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“You remember what I told you about peace?” he asked. “How to find it? Once you forgive those people whose faces keep popping up in your mind whenever you remember the hurt you’ve lived through, I think you’ll find that trust and peace and love will be right there waiting for you.”
Zoe felt the tears prick her eyes. Who was this man next to her? He couldn’t possibly be real. No one was like he was. And his words were scraping at wounds inside of her she didn’t know if she should let bleed. She’d been putting Band-Aids on them for so long she didn’t know any other way.
She cleared her throat and looked at him, tamping down the tears and other emotions that had risen to the surface. “So are you going to tell me about the O’Haras or not?”
Chapter Ten
He didn’t try to steer the conversation back to deeper topics, but instead he squeezed her hand and smiled, settling back in his chair.
“What do you want to know?” he asked. “I figure you’ve gotten to know the ins and outs of them pretty well over the last week.”
“I like to hear family stories. It gives me book ideas.”
Colt prayed he hadn’t overplayed his hand. He’d wanted tonight to be special, the start of something new. He’d wanted to kiss her again. It’s all he’d been thinking about since he’d done it the first time. But she’d put up a big red stop sign when things had gotten too heavy, and he knew when it was time to change tactics. He’d seen the tears in her eyes, and it made him want to hunt down every person who’d put that kind of pain inside her, starting with her ex-husband.
But what she needed now was a change of pace. He wanted to see her smile again.
“Well, now,” he said, adopting an Irish accent and making her grin. “If it’s a story ye want, it’s a story ye’ll get. I’ll tell you a tale of the O’Haras of auld.”
“Is this a true story?” she asked, the laughter bubbling up inside her.
“Are you calling an Irishman a liar?” he asked, incredulously.
She chuckled and said, “Sorry. Carry on.”
He nodded and settled back into the story, remembering how his grandfather had many times told it to him, his lilting voice gruff with pride and nostalgia.
“Me ancestors found themselves adrift and without a home after the Nine Years War. It was a terrible time for our people. Families slaughtered. Many starved. But they fought all the same.
“O’Haras love the fight—always have and always will,” he said, looking at his knuckles as he held them up to the firelight. “And there a rebel’s heart that beats inside their chests. So when the land was overrun by the British they took up their pitchforks and axes—for they were merely farmers and didn’t have sword or armor—and they sliced through flesh and bone of the enemy with what they had.
“But when the dust settled, it was the British who stood the victor. So the Irish buried their dead and scattered to the far corners of the island, hiding amongst the faerie hills and standing stones, praying for the dust to settle.
“Thomas Michael O’Hara had nothing but a shovel, a strong back, and a pocketful of seeds as he staked claim on a parcel of land in County Sligo with his wife and two sons. He’d lost his oldest two in the war. They hadn’t a ha’penny to their name, but O’Haras love the magic of what grows in the earth almost as much as they love a fight.”
He stopped for a dramatic pause—as all good storytellers do—and took a sip of wine, watching the sticks being eaten up by the fire. Chewy had lost interest in the lake and had come back to lie at their feet.
“So with the sweat of their brow and a labor of love, they tilled the soil and planted their seeds, building a home in view of Lough Gill and Ben Bulben—a lake and a mountain.” Colt spread his arm, encompassing their own view of a mountain and a lake. “And there they thrived for generations, farmers of the land and great storytellers of how the name O’Hara survived.”
“Seems like you’re wasting your talent as a doctor,” she said, giving him a lazy smile.
“Ahh, well,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “Don’t tell my patients that. In my family it’s not such an unusual gift. Let’s go back inside. The potatoes should almost be done, and the steaks won’t take long to cook.”
“Maybe over dinner you can tell me about the O’Haras from this century,” she said.
He kissed her hand as he brought her to her feet. “Then what would we talk about on our next date?”
* * *
She was in deep trouble.
Zoe thought back to the whirlwind of emotions during those first days and weeks with Todd. She realized now he’d orchestrated it so expertly that he’d kept her off balance, never giving her a chance to stop and ask questions or recognize the red flags he was waving in her face. It hadn’t been a whirlwind of desire or love at first sight—it had been chaos.
But this was different. Colt was wooing her. She wasn’t even sure people still used that word. She never had before. But that’s exactly what he was doing. He was wearing her down patiently like water against a rock, and eventually he’d wear her down into a smooth stone. Only she wouldn’t realize it until their twentieth wedding anniversary or the birth of their first grandkid.
He was a tricky one. And he was hitting all her buttons.
“Don’t kiss me,” she said, putting her hands on his chest to stop him. “I need to think.”
