Both dogs raised their heads. Their bodies remained motionless, though the fur at their necks bristled and their ears perked. Maggie lifted her hand without looking at them, and both dogs lowered their heads but continued to keenly observe the scene.
Maggie cocked an eyebrow at Jimmy Boy as he crossed the lawn to join us. “And who says I turned her away?”
“You did, didn’t you? You know what kind of trouble Shay could get into messin’ around with the clan leader’s daughter.”
Maggie stared at him for a moment, a curious expression crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Sit down, lad,” she said.
After a moment, Jimmy Boy plopped heavily onto the bench next to me and crossed his arms over his chest. We both looked up at her, waiting to hear what she’d say next, and it occurred to me that my brother and I both yielded to Maggie almost as obediently as the wolfhounds. She stood back to take in both of us for a long moment.
Due to decades of intermarriage, everyone in the Village vaguely looked alike, but somehow this hadn’t extended to us Reilly boys. Jimmy Boy and I hardly appeared related at all, let alone brothers. He had a stocky build with hair the color of a rusty tractor wheel, which I assumed he’d inherited from our Da, though I’d never seen more than a grainy picture of him in the twenty years I’d been alive. Jimmy Boy’s eyes were a dull gray-blue that looked downright colorless compared to the emerald green eyes I’d inherited from Maggie, along with her tar-black hair. I was lean and at least an inch taller, despite him having three years on me.
“I told Rosie I didn’t have the time to help her, but there won’t be any stopping that girl now she’s got the idea in her head.”
“I don’t know why it’s such a bad idea,” I said, flashing a wolfish grin I hoped would provoke my brother. The swift smack he delivered to the back of my head was totally worth it.
“You don’t think you’ve made yourself enough of an outsider by going all the way through high school? Maybe you’d like to be physically tossed out of the Village by the Sheedy boys, too?”
I ducked my head, rubbing at the back of my skull. “Hey, finishing school wasn’t my idea. You know I’d rather have been out on the road with you.” I hadn’t hated high school if I was being honest, but I had hated the feeling of being different. Going to school past the seventh grade wasn’t done. I’d once heard of a few Traveler boys from another clan who had gone on to play for the LSU football team, but they were definitely the exception and not the rule.
“If it had been up to me, you both would’ve been in school,” Maggie said.
Jimmy Boy snorted out a laugh. “Then I’m glad it wasn’t. What good it do him?” He jabbed an elbow into my ribs. “All that schooling, and he’s still empty-headed enough to go weak in the knees whenever Rosie Sheedy bats her eyes at him.”
“At least I don’t flirt with country girls,” I said and aimed my own elbow-jab in return.
“Stop trying to change the subject. I thought you didn’t even like Rosie.”
“I like her well enough, and she can get me to where I wanna go. Feelings, love, and all that—they just get in the way.”
Jimmy Boy shook his head. “How in the hell’d you get to be so jaded? You tell those mutts over there you love ‘em every chance you get, but when it comes to people, you’re as closed up as Pop Sheedy’s safe.”
“Aww, that’s not true.” I wrapped my arm around Jimmy Boy’s neck and pulled his head down to pin it against my side. “I love you, big brother.”
Jimmy Boy shoved me hard to free himself, then punched my arm for good measure. I lifted my hand to retaliate, but Maggie’s voice stopped me mid-swing.
“That’ll be enough from you two. You’ve got a table to mend, and I need to fix myself up before the women head over to the church.” She took a few steps toward the trailer before turning back to look at me through narrowed eyes. “Your brother’s right, though, Shay. If you don’t watch it, your ambition’s going to get you in trouble.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but her expression warned me that it best remain shut. Maggie gave a curt nod, and a smile brightened her face again. Without a word, she retrieved her basket and marched toward the trailer. The wolfhounds hopped to their feet and followed after her. Maggie stood on the steps of the trailer, patiently holding the door open, then pulled it shut behind them.
Left alone with my brother, I stood so I could face him full-on. Maggie might not understand, but I had to convince someone I wasn’t being a fool.
“If we started working with the Sheedys, think how much more money we’d be bringing in. Our family’d be back on top like before Da went away.”
“Da didn’t ‘go away,’ Shay. He got himself killed because he wanted to be the best, bring in the biggest scores. And you’re picking up just where he left off. You need to learn your place in this clan, and that ain’t beside Pop Sheedy’s daughter. Got it?”
His words stung, and I clenched my fists at my sides. It wouldn’t have been the first time my brother and I came to blows over something, but before my temper reached its boiling point, he stood and gently gripped the back of my neck in both hands. “I know it’s tough. I want a new truck and a bigger place and a pretty girl on my arm just like the next fellow, but it’s just not in the cards. You and I are on our own, and that’s fine. We bring in enough to put food on the table and take care of Maggie, and you getting in over your head with Rosie Sheedy could ruin us. Promise me you’ll stay far away from her tonight.”
“But, Jimmy, I—”
“Promise.”
“Fine.” I jerked free of his grasp and took a step back. “I’ll be sure to keep to myself.”
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU KNOW, THOSE are meant for drinking, not staring at,” Jimmy Boy said, settling himself in the lawn chair next to me with a sweating glass of Guinness in each hand.
“Sláinte.” I grinned and raised my own glass, then followed the toast with a gulp of the thick stout.
“That’s how it’s done,” he said, tipping back one of his.
“But I’ve got an empty hand,” I said, gesturing to Jimmy Boy’s dual drinks. “I’m already falling behind.”
He chuckled. “I’ve gotta take up the slack for old Seldom Fed over there.” He pointed to a portly, middle-aged man sitting alone at the end of a long bench that ran along one side of the pavilion. “He’s taken the pledge again, mostly to get that goat he calls a wife off his back for a few more months. He looks miserable, poor old fool. I think he was better off listening to the banshee wail about his drinking.”
Seldom Fed O’Hara had earned his nickname by eating like a starving man who’d finally been blessed with food. Apparently, giving up the drink only increased his appetite because he already had a heaping plateful on his lap and was attacking it with a fork. I wondered what Jenny O’Hara would have to say about it when she returned from the church with the other wedding guests. Although many of the men didn’t bother attending the service—we preferred to stay behind to start the drinking portion of the festivities early—most of us weren’t bold enough to dig into the food before the rest of the clan had returned.
Jimmy Boy emptied the glass in his left hand and started in on the one in his right. He downed a quarter of it in one swig, then belched loudly. “I’ll tell you, Shay. Living is sucking the life outta me.”
I grunted in amusement. “Yeah? How’s that?”
“All…this.” He waved his arm in front of him as if he were trying to shoo away imaginary flies. “I know you’ve only been going out on the road for two years or so, but I been conning since I was twelve.”
“Right, but you’re only twenty-three. You sound like you’re coming up on retirement.”