AN OFFER THEY COULDN'T REFUSE
By John Castle - Written For DTM / Amy's Conquest
Romeo & Juliet style romance story, set in old school New York, between an adorable Irish boy and the Amazonian Catholic girl that loves him


There really wasn't a vast array of options open to a girl in the area of
excuses for hanging out near an auto-body garage. Sure, her own car had been
in there -- more than once, and that was pushing it -- but the beautiful young
brunette had her reasons for wanting to be near Flaherty's Auto Body, and
although body played a prominent role, 'auto' was strictly second fiddle.
There was no rationalization for it that would do any good, of course. The
honest truth of the matter was that she had a crush.

Patrick Flaherty, age 20. He'd done two years in the ETO and come home in 1945
a hero of D-Day. Like most of the men who'd landed in Normandy and survived
the journey from those beaches to the Eagle's Nest, he preferred to say little
or nothing except that he'd been there, and now he was home, and that was a
lot better than most of the guys who had gone in had done, and some of them
had been his friends, so let's talk about something else if you don't mind.
She could handle that. What a good Roman Catholic girl would never get past
those pretty red lips of hers was that she wanted to handle quite a bit more
than that.

The problem was, although Pat and his elder brother had gone over and come
back, none of her brothers had done the same. It wasn't that none of them were
physically able. It was that the family business lent them certain advantages
that the Flaherty's didn't have. Not that the Flaherty's weren't in a similar
business. They just didn't have the same connections or the same pull with the
people who could do them those kind of favors, or repay them for favors done
in such big ways.

"Angie!" A hand clapped down on her shoulder and she startled violently,
nearly shrieked. She'd been so lost in the daydream, her eyes fixed in a
thousand-yard stare just like the one Pat sometimes got, that she hadn't seen
or heard her brother Alfonse until he was standing damn near in her lap. "The
hell's the matter with you, uh?" he cast a contemptuous smirk across the
street, then turned his worried brown eyes back on her. "You know what happens
if Bela or, God forbid, Papa sees you out here all moon-eyed over that mick?"

"Who I see is my business!" she looked up at him defiantly, her long light
brown hair tucked under her blue summer hat. A cream colored four door Packard
rumbled by and a shrill wolf-whistle pierced the tension between them.

"Hey!" Alfonse whirled to follow the sight of the car as laughter bubbled from
the windows and it turned the next corner. Now irritable, he turned back to
his sister. She remained sitting, patiently awaiting the inevitable
tongue-lashing with her hands crossed in her lap, a look of perennial
long-suffering on her pretty face. "Who you get tangled up with is family
business! You know what the other families would say, uh? Angela Rosa Vinetti,
daughter of Salvatore Vinetti, on the arm of a dirty nobody mick--"

"Now that's enough, Alfie!" she glared up at him.

"And don't you call me that!" she could see his face reddening -- this was
quickly spiraling out of control. He forced himself to stop leaning over her,
threw his hands up. "Lavare via!" he swore in the language of the Old Country;
then, in English, he added, "You don't wanna listen to me, uh? Me, your
brother, all I want is you, happy, and -"

"Uh uh." She shook her head. "Don't, Alfonse. Don't you try to put the guilt
on me like that. What you want is to look good in front of Papa, that's all.
Just to look good with Papa and Bela." She stood, gathered up her enormous
black purse and slung it over her shoulder. She was already as tall as her
older brother's five feet ten inches -- taller, if you counted her summer hat.
He leaned back on his heels, hooked his thumbs through his belt loops.

"So maybe I do." His voice was nonchalant. "That don't mean it ain't for you,
too. We can all come out ahead, you just listen to your family."

That was about the time she tuned him out, her flat-soled shoes carrying her
down the sidewalk toward the station.

"Don't be selfish, Angela!" he called after her. She didn't hear him; she was
already dreaming awake again.

"So what's the problem?" the blonde asked as Angela took a seat opposite her
at the outdoor table. Angela smiled at her friend, Connie Wellingford; Connie
knew good and well what the problem was. At issue was the fact that she didn't
agree that it ought to be a problem.

"You know what it is, Connie. It's my papa. And my brothers. And..." Angela
paused to stare out at the street, then shook her head, her straight dark hair
swinging gently on the collar of her blouse. "Maybe it's the whole world. It's
a man's world. Here we are in Manhattan in the year of our Lord
nineteen-hundred and forty-six and you'd think it was still the middle ages,
huh?"

The blonde lifted her glass of iced tea. "Like I believe you think like that.
The girl who uses her big brother's home gymnasium when he's out of the house.
You. Sure. I oughta smack you, but good."

"Just you try it!" Angela laughed.

"You know what you have to do, Angela." Her friend said, her expression
turning sober. "If you want something, sometimes you just have to reach out
and grab it, and then hold it no matter what anybody else says."

Angela sighed. "Easy for you to say, Connie. You don't have to deal with an
overbearing parent who -"

Just then, a shrill voice rose from inside the cafe. "Constance Mildred
Wellingford, you get in here this instant!"

Connie sighed. "Don't I?"

Angela smiled. "Tell your mother I said hello. I'll see you, Connie."

The afternoon sun shone down warm and bright as the sound of her high heels
clicked along the crowded sidewalk. She looked up to see a businessman flash
her a surreptitious grin, heard the gasp of a woman behind him as she passed
them. She didn't mind.

She spied the awning of Flaherty's Garage as she passed a Parisian-styled
cafe, the scents of strong coffee, sweet cream and buttered croissants
tempting her nose. The burn of her morning workout had faded to a comfortable
warmth soothed by the cool spring breeze. The laughter of children from a park
somewhere nearby carried to her on the breeze, made her steps feel lighter.

She would watch her Paddy again today; she was sure that he still hadn't
noticed her, but she didn't mind that. One of these days, she'd make her move
- she was growing more and more certain with each passing day that people
would just have to talk, say she was forward, say it was "unladylike" - let
them. She wanted what she wanted, and like Connie said, sometimes you just had
to reach out and grab hold of what you wanted, no matter what anybody said.

Soon enough, she stood at the mouth of the garage, watching him. He looked
just like always - blue jeans streaked with axle or maybe engine grease, his
shirt lying on a bench nearby while he toiled half in and half out of the
mouth of a Packard convertible She stood there, her heels on the sidewalk and
her toes on the garage floor, then stepped inside.

"Hey, now!" a gruff voice drew her attention to the side, where Patrick's
brothers Donal and Ian stared at her as they walked into the garage from the
cramped office, a cooler and a huge picnic basket carried between the two of
them. Donal gave her a disapproving stare. "Can we help you, Miss?"

She swallowed her apprehension. Well, after all this time, today was the day.
"I'm here to see Pat." She knew better than to call him "Paddy" in front of
his brothers - it was how she thought of him, a term of endearment, but she
also knew that, under certain circumstances, it had been and still was a slur
against the Irish.

"Well, that sounds like personal business to me." Donal said, and set down the
cooler on the bench next to Pat's shirt. "And we're on the clock now. So
unless you've got a car in your purse needs lookin' over, you got no business
here."

"Pat?" She decided to ignore the cold front coming off his brothers - but he
was gone. He wasn't under the hood of the Packard, and she hadn't seen him go
anywhere. She looked angrily at his brothers, not understanding how they did
it, but asked anyway, "What did you do with him?"

"You can't have him." Donal was suddenly standing right in front of her,
glaring down at her. She hadn't seen him move, though of course he must have.
"I'll not be havin' my own little brother runnin' around with some guinea
bitch."

She felt a well of fury build in the pit of her stomach at that, and stood her
ground with a defiant snarl. "He's mine!"

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Donal arched a brow with sardonic amusement.
Beside him, Ian chuckled. "Well, and what are you gonna do, eh? Will ya fight
for him? Will ya bleed for him?" He reached out for her blouse front with an
enormous left hand, his right curling into a fist and drawing back -

The fury jumped through the roof when adrenaline coursed through her veins.
She turned her torso slightly and barreled into the big man with hip and
shoulder and bicep - at the same time, her hands flew up to seize his left
hand in an iron grip. Her left hand pressed his left forearm to the outside
while her right pressed his elbow to the inside.

When the two of them hit the open hood of the Packard, their combined 300
pounds jolted through his arm and her hands, crushing his elbow in a sickening
crunch before he fell halfway into the cavity to lie howling on the car's
engine. To add insult to injury, Angela slammed her forearm into the foldable
rod holding the hood open. She drew her hand out just in time to avoid the
falling hood, then pounded her fist, hammer-like, on the hood to punch it
painfully into the big man's stomach.

A hand grabbed her shoulder and she spun on her feet, as agile, graceful and
deadly as a wildcat. Ian glared at her, snarled as he threw a wide, sailing
punch that whistled toward her eyes - she dropped just under it, felt the air
disturbed just over her head as it passed. Now Ian's arms were nearly crossed.

She reached up with both hands, trapping his forearms against each other, and
a small scream of mixed anger and triumph spilled from her lips as she pushed
both his arms up and back, off-balancing him but holding him like that, as her
knee came up and brutally into the place where a man most wants a girl's knee
not to be. At the same time, she released his arms, the knee sending his
already unbalanced body sprawling across the concrete floor.

"Angie, what are ya doin'?" she heard another voice speak up just as she had
prepared herself to do... she didn't know what. She spun on the balls of her
feet again, a growl in her throat, her teeth bared. Patrick stood there,
mortified, staring at her. Somehow she had lost every scrap of clothing. Her
firm breasts swayed, her long, muscled thighs and solid, etched calves bunched
and flexed as she swayed, almost danced, ready to tear the next man to pieces.

"Come here..." she growled, even as she stalked toward him. Instead, he backed
away, putting his hands up, palms open and facing her. "I didn't say back up,"
her voice rose, "I said come here!" She took two running steps and leaped,
wrapping her arms around his neck, her long legs around his middle and
tackling him to the thick, soft mattress.

His head hit the pillow, his eyes wide and lower lip trembling, his face ghost
white with terror as she lowered her lips to his, forcing his mouth open and
raping it with her tongue as her arms and legs squeezed even more tightly
around him. The scent of his fear, the feel of his strong body - yet smaller
and weaker than her own - writhing in panic under her only spurred her to
higher and hotter planes of sensation. She shifted her weight on him, hard,
then felt an almost painful fullness stretch her inside...

The girl writhed under her sheets, tossing them off with a powerful thrust of
her hips and grasping motion of her thighs. Laid bare in the moonlight, her
body was damp with sweat. It beaded on her brow, formed tiny rivulets on her
neck that rolled down into the valley between her breasts. Her hand, all
unknown to her, lay nestled firmly against her vulva, fingers massaging and
probing. Her thighs flexed hard, each muscle group leaping into relief, as she
cried out softly in the night, dreaming of the boy she would make her own if
she got the chance....

6 YEARS LATER

"Papa, I can't come home right now, I have to work late tonight." She took the
telephone's handset away from her ear for a moment, then put it back. "I'm not
18 anymore, papa. I can't just hang around the house all day and..." she
sighed. "I love you, papa, but you're making me crazy here! I have to--" she
took the handset away from her ear again and waited, an exasperated sigh on
her lips. "Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fine. Have it your way." She slammed the receiver
down on the cradle and muttered. "Just like you always do."

"Let me guess." Sammy Torini leaned against the counter, his chin resting on
his fist. "You gotta leave early." He shook his head in annoyance.

"I don't want to, Sammy, honest to God I don't." She answered plaintively. Her
hair, darkened to black now and done in a long pageboy style, brushed faintly
along her back as she shook her head. "I just... can't say no to my father."

Sammy threw up his hands in resignation. "Yeah, you or anybody else in the
neighborhood. Go on, get outta here before we both end up in hot water."

"Excuse me, miss?" another voice spoke up -- one that was somehow familiar,
yet one she hadn't heard for forever. "You in some kind of trouble, are ya?"

She turned to look and her jaw nearly dropped. "Patrick!" she bubbled. "Pat!"
She rushed toward him and discovered when he stood to greet her, that he was
four inches shorter than her six feet. She giggled. "Me wee mon!" she said in
her best imitation of an Irish accent. He was not remotely amused.

"How do you know my name?" he scowled. "And how d'ye know my parents are
Irish?"

She stood taken aback, for a moment, at the coldness of his answer; then it
occurred to her that, after over half a decade of having not spoken, he simply
didn't remember her -- or, to his credit, simply didn't recognize her with the
darker hair, the six inches more to her legs, nor with thirty pounds more
muscle to her frame. "Pat..." she said a little shyly, "It's me. Angie."

He stopped, blinked at her as though she'd just grown a third leg from her
forehead. Then recognition dawned in his green eyes. "Angie?" She nodded at
him and he took a step back, looking her over from toes to hat. He had to
crane his neck a little to do it, from his height of all of five foot eight.
"My God..." he whispered. "You've gotten..."

She smiled and, prompted by words she could barely remember, stepped forward
and folded him into her arms, nearly pulling his face into the white linen of
her blouse. "My Paddy..." she whispered.

"Good God, Angie, you're..." he seemed to search for the right words, then
simply settled on the accurate ones. "You're an amazon woman!"

She relaxed her grip on him, a faint tinge of dismay showing at the edges of
her face. "You're not put off, are you, Pat?"

Then he did what she had least expected he would do; he melted closer into her
embrace, grinned up at her boyishly. "Not a bit, darlin'. You're a vision, a
goddess. Put off?" he scoffed. "If we was in a place where other people wasn't
lookin', I'd..." his sense of propriety seemed to take hold before he could
fully elaborate on the thought -- and yet, even the implication was enough to
put a rosy flush to her cheeks, to shorten her breath.

She looked down at him and allowed the faintest growl to reverberate through
her chest and against his cheek. "You'd better be good, Patrick Flaherty. I
think just maybe I can hurt you..." She actually felt him shiver against her
body, then, and the ache between her thighs spiked out to nearly unbearable
force. It took all the not inconsiderable willpower she possessed, at that
moment, to refrain from tearing his clothes off him and making him her
plaything then and there, her boss watching and all.

Then her good Roman Catholic upbringing reasserted itself and she nearly
fainted at what had just been crossing her mind. What would her father say?
"My father..." she groaned, remembering the phone call that had so upset her.

"What about him, Angie?" Patrick asked.

"He wants me home an hour ago, is all." She scowled. "I'd better go."

He frowned in turn. "Well... will we meet again in another six years?" he
half-joked. She saw the look in his eye; she felt the same.

"Do you have a car?" she asked slowly.

He laughed. "I only work at a garage, love. Of course I have a car." He took a
set of keys from his pocket, dangled them playfully.

"Then the answer is no." She said with a deadpan look. He blinked, stricken.
"Because we're getting out of the city, together."

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