“I need to go,” Kate told him. “Maybe we could schedule some time to talk again in the next few days.” With a smile that felt as patently false as the other woman’s, she pulled open the door. Niall followed her out, closed the door behind him.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Kate shoved her hands in her pockets, hunched her shoulders. After the warmth of the fireplace and the exertions on the couch, the night air felt cold and sharp on her face. Wind billowed his shirt, tossed his hair. His expression was unreadable.
“All right. You’ve no need to tell me what you’re thinking, it’s clear on your face. My relationship with Sharon is over. I want you to know that. Over.”
“Maybe for you.” Her teeth were chattering. “Clearly not for her. Look, it was fun. You’re a great kisser. I’m sure everything else would have been great, too, but maybe I’m not cut out for a fling.” She flicked her finger against his arm. “Go inside before you freeze to death.”
“I’ll get my jacket and walk you back to Annie’s.”
“No. I’m fine, really. It’s not that far.”
He watched her for a moment. “You’re so bloody convinced that you’re right, you’re not even willing to give it a try, are you?”
“Oh, come on, Niall.” Beyond his shoulders, the narrow road leading away from the castle disappeared into a clump of trees. She hunched her shoulders against the cold. “Give what a try?”
ANNIE AND PATRICK WERE in the sitting room with their evening tea when Kate walked in. The scent of baking lingered in the air, and the fireplace and amber lamps glowed invitingly. The Ryans both smiled at her like storybook concerned parents. Swept by a wave of emotion she couldn’t name, she rubbed her sleeve across her eyes.
“I was just after sending Patrick up to get you,” Annie said.
“God, Annie, I’m sorry. I just…” She shook her head.
“No, it’s only a little after ten. But you being up there and all.” Annie jumped up from the armchair. “We were going to give it another five minutes. Have you eaten?” She touched her hand to Kate’s cheek. “God, you’re half-frozen. Come on out in the kitchen and talk to me, I’ll put on the kettle.”
She followed, half listening as Annie went on about Caitlin’s cold, Brigid Riley’s tumble from her bicycle, plans for the music festival and the latest sighting of Elizabeth at a coffee bar in Galway.
An image of Elizabeth’s face in the picture Niall had taken flashed across Kate’s brain, followed by one of his glamorous blond business partner. As Annie bustled about, Kate picked at the edge of the tablecloth. The business partner had long red nails. Kate’s nails were chewed to the quick. She dug her knuckles into her eyes. God, her head felt like the kitchen junk drawer. Cluttered images. Bits and pieces of things Niall had said. Odds and ends of thoughts, impressions.
“All right are you, Katie?” Annie peered at her, her face anxious. “You look all in.”
“Yeah.” She shook her head to clear it, forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
“A sweet biscuit?” Annie put a cup of tea in front of her and sat down at the table. “I’ve some treacle bread still.”
“No, thanks, I’m not hungry.” God, she was going to cry. Tears were massing in her throat, in the back of her nose. Filling up her eyes. She bit her lip, hard. Across the table, she felt Annie watching her. “I’m sorry. You’re very sweet.”
“Ah sure, I’m Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary rolled into one. Now, are you going to tell me what is wrong? You were on top of the world when you left, and now here you are looking as though the world’s collapsed about you. You might as well tell me what it is because I’ll not leave until you do.”
Kate looked at her, convinced she meant it. “No one wants to hear your problems,” her mother had once told her. She’d been about five at the time and grieving over a kitten. It had darted under the wheels of a neighbor’s car. The message had stuck. Tonight she was breaking all her rules.
“I think I’ve made a big fool of myself, Annie.” She traced the rose pattern on her tea cup. “I don’t know what happened, what I was thinking. It’s like I just took leave of my senses.”
“We’re talking about Niall Maguire, are we?” Annie asked.
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “I know you warned me, but…well, he made me dinner and we talked and it was great and we—” She broke off. She’d been about to say that she might well have gone to bed with Niall. Annie didn’t need to hear that. “And then,” she continued, “this woman came in, and I made my exit.”
“Sharon Garroty, that’s the woman,” Annie said. “But word is, she’s more than his business partner.”
“I know, he told me. He said it was over, but from the way she looked at me, I’m not sure she believes that.” Suddenly weary, Kate put her elbows on the table and stared at Annie. “God, I really, really want to trust a man. I want to look at him and just know he’s telling the truth.”
Annie sipped her tea but said nothing.
“I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but it’s as though there’s a connection with Niall.” She shook her head. “My friends would think I’d lost it if they could hear me. I just have a feeling deep down inside.” Embarrassed, she paused. “On the other hand it could be jet lag.”
Annie smiled.
Kate got up, pulled a sheet off the roll of paper towels, blew her nose and sat down again. She met Annie’s eyes across the table.
“You probably think I’m nuts, don’t you?”
“Not at all. You want someone of your own. It’s a natural thing, Katie.”
Kate stared hard at the embroidered daisies on the tablecloth. The tears were threatening to swamp her again, but this time she didn’t even try to stop them. She looked at Annie. “Want to hear a sad story?”
Annie nodded. “I’m all ears.”
“After my father walked out on my mother to shack up with one of his students, I watched my mom drink herself into a stupor every day. Finally, when the booze couldn’t blot out the pain, she shot herself.” She laughed, a short harsh sound. “I came home from school to quite a mess that day.”
“Ah God, Katie, that’s a terrible thing.” Annie stared at her, clearly appalled.
She met Annie’s eyes for a moment, then looked away before she started bawling at the sympathy she saw there. “The thing is, I was always hearing my father tell this story of how he met my mother at a faculty party. She’d walked into the room and he’d looked up, stunned by her beauty. ‘Who is that black-haired woman?’ he asked another professor. Then he predicted that he would marry her. It was love at first sight, he said.”
Annie clicked her tongue.
“I mean, it’s pretty ironic, considering he spent most of their married life cheating on her. He said he couldn’t make my fifth birthday because he had to teach a seminar. And then, just before she died, my mom told me, she’d found a motel receipt for that date. He’d apparently managed to score with his teaching assistant. By the time he actually walked out on my mom, I’d learned not to believe a word he told me.”
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you?” Annie reached over and patted her hand. “But not all men are that way. You’ll see. You just haven’t met the right one.”
Kate looked at her. “That’s what Niall said.”
Annie’s mouth tightened. “Sure, Niall Maguire would know all about not being the right one,” she said darkly. She poured more tea into Kate’s cup. “Have you never been in love at all then, Katie?”
“Not really. I don’t know, I think I’m so scared of the same thing happening to me, that I put up roadblocks when guys get close…” The tears started up again with a vengeance, dripping off her nose and chin. She swiped at them with the back of her hand. “Sometimes, though, I feel so lonely and empty. I want to let someone in, I just can’t seem to do it.”
“I think it’s like jumping into the water, Katie. You know it’s going to be cold and, God forbid, you might even drown, but you probably won�
��t. You just have to take the risk. And if it was anyone but Niall Maguire, I’d tell you to go and talk things over, clear the air and just have a bit of fun. Life is so short. Every day you don’t do your best to enjoy is like a present you haven’t opened.”
“But you don’t think Niall’s the one for me?”
“I don’t. I’d say you’re courting trouble with that man.”
Kate sighed. “You’re probably right. I need to focus on the article, and Niall would definitely complicate things.” She shook her head. “You want to know the really irritating part about all this? I was so distracted by the chemistry stuff, I didn’t even take my notebook.”
Annie grinned knowingly. “Sure, he was counting on that, Katie. He knew quite well what he was doing when he asked you up there.” She got up from the table, gave Kate’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Tomorrow night, I’ll have Hughie over for supper. It’ll be nice for the two of you to get to know one another. Hughie’s a bit of a lonely soul.”
Annie hadn’t added the word too, Kate reflected, but she might as well have done.
“ALL I CAN SAY is the two of you got friendly very quickly.” Sharon followed Niall out of the kitchen. “What was she doing? A little research into your mouth?”
“Look, Sharon, if there’s nothing else, I’ve got some work to do.” He picked up the photos he’d shown to Kate. “By the way, the frames and canvases are all yours. Take whatever else you want from the gallery. I’ll talk to the solicitor tomorrow and have everything written up.”
“So.” She watched his face. “We’ve moved on already, have we?”
He said nothing.
“I remember how it was with us at first. You could hardly wait until we were alone, could you?” She grabbed his arm. “But she’ll learn, this new girl. Just as I did. She’ll start poking around, asking questions, and that’s when you’ll move on to someone else until she starts poking around in your head.
“You know what you are?” She grabbed the pictures from his hand and threw them onto the table. “You’re like one of these. Take this one—or this one of Elizabeth. Sure, it’s a lovely image, isn’t it? Lots of character on that face, look at it. Aren’t you just intrigued? Don’t you just wonder what’s going on in her head. Sure you do. Just as this girl tonight probably did when she looked at you. Well, I could save her the trouble. She might as well ask the bloody picture.”
He stood at the window, looking out at the dark night. In the windowpane, he could see his own reflection. Behind him, Sharon, prowling the room. He turned to look at her. “Look, it’s late and I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
“I have a confession to make. Those letters I gave you the other night, the ones you wrote to Moruadh. I did read one of them.”
“Sharon.” He covered his eyes with both hands, dragged them down over his face. “Please.”
“All those calls from her in Paris last year, all your trips over there. A bit more than simple visits, weren’t they? You were cleaning up after her.” Sharon’s face flushed. “Sure, a spoiled, selfish girl who wanted only to have her own way and to hell with your life. It was always Moruadh first, wasn’t it?”
“That’s enough, Sharon.”
“It was Moruadh who really came between us.” She laughed. “You never stopped feeling responsible for her, did you? Even after she’d slept with every—”
“I said that’s enough.” He caught her arm. “Look, if you have any feelings for me at all, I’m asking you to forget whatever you read in that letter. We’ve all our reasons for behaving the way we do. Sometimes they turn out not to be the best ones, but then it’s too late.” He stopped. “I’m making a mess of saying this, but leave it alone, please. There’s a lot of pain you’re tromping around in.”
“I’m sorry.” She touched his arm. “I should know better than to ask whether I can help, but I’ll ask anyway.”
“You can’t, but I’ll tell you this. Your words didn’t fall entirely on deaf ears. Maybe it’s time to unlock the gates. I just have to find the key.”
She smiled. “They say there are three keys that unlock thoughts. Drunkenness, trust and love. And if that little redhead is the one to do it, I’ll scratch her eyes out.”
“Don’t.” He smiled back at her. “She’s a fine person. It’s the issues of trust we both have to work out.”
KATE STOOD in the shower the following morning, arguing with herself. She’d hardly slept and she definitely had no appetite for one of Annie’s huge breakfasts, nor did she want to face her. Last night, Annie’s advice about forgetting Niall had made sense. But this morning, all Kate wanted to do was head out across the cliffs, look down the footpath and see him walking toward her.
She wanted to see his face again. To feel his arms around her again. To hear him say her name. She tried to conjure up the cynic, but for once the voice was silent.
Water sluiced over her body, and she pictured Niall. Long dark overcoat flapping in the wind, relaxed, loose-limbed, as though he’d spent most of his life striding across fields, a dog at his side. Not that she couldn’t lead a rewarding, productive life without a man, she could, but, God, the thought of coming home every day to someone she loved, to someone who loved her.
She soaped her breasts. Bubbles encircled her nipples, trickled down her stomach and thighs. To love with no holds barred and to be loved in return. To fall asleep with his arms around her. To wake next to his face on the pillow. To do all those mundane, couple things. Buy groceries together, rent a movie, plan a vacation. The hand with the sponge paused on her breast. Have children.
But where would they live? He’d said he could never leave Ireland. Could she really be happy in Cragg’s Head? She imagined herself, married to Niall, living in Ireland. Rattling around a medieval castle with animal heads on the wall and ghosts in the bedroom? Would she feel a little homesick after a while? Start missing people? She grabbed a bottle of shampoo from the bathtub, lathered her hair and tried to think of who she would miss.
Ned and his family, of course, but she was kind of peripheral to their lives and she hadn’t spoken to her father for more than a year. And there would be the children, of course. Gray-eyed children with red hair. Or maybe green-eyed children with dark hair. Maybe one of each.
Oh, stop. The cynic finally spoke up. Let’s not even consider the fact that you know nothing about this guy and you’re already moving in. Let’s not even imagine how you’d hoot if you met him in Santa Monica and he started yammering on about destiny. Let’s look at the real issue here.
You’re daydreaming about a guy who may have murdered his wife.
“ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT in my mind,” the musician said. “Niall Maguire pushed Moruadh down the cliffs.”
Kate blinked. After Rose Boland’s reassurances about Niall’s innocence, she’d started hoping that maybe all the speculation would turn out to be village gossip that no one outside of Cragg’s Head really gave any credence to. But this was a guy from Dublin, who used to play in clubs with Moruadh, pretty much echoing what everyone in Cragg’s Head, from Annie to Hugh Fitzpatrick, believed.
“Between the two of us, Moruadh played around a bit.” The fiddle player drank some beer. “I never could understand why she married Maguire anyway. Far too lively for him, she was. Money, no doubt. It’d have to be.”
Kate made a note. Behind them, half a dozen men, seated on wooden chairs, played fiddles, bottles of Guinness at their feet. “But Moruadh must have been doing okay financially,” she reasoned. “Surely there was more to it than just money.”
“Ah well…” The man she’d come to interview winked. “As I said, she was a lively girl. Took her out a time or two myself. Before she married him and…” He grinned. “A time or two after as well.”
“Was she ever in love with Maguire, do you think?”
He laughed. “Ach, I doubt that Moruadh knew the meaning of love. She was like a child. Whatever was set before her eyes was what she wanted at tha
t moment.”
Kate glanced across the road at a throng of school-girl dancers in green tartan dresses. Flags of green, white and orange strung from wall to wall fluttered in a gentle breeze. Ballincross, the neighboring village where she’d come to do the interview, was holding its music festival. She’d caught the fiddle player between sets.
“It was a bit of a one-sided affair if you ask me,” he said.
“How d’you mean?”
“I remember years ago, when Moruadh first started out, we were playing at a pub in Galway.” He laughed. “Mostly doing ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘Mountains of Mourne’ for the tourists. He would come in almost every night. Just sit quietly at the back of the room, eyes only for her.”
She thought of what Hugh Fitzpatrick had told her about Moruadh resenting Niall’s intrusion into her life. Yet that seemed to contradict the roommate’s assertion that it was Moruadh who had sought Niall out.
“I think she got tired of him.” Chin resting lightly on the top of the fiddle, he looked across the street at a man who had broken into an impromptu performance on a flute. The notes lingered in the air. “I’m sure it was fine enough at first, when she was playing the clubs around Galway, but when things started picking up…” He shrugged. “She was after more, it seemed.”
Kate looked down at the notebook, opened on her lap. She hesitated, mentally framing a question.
“So, all the talk about how she died? What do you think about that?”
“They say it was an accident.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“Ah God, that’s a hard one.” He looked out at the crowd for a moment. “Moruadh was a very high-spirited girl and…” He hesitated. “Well, she’d definitely an eye for a good-looking fellow and I’ve no doubt it didn’t set well with him.”
“You mean he was jealous of her?”
“Sure, Niall Maguire’s not a man who gives away his feelings, so you wouldn’t know by looking at him, but that’s the feeling I had. He’d had enough of her running around, making a fool of him.”
The Man on the Cliff Page 13