Irish Eyes (Stolen Hearts Romance)

Irish Eyes

A stolen treasure romance

Annie Jones

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

A Note to Readers

Other Books By Annie Jones

CHAPTER ONE

Those eyes.

For one… two… three heartbeats Julia Reed’s world went still. Never had she seen such vital, expressive eyes as those in the tanned, rugged face turned toward her.

The sounds of after work traffic whirred in the background, punctuated by the jarring jangle of bells from the door of the minimarket a few feet away and she sat behind the wheel of her parked car and stared. Not a sexy call-me-maybe kind of staring. No. A big ol’ dorky ‘may start drooling any second because it’s been so long since I even thought of a guy like that’ kind of stare.
Cool, Julia, cool.

She forced herself to scan the cigarette prices, beer ads and lottery banners covering the windows of the store. But she could not keep her gaze from wandering back to the man with the softly curling golden hair, leaning against the side of the building, with a rainbow touching his broad left shoulder.

It Could All be Yours
the poster for the Lucky Lotto Big Pot’O’Gold Game behind him enticed.
And then
those eyes found her like a beacon of light in the dimming of the late winter day.

Her breath caught in the back of her throat.

He tucked his hand into the pocket of his faded jeans, pushing up the hem of his creamy Irish-knit sweater. He looked for all the world to her like the very pot of gold at the rainbow’s end.

A wordless tune began rambling through her mind.
She pressed her lips together, realizing that she had instinctively parted them to speak to the stranger through her open window.

“Let’s get cruising. I have a life, you know. Big plans for tonight.” The passenger door creaked open and the car dipped as her assistant, Craig, threw his lanky form into the seat. He settled a white plastic bag in the foot well behind her seat. “Got everything on your grocery list.”

Julia shut her eyes, not sure if she were grateful for his dragging her back to reality or if she wanted to shove him out of her car and go back to dreaming about kind eyes and golden hair and…

“After this week, I decided you deserved a little decadence. Got you a candy bar.” Craig grinned, probably because he knew she’d get caught up in her work and forget the candy and he’d get it to eat it. Like the kid (a ‘kid’ who was probably only a few years younger than Julia, old soul that she was) needed more energy. He shifted in his seat as if trying to get a stubborn horse to get a move on then frowned her way. “Are you okay? You look kind of, um, dazed or something.”

“I was just thinking.” Her long hair snagged on the tattered upholstery as she twisted her head to steal another glimpse of the man with the twinkling green eyes and the faint quirk of a smile.

He was gone.

She was just thinking, she finished in silence, that she would have liked to have said something to him, to have seen if his voice matched the compelling image of masculine strength and boyish mischief she saw conveyed in his intense gaze. That’s all.

Of course, that was
not
all. But she was hardly ready to admit that to herself, much less her assistant.
She sighed. “Never mind.”

She cranked the key in the ignition. Her twelve year old car coughed to life, then lurched backwards out of the parking space. She drove off, humming through her involuntary smile the song that had popped into her head.

By the time she they were rolling along the streets of Cincinnati toward Craig’s apartment building she had begun to sing softly.
“When Irish eyes are smilin’…”

It Could All Be Yours.
The glittering rainbow arched against the gray Ohio late winter sky, stilling the song on Julia’s lips. She guided her old clunker of a car into the exit lane that passed directly alongside the glaring billboard promising riches.

Turn one dollar into millions!
The golden coins brimming over the lip of a fat black pot on the sign seemed to wink at her, beckoning. The change from her twenty, two crisp dollar bills that Craig had tossed in the cup holder between them ruffled in the breeze from the car window that hadn’t rolled all the way up for months now.

Quiet thunder shook the sky.

“This is the voice of your conscience speaking.” Craig beamed a teasing grin at her, poked his wire-rimmed glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, then placed his curled fingers to his lips like the mouthpiece of a trumpet. “Weee-ooo. Weee-ooo. Temptation alert! Temptation alert! Woman in sector five considering spending her last few dollars on lottery tickets.”

“I am not,” she snapped, then backpedaled. “Well, not exactly.”

“C’mon, Julia, you can’t fool me. Whatever goes through your head shines right out those big baby blues of yours. You cannot tell a lie.”

She edged her car into the sluggish line of traffic creeping up to the expressway. The sign loomed nearer. “I wasn’t seriously considering it, just daydreaming. You know, playing “what if?’”

“Things will work out for the shelter, Julia, you’ll see.” He angled his narrow shoulders toward her and settled his frame into the worn seat.

“I wish I had your positive outlook,” she told her assistant. The car’s engine growled as her foot pressed heavily on the gas pedal. She pulled the steering wheel sharply to the right, following the sloping curve to the expressway. As they pulled parallel to the billboard, she couldn’t resist taking one last, wistful peek.

What she saw made her swerve the car onto the gravel shoulder of the exit ramp, stopping dead-even with the huge sign, which was actually two billboards back-to-back.
Her cluttered keychain jangled as she turned the car off. The engine sputtered and coughed, then finally slumped into silence.

“What are you doing?” Craig demanded.

She pointed to a thin ribbon of smoke spiraling upward between the billboards’ twin support posts with the other hand. Below the sign the green-black glimmer of wind-battered garbage bags covered the space between the posts. “Looks like someone is trying to set up housekeeping without a house.”

She opened her door and swung her long legs out.

Craig lunged across the seat as if to snatch her back inside by her belt loops if he had to. “You can’t save them all, Julia.”

Her feet hit the ground, and she slipped out of the car. “No, but maybe I can save this one.”

She braced herself against the hood of the car, the engine’s warmth seeping into her flattened palms. She narrowed her eyes to size up the situation under the billboard. Satisfied that it was not overtly dangerous, she peeked inside the car again. “It looks pretty typical. Care to join me in extending the hand of welcome?”

Craig set his lips in a thin line and glowered at her.

She shoved up her sweater sleeves and shit him a look that said ‘this is happening, your only choice is whether it happens now or ten minutes from now after I’ve worn you down with my stubbornness’.

Craig huffed and rolled his eyes. The passenger door clanked as he popped it open.

“Oh, and bring that bag of groceries, will you? If whoever is under that sign won’t go to the shelter, at least we can leave those.”

Craig snagged the plastic bag and wrangled it out of the car. “This is your food, Julia,” he protested. “If you give it away, what are you going to eat?”

“I’ll be fine, Craig.” She waved away his very real concern. “It’s not like I can’t stand to lose a few pounds.”

“Maybe you should start by unloading the weight of the world you try to carry on your shoulders,” he called out as she strode away from him.

Julia pretended she didn’t hear. She tugged at her shapeless sweater then stepped lightly up the gentle embankment toward the billboard. Her tattered loafers sank into the muck of the soggy spring ground, the moisture seeping through where the stitches had broken in the sole. She wiggled her chilled toes in her damp socks and tossed back the long tangles of wavy black hair that had fallen over her shoulder.

The chances were that she was about to try to help someone who would be as thrilled with her offer as her assistant was to tag along behind her. Julia trudged on. Even if this unseen person did accept the warmth and safety of the shelter for the night, that was not a long-range solution.
And as temporary solutions went, Julia thought glumly as she scaled the hillside, her foundering shelter seemed more temporary than most. Unless something changed very soon, St. Patrick’s Homeless Shelter would shut down in six short weeks.

Still, she could provide a hot meal and dry place to sleep tonight—and that beat camping out under a billboard.

“Excuse me,” she called out. “I don’t mean you any trouble, but I noticed your campsite.”

No answer.

She glanced at Craig.

He shrugged and cast a longing look back at the car waiting for them.

“Um, I’m the director of St. Patrick’s Homeless Shelter and this is my assistant. We just wanted to let you know we can find you a place to sleep tonight, if you’d like.”

“Be off with you.”

The Irish brogue in the voice coming from beneath the billboard hit Julia like a smack in the face. Was her fascination with the man at the market making her hear things? The firm tone held no hint of threat, just an obvious desire to be left alone, so she decided to press the matter a bit.

“Look, I’m not going to drag you out of there or anything. If you’re an adult, capable of making your own decisions about where you spend the night, it’s not my place to force you into a shelter,” she said in a soothing, yet no-nonsense voice.

The wind whipped her hair across her face and she tossed her head to clear her view. “But it looks like a real storm brewing tonight, and I just wanted you to know there’s a warm bed and hot meal available if you want to get out of the elements for a night.”

“I do no’ wish it,” the voice barked. “And I don’t wish to be having any callers. Now, away with you.”

Once she overcame her shock at the accent, something else about the voice disturbed her. She couldn’t decide what, though. As she tried to pinpoint her misgivings, she realized she couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman speaking. The building howl of the wind and steady whooshing of passing cars didn’t help.

She squinted into the dimming light of the approaching evening and concentrated, hoping the voice would speak again. When it didn’t, she felt she had no choice but to do what she could and go on. “At least let me leave these groceries for you.”

She stretched her arm out to Craig to take the bag filled with the staples she’d hoped would get her through the week.

“Groceries?” Even through the thick accent, suspicion colored the word.

Julia glanced at Craig and gave a confident nod. She’d piqued the person’s interest.

“It isn’t much.” She lifted the bag up. The white plastic rustled in the swirling wind. “Just a few things I picked up on my way home from work.”

“You’d give me the food meant for your own table?” The hushed question in the sweet, lilting brogue seemed to carry on the wind to her.

Julia smiled. She’d made a connection.
She lifted the bag higher. “I only wish it could be more.”

“Tis a trick.”

“No, really, it isn’t."
Her top teeth scraped across her lower lip and she gave Craig an anxious look.

Craig shook his head.
Not this one, Julia,
he seemed to be saying.