Chapter Thirteen
It’s after midnight and I am sitting on the floor of my room with cotton balls stuck between my toes, painting my nails a bold, empowering cranberry. If you want to be a bold woman, the kind of bold, badass woman who convinces two men to forfeit their keys to the castle, you need bold nail polish, am I right?
I am wearing my earbuds with the built in mic because I called Callie before I started painting my toenails. She’s telling me about the date she went on last night (Charleston time) with Landon, a guy she met recently.
“We met at that new taqueria,” she says.
“The one on Meeting Street?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ooh, tell me you tried their guacamole with the grilled Mexican sweet corn spicy mayo and cotija cheese?”
“Oh, we tried it!”
“And? Delicious, right?”
Callie doesn’t answer. The line crackles and I am afraid the call dropped.
“It was the best guacamole dip I ever had—”
“I told you!”
“—until Landon lost his lunch.”
“Lunch?” I stop painting my big toe and press my finger against the earbud. “I thought you met for dinner?”
“No, dahlin’,” Callie coos. “He literally lost his lunch.”
“Are you telling me he tossed his cookies?”
“All over the guacamole.”
“Hush your mouth!” I giggle. “You lie like a no-legged dog.”
“I do not,” Callie cries. “Hand on the Bible, I am telling the God’s honest truth. He drank two beers, shoveled a handful of chips into his mouth, and turned as green as the guac. Next thing I knew he was heaving like a cat yakking up a fur ball.”
“Oh, Callie! How awful. What did he say?”
“Get ready for this one,” Callie says. “The waitress came over with a stack of napkins and Landon snatched them from her hand and demanded she tell him what was in the dip.”
“Okay . . .”
“He’s allergic to avocados.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“Dead dog serious,” Callie says. “He was yelling at the manager, threatening litigation because the menu didn’t list avocado as one of the ingredients in guac-a-effing-mole dip, when I picked up my purse and left.”
“I am sorry, Cal,” I say, brushing bold cranberry onto my middle toe. “That must have been a nightmare.”
“I don’t know how I will show my face downtown.”
“Landon? I don’t know anyone named Landon. How did you meet him?”
“Happn.”
“Happening?”
“Sweet Tea, Tara, you’ve been out of the States for one day and already you are becoming hopelessly disconnected. Happn is a dating app.”
“Like Tinder?”
“Happn is so much better than Tinder! Tinder shows potential matches within a few miles, but Happn shows you potential matches based on people you actually pass in the street or encounter around town using geo-location services.”
“That’s creepy.”
“It’s revolutionary,” Callie argues. “Every time you cross paths with someone, their profile pops up on your timeline.”
“So Mister Lost His Lunch’s profile popped on your timeline?”
“Dozens of times. I thought the Universe was trying to tell me he was my Mister Right.”
“Or . . .”
“Or?”
“What if the Universe was trying to warn you that he is a serial killer with a weak digestive tract?”
She laughs.
“Enough about my sorry life,” she says. “Tell me about your exciting new life in Ireland. How’s the weather, the castle, the men? Start with the men.”
I tell Callie about Sin, starting with his rom-com worthy greeting and finishing with his rom-com worthy compliment. I think I might have even sighed a few times.
“And what about the other one, Ian?”
“Aidan.”
“Is he a rom-com hero, too?”
“Aidan Gallagher? A rom-com hero?” I snort. “If rom-com heroes are surly and contrary, then sure, Aidan is a rom-com hero.”
“Is he handsome? An ugly personality is like a cheap suit, if the man is good looking enough you can look past it.”
“What did Landon look like?”
“Never mind about Landon. Tell me about Aidan. Is he tall, dark and hot as Sin?”
“He doesn’t look anything like Sin,” I say, switching legs so I can paint the toenails on my other foot. “He’s a little shorter than Sin, but a lot more muscular. He has eyes as blue as the sea and sandy blonde hair that’s always messed up on top, like he just rolled out of bed.”
“Yes, please.”
“He’s not your type.”
“Is he your type?”
“He has tattoos.”
“On his face?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! On his arms.”
“So, just to recap,” Callie says. “You have a tall, dark and lethally handsome man who looks like he tumbled out of heaven named Sin and a gorgeous, muscular, tatted-up man who looks like he walked out of hell. Sin or Aidan? Tough choice. I’ll take one of each, thank you.”
“You can’t have either one of them.”
“Selfish.”
I laugh.
“So, which one are you going to do the deed with first?”
“Callie Rae Middleton, if your momma heard you talking like that she would wash your mouth out with soap.”
“Momma is at the clinic in Geneva having her eyes lifted. Now answer the question. Are you going to bump uglies with Aidan or Sin?”
“I am not bumping uglies with either of them! You’re so nasty!” I say, fanning my face with my hand. “Besides, I thought I was supposed to be devising a plan to make them want to give up their claims on the castle.”
“Bump uglies.”
“Will you hush now? Stop saying that vulgar term.”
“Pick a man and bump some uglies,” she says, giggling. “If he enjoys it, he will twist himself around your little finger. If he doesn’t enjoy it, he will toss you the keys to the castle and you will never hear from him again.”
“You’re so wicked.”
Over Callie’s laughter, I hear a muffled thud.
“I think someone just knocked on my door.”
“Woo-who! It’s ugly bumping time!”
“It is not ugly bumping time,” I whisper.
“Come on Tara, just lie back and think of England . . . or Ireland. Do it for the castle!”
“Goodbye, Callie.”
I disconnect the call, pull my earbuds out, and walk to the door on the heels of my feet so I don’t smear the wet polish on my toenails. I press my ear to the door and listen. I hear nothing in the hallway except the soft, muted tick-tock, tick-tock of the tall-case clock. A chill trickles down my spine.
I pull my ear away from the door and look around the room. Behind the robin’s-egg blue-painted paneled walls—added in the eighteenth century and restored in the twentieth century—are the original stone walls of Tásúildun, walls that stood witness to centuries of history, some of it gruesome.
Sweet baby Jesus! Could one of Tásúildun’s ghosts have made the mysterious thud?
When I was a girl, Mrs. McGregor told me the castle was haunted by the ghost of a young woman, the daughter of one of the castle’s previous owners. Apparently, Lady Margaret fell in love with a sea captain, which was a wholly unsavory match for the daughter of an important and wealthy man. Incensed, her father locked her in her room. But Lady Margaret was able to send a secret message to her lover, instructing him to anchor his ship off the shores near Tásúildun and she would come to him on the first moonless night. Dressed in an opulent black gown, a long black veil wrapped around her head to conceal her beautiful blond hair, Lady Margaret fashioned a rope out of her bedlinens and climbed out her window. But she lost her grip halfway down and would have fallen to her death if not for her vei
l. The fabric, which had become tangled and trapped between the makeshift rope, worked like a noose, strangling her. She was found the next morning, her lifeless body dangling like a ragdoll.
Overnight visitors to Tásúildun have said they were roused out of deep sleep by strange gurgling noises, like the sound someone might make if they were being strangled to death. Some even said they saw Lady Margaret’s ghost, a forlorn figure dressed in black, standing at the window, staring out to sea. Mrs. McGregor says on moonless nights golden orbs move over the sea. She swears it is the sea captain, sailing his ghostly ship into the harbor on his eternal search for his lost lover.
I hear another thud and my heart skips a beat.
Wait a minute. That sounded like it came from the room next door. Heels up, toes still separated by cotton balls, I walk over to the connecting door, take a deep breath, and turn the knob, half-expecting to see Lady Margaret’s apparition hovering in the old school room.
Instead of a ghost, I see Aidan lying on his back, knees up, elbows out, doing crunches. Shirtless.
Sweet Jesus is he muscular.
“Aidan!”
He stops crunching and looks over at me.
“Tara.”
“What are you doing?”
He stands up and puts his hands on his hips, giving me a clear view of his smooth, tatted chest and rippled abdomen. Forget the six pack, y’all, this boy has an eight pack of hard Irish Guinness.
“Exercising.”
“Obviously.”
“Ya asked,” he says, a sardonic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t ask an obvious question if ya don’t want an obvious answer.”
“I meant what are you doing here, in the old school room?”
“You said you wanted me to move into the castle.”
“I never said that.”
“Ya did.”
I exhale, but it comes out as a growl. “I said the terms of Aunt Patricia’s will require us to live under one roof. Tásúildun is a big castle, with a big roof, you didn’t have to pick the room next to mine.”
“What’s the matter, banphrionsa?” He walks closer, close enough for me to read the words circling the tattoo over his heart—not that I am staring at his chest. “Are ya afraid to be this close to me?”
“Afraid?” I snort. “Why would I be afraid?”
“Having me this close might interfere with your romantic plans.”
“What romantic plans?”
“I’ve seen the way ya moon over Oxford.”
A very unladylike laugh escapes my lips. More of a cackle, really.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I do not moon.”
“Ya moon.” He smiles and my knees feel like bowls of wiggly, rubbery Jell-O. “In fact, ya act like a stook every time he’s around.”
“Stook?”
“A fool.”
“I do not act like a fool!”
Standing in an oversized tie-dyed Keep Austin Weird tee and teeny-tiny boy shorts, with cotton balls stuck between my toes, I do not offer a very convincing argument. I must look like a stook.
“Ya remind me of our Catriona when she first saw Cillian, staring at him like a lovesick cow, hoping he would give her a good shifting.”
“Shifting?” Sweet Jesus please don’t let it mean something nasty. “What is shifting?”
He looks at my lips and his grin widens. “Kissing.”
Heat flushes my cheeks. “I do not want Sin to kiss me.”
“Are ya sure about that, banphrionsa? Because your cheeks are as red as your hair.”
“Ooh.” I can’t stop myself from stomping my foot. “You are rude and obnoxious, Aidan Gallagher! You are . . .”
I close my mouth before I say something vulgar and unladylike, something that would have made Miss Belle have an apoplectic fit.
Aidan leans down so we are eye to eye and—sweet baby Jesus—there’s that buzzing in my ears again.
“What am I, banphrionsa?”
“You are no gentleman.”
His laughter fills the room as bold as you please, as bold and strong as his chiseled body, and for some strange reason, it doesn’t nettle me. Actually, and this probably will come as a shock to you—because it sure enough comes as a shock to me—I like the sound of Aidan’s laughter, low in his belly and rolling easily, melodically out of his lips. His eyes light up when he laughs and he gets cute little crinkles around his eyes. Cute little crinkles?
“Thanks be to God,” he says, looking into my eyes. “Why would I want to be a gentleman?”
Just like that I forget about his belly laugh and eye crinkles. Ooh, he makes me mad.
“Gentlemen aren’t coarse or rude. They’re refined.”
“There ya go again, mooning over Oxford again.”
“It’s Cambridge, not Oxford,” I snap. “And I am not mooning over him.”
Aidan stands up tall, crosses his arms over his bare chest—his heavily tattooed arms—and looks down at me with an expression that could only be described as half-smile, half-sneer.
“If being a gentleman means dressing like a ponce in fancy button-down shirts with poncey monograms on my cuffs and rattling off numbers like a machine, I am definitely not a gentleman.”
“You sound jealous.”
“Do ya want me to be jealous, Tara?” He winks at me. “Is that it, then?”
“Why would I want you to be jealous of Sin?”
“Maybe ya fancy us both and ya have some eejit romantic notion we will fight over ya.”
I snort. “If you think I fancy you, Aidan Gallagher, you are the eejit! I definitely don’t—”
He stretches his arms over his head, giving me another view of his naked chest, and yawns a fake-ass loud yawn.
“I’m sorry, but could ya tell me how much ya don’t fancy me tomorrow? I’m shattered and I’ve got to get up early.”
He doesn’t wait for my answer. Instead, he walks over to the bed, steps out of his shorts, letting them drop to the ground in a pool of gray fabric, and climbs between the covers.
I am still standing in the doorway, mouth hanging open, eyes as round as teacups, and cheeks flaming hot, when he switches off his bedside lamp.
“Goodnight,” he says.
“Goodnight,” I sputter.
I am about to close the door when he says, “Tara?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t worry, if I hear ya”—he pauses and I stand frozen in the doorway, staring into the darkness—“What was that phrase? Oh, yeah . . . bumping uglies. If I hear ya bumping uglies with Oxford, I promise not to barge in and challenge him to a duel.”
I back into my room and slam the door.
Aidan laughs, the sound echoing in the old school room, taunting me even through the closed door.
Remember what I said about liking Aidan’s laugh?
I’ve changed my mind.
Chapter Fourteen
I wake the next morning to the sound of a dove crooning outside my window, a soft, hypnotic who-who, who-who, that gently lures me from my dreams. I stay snug under my covers, still wrapped in the downy warmth of slumber, my eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the world beyond my room stirring, stretching, greeting the new dawn. I am happy. Cozy and warm and happy in my sleep-induced amnesia.
Then, I hear it—like Lady Margaret’s strangled breath coming out of the darkness—I hear two haunting words in my head: bumping uglies. The memories of the previous evening flood my brain in a horrifying wave. Aidan’s mocking laughter playing over and over again like a broken record.
I could have died. I could have just curled up like a tired old tabby cat who has worn out all nine of her lives, when I realized Aidan overheard my conversation with Callie.
Sweet baby Jesus and all the saints in heaven! Aidan heard me describe him as having eyes as blue as the sea. I feel hot all over despite the chilly morning air. Why? Why did I have to tell Callie about his eyes and his messy hair and his tattoos? No wonder he thinks I like him. Arrogant Iri
sh ass. That’s sure enough what he is: an Irish ass with an ego as big as all get out.
My plan to charm and finagle the castle away from Aidan Gallagher and Rhys Burroughes is proving more difficult than I imagined. Aidan is too grouchy to charm and Rhys is too clever to finagle.
Yesterday I said I wouldn’t mind sharing Tásúildun with Sin, but that was only my lust talking. This morning, in the bright, cool light of a new day, I see things clearly. I couldn’t possibly share my castle with someone who would give sweet old Mrs. McGregor the boot. Besides, if my aunt really wanted Sin or Aidan to inherit her castle she would have named them as full beneficiaries, wouldn’t she? Sure, both men have compelling reasons for wanting to inherit Tásúildun, but sentimentality alone is hardly a reason to give someone a valuable estate. I felt sentimental about Black Ash, as did my sisters, but our attachment to our family home meant very little to the IRS.
I need. I need to know I belong somewhere, to something, now more than ever. I need this big old pile of rocks and all of the people who work to keep it standing.
I lost Black Ash, but I won’t lose Tásúildun.
The terms of my aunt’s will are clear: I, Tara Maxwell (hereafter referred to as Executor and Trustee), must cohabitate with Aidan Gallagher and Rhys Burroughes for ninety consecutive calendar days. Upon successful completion of the requisite cohabitation, Executor and Trustee must name either potential beneficiary two (Aidan Gallagher) or potential beneficiary three (Rhys Burroughes) as her co-Executor and Trustee. What wasn’t clear? Who inherits Tásúildun if both Aidan and Rhys forfeit their claim.
Fortunately, I still have two months and twenty-nine days to convince Aidan and Sin that Tásúildun, with its creaky floors, drafty rooms, expensive gutters, and tortured ghosts, isn’t worth their efforts to keep.
* * *
Mrs. McGregor is kneading a ball of bread dough when I walk into the kitchen an hour later, showered and dressed in black tights, my new flannel shirtdress, and my battered Doc Martens, a sweater tied around my waist. The warm air is heavy with the scents of simmering broth, onions and garlic, and carrots.
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