Hard Irish (2 page)

James groaned.  “We cashed the last CD?”

“Yeah.  Remember?   We discussed it the Friday you and what’s her name were heading out to Vegas for the weekend.”

James upped the AC.  Now gulping for cool air, too.  “Shit.  And I blew ten grand on that trip.  Why didn’t you ream my ass?”

Jared shrugged.  “Thought we’d be fine.  Always have been before.  At least until that McKenna outfit moved in on our territory.  How in the hell are they underbidding us?”

“I don’t know.  As you said, our bid was to the bone.”

“Bet you anything they’re using illegals for labor.”  Jared turned onto East Bay Street and headed north passing through Savannah’s historic district.  He loved his hometown.  The history.  The architecture.  Its Old World flavor was like a good aged scotch, rich and mellow.  He loved the fact that he and James added to that flavor with the quality of their construction and in the designs of their housing development.  They did each job with pride and each house plan they’d developed borrowed some of the look and features of Savannah’s historic homes and plantations.  The thought they could lose everything they’d worked so hard for was soul sickening.

James nodded his agreement. “Using illegals and substituting lower quality material when no one is looking seems to be the only way they can undercut us.  We should check with our guys and see if they know any of McKenna’s crew.  Couldn’t hurt to ask a few questions.”

Jared smacked his palm on the steering wheel as he hung a right toward the church.  “Damn right.  It’s time we take this bull by the horns before it gores Shamrock Construction into bankruptcy.  Somehow I’m going to find out what McKenna’s game is.”

“If we can prove they’re up to no good, then we can get the Drake Hotel bid back.”

“Good point.  After church today, I’ll go check out their last job.”

“You mean after the BBQ.  No way dad will let is skip-out again.  We missed the last family shindig.”

“We did?”

“Yeah, remember yachting with those party heiresses?”

Jared groaned as he pulled into the church parking lot.  “You mean that trip we swore we’d forget ever happened.”

“That be the one.”  James opened his car door.

Blinking bleary-eyed at the bright blue sky, Jared cautiously stepped out of the Porsche and gauged the distance to the entrance.  Lightning bolts out of the blue did happen.  “Bringing that weekend up before walking into church is just asking for God to strike us dead.”

James rolled his eyes, but glanced at the sky and picked up his pace anyway.

That weekend he and James had cruised with rich and infamous jet-setters.  The very sketchy memories of booze, drugs, and orgy-like sex had left them both knowing they’d never cross the drug-using multiple-partner line again.  The old adage “when in Rome do like the Romans” only worked out well if you want to be Roman.  Jared walked into church in a cold sweat, feeling he’d pass out in any second.  The smiled plastered on James’s green face said he was feeling the same.

Jesse and Jackson were standing just inside and from the instant glint in both their gazes, Jared knew his and James’s hangovers were readily apparent.  Their older brothers walked over and slapped him and James hard on the back.

The jackhammer in Jared’s head worsened.  Jesse grabbed his arm, leading him toward the sanctuary.  Jackson strong-armed James.

Jesse was livid.  “The ceremony starts in five minutes.  Not only are Jackson and I going to beat you and James to a pulp for this, but Lexi and Nan can’t wait to dig their nails into you both, and behind them are Mom and Dad.  Couldn’t you two have stayed sober for just one night?”

Jared regretted not having that “hair of the dog” drink this morning.  “Relax.  We’re here and we’re sober,” he muttered.

Jesse’s returning gaze cut deep.  “You’re barely sober and as for being here, you’re not.  In fact you are so far gone I question whether you could do anything to help Jake were something to happen to me.”

Jared stumbled.  Not from the booze, but from the gut-slicing pain in his heart.  It wasn’t Jesse’s doubts that hurt, it was the ugly truth behind them.  Jesse’s grip tightened and Jared sucked in a deep breath.   He stepped into the church and saw the “Come to Jesus” meeting facing him in the look in his parent’s eyes.  There was hell to pay and it was coming out of his hide today.

He couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it, but knowing that did nothing to ease the bite and the shame.  Jared glanced at James and knew without a doubt Jackson had cut deep, too, but rather than contrite, James looked pissed, as if he’d just had an injustice shoved down his throat.

For once in their close-knit life, Jared found no solace in the fact that he and James were in the dog house together.  His world was in such a state that he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy, but somehow he’d led James down this road to ruin.  If memory served him right, he’d been the first one to start blazing their bachelor’s trail.  James had just followed suit and was thoroughly enjoying the status quo.

Not even God could stop the train wreck that was about to happen today.

The organ blared.  The congregation stood and Jared blinked at the sun piercing through the churches arched windows as it highlighted an empty cross and cast the pastor into shadows.  The pastor spoke and Jared’s mind scrambled for a foothold in quicksand as more and more of his and James’s wild nights streamed like an X-rated movie in his head.  He wasn’t sure how much time passed but when Jesse gripped his elbow, he knew the moment had arrived.  He and James were led to the front of the church and then faced the congregation.  All eyes were on them and Jared had little doubt that a scarlet letter was stamped in the middle of his forehead.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered today not only to celebrate the gift of life, but to reaffirm our commitment to family.  The love a parent has for their child is a deep and abiding one.  It is a love that sacrifices and it is a love that never rests in its desire to provide and secure the best possible future.  The greatest gift a parent can have is the assurance there are others within the child’s life who will care for the child should they be unable to do so.  Today Jesse and Alexi Weldon and Nancy and Jackson Weldon have chosen Jared and James Weldon, brothers and brothers-in-law of whom they have a high regard for, to take a special place in the lives of their children, Jake and Jason.  This ceremony marks that faith and commitment.”

The pastor moved from the shadows and stared him right in the eye.  “Jared Weldon.”

“Yes,” Jared said, his voice worse than a frog croak.   A cold sweat started in his gut and spread.  He locked his knees to stay upright but could do nothing to stop his head-to-toe quivering. 

“Do you swear before God, this congregation, and your family to take a special lifelong interest in your nephews, Jake and Jason?  To be there for them in life and to help guide them morally and ethically as they develop into adults?”

Jared swallowed the choking lump in his throat, sure he was about to die on the spot.  The phenomena of spontaneous combustion suddenly seemed completely plausible.  He blinked the blur from his vision and found Alexi and Nan were standing before him.  In their arms were his chubby nephews, blue eyes bright and slobbery grins happy.  Alexi put Jake in the crook of his left arm and Nan put Jason in the crook of his right arm.  They were so small, so innocent, so trusting, and so helpless.  The thought of their lives resting in his hands blew his mind.    He’d been skating over the surface of life, free as a bird, but in that moment the ice broke and he plunged beneath into the icy water of reality.  Terror ripped through.

He nodded several times but was incapable of saying the “I do” he’d been instructed to respond.  After an uncomfortable moment the pastor zeroed in on James.

“James Weldon.  Do you swear before God, this congregation, and your family to take a special lifelong interest in your nephews, Jake and Jason?  To be there for them in life and to help guide them morally and ethically as they develop into adults?”

“I do,” James replied, loud and clear.  Instead of coming over and taking Jake and Jason from him as planned, James pitched forward in a dead faint and face-planted the altar.

From the expression of his family all staring at him, Jared concluded that train wreck was too mild a description for the situation.   Nuclear explosion was a more apt description.

Jared prayed hard, but for some reason God didn’t instantly beam him up to heaven, instead he left him squirming in hell.  He didn’t need a “hair of the dog” drink this morning.  He needed the whole damn bottle.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

“Woof!”

“Slow down, Pebbles.  You’re shaking the steps.”

Her tenuous concentration broken by the fact that two hundred pounds of slobbery St. Bernard and the zaniest woman in the South were about to descend on her, Roxanne “Rocky” McKenna quickly stood and stretched her long legs.  She slipped a robe on over her sun-kissed skin and prepared for the onslaught.  Used to be drugging sunshine, fresh air, and yoga after her routine morning swim could clear the cloudiest horizons.  Not anymore.

Either life’s troubles or her suppressed hormones reared a disturbing head.

“Thought I’d find you up here.  I brought you Intense Chai this morning.  Next best thing to an orgasm to start your day.”

Rocky laughed as Desmond “Dessie” Langford and her huge pooch breached the privacy of her rooftop garden. Between the riches of Hilton Head, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia lay a swampy land of everything under the sun from The Golden Bunny burlesque joint to the Lazy Cow Café.

At fifty-five, Dessie, a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like, was still the queen of the Golden Bunny. 
Moves Like Jagger
had nothing on her.  In Dessie’s world, liposuction and silicon fixed what the Good Lord taketh away with age and when the gray hair moved south, she went Brazilian—a waxing luxury that Rocky herself, upon coercion, found she enjoyed.

Wearing a hard hat on the job all day made her enjoy the sleek, cultured feel of being smooth and sexy all over.  Maybe more than she should.

The best two moves of her life had been her divorce and moving in next door to Dessie and Pebbles.  Well, Pebbles was still kind of up in the air.  The monster dog was delusional.  Thought she was a lap dog and did her best to crawl one paw into any available lap.  Rocky did a lot of standing when Pebbles was afoot.  Reaching down, she nabbed one of Pebbles balls left from her last visit and tossed it down the stairs.  Pebbles took off in a house-shaking rush after the ball that would likely bounce down all three flights and take her a good five minutes to find.

With Pebbles out of the way, Rocky took the mug of hot tea Dessie held out and inhaled the cinnamon and spice before sipping.  “The best.”

“Nope only second best.  Orgasm is the best.  So when are you going to ditch your ivory tower and let your hair down, girl.  All this Zen meditating in the nude and Fung Shu-”

“Feng Shui,” Rocky said.

“Whatever all this is,” Dessie waved at the rooftop garden.  “It don’t make up for having a man while you’re young enough to enjoy him.  As I see it, you’ve let your ex steal three years of great sex from you.  Maybe even more than that since it must not have been all that great with him or you’d be itching for a good fix by now.”

“It’s not like there hasn’t been anything else going on.”

“Sorry, luv.  I’m not discounting your father’s illness, but you were in this state
before
his stroke.  It’s been a month now and who knows how long it will be before he recovers.”

If he recovers
.  Rocky mentally said what she knew Dessie was too kind to say.  After skipping a beat Dessie continued.  “You need to get out and meet people.  You need a man.”    

A large splash from below alerted them both that Pebbles had found the pool and would return soaking wet.   

Rocky rolled her eyes and drank more tea.  She wasn’t about to give Dessie an inch to hang her with.  Truth was Rocky had more than an itch, she had a fever, but she damn well was not going to give into it, no matter what the temptation.  Thus the meditation.  Not that it helped a whole lot.  The heated thoughts that wiggled their way into her mind kept her in a state of need.

But hormones had landed her on the wrong side of love more than once and she refused to give into them ever again.   Next time she tangled with a man, she’d connect with his mind first and make sure he was Mr. Right before anything else happened between them.

She arched her eyebrow and turned the tables.  Dessie only dished out advice when she had a problem and didn’t know what to do.  “So who has your thongs in a wad today?”

“That obvious, huh?”

“Only to those who love you.  Now give it up.  What’s ailing you?”

“The new bouncer at the Golden Bunny.  OMG he’s Robert Redford redone and melts me with one look.”

“So?”

“So he’s too young.  I may purr and scratch, but cougaring ain’t my thing.  Trouble is he doesn’t want to take no for an answer.  Come save me.  You really ought to swing by the club and meet him today.  He’s got great sex written from head-to-toe of his hard body.”

“Not going to work, Dessie.  I’m not going to let your Chai Tea seduce me into another man-mistake.  I work with hard-bodied men day in and day out and married one, that doesn’t necessarily make a man great.  Might even be just the opposite.  I have to stop by the office to set up a few things for the new job tomorrow and then I’m going to see Da today anyway.”

Dessie put her hand to her forehead as if she might faint.  “I’ve wasted years of my life.  Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying, Rocky?  There’re men who’ve got brains, brawn, balls and heart, but you aren’t going to find him up here and you aren’t going to find him in the nursing home either.  You work too much.  You need to get out and date.”

“Job pays the bills.  Besides, I’m not that bad.  I dated Cam Phillips after Newsline did the segment on Building-A-Future.”  The free summer work camp she held every year to teach area kids the basics of building and how to use tools had garnered national attention after she’d won a local humanitarian award.  The well-known anchor had been interested in her for a time.