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It was eleven on Saturday morning. Had Bobbi come back for seconds?
Shane raked his hands through his hair, and then shoved them into the pockets of his jeans. Suddenly nervous, he turned, though the slight smile on his face soon faded and the blank mask he’d cultivated for years easily slipped back into place.
His father, James Gallagher stood ne
ar the door, staring down at the circling Pia, obviously annoyed. Shane could let the little thing go crazy, and lord knows she could run in circles and bark until the cows came home, but he decided to get this over with.
“Pia, enough,” he said clearly, pointing up to the loft. The little dog stopped barking and ran over to him for a quick rub behind the ears, and then she turned, scooted past his father and disappeared upstairs.
For several moments the two men studied each other in silence—James dressed to the nines in an expensive suit while Shane stood before him barefoot in a pair of old, ratty jeans and nothing else. He rolled his shoulders, watched his father eyes narrows as he took in the tat’s that adorned his pectoral, bicep and shoulder.
His old man’s attitudes would never change, but his health certainly had. Shane was aware that his father had been sick several months earlier, but he was surprised at the man’s pallor and weight loss.
He looked so much like his grandfather that Shane had to look away, because as much as his father resembled the late Niall Gallagher, it was in the physical element only. The man was a bastard through and through and Shane often wondered how in the hell his grandfather and the sweet gentle woman he remembered as his grandmother, had ever produced such an arrogant, cold son of a bitch.
“That your dog?” His father asked.
Shane took a moment.
He hadn’t seen his father in years. Hell, not since his sentencing. Their relationship had always been strained, and after the things Shane had learned the day before at his grandfather’s solicitor’s office, he was more than a little surprised that his father wanted to discuss his dog.
But hey, he could play whatever game this was. In fact, it was a welcome distraction.
Shane nodded. “Yeah, she sort of came with the place.”
James Gallagher took a few more steps, his expensive Italian leather boots tracking wet snow across the wooden floorboards as he motioned toward the table Shane had just finished.
“I see you’ve learned a trade.”
Again, Shane nodded but didn’t bother to reply.
“Good to know our tax dollars are being put to use in constructive ways.”
The dig was subtle, but there nonetheless.
Shane grinned, a cold smile that never quite made it to his eyes. “I learned to knit too, but I figured there’s not much money to be made in tablecloths. Though I gotta tell ya, I can make one hell of a mean granny-square.”
His father’s nostrils flared and his mouth tightened, but the man simply stared at Shane in silence, his blue eyes brilliant, as if they held the blue sky in their depths.
“I know you met with Father’s attorneys yesterday.”
Here we go.
“Yeah, I finally got around to it.”
James Gallagher’s eyes widened even more and twin spots of rouge dusted his sharp cheekbones.
“You finally got around to it. Very responsible of you. Wonderful how you honor your grandfather’s memory, though when we stop to consider the fact that the old man put you in jail himself, I’m not surprised.”
A muscle worked its way along Shane’s jaw and the temper that boiled just under the surface was getting hotter by the second. There was no way in hell he was going to stand here and discuss the many sins of his past with his father.
It didn’t matter that James Gallagher was right.
“What do you want?” he asked sharply, gathering up his tools and crossing the room to the workbench that ran the length of the carriage house. He refused to lose his shit all over the place when his father was around.
“I want to know what you’re going to do with the estate. I’ll buy it from you for market value right now.”
The hell you will.
