Instead, she started a third bowl of the soup and watched the pub fill with people.
"Enjoy," Sean said, reappearing from the kitchen doors behind her to place a bowl of warm toffee pudding on the table.
"Oh, Sean," she said with a smile. "I've already had three bowls of stew!"
"It's from the gentleman o'er there," he said and indicated a booth near the door with the tilt of his head.
"Could I take it to go?" she asked.
He hesitated, and her senses tingled in warning. Sean smiled finally and whisked it away. Yully watched him, alerted by the same sense of uneasiness she felt around her father lately. She wasn't sure why he'd care if she ate or took her dessert home.
Unless there was something wrong with it. She looked down at her stew, her father's warnings coming back to her thoughts. He'd claimed someone would try to kill her, and the man they sought was here. She'd long since thought her father was paranoid, if not crazy. Sean poisoning her made no sense.
It's from the gentleman o'er there. She searched the busy pub with her gaze. There were a lot of tourists in town, probably for the autumn equinox, which drew people from around the world every year. She wasn't sure who Sean was trying to indicate had sent her the dessert.
"Here you go," he said and placed the small brown paper bag on the table before her. "Have a good night, Ms. Yully."
"Oh, here," she said and reached for her purse.
"No worries. The gentleman paid for your dinner."
"Which gentleman?" she asked. "I'd like to thank him."
"Right over there." He pointed to a small table across the pub, and she wondered how she'd missed the men at the table.
"Thanks."
Sean returned to the bar. Two men sat at the table, one with blond hair and the other like something out of a movie. Cocoa skin, soulful dark eyes, exotic features, and brilliant tattoos over his exposed, muscular arms. His hair was long and black, braided down his back. While it was hard to tell his height when he was seated, he looked to be Sean's size, well over six feet tall. He sat like he owned the pub, leaning back in the chair in a display of relaxed power. His smiles to his companion were easy and his gaze wary.
He shimmered, like her father did.
Yully's stomach turned. This had to be the man her father warned her about! She made a show of resting her coat across the table, as if to say she wasn't leaving, and crossed to the small hall that contained the restrooms. Instead of ducking into the ladies' room, she pushed through the back entrance, which emptied out into a dark, rainy alley. Shivering, she pulled out her phone to call her father as she made her way towards the street.