Spellbound

by Jeanette Baker

  “She must be a tremendous help to you,” observed Mollie when Marni left them.

  “How do you mean?”

  “She’s very mature for an eight-year-old.”

  “Aye, that she is,” Sean said proudly. “Marni has been more adult than child from the day she could walk.”

  “Does she have many friends close by?”

  “A few. She prefers to be by herself or with her family. She’s not much for friends.”

  “I see.”

  Again that simple, uncommunicative phrase that revealed nothing of her inner feelings. I see. What did it mean, anyway, when spoken from the lips of a woman like Mollie Tierney? Perhaps he should borrow some of her directness. “What do you mean?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you think it’s wrong that Marni doesn’t prefer friends her own age?”

  “Wrong is a very strong word. I don’t think it can be used to describe an eight-year-old girl who’s probably done nothing wrong in her entire life.”

  “Then why did you say it?”

  “What?”

  “You said ‘I see’ in that way you have.”

  “What way?”

  “You know what way.”

  Her glance moved to a place behind him. Suddenly she smiled. “Let’s play another game, shall we? Caili doesn’t understand this one.”

  Caili. He’d forgotten her. Quickly he turned around. The little girl was staring at Mollie with her thumb in her mouth and that look about her eyes that he’d seen too often lately. He groaned. Mollie Tierney was stretching the edges of his temper. Danny had affected him the same way.

  He held out his arms to his niece. “Don’t be frightened, a stor. It isn’t what you think.”

  First she looked at Mollie and then at Sean. “Are you angry at Aunt Mollie, Uncle Sean?”

  “No, love. Look at her. She’s smiling at us.”

  Bless the woman. She really was smiling.

  Caili relaxed, and Sean released his breath. She’d shamed him. His instincts were right the first time. MollieTierney was nothing like her brother.

  CHAPTER 4

  For the third time, Mollie read the instructions for running the dishwasher, filled the soap dish, and turned on the tap full force before pushing the start button once more. What had Sean meant when he said the cottage was probably not what she was used to? It had every amenity she could ask for—a modern kitchen, four large bedrooms, two bathrooms, an upstairs loft, and floor-to-ceiling windows with sweeping views of the sea—all for one-third the cost of a tiny studio apartment in Newport, California.

  Sean O’Malley wasn’t what she’d expected. His sharp wit and pointed teasing had drawn out her laughter a number of times this afternoon, and yet every instinct warned her that under his polite veneer simmered frustration, the kind that festered and turned into anger. Clearly the man adored his nieces and his tiny infant nephew. So much for her mother’s worries on that score.

  Mollie looked at things squarely, without excuses, and her innate honesty told her that guilt was a large part of the reason she’d agreed to come to Inishmore. If she’d been Emma Tierney’s firstborn, it might have been Danny with all the advantages. It wasn’t the only reason, of course. Kerry’s letters, so warm and accepting, had fueled her desire to know her family, her brother and his wife, her nieces, and most of all her father, the father who’d stubbornly refused to give up one child while making no effort, not even the most superficial, to contact the other.

  Patrick Tierney lived on the other side of the island, near the town of Cill Einne. Mollie knew that much from her mother. But she knew little else. Emma was remarkably close-mouthed about her life in Ireland. Mollie knew that after her mother’s marriage to Ward Reddington, she had been discouraged from returning to the island first by her ex-husband and later by Danny, who harbored an understandable resentment toward the mother he felt had abandoned him.

  That same resentment couldn’t possibly apply to a younger sister, Mollie had reasoned when first planning her visit to the island, a sister who had no part in the chain of events that caused her brother to grow up with a mother he knew only in the summers, a mother who was another man’s wife.

  Now it didn’t matter. Danny was dead, and so was Kerry, changing Mollie’s position completely. The children were being cared for by a caustic stranger who, although he was Kerry’s brother, was definitely not welcoming. Her image of a happy family reunion was rapidly fading.

  Mollie flipped off the kitchen light and walked into the living room. Blocks of peat glowed in the open fireplace, and a steady flame licked at the few sticks of wood she’d thrown in to give the silent turf a familiar crackle. She glanced at the books stacked on the coffee table. School was two weeks away. She would share thirty students from six different levels, ages five to twelve. Alice Duncan, her teaching partner for the older children, a cheerful, no-nonsense kind of person, had stopped by earlier in the day with a parcel of textbooks.

  Stretching out on the couch, Mollie picked up the first-grade primer and flipped through it, but her mind wasn’t on her job. She had hoped to learn something about her father before she approached him. She’d seen him only once, at the funeral.

  Mollie didn’t want to knock on his door and demand entrance without some kind of warning. A phone call would have been much easier. Three days had passed since she’d officially leased the cottage. To wait any longer to approach him was out of the question. Inishmore was a tiny island. Mollie wanted to be the one to tell him that she would be staying. Unless she did it first thing tomorrow, that option might very well be taken from her.

  Lightning flashed across the sky. She counted to ten, smiling when the rumble of thunder followed. Even in Ireland, eight thousand miles away from everything she knew, nature behaved predictably.

  At first she thought the hammering at the front door was the fierce island wind her mother had warned her about, but when it stopped suddenly and then started again, she knew it for what it was. Setting the book aside, she walked quickly to the door and opened it.

  Rain-drenched and shivering, the woman standing on her doorstep was unusual enough to stop traffic in any cosmopolitan capital of the world. Everything about her reminded Mollie of moonlight—silvery rain-wet hair, pale skin, gray eyes framed with thick, water-starred lashes. She was slender and straight, with haughty carved features and a face so ageless that at first Mollie was fooled into thinking she was a much younger woman. She recognized Mabry O’Farrell from the funeral.

  “Will you know me the next time you see me?” The voice, coldly sarcastic and heavily accented, didn’t match the woman’s appearance.

  Mollie stepped aside. “I’m sorry. Please, come in.”

  After shedding her coat, Mabry hung it over the heating pipes and walked into the living room. She turned so that her back was to the fire. “Have you anything to drink?”

  Mollie frowned. “What would you like?”

  “Spirits, if you have it.”

  “All I have is wine.”

  “It will have to do, won’t it?”

  Mollie hesitated and decided to ignore the woman’s rudeness until she found out the purpose of her visit.

  “What are you staring at?” Mabry demanded.

  Mollie ignored her question. “Are you hungry? Can I get you anything else?”

  “Wine will be good enough.”

  Mollie disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a bottle of chardonnay, two glasses, and a plate of fruit and cheese. “I didn’t have much for dinner. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”

  Mabry shrugged and took the chair nearest the fire. “I don’t suppose you’re accustomed to waiting on people.”

  “Waiting on people?” Mollie poured a glass of wine and handed it to the rain-soaked woman with the sharp tongue.

  Her shrug was a quick, surprisingly graceful lifting of the shoulders. “Fixing a plate, pouring drinks. I would imagine the daughter of a fine plastic surgeon would
have a houseful of servants.”

  Mollie forced a smile. The woman was impossible. “In California I have my own apartment. A teacher’s salary doesn’t cover servants.”

  “But at home with your mother, you must have had them.”

  “Mother takes care of the house herself. Occasionally a woman comes in to clean and wash windows, but not on a regular basis.”

  “I know you’re rich, Mollie Tierney. There’s no sense in sweeping it under the carpet.”

  Carefully, Mollie spread the creamy cheese on an apple wedge. Taking her time, she chewed and swallowed it. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my stepfather is a doctor. Where I come from, doctors do very well. I’m a teacher. I support myself on a teacher’s salary without help from anyone.”

  “Are you his heir?”

  “Whose?” Mollie leaned forward to refill her unwelcome guest’s wine glass.

  “Your stepfather’s, of course.”

  Mollie bit her tongue, stifling her natural inclination to send the woman on her way. A year was a long time. It wouldn’t do any good to offend the natives. “I have no idea,” she said. “It doesn’t matter either way. Ward is only sixty years old, and California is a community property state. My mother would inherit everything.”

  “And you’re her heir.”

  Mollie looked over the rim of her glass at this. She was tired of cooperating. “What does any of this have to do with you.”

  Mabry leaned back in her chair. The heat from the fire had dried her hair. It fell in loose ash-colored waves around her face. “I’ve more right than you know. You drew your first breath in my arms, lass, and so did your brother. There aren’t many I lose sight of the way I lost you. I blame Emma for that.”

  Mollie frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Mabry’s eyes were hard and bright, ice on metal. “No. I imagine you don’t. Emma should have come back.”

  The unfairness of such a remark spurred Mollie to defend her mother. “She wasn’t welcome. My father didn’t want her here. She told me so.”

  “Emma always went her own way.”

  Mollie fell silent, uncomfortable with the obvious, the unspoken criticism that hung in the air between them.

  Mabry’s profile was edged in golden light. “So, lass, why are you here?’

  “To teach school.”

  Mabry waved her hand in dismissal. “Why are you really here?”

  Mollie released her breath. “To know my father and my nieces. They’re the only ones left.”

  Mabry’s eyes narrowed to slits of cool silver. “Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  Mabry leaned forward. “Don’t lie to me, Mollie Tierney. You’re no good at it.”

  “I’m here to see my father,” Mollie insisted. She’d read somewhere that it was possible to fool a polygraph. It required a complete relaxing, a hypnotic detachment from the issue at hand. She tried it now.

  Mabry searched her face for a long moment and then turned away and stared into the fire. When she spoke, her words were husky, smoke-choked. “Wanting can be a curse, lass. Don’t want so that your judgment is impaired and you can’t see the truth in front of you.”

  Mollie’s head reeled. “I want to find my father. Can you help me?”

  “You might be disappointed.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He can be—” Mabry hesitated. “Difficult.”

  “Does he still drink?”

  “He’s dry now, but he’ll go back to it. He always does. There isn’t a family on the island that’s escaped the curse of a pint all around.”

  “What about the O’Malleys?”

  “Sean is the only O’Malley left on the island, and he rarely touches the stuff. He never had the taste for it, nor the stomach, not even as a lad.”

  Mollie’s impression of Sean O’Malley rose. “Will you tell me where I can find him?”

  “Who?”

  “My father.”

  Mabry stood, a small, satisfied smile on her lips. “You’ll do, Mollie Tierney. I’ll send someone for you tomorrow morning.”

  Mollie smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me until it’s happened.” Mabry walked past Mollie toward the door and took her coat from the peg. “I’ll see myself out.”

  * * *

  It was Sean who appeared at her door the following morning. “Mabry sent me,” he explained. “She said you needed a ride to Patrick’s cottage.”

  Mollie recovered quickly. Pushing her doubts aside, she smiled. “Thank you for being so accommodating. I’m nervous enough to accept who I can get.”

  He grinned, and once again she noticed the extraordinary blue of his eyes, ocean-colored, light-filled, clear.

  “Who are you, Miss Mollie Tìerney, to be insulting the only escort you’re likely to find?”

  “I intended it as a compliment.”

  “Warn me, please, before you give me another one.”

  She looked around. “Are we walking?”

  He nodded toward the bicycle leaning against the house. “Americans walk only for exercise, not to get anywhere.”

  “Really?”

  “Aye.” His face was serious, but his eyes were not.

  She decided to ignore what she thought was a slight. “I don’t have a bike.”

  “We can ride the one together, as long as you’re not too heavy and you can hold your balance. Can you manage that?”

  “I suppose I’ll have to.” She looked down at her navy skirt. “Shall I change?”

  “There’s no need. You’ll be riding sidesaddle.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  He lifted a mocking eyebrow.

  Challenged, Mollie reached for her small backpack, slipped her arms through the straps, braced herself on the crossbar, and hopped on. Sean’s hand, steady on the small of her back, prevented her from falling backward.

  “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” She could hear the laughter in his voice.

  She gripped the bar like a lifeline. “Ask me when we get there.”

  The ride to the village of Cill Einne was surprisingly smooth and uneventful. Mollie relaxed enough to appreciate the rare, jewel-bright blues and greens that sunlight brought to the island. She knew something of flowers, and amidst the crags and crevices of human-looking boulders, purple milk-vetch, the island’s rarest plant no longer found on the mainland, flourished. Yellow hoary rock-rose, blood-red crane’s-bill, and white vernal sand-wart covered the rocks in brilliant profusion. Longhaired sheep hugged both sides of narrow twisting roads. Cows munched on limestone-nourished grass behind low stone walls. Smoke swirled from chimneys, soft spirals, white against blue, caught on the updraft. Men grinned, lifted wool caps, and called out the traditional island greeting, “Dhia Duit.” Women nodded politely, looking away before making eye contact, and children stared.

  Mollie knew that strangers were a common enough sight on the island, especially during the summer months. Either they knew who she was or her mode of transportation wasn’t as typical as Sean led her to believe. She wished he would say something. The tune he whistled over and over again just behind her ear began to grate on her nerves. “Are we almost there?” she asked.

  He braked suddenly around a sharp bend and turned down a fractured limestone footpath. “Nearly,” he said cheerfully, and resumed his whistling. The lane narrowed, rutted, disappearing almost entirely. Sean’s pace never lagged, nor did he lack for breath as he maneuvered the bike up the gradual incline. “There it is,” he said at last.

  Mollie straightened. “What?”

  “Your father’s cottage, just ahead of us.”

  Her chest hurt. She’d forgotten to breathe. Inhaling deeply, she took her first long look at the house where she was born. This was her beginning, the place where it all started so hopefully, changed direction, and came to a final crashing halt. Divorce spared no one, not even an adult daughter who had no memory of her father. There was something about knowing
your parents had once been in love and no longer were, that something permanent had been severed, and no one, not even two small children, could keep them together.

  The friendly thatched-roof, whitewashed cottage with its fading red door was nothing like she’d imagined. It was smaller, warmer than her mother had described it, with tiny windows, a clearing in front, and a comforting spiral of smoke escaping from the chimney.

  Sean pedaled the bike to the yard and stopped. Mollie slipped off the bar, unbuttoned her jacket, and smoothed her hair. “Do I look all right?” she asked anxiously.

  He looked startled, as if she’d caught him off-guard. “I suppose so,” he said guardedly.

  Mollie raised her eyebrows. “A simple yes or no will do.”

  His eyes glinted the same blue-green as the water around him. “The thing is, your hair is a bit mussed, and there’s something black across your right cheek.”

  Mollie’s hand flew to the spot. She rubbed it briskly with her fingers.

  “Now you look like you’ve seen the worst of a bee stinger.”

  Nerves turned her voice brittle, “There’s nothing wrong with my cheek. You’re teasing me, and I don’t appreciate it, not now, anyway.”

  “At least it brought back your spirit,” he said cheerfully. “No more than a minute ago you looked like a spring pig on her way to slaughter.”

  “I feel like one,” Mollie muttered.

  “What’s that you said?”

  She looked back over her shoulder. There was that eyebrow again, quirked at a forty-five-degree angle. He knew exactly what she’d said. He probably knew exactly what she was thinking. Maybe all of these islanders had the Sight. “Never mind. Are you coming in with me?”

  “I don’t think so. Patrick and I never did see the world from the same side of the fence.”

  Mollie attempted the eyebrow quirk, gave it up, and asked instead, “Is that your fault or his?”

  He balanced the bike against one leg and narrowed his eyes. “You are a direct lass, aren’t you?”

  She was spared from answering. The red door creaked open, and a voice, not at all feeble and surprisingly steady for a man addled with drink, called out, “What have you to say for yourself, the two of you, to greet the morning in such a way?” A tall man in clean but faded clothes and a wool cap stepped out into the light. “Is that you, Sean O’Malley?”