“You gonna eat both?” Dee asked me of the cookies sitting on the saucer of my coffee cup.
I shook my head.
Dee snagged the cookie…er, biscuit, and gave it to Fiadh, who took it like it was a champion’s trophy. She wriggled out of Dee’s grasp, cried out a “thank you” to me, and ran back to her mother.
“When she has cavities, I’m gonna send the dentist’s bills to you, Dee,” the mother called out.
“Whatever.” Dee waved airily. When she went back behind the bar, she stood in front of Eamon. “Get your ass back to your wife before she cuts your ballsoff.”
Eamon scoffed but did as Dee instructed. I turned to see that his wife glared at him but let him kiss her lips.
“You good?” I heard Dee ask me.
I met her gaze, and suddenly, the pub seemed quieter, smaller, like it was just the two of us there. “Yeah, I’m good,” I breathed.
Her lips curved into the faintest smirk, and I knew, right then and there, that pursuing this Wildcat, when I’d pursued no other woman, was going to be a whole hell of a lot of fun.
CHAPTER 4
Dee
My boarder woke me up—well, my lady parts and me.
I had gone downstairs to the pub and found himshirtlessin sweatpants, sweating as he drank water from a glass while he stood on thewrongside…my side of the bar.
But I’d told him he should make himself at home, so I couldn’t yell at him about it, now, could I?
He’d obviously gone running bright and early.
It was only seven in the morning. Ronan wouldn’t be in until eight when he’d start getting ready for the lunch service, and the regulars would start strolling in when we opened at eleven.
“Good morning.” Jax set the glass of water on the bar.
“Good morning,” I murmured, watching his muscles ripple as he rotated his shoulders. When Ithought of a golfer, I thought of a potbellied, old white man, with orange hair; I didn’t think they looked like the lad in front of me.
Jax wasbuilt.
Broad shoulders tapered down to a trim, muscular waist, and his arms—Jesus, his arms—were roped with sinewy strength that spoke of hours of driving golf balls across pristine fairways. His chest was sculpted, his abs a defined roadmap that hinted at grueling workouts beyond just swinging a club. And those V-shaped lines disappearing into the waistband of those should-be-illegal low-slung sweatpants—well, they weren’t doing me any favors this early in the morning.
I blinked, forcing myself to look anywhere but at him, but my traitorous brain had other ideas, and for some Godforsaken reason, I found myself wondering how a man who spent most of his time on a golf course could look like he moonlighted as a Greek statue.
“Would you like coffee?” I refrained from clearing my throat because he made me…uneasy.
The hell with him. I’d seen better-looking men, and they did nothing for me.
Jax Caldwell could go feck himself!
Or me? He could….
Feckin’ hell!
“No, thanks.” Jax shook his head. “I’m going to take a shower and go to the bakery. Get a scone as you suggested.”
Those dimples! They should be illegal, too.
But it wasn’t just how he looked. It was how he talked. He was polite. He wasn’t brash. He wasnice.He spoke to everyone last night, and how he’d taken care of Fiadh while her parents dealt with the wee one who was crying up a storm, had made every woman’s ovaries let out a low moan.
He was a stranger. He was rich. He drove a Porsche, and according to Google, he was from Charleston and came from old Southern American money. He’d won the PGL Championshiptwice, one of the youngest to do so. He also had cheated on his most recent girlfriend, a supermodel.
