A Northern Romance_Atlantic Island Romances

by Liz Graham

  She glanced wildly around the large room as another grey haired, potbellied man bore down on her. Devon was barely in her sight, standing in a comer in intimate conversation with Melissa. The two blonde heads were bent closely together. The other woman’s expensive boots brought her up almost to Devon’s height.

  Melissa brushed back her hair with a laugh. Her eyes roamed the room and, meeting Conor’s, lit up evilly. She placed her arm on Devon's and pulled him closer to whisper in his ear, all the while keeping her gaze on Conor. The two were giggling like children.

  The self-important man finally reached Conor’s side, harrumphing to get her attention.

  She turned to stare at him, no longer able to hide the emotional turmoil in her mind.

  He indicated the pair in the corner with his unlit pipe, his piggy eyes malicious.

  ‘I always thought they'd make a good match,’ he said as if unaware for the reason of the gathering and that Conor was the guest of honour.

  Her face was searing red under her golden skin, and she could feel the burn spread down her neck to her exposed chest.

  The man leered at her, his eyes following the blush downward. Conor was conscious again of the snug-fitting clothes which outlined every curve of her slight body. He harrumphed again.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Perhaps when you‘re free sometime, I’ll give you a call...’ Conor felt his pudgy hand rest on the waistband of her hip huggers, caressing the cotton at the small of her back. He was making a pass at her right in front of all these people, and in front of Devon!

  And Conor knew why. He was only making clear what was obvious to every person, that she was an upstart not from their class, and she was dressed like a slut. She and Devon were leagues apart socially, and that was all that mattered to these people.

  ‘Get your hand off me!’ she cried finally, unable to stop herself and roughly pushing him back with both her hands.

  ‘You're horrible!’ she said, unable to hold hack now and not caring how her voice rang in the suddenly silent room. ‘You’re all horrible, shallow, selfish snobs!’

  Every eye in the room was staring at her now. The fat middle-aged man attempted to melt back unnoticed into the crowd.

  Conor realized with despair that she'd done it now. Cause a scene at dear Mum’s gathering? It was bad enough that she’d spilled her tea and stomped on the stupid dog. This was a sin which could never be forgiven.

  Her eyes raced over the room, finding not a single friendly face. Even Devon seemed frozen in shock. The only smile was on Melissa’s face, barely hidden by the hand which had crept up beneath the wide grey eyes.

  Conor turned on her heels, wrenching her ankle as her boot toe caught in the thick Oriental carpet. She stumbled towards the door, tears blurring her vision. Mary the maid stood stone-faced by the entrance, merely reaching out to relieve her of her cup and saucer as Conor pushed past her.

  Out on the sidewalk she turned to the direction she thought might be homeward. The day, so promising earlier, had changed and a cold wind now whipped through the thin cotton of her shirt, almost freezing the tears streaming from her eyes.

  She hugged her arms into her chest as she struggled to limp under the still bare trees lining the avenue and didn’t notice the quiet purr of the red convertible until it was alongside her.

  ‘Conor!’ Devon called. She stopped, still hunched into her arms, and waited.

  ‘Get in the car,’ he said, leaning over to open the door for her.

  She was freezing and injured. There was no way she could walk all the way home, even if she knew how to get there from here. But she didn‘t want to face the truth she knew would be on his face.

  Yet, her paining ankle reminded her that she really had no choice. She sighed heavily as she swung the car door shut behind her.

  ’What was all that about?’ he asked after a pause.

  Conor shook her head as she held her gaze firmly on her lap. Would he understand? She didn't think he would.

  Air whistled out of his pursed lip in frustration. They wound down a steep hill past a tennis court set on the river bank, sitting in silence until he stopped in front of Conor’s apartment building.

  ‘So,’ Devon began.

  Conor turned to get out of the car.

  ‘No kiss?’ he asked in an attempt to be lighthearted.

  She sat back in the passenger seat, and looked at him frankly. His eyes held a look of hurt, like a kicked puppy who didn't understand why he was being rebuffed.

  Conor realized that he had no inkling of how vulnerable she was at this moment, how the crowd of rabid socialites at his mother’s had torn her to shreds with their rudeness. He simply had no idea of the ordeal she had gone through without him at her side, for he couldn’t see these people for what they were.

  And that was the deciding factor, for he was one of them. In thirty years’ time, he would be that potbellied arrogant man who thought the world revolved solely for his entertainment.

  She and her father would never, could never, fit in with this crowd. Her heart tore cleanly into two pieces as she made up her mind. Conor set her small jaw, and shook her head.

  ‘No kiss,’ she said flatly and slid out the door. She gingerly put her injured ankle on the pavement and winced.

  ‘I'll phone you tomorrow?’ Devon called desperately to her back as she hobbled up the walk.

  She paused, stirred by memories of mornings waking nestled against his strong chest, lazy with sex and feeling that all was right with the world. They had had too short a time together, surely she couldn’t allow his warmth to slip forever from her life.

  Conor turned slightly and nodded.

  ‘Call me,’ she said heavily. ‘We'll talk.’

  Chapter 2

  MAY 1990

  A ll that had been almost exactly five years ago. Conor grinned ruefully as she looked around the bakery, her bakery, and remembered the shallowness of her youthful dreams. The consuming ambition that had propelled her through her university years had been softened by necessity and her great plans had not come out quite as she had envisioned them.

  ‘Man proposes, but God disposes.’ she said aloud, quoting one of Doc Oster’s sayings as she placed the tray of warm cookies onto the display shelf. ‘And ain't that the truth.’

  Yet, although she wasn't in a high flying job with an MBA under her belt, one of her dreams had come true and faster than she had imagined possible. Okay, so it wasn't anywhere near a million-dollar a year business, but it was hers. The clientele weren't rich socialites paying ridiculously high prices for prestigious services. They were local people who were willing to pay a fair price for quality. It was hard work, but an honest living.

  She’d built the Celtic Knot Bakery from scratch, and she was proud of it.

  ‘Funny how life turns out,’ she mused as she watched the sun slowly rising from the water in the bay outside. ‘None of this would have happened except for the heart attack. Imagine, my old drunk Dad saved me from those horrible snobs in St. John’s.’

  She had been torn, that long-gone afternoon in May, as she pathetically limped up the walk to her apartment. Torn between her yearning for Devon, and her disgust at his relatives and social circle. If she were honest, torn between her own shallow ambitions and her refusal to sell herself, for she knew deep inside the price was too dear.

  It was easier to walk without the high heeled boots. She could hear the phone ringing through the thin apartment door as she hobbled down the hallway, the uncarpeted bareness cold beneath her feet.

  ‘Oh, Devon,’ she sighed, slowly taking out her key. ‘Not yet. Don’t phone me yet.’

  She could picture him in the cool May sun, sitting on his parent’s deck with the phone to his ear.

  ‘I’m not ready yet. Give me time to forget what a scene I made,’ she said. ‘Then you know I’ll come back to you.’

  The ringing persisted as she swung open the door. She took her time, hoping he would hang up. No such l
uck.

  ‘Hello,’ she said in a heavy voice, looking for strength. How could a man so charming have sprung from such an obnoxious environment? The answer was that he must be just as rotten as the rest of them, for the apple couldn’t fall far from the tree. She knew that now, but he would be so hard to resist.

  ‘Conor? Is that you finally?’

  This wasn’t Devon’s voice.

  ‘It's Doctor Oster,’ the gruff female voice continued.

  ‘Doc Oster,’ Conor echoed. This was the woman who had helped her into the world, and who had supported her through the shock of Mom's death when she was nine years old. This woman had always been a part of her life, and knew everything about her.

  ‘You’ve forgotten who I am? Not surprised, it’s been so long since you were home.’

  ‘What's wrong?’ Conor asked, for she knew the good doctor well enough to know she was not one to waste time or money on frivolous phone calls.

  ‘Seamus has had a heart attack,’ the older woman replied bluntly, her voice still holding a trace of Scandinavian accent even after all the years she’d lived here. ‘Not too serious, but he’ll need help when he gets out of hospital. And no-one else here will put up with him.’

  Dad. Conor’s charming, lovable father. Drunken, irresponsible Dad needed her help. No, no one in Lower Crank Cove or nearby St. Anthony could handle him as well as Conor. Except perhaps Doc Oster herself, but that was out of the question.

  She sighed as she looked around the small apartment. Where to fit him? She'd have to get a much larger place, a more expensive place. Her heart dropped as she thought of fitting Dad into the life she planned in the city.

  ‘Can’t he stay in the hospital for a while, till he’s well enough to be on his own again?’ Conor asked, hating herself for the whine that crept into her voice, but knowing Doc Oster would understand her reluctance.

  ‘No,’ Doc replied bluntly. ‘The government is closing beds on us as it is. He’s not sick enough to stay, just sick enough to be nasty. The nurses want him out of here.’

  The doctor was, as always, honest and to the point. A small smile crept onto Conor’s face despite the situation. Dad was bad enough when he was drunk — but her father in enforced sobriety must surely be an awful thing to put up with.

  ‘It'll take me time to make arrangements,’ Conor said, hedging just a little. ‘I need to get a bigger place out here.’

  ‘No time for that,’ Doc Oster replied. ‘Besides, you know he’d hate the city. He needs to go back to the Cove, that's his home. It’s your home too, young lady.’

  In other words, return to Lower Crank Cove, Conor thought as she slowly hung up the phone.

  And why not?

  The wheels in her mind began churning. University was over, she’d graduated with a first-class honors as planned. Thanks to her hard work in the past four years, she had no student loan to pay off. And a short visit home till Dad was back on his feet would give her time to figure out if she really wanted Devon enough to pay the price. A month, or two, perhaps the whole summer if she felt like it. She could send out resumes just as easily from the Cove as from the city. And why even bother to keep this apartment? She could give up this place and save the rent. When she returned to the city it would be to a well-paying job, and a much more spacious abode.

  Conor slipped out of the city early in the morning two days later, having arranged to have the utilities cut and her mail forwarded. It was a sixteen hour drive across the island and up to top of the Northern Peninsula and she planned to make few pit stops. With sunglasses in place, an extra-large takeout coffee in the holder, a bag full of snacks to fend off hunger pangs and hurtin’ country music blaring from the old car's stereo, she hit the highway.

  And Devon? He might have tried to call, but the phone company had worked with surprising efficiency, and disconnected the phone as soon as she had requested it. Perhaps some things were just not meant to be.

  FIVE YEARS LATER, AND SHE WAS STILL in the cove.

  ‘Dad,’ she murmured again absently, still polishing the display top.

  ‘When I'm calling you...’ the Irish tenor crooned from behind the curtain dividing the bakery from the living space of his renovated home.

  Conor glanced at her watch. It was quarter past seven. The sun had risen ages ago, like herself, yet the morning was still fresh.

  ‘You’re up early,’ she called back, smiling.

  The strings of blue glass beads making up the curtain were thrust dramatically apart as he entered the bakery storefront.

  ‘I heard the wee birds calling my name.’ Seamus McLowrie walked past the counter to stand at the large plate glass window looking on to the road and the ocean beyond. The sun shone off the water, reflecting ripples of light to float through the room.

  ‘What would they be saying to the likes of you at this hour of the morning?’ She often found herself slipping into the Irish brogue when in his company. This very lilt had first set her apart from the other children when she began attending school at the late age of nine. The other children had said she talked funny, and hadn’t let up till she changed her way of speaking around them.

  ‘Get out of bed, ye lazy bastard, they’re saying,’ he replied. ‘There‘s fish to catch and rocks to talk to, and the ocean has sent you a treasure.’

  ‘It's a good day for beach-combing,’ Conor agreed as she watched his stocky figure peering through the glass. Seamus still had most of his full head of red hair, although it was now starting to grey and thin just a bit at the temples. He wasn't much taller than herself, and with his thick frame made an unlikely figure for an artist and poet. ‘The waves are just dying down now from the storm two days ago.

  ‘You know what I’d like?’ she abruptly changed the subject as she looked thoughtfully at the surf’s reflection on the water.

  ‘And what would that be, my darling daughter, my keeper in my old age, my jailor?’

  Conor laughed. ‘There are some days that you should be locked away, for you’re not fit,’ she said, jokingly scolding him. She loved to see him in these moods, full of creative energy and love for all. He wasn’t always so easy to be with.

  ‘But what I’d like is some kind of coloured glass in this window here. Something that will catch the sun and bring the colour of the glass into the room.’

  Seamus turned to look at her, his head tilted to one side. His wiry hair fell to his shoulders and the large walrus moustache twitched as he considered her words.

  ‘Like sea-glass.’ he said. ‘Sea-glass all rounded like the pebbles but see-through.’

  She stopped to think.

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘I hadn’t gotten that far yet in the idea.’

  ‘I shall go forth,’ he announced, turning toward the outside door. ‘And hunt the four corners of the earth to fulfill my dear one’s dream.’

  Conor rolled her eyes. Sometimes, he was a little too much.

  ‘Hey, just a minute,’ she called before he disappeared down the path leading to the ocean. She came out from behind the counter holding a hair elastic in her hand. ‘Tie your hair back. I don’t want you frightening the locals.’

  ‘Aw, the locals are used to me after thirty years,’ he said as he fixed his hair nevertheless. ‘Sure they think of me as one of their own.

  ‘Isn’t that right, Mrs. Malone?’ he asked a woman entering the shop. Seamus held the door open for her to pass in.

  Mrs. Malone gave a slight sniff and clutched her scarf to her throat as she sidled past the man, avoiding the possibility of touching him as if he carried the plague.

  ‘Mr. McLowrie.’ She gave a stiff nod before ducking into the safety of the storefront.

  Seamus winked at his daughter before setting off down to the beach in his oversized rubber boots, the faint tuneful echoes of his fine voice floating back through the open window.

  ‘...where I first set my eyes on sweet Mollie Malone...’

  ‘I do wish he wouldn’t do that,’ the middle-aged
woman scolded, the vestiges of a blush pinking her cheeks.

  Conor smiled and shrugged her shoulders in sympathy.

  ‘Have a croissant, Mrs. Malone,’ she urged, to make up for her father‘s incessant teasing of the woman. He only did it for badness, just to get a reaction. ‘On the house.’

  ANOTHER LONG DAY at the bakery. Conor couldn’t wait to make a cup of tea and put her feet up. She’d had had no idea that owning her own business could be so tiring, with the early hours and being on her feet all day. But of course, she wouldn’t change it for the world.

  ‘Never dreamed I’d be doing this,’ she thought to herself as she rested on the stool behind the counter in a midafternoon pause between customers.

  She’d only meant to come home for the summer, make sure her father was well, and take off back into the big world and her life as soon as she could.

  When she was eighteen, she had run away from the Cove and the poverty, driven by ambition and a need to get away from the person she was, or thought she was. In the city, she’d cleaned houses and worked late nights in bars in order to have money for University. She had kept her nose hard to the grindstone. She’d stayed away from the Cove for five years.

  And for all those years, Conor had kept her memories of the Cove close to her heart and unconfessed. She’d remembered the hand-me-down clothes, the food bank and the Church’s holiday hamper. Every year, it had been filled with wonderful treats, yet the taste of Christmas dinner was forever tainted for her with the shame of receiving charity

  Seamus, of course, was a large part of those memories. He had arrived in the Cove more than thirty years ago, a wandering artist who fell in love with the coast, the wilderness and her mother. After Mom died, he had stopped painting for a bit. He’d had no reins pulled on his carousing, and he was the life of every party. How many times had she had to bring him home from the bars, him singing and ranting all the way? The worst part had been facing her schoolmates’ taunts of her drunken father.

  She'd hated the name calling just as much as she’d hated the pity in the old women‘s voices when they spoke kindly to her, and the ‘tut-tuts’ from these same women when they thought she couldn’t hear.