Briarwood Cottage

by JoAnn Ross

  “Or San Francisco and Steve McQueen’s car chase.”

  “Exactly.” Oh, God. He still totally got her without her having to explain. That mental shorthand they’d developed made him even more dangerous than the still-smoldering chemistry.

  “Anyway, I became more interested when he told me that the main editorial rule would be that the stories should be outrageous. And truth should be avoided at all costs.”

  “Which actually is a smart move.” He plated the eggs and put them on the table. “Because Bigfoot isn’t likely to sue anyone for libel anytime soon.”

  “True enough. The same with the fictional Peruvian archeologist I invented who’s supposedly uncovered proof that we’re all descended from outer space aliens. People know the stories aren’t real life. They read them solely for entertainment value. The same as others might read a novel.”

  She took a bite of the eggs. “Oh, these are exactly what I wanted. Without knowing I wanted them.”

  And hadn’t he always known exactly what she wanted? What she needed? At least in bed. She hadn’t had that many lovers before Duncan, but enough to often feel as if she should have just drawn a map of her body with arrows pointing to the good parts. This man, on the other hand, had proven a master explorer, never missing an erogenous zone. Even ones she’d never known she possessed.

  “Remind me to thank Mrs. Monohan the next time I’m in the Mercantile.” He put a basket of pastries in the center of the table and sat down across from her, his eyes warming as he returned her smile. It would’ve been like the old days. If it weren’t for the huge pink-polka-dot estranged marriage elephant sucking so much oxygen out of the cottage.

  Steeped in her own pain and guilt, Cassandra hadn’t probed into Duncan’s feelings. One thing she and her husband had in common was that they had both continually put themselves in danger in order to shine a bright light on dark truths. The irony, Dr. Fletcher had helped her see, was that they’d never been courageous enough to shine that same light on the obvious pitfalls in their relationship.

  “We’re going to have to talk about it, Duncan,” she said quietly. Reluctantly.

  “I know. But for now, what would you say to just enjoying breakfast? The market didn’t have any bagels, but Mrs. Monohan assures me that you can’t come to Ireland without sampling the local scones.”

  He took a raspberry scone from the basket, broke it in half, spooned some cream on it, and held it out to her. As she accepted it from his outstretched hand, Cassandra had a sudden flashback to one honeymoon night when he’d spread rich Irish whipped cream onto her breasts, then licked it off as they rolled over the bed.

  A silence settled back over them. One that, while easier than the earlier one, she nevertheless felt the need to fill.

  “I may no longer be trying to save the world with my writing, but believe it or not, I enjoy my work.”

  “I’m glad. You always said you wanted to try fiction.”

  “Ah, yes.” She licked a bit of cream off her thumb, then, as she met his gaze, his darkening eyes told her that they were definitely sharing the same sensual memory. “My novel. The one I’m determined to write so I never have to tell my grandchildren that someday Grandma’s going to write a book.”

  She blew out a long breath. The curtain of silence lowered yet again. When it grew as thick as the fog blowing in from the coast and began to obscure the view, Cassandra decided to try again.

  “Speaking of the future—”

  “I swear I’m not blowing you off, Cass,” he said, his gaze drifting to her mouth for a long, heart-hitching moment before returning to her eyes. “And believe me, I don’t like the way we left things so unsettled any more than you do. But you’ve had a long flight, you’ve got to be jet-lagged, so since we seem to be managing to get along okay, what would you say to agreeing to a moratorium on the serious stuff for the next couple days?”

  The suggestion was undeniably reasonable. Especially since, despite the breakfast, she was starting to crash.

  “I suppose that makes sense.”

  “Terrific.” He reached across the table, brushing away a bit of cream from the corner of her lips. It was a good thing she was sitting down, because that light touch had her knees weakening even before he’d licked the sweet cream off his thumb. “You are planning to stay here?”

  “I was hoping to,” she admitted. “Thanks to all the Lady seekers, according to all the hotel and bed and breakfast websites, there’s not another room within thirty miles of here.” Which, given the narrow hedgerow-lined roads, could take as long as an hour if you got caught in a traffic jam. From past trips to this emerald-green country, Cassandra remembered such jams usually involved a herd of dairy cows or sheep moving pastures. “But now I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.”

  “If you’re worried that I’m going to make a move—”

  “What was that, with the cream, if it wasn’t a move?”

  “Okay. You caught me. I plead guilty to an impulsive slip.” He lifted his hands and flashed that rogue alpha male smile she’d always suspected had panties dropping all over the globe. “But I promise to be on my best behavior from now on. And you won’t have to worry about having to hang a Wall of Jericho between us, because the cottage has two bedrooms.”

  His reference to the classic Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert’s It Happened One Night, one of her favorite old movies, was edging toward a move since it brought both their minds back to having watched it—in bed—on their honeymoon when it had shown up on RTÉ.

  “Thank you.”

  Feeling the color rise in her cheeks, she lowered her eyes in an attempt to prevent him from seeing the sensual yearnings that had begun to break through emotional walls she’d spent months building.

  6

  Despite Duncan’s wild, admittedly unrealistic hopes that perhaps Cass had been coming here to initiate a reunion, things were going better than he’d expected. Although it was impossible to ignore the strain hovering in the air like the morning fog blowing in from the sea, they were talking. And she was eating the food, which, if he did say so himself, was pretty damn good. Thanks to Mrs. Monohan’s excellent advice.

  And speaking of good…

  The moment he’d opened the door, Duncan had felt his heart stop. Unlike the wounded, ghostlike woman he’d unwillingly left behind, Cass looked good. Better than good. She looked as beautiful as ever. And, thank you, God, healthy.

  She’d always been slender, which, he’d realized soon after they’d met during that firefight, was deceptive, because people didn’t tend to realize how tough she was. A misconception he’d watched her use to her advantage on more than one occasion.

  The world of international journalism wasn’t for the weak of heart. It was a tough, balls-to-the-wall, testosterone-driven environment where women admittedly had to work at least twice as hard as men to be taken seriously. Cass had not only been as tough as any male journalist he’d ever worked with, she was smart as a whip and could hold her own in any situation.

  But, as he’d told her during that argument on their honeymoon, that didn’t mean that she was bulletproof. Or invincible. Too many journalists had already died covering wars, and new names continued to be added to the glass-walled Journalists Memorial at the national Newseum in Washington, D.C.

  Given her toughness, Cass had never been a woman to blush easily. Duncan had always enjoyed being able to bring that soft color into her cheeks.

  They’d met during a street firefight in Kabul. When the bullets had started flying, he’d reacted on instinct. After dragging her into a nearby alley behind a pizza joint, he’d pulled her down behind a pile of wooden crates and thrown his body on top of her.

  Time had ceased to have meaning. The shooting could’ve lasted a minute. An hour. An eternity. But when the bullets finally stopped flying and he’d helped her back to her feet, she’d looked up into his face with those lake-blue eyes, and Duncan had known, in that frozen moment in that faraway place, that he was los
t.

  “You’re Duncan McCaragh.”

  “That would be me,” he’d said. “The man who’s going to marry you,” he’d heard himself saying. “So I suppose, now that the shooting’s stopped, it’d be a good time for you to tell me the name of my future children’s mother.”

  She’d both surprised and impressed him by laughing at a time when she would have been forgiven for screaming bloody murder after what they’d been through.

  “Sorry, I’m not in the market for a husband.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll change your mind.”

  She’d laughed again, obviously not taking him seriously. “Give it your best shot.”

  “I intend to.” That had been true then. And was now. “But any good campaign needs proper intel. So, it’d help to know the name of my future wife.”

  She’d shaken her head in friendly exasperation. “I’m beginning to see why they call you Mad Dog. I can’t believe that line actually works. Although I’m too smart to fall for it, I’m Cassandra Carpenter.”

  He’d recognized her name immediately. “The Cassandra Carpenter who wrote that five-part investigative piece on the murder of the Chinese prostitutes enslaved in Kabul?”

  She’d gone undercover as an expat American broker allegedly running an undercover prostitution ring and had later revealed, in vivid, heartbreaking detail, that even in a country as ultraconservative as Afghanistan, sex was for sale. Tragically, at an often deadly price.

  “That would be me,” she tossed his own words back at him. “The journalist you beat out for the Pulitzer.”

  “Ouch. I’m sorry about that. But getting grazed by shrapnel undoubtedly won me some sympathy votes that should have gone to you.”

  “You may have been wounded, which I heard was a lot worse than a ‘graze,’ but your piece deserved to win without any sympathy votes.”

  “I like that. It shows that you’re not only talented, you have the capacity to forgive.” He’d taken hold of her bruised, skinned hand and lifted it to his lips. “Which is even more reason you have to marry me, Cassandra Carpenter. Because we’re a match made in journalist heaven.”

  Although she’d always insisted that his over-the-top proposal was born solely from the adrenaline rush of their situation, that was another truism that hadn’t changed. At least to his mind.

  After they’d cleaned up in their individual rooms at the Kabul hotel, he’d taken her to dinner. Before they’d made it to the cheese plate, he’d put the meal on his GNN Platinum card and walked her back to her room, where they’d spent the night heating up the sheets.

  From that day forward, Cass had been the only woman for him. Google “animal magnetism” and you’d undoubtedly find their picture. And despite her refusal to admit it after that debacle in Egypt, he’d always be the only man for her.

  The challenge, Duncan had decided after hearing that she was on her way to Castlelough, would be to make the most of this serendipitous time together to remind her of what they’d once had. To convince her that while they could never go back to that innocent, sunset time they’d gotten married on a tropical beach, they could reclaim their once-in-a-lifetime bond.

  One problem was the way they’d parted that morning at Shannon. Which he’d long ago accepted had been his damn fault. His only excuse for acting like an overbearing chauvinist male was the blood-chilling fear of losing her. Too many journalists had already been killed in the Middle East. The possibility of his bride becoming another statistic, one of those tragic fatality stories fellow correspondents would rush to file, had been unthinkable.

  Which was why he’d lost his temper when she’d insisted on going to Egypt. A country she’d covered before, and one, as she’d pointed out at the time, that hadn’t been as dangerous as the one he’d been headed to. Unfortunately, his bone-chilling fear for her safety had been realized, making it one of the few times in his life Duncan wished to hell he’d been wrong.

  When he’d first arrived in Cairo, harried and insane with worry, she’d looked utterly lost. Uncharacteristically vulnerable and tragically broken. But even as he’d sat beside her bed, listening to the doctor relate her various injuries, including the miscarriage, she hadn’t wept a single tear. Instead, she’d retreated into a cold, dark place, and nothing he’d attempted over the next six weeks together back in New York had managed to infiltrate it.

  He’d always known what Cass was thinking. Or feeling. They’d been synced in a way Duncan had never felt with any other person. Enough so that he’d been naive, or arrogant, enough to believe the connection between them would be impossible to sever.

  But he’d been wrong. Once they’d returned home to the States, he’d felt totally incapable of knowing what was going through that talented mind. Or how to reach her wounded, ice-encased heart.

  When she’d told him that she no longer loved him and sent him away, she’d driven a stake through his heart. But even that hadn’t made him fall out of love with her. She might as well have tried to force the sun to stop rising in the morning. Or setting in the evening.

  The thing to do, Duncan decided now, was to channel his inner Marine. Winning Cassandra Carpenter back was the most important mission he’d ever embark on.

  And just like those other missions, failure was not an option.

  Meanwhile, understanding she needed some time and space to adjust, he decided to write those damn stories for Winston. Because while there was nothing the billionaire network news titan couldn’t buy for himself, Duncan definitely owed him for sending him to Ireland.

  7

  Well. This certainly wasn’t what she’d expected. Not that she’d known what to expect, which had been part of Cassandra’s problem. Unlike her überplanner, perfectionist cousin, a life bouncing back and forth between traveling the globe with her parents and staying on the commune with Sedona—whenever her mother and father took off for somewhere they felt was too dangerous for their daughter—had taught Cassandra to not only accept the unexpected but to thrive on it.

  Until Egypt.

  On their wedding day, as the sun had set into the sea in a dazzling red glow, Cassandra had realized that her entire life had become divided into Before Duncan and After Duncan.

  Until that tumultuous, terrifying day when she’d lost that child she’d never gotten to share with her husband had taken over the top place.

  But what, she wondered, as she watched Duncan put the plates into the dishwasher, if it might be possible to recapture what they’d had together? He’d always been an expert at hiding his thoughts, but unless she was totally misreading him, which could be possible since she wasn’t as sure of anything as she’d once been, he was pleased she’d shown up here.

  After all, he’d gone to the trouble of shopping at the local store, asking the shopkeeper for menu advice, actually giving thought to a meal instead of dialing for takeout as they usually did on those rare occasions when they were together in New York.

  Of course, the main reason for all that takeout Chinese and pizza was because they’d spent so much stolen time together making love.

  Which hadn’t left much time for talking.

  It occurred to her now that she knew little about her husband other than he came from old financial wealth, had dropped out of Princeton, and that his mother was a “functioning” alcoholic. She’d figured out for herself that he wasn’t close to his family when, months after their wedding, he was still dodging her questions about when she was going to meet James and Angela McCaragh.

  Cassandra had spoken briefly with them on the phone the day after the wedding. James’s cool, patrician tone hadn’t invited familiarity, while Duncan’s mother, who, only a bit warmer, had informed Cassandra that she hoped for grandchildren.

  Something that definitely hadn’t been in their plans. At least not in the near future. After all, it would have been impossible to care for a family while they were both chasing to all corners of the globe at a moment’s notice.

  After Cassandra returned to
New York from Egypt, Angela had called again late one night, but apparently the “functional” part of Duncan’s mother’s drinking problem hadn’t been in full operational mode. After five minutes of listening in on the painful rambling, Duncan had taken the phone away from Cassandra, calmly informed his mother they appreciated her call, and hung up.

  And that had been that.

  Despite everything she’d witnessed as a correspondent, Cassandra was, at heart, an optimist. She might have lost the ability to hope and dream, but there were more and more times, like now, when she could feel a flicker of spirit that had managed to survive.

  After Egypt, she’d been so badly broken she hadn’t been certain that she’d ever be able to put herself back together again. But she had and she was growing stronger every day. Three months ago, she hadn’t even been able to leave Sedona’s apartment. Two months ago, she wouldn’t have thought she’d ever get back on a plane. Especially by herself. But she had gotten on that plane and come here today, divorce papers in hand, certain that her marriage was irrevocably broken.

  Now, after his unexpected declaration, she was confused. And conflicted.

  “Why don’t you take a nap?” Duncan suggested as her eyelids grew heavy. “Then later, maybe if you feel up to it, since scrambled eggs is pretty much the height of my culinary expertise, we can drive into town and get a late lunch or early supper at the pub.”

  “As lovely as breakfast was, I am capable of feeding myself,” she said, not wanting him to think that just because the spark was still there between them she was going to leap into the flames.

  “Of course you are. But you have to eat. And I have to eat. And if you could see the contents of my refrigerator, you’d understand why I’m suggesting letting someone else do the cooking.”

  She could go to the market herself tomorrow, Cassandra decided. Meanwhile, with more important issues to deal with, this was not a hill to die on. Except…