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“The back door was unlocked.”
“We’re a friendly sort of place.” She carried the glasses to the bar. “But I’m afraid I can’t sell you a pint right now.”
“I didn’t come in for a pint.”
“Didn’t you now?” She knew what a man was after when he had his eyes on her that way, but the game required playing. “What are you looking for, then?”
“I wasn’t looking for anything when I got up this morning.” He leaned on the bar. They both knew what they were about, he thought. It made the dance simpler when both people knew the steps. “Then I saw you.”
“You’re a smooth one, aren’t you, Mr. New York City?”
“Trev. Since you’ve got a couple hours free, why don’t you spend them with me?”
“And how would you know I have free time?”
“I came in on the end of your employer directive. She’s wrong, you know.”
“About what?”
“It does take brains, and knowing how to use them. You do.”
It surprised her. It was a rare man who noticed she had a mind, and a rarer one who commented on it. “So you’re attracted to my brain, are you?”
“No.” At the quick humor in his eyes and a flash of grin a nice little ripple moved up her spine. “I’m attracted to the package, but I’m interested in your brain.”
“I like an honest man under most circumstances.” She considered him another moment. He wouldn’t do, of course, for more than a pleasant flirtation. No, wouldn’t do, she thought and was surprised by a very real tug of regret.
But he was right about one thing. Time she had. “I wouldn’t mind a walk on the beach. But aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“My hours are flexible.”
“Lucky for you.” She moved down the bar, lifted the pass-through. “And maybe for me as well.”
He came through the opening, then stopped so they stood close and face-to-face. “One question.”
“I’ll try to give you one answer.”
“Why isn’t there someone I have to kill before I do this?” He leaned down and brushed his lips very lightly over hers.
She dropped the pass-through back in place. “I’m choosy,” she said. She walked to the door, then sent him a level and amused look over her shoulder. “And I’ll let you know if I choose to have you try that again, Trev of New York. With a bit more enthusiasm.”
“Fair enough.” He stepped outside with her, waiting while she locked the front door.
The air smelled of sea and flowers. It was something she loved about Ardmore. The scents and sounds, and the wonderful spread of the water. There were such possibilities in that vast sea. Sooner or later it would bump into land again, another place with new people, different things. There was wonder in that.
And comfort here, she supposed, raising a hand in greeting as Kathy Duffy called out to her from her dooryard.
“Is this your first time in Ireland?” Darcy asked him as they walked toward the beach.
“No, I’ve been to Dublin several times.”
“One of my favorite cities.” She scanned the beach, noting the pockets of tourists. Automatically she angled away and toward the cliffs. “The shops and restaurants are wonderful. You can’t find that in Ardmore.”
“Why aren’t you in Dublin?”
“My family’s here—well, part of them. Our parents are settled in Boston now. And I don’t have a burning desire to live in Dublin when there are so many places in the world and I haven’t seen nearly enough of them yet.”
“What have you seen?”
She looked up at him. A rare one indeed, she thought. Most of the men of her acquaintance wanted to talk about themselves. But they’d play it his way for now. “Paris, just recently. Dublin, of course, and a great deal of my own country. But the pub hampers traveling.”
She turned, walking backward for a bit with her hand up to shield her eyes. “I wonder what it’ll look like when he’s done with it.”
Trevor stopped, studied the pub as she was. “The theater?”
“Yes. I’ve looked at the drawings, but I don’t have an eye for such things.” She lifted her face to the breeze of salt and sea. “The family’s pleased with it, and they’re very particular.”
“So is Magee Enterprise.”
“I imagine so, though it’s difficult to understand why the man would pick a small village in the south of Ireland for his project. Jude, she says part of it’s sentiment.”
It surprised and nearly disconcerted him to have the truth spoken so casually. “Does she?”
“Do you know the story of Johnnie Magee and Maude Fitzgerald?”
“I’ve heard it. They were engaged to be married, and he went off to war and was killed in France.”
“And she never married, but lived alone in her cottage on Faerie Hill all her days. Long days, as Old Maude was one hundred and one years when she passed. The boy’s mother, Johnnie Magee’s mother, grieved herself to death within a few years. They said she favored him and could find no comfort in her husband, her other children, or her faith.”
It was odd to walk here and discuss these pieces of his family, pieces he had never met, with a woman he barely knew. Odder still that he was learning more of them from her than he’d learned from anyone else.
“I’d think losing a child has to be the biggest grief.”
“I’m sure it is, but what of those who were alive yet and needed her? When you forget what you have for what you’ve lost, grieving’s an indulgence.”
“You’re right. What happened to them?”
“The story is that her husband finally took to the drink, excessively. Wallowing in whiskey’s no better or worse than wallowing in grief, I suppose. And her daughters, I think there were three, married as soon as they could and scattered. Her other son, he who was more than ten years younger than Johnnie, eventually took his wife and his little boy away from Ireland to America, where he made his fortune. Never did he come back nor, they say, contact those left here of family and friends.”
She turned and looked back at the pub again. “It takes a hard heart never to look back, even once.”
“Yeah,” Trevor murmured. “It does.”
“But so the seeds of Magee Enterprise were sowed first in Ardmore. It seems the Magee running matters now is willing to put his time and money into seeing those seeds grow here.”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, indeed. It’ll be good for us, and for him as well most likely. Business is business, but there’s room for a bit of sentiment as long as it doesn’t cloud the bottom line.”
“Which is?”
“Profit.”
“Just profit?”
She angled back, gestured out to the bay. “There’s Tim Riley’s boat coming in for the day. He’s been out with his crew since before first light. It’s a hard life, that of a fisherman. Tim and those like him go out day after day, casting their nets, fighting weather, and breaking their backs. Why do you suppose they do it?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“They love it.” She tossed her hair back, watching the boat ride a crest. “No matter how they bitch and complain, they love the life. And Tim, he cares for his boat like a mother her firstborn. He sells his catch fair so there’s no one would say Riley, he’s not to be trusted. So there’s love of the work, tradition, reputation, but at the bottom of it all is profit. Without an eye on making a living, it’s only a hobby, isn’t it?”
He caught a curl of her hair as it flew in the wind. “Maybe I’m attracted to your mind after all.”
She laughed at that and began walking again. “Do you love what you do?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“What is it appeals to you most?”
“What did you see when you looked out your window this morning?”
“Well, I saw you, didn’t I?” She was rewarded by the humor that moved warmly over his face. “And other than that, I saw a
mess.”
“Exactly. I enjoy most an empty lot, or an old building in disrepair. The possibilities of what can be done about them.”
“Possibilities,” she murmured, looking out to sea again. “I understand about that. So you enjoy building something out of nothing, or out of what’s been neglected.”
“Yes. Changing it without damaging it. If you cut down a tree, is what you’re putting in its place worth the sacrifice? Does it matter in the long run, or it is only short-term ego?”
“Again the philosopher.” His face suited that, even while the windblown hair and little scar spoke another, less quiet side. “Are you the conscience of Magee, then?”
“I like to think so.”
An odd sentiment for a laborer, she thought, but it appealed to her. The fact was, she couldn’t at the moment find one thing about him that didn’t appeal. “Up on the cliffs there, beyond the big hotel, men once built grandly. The structures are ruins now, but the heart remains and many who go there feel that. The Irish understand sacrifice, and why and when it matters. You’ll have to find time to walk there.”
“I’ll plan on it. I’d like it better if you found time to show me the way.”
“That’s another possibility.” Judging the hour, she turned to walk back.
“Let’s build on it.” He took her hand to stop her, enjoyed the faint hint of irritation that came into her eyes. “I want to see you.”
“I know.” Because it was the simplest angle, and never failed her, she tilted her head and allowed a teasing smile to play on her lips. “I haven’t made up my mind about you as yet. A woman has to be careful when dealing with strange and handsome men.”
