Wild Chance (Wilder Irish #13) - Mari Carr Page 0,6

nearly a lifetime as “frenemies” before succumbing to what Colm referred to as the Collins curse a year ago.

According to Colm, whenever someone in his family fell in love, it was fast, hard, and forever.

Emmy had laughed the first time Colm told her about the “curse,” and she’d even gone so far as to include the concept in one of her romance novels.

Lately though, she was less amused by it, hung up on the one word in the curse that did indeed feel like…well…a curse.

Forever.

“Sleeping in his shirts?” Sunnie asked Kelli, proving exactly what Emmy had known as well.

Kelli sighed. “Every damn night. Last night, I spritzed some of his cologne on his pillow. When did I become such a hopeless case?”

“I think the phrase is hopeless romantic,” Emmy said.

Kelli rolled her eyes. “I stand by what I said.”

“Where are the twins?” Emmy asked.

Kelli took another sip of her margarita. “With their grandma Lane, who actually issued a threat when I left, telling me she wanted those babies to herself for at least three hours, so y’all gird your loins. I intend to take her up on that, which means this happy hour is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint.”

Yvonne rubbed her forehead. “Ugh. I can already feel tomorrow’s hangover coming on.”

Caitlyn sighed. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you girls. Not since Christmas. I’ll be glad when the pub reopens. I hate not knowing anything about what you all are up to.”

Emmy also felt out of touch with her friends. Ever since the fire, she’d been forced back into her apartment. During her childhood, her family’s apartment had been her happy place, but nowadays, it felt as if the walls were closing in on her, the apartment too small, too quiet, too boring.

Too lonely.

“I agree. So,” Yvonne continued, “what has everyone been doing? Let’s catch up.”

Sunnie grinned. “Landon and I have been painting-and-decorating fools. The nursery is already ready for this little munchkin and he’s not showing up until May.”

“He?” Emmy asked. “Did I miss something?”

Yvonne and Kelli also perked up.

“If you did, we did too. It’s a boy?” Kelli asked excitedly.

Sunnie grinned and nodded. “Yep. Aaron Jackson Riggs will be here before we know it. We’re naming him after my dad, and he completely flipped out when we told him. I think he might have cried a little bit. We’re planning to call him AJ.”

They all lifted their glasses—four margaritas and one iced tea—and clinked out a toast to baby AJ, as Sunnie filled them in on the nursery’s color scheme and theme. Kelli suggested several baby must-haves Sunnie needed to include on her baby shower registry. Yvonne and Caitlyn chimed in as well.

Typically, Emmy loved listening to all of their family/husband/kid stories, but today it was reinforcing the desire she’d been unable to shake the past few months. It was definitely time for her to take control of her life.

Topping up their glasses yet again—Emmy was really going to pay for this tomorrow—Kelli turned her attention to Emmy. “Okay, your turn, girlfriend. What have you been doing since the holidays?”

“Two things, actually.”

“Ooooo…I love it. Lots to share. Spill,” Sunnie insisted.

“First of all, I hit The New York Times best seller list again.”

Everyone at the table cheered, and Yvonne admonished Emmy for not telling them that the second she sat down. She’d hit the list three times since her first visit to Pat’s Pub, and the Collins family always made her feel like a million bucks. Every single time, Riley baked her a cake, while the others bought her drinks at the pub, toasting “her brilliance.”

Kelli leaned forward, her face filled with mischief. “You do realize I’ve been stockpiling the Times, and I’m,” she pinched her thumb and index fingers tightly together, “this close to figuring out your pen name.”

Emmy laughed. “Which is why I never tell you I’ve hit it on the actual week I make the list. Let’s just say I was on the list sometime in the last month…or three.”

Kelli groaned and good-naturedly called her a bitch.

No one in the Collins family—with the exception of their grandfather, Patrick—knew her pen name. Originally, she’d held back telling them because her romance novels were spicy and she’d been a little embarrassed. Not of what she’d written but of how the Collins family might use that knowledge. In addition to their love of betting, they were experts when it came to teasing and practical jokes. She could just imagine Kelli and Colm standing up at the pub