by Clare Austin
Tynan chuckled. “Probably even more if you promise to treat me gently. You left your man back there spitting nails.”
“He’s not my man,” she clarified. “And I hope he chokes on his next pint.”
As Muireann took the shirt from him and blotted her face. The shirt sported a band logo, a stylized fiddle, a Celtic harp, and Fadό screen printed in black on bright green. She knew of the trad band based in Boston.
“You’re a fan, then?” she queried.
Ty gave a chuckle. “I’d better like that particular band. It’s bread and butter for meself and my sisters.”
“You’re Fadό?”
Ty just smiled as though she’d uncovered a hidden secret.
Moonlight illuminated half his face, rendering him in silhouette and triggering a bright bolt of electricity that traveled at light speed straight to her belly.
He turned to face her, but showed no sign of driving off. “Where to, Muireann O’Malley?”
“Uh…oh, yes. Straight on here to the edge of the village.” She adjusted her seat belt and snapped it. “So when you’re not making music or travelling the world looking up old friends, how do you spend your time?” With your wife, children, lover? She tried to nudge the truth out of him before she would have to wring it out of him.
“Oh, little of this, little of that. I’m soon to be the owner of one of the oldest public houses in America.” He sounded proud of that fact.
“Impressive.”
“Well, it won’t be so impressive if I go completely broke with renovations before I serve my first pint.” He glanced in her direction and smiled. “I’ll be begging for my librarian job back.”
A laugh bubbled to the surface and Muireann couldn’t hold it back. “You’re a librarian?” The only librarian she had ever known was Mrs. Murphy, with a voice never raised above a whisper, putrid breath, and glasses thick as fence insulators.
“Please don’t judge me by that,” he retorted with a grin. “I play a decent mandolin when pressed into service.”
“I seem to recall you playing the electric guitar and wanting to be the next Phil Lynott.” All else being equal, she’d always thought musicians made the best lovers. It must be about rhythm and timing.
“A lot less rock and roll in my life now,” he said with a chuckle. “I like to think of myself as a storyteller, a seanchaí.”
A seanchaí. A wandering teller of tales steeped in Irish lore. Gallant and clever as well. “Hang a left here.” She was forced to grip the dash as he whipped around a sharp turn. “Sorry.”
They passed the ruins of Bertie’s place and the notorious whitethorn tree. “I’m another kilometer straight ahead.” Now that she knew he was still into music and hadn’t become an investor from some European Union conglomerate, Muireann started to relax. “What really brings you to Ballinacurragh, Ty?” She had to ask, even if the answer would be less than she hoped.
“You don’t think I’d come all the way here to find a pretty girl from my past?” He cleared his throat. “Okay, in all honesty…partly on business, you might say.”
“Oh.” She wanted in a big way to ask what kind of business, but restrained her curiosity. “When I first saw you earlier today, I didn’t recognize you, but I knew you weren’t from around here.”
He glanced at her and back to the road ahead. “What made you so sure?”
Muireann couldn’t help but chuckle. “Possibly because you’re staying at my aunt’s B&B, you drive a hire car, you don’t dress like a culchie, and you have nice shoes.”
“Very observant.” He grinned and she felt fresh heat rise in her cheeks. “Anything else?”
“Certainly.” Muireann turned in her seat to watch his expressive face. “I didn’t know you.”
“And you know everyone?” He raised an eyebrow.
One eyebrow. Who can really do that? It gave a sexy tilt to his grin. She forced herself to look away. “Ballinacurragh has exactly two hundred thirty-five residents—that’s excluding the priest and the tinkers in the caravan parked at the traffic circle—and I’m related to two hundred thirty-two of them.”
“What about the other three?”
“Two of them are men I’ve dated. One is the banker.”
“Hmm. Then the man who you refused to talk to until ‘hell freezes over’ is either kin, an old boyfriend, or—”
“Give me a bit of credit here,” Muireann interrupted. “That shitehawk doesn’t share a DNA strand with me, and I’d have to be more than desperate to be shaggin’ him.”
“That leaves one option.”
“There’s my place.” She pointed off to the right. “You can drop me here.” No need for him to come all the way up her muddy, rutted road and give her an excuse to invite him in for a cup of tea. She was the first to admit her track record with men hadn’t been stellar. Today had been a long day and her judgment could suffer lapses.
Only a few hours ago, not knowing who he was, she had flaunted her naked body shamelessly for his viewing. Though he hadn’t mentioned it, Muireann was certain he remembered. But Ty was unusual, entertaining, and Muireann had a strong need to sort him out.
“I’ve come this far.” He turned up the lane and parked the car. Before she could jump out, give a quick thanks, and say “Slán,” he was at the passenger door.
Muireann tried to clench her teeth together to prevent herself from saying the next words. Call it force of habit, the deep-rooted Irish penchant for hospitality, or pure curiosity, she failed. “The least I can do is offer you a cup of tea” slipped out, sounding like someone else’s voice.
The moon rendered her garden in stark contrast to the whitewashed front of the cottage. Fuchsias as tall as a man, the blood-red blooms so heavy the branches bowed in homage to earth and rain. Muireann reached into a large flowerpot at the door and extracted a key so ancient it might have been forged by the heat of the earth’s first tempering.
She pushed the door open and flipped the light on. In the entry, sprawled across the tile floor, lay something that, if it hadn’t been snoring, would have been mistaken for a rug. “Who’s this?” Ty asked.
“Cú, wake up and say good evening to our guest.” She leaned down and nudged the sleeping giant with her hand, ruffling his fur. “He’s not much of a watch dog. He’s deaf as a post.”
The wolfhound stretched his long legs and stood, tipped his head and surveyed the intruder. He stepped forward and put his nose into Tynan’s crotch, took a sniff, and wagged a long tail in approval. “Not likely to nip my bollocks off?”
“Not as long as I’m here to tell him otherwise.”
“Cú? As in Cúchulain?” Ty scratched the wiry head behind a floppy ear. “So, Cú, a warrior are ya? Protecting your lady Muireann’s honor?”
Muireann laughed. “Too late.” She disappeared down a short hallway. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll put the tea on. And I think I should get out of my wet clothes.” Cú trotted at her heels as she left the room.
The inside of the cottage was classic nineteenth century. The low beamed ceiling and deep-set windows called from another era, but the plaster on the walls appeared new. Swirls, spirals, and triskelia emerged as though a shaman had summoned them from another dimension.
Oriental rugs over the stone floor, an enameled turf stove set into the old fireplace, and an overstuffed sofa with matching chairs spoke of an inhabitant for whom creature comforts held a high priority.
In one corner, a large ceramic vessel held dried herbs and willow branches. Handmade, with bold greens and blues intermixed, reminiscent of sea and sky. Set about were several smaller pieces with the same confident blend of light and dark, here a splash of yellow that mimicked sun on water, there a surreal moonscape, stark white on black. The work had a sensuality to it that brought Tynan’s blood rushing through his veins, warming him.
On the walls, mixed among photographs of family, hung sketches and watercolors. A theme of sea and sky threaded through them. As he studied the detail, Tyn
an started to see, almost hidden, as though a secret treasure to be discovered by an attentive observer, seals. The dark-eyed creatures were formed by the waves, rocks, and clouds, pulling his curiosity to the scenes even more intently. The artist had been more than clever. She had given the work a touch of whimsy.
Even the creator’s signature was woven, discreetly, into the lower right hand corner of each piece so it appeared to grow out of a clump of sea grass or bubble up from a wave licking the shore.
Muireann Ní Mháille.
Everything about her took his breath away.
A red glow lighted the leaded glass of the stove door. Tynan removed his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. He knelt and opened the stove a crack. The fire responded to the rush of air. He took the initiative to add two peat bricks, poking and adjusting the embers to encourage the heat to build.
The room was dim with only the light from one lamp and the fire. If he had not nearly bumped into the harp, he might not have noticed it. Draped in a vintage damask scarf, it made a haunting silhouette. He hoped Muireann wasn’t one of those people who forbade the touching of her instrument, because his hands were drawn to the silken wood. It felt warm, as though the oak were still alive. He was tempted to pluck the strings, hear its voice, let the vibrations travel from his fingertips through the still cool air of the room.
Tynan’s sister, Kerry, was a harper. He knew his way around these ancient instruments. In Irish legend, the first harp had been the rib cage of a whale. The wind off the sea sang through the matrix and produced a plaintive moaning that became the first harp song.
This harp maker had put imagination and skill into the carving of a figurehead where the pillar was jointed to the harmonic curve. A woman’s face, gently rendered, long hair streamed behind her to become tangles of seaweed blending into the natural grain of the timber.
Tynan scrutinized the detail in the face, its expression one of dreamlike wonder. He ran his thumb over the carved surface, memorizing the features. Familiarity held him captive. His mind begged for recall and would not allow dismissal until the puzzle was solved.
“Do you take milk?” Muireann called from the kitchen.
“No, thanks, plain, no sugar.” He said and stood, turning toward the kitchen door. “Let me give you a hand.”
“Ach, no. Take a load off.” She entered the sitting room balancing a tray with biscuits and two steaming mugs that she set on a low table.
“This is one of the most beautiful harps I think I’ve ever seen,” Ty commented, ran his fingers along the shoulder to the seamless joining to the sound box. “Does it sound as good as it looks?”
“In the right hands it does.” She reached out and plucked a simple chord. “This was my brother’s creation. I don’t play.”
“My sister’s a harper. I’d love to give her one like this.”
“My brother is gone, and this harp is not for sale,” she said with a brittle edge to her voice, walked past Tynan, and sat in the chair adjacent to the turf stove.
He had a flash in his mind of the picture of Ronan at the harp, the hound at his feet, and the prayer card he’d seen in Mary’s entry way and his heart ached for Muireann’s loss.
Tynan moved to the sofa and sat across from her.
The glow of the fire spread in prismatic beams, lighting the angles of her face. Still wet tendrils of long, dark hair twisted over her shoulders and down her back. A vivid image pierced Tynan’s memory and imagination became reality.
Incredulity punched the air out of his lungs. “It was you.”
“Who?”
“That was you. On the beach, below the cliffs.” Naked, brazen, stunning.
Muireann handed him his tea, stretched like a lazy feline, and propped her bare feet up on an ottoman. “Of course it was,” she said, took a sip and grinned over the rim of her cup.
Tynan threw his head back and laughed with relief and a touch of embarrassment. He hadn’t dreamed her, she wasn’t some magical creature from the sea. This Muireann was flesh and bone, nicely arranged and within reach. He had seen those same tousled locks, not a mantle of water plants. Her long limbs were those of a woman and not a seal turned mortal.
“I’m not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed,” he said and admitted only to himself, she was no disappointment.
“Don’t tell me you thought I was a selkie? One of the Ó Conghaile ready to sing you out to sea and drown you?”
“It’s Ireland; stranger things have been known to happen when a man is caught off guard.” She could sing him straight to the gates of glory—or damnation—and he’d go with a grin on his face.
Muireann had shed her wet T-shirt and pulled on a high-necked polo and a loose Aran jumper. She’d changed her jeans for a long skirt. Other than her naked feet, nothing of her body was exposed, but Ty scanned her with imagination. The clothes dropped away and all he could see was her lithe contours and full breasts. When he worked his way down to the triangle of dark hair at the apex of her slim thighs, there was no stopping the physical reaction she elicited in him. He tried with no success to stop thinking like a horny adolescent.
“Are you shocked by me?” she asked, reaching for a biscuit from the tray.
Ty sipped from his tea to wet the dry lump in his throat before he was able to speak. “I’m not sure ‘shocked’ is the right word for it. Surprised? Sure.” Part of him was shocked, surprised, and a little off balance. “I’ve two sisters. I guess I’ve been really protective of them all these years. What you did…well, I think if you were my sister, I’d take you home and lock you away for good.”
Muireann curled into her chair, pulled her legs up and hugged her knees. She looked so deep into Tynan’s eyes he was tempted to turn away. His heart leapt into a gallop as she spurred his desire for her. In the silence, he was deafened by the blood coursing in his ears.
“I guess it’s a grand thing then,” she began, “that I’m not one of your sisters.”
Chapter Six
Ty had awakened with a smile on his face and throbbing evidence of the erotic dream that held him captive as he slept. The particulars escaped him, but Muireann O’Malley had played a major role in his unconscious wanderings.
He took a shower and threw the windows open to the crisp morning air to wake himself enough to believe she wasn’t only in his imagination. No, she was here, unmarried, beautiful, and her edgy disdain for authority undimmed with maturity.
However tantalizing Muireann was, Ty reminded himself not to let her presence preclude his true reasons for coming to Ireland. He would have to stay focused and not allow this serendipity to dislodge his determination. That decided, he wouldn’t refuse the pleasure of her company while he took care of business here in Ireland.
At his ten o’clock appointment time at the Ballinacurragh Fisherman’s Bank and Loan, he was thanking his hostess for the breakfast and rushing out the door of the An Currach B&B.
The bank offices occupied one of the few new buildings on the main street. He took in the fresh brick and mortar façade and entered through the revolving glass doors. An austere woman with dark rimmed spectacles greeted him.
“May I help you?” she said in clear, Dublin-educated speech that you could hang icicles on and not have them melt until next August.
He offered his hand. “Ty Sloane. I’ve an appointment.”
“Ms. Walshe,” she said and accepted his handshake. Her fingers were cold as a dead mackerel in winter, a mighty contrast to Muireann’s soft and warm hand when he’d finally said good night. He had wanted to kiss her, but it hadn’t been the right time. Ty was a musician. He knew something about timing.
Ty took a seat, listened to the vapid melody piped in overhead, and wondered what kind of person picked the tunes for lobby music.
“Mr. Sloane?” The chilly way she spoke his name shook him back to the present.
“Uh, yes.”
“Mr. Feeney will see you now.” She nodded toward a glassed-in office where Ty
nan could see the back of the banker’s balding head. The same balding head that had been the target of Muireann’s verbal darts last night. Tynan hoped the man had gotten over the sting. Whatever was going on between the two, Muireann had not offered an elaboration last night over tea. Besides, it would have surely dampened their warm conversation.
Feeney turned on his chair and waved Tynan in. The office seemed hermetically sealed, the air processed, purified, and recycled. No windows, no view of the street to the front or the sea to the rear. Photos on the wall were of Dublin’s financial district. It felt as though Tynan had left the village of cozy cottages, welcoming public houses, and entered an alternate universe—a world where the inhabitants dismissed geniality in deference to the euro.
“Mr. Sloane,” he said and stood, reaching over his glass-topped desk to shake Tynan’s hand. “I hope you’ve been enjoying your stay in our little town.” He directed Tynan to a chair. “But certainly you’re eager to get back to your life in Boston, so I won’t detain you long here.”
“Sure, no problem. I’m actually looking forward to staying in Ireland for a couple of weeks, but I would like to get the business portion of my trip out of the way as soon as possible.” Then he would enjoy what the scenery in general, and Muireann O’Malley in particular, had to offer.
Feeney opened a folder and pulled out several documents. “This is a legal description of the land in question. As you can see, it is of no particular value as it stands.” He then pointed to a list of numbers with a large euro amount at the bottom. “This is the amount owed in back taxes.” Feeney’s finger trailed down the page.
Ty swallowed hard and reread the bottom line. “My mother’s uncle must have forgotten he owned the place.” According to the other documents, only two hectares and a derelict building remained. Even at the current tax assessment, the land was virtually unimproved, no paved road led to it, and no planning permission allowed for sewer or other necessities. “My interest is only in selling this property. I’ve no need for it and it holds no sentimental value to me.” Indeed, Ty only vaguely remembered his benefactor and, right now, he needed cash and not a backbreaking tax burden. If Albert O’Malley had died intestate, Tynan could ignore this, but to his dismay, the man had gone ahead and named Máire Ni Moillin in his will.