Friday at the Blue Note by Annmarie Boyle

Author:Annmarie Boyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781735935126
Publisher: Dahlia Media

* * *

Megan slipped the towel over the oven handle. When was the last time she dried dishes?

Galway.

Standing next to her mam. Waiting for the boys to leave the kitchen.

They’d leave a giant mess in their wake and her mam didn’t say a word. The woman spent all her time in service to four men — her three brothers and her father.

She did everything for them without a bit of thanks.

In secondary school, she’d finally worked up the nerve to ask her mother why she did it. Why did she do so much for people who didn’t see her as much more than a maid and washerwoman? Mam had laughed and patted her cheek, saying, ‘That’s what mothers and wives do, Megan. You’ll see one day’.

She shuddered. She loved her mother, but there was no way in hell she was following in the footsteps of a woman who had turned her life over to a man who claimed to love her. Love. Hah. She doubted her father knew the definition of the word.

Megan had chosen a wholly different path. She put herself through university, and by her early thirties, she’d secured a position at one of the best restaurants in the world. And now she was co-owner of a top-rated restaurant in New York City.

She lived a life her mother wouldn’t recognize. Thank god.

She set her own rules, practices that ensured her freedom.

A roar reverberated out of the television in the Great Room. She glanced at Curtis, reclined against the sofa, bookended by the twins, both leaning on his chest while watching a movie, and ignored the way her heart squeezed.

Love required relinquishing freedom. That much she knew for sure.

Plus, she didn’t need love. She had the company of a good man — on her own terms. And that was enough . . . right?

She walked over to the sofa and sat down on the arm. “Brave?”

Curtis turned his head toward her. “The wee lad and lass insisted.”

Megan screwed up her face. “That is the worst Irish accent I’ve ever heard. Is that what you think I sound like?”

“Naw,” he said, smiling, “but I think that’s what you look like.” He pointed at the screen.

“Merida is Scottish.”

“Still. Red curly hair, stubborn, a blatant disregard for the rules . . .”

“She turned her mother into a bear.” Explaining the roar she’d heard.

He turned his full attention on her. “Because she refused to get married. That sounds familiar too.”

Her smile dropped. “I wasn’t aware you’d proposed.” Her palms started sweating. Why the hell had she said that? Apparently, one amazing kiss and an evening surrounded by three couples in love had short-circuited her brain.

“Do you want me to?”

“We both know the answer to that question,” she said, apparently a little louder than necessary as the twins looked up, staring directly at her.

“Girls are yucky,” the little boy said, proving that kids are rarely oblivious to adults in the room.

Megan laughed tremulously. “Your sister is a girl,” she said, pointing at the little girl on Curtis’ other side.

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