Irish Fling: Millersburg Quartet, #1

By Valerie Douglas

Ali had always been the smart one. With near perfect recall, she accomplished a lot in a very short time. A meteoric rise led to an equally meteoric fall. With her life and career in shambles, she goes in search of her roots in Ireland. Lost, she offers handsome Aidan O'Connell a lift from his broken-down car and gains an impromptu tour guide. But is Aidan only looking for a brief Irish Fling...?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valerie Douglas
• Release date: Oct 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386977865

Valerie Douglas

Valerie Douglas is a prolific writer and a genre-crosser, much to the delight of her fans. A fan of authors from almost every genre, she writes classic fantasy, romance, suspense, horror, and, as V.J. Devereaux, erotic romance. Happily married, she's companion to two dogs, three cats and an African clawed frog named Hopper who delights in tormenting the cats from his tank.

Book preview

1

W elcome to Dublin, the sign outside the airport read. Beside it were directional signs pointing toward the motorways. With a sigh of satisfaction and a smile, Ali turned the little rented convertible and followed them.

She couldn’t believe it. She was really here - she was actually in Ireland. The country where her mother had been born. The mother she barely remembered. The only memory Ali had of her anymore was her voice, with the cadence of Ireland in it. Every time she’d heard an Irish accent on TV as a child, she’d half turned, hoping her mother wasn’t really gone. But she had been.

The sun shone on the brilliantly green Irish hills, the air was crisp and cool, refreshing. The scarf around her hair kept it contained so only the ends whipped around in the breeze. For the moment, it was only her and the road before her. She’d never felt more free, not since she’d been a girl, hanging out with her friends.

The opportunity to come to Ireland couldn’t have come at a more perfect moment, she’d been preparing to go back to work for some time. The location of the convention had seemed both omen and pure serendipity. For almost two weeks, though, she would simply be Ali. By the end of that time, she would be ready. It was time to move on.

She felt a sudden sense of release as all the tension and stress of the last few months, maybe even years, slipped away. It seemed as if she’d been hit with one blow after another. The loss of her job, then her breakup with Dan and the circumstances around it had left her shaken.

This would be a new beginning for her and not just in a new business. It would be a chance to reconnect with who she was. She’d come to Ireland to get some sense of herself, of where she’d come from, of who her people were. A part of her wanted to hear the soft lilt she’d remembered hearing in her mother’s voice, to listen to the music she’d heard as a child before the cancer had taken her mother so young. It struck her suddenly that she was probably the age her mother had been when she’d died.

Growing up an orphan, moved from one foster home to another, Ali had prided herself on her ability to go with the flow, to take the blows, roll with them and come back smiling just as her mother had.

She’d lost that for a little bit.

For a time, she’d been on top of the world, hired right out of college by one of the biggest companies in the world. The prodigy, girl wonder, climbing so high so fast to the top of her profession. It had all gone wrong just as fast.

She shook it off. That was over, now. She was onto a new phase of her life, starting over again at the ripe old age of twenty-five. That other Ali was another life, another person. Soon that person would return, but for now… She laughed, threw caution and the speed limit on the motorway to the winds, with an eye out for the Gardai ― the Irish police ― and drove.

An experienced traveler, she’d scheduled her arrival for as late as she could the day before, then booked a room at an airport hotel so she could be rested and ready to go when she got up in the morning. She’d called her friends Cam, Molly and Jesse as soon as she’d gotten settled in the hotel, so they’d know she’d arrived all right and Molly wouldn’t worry. They were the closest she had to family.

Now, though, she was eager to start her adventure.

An hour or two later, she had to admit she was lost. It was no surprise, she was completely directionally challenged. It had just happened sooner than she’d expected. More than one person, knowing her predilection for getting lost, had been astonished she was going to Ireland alone. She hadn’t been too disturbed about it herself, after all Ireland was an island, how lost could she get?

Now she knew. Very.

Laughing at herself, she tried to look at the map while she drove, but maps only helped when they faced the direction she was driving.

It was still a pretty day, she had no reservations anywhere, so no one expected her, she was in Ireland and the countryside was beautiful. How bad could it be?

However, she could have sworn this was the same road she’d been on only an hour before, save that the car on the side of the road hadn’t been there the first time she’d gone past.

The little blue sports car, its top down, hood up, sat on the shoulder, the radiator or something steaming. She slowed automatically as the narrow road didn’t leave much room for passing. But she wouldn’t have left anyone stranded on the side of the road in any case. She’d relied on the kindness of strangers too often in the past herself. And her friends.

She could see nothing of the driver save for a hand on the raised hood as he peered inside at the engine.

Perhaps she should offer help and while she was at it, get some directions. A double bonus.

Behind the bonnet of the damnable car Aidan heard another vehicle come around the bend and blessed God in Heaven himself for delivering him. He’d been stupid enough to leave his cell phone at home to keep the office from calling him and interrupting this little bit of time he’d taken for himself.

It was the perfect way to start his break, he thought bitterly.

It wasn’t as if things hadn’t been bad enough. An offer had been made for his company that was almost too good to refuse. An offer that might just give him the chance to start over again with the new venture he was considering. Except that some of the figures weren’t matching up although his partner Brian, his chief financial officer, assured him they were fine. Aidan still had questions. Then that damnable magazine had gone and named him the Irish Bill Gates, right in the heart of an economic crisis, plastering his picture across every newsstand in Dublin. He couldn’t even go into a pub to drown his sorrows without a dozen folk he didn’t know coming up and calling him friend.

As if his love life wasn’t bad enough already, he now had a dozen women calling him, too. The memory of Devon was still too close…and too bitter. When she’d left he’d found himself standing in the middle of his apartment, alone.

Her leaving him, though, had been the trigger for finding he needed something different in his life. Something…else. He hadn’t realized he was so unhappy

All the work, all the time. And for what? He had the cars, the grand apartment. More money than Croesus, for God’s sake. More money than he’d known what to do with it seemed, sometimes. It was what he’d worked for all his life. He’d caught a ride on the back of the Celtic Tiger, the Irish miracle, and ridden it… Where? It had all come tumbling down around him as it had for everyone else, except his investments had held up a little better.

The worst part was realizing that it wasn’t even Devon, really. As much as he thought he’d cared, it had been her remoteness, the sense he was somehow just beyond his reach, that had held him. He understood now that was all it had ever been, all that kept him going. Now that she was gone, he knew he’d never truly had her. There had never been anything there.

Suddenly, though, he couldn’t remember why he’d been doing it all. He didn’t know. He just knew that it wasn’t here. This wasn’t where he’d intended to end up.

The dream had been to build something different, a company where innovation was king, the driving force. Instead, he was saddled with a board of directors and every attempt to take the company in any direction other than the one it currently followed was met by stiff resistance.

Especially now. With the turn of the economic tide everything had changed, the years of plenty were gone. Some of it had been madness all along but few had seen it.

Including him.

It had gotten so bad he dreaded going into the office in the morning, but he hadn’t even noticed it.

So, for the first time in the nearly twelve years since he’d started the company, with himself still at university at the time, he’d taken some time for himself.

Now even the little car he’d bought impulsively for a bit of fun had gone and died on him.

He’d have given it good kick if it wouldn’t have hurt his foot more than it would have the car.

First, he’d sworn at himself for being so foolish as to not get it properly checked over — it wasn’t as if he didn’t know a good mechanic — before taking it out on the roads. Second at the car for breaking down on him and leaving him stranded in the back of beyond.

Stepping out away from it a little, he prepared to wave the other car down but bless them they were slowing already. It was the kind of thing folk in the country still did. He’d spent so long in the city he’d forgotten that.

The glare of the sun off the windscreen nearly blinded him.

At the first sight of the man who stepped out from in front of the car, Ali’s heart did a quick stop, drop and roll.

Now that was a face to stop hearts, lean and handsome.

He was tall, too, or at least far taller than she was, as if that wasn’t almost everyone on the planet, she thought with amusement. He wore a loose fisherman’s style sweater that had once been sort of white but still managed to look somehow sexy with casual slacks.

It had taken only that glimpse to know he was gorgeous, a simply beautiful man with cheekbones that could have cut glass, a high-bridged straight nose and a mouth made for sin. In a way, he reminded her of a pirate with those roguish features and the thick, curling black hair that even now lifted a little in the slight breeze. He’d pushed the sleeves of the sweater back over strong forearms.

If those eyes were blue, Ali knew she’d be in trouble. She wasn’t close enough to tell, but she could tell he was supremely pissed to judge by his expression and the set of his shoulders — at the car, no doubt.

She slowed.

Pulling up beside him, the little gold convertible — nice little car — came to a stop and a soft voice asked in a clearly American accent, Do you need help?

Aidan was a little surprised at the accent, this wasn’t the season for tourists, after all. Most Americans came in the summer and this road was a bit off the beaten path as it were.

Walking over to the car, he leaned on the window post to look in and suddenly found that perhaps his day wasn’t going so badly after all.

Even with gold-framed sunglasses covering her eyes and the scarf barely containing abundant golden curls, Aidan could tell the driver was a beauty, with fine features and a lovely mouth. That hair was truly amazing, lush, tight curls the color of sunlight with glints of red in it, brilliant where it escaped the scarf. That hair trailed over her shoulders, over lovely high, full breasts beneath a light, soft-looking sweater in a mossy, heathery green and down to a slender waist. Beneath the sweater was a long, loose crinkly skirt in a slightly darker shade of the same green. Both suited her coloring exceptionally well.

She had one hand on the steering wheel, the other comfortably on the stick shift. She drove standard, which was a surprise. Most American women didn’t in his experience.

So far, he didn’t see anything he didn’t like. Certainly, that hair was something a man wanted to get his hands in, take handfuls of…

And aren’t you the angel of mercy, he said.

Oh my, was all Ali could think. That voice was deep, with a brogue as rich as Irish cream, a voice that went through her like a shot of good Irish whiskey, smooth, warming her all the way down to her toes. With a jolt, she looked up to meet eyes that were as bright a blue as the Irish sky above them. Then he smiled, and her heart did another flip.

Dear Lord, she thought, now that’s just unfair, it’s just unkind, you shouldn’t tease me this way.

His left hand curled over the door to brace himself. She noted he wore no wedding ring.

She was as entranced by his accent as any other American although it called up other echoes for her as well. But he did have a lovely voice and she had a particular weakness for men with sexy voices.

He was also still talking. She wrenched her attention back to what he was saying.

As it happens, I do. I was taking that little gem there, and here Aidan was being more than a bit facetious, out for a test drive and it seems to have blown a gasket or belt or something. Once more he mentally cursed the car and all her progenitors. Would you mind giving me a lift? I’ve gone and forgotten my cell phone at home and can’t call for assistance.

Sure, hop in, she said, but be warned, I’m already lost. You couldn’t possibly give me directions back to the motorway, could you?

Grabbing his bag from the back of the car Aidan tossed it in the back seat next to her own. Popping the door open, he slid in, looking at her in astonishment at the same time.

Motorway? You’re quite a ways away, he said, surprised.

Quite competently, she dropped the car into gear to pull quickly and smoothly away. So, she knew how to drive, too. That was another point in her favor.

She glanced at him dryly from behind the sunglasses and he saw one perfectly arched brow lift above the rim.

I did say I was lost, she said, amused.

That pretty mouth curved fetchingly.

So, you did, he laughed. Well, then, I imagine I can help you there.

Almost apologetically she said, You’ll have to give me plenty of warning before we make a turn as I can’t tell my right hand from left even if they were labeled and wouldn’t know north from south if the sun weren’t out. One of my foster parents thought I was retarded.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. She flashed him a quick apologetic smile.

What God didn’t give me in a sense of direction, he more than compensated for in other ways, Ali added and grinned.

Eyeing her with clear admiration ― she was utterly charming ― he said, He certainly did.

A little nonplussed by the implied compliment, Ali glanced at him in surprise.

Compliments always caught her off guard. She’d been awkward and geeky for so long and then suddenly she’d become this swan. What she’d meant to say was she’d been gifted with more than the usual share of brains, that was the trade-off.

Aidan looked in the back seat of the car at the single small bag there beside his. And you came all this way, traveling alone, with no sense of direction?

Smiling, and she had a very lovely smile indeed, bright and natural, she tipped the glasses down a little to look directly at him, and said, Yes, but then this way you make a turn and find a very nice surprise waiting around the corner.

At that first glance of those eyes, Aidan felt as if he’d been punched in the gut, a bolt of pure desire shooting through him. Incredible. He’d never seen eyes like hers before; they were beautiful, unique and lovely. So unusual. Long-lashed, they were the color of molten gold, each with a thin crescent of the most brilliant green at the outside of the iris. He’d never seen eyes like hers before.

Her words caught up with him a second later.

She was flirting with him. The day truly was improving.

Well, now, he thought, leaning back to lay one arm along the car door, the other braced against her seat and smiled back at her. That was nice surprise indeed.

So you do. So you do.

Her hair blew against his arm softly.

Carefully, Aidan caught a silken strand between his fingers. The tight ringlets tried to curl around them.

He smiled.

Ali Dearborn, she said, holding her hand out to him. Pleased to meet you.

With a smile, he took the offered hand. It was small, soft and warm. He was surprised at the strength in it.

Aidan O’Connell. Pleased as well.

He had a good strong handshake, Ali reflected, neither bone crushing nor quick to release. That was something else she liked. He also had a charming, sexy smile that melted a little bit of her heart each time he used it.

With an effort, she recalled herself.

If you need a cell phone, though, she offered, I have one. You’re welcome to use it.

She reached behind his seat, her eyes on the road to fish around in her bag for the little phone.

In the small car, her shoulder brushed against him.

This close Aidan could smell her scent, something light and fresh, see the fine texture of her soft skin, the neckline of the blouse revealing the smooth, round tops of her breasts. A punch of lust went through him, reminding him how long it had been since