Rival's Break

by Carla Neggers

  She finally went in to see Jeremy Pearson. She was glad they were past his alias. Had she ever truly believed it? She didn’t want to wake him, but he sat up, reached for her hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t figure out that bastard sooner, Georgina.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t, either. Dad wouldn’t want us to beat ourselves up over it. You were with him at the end. You heard his last words.” She paused, studying this man—seeing now how hardened he was, seeing the scars for what they were. “Art consultant, huh? But you were Dad’s friend not just a spook keeping an eye on him.”

  “We asked a lot of him, Georgina.”

  “He appreciated that, I think. He loved his work, and it helps me that it made a difference. It helps a lot. He chose the painting?”

  “He saw you light up when you were at the gallery, and he wanted that for you.”

  “He’d never have bought it on his own. He’d have thought about it and figured his good intentions ought to count for something. But I’m glad he thought about it. I’m glad he saw my reaction to Aoife O’Byrne’s work.”

  “She’s a wonderful person and a talented artist.”

  “Then I should keep the painting?”

  “That’s your call.”

  “Did he know your real name?”

  “Yes,” Jeremy said.

  “I was surprised it’s Jeremy. I expected—I don’t know. Something rougher.” But her moment of humor faded. “Did Dad have sleepless nights about the choices he’d made?”

  “I think so, Georgina, but I also think he lived a good life. He made sacrifices, but he had you.”

  “And you were his friend?”

  “Yes. I was his friend. He loved you very much.”

  “I do know that.”

  “There’s much he couldn’t tell you about his work, nor can I.”

  “He’s an unsung hero in that regard, I guess. I only knew him as a crap father, and my mother...” Georgina bit down on her lower lip. “He was at her side when she died. I guess that’s something.”

  “You two had foraging in common.”

  “That’s true. I’ll think of him whenever I grill chanterelles. Are you haunted by some of what you saw, what could happen? By the pressures?”

  Jeremy grinned. “Not me. I’m not wired that way.”

  But she could see in his eyes that wasn’t entirely true.

  “We’ll get you to London, Georgina. What you do after that...know that I’m here for you.”

  “You don’t have any children, do you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m married, though, to a great woman.”

  “She’d have been upset if Nick had succeeded. He liked that my father suffered. He did what he could to throw suspicion on me and make me doubt myself. I was in his sights, too. He wanted me to suffer the way he’d suffered.” She couldn’t stop the rush of words. “I had no idea he hated me. He was fun-loving and smart. He never let what was brewing inside him show, not to me. He held it in until he killed my father and tried to you, and me.”

  “Guy’s a bastard.”

  Georgina smiled. “Well, that sums it up, doesn’t it?”

  “Mushroom poisoning is miserable. Get some rest. You’re young you’ll bounce back.”

  “Henrietta and Oliver collected my things off the yacht. They’re moving into the same room and giving me the other guest room. They’re engaged. Did you know that?”

  Jeremy grimaced. “Just my bloody luck.”

  * * *

  Hurley’s opened unofficially for breakfast in the morning, and just about everyone in Rock Point turned out. The smell of the fire was a reminder of how close the place had come to oblivion, but the limited menu included doughnuts. Colin figured that was a good sign. He and Emma joined Henrietta, Oliver and Kevin at a table by the windows overlooking the harbor.

  Emma touched his hand. “Colin.”

  He saw, too, and excused himself, joining his Irish priest friend, alone on the dock where they’d first met a year ago this past June.

  “I want to sell the cottage,” Finian said.

  Colin realized he’d interrupted him midthought, but he knew what he meant. “Keep it in the family?”

  Finian turned to him. “My Maine family, I hope.”

  With a jolt he didn’t expect, Colin pictured Emma there on their honeymoon, sitting by the fire on rainy nights, walking along a sunny lane, clapping her hands at a rainbow above the bay, as if it were the first Irish rainbow she’d ever seen. Now Andy and Julianne were there. Even Yank had stayed there. Were Mike and Naomi next? Kevin and Beth? And there was Lucas Sharpe, too, and old Wendell. It’d be an easy place to rent.

  Finian stared at the harbor, lobster boats bobbing in the quiet water. “This is a beautiful spot, Colin.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re called to be here any longer, Fin. We’re your friends. That’s not going to change, whether you’re here or in Ireland, whether you’re a priest or raising sheep in Declan’s Cross, back in the whiskey business.”

  “Henrietta and Oliver have announced their engagement. They didn’t make that up. It took Oliver a while to believe he deserved happiness.”

  “You deserve happiness, too. Franny Maroney agrees if that helps. She cornered me at breakfast.”

  “I like my quiet life here.”

  Colin read into his words. “You don’t think it’d be a quiet life with a world-famous artist.”

  “I said nothing of the sort, Colin. I’m a priest.”

  “Your family’s in Ireland. You have good friends there. They never let go of you.”

  “I have a call, Colin. I made vows.”

  “What’s your heart’s desire, Fin?”

  He turned, smiled. “Right now, I’d like a full American breakfast.”

  “Good. It doesn’t include mushrooms.”

  25

  The Cotswolds, England

  Oliver brought the last of the dahlia tubers into the yellow stone dovecote on his farm and laid them on a worktable in his former stone-working studio. He’d carved the small room out of a corner of the historic dovecote, which his grandmother had transformed into a garden shed decades ago. Originally, pigeons were raised here, but they’d fallen out of favor as a dinner delicacy. Only a handful of dovecotes remained, dotting the rolling Cotswolds countryside.

  When he left the dovecote, wiping dirt from the tubers off his hands, Oliver was surprised to find Henrietta digging dahlias out of an antique flowerpot she’d discovered in June. “I want to dry these tubers, too,” she said without looking up.

  “I’ll add them to the table.”

  “I have ideas for spring.” She got to her feet, adjusted her long orange-red skirt, kicked a bit of mud off her Wellingtons. “The farm needs to be mine as well as yours or it won’t work. I don’t want to feel as if I can’t move a vase or rip out a rosebush without you or Martin having a fit.”

  “Martin might fight you about a vase, but I wouldn’t care. And neither of us knows a thing about roses.”

  She pointed a trowel at him. “Tell Martin if I move a vase, it’s for good reason.”

  “You tell him. I’ll back you up, but you don’t need to go through me to speak with him.”

  “I adore him, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  She lowered her trowel. “I want to include you. I want us to do this together. I’ve never been one for objects, but I love this place.” She narrowed those beautiful eyes on him. “You must speak up if you want something to stay as it is.”

  None of her comments were contradictory in her mind. Oliver understood this, because, he thought, he understood her, and he loved her.

  She stabbed her trowel into the flowerpot dirt. “There’s more. I’m excited about doing more with the farm, and figure out Aunt Posey’s house—my house, I know. I want to give
garden design a go for real. Jeremy knows where to find me.” Her blue-green eyes settled on Oliver. “Where to find us.”

  “Assuming he returns to work himself.”

  “I doubt he’ll be raising chickens anytime soon. You’ve made your amends, Oliver. Now, it’s time for sheep and flowerpots, and Alfred and—”

  “And us.” He eased his arms around her, kissed her on the forehead. “You, me, our children.”

  “Oliver...” He heard her voice catch, and she backed out of his arms, eyed him as if he might be plotting to steal a painting. “Wait. What did you say?”

  “Children.” He smiled. “Really, Henrietta, someone has to listen to Freddy’s opera records and read your biography of him.”

  She laughed then, grabbing her trowel. “Let’s finish these dahlias.”

  * * *

  Jeremy Pearson went with Georgina to her father’s favorite woodland in the Cotswolds, and they scattered his ashes together, saying a proper goodbye. A goodbye he’d have wanted. Five days after their ordeal in Maine, they both needed more time to recuperate, but they would get there.

  “No more yachts for me,” she said as they walked through fallen leaves, as she had with her father—if not often, she thought, enough.

  Now that Jeremy was fully recovered from his ordeal—and didn’t have to pretend to be someone else—Georgina saw how strong and rugged her father’s friend was. “What will you do?” he asked.

  “I’ll find work. The episode with the mushrooms wasn’t my doing. Richie Hillier said he’d vouch for me as a chef, and I have previous happy clients. The Fannings aren’t too happy with me. Somehow, I’m the one who brought a deranged killer on board—never mind he worked for them before I was hired.”

  “He’s not that deranged,” Jeremy muttered.

  “We watched The Avengers together. I’m not going to let him spoil my love of world-building stories. Tolkien, Game of Thrones, comics.”

  “You wouldn’t mind a superhero of your own, would you?”

  She smiled at him. “I don’t need one. I have you. My guardian angel.”

  “Your friend, Georgina.”

  “Can I meet your wife sometime?”

  “She’d love that. So would I. Colin asked if you were the daughter I never had. Maybe you are.”

  “Do I remind you of my mother?’

  “You remind me of both of them, your mother and your father, but you’re yourself. Would you like to see the York farm?”

  “I would, indeed.”

  He gave her directions and met her at the picturesque, sprawling farm the following day. Oliver and Henrietta and a wire fox terrier greeted them at the entrance to a romantic yellow stone house. They gave her the tour of the gardens, the dovecote, the barn and fields. It was warm enough to serve lunch on a stone terrace off the back of the house. Henrietta explained they had word of a job at a restaurant in Stow-on-the-Wold that specialized in locally sourced produce, including wild edibles. “We’ll put in a word, if you’d like,” she said.

  Georgina glanced at Jeremy and saw the hope in his rugged face. She smiled at their hosts—her new friends. “I would be most grateful. Thank you.”

  And later on, after a walk to the village, they offered chanterelles as an appetizer at dinner. “If you want them,” Oliver said.

  “I’d love them,” Georgina said.

  * * *

  Emma and Colin caught a warm Saturday in Maine and went out on Rock Point harbor in separate kayaks. He could feel the cold off the water. It wasn’t summer anymore, but the sky was clear, the colorful autumn leaves slowly giving way to November. He’d been kayaking out here late last summer when he’d learned about the nun murdered at a local convent. Could he ever have conjured up Emma? This life with her?

  He’d been exhausted, fighting burnout. Now it was a year later, and he knew he’d done his bit as an undercover agent.

  They paddled back to the docks and had chowder at Hurley’s, little hint left of the fire. If Nick Lothian had wanted to, he could have injured a lot of people that day. But he hadn’t wanted to. He’d been focused on Jeremy Pearson and Georgina Masterson, and getting out of Maine and on his way to what he’d wanted to do as a student—sell chemical weapons on the black market. Pie in the sky back then, pie in the sky two weeks ago.

  Colin threw the kayaks into the back of his truck. Emma popped in the paddles and vests. Back at the house, she got the wild blueberries her father had picked for her out of the freezer. “I was going to save them for Thanksgiving, but tonight’s the last bean-hole supper at St. Patrick’s. They’re expecting a crowd.”

  “There’s nothing quite like a Maine wild-blueberry pie. People will love it.”

  But they had apples, too. More Cortlands, perfect for sauce as well as pies. While Emma put together the blueberry pie, Colin tackled the apples, got them simmering on the stove, the house filling up with the smell of their cooking and the cool breeze floating through the open windows.

  “I’ll be doing counterintel work out of Boston,” he said as he gave the bubbling apples a stir. “I’ll be training new undercover agents, too. There’ll be some travel, but not like the past five years. Yank says he might need us both in London from time to time. He didn’t explain, but I like the idea.”

  “We could visit Granddad in Ireland.”

  “And the Brackens,” Colin said. “However many of them are there.”

  She set the timer on her pie and turned to him. “We could lead quieter lives.”

  “We could.”

  “One day,” she said.

  He took her in his arms. “I’m not addicted to the job. I’m not going to be Jeremy Pearson in fifteen years. I’m going to be here with you, making pies and applesauce, watching our kids grow and loving every minute of our lives together.”

  * * *

  When they returned to work Monday morning, Matt Yankowski was at his desk, back at work full-time. He called everyone into the conference room. Emma remembered her first time in the offices overlooking Boston Harbor, a dreary March day with HIT just getting off the ground. She hadn’t known Colin then, but Yank had.

  Sam Padgett joined them, griping about New England weather. Dark and good-looking, he grinned at her as they went into the conference room. “The Fannings are clean but they definitely have some interesting friends,” he said as they took seats at the table.

  Their buttoned-down boss greeted his small handpicked team. “Let’s get started. We have work to do.”

  26

  After the last of the bean-hole suppers, the southern Maine coast, including Rock Point, went quiet before the holidays, and Finian Bracken took the opportunity to fly to Ireland for a few days. He arrived in Dublin at dawn, but jet lag didn’t bother him a bit. He had breakfast at the airport and drove into the city. He visited the Book of Kells, and churches he knew from his seminary days. He was a priest—he wore his clerical garb—but he remembered himself as a lad, coming to Dublin the first time. He’d been sixteen, on his own. What had been his heart’s desire then? He smiled, remembered walking in St. Stephen’s Green, blushing when a pretty girl had asked him for directions to Grafton Street. He’d been thrilled he’d known the answer.

  He walked to Wendell Sharpe’s town house near Merrion Square, in the heart of Georgian Dublin. Lucas was still in town, the two of them deep into Sharpe Fine Art Recovery business—and grieving, Finian thought. They’d said their goodbyes to their son and father, and now they were mapping out their lives without him.

  They had dinner at Wendell’s favorite pub, where Colin had proposed to Emma a year ago. “Heading to Bracken Distillers tomorrow?” Wendell asked.

  “Declan’s Cross at first light,” Finian said.

  The old man smiled. “Thought that might be the case with both O’Byrne sisters there.”

  “We enjoyed our stay,” Lucas said, ever
more diplomatic than his grandfather. “We look forward to being back. I hear Emma and Colin are buying your cottage in Kerry.”

  “They’ve already signed up for a whiskey school at the distillery to celebrate their first wedding anniversary.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Wendell said. “They’ve got those crazy jobs, and Rock Point and Heron’s Cove.”

  Lucas seemed confused, but Finian knew what Wendell was saying.

  “Not that I’m telling you what you should or will do,” the world-renowned art detective said.

  “Perish the thought, Granddad,” Lucas muttered.

  Wendell ignored him. “But if you move home to Ireland, you have a family and friends to welcome you, whatever your calling is by then.” He raised his pint. “To new adventures.”

  When Finian walked back to his hotel, he wasn’t so sure spending the evening with the two Sharpes had been one of his finest ideas, as much as he enjoyed their company. Wendell had a knack for seeing through people, never mind it’d taken him ten years to track down Oliver York.

  You’re a conflicted man, Fin Bracken.

  And he couldn’t be, not in this religious life he’d chosen.

  He arrived in Declan’s Cross on a gray, misting afternoon, and he parked at Kitty O’Byrne’s hotel but didn’t go inside. He walked up to Lamb’s Head, past Sean’s farmhouse to Aoife’s cottage.

  When she opened the door, he could smell the peat of the fire in her stove, and feel the heat of it as he looked at her shining blue eyes. “Finian,” she said. “Father Bracken.”

  “Will you walk with me?” he asked her.

  “I’ll grab my jacket.”

  She met him on the lane and smiled at him. “We’ll take our time.”

  He saw that she understood, and he felt some of the knots inside him start to untangle. They set out side by side in the gray, walking toward the ruin at the tip of the headland. Aoife chatted about gardening and sheep and the hotel—her new life in Declan’s Cross. Finian told her about his friends in Maine. Andy and Julianne’s wedding. Hurley’s. Kayaking. Apple season. Nothing about murder, poisons, fires and the dangerous work some of his friends did.