by Sophie Moss
“I’m always up to something, Sam.” She smiled, turning on her heel. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
The jumble of conversation ebbed and flowed. Wax candles flickered in tiny glass jars nestled in black sand. More guests streamed through the front door and winter winds swirled into the room in sharp, biting gusts. Sam continued to lean against the wall, watching Glenna saunter away. “Seems like a long way to walk for a couple books when I could have brought them to the pub. Met you halfway.”
Glenna looked over her shoulder. That simple statement went way beyond a couple of books. He was trying to get her to open up, to talk to him after she’d been shutting him out for the past few months. But she couldn’t. She needed him to live his life so she could live hers. There was so much he didn’t know. So much the people on this island still had to go through. And she had to keep her focus. She couldn’t afford to slip up. Not once. And certainly not for some man. “I like to walk.”
“Then come back tomorrow.” Sam pushed off the wall, closing the distance between them.
“For what?”
“To say hello,” he said. “What you should have done today.”
Glenna lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t think of it, at the time.”
Sam smiled and Glenna took another sip of wine. Of course they both knew that was a total lie. She could barely be within a mile of this man without sensing him, without feeling his presence and wanting him. But that didn’t mean she needed to act on it. She had incredible willpower when it came to men. Especially ones who couldn’t be trusted. And there was no doubt in her mind, despite everything that happened this summer, Sam was not to be trusted.
“I’ll keep an eye out for you next time,” Sam offered, that fire still burning in his eyes. “I’d like to show you around so you can see what I’ve done.”
“I’m sure that would be a riveting tour,” Glenna replied, her fingers curling around the stem of her wine glass to keep them from creeping up the folds of that worn leather jacket and tangling into those sun-streaked curls. “Seeing all the fences you’ve mended.”
Sam’s lips curved. He held out his hand, and she noted the new calluses forming on his wide palms. “I’ve got farmer hands now.”
Glenna’s mouth went dry. God, she wanted those hands on her, on every surface of her.
“You seem flushed,” Sam commented after several long moments. “Are you hot?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly.
He fished an ice cube from his drink and cupped it in his palm, holding it out to her. “Maybe this will help.
“What do you want me to do with that?”
He grinned. “I can think of so many things.”
***
Dominic threaded his way through the crowd gathered in Caitlin’s living room. A cozy peat fire snapped in the hearth and a steady bubble of conversation followed him into the connected kitchen, where he found her peeling the foil off a plate of herbed potatoes. “Can I help with anything?”
She tossed the foil into the trash and carried the steaming plate over to the table where the rest of the food was laid out. “I think I’ve got it under control.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel and folded it back over the handle of the oven. “But thanks.”
Dominic leaned back against the counter, taking in the subtle changes throughout the room. Vanilla and cinnamon-scented pillar candles burned in the windowsills, wax dripping down their fat stems. Tea lights flickered over the coffee table, illuminating an impressive collection of fairy tale books laid out with their beautifully-illustrated covers in full display.
“I didn’t know you had all those,” Dominic commented, watching Kelsey choose one from the table and pull it into her lap. He stiffened when the newcomer’s child, Owen, climbed up onto the sofa beside her.
“I’ve had them for years,” Caitlin said, twisting the top off a Harp and handing it to him.
Dominic took the bottle, his hand wrapping around the cold glass, but his gaze lingered on Owen as he edged closer to Kelsey, peering over her shoulder at the pages of the book. A strange, unsettling feeling took root in his gut as he thought back to the brief conversation he’d had with Nuala when she’d walked in with Liam an hour ago.
He’d asked her a few simple questions about Limerick, just to be friendly, even though he was furious with his brother for bringing her to Caitlin’s house. But his frustration quickly turned to worry when some of the newcomer’s answers didn’t add up. It was almost like she hadn’t really spent any time in Limerick at all.
Glancing over at his brother, he saw that Nuala was still locked to his side, smiling up at him as he refilled her glass with white wine. He’d seen his brother get moony over a woman before, but he’d never seen anything quite like this. He knew Liam could handle himself—at least, he hoped Liam could handle himself—but he was fairly certain now that this woman was hiding something.
His gaze drifted back to where Owen was watching his mother across the room with a strange detached expression on his face, and the worry rooted deeper. Kelsey was reading aloud, oblivious to whether or not Owen was paying attention. If the newcomer was hiding something, as he suspected she was, then he didn’t want that boy anywhere near his daughter.
“I’ve seen that look before.” Caitlin lowered her voice. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure.” Dominic lifted the bottle, taking a long slow pull. There was no need to get Caitlin worried yet. At least, not until he’d had a chance to talk to Tara about it first. “Has Liam noticed anything yet?”
Caitlin shook her head. “Not yet.”
“What else did you set out to trigger his memory?”
She tugged at one of her curls. “Little things.”
Dominic sighed. He didn’t know what any of these things meant or how they were supposed to bring back his brother’s memory, but Caitlin must know something he didn’t. He was going to have to trust her. He watched her gaze drift back across the room to where Liam and Nuala were chatting with Tara. “About this morning…”
Caitlin picked up a sponge, wiping at a nonexistent crumb on the counter. “Can we please forget about that?”
Dominic dipped his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “No.”
“Look,” Caitlin said, turning to face him. “I was upset. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“No,” Dominic said, turning to face her. “I’m the one who should apologize. I admit… you and Liam? It took me by surprise. But that doesn’t mean I’m against it. It just means I have to shift my way of thinking. We’ve been friends since, well, since forever. I sort of took on that role of looking after you, like you were my own sister. I assumed Liam felt the same way.” He lifted his eyes back to hers. “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Caitlin put down the sponge. “Look, Dom. I don’t know what’s happening between me and Liam. But if what I want plays out, you’re going to have to let go and give us some space. Even if it means I end up getting hurt.”
“Is that what you really want?”
“It’s what I’ve wanted for a very long time.” Caitlin’s gaze drifted across the room when Nuala’s laughter floated over the swell of conversation. “And until the accident on the ferry last night, I thought that’s what he wanted, too.”
***
Owen heard his mother laugh and caught her eye briefly across the room. She was talking with Kelsey’s mother, the woman with the black hair Kelsey said was a ‘selkie’. There weren’t any selkies in the book Kelsey was reading now. But there were mermaids. And mermaids couldn’t wiggle out of their tails like selkies could shed their seal-skin. They had to make some kind of trade with the sea witch first, which seemed like a really bad idea.
Curled up on the sofa with a piece of birthday cake on his lap, Owen waited for his mother’s back to turn, then he peered over Kelsey’s shoulder at the pages of the new storybook. “The mermaid trades her voice and her soul for a chance to live on land for three days?”
Kelsey no
dded, breaking off a piece of his cake and popping it in her mouth. “So the prince will fall in love with her.”
“But that’s crazy!”
“Why is that so crazy?” Kelsey turned the page, revealing a picture of the mermaid swimming up to the surface with legs now, leaving all she’d ever known behind. “She was in love. Nothing should stop two people who are in love from being together.”
Reaching across her, Owen flipped the page back to the one before it, gazing down at the mermaid’s sparkly tail. “But what if they weren’t meant to be together? What if the prince was supposed to be with the princess?”
“Everyone knows the prince is supposed to be with the mermaid.”
Pulling the book into his own lap, Owen flipped back to the beginning, starting over and scanning the images of the mermaid gliding up to the surface and watching the massive ship splinter apart in the storm. She carried the drowning prince to shore and waited until the princess found him, only to return to that broken ship lying on the bottom of the ocean. But wasn’t that where she was supposed to be? Wasn’t that where she belonged?
“Hey,” Kelsey said, nudging him. “Don’t you like the cake?”
He nodded, only half-listening.
“Then why aren’t you eating it?”
He turned the pages to where the prince met the mermaid in human form for the first time. Why couldn’t he see that she wasn’t the one he was supposed to be with?
“Owen?”
“Yes?” he said, still staring at the pages.
“When’s your birthday?”
His gaze flickered up to hers, then drifted back down to the pages.
Kelsey lowered her voice. “Do you know?”
Owen shook his head.
Flipping back to the earlier pages, she pointed to the scene of the mermaid swimming around the shipwrecked boat lying at the bottom of the ocean, its broken hull covered in barnacles. “Have you been there?”
Owen glanced up. His mother was still across the room chatting with Kelsey’s mother. Her back was to them, but he lowered his voice to a whisper anyway. “I think so.”
“You still don’t remember anything?”
He shook his head.
“Does your mum… remember anything?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you asked her?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should.” Kelsey stared at his profile for a long time, finally pulling the book from his hands and setting it on the table. “Here,” she said, ignoring his protests. “Why don’t we read a different story for a while so you can finish your cake?” She looked at him pointedly. “It’s a really good piece of cake.”
Owen bit his lip. He didn’t want to go back to that one later. He needed to know how that one ended now.
Fishing another book from the table, Kelsey settled back into the sofa. She showed him the cover. “It’s called Beauty and the Beast.” She pointed at each word as she read it aloud. “I think you’ll like this one. It has a talking teacup in it.”
Owen stabbed the fork into the cake. He didn’t want to read about talking teacups. He wanted to see the pictures of the ocean again. His gaze drifted over to The Little Mermaid, lying face-down on the table. His fingers itched to hold it and he gobbled the rest of his cake, hoping to convince Kelsey to go back to it right away. He stuffed the last bite into his mouth, chocolate crumbs spilling all over his lap as he set the plate aside, reaching for it. But he snatched his hand back when a shadow fell across the table.
The tall man with the black hair and glasses, the one his mother had tripped, was eyeing the same book with an odd expression on his face. Slowly, he bent down and picked it up. He turned it over carefully, staring at the cover for several long moments, then wandered over to the fire and started flipping through the pages.
***
“Trying to see if you still have the story straight?” Caitlin asked.
Liam almost dropped the book.
“Sorry,” Caitlin said wryly, handing him a Guinness. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“No.” Liam set the book back on the table and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m… somewhere else tonight.”
“You’re always somewhere else.”
Liam lifted the pint glass, taking a long swallow. That was true. And any other night he might have laughed at her jab about him living most of his life with his head stuck in the clouds. But not tonight. Not when he’d spent the entire afternoon trying to dig up the file he’d been working on for the past three months. Not after he’d torn his briefcase apart searching for a hard copy and come up with nothing. When he knew—knew—he’d printed out the pages to bring with him yesterday. But, then, where the hell had they gone?
What if Tara was right? What if something had happened when he hit his head on the pier? What if there was something seriously wrong with his mind? His gaze fell back to the cover of the book. Something pulled at him, a ghost of a memory floating back and he struggled to reel it in but it disappeared in a white blur as quickly as it had taken shape.
“Liam?” Caitlin’s brows knitted in concern. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” he lied, taking another sip. “I’m fine.” What was it about that book that was so familiar? It was more than that he’d seen it before. It was like it was supposed to mean something to him? But what? Why couldn’t he remember?
“So tell me about this new legend you stumbled across.”
New legend?
“You know,” Caitlin prodded. “The new Irish fairy tale you discovered in Dublin a few weeks ago. At the Trinity Library. You were going to tell me about it last night.”
“Oh…right,” Liam nodded. On their date. He took another long sip of the dark stout. Wait. Did she just say Dublin? Had he been to Dublin recently? “I… haven’t had much chance to work on it lately.”
“What are you talking about?” Caitlin angled her head. “That’s all you’ve been working on the last few weeks.”
“Oh, that fairy tale?” Maybe if he kept this going long enough, she’d give him a hint. “I thought you were talking about something else.”
“What else would I be talking about? Did you discover another legend since the last time I talked to you?”
“I don’t… think so.”
Caitlin stared at him oddly. “You were going to present your findings at the conference in Limerick next week. The one the Prime Minister’s wife is attending.”
Liam’s brows shot up. The Prime Minister’s wife was attending the conference?
“You said you’d tell me about it when you got here,” Caitlin continued, watching him even more closely now. “It was supposed to mean something really big was going to happen to your department if she decided to get behind it. So… what’s the big news?”
The big news was that he was losing his freaking mind! The bubble of conversation rose to a fever pitch as more friends and neighbors crowded into the tiny room. The peat fire snapped in the hearth, making the air feel unnaturally warm. Everywhere he looked his friends were huddled in circles chatting and laughing, clinking their glasses together, enjoying themselves.
Why did he feel like he could hardly breathe? He needed to get out of this house, get some air, and figure out what the hell was wrong with him. Setting his glass down, he caught the edge of one of the shallow glass bowls. It toppled off the table, scattering sand onto the rug.
They knelt at the same time, scooping sand into their hands. Their fingers brushed and a jolt, like an electric current, shot up his arm. He caught her hand in his, turning it over and staring at the sparkling sand resting in her palm as snatches of a memory fell into place. “Where did you get this?”
Caitlin held her breath, a flicker of hope igniting deep in her eyes. “Lockley’s beach.”
“Do you… collect it?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“It holds a special meaning for me.”
It held a speci
al meaning for him, too. But what was it? His fingers curled around her wrist, his wide palm dwarfing her small one. He could feel her pulse beating under the surface of her skin. He skimmed his thumb over her heated flesh. He heard the slight intake of breath as her pulse jumped, and he lifted his gaze to her eyes.
“You used to go there every night,” he breathed as a strange tingling sensation spread up his forearm, starting from where her fingers touched his skin. Another memory clicked into place, like slides of a black-and-white movie. “We used to go there.”
She nodded, and he rose, pulling him with her. He looked down, lost as those big sapphire eyes glimmered up at him with so much raw hope, so full of expectation. The swell of voices and conversation faded as he untangled the collar of her sweater from where it had caught in a button.
“You used to tell me stories,” Caitlin whispered. “The ones you came up with during the day. The ones you refused to write down.”
“I remember,” Liam murmured, his fingers lingering in the soft hand-knit wool of her sweater. “You believed in them.”
“I believed in you.”
Her rich, red waves cascaded around her pale skin, brushing against her shoulders. How had he never noticed how full and soft her hair was? “You told me this was magic sand,” he said, reeling each piece of the memory in like a fish struggling at the end of a line. His gaze fell back to the dark sand in her palm. “Dust from the selkies’ pelts when they came up to the beach to dance. You said the beach was enchanted.”
“I used to think it was.”
“But you don’t anymore?”
Caitlin shook her head.
“Why not?” When she said nothing, he searched her eyes. There was a flicker of sadness in them now and he felt a sudden urge to comfort her. “You wanted to build a cottage there,” he murmured as bits and pieces of their moonlight conversations floated back to him. “So you could feel their magic. So you could see them at night from your bedroom window.”