The Bridal Bet. Trish Wylie
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voice sounded close to her ear. She hadn’t heard him enter the shop. She turned to look at him, finding his eyes glittering in a ‘gotcha’ kind of a way.
She stared as he turned to wink at Kate. ‘Hi, Kate, how are ya?’ Then, looking back into Molly’s eyes, he added, ‘Do go on. I could stand a few more compliments.’
‘You rat. How long have you been in here?’ She set her hands on his chest to push him out of her way. Instead he stood his ground, and placed his hands over hers to hold them against him. She could feel the beat of his heart against his shirt, was far too aware of his warmth, and was desperately tempted to kick him in the shins. ‘Get out of my way!’
‘Not ’til you agree to come swimming this evening. It’s grand and warm outside. I thought we could eat over by the shore at Doon.’
She glared straight into his melted chocolate eyes, following their gaze as they swept back to Kate’s grinning face. ‘Don’t you think she should come swimming, Kate, on a lovely night like this will be?’
Kate positively glowed back at him. ‘Oh, definitely, Ryan.’
‘See?’ He looked back at her and immediately found himself looking at her mouth. A memory hit his mind uninvited and he frowned slightly. ‘Kate agrees.’
Molly studied his frown, noticed where he was looking, and without thinking moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Dear Lord, but this little game was nearly too easy. ‘Okay, you win. I’ll go.’
Momentarily distracted by what she’d done with her tongue, Ryan had to take a second to focus on what she’d just said. ‘Okay. Uh, I’ll see you later, then.’
Molly smiled at his expression. ‘Okay.’
‘Right.’
Ryan looked at Molly, and Molly looked right back. Kate coughed and the world rocked back into place.
‘Right, then.’ Ryan grinned, released her hands and swung on his heel to leave the shop. ‘Bye, ladies.’
Kate watched him leave and then turned to Molly, fanning her face with one hand. ‘Is it just me, or did it just get real warm in here?’
Having spent the entire morning dodging questions from the ever curious Kate, Molly decided to escape the shop at lunchtime. She got sandwiches and a carton of juice from the cafeteria and then headed out into the warm June sunshine to sit by the main harbour.
Sunglasses on, she took a moment to soak in the atmosphere before tearing open the sandwiches and looking around. With hourly boat tours from the lough’s main harbour, tourists were milling around in an assortment of holiday clothing. It didn’t take long for her to pick Ryan out of the crowd, with him easily one of the tallest men there.
Gorgeous was never a word she would have associated with Ryan. Brad Pitt, yes. But Ryan Callaghan? Nope. Not that she thought he was troll-like. She frowned behind her sunglasses. So, what was he?
In her capacity as an experienced crowd-watcher she glanced around to see if she could find any good-looking men to compare him with. Purely for scientific purposes, of course. She found a fair-haired American who had flirted with her in the shop earlier and then looked at them both.
The American was quite tall—probably six feet—but slim, as was usually typical of taller men. Ryan, on the other hand, was broad across his shoulders and chest. Not fat. Quite definitely not fat. But broad.
The American’s hair was fair, while Ryan’s hair was a rich dark brown—so dark that when the light hit it it shone. Biting into her sandwich, Molly supposed that was fairly attractive.
The American had an open smiling face, with pale eyes that had teased when he’d flirted with Molly. Ryan’s face could be lots of different things, depending on his mood at the time. But most of all, regardless of his straight, even features and strong chin, he had an honest face. Molly had always liked the fact that she could read just about every emotion from Ryan’s face.
A soft smile touched her mouth as she watched him run across the harbour to give a small girl the stuffed bear she had just dropped. The little girl smiled, then giggled as he spoke to her, and Molly didn’t have to see his face to know what it would be like. He’d always had that gentle look in his eyes when he’d teased her the first year they met. Without trying he had a way of drawing a smile out of a person, no matter how old they were.
That was the one thing she would never deny about Ryan. He was a genuinely nice guy. Molly smiled all the more when she thought about how much he would hate being told so, but he was.
Green eyes followed him until he walked out of her sight, his body moving in long strides that spoke of a silent confidence in his own strength. Then, her gaze falling onto the water, Molly finished her lunch.
Kate was right. She had never really thought about it, but Kate was right. Ryan was a gorgeous man. More than that, he was a nice, caring, gorgeous man. Shame, really. He just wasn’t Molly’s usual type. She’d never even been attracted to someone like him in her entire life. Just as well, she surmised, otherwise she might have got hurt in this latest game of theirs.
Molly’s eighteenth birthday
It wasn’t Ryan who kissed Molly on her eighteenth birthday. By then their worlds had changed and so, in many ways, had they. By her eighteenth birthday the two friends had become three, and then two of the three had become a pair. ‘I can’t believe you kept him secret from me for so long,’ Molly challenged him with one elegantly raised eyebrow. ‘Did you do it to torture me, or were you waiting ’til I had straight teeth?’
‘As if I’d want to inflict you on any of my other friends.’
She surprised him then, by leaning forward and planting a warm kiss on his cheek. ‘I love you, you know.’
Ryan wiggled his eyebrows ridiculously. ‘Yeah, yeah—you and half the female population. I know.’
One elegant fingernail tapped on the end of his nose. ‘Well, I was first, and don’t you forget it.’
He reached out to steady her arms as she swayed towards him, smiling indulgently. ‘And you, my red-haired friend, are a little the worse for birthday juice, aren’t you?’
‘Me? Why, Callaghan, I’m shocked you could even think such a thing.’ She wrapped her arms around his waist, smiling up at him from his shoulder. ‘But I am having a really great birthday. How ’bout you?’
Dark eyes shone down into green. ‘It’s not my birthday.’
‘I know that. But are you having a great time?’
‘With you? Always.’ Molly frowned at him with an all too familiar pout on her full lips. ‘You’re teasing me.’
‘Would I?’
‘Yes. But you know what?’
‘Go on, O’Brien, amaze me.’ He smiled again. ‘What?’
‘I forgive you.’
Placing one strong arm around her slender waist, he half carried her towards an empty table. ‘Well, I’m relieved about that. Now, why don’t you just have a wee rest at this little table for a while and I’ll find you some nice birthday coffee?’
Slumping down into the offered chair, Molly looked up at him. She frowned for a moment, looked around, and then patted the chair beside her. ‘Sit down. I want to talk to you.’
‘I’ll just get some of that nice birthday coffee first.’
‘No!’ She grabbed hold of his shirtsleeve. ‘No, now.’
Ryan watched as the wheels slowly turned in her head. Then she smiled at him. Looking at him from beneath long darkened eyelashes, she was positively flirtatious, and for some reason he couldn’t stop himself from noticing it. Damn but she’d grown up. And it wasn’t just the removal of her braces that had got her noticed by Kieran, his university roommate.