The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance Part 55

It'd been her last night in Ireland.

And he'd known it would break her heart to leave.

But he and his Two Jigs mates had already poured their savings into a cheap, much-in-need-of-repair pub on the beach at Almeria. They'd renamed the tavern Fiddlesticks. And with the arrogance of youth, they were sure the venture would bring them a fortune. British tourists would flock to an authentic Irish pub offering good, reasonably priced bar food, fine spirits and nightly music. Locals would appreciate a change from the tapas bars.

Fiddlesticks had done well, as they'd believed.

Until a thousand other Irish expats had the same idea and business dwindled.

Conall frowned and finished the pint he'd poured for Morgan, downing the remaining ale in one long gulp. It didn't chase away the frustration that was forming a cold hard knot in his gut. Gnawing anger because, he knew, even without Fiddlesticks, he wouldn't have asked Maggie to stay.

She'd been about to start college.

No one in his family had ever achieved a college degree. He could not have been the cause for her to turn her back on such an opportunity. He curled his hand around the empty pint gla.s.s, his scowl deepening.

They'd just been too d.a.m.ned young . . .

"Well?" Morgan poked his arm. "Don't think I'm going away until you answer me. What of the Seven Sisters? Would you just abandon them?"

Conall drew a tight breath. "They won't crumble if I can't see them from my bedroom window." He cast an irritated glance at Booley. The old dog hadn't even growled when Morgan had all but punched him.

Looking back to Morgan, he aimed for a light tone. "You're worrying for nothing. Those stones are older than time. They stood long before a Flanagan ever came to these parts and they'll go on standing when someone else's name is scrawled on a land deed."

"Humph." Morgan snorted. "We both know what happens when incomers get their hands on prime land in areas popular with tourists."

Booley whined.

"See?" Morgan flashed a triumphant smile. "Even he knows the way of it."

"He wants crisps."

"And you?" Morgan's hand shot out again, this time gripping Conall's elbow. "What do you want?"

Again, Booley didn't raise a hackle.

"b.l.o.o.d.y peace is what I want." Conall jerked free and turned away from them both. "You should know I'll not be selling the place to some greedy developer who'll smother the cliffs beneath a five-star American-style hotel."

He looked out across the pub, waiting for Morgan to argue. Rain still blew past the windows and although the fiddlers were performing a lively rendition of "The Irish Washerwoman", he could hear the thunder of the sea, booming just steps beyond Flanagan's thick, smoke-blackened walls. Lightning still cracked across the heavens and a full white moon was just sailing behind thick, dark clouds.

It was the kind of night Maggie Gleason would have called exhilarating.

Magical.

She'd understood such things.

And he was a fool to grieve for her. They'd shared the same path for only two weeks. Yet those fourteen days had felt like a thousand years. When he'd followed her up the hill and she'd whirled to face him in the rhododendron wood, it wasn't like a first meeting. It was recognition. As if their souls had run together forever and had found each other again at last.

They'd been so perfectly suited.

And he'd let her go.

"A monster-sized resort isn't the only threat." Persistent as always, Morgan appeared at his elbow. "Have you not heard how many big developers use harmless-seeming chaps as buyers these days? They want you to think you're selling to another farmer who'll keep things as they are. Then, lo, some inflated a.r.s.e in a suit arrives in a sleek black car, waving planning permission and telling you there'll soon be a new community of executive homes covering land you thought would remain empty!"

Conall stiffened. "I won't let that happen."

"You might not be able to prevent it. Unless you give up this fool notion and don't sell."

"My decision is made. I've already started cleaning out the storerooms above the pub. I'll be staying here as soon as I've made the loft habitable." He gazed out across the crowd, not wanting to see his friend's face. "It's not like I'm selling Flanagan's."

"Then what is it? Do you need the money?"

"It has nothing to do with my finances." Under different circ.u.mstances, Conall would have laughed. Flanagan's was the best-doing pub in Howth. In the few years since he'd returned from Spain and the Fiddlesticks disaster, he'd earned back his losses threefold.

"I won't be keeping the money." He paused, watching Morgan's surprise. "I'm putting most of it in a college trust for my nieces and nephews. The rest-" he shot a glance at Booley, winding his way through the busy tables, hoping for a cuddle or a treat "-is going to my favourite dog rescue organization."

"Then some woman has influenced you." Morgan's eyes narrowed. "Not that I've seen you with one for years."

"It has nothing to do with a woman." The lie sent heat shooting up the back of Conall's neck. Equally annoying, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Booley sitting beside the old woman in the corner. She was feeding him crisps. "d.a.m.nation." Conall snapped his gaze away. Something about the woman gave him the w.i.l.l.i.e.s.

"I've got it!" Morgan slapped his forehead. "It's her. The American."

Conall nearly choked. "What American? Howth is full of them."

"You know d.a.m.ned well who I mean." Somehow Morgan knew. "You're selling out because you're going after her, to Pennsylvania. Isn't that where she was from? Her with the hair like a 'cascade of fire' and skin so 'dewy and soft' you swore just the memory of holding her would drive you mad. Maggie Gleason." Morgan grinned, looking pleased.

Conall glowered. "Maggie Gleason was twelve years ago." That, at least, was true. "And I am not going to America. Not for her, not for a holiday, not for any reason. But I will hear how the h.e.l.l you know about her?"

"Right, well." Morgan examined his knuckles. "Can it be you've forgotten a certain old box carved of bog oak that you kept under your bed? Maybe you should have burned its contents when you went to Spain, knowing your mother would set your sisters to tidying your room after you'd gone. Kate found the box and-" Morgan glanced up, his lips twitching "-it could be your sisters showed me a few love letters you wrote yet never posted."

"You read those letters?" Conall's blood boiled. If he weren't standing behind the bar of his pub, if they were anywhere else, he'd lunge at Morgan and beat him to a pulp. "Those scribblings were my private property. They were locked in a chest beneath-"

"Your sisters took turns with a hairpin until they picked the lock."

Conall shoved a hand through his hair, furious. "Who else saw the letters?"

"Well . . ." Morgan considered. "I'd guess only your sisters and your mother. Your sisters found the box. And your mother caught your sisters going through its contents. She burned the letters, if I recall rightly."

"And where do you come into it?"

"I was just there that day."

"Sure and you were, sweet as you were on my sisters back then." Conall reached beneath the bar and produced one of his best bottles of whiskey. He poured a measure and tossed it back quickly. "Or-" he set the gla.s.s on the counter and wiped his mouth "-were you after mooching one of my mother's famous bramble pies?"

"That could've been a reason, too." Morgan shrugged. "It was long ago."

"d.a.m.ned right, it was."

"So you're not going to America?"

"No." Conall frowned.

"But you're still in love with her." Morgan was eyeing him speculatively. "You wouldn't be so riled if you weren't."

"I forgot her years ago," Conall bluffed, returning the whiskey bottle to its shelf. "And I'm annoyed because I have better things to do on such a busy night than listen to your nonsensical blether."

"Tell me why you never looked her up and I'll leave."

"Because-" Conall's head was going to explode "-I don't believe in poking into the business of people I haven't seen or heard from in years. For all I know, she could be married with a half-dozen children by now."

"And if she weren't?"

"Then she could have come searching for me, don't you think? She's always known where to find me. She could've contacted my parents. Someone could have put her in touch with me, even when I was in Almeria. But-" bitterness rose in Conall's throat "-she never made the effort."

"Some might say you didn't either, my friend." Morgan bent to fetch Conall's bottle of prize whiskey. "I'm thinking you didn't deserve her."

"You're an a.s.s, Mahoney." Conall watched his friend fill a generous gla.s.s. "I'm not surprised my sisters wanted nothing to do with you. You're-" Conall snapped his mouth shut, his gaze on the table in the corner.

The old woman was gone.

Her empty whiskey gla.s.s still sat there. And Booley sprawled nearby, enjoying the warmth of the hearth fire. A crumpled crisps packet on the table indicated why the dog looked so content.

That was all.

Conall blinked, disbelieving.

Sure, the woman had been odd. But never in all his years as a publican had he been stiffed by a little old lady. There could be no other explanation. If she'd just slipped away to the loo, he would have seen her. Flanagan's comforts were down a short hall at the back of the pub.

Frowning, Conall left the bar and strode across the room. He was almost to the deserted table when he spotted something green and glittery winking at him from beside the empty crisps packet.

It was a shamrock brooch.

The pin twinkled at him, its emerald brilliance almost blinding. He stepped closer, intending to put the trinket behind the bar until the old woman returned. But when he reached to pick it up, the brooch vanished in a swirl of green and white sparkles.

Conall froze, staring.

At the hearthside, Booley barked and wagged his tail.

It was then that Conall saw the sweet wrapper. Crinkled and made of shiny green foil, it peered up at him from the exact spot where he'd seen the brooch.

The shamrock pin he'd imagined.

And he'd done so because Morgan as so often had annoyed him to the brink of madness.

Pushing the shamrock and his friend from his mind, Conall s.n.a.t.c.hed the wrapper and the empty crisps packet. He also picked up the old woman's empty whiskey gla.s.s. She wouldn't be back after all, and good riddance.

But if he'd glanced over his shoulder as he stomped back to the bar, he might just have seen a shimmer of her sitting there still.

She was, of course.

And she was smiling for she knew what he didn't.

Maggie Gleason was on her way.

Three.

It was the same.

Maggie stepped from the Dublin bus and took a steadying breath. Howth hadn't changed. If anything, the harbour village appeared even more dear than in her memories. Her calming breaths weren't helping. She was trembling and although she prided herself on not being a woman who burst into tears at the drop of a hat, she had to blink to banish the heat p.r.i.c.king her eyes.

She'd come here to rid herself of old hurts, not to be enchanted anew. Yet as soon as the bus had swept into Howth's curving Harbour Road, she knew she'd been kidding herself.

This was her place.

And, painful or not, being here was a homecoming.

To o bad her reason for visiting concerned more than her pa.s.sion for Ireland. Even if Howth was still a place of magic, she knew that if she ran into Conall Flanagan, she'd find him much changed.

Likely, he wouldn't even remember her.

Not that she expected to see him.

He might have forgotten her over the years, but she remembered he'd gone to Spain. After so much time, he was probably married to some fiery Andalucian siren who'd seduced him with hot flamenco dances, sangria and torrid s.e.x on a moonlit beach.

Maggie frowned.

She blotted the images from her mind and walked to the sea wall, finding the place she'd stood so long ago. Her pulse jumped when she spotted the Morna, looking not a day older, but moored deeper out in the harbour. The fishing boat bobbed on the waves and its hull was still painted blue.

Only this time the Morna was empty.

Maggie shivered. She couldn't shake the urge to close her eyes and reopen them, sure that if she did, she'd see Conall on the boat. Everything felt so familiar, as if she hadn't stepped off a bus, but back into the fateful day that had changed her life.

So much was the same. The waters of the harbour tossed and danced, with the waves smacking the sea wall, the larger ones sending up spray. Seabirds wheeled and screamed, some of them swooping low as if to greet her. Fitful autumn sun tried to pierce the clouds and it was colder than summer, but the damp sea air still smelled of salt and tar. Many of the houses and pubs had fires going, the rich, earthy tang of peat smoke adding charm. And her mouth watered she also detected a tantalizing trace of fish and chips in the chill wind blowing down the waterfront.

She turned her face into the gusts and breathed deep, appreciative.

How she'd yearned to drink in this heady brew. To her, the scents were an elixir. The essence of Ireland. And to fill her lungs with them again was a privilege. Wishing she could do so every day, she pressed a hand to her heart, savouring each inhale, regretting the exhales.

It also stung that she might not have the nerve to enter Flanagan's. The popular tavern had already blindsided her. She'd caught a quick glimpse of the pub's bright blue door and diamond-paned windows from the bus window. Even the flower tubs had been there. Seeing them, along with the pub's gold-lettered name, had felt like a kick to the ribs.

She wasn't sure it'd be good for her to go Flanagan's.

But she would see the Seven Sisters.