Come Rain or Shine (15 page)

For one, it wasn’t fancy. Nothing about this place was fancy. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for the amount of women that were here, she would think they were in a blind pig rather than a speakeasy. This place was the polar opposite to the nice restaurant two floors above them. There were a few tables and mismatched chairs but mostly it was open space. There also were no fancy drinks to be found. Everyone seemed to be drinking whiskey or moonshine. There was a band but not like the jazz band upstairs. This band was playing fast paced Irish tunes and dancing, sweaty as pigs, laughing, passing people from partner to partner.

“Where are we?” Emmie asked with wide eyes.

“A speak,” he said, ordering two whiskeys that came in mismatched glasses.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” She looked over in the corner and saw two men were circling one another with their fists up. She looked back at Silas. “Is it safe?”

His eyes twinkled as he looked down at her. “It’s as safe as those barn parties you go to at the Johnson’s.”

“Reminds me of them,” she said, watching a man spin a woman on the dance floor. She turned back to the fight in the corner. “Although, you are the only person I’ve ever seen fight at one of their barn parties. I can see where you picked up that little skill.”

Silas snorted. It was good to see him laugh, even if it was halfhearted.

“It’s not a party until there’s a fight,” he said, watching the two boys in the corner as they began to trade licks.

Emmie downed the whiskey. The amber liquid warmed her throat but didn’t set her on fire like white lightning. She reached out, grabbed his cup, and drank it too.

“Easy Emmie,” he said with a grin, taking the drink away from her.

Silas took Emmie around from person to person. If he didn’t want to be with her, why was he introducing her to all of these people? She was surprised to find that Silas was related to several of the people there. Including one of the fighters. Jemma was in a corner with a group of girls about her age. Trick had taken up dancing. Clearly he had started drinking the whiskey a before she arrived. The biggest surprise was the last names of the people Emmie met. Each name seemed to be more Irish than the next. After about the fifteenth name she turned to Silas and asked if this was an Irish-only party. He grinned and nodded proudly. Emmie couldn’t help but return the smile. Silas loved that he was Irish and she loved that proud look in his blue-gray eyes. He shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it over a chair, and rolled up his sleeves. His hand slipped around hers and pulled the drink from her hands, passing it to a man standing to his right.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Dancing,” he whispered in her ear.

She glanced out at the groups of people dancing.

“Oh, I can’t move my body like that.” She tried to pull away from him and failed.

“Where’s my brave girl? Just follow my lead,” he said.

Emmie couldn’t stop laughing. She did her best to keep pace with him but struggled. She’d never been so thankful for two shots of whiskey. If it hadn’t been for those little shots of courage she would have never made it this long on the dance floor. She’d seen Silas dance plenty of times, but never had she seen him let loose like this. His shirt was sticking to his body. He rubbed his brow with the back of his arm to catch a drip of sweat that was about to run into his eye.

Emmie laughed and put her hand out toward his face. “Silas you look so—” she started but didn’t have the chance to finish. Some pretty girl with fire red hair stepped between them.

“Silas McDowell, you are in trouble,” the girl said with a thick northern accent.

He opened his mouth to say something, but she didn’t let him finish.

“You never called me. I’ve been waiting months to hear back from you,” she said, her voice just barely below a yell.

“I, uh . . . didn’t know you expected me to call you,” Silas stumbled as he tried to move around the girl.

Emmie watched the whole altercation with wide eyes.

The girl smiled and batted her eyes. “The least you could do is give me a dance for old time’s sake.”

“I’m already dancing,” Silas said, nodding to Emmie.

Emmie was annoyed. She knew Silas had a past but she didn’t like his past standing in front of her. Smothering. He’d said he didn’t want them to smother one another. His words came back to her. “No, it’s fine. Go ahead, dance.” Emmie shrugged. “We don’t want to be smothering one another.”

She turned to leave the dance floor. Her heart was pounding. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel threatened by the redhead. She could tell by the look on Silas’s face he didn’t want anything to do with her. Emmie never made it off the floor. Two sweaty arms snaked around her waist and pulled her back into the thick of the dancing. She probably should have been frightened, but she couldn’t keep from laughing. Maybe that was the whiskey? When she finally got herself turned to see her partner, she gave him a wide smile. Trick had gotten hold of her, flipping her this way and that. She wasn’t surprised he was a good dancer. He held her a little closer than was probably appropriate.

“There’s our little ball of trouble,” he panted as he flipped her over his shoulder and caught her before she hit the ground. She couldn’t hold in the squeal of excitement that escaped her.

Trick looked her over before he flipped her again. “You’re looking good tonight, Em.”

She didn’t have the chance to say thanks. The pace of the music changed and she was tossed farther down the line. The next guy wasn’t as good of a dancer as Trick but it was still fun. As the new tune had barely gotten started she felt herself pulled from the stranger’s arms.

“Hey,” the man shouted, gripping tightly to her arm. “I’m dancing with her . . .” The man’s face fell when he saw it was Silas taking her away. “Oh, sorry Silas. Didn’t mean any disrespect . . .”

Silas didn’t say a word to the guy. He just frowned and turned Emmie to face him. “I’ll let you have some fun and dance with my brother, if you want. But I’ll not stand here and watch as you get passed from man to man.”

She grinned at him. “I thought you wanted me to live a little. This is me, living . . . besides I seem to remember that I left you with a pretty redhead that you never called back.”

“A crazy redhead that has been not called back by nearly every guy in this joint.” He rubbed his jaw the bent down to look her right in the eye. “I want you to live a little before we are married, yes. But dancing with other men in a dress that’s so short your . . .
flour sacks
are showing is where I draw the line,” he growled possessively.

Chapter Twenty-two

“Y
ou can’t have your cake and eat it too, Silas. Either I’m your girl or I’m not,” she said over the music.

“Of course you’re my girl. Do you not see?” Silas pulled her to a quieter corner. “I’d walk through fire for you. I’d kill for you. I already have . . . and, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I. Love. You. Emmie. What do I need to do, tattoo it on my chest?”

Emmie shook her head to clear her mind. What was she doing? She was going to push Silas away with this game she was playing. “Sorry, I was petty. I’ve just had too much going on. Maybe all this wedding talk with Ava has me confused. I didn’t mean to put pressure on you.”

“You didn’t put pressure—” Silas started but didn’t get the chance to finish.

A group of guys walked up smiling and shouting his name. She heard him sigh and then he said, “This conversation is not over.” He composed his face before he turned around. These guys were his friends; Emmie could tell by his demeanor. He gave them the manly version of a hug-slap on the back. He pulled Emmie into his side, his arm dangling loosely on her shoulder, as he introduced her as “his girl” to the guys. His choice of words didn’t escape her notice. She sort of hated how good it felt to be tucked safely in his arm.

Time seemed to pass slowly down in the Irish speakeasy but not in a bad way. She loved listening to the stories these men were telling. The more whiskey that was consumed, the bigger the tales were. Glancing around she noticed Jemma had taken the dance floor. She was a pretty good dancer too. It must be in their genes. Trick had left the floor and was standing at her other side. Out of nowhere he asked her about Millie.

Emmie worked hard to keep her face indifferent but knew she came up short. She moved from Silas’s arm to turn to face Trick head-on. She wanted to hear this conversation and be able to look in his face as he talked.

“Are you interested in Millie, Patrick McDowell?” She squeezed his arm as she teased him.

“Just answer the question, do you think she’d take to a city boy like me?” he asked in a mock country accent.

“Yeah, I suppose so. She and Bo have always been adventurous. Bo’s the one you should be worried about though. He’s not a fan of Yankees, in case you’ve missed that in the hundreds of times he’s told Silas,” she teased again.

Trick rolled his eyes. “I’m not worried about that kid. He was only so hard on Silas because he was carrying a torch for you.”

“Yeah and I can guarantee you that he loves his sister more than he ever cared for me. That’s his baby sister . . . like Jemma is to you. I’m all for you and Millie. I’m rooting for you. But you need to know he isn’t going to just go belly-up to ya,” she said.

“Where’d Silas pick up this pretty thing?” one of the men who had clearly had too much whiskey asked Trick.

“Kentucky,” Trick answered then turned back to Emmie.

“Kentucky,” the boy laughed harder than he should have, “you know, from across the room she looked like some pretty Irish girl from Chicago, but then . . .” he worked to find the words and his speech slurred, “I heard her talking to you and, wow, I’ve never heard such a slow, hillbilly accent.”

“You got me. I have an accent. But here’s the kicker, so do you,” Emmie said, touching the young man’s arm. “It’s just according to where you’re from, right? We all have accents.”

The man laughed again. She looked at Trick. He just made a motion like he was taking shots and rolled his eyes. She took that to mean this man had too much to drink. She’d already pieced that one together herself.

“Pat, maybe you should go sit down or have some water,” Silas said to the man. Emmie hadn’t realized until this moment he was listening to their conversation.

“Nah . . .” he waved his hand, “I’m good. Hey Kentucky, you wanna dance?”

“No, Chicago, I think I’m all tuckered out.” She threw his sassy attitude right back at him.

All of the guys laughed at her joke. Silas grinned at her, squeezed her leg, and leaned over to kiss her temple.

“You called me Chicago—that’s funny,” the man said, then his face became stone serious. “You think you’re real funny. Tell me Kentucky, did you know this is an Irish party? You shouldn’t come to an Irish party and make fun of a man when you don’t even have a drop of Irish in your body. You might not be welcome here, Kentucky.”

Emmie felt Silas and Trick stiffen on each side of her. She put an arm out to still each of them then stood to face the man. He was just drunk and she had wounded his pride by making his friends laugh at him. She could work this out by herself. “I’m sorry. I was just teasing you. No harm meant,” she said, patting his arm.

He watched her every move as she touched him. He sneered, reaching an arm out and touching her arm exactly as she’d touched his. He patted her arm gently. “Oh, I guess it’s all right. A friend of Silas’s is always welcomed at our party, right?”

“That’s right,” one of the guys in the group said.

The man’s eyes narrowed and he gave an ornery grin. “Besides, if Kentucky is really a friend of Silas’s, chances are she’s already had more than a little Irish in her.”

Emmie frowned at his words. It took her a second to understand his meaning. When his words finally sank in she reached her hand out to slap the man but didn’t have the chance. Before she made contact with his skin, someone had pulled her away. She glanced back to find Silas on top of the drunken fellow. She attempted to move near him, wanting to pull Silas away from the drunk. This wasn’t worth the fight.

“No.” She saw Trick’s face in front of her.

“This has to happen. He can’t let that go.” Trick’s face was stone serious.

Emmie noticed one of Chicago’s friends was making his way to the fight. Trick moved to join his brother, keeping the other guy away. One fight broke into two, two into three. She looked around the room and found that most of the women were gone. Jemma stayed close to the walls as she made her way over to Emmie.

“What’s this about?” The younger girl nodded toward what once was the dance floor.

Emmie sighed. “I’m just a ball of trouble.”

Jemma frowned at her in confusion, but Emmie didn’t explain. Earlier Silas had said the party didn’t start until there was at least one fight. Apparently the party didn’t end without one either.

Chapter Twenty-three