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“I’m glad. Go rest up, and come get me when you’re ready to leave. I’ll be ready for you.”
“Okay.”
I walk back to my room and finish unpacking. The room isn’t huge, but it’s certainly beautiful with a four-poster bed and a plush chair and ottoman. The wardrobe is plenty big enough to stow my things, and the bathroom is gorgeous with gleaming nickel hardware and white porcelain.
Mom’s idea of a bath is a good one, so I fill the tub and sink down into the steaming water.
This is really the first moment I’ve had to relax since we left Minneapolis five days ago. Mom and I enjoyed the Disney parks for a couple of days, and then I took a day off to rest before the race. But even then, we took advantage of the spa, and I did take a swim in one of the resort’s pools.
After the race, we shopped. And shopped some more.
We had to buy three extra suitcases to haul everything around with us, and I anticipate needing one more to take our souvenirs back to the States.
I don’t mind at all.
Shawn’s cousins own this inn, and they greeted us with open arms. I’ve never felt so welcomed when checking into a hotel before. They even offered us freshly baked apple cake, which I couldn’t pass up.
You’d have to be an idiot to say no to that.
Fiona and Tom invited us to come to dinner at their home for our first night here, and I couldn’t turn them down. I’m beside myself with excitement to see them, and to introduce them to my mother.
Even if Shawn and I aren’t meant to spend our lives together, I’ve made lifelong friends in his family, and that makes me happy.
But the past few days have caught up to me, and I’m exhausted. So, once the water has cooled, I climb out of the tub, towel off, and slip between the soft bedsheets naked, ready for a long nap.* * *“Now, if you have your victim thrown over the cliffs, it could be ruled as an accident or a suicide,” Tom says later that evening. He and I are sitting at the kitchen table, our bellies full after a delicious dinner made by Fiona. Mom and Fiona are in the sewing room, talking about yarn and things that I really know nothing about.
Murder, on the other hand, has always piqued my interests, and Tom is a wonderful brainstorming partner.
“Yes, but would it be bloody enough?” I ask, making him laugh.
“You’ve obviously never seen the damage a body undergoes when flung down three hundred feet onto sandstone.”
“No, I haven’t. Have you?”
“Unfortunately,” he replies with a sigh. “It’s a bloody mess, and that’s the truth of it. Wouldn’t leave much evidence behind either, so it would make a challenge for your detective to find the killer. Because although bloody, if the body lays there long enough, the surf will carry it away.”
“Increasing the mystery is always what we want,” I murmur, thinking it over. “What if the victim is a woman?”
“Poor lass,” he says, but grins at me with glee. “I do enjoy thinking up stories with you, Lexi girl.”
“You’re so good at it,” I reply. “I see now where Shawn gets his imagination from.”
“And that’s the truth,” Fiona says as she and Mom come back into the room. “Tom was always spinning tales for the babies when they were young. Shawn was always the most interested in them.”
“How many children do you have?” Mom asks.
“Five,” Fiona says. “And every one of them is the apple of me eye.”
“Of course, they are,” Mom says, smiling at me.
“They’re all living in Washington,” Tom adds. “Doing various things, chasing dreams and the like. As it should be. But we miss them.”
“They’re all going to be here for Christmas,” Fiona says. “It will be the first Christmas we’ve spent together in Ireland since Shawn was a wee lad. Maggie’s never had a Christmas here, and she’s a woman of twenty-six.”
“They’re all coming?” I ask, feeling the excitement bubble in my stomach. Mom and I will still be here then, and I might be able to see them.
Of course, that includes Shawn, but I can be an adult.
Probably.
“That they are,” Tom says. “Kane has a glass exhibit opening over the holiday in Galway, and everyone wanted to be here for it. So, Keegan’s closing the pub for a couple of weeks, and the whole brood will be here. Fiona and I won’t know what to do with a whole house full of children again.”
“And soon, we’ll have a wee babe,” Fiona says, clapping her hands.
“What? Who?” How did I not hear this news?
“Anastasia’s expecting,” Fiona says and turns to my mother. “She’s our eldest’s wife. By late spring, Kane and Stasia will be parents, and we’ll have a new sweet baby in the family.”
