by Susan Conley
“No, nothing like that. I may want to stay on a bit, travel, I don’t know.” The plan was so new, it couldn’t even be precisely called a plan. Not at this point. Because, agent or no agent, how stupid would it be to move to Ireland permanently? Annabelle shook her head, and changed the subject.
“I hope Callie remembered to pack my toiletries properly. I had them all wrapped up in my underwear and tucked in shoes and things so they wouldn’t take up too much space. I double-checked her on the computer stuff, but I didn’t want to push it, in case she got insulted and unpacked it all again.” Annabelle sunk down a bit in her seat. “She was so high maintenance.”
“You’ll miss her,” Maria Grazia stated. “Now you have our phone numbers?”
“Maria Grazia! I know your phone number! All of them! Not even by heart anymore, they’re embedded in every strand of my DNA!”
“And you’ll call us when you get in, I don’t care what time it is, right, Lorna? Whatever time you get in, you call.”
“If you call me at any time that precedes nine o’clock in the morning,” Lorna groaned. “I will come over there and will bloody well kill you.”
“If you’d drink more water, you’d begin to rehydrate, and all the little cells in your body that are currently screaming in agony would relax and breathe once more.” Maria Grazia zipped up the backpack. “You call me, you leave a message, maybe the cell phone is best, but you call me, you hear me?” She leaned forward a fraction, and raised her voice. “You can call me, anytime, anywhere, if you need anything, honey, anything at all.”
“Stop screaming.” Lorna moaned.
“I’ll be fine. Maybe we should get all this stuff outside, wait for the car. Lorna looks like she needs some air.”
Maria Grazia picked up every single bag and hurried down the short corridor to the door. Lorna winced at the dull beam of sunlight that edged into the hall, and followed on behind.
Annabelle cast a last look around the place, already nothing at all like the home she’d built for herself, lovingly, over all those years, gently shut the door, and smoothly shot the bolt.
No going back now! she thought, and was suddenly overwhelmingly grateful that her friends were seeing her off.
Except that they weren’t there. Her bags were piled up on the bottom step of the stoop, and Maria Grazia and Lorna were nowhere in sight. Were they out of their minds? Leaving all her stuff, all her worldly goods, just sitting there on the street! Annabelle ran down the steps and looked up toward Court Street. She shifted the small carry-on bag she held, from one hand to the other, before putting it on the sidewalk, and fisting her hands on her hips.
“Some friends!” she huffed, and all of a sudden, the enormity of the job ahead, of the infinite variables of unpredictability, of the challenge of working in a foreign country, of being stuck with cantankerous old Dan Minnehan for an entire year, of having no place to live, nowhere to keep her things, no network of friends and support, no —
The hand on her shoulder snapped her out of her increasingly chaotic thoughts.
Jamie.
Annabelle was speechless.
“Now before you jump all over me for not ringing — ”
Speech was miraculously restored. “I was not going to jump all over you!”
“I saw it in your eyes. C’mere, I had news myself, and I didn’t get the chance to tell you.”
Annabelle frowned. “News? That you could have told me over the phone?”
“You’re very predictable,” Jamie grinned. “It’s adorable.”
I, thought Annabelle — I am not predictable! “Good news?” she asked grudgingly.
“It’s very good news.”
He waited, patiently. Oh, he wants me to ask him. “So?”
“I got that commission thingie, the council thing, and — ”
Annabelle whooped. “That’s fantastic!” She jumped on him in a great big hug. “All that money, and, and the prestige, and your painting! In public! Where everybody can see it!”
“Not everyone,” he protested, slightly mortified.
“Do you have to make a three year plan? Do they give you the money in a big bunch or do they budget it out over time? Do you have to check in with them, or do they pretty much leave you alone? When do you start? Is it like a school year, do you have to wait until Septem — ”
“Annabelle! That’s not important at the minute.”
“Well, okay.” Someone as disorganized as he is, she sniffed, probably found such forward thinking mind-boggling. “Thanks for coming to tell me. If that’s what you came here to do.”
“I didn’t get any sleep last night,” he said, and Annabelle’s belly did a giddy little boogie as Jamie peered down into her eyes.
“Me, neither,” she whispered.
“I don’t know if that little kiss on the cheek was good enough for yer Pooka?”
“She wasn’t around to tell me.” A car horn honked inquiringly; they ignored it.
“I — did you — it was like — ” Jamie took a breath —
Annabelle took a half a step forward. “Yeah, it was.”
“It was kind of — ” Jamie gulped.
Annabelle sighed. “Kind of — powerful … ”
Jamie took a half-step forward. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
They stood, staring deep into each other’s eyes, waiting; an impatient beep beep beep went unregarded.
“I — ”
“Maybe — ”
“No, go ahead,” Jamie said, grateful.
“No, you,” asserted Annabelle.
“No, go on,” Jamie insisted.
“No, no,” Annabelle persisted.
Jamie took a deep breath and prepared to say the thing he’d prepared all day —
Annabelle jumped in. “I told Callie that, if I had the chance, if it still mattered, and if she could still hear me, that if I, um, did get to see you again, if it was meant to happen, that I’d, you know, well, kiss you. I felt really guilty about the whole thing and she really has done a lot for me, whether I like it or not, but I do like it now, and I do like you, too, and, um, if you wouldn’t mind, if it didn’t bug you or anything, I’d like to … but if you don’t, I totally understand, believe me, the whole thing is ridiculous and out of proportion and silly and — ”
“Annabelle,” he said, cupping her face with his hands. “Would you ever stop talking for a minute?”
“Oh,” she murmured. “Okay.”
The moment before … Annabelle would always remember the moment before that first kiss. The moment before any first kiss, the second before the first touch, was always something special, a moment full of promise, of expectation, of heightened awareness, a moment that had had so many small moments leading up to it, moments that had seemed inconsequential, moments that all came together in that first intake of breath, that first touch of lips, those eyes fluttering shut reluctantly as the gap between the two, the lovers, narrowed and narrowed and disappeared.
Annabelle would always remember what it was like to raise her face to meet Jamie’s, the greenness of his eyes as he lowered his gaze to rest on her parted lips, the sights and sounds of the street dulling as their breathing hitched in unison, the way her hands slid around his waist and her fingers linked in the belt loops of his jeans, the way his hands stroked down her face and through her hair, the smell of him, soap and espresso and — charcoal? — and the moment that her eyes finally closed. But even closed, she could see him in her mind’s eye, could sense him all around her as every last thing in her consciousness fell away except for the feel of his mouth on hers.
“If that didn’t do it, nothing will,” he sighed into her hair, as they held the embrace.
“Oh, shit, I’m going to cry,” groaned Annabelle. She leaned back. “
I don’t really cry as much as you probably think I do, I don’t, I swear, it’s been an emotional time for me and — ”
Jamie struck upon an effective way to stop the apologia.
Or not. “It’s just that there’s been a lot going on, as you know. And then here you are, seeing me off, and it’s so sweet, and what if we cross each other over the ocean, if you move to Ireland when I’m coming back, if I come back, I mean, I don’t know what I mean, and — ”
Jamie kissed her again.
“Oh, damn it.” Annabelle buried her face on his shoulder. “I think I might miss you.”
“Oh, very nice.” Jamie pretended to look put out. He couldn’t keep it up, and squeezed her, hard. “For someone who makes a living observing, you’re not very observant.” He pointed to her bags.
She looked down at the sidewalk. Next to her luggage lay a large — and apparently poorly packed — backpack. “What’s that?”
“It’s a rucksack.” At her narrowed gaze, Jamie shook his head. “You’ve no sense of humor, I’m thinkin’. I — I’m coming, too.”
“To Ireland?” Annabelle stared at him in disbelief.
“Em, yes.”
Annabelle stepped back and thought about it. There she went, he thought, away with the fairies, as almost every emotion known to womankind passed across her face. This wasn’t as good an idea as he thought, maybe, but how the hell would he have found her if he’d waited? Dublin wasn’t large, but it wasn’t that small either. He tried to imagine chasing her down via email, and he supposed he could have rung her agents but —
“Jamie!” Annabelle laughed, and wound her arms around his waist again. “I’m glad.” I, thought Annabelle Walsh, really like kissing Jamie Flynn.
She leaned forward, up on her toes.
“I won’t even ask how much your ticket cost,” Annabelle said, eventually.
“My brother-in-law works for the airline, so.”
“Oh, very nice.”
“Not as nice as … ” and he leaned down and whispered in her ear.
Annabelle blushed a furious scarlet, and couldn’t imagine what would happen when they actually slept together. She’d probably spontaneously combust.
Beep! Beep! Beeeeeeeeep! “Oh, the car!” Annabelle looked up (up!) at Jamie. “Lorna and MG were supposed to come with me, I don’t know, did they go to the deli or something, Maria Grazia was sure I’ve forgotten something.”
Jamie loaded the bags in the trunk, the driver slamming it shut rather temperamentally.
“They saw me and, em, scampered away,” Jamie replied, as they slid into the backseat of the Lincoln Town car.
“I love my friends,” Annabelle said, and Jamie snuggled her up against him.
Annabelle settled her carry-on bag onto the floor. “I just hope all that was good enough for Callie. She changed the rules on me so many times.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Jamie grinned and they set about doing some revision.
“C’mere,” he said, eventually. “Do you want to live with me in Dollymount?”
“Are you out of your mind or what?” Annabelle shouted without thinking.
“Don’t mind the ego,” Jamie grumbled.
“On minute you won’t even kiss me for a good cause because you think it means we have to — we’re going to — arrgh!” Annabelle ran her fingers through her hair. “Oh, sure, why not? If your sloppiness tortures me too much, I can always move out.”
“Are you serious?” Jamie was gobsmacked, especially as he hadn’t had the idea until two seconds ago.
“Right, okay, yes, what the hell. It’s completely crazy, it’s way too fast, and it’s quite possibly doomed to disaster,” Annabelle smiled. “But we’ll never know until it’s too late.”
“Ah, sure, feck it, why not?” And if that kiss, Annabelle thought, isn’t good enough for that pooka, then nothing is.
The bag at Annabelle’s feet began to rock and wobble all over the floor. She stamped on it quickly, and Jamie stared in disbelief. “Is that? Is it — she — ”
“Umm hmmm,” Annabelle murmured, and edged the bag closer to her feet. “Just act natural.”
“Natural. Right.” Jamie stared at the bag, which vibrated a bit, as if shivering with excitement, and then it calmed down. To an unknowing observer, it looked like any normal item of carry-on luggage.
Annabelle reached down and pulled it onto her lap. “Keep quiet,” she muttered, “Or there will be hell to pay!”
“Never a dull moment,” Jamie quipped, and as the car sped toward JFK airport, he and Annbelle joined hands on the handle of the bag, a bag that, if you knew what to look for, was looking very — very — satisfied with itself.
EPILOGUE
Standing on the edge of the placid lake, Annabelle breathed deeply, the carbon monoxide-free oxygen almost an assault on her lungs. The air was still, and the sun miraculously shone down on the vividly green hills that ringed the body of water. She’d only been traveling with the Minnehan crew for a week and a half, but she well knew that a moment in pure, undiluted sunshine was not to be wasted. If the weather doesn’t kill me, she thought — and then stopped thinking as a perfectly formed daisy was tucked behind her ear.
Annabelle linked hands with Jamie and kissed him ‘thank you’ for the flower. She squeezed his hand, and they moved along the path toward a private spot around the bend.
“It is completely gorgeous here,” she said, taking in the beautiful vista of blossomed trees and fiery yellow furze bushes. “Hey! We should have brought a picnic!” She glanced up at him, feeling naughty. “Or at least a wee blanket? See that little place up ahead off in the trees?” And she leaned up and whispered a plan into his ear that she wished she’d thought of an hour ago.
Jamie stiffened, and put a restraining hand on her arm.
“Not getting all prim on me, are ya?” She leaned back and glared at him.
He nodded toward a clump of trees ahead, and she turned to look. “Come on out of there, Maeve,” he called. “Sure, I can see ya plain as day.”
Out of a thin stand of birches, Maeve grudgingly emerged, her right hand in the pocket of her anorak.
“Howaya,” she grunted, as if lurking about in a grove of trees was a work-a-day affair.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” Annabelle arched a brow. “Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?”
Jamie stared at Annabelle. “You’ve met?”
“Don’t ask.” She put her hands on her hips, and turned to Maeve. “So? It’s all right, then?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, chicken.” Maeve stood as tall as she was able, which wasn’t very.
“Did she make it?” Annabelle demanded. They’d emptied that suitcase as soon as they’d gotten to Dollymount, to find — nothing out of the ordinary. Not taking any chances, Annabelle had left the thing out on the back step all that first night, and in the morning, the case was gone. Jamie had freaked out, but she’d just shrugged it off. It was par for the course, in fairness. “Is Callie safe?” Annabelle peered down at Maeve, whose black hair had been cut to a far less otherworldly length; minus the billowing cloak, she looked the way anyone’s auntie might look.
“Everything’s grand. You did well.” Maeve went on sternly. “Although you certainly cut it a bit closely there. But you showed good sense, leaving that case alone. I might be able to get it back for ya. Can’t vouch for the state it’ll be in.”
“No, you’re all right.” Annabelle shuddered to think. “And the stone thingie?”
Maeve cocked her head at Annabelle, and smiled coyly. “So, you’d like to have a wee look at the marriage stone of the Queen of the Ban Sí?”
After weeks dealing with a celtically mythological supernatural being, Annabelle was not about to be intimidated by somebody’s auntie. She looked around the
lake, trying to remember if she’d noticed any standing stones the last time she’d been here. “Is there a circle nearby? I hadn’t noticed.”
Maeve withdrew her hand from her pocket.
In her palm sat a small stone.
Jamie and Annabelle looked at it.
“That’s it?! After all that!” Annabelle thought.
Maeve shoved her hand under Annabelle’s nose. “Look. See what you can see.”
Annabelle looked closer and saw that there were infinitesimal cracks running over the tiny chunk of limestone, an incalculable number of fractures that traced all around the surface. As she continued to gaze at it, she sensed that the number of shards that the piece had broken into was bordering on the endless, and the idea that her Pooka had been the last one, the very last one? Well, she couldn’t get her head around it.
“May I?” And Maeve nodded, flattening her palm further as Annabelle ran a finger over the top of the stone.
A great gust of wind blew up around them, from nowhere, and a sound very like the humming chime that the hazelnut had made at Annabelle’s touch swirled around them almost visibly. The wind blew and blew, and the sound rose and rose, and the sunlight, already bright and hot, shot in sparks off the now churning lake. Jamie grabbed Annabelle’s arm, and she laughed with joy, as a crescendo of sound and air and light built and built and built —
And stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
“So, well done, missus, and keep that nephew of mine on the straight and narrow.” Maeve casually flipped the stone into the lake, and headed away down the path.
She turned back and winked at Jamie and Annabelle. “Sure, it was only an aul’ rock.” She sauntered off, whistling, leaving them to stare down into the water.
“She’s really all right, once you get to know her,” Annabelle mused, and moved to follow her down the path.
“But — but — the stone — it was — is it — that was magic, like!” Jamie was apoplectic, and Annabelle linked her arm through his, and patted his hand.