To Love A Wild Irishman

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Finnegan rammed his fingers through his hair when he glanced out the window and saw that the dawn was beginning to brighten up the sky to the east. He'd spent the whole night awake and pacing.

After Cassandra had burst into his room and then fled again, Finnegan had forced the whore to leave and had tried desperately to get Cassandra to allow him into her room. His knocks had gone unanswered.

Finnegan hated himself for what he'd allowed to happen. Cassandra had clearly been given a hard time and Finnegan hadn't been there to protect her. What was wrong with him? His father had raised him a certain way and Finnegan had worked hard to be the Irishman that his father claimed all Irishman were.....

So why did he feel so damned pathetic, worthless and downright bad for what had happened last night? Hell the saloon had been Cassandra's idea! She'd seemed confident that she could handle things and had even told him to stop attempting to be a man he wasn't by trying to protect her.....Now she was angry because he had done what she'd asked him to...

Finnegan was confused. Who was he? What kind of man allowed his best friend, who happened to be a lady, to be left alone in a saloon to fend for herself? The answer to that was simple; an Irishman. His father had taught him well what an Irishman was. An Irishman loved whiskey, poker, bedding women and taking nothing seriously. He looked out for himself and himself alone. That was an Irishman. Cassandra should understand that since she had known Finnegan since just after he'd learned to walk.

Finnegan heard a knock on his door and ran to it. He jerked it open eagerly, hoping to see Cassandra standing before him only to run directly into Seamus's angry fist.

Finnegan went stumbling backward as his head exploded with pain. He felt blood pouring down his chin from his lip and as he fell down on his backside on the bed he touched his mouth gingerly to find that his lip was

already beginning to swell and it was split wide open.

"Good mornin' to ya as well, Dear Seamus."

"Don't ya 'dear Seamus' me ya worthless sack o'shit!" Seamus bellowed.

"Are ya suddenly Irish again then?" Finnegan forced himself to grin as he stood. Then he launched at his brother, tackling the other man to the ground and punching him hard in the jaw.

They rolled around in the floor a bit and then Finnegan froze at Seamus's next words, "Congratulations, Finnegan. You are finally exactly like the man you always aspired to be. Cassandra was damn near raped and brutalized but you had your whore and your whiskey so you could not have cared less. Nice way to show your best friend how much you truly don't care about her. At least now her eyes will be open to the bastard that you really are."

"She was nearly raped?" Finnegan whispered feeling an anger inside of him like he'd never felt before.... And a guilt.

His Little Cass should have never had to face something like that. Finnegan had just assumed those men had given her a hard time about leaving. He'd never once imagined they'd actually laid angry hands on her or tried to take what wasn't theirs to take. Instead of voicing any of that he shook his head. "It wasn't my fault. I'm only an Irishman." Finnegan countered as he fell away from Seamus and leaned panting against the side of the bed.

"That's horseshit and you know it," Seamus exclaimed as he shoved himself to his feet and glared down at Finnegan. "We share the same damn blood, Finnegan. You've used that as an excuse your whole life just the same as he did. When he drank and gambled away our money for the month and we ended up hungry 'I can't help it ya see cuz I'm an Irishman.' When he'd break his vows to our mother and have her in tears 'I don't mean it lassie, I'm an Irishman and cannot help meself'. Every bad thing he ever did was because he was an Irishman! That's nothing but a lie, Finnegan, and you damn well know it. I'm just as much an Irishman as you but you don't see me doing the things you do and getting in trouble. Cassandra trusted you and whether she asked for your help in keeping her safe or not you know as well as I do that any decent man, Irish or not, would have stayed there and saw that she got back safely. Your faults have nothing to do with your heritage, Finnegan. You do these things because you're an immature, childish, fool-headed jackass who doesn't care about anybody but himself."