nodded with a happy smile. A lot of Miami girls wouldn’t dare jump on for fear of messing up their hair.
“For you, mija? That is an easy enough promise to make.” He held the palm of his hand out for a down-low high-five and when she met it his fingers folded around hers. And for just a few seconds—if someone had been looking—they would have seemed like an ordinary couple holding hands. What he wouldn’t give for a slice of ordinary right now. Or normal, whatever that was. Something that didn’t feel like suffocating in the place he should’ve felt most at home.
He glanced to his right.
Maybe this was just what he’d needed when he’d decided to leave the military and face his past. Even if just for a few micromoments, when he was holding hands with Saoirse, he felt...free. Unencumbered by the past that made coming home so painful. An Everest of issues. That was what he was facing. And if Saoirse’s presence in his life was that all-important oxygen tank? He could start to breathe just that little bit more easily.
* * *
Saoirse tugged her hand out of Santi’s as nonchalantly as a girl who was having a panic attack could.
As long as conversations were about medicine, motorbikes or her upcoming track sessions she was cool. But being touched by Santiago and feeling amazing when it happened? She couldn’t go there.
Pals, buddies, workmates? Good.
Tingly, giggly, girlie feelings? Bad.
Muy bad, as Santi would say. Not that she’d started stealing his go-to phrases or anything.
Maybe just accepting the fact her visa was going to run out soon would be the best option. It might not be pretty, but she didn’t have to live a double life back in Ireland. Everyone knew she wasn’t marrying Tom or going to have children—so no awkward conversations there. Virtually the entire village she’d grown up in had borne witness to her standing on her lonesome at the altar...just a few minutes after they’d all gasped with pleasure when she’d appeared at the doorway of the church in all her bridal glory. So...if she buckled and went back, she could comfortably look forward to a lifetime of people talking behind their hands and a wealth of pitying looks being shot her way as she pootled toward an eternity of spinsterhood.
Gah!
Alternatively...
There were nunneries liberally dappled across Ireland, all of them as keen as anything for nurses to show up and care for their aging populations... She scrunched her eyes shut for a second, trying to picture herself in a wimple.
Not too bad.
“What was that?” Santi was looking at her curiously.
Uh-oh. Out-loud voice strikes again.
“I was just agreeing. Belatedly. About the day. Not bad.”
Excellent cover, you ol’ smooth operator, you! She shot through the sliding glass doors of the ER, grateful for the blast of air-con on her flushed skin. “You can just stay here while I go find—”
“Ah! There you are.” Amanda was by her side and reaching for her backpack before Saoirse had a chance to register the fact her friend was all sun-dressed up, bikini strings snaking around from the back of her neck. “It’s hot out. Want to come for a swim before James has a look at this?”
“Ah, well...”
Amanda was quicker than Saoirse at picking up the situation. “Sorry, my bad. James said he wanted a swim à deux today. The joys of married life!” She wriggled her wedding band hand in front of the pair of them then tipped her index finger down toward Saoirse’s backpack. “This got everything in it?”
“Yes.” Saoirse nodded, suddenly very aware her entire life was in the green backpack and that Santiago was bearing witness to the handover. Her fingers tightened around the top of it as if all of her lacy panties were going to come flying out if her grip wasn’t secure enough.
Santi laughed. “Good grief, Murphy. You look like you’re about to hand over state secrets.”
Saoirse tried to wipe the panic-stricken expression off her face as Amanda jumped in, her face wreathed in smiles. “Close enough, Santiago! The truth is, we need someone to marry our little Irish Rose here or else she’s going to get shipped back outta Dodge in a few short months. As you’ve probably figured out, she’s here on a student trainee visa and once the course is up...?”
She made a get-outta-Dodge signal with her thumb. “Back to Ireland. My husband is an immigration lawyer. He’s going to check over all of her paperwork to make sure there isn’t something else we can do, maybe extend the student thing, but our girl’s a bit too bright for her own good and the clock is ticking. Since the last thing in the world she can do is go back to Ireland, we’ve got to find her a path to a green card. And fast. Like...” she paused for effect “...a quickie marriage, for example.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Saoirse’s jaw hung open in disbelief. A puff of air-con could’ve knocked her over.
“This Murphy?” Santi asked, finger pointing at Saoirse, eyes trained on Amanda, who had mysteriously become the source of all wisdom. “What’s she done that she can’t go home? Committed a felony or something?”
“No. But her ex-fiancé near enough did.”
Saoirse’s eyes swung from one face to the other, each chatting about the darkest moment in her life as if it were a daytime soap.
“What did he do?” He gave Saoirse’s shoulder a little pat, the kindly sort a person would give to a toddler whose ice cream had just plopped onto a hot sidewalk after they’d had their first satisfying lick of salted caramel. Or something like that.
She gave him a hooded look and muttered, “I don’t really think that’s any of your business.” Not that she was being offered even the slightest bit of participation in this conversation.
“He abandoned our beautiful, blushing bride here. At the altar,” Amanda added with award-winning dramatics.
“Oh, for the love of—”
“Uh-uh, honey. Not done yet.” Amanda gave her the conciliatory pat on the shoulder this time. “In my book? What he did to Murph is totally a jail-able offense, but...” She made a little lock-up-and-throw-away-the-key gesture in front of her smiling lips. “That’s not my business to tell.”
“I repeat, have you gone absolutely stark raving mad?” Saoirse’s cheeks were flaming hot. This was feeling every bit as mortifying as the moment her ex had looked at her when given his “I do” cue, looked at the congregation, the priest, back to her...and had then legged it straight out of the church as if she’d been on the verge of giving him the plague.
It wasn’t as if she’d turned green and sprouted a beard. She simply couldn’t give him children.
He’d said it wasn’t a deal breaker when they’d both been blindsided by the news a month earlier. A big enough deal to throw her to the gossip wolves of Kincarney village was more like it.
She swallowed. Hard. She was not—no way, no how—not going to cry in front of Santi.
“How
