“Painting sounds good,” Colin said. “For both you and Sister Cecilia.”
“She feels empowered because she was able to help find Tamara’s car.” Emma pushed on the fridge door, as if she wanted to be sure it had shut properly—but it had. “She assured me she’s not interested in switching careers. She’s where she wants to be.”
He heard something in her voice. “Emma...”
“I need to go to Ireland, Colin. I need to see Granddad.”
He nodded, taking her into his arms. “I know,” he whispered. “I know, babe.”
“Mom and Lucas approve. I can take the time.”
“I’ll go with you if you want me to, but I think you need to do this alone.” He kissed her softly, felt her warmth, her fatigue. It’d been a long, difficult few days. “So, a pie...it can wait?”
She draped her arms over his shoulders. “Once the rolling pin’s back in the drawer, that’s it. The mood has passed.” Her eyes connected with his, and he saw the pain, the grief, the love. “Colin...”
He lifted her, swept her up and carried her to the front room and up the stairs. He laid her on their bed. He remembered when it was his bed. When this was his house. When he’d only dreamed of having a woman in his life he could love as much as this woman. But he’d never imagined her, never imagined the depths with which he could love.
“I’m sorry, Emma. I wish I could have gotten to him sooner.”
“It might not have made a difference, and it wasn’t to be. You were with him in the end, and Finian, Mom, Lucas.” She drew him to her. “Make love to me tonight, Colin.”
“All night, any night.” He kissed her, felt the tears wet in her hair. “You’ll go to Ireland, and you’ll walk the Irish hills with your grandfather.”
“I’ll come home to you. I’ll find you.”
“We’ll always find each other.”
* * *
The next morning, Colin returned to Boston with Emma, and he visited Yank in the hospital while she packed for Ireland. He set a vase of coneflowers on Yank’s bedside table. “Sister Cecilia picked them for you at the convent.”
“Sweet of her. For a second I thought you might say you picked them.”
“I thought about it. That count?”
“No.” But Yank grinned, sitting up straighter. He had an IV but no other tubes, and he looked good for a man who’d been shot and lost a lot of blood. “I get to go home tomorrow. I’m off the heavy pain drugs. I can see why people get stuck on them.”
Colin nodded to a get-well card. “It’s from the director herself?”
“She called, too.”
Mina Van Buren was relatively new to the job, but she’d earned the respect of Matt Yankowski and his small team—and they hers, even if she’d shut them down in a heartbeat if she had to. She’d sent Emma a card, too, with her condolences on Timothy’s death.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there yesterday for the funeral,” Yank said.
“A bullet in the shoulder will slow you down. Not for long, though.”
“Yeah. Lucy won’t want me hanging around the apartment for long. I should have kept a closer eye on Rex. He gave his father the gun. An old man with Alzheimer’s. Emma could have shot him. He could have shot himself.”
“I suspect Rex would have been fine with that.”
“No more bills for his father’s care.” Yank sighed, waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter now. HIT isn’t going anywhere. Mina Van Buren told me so herself.”
“That’s good, Yank,” Colin said.
“She said I have work to do.”
There was more. Colin could feel it.
“She said to tell you that you have work to do, too.”
30
Iveragh Peninsula, Ireland
They stopped on a grassy lane with a view of Skellig Michael out in the Atlantic, glistening under the blue summer sky. “Skellig means ‘rock in the sea,’” Emma said. “Appropriate, don’t you think?”
Her grandfather nodded, his gaze riveted on the spectacular sight. Emma had visited Skellig with him once, when she’d worked for Sharpe Fine Art Recovery in Dublin, between the convent and the FBI. More than a thousand years ago, early medieval monks had created a monastic Christian retreat on the small, rocky island. It had lasted from as early as the sixth century into the thirteenth century. Hundreds of years. As forbidding as the island seemed nine miles into the rough Atlantic, its geography and the monks’ clever placement of their site actually somewhat protected them from the fiercest weather.
“Scenes in a couple of Star Wars movies were filmed on Skellig Michael,” Emma added. “Luke Skywalker retreats there. It’s a remote planet in the movies.”
“I saw the first Star Wars when it came out forty years ago. Skellig is a sacred place, at least to me. I remember when it was put on the UNESCO World Heritage List.”
“Skellig Michael is irreplaceable.”
Her grandfather sighed, shifting to Emma. It was a warm day for their hiking, and he’d tied his windbreaker around his waist. “I’ll never go to Skellig again. It’s not the treacherous steps, or your father. My son. Tim.” He smiled, tears in his eyes, and winked at her. “It’s the damn boat ride out to the island.”
Emma laughed through her own tears, and they resumed their walk. It was their third day of wandering on the Iveragh, Ireland’s largest peninsula and one of its most beautiful areas with its mountains and hills, isolated lakes and valleys, its endless green fields and its breathtaking sea views. They covered about ten miles a day, most of it on the Kerry Way, a network of marked trails, roads and lanes that extended around the entire peninsula. They’d meet other hikers, more in some spots than others, but today they were on one of the quiet stretches.
After another hour, they came to the bed-and-breakfast where Emma had reserved two rooms for the night. It was known for its breakfasts. She liked starting a day of hiking with a good breakfast. Hiking filled up the days. There was always something to see, a wrong turn to avoid, a route to sort out. It was the evenings that were difficult. They’d take showers, and her grandfather would take a nap, and they’d find a pub for dinner.
Emma looked at her phone. She had no messages. It was just noon in New England. Colin was back at work; Yank was out of the hospital. Lucas would reopen the offices next week. Her mother was seeing friends, revamping the yard. In the evening, right before bed, Emma sent her husband, her mother and her brother a log of what she and her grandfather had done that day. What they’d seen, where they’d stayed, what they’d had to eat. She’d add a couple of photos.
She went into the bathroom. It was downright prehistoric but spotless. It didn’t have a shower, but it had a handheld spray that worked fine. She didn’t do a soak. She pictured Colin sitting on the edge of the tub, chatting with her, looking at her in that sexy way he had.
She put up her hair, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a lightweight leather jacket and kicked the mud off her hiking shoes. When she met her grandfather in the entry of the quiet little house, he smelled like aftershave and the ends of his thinning gray hair were damp. His eyes sparkled with warmth and energy, more so than they had since she’d arrived in Dublin and whisked him to the southwest coast.
They walked to a small pub. Tourists and locals were crowded at the wood bar and scatter of tables. A fiddler was playing lively Irish folk tunes. “Dad loved his Irish music,” Emma said.
“That he did.” Her grandfather put out his hand to her. “Dance, kid?”
She took his hand and smiled. “Dance.”
* * * * *
AUTHOR NOTE
I wrote much of Impostor’s Lure during a cold New England winter. I’d be imagining 90-degree weather in Boston when it was struggling to get into the single digits on my Vermont hilltop. What fun! Of course, I did do some research and thinking on a beautiful lat
e-summer visit to Ireland. I also ran the Dingle Half Marathon on a rainy, windy day. It ended at a pub. Perfect.
So many people helped get this book out of my head and into your hands. Many thanks to my niece, Sarah Stilwell Josti, for her help with medical research as she, her husband and two little ones welcomed baby Eliza. Thanks, too, to our Irish friend John Moriarty, who not only answered my obscure questions but reminded Joe and me that he has Redbreast 21 in the cabinet.
As always, thanks to my editor, Nicole Brebner, and the entire team at MIRA Books, and to my agent, Jodi Reamer at Writers House. Special thanks to my husband, Joe, and our gang—son Zack, whose design for our limited-edition Bracken Distillers glasses has gotten rave reviews from readers, and daughter Kate, her husband, Conor, and their three little ones. Nothing like a visit with the grands to perk up this writer’s life!
Regular breaks in my writing days are calls with my mother, who at eighty-three is slowing down but still loves to watch birds at the feeders outside her kitchen window.
For information on my Sharpe & Donovans and all my books, giveaways and events, please visit my website. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter! We keep it fun, informal, and focused on what readers tell me they want to know about my books and what I’m up to.
Until next time,
Carla
CarlaNeggers.com
ISBN-13: 9781488081965
Impostor’s Lure
Copyright © 2018 by Carla Neggers
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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