The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [96]
Mary Kathleen enjoyed her new role. Before, her husband had been the boss; now she herself was there every lunchtime and every evening, chatting to the customers and graciously accepting their rough compliments as she pocketed their money. Within a year they had money in the bank and in a few years they were prosperous. She kept telling Shamus that it was time he looked for a nice Irish girl to marry; he should settle down and give her a few grandchildren to indulge in her old age. After all, she said, he could afford it now.
Shamus knew he could afford it, but a wife and children demanded a man’s time, and who would run the saloon if he wasn’t there every night? No, marriage would have to wait. Five years later there was a fair amount of money in the bank as well as one or two little property investments Shamus had made up in the hills of New Jersey. Then Kathleen Mary died suddenly of a heart attack, still without her grandchildren and still living in three rooms behind the saloon.
As he buried her Shamus wept tears of anger and shame that he had never bought her a little house of her own where she could have passed her final years peacefully, and he told himself that when he finally did marry, no wife of his would ever live in three rooms behind a bar.
He reminded himself of that now as Missie swung through the doors, flinging him a brief smile as she hung up her coat and began briskly to sweep the sawdust and litter from the floor.
O’Hara watched her longingly. It had been three months since he had asked her to marry him, and he still didn’t have an answer. In fact she had never mentioned it since the funeral, and he had held back, waiting patiently for her to recover from the blow of Sofia’s death. But time was moving on: He was a man with important matters on his mind, a man who wanted answers—now.
His heart melted as he looked at her, working busily as though if she did her work in half the time she could escape earlier … but she could not. He paid her by the day and she was his as long as he needed her. It was his way of guaranteeing she would always be there. Except now he knew he needed her for a lifetime.
She felt his eyes on her and glanced up. He smiled beguilingly and said, “Missie, it occurs to me that you and I have never been alone together. Now you know I’m a busy man. The saloon opens every day and every night and that niver leaves a man a minute to himself, let alone for a woman. But tomorrow I intend on closing it—on one condition.”
She stared at him, surprised. “What condition?”
“I’ll close, if you will do me the honor of taking lunch with me.”
She stared at him again, hardly believing her ears, and then she laughed. He felt the color rising in his face as she said, “You want to take me out to lunch? But why, O’Hara? We see each other every day except Sunday! And we eat lunch together here at this very counter every day too. So, why?”
He took a cigar from the box on the mirrored shelves behind the bar, lighting it busily. “I meant it as a surprise,” he said sadly. “Dammit, Missie, I thought it would please you.”
He ran his hand through his mop of red curls, looking pleadingly at her as she walked to the counter. She leaned her elbows on it, staring at him doubtfully. “O’Hara,” she said, “maybe this is a mistake. I’m not the girl you think I am. You don’t even know the real me.”
“That’s exactly why I want to take you out, so we can get to know each other better,” he said, his old jaunty grin returning. “Away from here we can both be ourselves. Besides,” he said, placing his large hand over hers, “I’ve something