Hot Whispers of an Irishman (29 page)

And on second thought, so might Vi. Bachelor days in Duncarraig had likely sounded too tempting to pass up.

“Shall I take you to visit with Kylie tomorrow?” Vi asked Mam, who had dredged the stuffed olive from her drink and was giving its contents a suspicious, squinty-eyed look.

“Visit Kylie?” she echoed, as though Vi had suggested a day at the dog track.

“Aye. She’s home now, just waiting for the baby.”

“I can get there well enough, myself,” Mam said. “But do tell the boys I expect supper with them tomorrow.”

Which would no doubt take place at Vi’s home. She sipped her wine and prayed for some form of divine intercession. Mam rendered suddenly mute had a fine appeal.

Just then, Jenna came into the lounge. She had changed from her chef’s jacket into a soft blue woolen jumper. Her husband arrived at her side with such speed that Vi had to hide a smile at their obviously love-sotted state.

“If you’ll all follow me into the dining room and prepare to suffer,” Jenna said. “The victims’ dinner has begun.”

Liam was hard-put to decide which had been the greatest woe of his evening: eating a meal that he could have as easily cropped from a field, or having to do so under Maeve Kilbride’s disapproving glare.

He’d thought the Russian vodka he’d made certain she was plied with would have calmed her mood. Instead, she had grown more cross with every passing moment. Luckily, she had gone upstairs as soon as the meal was finished, claiming a headache. If she had lasted much longer, he feared that Vi would have ended the evening tongueless. He’d never seen her hold back so many comments.

And as for Jenna’s meal, Liam knew it was a fine example of what it was meant to be. It had had flavor and color, just not a damned bit of meat, which had him nearly as out of sorts as Maeve. Vi, on the other hand, had reveled in the food if not her mam’s company, even stealing from his plate. It was just as well, for in the future when they dined out, he could eat their entrees and she could graze on the garnish.

For the past hour and more they had sat in Jenna and Dev’s library, enjoying coffee rich with liqueur and a chat. Upon hearing that Liam was a diver and worked in marine salvage, Dev had immediately led him to a series of books on treasure and shipwreck off the Dingle peninsula’s coasts.

It seemed that in the era of Auld Queen Bess, this area had been quite the hotbed of smuggling and sedition. Liam had immediately culled one book on Spanish gold and planned to read it later tonight, as he knew sleep would be slow in coming. Vi’s tension seemed to have funneled itself into him.

As conversation meandered from local characters to politics and Ireland’s economy, Liam relaxed. He savored the smoky scent of the peat smoldering in the fireplace, the camaraderie, and the incredible sensation of Vi tucked at his side. He’d never really stayed in one place long enough to experience this. Definitely not with Beth, who’d developed a set of friends and social life that had nothing to do with him. True, he had his mates always up for a drink when he arrived again in a port, but nothing this steady…this right.

A distant buzzing sound drew Liam’s attention from the conversation.

“Is that the front bell at this hour?” Dev asked Jenna.

Liam glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it was nearly eleven.

“I’ll be right back. It’s probably just a guest who forgot their key,” Jenna said while rising.

“All the same, I’m going with you,” her husband replied. “Carry on,” he added to Liam and Vi.

Feeling unsettled, Liam rose and after nudging aside the drape a bit, looked out the side window. Floodlights set to accent the house’s gardens exposed a heavy drift of white in the air.

“It’s snowing, and in no small amount,” he said to Vi. “I’d feel better if you’d let me give you a lift home.”

She laughed. “I’ve been driving these roads nearly twelve years. If you weren’t staying here tonight, I’d be making the same offer to you.”

He smiled as he returned to her. “And now that you’ve put it that way, I’d be taking you up on it. Still, I’d like to coddle you a wee bit. It’s part of being in love.” He again sat next to her on the broad sofa and put his arm around her shoulders. “Should I feed you peeled grapes, or paint your toenails, or better yet, Roger’s?”

Laughing, she swatted his chest. “You could always shut up and kiss me, you eejit.”

“Best idea of all,” he said, then let action follow word. God, how he loved this woman, and how he dreaded making a misstep large enough to lose her. She always seemed poised to flee. With that thought in mind, he cupped her face and tried to draw out the kiss to eternity.

Liam came up short, though, for someone cleared their throat, signaling a return to the room. Vi broke their embrace and scooted a bit away from him. He was about to tug her back and tell her that Jenna and Dev surely knew that lovers liked to sit closely together, but something in her expression stopped him.

He looked to the door, and Dev, who had someone standing behind him, wore an even odder expression.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Liam, I have someone here for you,” he said, then moved aside, bringing a tall, blond, and familiar woman into view.

Liam felt as though his world had been put into a giant shaker and tossed around.

He stood. “Jesus, Beth, what are you doing here?”

“Hello’s a pretty standard greeting as opposed to ‘Jesus, Beth,’” she said as she entered the room. “And I’m here to get Meghan.”

Liam had already guessed the reason for her arrival, but hearing the words was like having his heart stop beating. He’d just started to learn Meghan’s quirks and talents, her charms and the ways she had yet to grow. He wasn’t ready to hand her back like so much excess baggage.

“I’ll leave you now,” Dev said. “And Jenna will be here with a warm drink for you shortly, Beth.”

She thanked Dev, but Liam saw that her attention had shifted to Vi. He gave a names-only introduction between the two women, as more words would only mire the situation.

Beth, who looked as weary and rumpled as he’d ever seen her, sat in an armchair at a right angle from the sofa. While she was settling in, Vi nodded her head toward the door, obviously asking if she should leave. Liam gave a negative shake of the head in answer. And though he knew it was a politically dicey move, he returned to his seat next to Vi. He needed her presence too much to care if Beth was somehow offended.

“Where’s Meghan?” his ex-wife asked.

“Upstairs asleep these past few hours.”

She nodded. “Good. She’ll need her rest. I won’t bother waking her until it’s time to leave.”

“And where is it you’re thinking of taking her? Not back to Saudi Arabia?” He fully hoped she’d say yes, so he’d have firm grounds to fight her.

“No. I quit my job on Saturday and have been working toward getting here ever since. I’ve flown stand-by and with everything but cargo, but here I am.”

“So you are. And do you have plans?”

“We’re going back to Atlanta. I have enough savings to make it a few months unemployed. In that time I should be able to come up with a job that’s suited to raising my daughter.”

“Our daughter,” he corrected.

Beth tilted her head and looked at him. After a moment she gave him a half-smile.

“What?” he asked.

“I never would have believed it. You’re late to the party, but welcome to parenthood.”

Liam seized the opening offered. “That being the case, would you give me at least a few more weeks with her?”

Vi rose from next to him and walked to the door. Liam watched as she took a mug of something from Jenna and delivered it to Beth. After giving Vi a curt nod of thanks, his ex-wife took a sip and at least made a show of considering his question.

“She’s supposed to be in school, Liam,” she finally said. “From what you’ve described, she’s missed a month of any real studies already.”

“But I called her school this morning. Her books are being shipped and she’ll do most of her assignments via e-mail. This is no great risk, Beth.”

“I’m the custodial parent,” she said. “And I don’t want her running wild out here.”

The way she’d said that, then eyed Vi, was an annoying echo of Liam’s mam. “She’d not be running wild. We’re just here for a visit, and—”

“How long of a visit?”

“Two days, two weeks…what does it matter? I’ll take her to archeological sites and have her write a bloody paper. How wild is that?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“She needs to be in her school, with her teachers. We can make arrangements for a few weeks with you this summer. How’s that?”

“Not bloody good enough.”

Beth sighed, then glanced at her watch. “Meghan and I are booked on a flight out of Shannon Airport tomorrow morning at ten, which means I’ll need to be back on the road by…what?” She pinned Vi with a demanding look.

“With the weather, no later than five,” Vi said. “But this is all a bit sudden, don’t you think? Perhaps if you stayed here at Muir House just a few more days?”

“I think this doesn’t concern you,” Beth said in a far less genial tone than she’d been using on him.

“She’s right,” Vi said to Liam, then began to rise.

He settled his hand on her knee, halting her. “If it involves me, it involves you. Stay…please.”

This time, his asking did no good. “No,” she said. “This is between you and Beth. I’ll be waiting for you in your suite.”

“The one where Meghan’s sleeping?” Beth asked.

“Bloody hell. I wasn’t planning a mad shag on the sofa,” Vi snapped.

Beth glared back at her.

Vi took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, then spoke again. “Fine, then. Come find me in the kitchen when you can, Liam.”

As Liam took in Beth’s angry gaze, he knew two things: he would not win any more days with Meghan, and he could not get to Vi soon enough.

When things get tough for the witch, she has to run.

—I
RISH
P
ROVERB

I
t was the sort of Tuesday morning where one was best served by hiding indefinitely under the duvet. Despite Liam’s insistence that she go home and not worry about him, Vi had spent the night at Muir House. There had been only one bedroom left, which she’d quickly ceded to Beth. The library sofa was less diplomatically perilous territory.

Liam had come downstairs long before it was time to ready Meghan to leave. Vi had awakened to find him sitting in an armchair nearby, nearly a specter of a man. She had cocooned with him on the sofa and let the warmth of her body give him peace, or at least a passing illusion of it.

At four-thirty, Liam returned to his suite. Vi stayed in the library until the very last, then came to the front hallway to say her goodbyes to Meghan. The girl was muzzy with sleep and gave her father a muffled one-word farewell, which Vi knew hadn’t been intended to sting, but clearly did. After mother and daughter had departed, Vi brought Liam back to his rooms.

“What a goddamn awful start to a morning,” were his last words before she made quiet love to him, then let him drift off to sleep so his spirit could mend.

Having him close worked a spell of sorts on her, too. Soon she was dreaming of long-gone days of perfect youth. Nan’s cottage was as it had been when Vi was younger, and the well-tended maze of wild roses and herbs smelled like heaven on her dream’s soft, rain-kissed day. Vi saw herself and Liam walking down the lane toward Nan’s painted stone. Liam was saying something to her that she sensed was important, but a shrill ringing drowned him out.

And woke Vi, too. She sent one hand venturing for the telephone, which seemed to be near her right ear.

“’Lo,” she croaked once she’d retrieved it, her throat dry as a crone’s.

“That you, Vi?”

“’Tis.”

“You’d best come home,” Danny said. “I’ve got all but one of Nan’s pieces inside, and none where you wanted them, I’ll wager. The last is sitting out front, and I’m thinking it’s going to freeze over before we can make proper room for it.”

Vi shot upright, sending the duvet off Liam in the process. “God in heaven, Danny! What time is it? Why did you not wake me earlier?” Without waiting for an answer, she dropped the phone back into its receiver and scrambled from the bed.

“Troubles?” Liam asked, his voice also rough with sleep and no doubt the excess of the past twelve hours’ emotions.

“Nan’s furniture is at my house and I’m not,” Vi said.

Liam swung his long legs from the bed and stood. “Then let’s be quick.”

All Vi had was the dress she’d worn the prior evening, so she pulled it back on, wishing for time for a shower and a change of clothes.

They were downstairs in a matter of minutes, then nearly out the door when Dev stopped them.

“This arrived for you earlier,” he said, handing Liam a fat courier’s envelope.

Liam thanked Dev, and on they rushed.

Vi was traveling the coast road to the village and feeling thankful that the rain had stopped when she glanced over and saw Liam frowning at the package.

“Who is it from?” she asked.

“My attorney.”

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

He turned it face-down. “Later. I’ve got enough troubles to digest at the moment.”

“It could be good news.”

Liam snorted. “If it were, Stuart would have called, just for the bloody novelty of it.”

And to that, she could say nothing. Vi returned her attention to the road, and soon they were at her small home. Vi parked, and she and Liam exited. On the short walkway in front of Vi’s house stood a brightly painted kitchen cupboard and two elderly women.

Vi called a good day to Breege Flaherty and her flatmate, Edna McCafferty. With their children long-grown and gone from small Ballymuir, the elderly women had thrown in their lots together and taken a flat in the middle of the village.

“That’s a grand piece,” Breege said to Vi as she and Liam grew near. “Did you paint it yourself?”

“My Nan did, actually,” Vi said.

“Would you look at all the bits and pieces attached to it?” Breege said to Edna, who was using an already damp handkerchief to dab at the raindrops also decorating it. To Vi, she added, “Are you thinking of selling it? Young Danny hiding inside wouldn’t bargain, and Pat left the property altogether.”

Vi glanced at the front window where she saw Danny skulking about.

“We’d never get it up the stairs,” Edna pointed out to Breege.

“Which is well enough, since I’m afraid it’s not for sale,” Vi said firmly. If she showed any inclination to bargain, Breege and Edna would have her occupied till nightfall. The two older women were sharp indeed, hiding their skills at their favorite avocation behind kindly faces. Danny had been wise to retreat, and Pat wiser yet to flee.

“Ah, well,” Breege said, her attention now wandering to Liam, “it seems as though you have more than one new thing in your life.”

“All quite old, actually,” Vi said, earning a wry quirk of the mouth from Liam. She introduced him to the two women, then left him to fend for himself under their questioning while she slipped inside and got Danny to help him muscle the cupboard in.

An hour later, Vi had showered and dressed in fresh clothing for the day. Nan’s cupboard had replaced Vi’s prior one in the kitchen, which now blocked the entry to the back hall, waiting to be moved elsewhere. While Vi resettled her belongings in the painted cupboard, she smiled, imagining her mother’s reaction once she saw this.

The first time Mam had been in Vi’s kitchen, she’d been appalled to see that Vi had ripped out the modern fitted cabinets and replaced them with a large, free-standing oak cupboard. This new iteration, with its vivid primary colors, would send Mam around the bend.
Mam
…something niggled at Vi’s memory.

“Damn!” Vi dropped a handful of forks onto the cupboard’s wide top and hurried to the front room, where Liam was reading his packet and Danny was lounging.

“Danny, where do you want Mam to dine tonight?” she asked while riffling about on a shelf for the phone book.

“Argentina?” he suggested.

“With you,” she clarified. “Hadn’t I mentioned that?”

Danny pushed himself from his armchair and stood, hands clenched, as though readying for battle. “Holy shit, Vi! You’ve set me up.”

“You and Pat, both, but I prefer to view it more as sparing myself,” she replied as she thumbed through listings in Dingle, the closest town of size. “And on this, you’d best not cross me.” She glanced up at him. “Have had a visit with her?”

“She arrived this morning before I’d had time to choke down my coffee, and thanks for the warning, too.”

“Sorry. I’d meant to give word, but last night wasn’t quite as planned.” She gave a nod of her head toward Liam, whose attention was focused elsewhere.

Danny eased off a bit. “Pat’s with her now. She wanted to see Michael’s workshop. Fine timing, too, as he’s off to Kenmare, delivering a table.”

“Smart man,” Vi murmured, then lifted the phone and dialed a small bistro across from Dingle Harbor where the food was good and the final bill within Pat and Danny’s means.

“You sure you don’t want to come along tonight?” Danny asked.

Vi didn’t bother to comment.

He muttered in the background while she confirmed they were open in the off-season and made a reservation for three Kilbrides.

“All set,” she said to Danny. He stomped upstairs like an overgrown infant. Liam kept riffling through the papers he’d been sent, seemingly oblivious to the game of pass-the-parent occurring in front of him.

Vi settled on the sofa next to him. “And the news?”

He returned the papers to their packet. “An offer on my company’s assets.”

“Is this wanted?”

“No, it’s the carrion birds gathering.” He glanced at his watch. “Nearly eleven. I’ll be needing to make some calls. I suppose I should get to Muir House,” he said most hesitantly. “Would you mind giving me a lift?”

“You can call from here, or if you like, come to the studio with Rog and me.” The words had been automatic, and once they registered in her mind, their full import shocked her. She detested having people in her studio and survived the comings and goings of tourist season only because the tourist’s euros patched her moth-eaten pockets.

“I’ll stay with you,” Liam said. “I keep feeling at loose ends…as though I’ve misplaced something, and then I realize it’s Meghan.”

Vi had much the same feeling when Rog wasn’t about, but decided she’d best not share that. She didn’t mean to make light of Liam’s situation, but she still had this wee
crosdiabhal
sitting on her shoulder and muttering angry words, much as Danny had just done. She wanted rid of it—to be fully accepting of fate—but wanting and knowing how to lose the demon were separate acts.

“Well, come along to the studio,” she said, “though I’m sure once I start painting, you’ll find Roger better company than I.”

He leaned over and kissed her, stopping only when Danny and his sizeable shoes came clomping back down the stairs from the gabled room he shared with Pat.

“Watch her,” Danny said to Liam. “She only seems nice.” With that, he exited.

Vi and Liam soon did, too, driving to her studio where she got about her business, first hiding the Beltaine and Samhain paintings with Liam in them while he was occupied on the telephone. She tried to keep her ears to herself as he talked with his mam about Beth’s arrival and the details of getting the balance of Meghan’s belongings back to her.

Even with Vi’s half-listening and Roger’s distracting snuffling about her feet, she was struck by a pang of yearning for some sort of normalcy with her mam. It was that hope, futile as it was mad, that sent her back into Mam’s orbit when her other siblings were pleased to stay in the fringes of her universe.

Liam finished his call and dialed another. Vi continued to stare at her empty canvas seeking wild Lughnasa inspiration and getting only fun-obliterating Mam-vibes. Finally, she moved to a less intimidating pad of paper and pencil. Liam’s call, briefer than the first, ended. He came to stand behind her, wrapping his arms about her waist.

“I’ll be hearing back from my attorney soon. I hope you don’t mind that I gave him this number.”

“I can ignore his call as well as any other,” she said, then tilted her head back for his kiss, which he granted.

“That I’m sure you can.”

Vi set aside her pencil and turned in his embrace. “Are you wanting to sell your business?”

“Christ, no! What I’m wanting is for my partner to be dealt with, business to resume, and my life to go on as it was.”

Seventeen-year-old Vi would have cried,
“But what about me?”
Adult Vi kept silent the hurt of the cut to her heart.

“Of course,” Liam said, “I’m also wanting to climb Mount Everest without oxygen tanks, and I’ve got a far better chance of that.”

“So what will happen?” she asked.

“I’ve a feeling it’s either sell it myself or wait for the banks financing me to do it on worse terms. I’ve plenty of assets…crane-barges, diving equipment, and even the fast boats that my partner used for a bit of pirating, but no cash to tide me over.”

She wanted to give him something, to return at least a measure of optimism to his mood, for she could bear no more. “You know, you might still—”

His glare was fierce. “Don’t say ‘find the gold.’ Just. Don’t. It will be bloody weeks until Duncarraig calms enough for me to go about my search without a parade of fools behind me. And that will be too damn late.”

“I’m just looking for some way to make this better for you…coddle you a little,” she said, reminding him of just last night, when his mood had been lighter. “Shall I paint your toenails? Or better yet, Roger’s?”

He chuckled at least, and for that she kissed him. When she was done, both of them were smiling like a pair of love-drunk fools.

“I don’t suppose any of these paints of yours are water-soluble?” Liam asked while tracing a fingertip over the curve of her right breast.

“I’ve some fingerpaints I keep for school visits,” she replied, much liking the course of his thoughts. Painting his body would be the best preparation for a Lughnasa celebration scene that she could imagine.

“And a lock to the door, too?” Liam murmured, kissing the side of her neck.

“Aye,” she said, then sighed at the pleasure of his touch, impermanent as it was. She was about to suggest that he turn that very lock while she closed Roger in the back room, but wasn’t quite quick enough, for her offer was interrupted by the chime of the front bells.

“It’s messy in here, Violet,” Maeve Kilbride said as soon as the door closed behind her. “How ever do you manage to sell a thing?”

Vi stepped from Liam’s embrace. “I sell what I mean to,” she replied.

“Hello, Liam,” Mam said in a tone neither cordial nor hostile. She unbuttoned her coat and held it out as though waiting for a butler. Vi hurried to take it.

While she hung Mam’s coat on a peg at the back of the studio, getting a “Mind the fabric!” from her, Vi listened to the ease Liam showed in talking to Mam.
Easy when she’s not yours,
Vi thought. As she approached, her mother’s frown deepened.