing,” she said cheerfully.
“Then go and call Kathy Duffy, would you, and ask if she can spare us an hour or so, as we have an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Shawn looked glassily around. “Where?”
“Come with me, boy-o.”
“Where?” Shawn asked again, and Aidan hooked an arm around his waist.
“To pay the piper.”
“If you’re taking him upstairs,” Darcy called out as she reached for the phone, “I’ll thank you to clean up whatever mess is made during the sobering.”
“Just call Kathy Duffy and mind the bar.” Aidan took Shawn’s weight and dragged him upstairs.
“I can cook, drunk or sober,” Shawn insisted. “I don’t know what you’re in such a taking over. It’s just fucking fish cakes.” And he pressed a noisy kiss to Aidan’s cheek.
“You always were a cheerful drunk.”
“And why not?” Shawn hooked an arm around Aidan’s shoulder, stumbled. “My life’s in the toilet, and it looks better through the whiskey.”
Making sympathetic noises, Aidan half carried him into Darcy’s tidy little bathroom. “You had words with Brenna, did you?”
