CAMELOT FANTASIES

Welcome to Camelot.

Regan O'Leary was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, spending a great deal of her childhood along the Louisiana Gulf coast. She is a freelance writer and researcher, and she enjoys reading, fishing, and traveling at home and abroad. She still resides in South Louisiana with her husband and three children. This is her debut novel.

Phillip "Bane" Shaw, a native of Scotland, is the arrogant and impetuous owner of Shaw Sound Studios in Hollywood South. Shaw has a thriving business, loyal friends, and a captivating relationship with Bronagh Stewart, a woman with whom he is wholly in love and who altogether completes him; a woman he thought didn't exist. The compelling desire Bronagh and he share, and their seemingly flawless relationship bring about contentment Bane has never known, despite the mildly petulant, ever-present thoughts of the murders he committed in Glasgow years before. Shaw's idyllic life is threatened, not only by the secrets of his past, but also of Bronagh's, when Bronagh's psychopathic ex-husband reenters her life. Will this monster succeed in visiting upon her, again, unimaginable violence?

Closer To Home is a psychological suspense thriller that challenges the reader to consider their own notion of love, obsession and revenge. Exactly how far would you go to protect those precious to you?

Meet Bane Shaw: self-proclaimed womanizing, arrogant, bad ass.  Please enjoy Chapter One of Closer To Home.



It was the spring of 1985 when the tattooist yanked Shaw’s flask from his mouth then handed him a bottle of water, as he continued inking a date into the banner that draped over the existing dagger tattoo on his shoulder blade. The tattoo was an exact replica of the dagger Shaw carried with him at all times. The deer-antler handle bolstered a four-inch blade that his great, great grandfather crafted after tracking and killing a stag in the Scottish Highland’s Cairngorm Mountains. Shaw carried the sgian dubh, or hidden knife, under his armpit in the sleeve lining of his coat, since it was illegal to carry a weapon in Scotland. It was the very same dagger he had used just hours before to slit open the throat of the seventeen year old Bridgeton gang member who’d sliced his brother’s neck from ear to ear five days earlier in the perilous streets of Glasgow. The sgian dubh dagger tattoo was only three days old, an emblem to honor his brother and a reminder of the first murder Shaw ever committed. Having sought after and carried out his revenge for Jack’s murder, the date of his death inked into his shoulder blade completed the tattoo. This shop would be Shaw’s last stop before taking the train from Glasgow down to London.
The tattooist handed him a mirror and his flask. He took a long draw of whisky as he nodded at the reflection of his shoulder blade in the mirror, “Jack April 13, 1985.” Shaw left the shop, stepped into a misty, wind-driven rain, threw a bag over his left shoulder and walked to the train station. He was only nineteen years old.
He was born, Phillip Douglas Shaw, and was raised in Drumchapel, Glasgow, Scotland. “The Drum,” as it was affectionately called by its residents, was a post-war housing scheme built in the 1950s by the Glasgow City Council to relocate 30,000 or so families from Glasgow’s suburbs in an effort to ease the pains of overpopulation. Drumchapel was considered a new town, and he always thought of his community, his home, as separate and unique. His mum always told him that their family was fortunate to have drawn a winning ticket to move from the slums of Maryhill in the north of Glasgow to Drumchapel in the west. 
 
Shaw’s parents were hard working, faithful people without dreams for themselves, or at least that is what he always believed. Their dreams were small, and only for their three boys. Shaw was the middle boy, and he believed he would become one of his father’s biggest disappointments. He grew up on Howgate Avenue with his mum and da, Alva Gail and John Aaran Shaw, his older brother, John Aaran “Jack,” Jr., and baby brother, Collin Michael. They lived in a gray, roughcast, 4-in-a-block tenement facing Drumchapel Park. His father was a Glasgow police officer, like his father before him, and his mother worked as a cabinet polisher at the Singer Sewing Factory in neighboring Clydebank until it closed in 1979; she later worked for Clydebank Co-op for a number of years.
Shaw never thought of his family as poor. They were like most everyone else in the Drum; no one was wealthy. But, they didn’t want for anything that he specifically remembered. His parents made decent wages, and Drumchapel promised a community free from the inner-city crowding of his mum’s upbringing in Maryhill. They even had a small yard that held a clothesline and a modest garden.
By all accounts, he had a happy childhood. Jack and Shaw grappled and scrapped with each other constantly. They played games of rounders in the park, kirby in the street, found mischief where they could, and they both dreamed of bigger lives. At the end of each week, Jack and Shaw would go with their mum to the laundry and the market, keeping an eye on Collin for her, then helping her tote their wares back through Drumchapel Park to their house. Shaw remembered resisting the urge to race Jack to play on the rocket at the Hecla Avenue end of the park. He also remembered the look his mum gave her boys that told she’d switch their rear ends if they abandoned their packages to run off and play.
Shaw’s father was a rigid man, inflexible in his views of his family and of the world around him. Shaw didn’t know whether it was his da’s upbringing, or the time he spent as a cop in the most dangerous city in Scotland that made him so stubborn. He was also a passionate man, which revealed itself in his joy of storytelling over a glass of whisky, his unending love for his wife, or in his unrestrained temper that could rise as abruptly as a storm. Shaw would learn in time that he was more like his father than either of his other two sons.
Jack was two years older than Shaw, a rebel dreamer with a tender heart and, like most teenage boys, he began challenging his father when he was thirteen. Unfortunately, Jack never outgrew the father-son authority struggle. He was in and out of trouble with the police, and Shaw always believed he took some measure of satisfaction in being a true source of embarrassment for their police officer father. Jack’s final act of defiance was when he began running with a local gang in the Drum, the PGB, or Peel Glen Boys, resulting in a number of “not proven” verdicts from the Scottish judicial system. Jack’s PGB affiliation would be his downfall and ultimately lead to his father’s death.
Collin was four years younger than Shaw, with his father’s good looks and playful smile. John adored Collin, unlike his two older sons. Collin was a practical child with the same small dreams his parents had. Shaw loved his little brother, but at times he felt sorry for him. He never shared the connection with Collin that he felt with Jack. As Collin grew, his sensible nature limited him to a life never far from the Drum. He became a welder at the Yarrows Shipbuilders and married Catherine Morrison from neighboring Scotstoun. Collin’s complacency was, without a doubt, what appealed to his father and was probably why John always favored him over Jack and Shaw.
Shaw was born on July 4, 1965. He was a free spirited, mischievous and happy child. He learned to love music at an early age. His mum had a pretty voice and sang out loud every day. Shaw would sit with her in the kitchen and listen to her hum and sing old Celtic songs. His mum bought him a boxed record player for his fourth Christmas and he played storybook albums with dramatic background music. At a fairly young age, he realized he was much more interested in the music than the story. Shaw spent much of his younger years in a local music shop where the owner let him tinker with the instruments on the sales displays. Any money he had never stayed long in his pocket; while his friends spent their money on Dandy comics, Shaw was always buying an album or the latest music magazine. By the age of ten, he knew music would be a driving force in his life, and at that particular age, he dreamt of being a rock star. As he grew older, his musical aspirations wouldn’t change, but they would become more realistic.
The week he turned eighteen, he got a job bartending at The Rigg just to support his music habit. The Rigg was the public bar of the Hill’s Hotel. Shaw considered himself funny because he could always elicit a laugh from his regular customers. In reality, he was simply a smartass, but apparently, a funny smartass. The job was fun, and it was always interesting working in one of the roughest public houses in Drumchapel. Bartending at night at The Rigg sometimes required breaking up fights, especially during football matches between Rangers and Celtic, an Old Firm Glasgow rivalry based more on religious bigotry than football. The manager of The Rigg gave Shaw his nickname, “Bane,” because, more times than not, anyone he had to throw out of the pub left with a broken bone.
The Rigg was a jagged pub known far and wide for its vicious bar fights. There were regular stabbings and even a couple of murders. He was fourteen when the fighting spilled into the streets around the Hill’s Hotel after the infamous 1980 Scottish Cup final when Celtic brought home the trophy. Jack was a huge Celtic fan and proudly wore their green and white colors to support the team, and he absolutely prized the brawling associated with every game.
Shaw finally realized his hopes to disk jockey at a local lounge when he landed a part-time job at The Golden Garter, which was adjacent to the Hill’s Hotel. The Golden Garter was the dancing
nightspot in Drumchapel. He stayed engrossed in the music he played and loved it when the local patrons shouted out requests for him to play. It was always one big party for Shaw. It was what he was born to do.
His father hated the path he had chosen. His idea of success was for Shaw to marry some local snatch and raise babies on a starving man’s salary. Shaw believed he was simply an outlet for his father, a place to deposit the disappointment he had for Jack, and then, ultimately, a place to deposit the blame for his death. He told Shaw he was worthless and no good for chasing musical dreams and for running with that George Fleming.
George was a close friend who worked for the largest record distribution company in Scotland. George always passed on early promotional and demo records to Shaw. The manager of The Golden Garter learned that he was playing tunes before they ever became hits, which made Shaw a favorite disk jockey among the local patrons.
Early in April of 1985, Shaw convinced Jack to go with him to a Sauchiehall Street nightclub to see a southern rock band from the States. Jack’s pride and loyalty to his PGB crew, his love of the Celtic football team, and his mostly unpracticed Catholic faith, permitted him—at least in his mind—to boldly wear his colors. They were attacked leaving the concert, one block from the club. A kid, no more than seventeen, grabbed Jack from behind and cut his throat, severing his carotid artery. Shaw was simply beaten to the ground. He watched Jack crumble to the street before he could crawl over to his brother. Shaw remembered hearing the taunts and laughter from their attackers echo off the neighboring buildings, calling them Fenian schemies, but he made sure to memorize the face of the blue-nose bastard who cut his brother. When Shaw did reach Jack, he held him as he bled out in his arms. He emptied Jack’s pants pockets, and to this day, carries the keychain crafted from the stone bottle top of a Grolsch lager bottle. Shaw believed his father never forgave him for Jack’s death, since it was his idea to go to the concert. He assumed his da never paused to consider that maybe Jack’s arrogance and untouchable attitude played a role in their attack.
Jack was murdered by a rival gang, a member of the Billy Boys, a Protestant crew from Bridgeton, Glasgow and notoriousRangers fans. Shaw sought after and got revenge for Jack’s death before he left The Drum, and Scotland, forever. His mum suffered the worst, losing two sons within days of each other. She told Shaw she understood, but he knew her heart was broken and that Collin would be all she and his da had left. Nonetheless, on April, 18, 1985, he took the train from Glasgow down to London with very little money in his pocket.
He walked into Soho Sound Studios, which lay just off Golden Square, threw down an unreleased demo, and asked for a job. He was told they weren’t hiring.
“Play the record,” Shaw insisted.
A young prick, Andy, a few years older than him said, “I’ll play the record, but I’m not hiring you.”
“We’ll see,” Shaw quipped.
Andy laughed as he put the record on a turntable. Shaw watched his smug, bored expression disappear as “Money For Nothing” played from the speakers. Andy looked at him and said, “This hasn’t been released, yet.”
“Aye. I know. I have two more in my bag, Madonna and Duran Duran. Too bad you’re not hiring,” he said and turned and left Andy’s office.
Shaw knew unreleased demos wouldn’t help Andy, or anyone else at Soho Sound, but Andy stopped him at the front door and offered him an entry-level position where Shaw would shadow programmers and engineers in the London studio.
They walked back to Andy’s office. “You’re a ballsy, twit,” he said.
“I try.”
“Where’d you get the demo?”
“I have resources.”
“You’re a smartass, too!”
“Absolutely,” Shaw said.
George’s demos and Shaw’s arrogance got Andy’s attention that day. He liked Shaw’s ingenuity; they’ve been friends ever since. That entry-level shot was all he needed to realize his dreams in the music industry. Shaw worked for Soho Sound for eleven years until, in 1996, he agreed to move to the States to help establish a secondary studio in New York City.
Shaw set up and ran SSNY for three years before deciding to make another move, a move to the less radical, less populated environment of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He chose Baton Rouge after reading several articles about proposed legislation to allow tax incentives for movie production companies that filmed in Louisiana.
Over the years, he had saved a good deal of money, as he had no family to support. Shaw scheduled a week of vacation, flew to Baton Rouge and spent the week scouting properties in the downtown area.
Over the previous two decades, revitalization efforts to improve the downtown Baton Rouge economy met with some success and some failure. In the mid-eighties, $28 million was spent to open a marketplace named Catfish Town on the banks of the Mississippi River. The July 4th festival opening drew over a quarter million people into the downtown area, but, within eighteen months, Catfish Town was abandoned. In 1994, the Catfish Town marketplace became the atrium for a riverboat casino.
Shaw calculated that if the Louisiana legislature passed the tax incentive programs, the Bayou State would triple film productions. South Louisiana, which had already earned the moniker Hollywood South, steeped in film tradition from the early movies of Tarzan of the Apes, to the classics, Easy Rider and Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte, in addition to the more recent block-busters Steel Magnolias and Interview With The Vampire, needed a proper sound studio. There were only a couple of small sound studios in Baton Rouge, but none like he envisioned.
With the help of the Federal and State Historic Rehabilitation Tax credits, the tax increment financing, and other economic growth incentives, he found an abandoned warehouse in downtown Baton Rouge. Because the downtown economy continued to dwindle, he learned he could purchase the warehouse for a song and finally realize his dream. He flew back to New York, packed up his apartment, and turned in his two weeks’ notice at SSNY. In the Fall of 1999, Shaw moved to Baton Rouge and bought the property because he knew the boom would happen. And it did. Shaw Sound Studios was born.
He took his time learning the city. Louisiana had parishes, not counties. There was a heavy Cajun French influence among the residents of Baton Rouge as well as other predominant cultures including Spanish, Irish and Italian. There were churches of every denomination within blocks of each other. He found it refreshing to walk along streets where Catholics and Protestants mingled and worshiped together without conflict. And, unlike his life in New York, faith and religion held a priority with Louisianans, regardless of their beliefs. He learned the area around his warehouse was surrounded by two universities and some slum areas with crime-ridden neighborhoods just blocks from his new investment. Welcome home, he told himself, thinking about his old hometown of Drumchapel.
William “Billy” Morrissey had worked with Shaw at Soho Sound, and he was also part of the team that relocated to New York to set up SSNY. He was Shaw’s hire at Soho Sound. He abandoned New York and followed Shaw to Louisiana and was now his tech guy. Billy had grown up in County Kilkenny, Ireland and was seven years Shaw’s junior. He had a more privileged life in Gowran than Shaw had ever known in Glasgow, raised in a middle class home, and educated at the prestigious Trinity College in Dublin. He was smart and a technical miracle worker, able to manipulate anything electronic at his pleasure, and command computerized technology with ease, earning him the nickname, “Morse Code,” at Soho Sound. Shaw rarely called him that anymore, unless he was trying to twist him up. He simply called him Billy. He was one of Shaw’s closest friends.
Billy and Shaw lived in the barren warehouse for months as Shaw got funding together to renovate the warehouse and build a studio out front. Once it was built, it was a state-of-the-art sound studio with multiple recording dens specializing in studio recordings, sound design, sound animation, voiceovers, mixing and dubbing, and audio post-production. Shaw’s loft apartment was built upstairs on the west side of the warehouse. In addition to the large executive offices in the studio, the warehouse also held additional office space, an employee kitchen and lounge, and an inventory of every imaginable musical instrument.
Shaw purchased the musical equipment from a man who would later become his best friend. Marsh owned a music store that Billy and he wandered into one day after eating lunch at a nearby café. Marsh was teaching bass guitar to a fifteen-year-old boy when Billy and Shaw walked into his shop. Marsh had long, dark brown hair, green eyes, and a beard and mustache, which surprised Shaw once he noticed the eagle, globe, and anchor Marine Corps tattoo on his left bicep. His build and features reminded Shaw of an old-world Viking. Marsh was tall, long-limbed, with a broad chest and narrow hips. He wore a braided leather wristband, a gold chain around his neck, and a gold Marine Corps ring on his right hand.
Billy and Shaw browsed through his inventory as Marsh continued the lesson. Near the end of the lesson, Shaw sat at the front counter engrossed in the jam session he and his student were having. Shaw was captivated by Marsh’s ability to simultaneously play lead and rhythm on one guitar. No one can do that, he thought. Marsh turned out to be the most talented musician Shaw would ever meet.

To Continue Reading Closer To Home: http://www.amazon.com/Closer-Home-Book-Crime-Drama-ebook/dp/B0157G0J8Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1451875663&sr=8-2&keywords=Closer+to+home

An excerpt from Chapter 16: Bronagh's love for Shaw:

During the next few weeks, this is how they lived. Shaw never left Bronagh’s side, which he loved because he didn’t have to experience nights away from her like they had practiced in the past. Marsh or Billy, usually Marsh, accompanied Bronagh and Shaw everywhere. They spent some weekends at Bronagh’s house, but most weekends in Baton Rouge. Karen and King ran the studio with Billy and Marsh helping out part-time when they weren’t with Bronagh and Shaw.
Their lives eventually went back to normal. Mike Allen had seemingly disappeared. He hadn’t been back to Charley’s Pub. Biloxi was a bust, Billy and King having found no sign of him in Mississippi. None of his local haunts panned out, either. In the following weeks, Mr. Allen finally became a fading memory of a very bad night.
That didn’t mean things didn’t get shaggy from time to time. It was early March and Grace and Karen were planning to go shopping with Bronagh.
“Aye, right! Not happening,” Shaw told them.
“I’m sick of sitting around this warehouse week after week,” Bronagh protested. “I want to go shopping and have lunch with my friends.”
“Bane, we all have a job here, Bronagh doesn’t,” Grace said. “She needs to get out of that little apartment and out of this warehouse.”
“I won’t let you girls go shopping alone.”
“You are being ridiculous, Bane,” Karen said.
“No! I’m not!”
“Then, you’ll just have to come along with us because we want some new shoes and some girl time,” Bronagh said. Grace and Karen laughed at Shaw’s expression.
Bright and not so early Saturday morning, they all met at the studio, and Marsh, Billy, and Shaw followed the girls to the mall for some “much-needed shoe shopping.”
Shaw had never understood women and their shoes. He appreciated nice clothes. He had a closet full of clothes for every occasion. He was a clothes horse, according to King, who always razzed him when he dressed to go out with Bronagh.
“You’re a narcissistic fashionmanista, cabrón. Hell, man, you dress better than my girls,” he’d say. He had boots, several pairs, a couple of dress loafers, but he would never understand a woman’s obsession for so many bloody shoes.
The girls were laughing and having a great time, but Shaw couldn’t, and he didn’t want to remember the last time he had been shopping with women at a mall. He hated it. And he hated that Marsh and Billy were having to endure it, too. They didn’t like it either, but Shaw’s attitude was the worst. He cussed and complained the entire time. For God’s sake, he thought. We could be on the golf course. It felt ridiculous to follow the girls from store to store. They drew odious looks from store associates and customers as Marsh, Billy and Shaw sat around the women’s departments dressed in their biker gear while these three beautiful women spent endless hours trying on shoes and clothes. Shaw was obnoxious, propping his boots on the seats in the shoe departments or pulling two chairs out of the ladies’ dressing room, one to sit on and one for his feet. Misery.
Marsh finally pulled him aside. “Bane, you need to lighten up.”
“This sucks. I would rather be fishing, and I hate fishing,” he said.
“You want to leave them alone? Do you really want to risk that?”
“No!”
Marsh patted his back. “Relax, brother, no matter how bad or long the day, the evening does come.”
Marsh walked over to the women and took several shopping bags to carry for them. He looked over at Shaw with his ‘Bama-boy grin, and Shaw knew he had done it just to tick him off.
“You ‘Bama, prick. I hate that Southern gentlemen bullshit of yours,” he said.
Bronagh asked Marsh if she could take Shaw to one more store. “Just a few minutes, Marsh. It’s right over there,” she said. She pointed at a small boutique store, and Marsh reluctantly agreed.
“I’ll keep him safe, I promise, Marsh,” she said.
She was in such a good mood, he couldn’t resist her. He knew she would have pouted until she got what she wanted anyway.
Bronagh grabbed Shaw’s hand and kissed his cheek. “Last store, I promise.” She then dragged him through yet another store where she picked out a few things to try on while he again leaned against the wall by the dressing room. He heard Bronagh call to him.
“Shaw, come look at this.”
The only employee in the boutique was an older woman who smiled at him. “Go look at her dress, dear,” she said. “There’s no one else back there.” Great, he thought and nodded at the woman simply to be polite, but he was thoroughly annoyed.
“What?” he growled at Bronagh, as she opened her dressing room door. She held up a dress to her body that was still on the hanger. It looked like something his mum wore a decade ago to his da’s funeral.
“Are you shitting me?” he said. “Get dressed! Let’s go!”
“Keep your voice down, Shaw,” she scolded, then moved the dress away from her body. He looked at her, took two steps backward, and slammed into a dressing room door across the hall. She was wearing a piece of black-lace lingerie. He hesitated, then stepped forward into her dressing room, closing the door behind him. He couldn’t keep his hands off of her mostly exposed hips and breasts. He pushed her gently against the mirror.
“God, woman, what are you doing to me?”
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“**** beautiful!”
“Should I take it home?”
“Absolutely,” he moaned. He pressed against her and kissed her madly. She pulled at his hair and stroked the side of his face, then she pulled open his shirt and kissed his neck near his collar bone, bringing blood to the surface of his skin.
“Bronagh, what are you doing to me?”
“Trying to make you happy, sweetheart.”
Shaw swept his hands over her body, aching to consume her. He pressed into her and kissed her fiercely still running his hands over her breasts.
“Oh God! Oh, Phillip, we have to stop,” she protested, but her excitement mounted.
“You don’t want me to stop, darlin’.” And he didn’t stop. He groped her roughly and pressed his **** against her body.
“And, you say you never try to twist me up?” he whispered into her ear.
“No. This time I am trying to twist you up. You’ve been miserable all day,” she whispered back.
“More than ever, woman, you’ve got to let me in,” he begged.
She closed her eyes and, trembling beneath his touch, she kissed him roughly, biting his bottom lip. “Oh, Phillip, wait,” she moaned. She walked him backward to the opposite mirror in the dressing room, slid the panties down her legs and stepped out of them as she pushed herself into him. She kissed him passionately as she unzipped his jeans and placed him inside her.
Shaw grabbed the back of her thighs and picked her up. He pulled her deeply into him as she wrapped her legs around him and cried out in a whisper. He watched, in the dressing room mirrors, as his girl made love to him. Another hit and run.
The store associate eyed Shaw suspiciously when he walked out of the dressing room, and he resumed leaning against the back wall. He held up two fingers. “Two dresses,” he said. “I had to help with the zippers.” She smiled and nodded. They left the store after Bronagh purchased a slightly used, pure-dead brilliant, piece of lingerie and a brown skirt. They met up with Grace and Karen, and Marsh and Billy. As the girls loaded their packages into the trunk of Bronagh’s car, Shaw smiled at the little, light-gray bag that Bronagh put in with the others.
He grinned at Bronagh. “Let’s eat. I’m starving!” The men mounted their bikes and Shaw slapped Marsh on the shoulder. “I love shoe shopping, brother.”
He seemed confused by Shaw’s comment and sudden mood change. Then he said, “You’ve got to be fricking kidding me!”
Shaw smiled, started his bike, and revved the engine as he rode out ahead of the Cadillac.

Meet Bronagh Stewart in Closer To Home
December 1, 2015 at 2:06pm

Bronagh lived out of town, but she was going to be in Baton Rouge for some Christmas shopping and to meet Grace for the evening. Bronagh planned to spend the night with Grace and her husband, Garrett. Grace was certain Shaw would fall head over heels for her friend. Not likely, he had told himself. He liked being a bachelor, especially at his age. He got tail when he wanted it, lived his life as he pleased, and he had a loving group of employees that were, for all intents and purposes, his family. They had taken him in as their own, a crude and conceited Scotsman who simply loved music and had made a good living doing what he loved. Except for some ancient, painful baggage that he had long ago buried, he was very happy with his life.

It was a little after 7:00 p.m. when Grace brought her friend into Charley's Pub to meet him. Shaw was an arrogant bastard, and he knew it; selfish, too. He learned it was truly a gaffe to take that egotistical attitude into this arranged get-together. Bronagh, a fifth-generation Louisianan, whose ancestors had sailed from Dublin, Ireland, with a proud history, was an old-South girl: well-mannered and well-bred. She came from “old money,” a term he had learned since moving to south Louisiana. Knowing that much about her still didn’t prepare him for the woman he was about to meet.

 Joe Garrison was the owner of Charley's Pub, and a trusted friend. He would let Shaw behind the bar occasionally, so he could relive his Glasgow beginnings as a bartender. Tonight, it gave him a great advantage to watch Grace and her friend. Bronagh was Shaw's age, he guessed, maybe a little younger. She wore gray slacks, a black and gray blouse, and a black, leather Harley Davidson jacket. She stood about 5'6", with long legs and a pretty smile. She had long, black hair, a fair complexion, and black eyes. God, he thought, she's Irish, except for those eyes— elegant, but sexy; pure-dead brilliant.