God help him? Bitter irony curved the edges of his mouth into a wry smile. Yes, God help him, indeed. He expelled a noisy breath and continued on, hardly able to believe how much Marcy had changed him, introducing him to a God he’d had no desire to know. A God who became clearer and clearer to him with every word out of Marcy’s mouth and those of Father Fitz, leading him down a path that had given him a semblance of peace for the first time in his life. All at once, an overpowering urge to play basketball with Father Fitz rose within, far stronger than the need for a drink, but he plodded on toward home nonetheless, reluctant to chance a repeat encounter with Marcy and Sam.
“O’Connor!”
A silent groan stalled in his chest as he halted, unwilling to butt heads with his best friend, not when he had an itchy fist and frayed temper. He kept walking, hoping Sam would just go away.
“What the blazes are you doing?” Sam shouted, jerking Patrick around with a hard clamp of his arm.
Patrick shoved him back, his ire suddenly white hot all over again. “I suggest you run back to Marcy, O’Rourke, because I’m in no mood for you right now.”
“No?” Sam leaned in, fists clenched at his sides. “But you were sure in the mood for her tonight, weren’t you?”
A tic pulsed in Patrick’s jaw as he tried to harness his temper. “It-was-an-innocent-water-fight, you moron, which is more than I can say for you when it comes to your intentions with Marcy.”
“Innocent for her maybe,” Sam spat out, “and you know nothing of my intentions.”
“I know you, O’Rourke, and so help me, if you don’t do right by her, I’ll bloody you good.” Patrick curled his fingers into fists, just itching to vent.
A curse hissed from Sam’s lips as he turned away, hands low on his hips. He spun back, dark brows slashed low with concern. “Blast it, Patrick, what the blazes are we doing? I don’t want Marcy to come between us.”
“Then treat her right,” Patrick snapped, a nerve throbbing in his temple like jealousy throbbed in his gut.
Sam exhaled and gouged fingers through his hair. “Look, I’ll admit that my intentions with Marcy weren’t all that honorable in the beginning, but that’s all changed now. I plan to marry her.”
Patrick’s laugh was harsh. “And when will that be? After you ruin her?”
Another swear word defiled the air. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The veins in Patrick’s temple pulsed as he slanted in. “It means you’re pressuring her, aren’t you? I know you, and I could sense it in her manner tonight. You’re up to our old tricks again, O’Rourke, pushing for favors under the guise that you’ll marry her someday.”
“That’s a lie,” Sam said with a vehemence that took Patrick by surprise. “I have strong feelings for Marcy, and for your information, I’m planning on making the courtship official. And as far as pushing her, you and I both know I take my pleasure at Brannigan’s, not with her.”
“For now.” Patrick cocked a hip with a fold of his arms. “But what about after you make this so-called courtship official?” Patrick studied him through narrow eyes. “I won’t stand by and watch you betray her.”
Sam stared, a knot the size of Patrick’s fists ducking in his throat. “I won’t,” he said quietly. “I’m falling in love with her.”
The words sliced through Patrick like a blade of jealousy. “Then prove it—court her properly like she deserves or leave her alone.”
“Or leave her to you, you mean.” He blasted out another sigh, his tone as worn as his manner. “All right. You have my word that I’ll do right by Marcy with a courtship true and proper, but I’ll not forsake Brannigan’s with my best friend.”
Patrick peered up beneath hooded eyes, well aware this was a huge concession for Sam. “True and proper, with no other women on the side?”
Sam gave a short nod, jaw firm. “Other than innocent flirtations at Brannigan’s with you along to keep me honest.”
“Ha!” Patrick said with a hint of a smile. “You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘innocent,’ but I’ll keep you honest, you can bet your eyeteeth on that.”
Sam held out a hand, his gaze sparkling with humor for the first time all night. “Then all amends are made, aye? Friends again with no woman to come between us?”
Patrick assessed him with a wary eye, well aware this agreement would close the door on any hope he’d ever had for Marcy … what little there was. His resignation drifted from his lips with a draining sigh. “Aye,” he said with a firm clasp of Sam’s hand, “no woman between us.”
Relief relaxed the muscles in Sam’s face as the two shook. Sam gripped Patrick’s shoulder in a firm hold. “Marcy’s waiting, so I have to get back, but I want you to know—you’re the best friend a man could have.” Slapping him on the back, he turned to go, a mere shadow in the dim light as he jogged back to the center.
The best friend a man could have. Patrick’s lips quirked as he thought of Marcy, his heart comatose in his chest. Aye, and a woman too.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Oh, what a grand time,” Julie said with the same glow she’d worn the last three weeks since Evan had first asked her to accompany him for a soda. She sipped the rest of her Coca-Cola through a straw at Robinson’s with a dreamy look that matched Evan’s as he sat in the booth beside her after the St. Mary’s Fall Promenade.
Marcy couldn’t agree more, the flush of dancing with Sam throughout the evening still warm in her cheeks despite the ice cream soda she now spooned in her mouth. The dances in New York had never been as magical as this, and Marcy regretted all the years she’d missed with her best friend. And her brother. She peeked at Sam out of the corner of her eye, so handsome in his navy suit while he talked with Patrick across the table, who looked equally dapper in a charcoal gray sack suit with dark tie and winged collar. Sympathy squeezed in Marcy’s chest. That is, considering the purple bruise around his left eye that was just beginning to fade into a mottled gray and green.
“Good gracious, what happened to Patrick?” Marcy had whispered to Julie last week while they measured Tillie for her costume. When Sam and he had arrived at practice to finish painting scenery, Patrick’s left eye had been so swollen and black, Marcy’s jaw had dropped along with the pin she’d been holding.
“He hammered Omer,” Tillie piped up with no little pride.
“What?” More pins sailed to the floor as Marcy bent to stare in the little girl’s beaming face. “What do you mean he ‘hammered’ Omer?”
Hazel eyes blinked wide beneath thick glasses, the little girl’s freckles bunched in a squint. “Well, shoot, not with his hammer like he said, but just as hard with his fist, sure enough. Bloodied Omer’s face but good when he whacked me after Patrick walked me home from the last practice. Drew a mite big crowd too, he did, aduckin’ and aweavin’ when Omer tried to whack him.” The little girl’s sunken chest actually puffed out with pride beneath the Christmas costume Marcy was sewing as she pushed smudged eye glasses back up her nose. “But Patrick’s too fast and smart and strong for that big, ole dumb ox and pert near broke his nose. Told ‘im if he ever came around again to bother Ma or me, he was acomin’ back to finish the job.”
Mouth agape, Marcy’s gaze collided with Julie’s before she glanced over her shoulder to where Patrick and Sam were talking with Evan at the side door, buckets of paint and brushes in their hands. “Well, I’ll be,” she muttered, not usually a proponent of fistfights, but her pride in Patrick swelling her chest as well.
Hands to her knees, Julie ducked to peer in Tillie’s face, her jaw as distended as Marcy’s. “Three days ago? Sweet saints, have you seen Omer since?”
“Shoot no, and don’t expect to, neither. Patrick scared him but good, I can tell you that. Said if he came back again, he’d bring his hammer next time and break both his knees to match his nose.”
Marcy gulped and glanced at Julie, the both of them biting back a smile.
“I’ll tell you what,” Tillie said wit
h a worshipful gaze in Patrick’s direction, “if I were grown up ladies like you, I’d shore in tarnation be settin’ my cap for Patrick ‘cause he shore is one prize catch.”
One prize catch. Laughter broke into Marcy’s reverie, returning her attention to the booth at Robinson’s where Patrick was regaling Sam with a funny story. Her gaze drifted to the girl beside him, a dark-haired beauty named Emily Fischer who hung on to his every word—and on to Patrick, for that matter—and something pinched at Marcy’s good mood like the corset beneath her aqua chiffon dress.
Emily giggled and whispered into Patrick’s ear, and he slipped an arm around her shoulder, tucking her so close that Marcy had to look away. She liked Emily well enough, although she considered her somewhat of a flirt, but the adoring gaze the woman directed at Patrick all evening was starting to grate on Marcy’s nerves. As close as Marcy had gotten with Patrick as friends over the last few months, she couldn’t understand how Emily could trust him as a beau. Especially not after he’d led Emily to believe he was seeing only her, then dallied with other women behind her back, rumors Marcy knew to be true. She inhaled the rest of her soda with a loud, hollow noise and pushed the glass away, assessing Patrick out of the corner of her eye. For heaven’s sake, what was Emily thinking? She’d heard he’d broken her heart two times before and was probably on his way to a third. Prior experience with heartbreakers like him stiffened Marcy’s jaw. Which meant that Patrick O’Connor may be top-notch as a friend, but in the realm of romance? A cold shiver skittered her spine. She was pretty sure the man was sheer poison.
“Marcy?” A gentle touch from across the table jolted her back and she blinked at the concern on her best friend’s face. “Are you all right?” Julie asked. “You were frowning.”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said with a bright smile, shaking off a malaise she didn’t quite understand. “Just sad about all the years of school I missed with you here in Boston.”
“Me too,” Julie said with affection, “but you’re here now, on the arm of my brother, no less, for the first dance of the year, and that’s all that matters, right?”
“Right,” Marcy agreed.
“I’ll second that.” Sam drew her near for a kiss to her cheek. “We best get you ladies home or my parents will have my hide.” He leaned close, his breath warm in Marcy’s ear. “You are spending the night with Julie tonight, yes?”
Her response stalled on her tongue when Patrick glanced her way, one of the few direct looks he’d given her all night, pensive and brooding, as if to underscore the warning he’d given her before the incident with Sam at the center. Since that night, he’d made himself scarce, both at the kitchen and at play practice, working more overtime hours at the Herald than ever before, and oddly enough, Marcy was hurt. Their friendship had come to mean more than she’d anticipated and although a part of her welcomed the distance between them since the run-in with Sam, a part of her missed him more than she cared to admit. She quickly averted her gaze to Sam with a penitent smile, deciding then and there she wouldn’t spend the night as planned. “I don’t think so, Sam,” she whispered, “I need to get up early because we have brunch with the Byingtons after mass.”
She knew he was upset by the sudden shift of his jaw. “You’re avoiding me,” he said quietly, “and I want to know why?”
Her gaze flicked across the table to where both couples were engaged in conversation, then back to Sam with a chew of her lip. “I’m not avoiding you, I just have to get up early.”
“You used to spend the night with Julie every other week,” he said with a pointed gaze, “but you haven’t once in the last month. You’re avoiding me.”
“No, I’m not, really,” she said carefully, stomach cramping at the near lie.
“Then prove it.” He angled a brow in challenge. “Come home with Julie tonight because there’s something I need to tell you.” His thumb caressed the line of her jaw before tracing the curve of her mouth. “Please?”
Her pulse stuttered at the heated look in his eyes. “I d-don’t know, Sam …”
He glanced over at his sister. “Jewels, you said Marcy was coming over tonight, and now she says she’s not.”
Julie blinked. “But, Marce, we agreed you’d spend the night tonight, and your mother thinks you are too. Besides,” she said with an imp of a smile, “we have way too much to discuss for you to go home.”
“It’s all settled then,” Sam said with a squeeze of her hand. “Evan and I will deliver you both safe and sound to the O’Rourke’s front door.”
Safe and sound. Marcy gulped, wondering just how “safe” it would be to spend even a few moments alone in the O’Rourke’s porch swing like Sam would want her to do. After almost four months of “unofficial courting,” she and Sam were getting more comfortable every day, which, much to her angst, meant he was also getting bolder as well, necessitating a wee bit of wrestling on her part whenever they were alone. The thought plagued her all the way to Julie’s house where Patrick and Emily took their leave.
“Good night, all,” Patrick said when they arrived at Julie and Sam’s front walk, their departure causing a strange twinge in Marcy’s chest when Emily snuggled closer to Patrick.
“I had a wonderful time, Evan,” Julie said at the door, almost shy.
“Me too.” He gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek before turning to go. “Good night, Marcy, Sam.” Hands in his pockets, he ambled to the street with a whistle on his lips while Julie’s soft sigh floated behind.
“Goodness, is he not just the most wonderful man?” Julie stared after him with a lovesick smile, palms crossed to her chest.
Marcy looped an arm to her waist. “He is at that, Jewels, and the admiration is more than mutual, I assure you.”
“Oh, I hope so,” she said with another sigh. A yawn escaped and she giggled as she gave Marcy a hug, and then one for Sam, along with a pinch of his cheek. “Well, I may be tired, but I won’t be falling asleep anytime soon, brother dear, so don’t keep my best friend too long, you hear?”
“Be nice, Jewels, and share,” Sam said with a tweak of his sister’s neck. “You get Marcy alone all night, while I only have her for a few precious moments.”
Julie gave him a wink over her shoulder as she slipped inside. “A few precious moments with the likes of you is dangerous enough, so be good.” She blew Marcy a kiss and quietly closed the door, leaving her alone with her brother and a stomach tangled in knots.
Taking her hand, he led her over to the white wicker swing where she and Julie had whiled away so many summers, the memory of happy days spent with a family she loved calming her considerably. Moonlight washed the porch with an ethereal glow that felt almost magical, and when Sam tucked her close with a gentle kiss to her hair, it was as if Marcy had come home.
His fingers idly played with a stray curl on her neck, and she sighed against his chest, contentment purling through her veins. This is what she longed for—a closeness with Sam that meant they belonged to each other and that someday his family would be hers. She closed her eyes to breathe in both his scent and the hope of a future with the man and family of her dreams.
“Marcy.”
She lifted her head, heart thudding when he bent to caress her mouth with his own. Warmth seeped through her body as he slipped his arm to her waist, drawing her close with a slow and languid kiss. His mouth trailed to her temple, his words warm in her ear. “I’m in love with you, Marceline,” he whispered, “and I want to court you.”
She jerked back, eyes wide as she studied him in the moonlight. “Courtship?” she said weakly, her pulse pounding at the very sound of the word. “B-but what d-does that mean?”
He playfully tugged at her lip, his voice husky with desire. “It means I want you, Marcy, sooner rather than later.”
Her chest heaved with shallow breaths. “Is this … like a … proposal?” she whispered.
His chuckle was warm against her mouth. “Yes, Marceline … as in marriage.”
“M
arriage?” she breathed, searching his face for any sign of consent. “You’re actually proposing, then?”
His chuckle feathered her cheek as he bent to deposit a kiss on her nose. “A pre-proposal, Marcy, if you will. Not with a ring just yet till I save enough money, but a token of my intent, nonetheless.” He reached into his pocket and placed a small box into her hands. “Open it,” he whispered.
With quivering fingers, she lifted the lid and gasped at the gleam of a silver heart on a delicate chain. “Oh, Sam, it’s beautiful, but it cost too much—I can’t accept it.”
He took the necklace from the box and opened the clasp, holding it out with a jag of his brow. “Tell me—if it were an engagement ring, would you accept it?”
“Well, yes, of course, but this isn’t a ring—”
“No, not yet, but a pledge of my love and commitment all the same.” He reached behind her neck and fastened it, and the silver lay cool and beautiful at the hollow of her throat. Sam traced a finger down the chain, skimming her skin with lovely shivers as he fondled the heart. “Consider this the promise of my heart, Marceline … until I put the ring on your hand.”
“Oh, Sam!” She lunged to kiss him, and he groaned, near devouring her until she was limp in his arms. A sense of warning shuddered through her, and she reluctantly pushed him away. “I need to go in … Julie’s waiting …”
“Stay,” he whispered, hands sweeping the length of her back and the curve of her hip, coaxing her, teasing her while his mouth nuzzled her lips. “We’re promised to each other, Marceline—please, just a while longer …”
The thrill of the promised engagement merged with the intensity of his kisses, weakening her will to deny him this one simple request. After all, they were almost engaged, so what harm could be done with a few minutes more? Goodness, this was the moment she’d longed for since she was a little girl—to be promised to Sam O’Rourke and he to her! The very thought made her dizzy in his arms. Soon she would be an O’Rourke, part of the family she loved and adored, and completely cherished by this man she would marry.