Briarwood Cottage Page 9

  She turned toward him, her surprise obvious.

  “She did? When?”

  “The summer I turned thirteen.” And all these years later, talking about those days still tangled his gut into knots.

  His mother had called her pregnancy a surprise miracle, seemingly excited at the prospect of dirty diapers, a crying infant, and no sleep. Of course, the McCaraghs could easily afford to hire a nanny to take over the unpleasant parts of parenting. But one night, Duncan had been awakened by a loud argument about his mother’s desire to tend to her child herself. It had been the first time he’d ever heard his coolly remote father raise his voice.

  The following morning at breakfast, his mother’s eyes had been red-rimmed, but she’d kept the appointment with the first of the selection of nanny prospects the gold-star employment agency had lined up.

  “That’s quite a gap between children,” Cass said.

  “It was. And being a teenager, not to mention an only child, I’ll admit that I wasn’t looking forward to the changes an infant would bring to our lives.”

  “Your life,” she guessed.

  “Bulls-eye. You never knew my mother before.”

  “I don’t know her now,” Cass pointed out.

  “Touché.” It was something he was going to have to figure out. Later. “She was a warm, outgoing woman who filled our home with sunshine.”

  “Really.”

  It was not a question, but he heard the skepticism in her tone. “Really. It was only after I’d grown up that I realized how much of an effort she’d made to try to compensate for my father’s coldness.

  “Anyway, I’ll admit to being mad as hell. But there must have been a lot of chapters on sibling rivalry in all those baby books she bought, because she spent her pregnancy lavishing me with extra attention.”

  “That’s sweet,” Cass said, even as her eyes shone with moisture. Worrying that his timing sucked as badly as his mother’s drunken phone call, Duncan experienced a wave of relief as Patrick Brennan knocked on the door before opening it to ask if they’d like something from the bar.

  After a bit of discussion, they ordered a pint of the Brennan Brewery Brian Boru Black Ale for Duncan, Pirate Queen Red Ale for Cass, a deep-fried St. Brigid’s cheese appetizer, and cod and chips with lemon aioli to share.

  “I hope all that fried food comes with a defibrillator for the heart attack we’re risking,” Cass murmured after Patrick left with their order.

  “Don’t worry. If you do happen to be struck down with a heart attack, I know CPR.”

  “I’ll bet you do.” The tears that had been threatening turned to indulgent laughter. “Mrs. Murphy was right. You’re a cocky charmer and a challenge. You just want to get your hands on my chest.”

  “Guilty as charged.” He flashed a grin. “And feel free to do the same to me if I keel over.”

  She tilted her head. Chewed thoughtfully on an unpainted nail. “I’ll consider it.”

  Duncan was remembering all too well how those slender, long-fingered hands had felt on his chest. His abs. And lower still.

  Damn. He wasn’t sure about charming. But as the five metal buttons pulled at the denim of his jeans, he’d definitely turned achingly cocky.

  And from the teasing smile in her eyes and the hint of a dimple he hadn’t seen since their honeymoon, she knew exactly how that finger in her mouth thing had affected him.

  “Now who’s making the move?” he asked.

  “Tit for tat,” she responded. Then blushed as she realized the unplanned double entendre.

  Despite what had begun as a serious topic, Duncan couldn’t hold back his grin. “That’s too easy, even for a cocky charmer like me.”

  They were seated across an old wooden farm table from each other, the vibes bouncing back and forth the same way they had over dinner that first night in Kabul. But along with the heat, there was something else going on here. Friendship. And once again, the deep emotional connection that he’d been missing for so long.

  “This is nice,” she said. “I’m glad you talked me into it.”

  “Me, too.” Unable to resist, he reached across the table, cupped her cheek in his hand, and felt it warm his palm.

  “Duncan.”

  “It’s not a move.” She felt so soft. So familiar. The ache returned. In his heart and in his groin.

  “I wasn’t complaining. I was just telling you that our beer’s here.”

  He turned and followed her gaze to the door, where Patrick Brennan stood with the green metal tray holding their ales, appetizer, and two side plates. Once again he seemed undecided whether or not to interrupt.

  Duncan waved him in.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “No problem,” Duncan assured him. If nothing else, the beer would hopefully lower his body heat to something a few degrees cooler than the Sahara in summer. “That looks great.”

  “The cheese is from Michael’s farm. There are some who say that his Camembert is the best in all Ireland.”

  “I have a question,” Cass asked as he placed the glasses and plates on the table. “It’s obvious your pub is successful.”

  “It does well enough,” Patrick said mildly.

  “So many locals being here tonight attest to that. So,” she asked, “where are all the tourists?”

  “I wouldn’t know, but my guess is that they’re at The Irish Rose, given that it’s declared itself Lady Central with all sorts of raffles, giveaways, theme nights and other such inducements, which isn’t my business style.

  “The Irish Rose was the only other pub in the village while I was growing up. Then Brendan O’Neill, who’d taken over from his father, moved to America. An O’Neill cousin tried to make a go of it, but unfortunately he enjoyed his Guinness a bit too much, so the business was failing. I’d already established my microbrewery and was in the process of buying him out so I’d have a place to serve my own beers, when a wealthy American came to town with a hefty checkbook and all sorts of grandiose plans to turn The Rose into an American style Irish pub.”

  “Isn’t that a contradiction?” Duncan suggested. “Like the old ‘carrying coals to Newcastle’ expression?”

  “Aye. You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But Desmond—he’d be the cousin—didn’t care about that as much as he did scoring himself a grand payday. So, despite us having a verbal agreement, he sold to the American.

  “Which turned out for the best, given that this larger building came available the very next week. It had gone vacant and fallen into disrepair after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, so I managed to negotiate a good price and had Bram, my builder brother, bring it back to what it once was.”

  “Bram was the one who restored Briarwood Cottage,” Duncan told Cass.

  “Really?” Her eyes lit up. “He did a wonderful job! The moment I walked in this morning, I felt as if I’d come home.”

  “And isn’t that the point of any house?” Patrick asked. “To make it feel like home? At any rate, after I opened for business, the locals migrated here, while The Irish Rose has, in turn, carved out a fine tourism business for itself.”

  “Sounds like a win/win for you both,” Cass said.

  “It is, indeed,” Patrick agreed with a bold smile that revealed his pride in Brennan’s. “And now I’d best be about getting your dinner made. Enjoy your ale and cheese.”

  Once they were alone again, a companionable quiet settled over Duncan and Cass as she split the appetizer onto the two smaller plates.

  “To being back in the Emerald Island,” Duncan risked saying as he lifted his glass of dark ale. “Together again.”

  She hesitated a heartbeat. Then lifted her own glass. “To being back here.”

  Duncan duly noted that she hadn’t added the part about being back together, but since she’d already said she was glad he’d talked her into coming here tonight, he was feeling a great deal more positive than he had even twenty-four hours ago.

  “You were telling me about your mother,”
she reminded him, proving that her depression hadn’t had any long-term effect on that steel-trap mind he’d always admired.

  “Yeah.” Buying time to drag his mind back to that topic that, on his list of least favorite things, would rank between waterboarding and spending eternity locked in a room watching Justin Bieber music videos, Duncan took a long drink of ale.

  “Like I said, I was jealous. So, in retaliation, I became more and more like my father.”

  She eyed him over the rim of her glass. “How? I don’t know your father, either,” she reminded him.

  Cass might currently be writing tabloid gee whiz stories, but she still thought like a journalist. Every statement risked a follow-up question. “I started distancing myself from her. Became cooler and monosyllabic. Which, looking back, was cruel.”

  “You were thirteen,” she reminded him. “Not exactly the age of reason. It could have been more because of your age. I remember boys I’d grown up with becoming nearly mute once hormones started kicking in.”

  “It’s a nice excuse. But the fact was, I was pretty much just a douche.”

  Duncan still remembered the way his mother had laughed with almost giddy pleasure between contractions as she left their Main Line home for the hospital. He hadn’t exactly resisted when she’d hugged him good-bye. But he had stiffened and held his arms at his sides.

  Even worse than the remembered resentment was the guilt he’d suffered when she’d returned home the next day, pale and wan, without her surprise miracle baby.

  Having experienced the loss of a child from the father’s perspective, Duncan now wondered if perhaps his father’s pain had been the reason he’d grown increasing colder. Why he’d distanced himself even further from his wife and son.

  Whatever the reason, his mother had been left to deal with her loss on her own. Which was when she’d found comfort in alcohol.

  “That was what she was going to tell me, wasn’t it?” Cassandra asked quietly, showing that her reporter skills of listening to what wasn’t said were still as strong as ever.

  “Yeah. Probably.” He sighed heavily even as he could hear the joyful sounds of a reel being played out in the main part of the pub. “Since I could tell she’d been drinking and I wasn’t sure how the call was going to turn out, I decided it wasn’t the way you needed to hear the story.”

  “She wanted to let me know I wasn’t alone.” Duncan could tell that Cass was surprised by that.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, she turned to alcohol to ease the pain. And got stuck in her own sad limbo.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. And I blame myself for not knowing how to fix her.”

  “You were young,” she repeated. “Besides, I’ve already learned that no one can fix anyone. We all have to fix ourselves.” She ran a fingernail around the rim of the glass Patrick had poured her ale into. “But I was more fortunate than most. Because I had you. And Sedona.”

  “Yeah, I proved a helluva lot of help,” he ground out, deciding that banging his head onto the scarred wooden table wouldn’t exactly add anything to this long-overdue discussion. I want you to know that, as soon as the words about having another child came out of my mouth, I realized that I’d sounded unbelievably insensitive. At the time I was so totally numb—”

  “You were?” He could tell that was the biggest surprise of the night.

  “As a stone.”

  “But you took care of making the travel arrangements out of Egypt, you booked the flights, you made the doctor appointments, you cooked. You did everything.”

  “If there’s one thing going days or weeks without sleep has taught me, it’s how to operate on autopilot.” He dragged his hands down his face. Sighed heavily. “Which I was pretty much doing back then. But I did know I’d screwed up when I heard those words, which were meant to encourage both of us, coming out of my damn idiot mouth.”

  Cassandra belatedly realized that he’d been trying to convince not just her but himself that life could go on. That someday they’d be, maybe not entirely normal, but their version of it, again.

  She’d watched Ducan with refugees fleeing both war zones and natural disasters, wounded children in makeshift shelters, women who’d been held captive by terrorists, and so many other unspeakable human casualties born of a dangerous world. Even as he’d never fail to get the story he’d come to tell, he’d also be so gentle. So caring.

  As he’d been with her.

  If she’d only been thinking clearly, Cass would have realized what he’d been trying to say. Instead, even as she’d begun to recover, as recently as two days ago, that one ill-timed comment had continued to ache like a sore tooth.

  This time it was Cassandra who reached out to take his hand. “You were trying to give us both hope.”

  As was his nature. She’d often wondered how such a warm man had come from that seemingly icy family. Having heard the damage Angela McCaragh’s miscarriage had caused to his family, she now decided that he’d either inherited or learned his kindness and sensitivity from his mother.

  “I was searching for some glimmer of hope,” he admitted as his thumb traced little circles on the sensitive skin of her palm. “Which turned out to be a major fail.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Nor yours.”

  And wasn’t that what Sedona and Dr. Fletcher had been telling her? And although Cassandra had wanted to believe them, a very strong part of her had been clinging to that dark guilt she’d wrapped around herself like a shroud.

  “Okay.” She exhaled a long breath. “We’ve talked enough about sad things for one night,” she decided. “We’re here in the most beautiful spot on earth, there’s great food, music playing, and people dancing, so why don’t we put those days aside for now and enjoy our evening?”

  He lifted her hand to his lips. “Deal.”

  14

  If it was true that the traditional music of a country reflected the songs the people all carried in their hearts, Cassandra decided that the music being played in Brennan’s reflected the Irish landscape. As the informal gathering of fiddlers, flutists, drummers, whistlers, and guitar and concertina players entertained, she could picture dizzyingly tall cliffs looking out over the Atlantic toward America; wild winter surf; rolling green fields separated by stone fences where sheep and cattle grazed; the busy harbor where fishermen arrived from the sea to deliver their catch to the restaurants and fish mongers; the reed-fringed Lough Caislean with its castle ruins, along with whitewashed cottages and brightly painted buildings that offered such a cheery contrast to the gray of the sea and sky. It was all there, in the music and lyrics—the kings and castles, battles and banishments, the magic and miracles.

  They’d finished their dinner, and lured by the evocative music, she was sitting on a stool against a far wall, Duncan beside her, when a man who appeared to be even older than Elizabeth Murphy came dancing over to her, took hold of her hand, and, although he appeared to be nearly a foot shorter than her own five foot four and may have possibly weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, he nevertheless proved strong enough to pull her off the wooden stool.

  “Come dance with me, darlin’,” he said.

  “I don’t know the steps.” As opposed to the others, who looked as if they’d been performing those steps since childhood.

  “Ah, now, it’s not about the order you get the steps in,” he assured her. “All you do is do what your heart tells you, and we’ll be turning you into a pro jigger in no time at all.”

  As he proceeded to drag her across the floor, she glanced back at Duncan, who was off his own stool and headed her way. When she shook her head to let him know his protection wasn’t necessary, he lifted a dark brow, then shrugged and stood there, arms crossed, watching as she and her partner twirled and skipped around like mad fools while the others laughed and applauded their encouragement.

  “My name is Fergus,” he told her as he spun her out, then pulled her back again without missing a beat. “And yo
u’d be Cassandra. Wife of the famous television journalist, Duncan McCaragh.”

  “Duncan is my husband,” she confirmed as he spun her in a tight series of dizzying circles.

  “He seems like a fine man. For a Scotsman.”

  “A Scotsman who’d like to dance with his wife,” Duncan’s deep voice said behind her.

  “And aren’t you a fortunate fellow,” Fergus said, handing her over as if she had no say in the matter.

  “And don’t I know it,” Duncan agreed. As he took Cassandra into his arms, the music changed from an energetic reel to a lyrical air that reminded her of the walk she’d taken earlier, where the cemetery and the cairn had invited her to slow down and breathe.

  “You both behaved as if I were a horse being sold at Sunday market,” she complained without heat.

  “And should I not have agreed that I’m fortunate to have such a winsome wife?” he asked on an exaggerated brogue that had her fighting back a laugh. “And believe me, darling, I’m well aware that you’re no horse but a very hot female.”

  She shook her head as she twined her arms around his neck. “If I were keeping score, I’d feel the need to point out that’s getting close to a move.”

  “No.” As he turned her in a slow circle, he pulled her closer against his still very fine, hard body. “Now this,” he murmured as he bent his head and nibbled on her earlobe, which only he had ever discovered possessed a direct connection to her nipples, “is a move.”

  He’d always been an excellent dancer, in part because of the lessons he’d told her he’d been forced to take as part of his boyhood etiquette instruction. He turned her beneath his raised arm with an easy male grace, then pulled her back in, fitting her even tighter against him than before.

  His smooth-moving feet weren’t the only thing in motion, she realized as those metal buttons pressed against her, causing too-long neglected parts of her body to do a happy dance of their own.