Love and Shenanigans (Ballybeg, Book 1) (The Ballybeg Series) Read Online Free Page A

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Chapter Four
    OHMYGAWD!
HER ARSE WAS ON DISPLAY.
    Her fat, white arse.
    Why did these things happen to her? One weekend without incident. That was all she’d asked for. Yet within an hour of arriving in Ballybeg, she was lying prostrate on top of a dog basket with the man she’d hoped to avoid staring at her cellulite.
    Feck.
    “
Mon dieu!
” Claudette clutched her necklace. “What have you done to my dress?”
    “Fiona!” Muireann shrieked. “How could you?”
    “Never mind the dress. She’s squashing Mitzi and Bitzi.” Deirdre darted forward and yanked the dog basket to safety. Fiona’s face landed on the Persian carpet with a thud.
    “What’s wrong with you people?” a male voice demanded.
His
voice. “Help her up, for heaven’s sake.”
    Muscular arms reached around her ribcage and hauled her to her feet.
    “Here.” Olivia retrieved the shawl from the floor. “Get this around her.”
    Gavin wrapped the shawl around Fiona’s waist, careful not to touch her bare flesh. When his fingers skimmed her satin-encased hips, she felt a jolt of something she didn’t care to define. Their eyes clashed for a millisecond. Too short to mean anything to him, too long not to mean something to her.
    She exhaled sharply, her cheeks aflame. Why hadn’t he had the decency to develop a beer gut over the past decade? Or a receding hairline? Life was so unfair.
    “Grr!” Wiggly Poo was growling at the Chihuahuas, now held aloft in Deirdre’s scrawny arms.
    “My poor babies.” Deirdre fussed over the tiny dogs and fixed Gavin with a quelling gaze. “I blame you for this debacle. If you hadn’t let that mongrel loose, none of this would have happened.”
    “Me?” Gavin’s tone exuded outraged incredulity. “I didn’t ask to be saddled with a dog.”
    “Mitzi and Bitzi are sensitive around strange dogs, and that one is positively rabid.”
    Gavin’s sky-blue eyes darkened. “Wiggly Poo probably mistook them for vermin. An easy mistake to make.”
    “Well,” Deirdre said, aghast. “I never.”
    Laughter bubbled up Fiona’s throat. “Wiggly Poo?” She gasped, struggling to keep her composure. “What sort of name is that?”
    Deirdre glowered at her. “This is no laughing matter, Fiona. My pets were brutally attacked by that savage beast.”
    “Bollocks.” Gavin scooped up the puppy. “He didn’t touch them.”
    “He didn’t, Deirdre,” Fiona said. “I got to him before he had a chance to do anything more than bark.”
    Deirdre’s thin lips parted, baring teeth whitened to a radioactive glow.
    “Mummy.” Muireann laid a hand on Deirdre’s arm. “Wiggly Poo’s young. He needs time to adjust.”
    “Until he’s tamed, that creature is not welcome in this house.”
    Fiona convulsed, losing the battle against laughter.
    Deirdre rounded on her. “You’re in no position to laugh, young lady. You’ve destroyed a very expensive dress.”
    “Yes.” Muireann smirked. “I invited you to be my maid of honor in good faith, and now… this.” She gestured in the direction of Fiona’s arse.
    Fiona’s cheeks grew even hotter, anger mingling with embarrassment. “The dress is too small. I’m sorry it tore, but I wasn’t going to get down the aisle in this frock. Nor in these shoes.” She kicked off the offending footwear and sighed with relief as her stockinged feet sank into the plush carpet.
    Deirdre pursed her mouth. “Did you lie about your measurements?”
    Fiona gave her aunt the stink eye. “Of course not. Do you think I wanted to humiliate myself by busting out of the dress?”
    “In that case, you must have put on weight.”
    Muireann tittered. “With the amount you eat, it’s hardly surprising.”
    “Steady on,” Gavin said. “Fiona’s not fat.”
    Muireann and Deirdre cast him withering looks.
    “Get out, Gavin,” Deirdre said. “And take that dog with you. You’ve caused enough trouble for one day.”
    Gavin met her glare for glare. “If you want to cast