An O'brien Family Christmas. Sherryl Woods
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Laila arrived in Dublin with the first wave of O’Briens. The rest—Thomas and Connie, Jake and Bree, Connor and Heather, Kevin and Shanna—weren’t arriving for a few more days. There were so many of them that Mick had chartered a bus to take them to the hotel after the overnight flight.
Somehow Laila had ended up seated next to Matthew, who turned out to be a surprisingly adept tour guide. He pointed out all the sights and offered one amusing anecdote after another as they rode toward St. Stephen’s Green and their hotel in the heart of downtown Dublin.
When she managed to tear her gaze away from the ornate, colorful doorways decorated with lush holly wreaths and the window boxes overflowing with ivy, evergreens and bright flowers, she turned to find him regarding her with amusement.
“What?” she demanded.
“You’re as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.”
“You’ve been here before. I haven’t. It’s everything I imagined it would be.”
He smiled at that. “Glad you came?”
She ignored the last of her reservations about being here in such close proximity to him. “Very glad,” she said, unable to tear her gaze away from his.
He attempted a frown. “Now, don’t be looking at me like that, with your eyes all sparkly and dreamy.”
She nearly laughed at his suddenly solemn expression. “Why is that?”
“You’ll be giving me ideas, and I’ve made a promise to you to keep my hands to myself. It’s nearly impossible when you look at me like that. I’m a mere mortal, and no mortal man can be ignoring the invitation I’m seeing in your eyes.”
For a moment Laila had forgotten all about the promise, all about her own resolve to make this trip about Nell’s happiness and Susie’s, about sightseeing and enjoying a new holiday experience, and not about Matthew and her thoroughly confusing feelings about him. Now all of that ripped through her, leaving her with a whole passel of conflicting emotions.
“Good point,” she replied, trying to match his solemn tone. “I’ll have to watch myself.” She quickly looked out the window again. “Now, where are we exactly?”
Matthew leaned closer to peer out the window, deliberately crowding her, if she wasn’t mistaken. He grinned when she scowled at him.
“Lost my head,” he claimed, moving back before pointing out various highlights of the shopping along Grafton Street.
At the hotel, rooms were quickly assigned, luggage deposited. Left alone, Laila gazed with regret at the huge comfortable bed and its fluffy down comforter. It was going to be very lonely, especially knowing that she could have been sharing it with Matthew.
When there was a tap on the door, she threw it open, relieved to have her train of thought interrupted. Unfortunately, though, it was Matthew himself in the hallway.
“I thought you might be too excited to be taking a nap,” he said. “How about breakfast and then a walk through the neighborhood? Who knows when the sun will be shining brightly like this again? We should take advantage of it, and that should tire you out so you can catch a couple of hours of sleep before the family festivities get into full swing late this afternoon. Uncle Mick’s taken over an entire pub for tonight, I think. He believes we should start as we intend to finish—with Irish music, a hearty meal and a few pints of Guinness.”
Laila hesitated, then shrugged. She knew sleep was out of the question, and Matthew’s company on a busy street was no more dangerous than lying alone in that decadent bed thinking about him and wishing he were there with her.
“Give me two minutes to freshen up,” she said, hurrying to wash her face, run a brush through her hair and spritz herself with a light fragrance she knew Matthew liked.
When she walked back into the bedroom, she looked down at her clothes and frowned. “This outfit looks as if it’s been slept in, which it has. I should change.”
“You look fine,” he assured her. “If you look too perfect, I’ll be fighting off men on every corner.”
She laughed. “Now, there’s the O’Brien blarney in full force. Come on. I’m starving.”
To her surprise, they were the only members of the family in the hotel dining room.
“I thought for sure some of the others would be down here,” she said, glancing around.
“You worried about being alone with me, sweetheart?”
“Hardly,” she fibbed. “I just assumed everybody else would be too excited to settle down right away, too, especially Carrie and Caitlyn. They were bouncing up and down with energy on the bus to the hotel.”
“Oh, believe me, those two were so hyped up after the flight that Trace and Abby immediately headed to the park across the street so they could run wild.” He studied her. “Would you feel better if we joined them?”
Laila considered the offer for a split second. “No way,” she replied. “The food’s here.”
She ordered a pot of tea, a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with fresh berries, along with scrambled eggs and toast. She studied the menu warily. “Do I want to try some of these more traditional things?”
Matthew chuckled. “Probably not on the first day,” he advised, then ordered the same things she had.
After they’d ordered and the waiter had brought their tea, she sat back and looked around the hotel dining room. It could have been any hotel anywhere in the world, but it was Dublin! And, risky though it was, she was here with Matthew!
“I can’t believe I’m really here,” she said happily.
“Are you glad you changed your mind about coming?”
“Yes. I would have hated to miss this.”
He leaned forward as if he had something more to say, only to see Luke appear, pull out a chair and join them. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, though he was already seated.
Matthew frowned at his younger brother. “I thought you were going to rest or go for a run or something.”
“I ran. I showered. And now I’m ready for a full Irish breakfast,” he said, looking around for their waiter.
“Did it even occur to you that you might be interrupting?” Matthew asked testily.
Luke gave him an innocent look. “Interrupting what? The way you explained it to me, you two are adhering to a hands-off policy while in Ireland, which is why you’re in my room instead of Laila’s.”
Laila nearly choked on a sip of tea. She frowned at Matthew. “You told him that?”
“Well, I had to explain why I needed to bunk with him, didn’t I?”
“He did,” Luke concurred. “Because I was hoping to get lucky on this trip and now my plans for a thoroughly raucous holiday are seriously thwarted.”
Laila studied Luke’s expression and thought she detected a hint of sadness behind the cavalier attitude. “You aren’t seriously missing Kristen Lewis, are you? I thought that was over, or that it was some kind of ploy to keep her away from Mack, whatever.”
“Kristen and I had fun, no question about it,” Luke said. “But that’s all it was.”
Laila heard the false note in his voice and shook her head. “Not buying it. It might have started out that way, but something changed. You fell for her, didn’t you?”
Matthew regarded her with surprise. “You can’t be serious. Luke and Kristen? It was a fling.” He turned to Luke. “Right, bro?”
“Sort of