Wild Irish Rose

An Irish Lullaby/Wild Irish Crossover Novella

Wild Irish Rose

by

Bianca D’Arc

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright © 2017 Bianca D’Arc

Published by Hawk Publishing, LLC

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This work has been made possible by a license from Mari Carr. All characters, scenes, events, plots, and related elements appearing in the original Wild Irish series remain the exclusive copyrighted and trademarked property of Mari Carr and her affiliates and assigns and are used herein with the express permission of Mari Carr.

Roisin can’t forget the man she met on her last trip to Baltimore a year ago. Jim can’t forget her either, but he hasn’t been in the States since they parted. He’s back now, with a big decision to make - whether or not to retire from the military or give Uncle Sam another few years of his life.

Meeting Roisin again changes everything and throws all sorts of new and exciting variables into the calculus of his decision. Jim’s always been a steady, staid kind of man, but Roisin brings out something much more primitive in him. She makes him feel alive in ways he never could have expected or anticipated. And he wants more.

Jim makes Roisin want things she’s never dared. Their one-nighter last year had been memorable, but doomed from the start. She’d had to go back home to New York and he’d been shipping out for Afghanistan. Now, when they meet again, has anything really changed or is this the start of something truly magical?

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Excerpt from Bells Will Be Ringing

About the Author

Other Books by Bianca D’Arc

Dedication

I would just like to thank my friend, Mari Carr, for writing such a beautiful world and inviting me to play in it for a little while. Luckily, the Irish music scene is one I have intimate knowledge of from my own experience, and Roisin may (or may not) be an amalgamation of friends I knew when I was younger, who were brought up in the biz.

As always, my work is dedicated to my family—and in this case, my childhood friends who taught me all I know about Irish music and culture. They taught me about heartbreak and joy, sorrow and happiness. I hope my attempt to portray a small part of that world captures the true spirit of it, in the way I intended. Thanks for reading. Sláinte!

Chapter One

Roisin O’Connor walked into Pat’s Irish Pub on an unseasonably chilly late-March day. It had been a year since she’d last been there, but the place still looked and felt exactly the same. It was homey and welcoming, much like the family who owned and operated the place.

Hunky Tristan waved to her from where he was restocking a few of the top-shelf liquor bottles in preparation for the evening. She’d had the hots for Tristan since the first time she met him, but nothing had ever come of it, and now, he was married. Off the market and, by all accounts, happy with his new wife. Or so his sister, Keira, had told Roisin when she’d called about this weekend’s booking.

Roisin hadn’t been back to Pat’s Pub since last year around this time, when she’d been booked as the special entertainment for a pre-St. Pat’s party. That night had turned into one she’d never forget because she’d met a guy. A man like no other she’d ever met before.

They’d spent one wild night of passion together, but they’d both had to leave in the morning—he to an overseas deployment, and she back home to New York. They’d been ships passing in the night, but she’d never forgotten him.

She’d never done a one-night-stand before or since, despite the rather loose reputation many of her fellow musicians had earned. Roisin was much more circumspect. She’d dated one respectable guy at a time for years, but she’d been coming off a bad breakup when she’d crossed paths with Lieutenant James Bowan, US Navy, and she had succumbed to the temptation of a night in his strong arms, all too easily.

She’d felt a bit tawdry the next day, if she was being honest with herself, but that same honesty demanded that she acknowledge no regrets. She’d had one hell of a night with a handsome man who had treated her right. She always sort of suspected that, if circumstances had been different, they might’ve started dating—even though he was a Baltimore native and she a Long Island girl. They could’ve probably found some way to make it work. Maybe.

But as things stood, he’d had to go back to the Navy and she back to her life. Perhaps it was better this way. She had good memories of her walk on the wild side, and maybe…just maybe…he thought of her fondly whenever he heard an Irish tune.

Keira caught sight of her at that moment, bringing Roisin’s thoughts of last year to an abrupt