LITMIR.BIZ

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her poke her head around the corner leading to the back of the store. He waved and lifted the box in his hand so she could see it.

      She didn’t exactly come running to unlock the door, but she didn’t wave him off, either. It was a start. He laughed silently at himself. How pathetic was this? He could hear his assorted cousins and relatives now. You’ve a full life, Sean Gallagher, but when it comes to the fairer sex, you’re a sad, sorry man. Women throwing themselves at you all but nightly, yet you subject yourself to this.

      Of course, said women usually came into Gallagher’s in packs, and had imbibed perhaps more than what was strictly recommended, then simply behaved accordingly. Not exactly the sort of behavior to get his attention, at least not in a positive way. His cousins—the female ones—told him women needed the extra courage of a drink or two because he was “too intimidating” to approach. Good looking, successful, single, usually topped their list of reasons why, along with workaholic, no life, unwilling to commit to anything other than running the restaurant. The male side of the family mostly scratched their collective heads and wondered, aloud, and at great length, why he wasn’t taking them all to bed. Hourly. And not necessarily one at a time.

      He basically avoided the conversations regarding his bachelor status, especially after hitting thirty, rather than subject himself to their endless and highly detailed theories, and worse, their plans to “fix” the situation. Which, to his mind, didn’t need fixing. Yes, most of the Gallagher clan began adding to the massive, mutant-size family tree long before his ripe old age of thirty-two. But most of them didn’t carry the burdens he did, either, even if he did so willingly. He considered his life to be a full and content one. It just also happened to be one that wasn’t all that conducive to conducting a long-term relationship.

      Which was the other sad, sorry truth of why he was standing outside Holly’s door in the middle of the night, a box of food in one hand and a hopeful smile on his face. The wee hours were pretty much his only free time. He watched as she unlocked the door, noting that her smile had been brief and not entirely welcoming. In fact, she looked quite tired and perhaps a bit more weary around the eyes—which weren’t currently making any direct contact with his—than simply a long flight followed by a long day and now night, might warrant. He’d thought a personally cooked meal might be welcome, but now he wondered if perhaps she was more in need of a warm shoulder.

      “Hey,” he said when she pushed the door open. “I was closing up and saw your light was still on back there. I used to bring your mom a meal on occasion when she was doing the books or working on orders late. I thought you might appreciate one as well. I know it’s been a long day for you.”

      She did look at him then, and before she could mask the weariness with a polite smile, her expression said it all. Long day didn’t begin to cover it, apparently. “I—that’s very nice of you. You really didn’t need to. I ordered down at Jimmy’s earlier, for a sub.”

      He could have told her it had been over eight hours ago when he’d seen Jimmy’s little brother pulling up in front of Santa’s Workshop with the carryout sign stuck to the roof of his pickup truck, but then he’d have to explain why he’d been noticing things like that. “It’s shepherd’s pie,” he told her. “You can always reheat it tomorrow. It’s always better the second day anyway. There’s a salad in there, too. And some rolls.”

      She took the bag from him. “You really didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”

      “It’s no trouble. I do it for a living, remember?” He was trying to alleviate the tension a little, put her at ease, but it appeared she was well beyond standing around making polite small talk. Not that he could blame her. “Is everything okay?” he heard himself ask, then immediately wanted to kick himself for doing so. Clearly she was not okay, and just as clearly, she didn’t appreciate being not okay in front of him. Still, it wasn’t in him to just turn and walk away.

      She frowned briefly, seemingly surprised by the question, then her expression smoothed again. “It’s been a long day; there’s a lot to do.” She lifted the bag. “Thank you for this; it was very thoughtful.”

      “If there’s anything else I can do to help—”

      “You’ve already gone above and beyond the call of duty here.”

      “Like I said, it’s what I do, and I saw the light on.” He tried a smile. “I also make a good listener. Family my size, you learn early. It can’t be easy, leaving England, coming back to your hometown, taking over the business.”

      She held the bag a little closer to her chest, like a shield, but didn’t say anything.

      “If it helps, I know a little something about that.”

      She dipped her chin, and he found himself reaching out to tip it back up again. “Hey, I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. But I do know about having plans derailed and a life you never thought you’d end up with being dumped in your lap.”

      She stared into his eyes and for the first time he felt he was really looking at Holly Bennett.

      “You probably think I’m being a bit of a spoiled brat,” she said. “I mean, you came home because of an unspeakable tragedy, while my parents just retired. Which, at their age—”

      “Yes, but most parents don’t retire and head off to a new life and dump their old life on their only child.”

      She tilted her head slightly. “I thought you and my parents were friends.”

      “We are. I love your folks. But that doesn’t mean I automatically vouch for all their decisions.”

      “Did you regret coming back to run your family restaurant? You seem—”

      “Happy? I am. Very. And I didn’t necessarily expect to be. Turned out that all my training has benefited me just as much, if not more, in taking over Gallagher’s as it would have if I’d gone off on my own in D.C. like I planned. But I was lucky. I was already heading in a direction very similar to my folks, and their folks before them. It was more a detour down the same path than a whole new journey.”

      “If you had come back and hadn’t been happy…would you have stayed anyway?”

      “I don’t know. I have the benefit of coming from a very large family. So, it’s possible I’d have trained one of them, or a handful of them, to take over, and I’d have gone back to my original plan of opening a more upscale establishment. They’d have only been a few hours apart, so it’s possible I could have run one and overseen the management of the other.”

      “Why didn’t you go ahead and do that anyway? Have your cake and all that?”

      He smiled easily. “Because I am happy here. I learned why it was that generations of Gallaghers have cooked and run restaurants, here and in Ireland. It suits me…perhaps more than that other world ever would have. And I still have the training. It’s affected the menu here and there. I get to play a little with things that interest me. So I think I am having my cake.”

      She nodded, then fell silent again, apparently lost in thought.

      “You know,” he said at length, “you didn’t follow in your parents’ footsteps, in terms of being a shopkeeper, or even in the antiques business, right? Your mom said you are an artist.”

      “I’m in advertising.”

      Sean knew that, but he also knew that, according to her mom, anyway, it was just what paid the bills. Art was her passion. “No one is going to fault you if you decide this isn’t for you. Your mom—”

      “Says she’d be fine with whatever my decision is.”

      “Well, then…?”

      Holly sighed lightly. “That’s what she says. But it’s not how I feel. Now that I’m here. I know what this meant to her. If she was truly okay with dismantling it, she’d have done so.”

      “There’s a difference between being okay with it no longer being here…and quite another

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