Love and Shamrocks: Ballybeg, Book 5 Read online

  LOVE AND SHAMROCKS

  A BALLYBEG ROMANCE (BOOK 5)

  ZARA KEANE

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  Table of Contents

  About This Book

  A Note On Gaelic Terms

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Her Treasure Hunter Ex (Ballybeg Bad Boys, #1)

  Other Books by Zara

  About Zara

  The Ballybeg Belles

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Love and Shamrocks (Ballybeg, #5)

  Trouble in Dublin, True Love in Ballybeg

  Clio Havelin needs a lucky break. Desperate to protect her child, Clio accepts her estranged mother’s offer of a refuge in Ballybeg. What can go wrong in a place with more cows than people? Her hope for a fresh start is smashed to smithereens when she’s blackmailed into facilitating the heist of the decade. So the last thing Clio needs is a sexy cop underfoot, especially when she’s one crime away from freedom. Too bad she’s already slept with him.

  Seán Mackey wants his life back. The former police detective is now stuck apprehending errant sheep in Ballybeg — population 3968, pubs 35. After months of frustration, he’s finally on the scent of a real case. When he’s sidelined into playing bodyguard for his nemesis, talk show hostess Helen Havelin, he’s pissed. And when his gorgeous one-night stand turns out to be Helen’s daughter, Clio, pissed turns to horrified.

  Love and Shenanigans (Ballybeg #1)

  Love and Blarney (Ballybeg #2)

  Love and Leprechauns (Ballybeg #3)

  Love and Mistletoe (Ballybeg #4)

  Love and Shamrocks (Ballybeg #5)

  Her Treasure Hunter Ex (Ballybeg Bad Boys #1) July 2015

  The Rock Star Next Door (Ballybeg Bad Boys #2) Fall 2015

  Be the first to know when there’s a new Ballybeg story! Join my mailing list!

  ZaraKeane.com

  For April. Thank you for all your support over the years.

  A Note On Gaelic Terms

  Certain Gaelic terms appear in this book. I have tried to use them sparingly and in contexts that should make their meaning clear to international readers. However, a couple of words require clarification.

  The official name for the Irish police force is An Garda Síochána (“the Guardian of the Peace”). Police are Gardaí (plural) and Garda (singular). They are commonly referred to as “the Guards”. I’ve kept the use of these terms to a minimum but I do use them in reference to Garda Brian Glenn’s rank and when naming the local police station (Ballybeg Garda Station).

  The Irish police do not, as a rule, carry firearms. Permission to carry a gun is reserved to specialist units, such as the Emergency Response Unit. The police in Ballybeg would not have been issued with firearms, hence there are no references to holsters, guns, or shooting ranges.

  While I have used American spelling conventions in this book, I haven't changed the spelling of Traveller or Travellers.

  A halting site is a facility constructed and maintained by local authorities for Travellers to park their caravans on. Halting sites are controversial among the settled community.

  Prologue

  Dublin, Ireland

  FOR THE FIRST time since completing her twelve-step program, Clio Havelin regretted rehab. If she’d been high, she could have ascribed the entire situation to a drug-induced hallucination. Not having so much as a drop of caffeine in her bloodstream, she didn’t have that luxury. This was happening. This was real. And the reality of being in a tiny police interview room listening to pat reassurances made her blood boil.

  Clio pushed back her chair from the cheap plastic table and struggled to breathe. “What do you mean you’re not pursuing the investigation further? How can you not?”

  The fleshy police inspector seated opposite exchanged a significant glance with his younger female colleague. The blond woman adopted what Clio assumed was her standard expression of bland sympathy and leaned forward in a confiding manner. “We’ve done everything we can do, as has the school. Without Tammy’s cooperation, the case won’t stand up in court. There’s no physical evidence and no eyewitnesses. In short, there’s absolutely nothing to support your claim that Mr. O’Leary engaged in improper relations with your daughter.”

  “Improper relations?” Clio’s nails dug into her palms. “Call a spade a spade. Trevor O’Leary had sex with his fourteen-year-old pupil. How can you sit here and tell me you’re not going to charge him? What about the other girls he’s done this to? What about the girls he will do this to if you don’t stop him?” An icy trickle of fear made the hair on her nape stand to attention. “If you don’t charge him, the school will have to lift his suspension. He’ll be back teaching impressionable teenagers.”

  The blonde’s practiced calm faltered, and she exchanged an uncertain glance with her superior officer.

  Inspector Fahey loosened his tie and cleared his throat. “I understand your dismay, Ms. Havelin,” he said. “We take allegations of abuse of minors seriously, believe me, but the only evidence we had to present to the judge was your statement. No one else has come forward to make allegations against Mr. O’Leary. And as we’ve already clarified, even your own daughter refuses to make a statement to support your claim.”

  “But you believe me.” She looked from one to the other. “I can see it in your faces. You know what I’m saying is true.”

  “It doesn’t matter what we believe.” The inspector gave a weary sigh. “It doesn’t even matter what the judge believes. The prosecution can’t build a case without something to create sufficient probable cause at the very least. O’Leary denies everything, and Tammy says you’re lying.” He shoved his chair back and stood, his junior officer following his lead. “If your daughter changes her mind about making a statement, give us a call.”

  The recycled air in the interview room tickled the back of Clio’s throat, bringing forth an asthmatic cough. The nagging suspicion that had plagued her since the start of this disastrous interview came to the fore. “Is this because I have a criminal record?”

  The man hesitated in the doorway. “It certainly didn’t help me sell your story to the higher-ups, that’s for sure.”

  She swore beneath her breath. No matter how many years had passed since her trial, no matter how many honest jobs she’d held since, she’d always be a convicted thief and drug addict in the eyes of the law. Meanwhile, Trevor O’Leary was con
sidered a respectable music teacher without so much as a speeding ticket to besmirch his good name. Bastard. Clio’s hands balled into fists. She itched to punch the fecker’s smug face and to kick him where it truly hurt.

  “Your friend is waiting outside,” Fahey said, holding the door ajar.

  Still reeling, Clio got to her feet and followed the police officers out to the lobby.

  Both the police sergeant and his junior colleague proffered hands. Clio shook them with barely concealed distaste.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help,” the woman said with genuine regret. “If anything else crops up, give us a call.”

  Clio gave a stiff nod and shoved open the door of Rathmines Garda Station. Outside, Emma was leaning against a metal railing, tapping a restless foot against the pavement. Today’s ensemble screamed New Age hippy, complete with a tie-dyed hair band that did little to control her wild blond curls. Emma straightened the instant she spotted Clio. “Oh, no,” she said, searching her face. “It didn’t go well.”

  “No, it did not.” Clio wound her scarf around her neck and marched down Rathgar Road at speed, forcing her friend to scramble to keep up with her furious pace. “They’re going to let the bastard get away with sexually exploiting a minor. He’s even going to get his job back.”

  “Clio.” Emma panted. “Slow down and talk to me. I know you’re upset—”

  “Upset doesn’t even begin to cover it.” The pulse at the base of Clio’s throat throbbed.

  “—but you shouldn’t do anything rash.”

  Their eyes locked. Emma had known Clio since the bad old days, back when Emma’s family had fostered Tammy for a couple of years before Clio got clean. Insofar as it was possible to know everything about another person, Emma knew everything there was to know about her, and vice versa.

  “I’m not letting O’Leary get away with this. He’s thirty years old, for goodness sake. What sort of a sick bastard takes advantage of a fourteen-year-old?” Hot tears stung Clio’s eyes. She brushed them away with the back of one hand while flipping out her phone with the other. “Tammy is still in touch with him, and I don’t trust her not to meet him, even if she changes schools.”

  Emma sighed. “She thinks she’s in love with him.”

  “Even worse.” Clio gave a bitter laugh. “She thinks he’s in love with her.”

  They came to a halt outside the redbrick Edwardian house where she and her daughter shared the top-floor apartment.

  Emma toyed with a stray pebble on the pavement. “Maybe you should consider taking your mother up on her offer.”

  “What?” Clio’s jaw dropped. “You’re advising me to drag Tammy to a spit-and-you-miss-it little town in Cork? And move in with my mother? What about the agency?”

  Her friend grimaced. “Reilly Investigations isn’t inundated with business at the moment. I’d cope on my own. A fresh start might be exactly what you and Tammy need.”

  “Moving back to Dublin from Barcelona was supposed to be our fresh start.” What a mess that’s turned out to be.

  Emma tossed her windblown hair over her shoulder. “Think it over. It would put over three hundred kilometers between O’Leary and Tammy. Much harder for them to meet. After all that’s happened, a new environment and a new school might be what she needs.”

  Clio squeezed her eyes shut for an instant and shook her head. “The sticking point is my mother. We’ve taken tentative steps toward a reconciliation, but living together is a whole other level.”

  “Only on weekends, right? You said she’d be away filming her show Monday through Friday.”

  “Yeah…”

  “In other words, you’d be living in the house on your own with Tammy five out of seven days.” Her friend’s blue eyes burned with earnest conviction. “I don’t think that’s a bad deal. Helen can be a pain, but she’s not a monster. If she’s willing to pay the fees for Tammy to attend a private school, they’re likely to provide extra tuition to help her catch up on the work she’s missed over the past couple of months. She has the Junior Certificate coming up in June, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, she does.” If Tammy didn’t get good grades in the first set of state exams, her options for the final three years of secondary school would narrow. “I hear what you’re saying, but I’d have to be seriously desperate to move into my mother’s house, even if she’d only be there for part of the week.”

  “Just consider it, okay?”

  “I promise I’ll talk it over with Tammy,” she said with reluctance, “but I don’t think she’s any more keen to live with Helen than I am.”

  Emma’s phone beeped an insistent reminder. “Two o’clock already? I’d better get moving.”

  Clio nodded toward her friend’s cell phone screen. “The O’Brien case?”

  “Yeah. Fortunately for their marriage, but unfortunately for our bottom line, I don’t think Gerry O’Brien is cheating on his wife. This case is likely to wrap up quickly. Until I can confirm my gut feeling, though, I’m supposed to trail the husband. He’s due to meet friends at the organic market in Temple Bar.” Emma tugged at the tie-dyed headband. “Hence the outfit.”

  “At least you get to put your acting skills to good use,” Clio said. “Your years on the stage make it easy for you to slip into a role and follow someone without them noticing.”

  “I set up the private investigation agency because I was struggling to find acting jobs. Who’d have thought I’d spend most of my time in disguise?” Emma stepped forward and gave her friend a hug. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your attempt to deflect the conversation onto me. Will you be all right on your own?”

  Clio hugged her friend back. “I’ll be fine. Go and catch errant husbands.”

  “Take care of yourself,” Emma said, concern forming a frown line on her otherwise smooth forehead, “and don’t do anything stupid.”

  She gave a wan smile. “You know me too well.”

  As soon as her friend’s wild curls disappeared down the street, Clio switched on her phone and scrolled through her list of contacts. Her index finger hovered over one particular name. If she called Tammy’s father, Trevor O’Leary would never bother Tammy again. Hell, if she called her ex, Trevor O’Leary would never bother anyone ever again.

  She shut her eyes and dragged oxygen into her lungs. No, even O’Leary didn’t deserve such a fate. All she wanted was for him to stay away from her daughter, not wind up dead. Who else did she know with the power to scare the crap out of a person? Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she dialed a number not saved on her phone but imprinted on her memory. It was time to call in an old favor.

  Chapter One

  Six Weeks Later

  Ballybeg, County Cork, Ireland

  SERGEANT SEÁN MACKEY weighed the weapon of mass destruction in one gloved hand and surveyed the scene of the crime. “Let me get this straight. Armed with an air rifle and a bottle of Jameson, you shot a bird through your closed living room window? While naked?”

  Seán’s Uncle John-Joe, aka the Swimming Elvis, hiccupped, swayed, and groped for the mantelpiece. He was clad in tight swimming trunks and a grubby wifebeater, his graying Elvis quiff limp and screaming for shampoo. John-Joe was none too clean, none too sober, and none too cooperative. At least he was no longer in his birthday suit. “Bit of a mess, eh?” he said after another hiccup.

  “Bit of a mess” was an understatement. On the other side of the broken window, feathers, pellets, and broken glass lay strewn across the patio of the Fitzgeralds’ tiny garden. Some joker had drawn an outline of a robin redbreast in the snow, CSI-style.

  Seán rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. Jaysus. He needed a Dublin transfer pronto, preferably to vice. He’d take prostitutes and drug dealers over outlaw relatives any day. “How did you get your paws on a high-end air rifle?” he asked in the tone he usually reserved for recalcitrant rookies and crooks. “I didn’t have you pegged as a small-game hunter.”

  The older man’s tongue darte
d between his lips, reptilelike. His beady eyes swiveled toward his wife.

  Aunt Nora was kneeling on the living room carpet, surrounded by broken glass and pulverized porcelain. Firing the air rifle at close range against the hard, flat surface of the window had caused glass to shatter and pellets to ricochet. All but one of her beloved knickknacks had been blown to smithereens—the statuette of the Virgin Mary remained intact, her expression serene amidst the chaos. Seán’s mouth twitched at the incongruity.

  “My Dalmatians,” she moaned, clutching a severed porcelain head to her fluffy peach bathrobe. Although her impossibly black hair was still in curlers, Nora wore full war paint. When they were kids, he and his brother, Dex, had speculated their aunt must either reapply her makeup before going to bed or wake up at an ungodly hour to ensure she looked her best.

  Instinct drove Seán to touch her shoulder. Experience made him recoil. For a millisecond, he was hurtled back twenty-five years to happier times. The nostalgic taste of his aunt’s apple tart, the sugary smell of his tenth birthday party, and the sweet sight of his mother’s smile. His mother…A dull ache of grief settled between his shoulder blades, erasing the happy memories in an instant. He flexed his spine, shrugging off the past. He had no time for sentimentality. “Nora, where did John-Joe get the gun?”

  His aunt placed the broken china dog on the carpet and pushed herself to her feet. “From that fool, Buck MacCarthy,” she said through pursed scarlet lips.

  Seán knew Buck. He was a fisherman with more hair than sense. Which, in Buck’s case, wasn’t saying much. “Why does Buck need an air rifle?”

  John-Joe shrugged, his tongue poking a bulge in one cheek. “How should I know?”

  “What did the bird do to warrant you firing several shots at it and turning your living room into a disaster zone?”

  “It was plaguing me. Kept banging against the window and causing a racket.”

  “So you decided to shoot it?” Seán’s eyebrow arched north. “Bit extreme, don’t you think?”

  His uncle’s scowl created a unibrow. “Not right away. Not till it flew inside and shat all over my costume.” He pointed toward the rhinestoned monstrosity slung over the sofa.