My sister rolled her eyes. “Drama queen,” she muttered. “It could be worse. Dev could have lost the whole damned business instead of just franchising it out. If Dad knew what a mess he’d made of the company since he left…”
I blinked at her. “It’s practically the same thing,” I insisted. “Some rich American wanting to copycat hundreds of years of authentic Irish history in Shithole, Texas, for fuck’s sake? And you don’t think that cheapens what our ancestors have spent centuries building here? Look around you, Cait. How the hell is some brand-new prefab building in goddamned small-town Texas going to come anywhere close to capturing the magic of what makes Fig and Bramble unique? It’s impossible.”
“What do we care? We’re never going to see it. We can just take their money and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“Wrong. So wrong. Uncle Dev promised that corporate fat cat he’d come oversee ‘quality control’ or some shit. They’re making him bring the ‘special Murray touch of authenticity to the tiny-town heart of Texas.’ I’m pretty sure I threw up a little bit when I heard that bullshit,” I griped, making generous use of finger quotes. “But I’ll bet fifty quid he bails and sends you or me.”
“Well, he can’t send me now that I’m expecting. Donny would never let me go so far away.” Cait’s eyes lit up. “Oooh! You’ll get to see Hudson again. Maybe you can convince him to go for round two.”
Technically it would’ve been round four, but I wasn’t about to tell my sister that. It was bad enough she’d weaseled the hookup out of me in the first place. “No, thanks. Plus, he lives in Dallas. This disaster project is happening in bumblefuck.”
“Maybe you can go to Dallas at the weekend,” she suggested with a saucy smirk. “Bring him over to the dark side again.”
I ignored her. “Maybe I can use one of those hookup apps and find all the gay cowboys in Texas. Surely they’d love a round with a girly Irishman with an accent, yeah? Make it my fuck tour of America trip? I mean, if I have to fly over there anyway, might as well treat it like a gap year or something.”
“Twenty-eight’s a bit old for a gap year. Just saying,” Cait muttered before taking another sip of tea. “Plus, you’re not the fuck-around type. Remember?”
I winked at her. “I am now. I hardly knew what I was missing before. After my night with the American, I’m all for fucking around with one-offs. They’re hot as shit. Who knew?”
I was a liar and we both knew it.
With a straight face, my sister looked up at me. “Everyone you’ve ever dated.”
My jaw dropped before I tossed a cushion at her face. She got her hand up just in time to block it. “You are bloody awful! Besides, there’s no chance Uncle Dev is stuffing me in a flying steel coffin. I’d rather quit the family business and panhandle my way to Waterford and throw myself at Pat’s feet.”
Luckily, by the time I had to board that plane, I’d been able to spend the holidays with my family and say my final goodbyes in case I died in a fiery crash into the Atlantic.
Ames’s process of finalizing the business plan, finding the right retail space, getting the appropriate permits, and whatever the hell else was involved in starting a pub from scratch took a couple of months. It was long enough for me to wrap things up with my dog training clients and reach out to the Texas Sheepdog Association to find out about upcoming trials on the off chance I made it safely to Texas.
In the end, I was barely speaking to Uncle Devlin. The man had admitted to fucking up and finding himself desperate for cash. He’d been relieved when Bruce Ames had requested Texas franchise rights rather than acquiring shares of F&B. He’d made a botch-up of the whole thing, and my father wouldn’t even entertain a discussion about it. As far as he was concerned, he was living la vida loca with his new love on the sunny shores of Rio and the rest of us could fuck the fuck off.
Needless to say, my resentment was as big as the same ocean that was going to swallow me whole any minute. I’d felt so betrayed by Hudson, but it had been made ten times worse by the fact the stupid man held my heart. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him even after several months. The loss of him was crushing me. For some reason, I simply couldn’t get over it. Cait had accused me of being moody, had even told me the regulars at the pub were avoiding me for being snappish.
And it was all bloody Hudson’s fault.
“Ma’am, are you feeling okay?” the man sitting next to me asked.