The Problem with Paddy (Shrew & Company) Read online

  The Problem with Paddy

  -Number One-

  by Holley Trent

  Copyright Holley Trent

  Published 7 March 2013

  All Rights Reserved.

  The Problem with Paddy is a work of complete fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover images available at 123rf.com (models) and stock.xchng (background and magnifying glass).

  WARNING: this story contains adult situations including sex and strong language. It is not intended for consumption by minors (age of majority as specified by your territory of residence).

  Table of Contents

  THE SHREW STUDY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Framing Felipe

  Other Fantasy Romances by Holley Trent

  About Holley Trent

  THE “SHREW” STUDY

  Three years ago, a large drug manufacturer in North Carolina recruited participants for the third phase of a clinical research trial. The observation phase, conducted the year before, was monumental in its scope. More than 1,000 men in committed relationships from across the country were interviewed and asked specifically what traits their partners had that they would change if they could.

  Thirty-seven percent of the men surveyed scored their partners as “Extremely Difficult.” At least half of those men were approached for follow-up interviews, during which the researchers pinpointed specific behaviors and triggers that made the women less than ideal partners.

  Fifty women were escalated to the next phase without a single one aware of the true nature of the study. Their significant others told them the study—codenamed “Shrew”—was about reactions to stressful work situations, which was partially true. Many of the women had jobs requiring leadership and strenuous physical activity, so stress was par for the course, as well as the occasional mood swing. Around twenty of the most aggressive women advanced to the drug trial.

  The women were administered a serum designed to improve temperament and pheromone response—to make them sweeter and more receptive to sex.

  The serum didn’t work.

  Instead of reforming the women into happy homemakers, it triggered cascades of DNA mutations, minor in most of the women, but severe and irreversible in several. Many of the women lost their jobs following the study due to their need for extensive follow-up care.

  All of them dumped their boyfriends.

  One industrious shrew—Dana Slade—sought out trial victims and shepherded them into her new private detective agency. She named it Shrew & Company because it was funded by the payout she received after suing the manufacturer. A former police detective, she was used to solving problems everyone else had given up on. Tenacious and headstrong, she never gave up on a case. After her ordeal, however, she did give up on love.

  Fortunately, it didn’t give up on her.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dana Slade fixated on the gap in the slob’s button-up shirt. Initially, she thought he’d missed a button, but the longer she stared, the clearer it became that there wasn’t a button there at all. He’d started the morning with a safety pin holding the two plackets together in that space, but sometime between him dressing and their meeting, it’d come loose.

  The slob hadn’t told her that. To her, it was obvious. Anyone who had eyes like microscope lenses could see how the buttonhole’s threads had been yanked and molested by the pin, causing a slight rip at the bottom of the slit. On the other side, where the fastener’s metal tine had been pressed through, was a tiny hole, not much larger than a gap in the fabric weave. She could see it, even from six feet away.

  “So, how ’bout it? You gonna take the job?” he mumbled in his indistinguishable accent. If he’d been on the phone and not sitting right in front of her, she would have thought the man had mud in his mouth.

  She closed her eyes to shut down the flow of visual stimulus, and rolled her tight shoulders several times. It’d been one of those weeks, and it was only Tuesday.

  When she opened her eyelids again and looked across her desk at her would-be client, her vision had normalized to a typical twenty-twenty. She concentrated on the big picture now—not just the details. Bloated face. Red, watery eyes. Greasy salt-and-pepper hair. Careless shave.

  He ran a tongue over dry lips.

  She leaned her elbows onto the desk edge, and rested her chin atop her balled-up fists. Alcoholic. He’s got a bad job for it.

  He watched her, wide-eyed and expectant.

  She sighed. “Mr. Drake, your boss hasn’t been missing twenty-four hours yet. I’m not sure what you expect me to do. Even the police wouldn’t do anything.” Of course she would know. Until she was unceremoniously stripped of her badge and gun, and given the boot from Durham P.D., she was one of those police officers buried in paperwork and with hands bound by red tape.

  “You gotta understand, this isn’t like Paddy. He’s a stickler for details. Wants to oversee everything because his name’s on it, you know?” Mr. Drake gave his head a vigorous shake. “He didn’t say nothin’ to nobody. I’ve been in the pub’s kitchen for years, but I don’t know what goes into that Saint Patty’s Day run. Only role I’ve ever had in it was to stick a tap in the kegs when the runners made it to the finish line. If he ain’t back, there ain’t gonna be no run.”

  A bead of sweat tracked down from his hairline, and Dana watched it make a path to his ear. His face, already florid to start with, flushed. Simon Drake was a man out of his element, and possibly a bit off his meds.

  She leaned back in her chair and drummed her fingers on the arms, studying him. How was he managing to hold down a job?

  “I can’t do that shit on my own. Don’t know how.”

  With staff like this guy, no wonder Mr. O’Dwyer is into D.I.Y. I wouldn’t leave him alone with so much as a jukebox.

  She loved her staff. Had handpicked them. She couldn’t have done better if she tried. And that reminded her… She picked up her phone’s handset and stabbed the extension to her right hand girl, Tamara.

  “Yes, voss?” she said in that joking, singsong voice she always played up. Tam had been in the U.S. for at least ten years, but overemphasized the Romanian accent because male clients seemed to like it. It’d become a bit of a running gag to the Shrews.

  Dana twirled a length of her hair and studied the strands. Split ends. She sighed and dropped the lock. “What was the result of the coin toss, Tam?”

  “Tails. You lose.”

  “Thank you.” Dana hung up and returned her gaze to the man in front of her. “You’re in luck today. You won the coin toss, so I’ll take your case. This is me being charitable. I had other stuff to do this morning.”

  His face scrunched with confusion.

  “I said I’ll take the job, Mr. Drake.”

  He slumped in the leather armchair and blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Thank God.”

  “Thank God later. Right now, I need access to Mr. O’Dwyer’s home and office.”

  He stood and nodded too hard and too fast. “You got it. I got the keys to the pub and he keeps a spare set of house keys in the safe.”

  She pushed back from the desk and grabbed her purse from the bottom drawer before standing. “Let’s go. I’ve got a one o’clock hair appointment, and I’ve already rescheduled twice.”

  Patrick O’Dwyer’s office at t
he nouveau Irish pub he maintained on Durham’s Ninth Street was neat as a pin. Dana couldn’t help but to grunt her appreciation as she stepped inside. She’d expected the place to look as though a tornado had made its way through—perhaps littered with bottles and empty food containers—but apparently Mr. O’Dwyer liked being able to find shit. Admirable trait in a man.

  That’d been a bone of contention between Dana and her ex. As a police detective, she appreciated orderliness, and her attention to detail was evident in her unbeatable track record. No one could find a missing person faster than Dana. As far as she knew, the department hadn’t hired an officer yet who could match her, not that she was really keeping tabs. Since the law suit, no one at the station talked to her—not even the people she’d watched the backs of so many times. The ones she’d covered for and was nearly stabbed for once. Thank goodness for Kevlar vests.

  She rolled her eyes even thinking it. Their loss. They fired her after that clinical study went wrong, and her ex—that asshole—behaved as if his involvement in it was no big deal. “I was only trying to help,” he’d said.

  Well, she hoped the guilt ate him alive and that his next girlfriend gave him crabs. He deserved an itchy cock and worse.

  “Good riddance, dirtbag.”

  Mr. Drake paused in the door. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Nothing.” She pulled out Mr. O’Dwyer’s chair and sank into the cushy thing with a purr. Oh, Mr. O’Dwyer, I love you for your chair. She briefly harbored thoughts of appropriating it as payment should he not return, but knew with her on the case that wasn’t happening. Pity.

  “I’ll be just a few minutes, Mr. Drake.”

  He nodded and retreated into the pub proper, probably to avail himself of the hair of the dog that bit him.

  Now alone, she glanced at the items on the desktop without touching, memorizing the placement of everything, then reached for the item that, to her, would have been the last thing Mr. O’Dwyer would have touched before leaving the office for a while. She was operating on the assumption that Mr. O’Dwyer planned his absence, and until she had proof otherwise, she’d stick to that theory. She’d had enough clients in the past two years who weren’t missing at all, but merely needed a time-out from reality. That’s why she was generally hesitant to accept these kinds of cases. If it hadn’t been for that coin toss…

  She picked up a manila file folder from his outbox and leafed through the contents. It was a stack of vendor receipts, but not for typical pub fare. They were for things like tent rental, banners, T-shirt printing, and trophies—items for the pub’s annual 5k, she guessed. She’d never run it. Didn’t like crowds. Besides, her ex ran it every year. While the idea of smoking him on the asphalt was somewhat appealing, it’d be just her luck she’d get disqualified for her enhanced physical attributes. She was faster than the typical woman—hell, than the typical man—and had the increased lung capacity to go along with it. She could probably finish the run in under fifteen minutes.

  In spike heels.

  Her fingers danced over the spidery scrawl on one particular receipt where someone, ostensibly Mr. O’Dwyer, had printed Arriving for set-up at eleven a.m., 3/17. There were similar notations on all the statements—tidbits that probably could have been better served by being plugged into his phone reminders or written on a pub calendar. But, she suspected this wasn’t his usual means of time management.

  Maybe it was because she was a business owner herself, but what she saw was enough information there that a person—even an outsider who knew nothing about the pub’s operations—could coordinate the flow of bodies. She could do it, and she wasn’t even on staff.

  “What else do we have here?” She returned the folder to its tray after sifting through the papers beneath it.

  Mr. O’Dwyer had doubled his usual food and alcohol orders for stock through March 17. The notes on the memo lines of the receipts read Deliver in care of S. Drake per Patrick O’Dwyer. Resume usual order on 3/18.

  “Ah, Mr. O’Dwyer. Do you want to be found?”

  On a whim, she picked up the desk phone and dialed the cell phone number listed at the bottom of one of the invoices. Sometimes she got lucky and they answered.

  It wasn’t her lucky day.

  “This is Patrick O’Dwyer. I’m not available to talk right now, but your message is important to me. I’ll return your call as soon as I can. If this is regarding Paddy’s or the 5K run, please call the pub during normal business hours.”

  She disconnected before the beep and fanned herself with a nearby folder. “With a voice like that, he’d better be ugly as shit, because otherwise that’s just cruel, Lord.”

  She’d always had a thing for accents, and she hadn’t considered that perhaps the owner of an Irish pub would be…well, Irish. Suddenly, Mr. Drake’s accent seemed less mysterious.

  “Are you talking to me?” As if drawn in by a psychic lasso, Mr. Drake stuck his head inside the office.

  She dropped the folder and stood without addressing his concern. “Get the house keys. I’ve seen all I need here.”

  And heard all I needed, too.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was difficult for Patrick to shove aside thoughts of his pub and the race, but what more could he do? If he’d been better organized, he would have had someone in place as a back-up should a situation necessitate his absence, but this had been a last-minute thing. He did what he could to leave his affairs in order and hoped at the end, it wouldn’t bite him in the ass.

  He put his feet on the cabin porch’s railing and took a long sip of his whiskey, welcoming the burn as it coated his throat and warmed his belly.

  Maybe just one call to let ’em know not to expect me.

  He shook his head. No, they’d ask too many questions and he wasn’t prepared to give them the answers they sought. He’d have to make up some kind of lie before he returned to work…whenever that would be.

  Family emergency? No, everyone knows I don’t have any other family. Scheduled surgery? No, they’d ask why I didn’t tell them beforehand.

  He shrugged and finished what was left of his drink. He hoped the crew could hold it together until his return, because the last thing he needed was for his faithful staff to stage an uprising in his absence. Old Simon did fine when Patrick was around. He tended the bar and kept the kitchen staff on their toes, but when it came to making executive decisions, he froze up. He could hardly sign for UPS packages without breaking into a cold sweat.

  Patrick set his bare feet on the ground and pushed himself to standing position. He took one last, long look at the fir-covered mountains in the distance before pulling open the screen door. He cursed those mountains.

  Last year, he’d regretted buying the little cabin in the Smoky Mountains because he never really had a chance to avail himself of it. The pub was open six days out of seven every week, and after five years, he still hadn’t been able to tear himself away from the place. Maybe that was a problem of his own making. Maybe Simon was a crutch he used to give himself a reason not to stray too far. He didn’t want to see his business fail, because really—that pub was all he had left in the world. If it went down, he didn’t want it to be because he didn’t try hard enough. He couldn’t prevent the occasional disaster, but he did his damnedest to run a respectable establishment.

  Still, his doctor had said he was too stressed and that his blood pressure was too damned high for a thirty-two-year-old man, so he’d spent a long weekend at the cabin the month before, engaging in prescribed R&R.

  Big mistake.

  He set his glass on the counter and reached for the bag of bread on top the microwave. Mentally, he debated whether the night’s sandwich would be turkey—again—or roast beef. Maybe I’ll nuke something. Hot sounds good.

  The bread bag was halfway back to its nook when the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside gave him pause. He froze there, not moving a muscle, and turning his hearing outward to isolate the sound.

  Was it a guest? Perhaps a
neighbor from down the mountain who saw his SUV parked beside the house and traveled up to see who he was?

  No. The hairs prickling on his neck said it wasn’t that. The person, whoever it was, walked with too tentative a step for someone making a social visit.

  He stood very still, waiting for the knock.

  None came, only a creak of the old boards on the porch as the person shifted in front of the door.

  A woman’s voice—accented with the slight Southern drawl he’d become so familiar with in the past five years—called through the screen. “Mr. O’Dwyer, could you come to your door, please?”

  He didn’t recognize the voice. Sultry with a bit of an edge. Definitely wasn’t an employee, and none of the neighbors would have known his name. He wasn’t there enough to even put it on his mailbox.

  He put the down the bread and walked to the doorway between the kitchen and front room, pausing at what he saw through the screen. A petite, shapely woman stood in a no-nonsense stance with hands on hips and lovely face a blank mask. He whistled low.

  Nice.

  She may have tried to be tough with that voice and that posture, but with those curves and all that black hair hanging over her shoulders, she was soft, even if she didn’t want to be. He let his gaze trail down from her neck to the café au lait mounds of her breasts barely visible at her maroon sweater’s V-neck, and imagined nuzzling his face between them, memorizing her scent. Marking her.

  He growled and pulled his head back into the kitchen.

  Get a hold of yourself.

  He didn’t ogle women. In his profession, gorgeous women were par for the course. They were in his pub day in and day out. He’d even paid attention to a few, but mostly he’d trained himself not to become involved. The women always got jealous. Were suspicious when he came home late and when they saw him chatting up girls at the bar. That was his job, and he knew how to keep his hands to himself. Now he didn’t bother because it never panned out and wasn’t worth all the grief. They were so damned needy. He didn’t want needy. He already had Simon for that.