By late afternoon he had sight of Rhyl, the seaside town on the north coast of Wales where he and his brother, Rory, and their dad had stopped to rest a while on a journey from Dublin to London. The pit stop had forever changed all their lives. His dad had married again, they were part of a new family. Not easy.
Rory and Sky were together now. It gave him hope.
Would Rowan even give him the time of day though? That was the big question. Parking up on the seafront, he secured the bike and walked along the promenade. Usually busy with tourists, the misty rain had kept most of them inside the arcades and cafes and pubs. A few hardy types were walking their dogs.
It was quiet, and it gave him time to think, to remember.
He stared over at the pier. It was there underneath the arches where he’d first kissed Rowan. They’d been so hot for each other. It’d been building since the moment they laid eyes on each other. The kiss when it came was wild, fuelled by weeks of pent up lust. Then she’d run off, laughing, making him chase her.
Jesus, even now he could feel the longing that’d pumped inside him, and how it did bad things to them both. He’d wanted to hold her down, to capture her and experience her wild nature in forbidden ways. Turned out she loved that too. She was kinky as fuck. He quickly learned which buttons to press to send her whirring out of control. His blood pumped hot and hard as he remembered.
Was she still with that guy he’d heard about? Declan. Had she found someone else who knew how to bring this crazy girl to their side and keep her satisfied? Only one way to find out.
Bracing himself, he pulled the address out of his pocket and stared down at it.
He knew where the house was. He’d been there once, three years before. Aunt Gladys’s fences had come down in a storm. His dad had sent the lads, Rory, Draco and himself, round to secure the fences. They had a laugh while doing it, and made a pretty good job of it. Gladys had fed them with bacon and sausage sandwiches to keep them going. It was a good afternoon, then she’d told them they should start their own business mending fences, and they all got the hell out of there.
What was so wrong with mending fences? It would be an honest living.
The problem was when you could hack into major businesses doing something so mundane seemed like a jail sentence. Unfortunately, he now knew what that felt like, and mending fences seemed like it would be a hell of a lot better. This past year, he would have given anything to be that Irish lad who’d stayed, the one with an honest trade and no one breathing down his back.
No sense of responsibility—that was the ticket to failure he’d carried with him back then. Life had quickly shown him just how important it was to have a sense of responsibility. Now he was back to face up to emotions he’d tried to bury. It was time to make Rowan his own, if she would have him. Climbing on the bike, he pulled out into the traffic, and sped along the coast road to Prestatyn.
By the time he drew up in front of the house it was raining heavily, and the streetlight barely lit the path. He secured his bike and looked up at the house. A tall Victorian home with three floors and a gabled attic window. This is where Rowan lived now, with her Nan and Great Aunt Gladys. At least she wasn’t living in a semi-detached up the road with some bloke called Derek and three kids in tow. That might have been a bit more problematic, although Sean’s mind was made up. He was thoroughly prepared to break down any barrier between him and Rowan, whatever it took to do so. When he looked up as far at the attic room window, a curtain twitched.
He pulled off his helmet as he strode up the steps to the front door, holding it in one arm as he lifted the heavy brass door knocker.
Lights flickered on in the hallway.
“Sean Rattigan, is that you?” It was Rowan’s Nan who spoke. She opened the door wide and peered up at him. “Oh my, you’ve changed.”
The door swung wide and Aunt Gladys was there too, the pair of them peering out at him, smiling. The ladies, as they all called them, hadn’t changed at all, as far as Sean could tell. Maybe a few more wrinkles.
“What a lovely surprise,” Aunt Gladys said, and nudged her sister sharply.
“Yes, wonderful surprise,” Nan repeated and pushed the door wide open. She reached out and ushered him in. “Come in, Sean, it’s so lovely to see you.”
Sean stepped into the hallway and glanced around. Yes, he did remember the hideous patterned carpet and the array of weird wall plaques, and there was a peculiar little table with a built-in seat and a telephone directory shelf.
Once he was inside, he found his motorbike helmet taken from his hand by one of the women. It was Aunt Gladys, and she dried it with her apron then set it down on the telephone table seat. Nan was behind him, trying to take off his leather jacket. Since she barely reached above his elbow, it was no easy task. He shrugged it off, and the jacket quickly disappeared into a cupboard under the stairs.
“I guess you heard I was coming?” Sean smiled wryly. So much for keeping it secret. Mind you, if the secret had been broadcast, where was Rowan? Then he remembered that twitch of the curtain on the attic window. These two couldn’t have legged it down from the third floor in time, so it must have been Rowan.
That decided, he stared at the stairwell expectantly.
Nan hurried back to him from the under stairs cupboard and grasped his arm, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially. “Rowan will be down in a moment, I’m sure.”
Aunt Gladys walked to the bottom of the stairs and shouted. “Rowan, you have a visitor!”
Sean smiled. It’d been a long while since he’d done so, but these two altered that. He’d forgotten how determined and bossy they were.
“We’ve prepared the spare bedroom,” Nan said, looking up at him assessingly, “and you’re welcome to stay as long as you like,”
“A bed for the night would be great—”
He was about to say more, meaning to comment he could see she had a full house already, he could get a B&B for the night, but a squeak on the stairwell silenced him. He looked at the stairs expectantly.
All three of them did.